Neosploit devel/updates retired! However...

It seems that development of this exploit pack has ended. The message basically states that efforts which are put into development are not returning enough income and supported is ending.

However, this does not mean that you will no longer see exploits delivered via this framework. There are many installations of it out there and it's still one of the best exploit packs, although it was expensive. Also, the Neo folks have released instructions/script on how to move the CGI program from one server to another. Previously, this had to be done with the help of Neosploit Support, as the binary was compiled for specific server. If source code is leaked out or released then it's highly likely that more malware will be delivered through it.

Now, that background info behind us, we have seen something interesting which leaves more questions then answers. We have identified a site which utilizes this pack to drop a binary which seems to be associated with the recent fake Antivirus malware.

What is of most interest is the fact that the obfuscated script, mainly the deobfuscation function has some modifications to its code. Several key statements were rearranged in such a way that logic isn't changed.

Why make such a change? Is it a change or some older build which had a short life span and wasn't updated since? We've been keeping an eye on Neosploit's progress for many months now and have never seen this code sequence. We have observed similar minor changes before, during active development, but now since it's supposedly retired the update does stand out. Is it possible that source code was leaked? or did someone just modify the binary in place, and for what purpose, evade detection?

More research is needed to confirm if this change occurs elsewhere, on other domains hosting Neosploit.

le fiesta - another exploit pack

This is yet another web based exploit pack which utilizes PHP and SQL. Overall, it's similar to the other PHP based packs except here the file structure is much more compact, not that it really matters, and it's less smart about serving out exploits (not loaders) to already visited victims.

Uses two layers of encryption/obfuscation via Javascript with random function and variable names upon each visit. Here's a rough list of included exploits:

COM objects

(see metasploit)

"?spl=com"

EC444CB6-3E7E-4865-B1C3-0DE72EF39B3F CreateControlRange

"?spl=vml2"

DirectAnimation.PathControl

"?spl=wfi"

WebViewFolderIcon.WebViewFolderIcon.1 setSlice()

"?spl=zango1"

8C875948-9C60-4381-9248-0DF180542D53 DownloadAndExec()

"?spl=zango2"

BFC08CFF-C737-4433-BD5A-0EE7EFCFEE54 DownloadAndExec()

"?spl=myspace"

48DD0448-9209-4F81-9F6D-D83562940134

"?spl=ymj"

5F810AFC-BB5F-4416-BE63-E01DD117BD6C AddImage()

"?spl=buddy"

Sb.SuperBuddy.1 LinkSBIcons()

The ?spl= parameter will be passed to "load.php" which will update statistics of each exploit.

"Army cyber ops"...

In a Government Computer News article there was an interesting fact mentioned which hints at Army's cyber command centers ability to handle contigency issues.

It was stated that many of their links utilize undersea cables but some also use land based fiber. One of such land links was severed by a garbage truck, disabling service to their northern and southern continental CC for several hours.

Now, I know how difficult it can be to design and run a full contigency operation but one would think that with the budget and resources of a government such a goal should not pose too much of a problem. Apparently, this is not so for Army's cyber ops.

To be honest, it's a big surprise to me. I've seen companies not lose a single tcp connection upon core router/switch failures, cable cuts in server racks, and power outages in data centers and they don't have the same resources as the government can afford.

This isn't a good sign especially in light of more and more talk regarding large scale cyber warefare. Hopefuly, that garbage truck incident served as a lesson. On a bright side, at least the guys at the monitoring consoles got a decent break :)

Why I love cons...

Some great talks, interesting presentations and new ideas. Also, you get to meet very interesting people and get to pick their brains or just hang out and enjoy their strange and wonderful personalities.

However, the best is when you discover people who are true hackers. By that I mean people with a certain state of mind who take a creative approach to solve problems.

Here's an example which proves that a real hacker does not need a computer but only his brain:



And yes, this guy was hacking away at deciphering some message.

Analysis of the Adobe exploit within Neosploit

It appears that currently the toolkit is under active development. Adobe vulnerability which is exploited is one from CVE-2007-5659 disclosure.

We have seen some old exploit being added, removed, then added again. This was the MS06-067 DirectAnimation.PathControl.KeyFrame() vulnerability. More on this one later.

