Rewterz Threat Advisory – Adobe Flash Player Zero-Day vulnerability CVE-2018-15982 exploited in APT Attacks

SEVERITY: Medium

CATEGORY: Informative Updates

ANALYSIS SUMMARY

Found to be exploited in two APT attacks earlier in December, a critical zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Flash Player (CVE-2018-15982) is still being used by attackers. The vulnerability is used to drop a payload embedded in Microsoft Word documents, to avoid anti-virus detection. The Word document with the zero-day Flash vulnerability payload compressed into a ZIP file with a JPG picture is sent to the victim. Once the word document is opened, the vulnerability is extracted and a shellcode from the JPG picture is executed.

The shellcode lets the attackers gain access to the compromised machine. The vulnerability payload has a similar digital signature as an intrusion tool which was written by Hacking Team, discovered in August 2018.

The vulnerability payload is packed with VMProtect to block efforts at reverse engineering and analysis.

Indicators of Compromise

• 7eada4607bb4346cd5401096dd9859f7066b2c2ff8f70ce1cfed96fc8948261f
• c1ea1daab2c5cdca159d2d9b78dfad6f3b1e9009c4334fdd0345f46a72f84f85
• c079d068ba4852f2d647fce1a010e03f2882f79e1d66fff056e6224236022e66
• 14bd1ab23d13543835821dd1fa5c17fc8c055341d09694971b5f2775c634f66e
• 3b3b01988f949e2241bfc6f55ff0917af8ee62d582e1900b08c59ceac27d40ea
• cde3f24f711d881ef0359b9660e75b4b370ab4460450cd055a909ede93843b2e
• 990932bbba7db8037e6cdc15aad6af4101fc3e0a3f9e45800f7b3efc461bc919
• 335292bbd782142dcb0e1b72c52702068b69090e1753c648c0c3e3a6fb8e16f2
• 5e48f5fd3d5f896b7a0d27d535672a06f8178fba9a592a22d0cbd79a6ee28c99
• 66b539b381b55499fca67cfd2b19b4aba08f95d10ca6348705cb54e5bab4b6bd
• d5d19aa76a2e5efb5e18fb0a2b8339a7e558b3596c906f40a18bbe4964eaa40f
• 5d26867f060bd09ec3c14c65a2db76e78474c5f835b63589a2feb3b5f7692522
• 2d15b2f51ab2d7dc7e38766af74a23284d9f28345607012af88773b10561463d
• d75710ebc8516e73e3a8dd7d1ad1ebc3221b7a141659c7e84b9f5f97dd7ec09e
• 8c3c105291e7d95599753a0752668f902cbcd717600d285eeda3a777d97f284a
• c61dd1b37cbf2d72e3670e3c8dff28959683e6d85b8507cda25efe1dffc04bdb
• bd1a77e947cbf0da16ed9f585a2cfe055ff047a89f4bf9d0c8668d096cd5fb72
• 66a1eed0790e2f1dff8bdf7b9a067e80bf863ab6318e984b16a748a7b804de05
• 1fe611f1758f9ea879cface42e2e90180c122710974d076afaa5bc098b4dea12
• 6d30c81a79c45e1a9060e46eafb6f1d64838cce73f016835f4951995f41d28f3
• 2ddd2a7168d33b918f4ed7ef51dbd3c186ecc0d4d56b30b2f4dea7059f8e6f70
• dee8891b732559afaa4b41e80e55f94b77ab953bf8bb1f2cdfb424c42bf93838
• ca58dfa866f3d3e5cb84cae1941f67941f7eda454abd2ab0233e769d20cb8463
• c9fa4f7411033c8fd55fcbc52878a7afdad49db139d0ec5fc2dfb6a18493e955
• 067bf65bab461d20ef4280abc815835b615c8c53063bcdf79a5524632b7ebf1e
• 830165b53bcb1a1dd045240e8592d6874476a4e89e935b8957e67547e7b8560a
• 83b7e2627061c63b96c54fd1e0c08a325b2e56242a2dbb2c5d84bb6671046547
• 5405915eb92f344f11c522cb94d06f22c0c6722054a10f977d815e2e9c10026b
• 5ba3801c01ad56500b9a6812160a86fdd62791925210da73216a2051b5e31a82
• 36f87d06dfe14930a0e4161ae3c5597ae66b5ce718bb6aef9934b5107e03b628
• c92637ed738a9a0a64a179a0c0874a5878c5a8f88b9cf992b17a97fd6bf4b868
• c87626f55e7a0a41b26a32b6eff361a5703db8071e92b6cf0a85880d321b33c7
• 271cd104feae715f4b33132b7041809e6e874ca806e9dc2bd6c3707cbd974d4e
• 7ece78bbf79fe91cc290837b52a90f72e33a9a9c295f6d3f345a23320ad0293f
• 78fa099bb0fb44328fe230f67101e36efed29031bcefddcfba94e5b0de2b6b6e
• cc146e473f27064b059e425bdc095ea257445decfecafbe973d4626b104defaa
• f9d29c557ba626dfc69315f0f4a69c765159024383ec1262ea5666030a08620a
• 9af4148f3c8e5cc2810230c124f29b497563de00d6c7e13686e39cdec13c6325
• 9c6fbe25429d177fcac4cb53f85dacc58d84a618e3bddd1181cd0e604cb522ce
• 29b0c64ce845630ac13ba7915887aa3df35dd46779d5c0babced3b092e641fc1
• 6362eeeb192744b30e3fdbca1b6614ff16a53860fa0e3e5a72c5faabf4a355ce
• 1232402bef625dc8328ece768e9943667389aed97207cf24f5215fe88b5f88ec
• 2acd4824f1dbabcd8fe603a885541f81a33a3c704380ccda321a1c74c724bbc1
• 49724d25ea31d8c45f153c1b1826120a7c1ab4fb096bd3374fd89af2d9282534
• 7f0cbf9619229adca56b2e21626e0d324765d4d4bc54aac7541cfc3c710ff1f1
• 182dc8eee63eefc15e92f5ba8580ee6ed4f7348145f3f04d5d4ae3f7013da72e
• 6af9dbf95b0491dacc2df35f3dc1fcdba239e5f45fdbe76c6fd14ef5d0315d88
• a126f3dceb99e6ba530ad330eaef6bd97d357d7839d3650f958a543dbaf4c04f
• e7f1eb8c21c53fedeb4c034605cb6be19a5986965236296d5c08dca023ceefab
• 5d0e1fbef981587ca431de0305f0ba4155996247d09a875cbde32362079b10a6
• a2d9aed22527c4dde1e1fa29ac0edf09cc64541fc85300e1903ea215cd663c1a
• f9c093f408a2c0c66116bb47f466a01fea73b06751962fb89b7c88be123b6a78

Remediation

The vendor has already released patches for vulnerable versions, as recommended in the previous advisory.

• Please immediately update if you’re still using a vulnerable version.
• Install the latest operating system patches.
• Do not click on any suspicious pop ups or download files from suspicious websites.
• Disable ads for Google Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer.
• Ensure anti-virus software is updated with the latest signatures.
• Consider blocking the threat indicators at their respective controls.
• Don’t unsubscribe from spam. Instead, mark it as spam or junk and keep your email address private. Spam Botnet operators look for unsubscribes to ‘reply to’ so they can verify that the address is active.