065. Detecting App Bound Encryption Bypass and VSCode Abuse

Hello everyone! Today we'll look at Phantom Goblin - a malware operation that leverages social engineering tactics to distribute stealers, which was uncovered by Cyble researhers.


Despite the fact many techniques are quite noisy, a few caught my attention. The first one is bypassing App Bound Encryption (ABE) to extract cookie data via running browser in headless mode and enabling remote debugging.

We can use the following query to search for such activity (you can expand browsers list, of course):

event_type: "processcreate" 

AND 

proc_file_name: ("brave.exe" OR "chrome.exe" OR "msedge.exe") 

AND 

cmdline: ("headless" AND "remote-debugging-port" AND "remote-allow-origins")

Another interesting technique is abusing Visual Studio Code to create a remote tunnel. We can search for such activity using the following query:

event_type: "processcreate" 

AND 

proc_file_name: "code.exe" 

AND 

cmdline: "tunnel"

Have you noticed any other interesting techniques in the report?

See you tomorrow! 

Comments

  1. MagistvdownloadAugust 29, 2026 at 1:02 AM

    The app seems quite interesting, and I found this article really helpful for understanding what it is about. I was looking for information about Xuper Hydra APK because I wanted to learn more about its features and how people might use it. The article explains the topic in a simple way, which made it easy for me to follow without feeling overwhelmed by technical information. I especially liked the practical details because they gave me a better idea of what to expect. There are many short posts online, but this one actually provides useful context. After reading it, I have a much clearer understanding of Xuper Hydra APK Aquí and why people may be interested in it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

343. Ransomware Gangs Abuse SystemSettingsAdminFlows to Evade Defenses

Image
Hello everyone! Today we'll look at another example of how adversaries abuse legitimate Windows executables to evade defenses. This time it's  SystemSettingsAdminFlows.exe . According to this report , DeadLock leveraged this utility to disable various features of Windows Defender: SystemSettingsAdminFlows.exe Defender RTP 1  SystemSettingsAdminFlows.exe Defender SpynetReporting 0  SystemSettingsAdminFlows.exe Defender SubmitSamplesConsent 0  SystemSettingsAdminFlows.exe Defender DisableEnhancedNotifications 1 The commands disable Real-Time Protection (RTP) and cloud-based protections, stops the machine from sending threat reports to Microsoft, and prevent Windows Defender from automatically submitting suspicious files for analysis. Worth a query, isn't it? event_type: "processcreatewin" AND proc_file_path: "systemsettingsadminflows.exe" AND cmdline: "defender" See you tomorrow!
Read more

013. It Can Remove Rootkits. And Your EDR!

Image
Hello everyone! Let's talk about about another very curious tool abused by threat actors. For example, it was used by LockBit and RansomHub ransomware affiliates. Guessed it already? Yes, I'm talking about TDSSKiller - a legitimate rootkit removal tool by Kaspersky. Despite the fact it was developed for malware removal, it can also be used by adversary to remove security software.  For example, here's how RansomHub affiliates used it to disable Trend Micro service according to this report : C:\Windows\tdsskiller.exe -dcsvc "TMBMServer" -accepteula By the way, according to VirusTotal, this tool isn't detected by many antivirus engines: Still, we have a few detection and hunting opportunities, for example: Command line parameters typical for the tool:  -dcsvc Metadata indicating the executable is TDSSKiller: "TDSSKiller", "TDSS rootkit removing tool" Do you know any other curious legitimate tools used to disable EDR? See you tomorrow!
Read more

391. Hunting for TeamPCP's Stealer

Image
Hello everyone! What do I know about stealers? They seem to be very noisy! And today, we’ll once again see that in action using TeamPCP (Haze Wolf) as an example. This time , the stealer was implanted by attackers into three versions of the xinference package (2.6.0, 2.6.1, and 2.6.2). Essentially, it collects SSH keys, various credentials, environment variables, crypto wallets, and much more, then uses cURL for exfiltration. Let’s take a look at a couple of techniques the attackers used to obtain credentials. For example, they were interested in data stored in environment variables: env | grep AWS_ env | grep -i google env | grep -i gcloud env | grep -i azure This looks fairly suspicious from a detection perspective: event_type: processcreate* AND proc_file_path: "env" AND cmdline: ("grep" AND ("aws_" OR "google" OR "azure" OR "gcloud")) Another technique was abusing kubectl to obtain credentials: kubectl get secrets --all-n...
Read more