The function which exploits Adobe vulnerability (CVE-2007-5659) will try to load ActiveX controls in the following order:

1. AcroPDF.PDF
2. PDF.PdfCtrl

If successful then it'll identify the version in use and will continue only if it's below 8.1.2, which makes sense since Adobe realeased an unpdate with this version that fixed the issue. Then, the version is inserted into an already embedded URL string to download the actual PDF file.



Returned PDF file is around 10K in size and contains Zlib compressed obfuscated Javascript. Thus, any IDS detection which looks for the vulnerable code will not pick this one up. Obfuscation method is the same as for all other pages. After peeling this layer off one finds the familiar heap spray function to populate memory with the shellcode. Then, once again a version check is performed. Finally, a long string is created (~ 44K) and used as an argument to Collab.collectEmailInfo() method.



If the overflow works, then the shellcode will GET a URL which is the same as the one before except for one changed byte (from 01 -> 02), perhaps to track which stage is requested. That file is an Executable which will be saved in the user's Temp directory as "sxoC.exe".

For those who rely on HIDS/HIPS, AV, nIDS/nIPS chances are nothing will be seen, unless the dropped binary gets picked up by AV (right!).

Neosploit development update

For the past month or so we have been observing more activity in Neosploit's development. Exploits are being removed then added and new ones introduced. To be fair in relation to the previous post we can now confirm that Adobe exploit IS being used by this toolkit.

Another interesting change is less obvious and not so important to Incident Responders but more so for Intrusion Detection folks. The main Javascript deobfuscation function has seen some changes recently. So, those of you who depend on IDS to detect the script should probably review their traffic, honeypots, hids, etc... for new changes.

Neosploit update and changes

Some interesting changes we have observed:

- URL scheme changed
- Javascript deobfuscation updated
- Vulnerabilities exploited changed

Javascript deobfuscation code has changed a bit. Previously, to get to the actual exploit code one had to go through two decryption stages, this time an additional stage is added to the very first layer. This additional layer does not make a request out to the server.


Basically, upon first visit to the Neosploit site a browser gets one big obfuscated Javascript page. It executes the decryption function which results in another obfuscated javascript layer. This second layer decrypts itself and then runs real javascript of the first stage. This stage adds some encoded parameters to the URL for the second stage.


URL scheme for requests to exploits and binaries has been updated. It appears that a full structure is passed as a parameter to the main script. This struct is hex encoded as a string and uses various flags and variables to track victims and statistics.


Javascript decryption function utilizes the "arguments.callee" trick to convert itself into an uppercase string and use offsets within this string to decrypt the payload. This is the main deobfuscation characteristic of Neosploit. Several changes have been made previously which break down the methods into seperate variables instead of using them directly.


An interesting addition has been included recently, which appends Neosploit's web address to the decoding offset string. Thus, to successfully decrypt the payload the original full address of the script must be known. Also, at the exploit stage there's a function which sets a unique cookie ("ID") with a specific value for a given exploit.


Stage 1

First stage is the initial visit (iframe, redirect, ...) to Neosploit page. At this point a structure is created based on public variables such as the User Agent string and IP address. Then the server returns obfuscated Javascript page, which is dynamically generated with random variables, and contains the first part of the URL for the next stage.

Stage 2

This stage is obfuscated with two layers and then attempts to identify the victim's Service Pack level, and system's language then builds a request string with these parameters to get the second stage. This request URL has a specific argument to the main script. First part is added by the server upon initial visit and consists of various hashed parameters then SP level and language string is appended.

Stage 3
Deobfuscation yields the exploit code for the following vulnerabilities (in exploit order):

- CVE-2006-0003 ; MS06-014 ; MDAC (BD96C556-65A3-11D0-983A-00C04FC29E36)
- CVE-2006-5820 ; "Sb.SuperBuddy.LinkSBIcons()" ; Cookie ID = 9
- CVE-2007-5779 ; "GomWebCtrl.GomManager.1.OpenURL()" ; Cookie ID = 13
- CVE-2008-1472 ; CA BrightStor ArcServe Backup AddColumn() (BF6EFFF3-4558-4C4C-ADAF-A87891C5F3A3) ; Cookie ID = 21
- CVE-????-???? ; "QuickTime.QuickTime.4" ; Cookie ID = 6

PS: Symantec stated that recent Adobe vulnerability was being exploited by this toolkit, however the instance which was analyzed for this post did not include any Adobe exploits.