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Raccoon Stealer has been Upgraded to Steal Cryptocurrency Alongside Financial Information

 

With the rise of ransomware and as-a-service offers, malware has become an ever-growing concern in the cyber realm. The developers of the Raccoon Stealer which is an information stealer have shifted their target, according to ZeroFox Threat Research. 

Since the beginning of the quarter, there have been several upgrades, the most prominent of which is the installation of new "crypters." The goal of a crypter is to obfuscate a binary by adding junk code, breaking up the flow of code without affecting the original functionality, or encrypting parts of code so that static signatures cannot identify them. Support for stealing various new bitcoin wallets has also been added, as well as the addition of Discord to the list of targeted applications. 

The stealer is being bundled with malware such as malicious browser extensions, crypto miners, the Djvu/Stop consumer ransomware strain, and click-fraud bots targeting YouTube sessions, according to samples received by Sophos. 

Raccoon Stealer is a sort of information stealer malware that was originally advertised in April 2019 on several underground forums by an attacker using the handle "raccoonstealer." It can steal stored auto-fill data, cookies, credentials, credit card info, and history from Chromium-based browsers like Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, just like most other stealers. Theft of many cryptocurrency wallets on a targeted basis is also possible. New cryptocurrencies are frequently added via updates, but it may also be customised to look for any wallet.dat file. 

A "clipper" for cryptocurrency theft is included in the upgraded stealer. The QuilClipper tool specifically targets wallets and associated passwords, as well as Steam-based transaction data. "QuilClipper steals cryptocurrency and Steam transactions by continuously monitoring the system clipboard of Windows devices it infects, watching for cryptocurrency wallet addresses and Steam trade offers by running clipboard contents through a matrix of regular expressions to identify them," the researchers noted. 

In the two years after its release, the team behind Raccoon Stealer has established itself as a capable team, frequently releasing new features and gaining a mostly positive reputation among the community. They've also showed a readiness to add functionality in response to customer requests, as demonstrated by the recently launched API for automatically creating encrypted builds.

UK to develop a system to track cryptocurrencies


HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) of the UK Government has submitted a tender for the development of a system for monitoring financial transfers in digital money. The appearance of such a system in Russia could already have occurred.

Cryptocurrencies can be used not only for transferring funds or paying for services, but also for conducting criminal activities. This position was expressed by the UK tax service HMRC. The purpose of the introduction of this tool is the fight against criminal activity. It includes tax evasion and laundering of criminal proceeds.

Mikhail Mishustin, head of the Federal Tax Service of Russia and now Prime Minister, proposed the initiative to control income received through cryptocurrency for tax purposes in February last year.

"Money that a young person can freely move across the border using cryptocurrencies and other forms of payment, which the state does not notice and for which there is no regulatory framework, is dangerous," said Mishustin.

A similar system can already operate in Russia, suggested Dmitry Kirillov, a senior tax lawyer at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (Russia) LLP. He explained this by the fact that in 2018, the contract for the development of the Unified Information System was posted on the public procurement website. The 23rd page of the document states that "a tool should be created to analyze and identify illegal activities, including using cryptocurrencies."

"Apparently, the execution of the contract was completed. Therefore, I will not be surprised if the system already tracks cryptocurrency transactions of Russian users," said Kirillov.

Antonina Levashenko, the head of the Russian Center for Competencies and Analysis of Standards under the President of the Russian Federation, expressed a similar opinion. According to her, financial intelligence units of countries around the world are seeking to acquire effective tools for controlling cryptocurrency transactions, and Russia is no exception.

All experts agreed that a system for controlling transactions in cryptocurrency may appear in Russia. It is likely to focus on the fight against illegal income and the financing of terrorism.

Hackers using government websites of Russian Federation for mining


Cybercriminals used to generate cryptocurrencies not only computers of ordinary Internet users but also the resources of large companies, as well as the websites of government agencies of the Russian Federation. This was announced at a press conference on Monday by Nikolai Murashov, the Deputy Director of the National Coordination Center for Computer Incidents (NCCCI).

"Cases of cryptocurrency mining with the help of infected information resources of state organizations have been identified. In this case, attackers infect web pages, and mining is carried out at the moment they are viewed pages in the browser,” said Murashov.

He noted that the cost of most virtual coins is very high, so there are a lot of people who want to earn money easily. "Up to 80% of the free power of a computer can be used to generate virtual coins, and the legal user may not even know about it," said the Deputy head of the NCCCI. He noted that the seizure of servers of large companies for mining purposes threatens to significantly reduce their productivity and significant damage to the business.

Murashov at a press conference also said that in 2019, about 12 thousand "foreign information resources were blocked, which were used by attackers to damage our country."  In addition, according to him, in the Russian Federation at the request of foreign partners in the current year, the activities of more than 6 thousand malicious resources were stopped.

According to Murashov, users should pay attention to the security of their computers to counter such attacks. The fact of infection with malicious software should serve as a signal that the computer is poorly protected and can become a victim of any attackers.

Murashov noted that two Russian citizens were prosecuted for mining cryptocurrencies through infected computers of organizations.

"In Russia recently there were two cases of criminal prosecution of persons who used seized computers for mining cryptocurrencies," said he.

One of them is a resident of Kurgan, who used almost an entire bot network in various regions of the country. In the second case, a criminal case was initiated on the fact of using the site of company Rostovvodokanal for mining.

Bitcoin and the Cryptocurrency Market Surged At Large


The bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market yet again become the center of attention as they experience a colossal upsurge at large.

While this surge is by all accounts partially predicated by many economists, investors as well as commentators on equities and other hazard or risk assets arriving at new highs or flooding to the upside, they likewise bring into center a couple of other factors at play as well that may further explain the cryptocurrency market's outstanding performance on the 25th and the 26th of October.

BitcoinEconomics, a Twitter account investigating this space, noticed that they accept that this 42% move (42% at the pinnacle of $10,600) was something driven by the news that Chinese President Xi Jinping had embraced blockchain innovations, as on the 25th the 'world leader 'openly support blockchain advancement and appropriation to improve quite a few numbers of industries.

The previously mentioned analyst even claims that this announcement from Xi likely has driven traders to theorize on a mass deluge of interest for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and subsequently started to purchase digital assets "en-mass".


However other contributing components particularly the technical ones, including the mass collection/purchases observed by some traders at the $7,400 price point, combined with the possibility that the sellers had become exhausted after a 47% drop from the year-to-date high of $14,000, additionally may be an extremely strong reason for the said upsurge.