Threat Encyclopedia

This malware was involved in the Red October campaign, a series of attacks targeting diplomatic and government agencies. It drops malicious files onto the affected system and executes them, causing certain malicious routines to be exhibited.

To get a one-glance comprehensive view of the behavior of this Trojan, refer to the Threat Diagram shown below.

This Trojan arrives as an attachment to email messages spammed by other malware/grayware or malicious users. It arrives on a system as a file dropped by other malware or as a file downloaded unknowingly by users when visiting malicious sites.

It executes the files it drops, prompting the affected system to exhibit the malicious routines they contain.

Arrival Details

This Trojan arrives as an attachment to email messages spammed by other malware/grayware or malicious users.

It arrives on a system as a file dropped by other malware or as a file downloaded unknowingly by users when visiting malicious sites.

Installation

This Trojan drops the following non-malicious file:

• %Program Files%\Windows NT\wsdktr.ltp
• %User Temp%\{malware file name}.doc

(Note: %Program Files% is the default Program Files folder, usually C:\Program Files in Windows 2000, Server 2003, and XP (32-bit), Vista (32-bit), and 7 (32-bit), or C:\Program Files (x86) in Windows XP (64-bit), Vista (64-bit), and 7 (64-bit).. %User Temp% is the current user's Temp folder, which is usually C:\Documents and Settings\{user name}\Local Settings\Temp on Windows 2000, XP, and Server 2003, or C:\Users\{user name}\AppData\Local\Temp on Windows Vista and 7.)

Dropping Routine

This Trojan drops the following files:

• %Program Files%\Windows NT\svchost.exe - detected as TROJ_KRYPTIK.ROC
• %User Temp%\msmx21.exe - detected as TROJ_KRYPTIK.ROB

(Note: %Program Files% is the default Program Files folder, usually C:\Program Files in Windows 2000, Server 2003, and XP (32-bit), Vista (32-bit), and 7 (32-bit), or C:\Program Files (x86) in Windows XP (64-bit), Vista (64-bit), and 7 (64-bit).. %User Temp% is the current user's Temp folder, which is usually C:\Documents and Settings\{user name}\Local Settings\Temp on Windows 2000, XP, and Server 2003, or C:\Users\{user name}\AppData\Local\Temp on Windows Vista and 7.)

It takes advantage of the following software vulnerabilities to drop malicious files:

• MSCOMCTL.OCX RCE Vulnerability (CVE-2012-0158)

It executes the files it drops, prompting the affected system to exhibit the malicious routines they contain.

NOTES:
Upon execution, this Trojan opens its dropped non-malicious file %User Temp%\{malware file name}.doc in order to hide its malicious routines from the user.