Analysis of multiple exploits

The most common type of malware seen in Blackhat spam SEO is the fake antivirus. But I also see other types of exploits from time to time. This week, the same malicious page came up on different domains: 4rukel.cz.cc, 4lofs.tk, 1polidsf.co.cc, 1barede.co.cc, 3timesto.tk, 4greaix.cz.cc, 4krudi.cz.cc, etc.

This page is interesting because it uses exploits rather than social engineering to install the malicious code. Below are the details of the exploits / malicious code.


Heavy obfuscation

The JavaScript code is heavily obfuscated. It cannot be de-obfuscated by a simple copy-paste of the code into Malzilla, some of the decoding has to be done by hand.

Original malicious code

One common technique, used in this page, to break the JavaScript de-obfuscation tool is to make references to the DOM. On this page, part of the JavaScript code is included in a textarea HTML tag. It is retrieved and executed later with code like this:

eval(document.getElementByTagName('textarea')[0].value);

While executing the obfuscated JavaScript code, new HTML elements are added to the page, and used to store values or JavaScript code retrieved again later in the JavaScript code.

First de-obfuscation pass generated new obfuscated JavaScript code!

Fortunately, all the JavaScript code is inline. There is no external file, which always make the de-obfuscation harder.


Multiple exploits

Like many malicious pages, several exploits are included on this page:

1. 2 malicious Java applets, using different techniques for Internet Explorer and Firefox
2. PDF exploit
3. Quicktime '_Marshaled_pUnk' Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
4. Heap spray attack
5. Internet Explorer MDAC exploit
6. Internet Explorer "iepeers.dll" exploit
7. 3 Flash exploits

Part of the code for the Java exploit

I believe these exploits come from different sources because the coding style of the various functions varies greatly.


This malicious page tries the different exploits until one is successful. Users need to make sure they keep both their browser and their plugins up to date.

-- Julien