Careto Malware

By Ashwin Venugopal -

 






Introduction

Careto is a highly sophisticated and professional malware, which was detected by Kaspersky Labs in 2014.  The name Careto is a Spanish slang for "ugly face" or "mask" and is derbied from and ancient Portuguese ritual. The malware was also nicknamed as The Mask. 

It is a piece of cyber espionage malware, that has targeted many diplomatic offices and embassies, gas and oil companies, scientific research organizations, and political activists. Kaspersky believes that its creators are Spanish-speaking and hence it is being operated from Spain. Its victims are mainly Spanish speaking and it had heavily targeted Morocco and Gibraltar. 

More than 380 infected victims have been discovered worldwide. They were infected by simply clicking on the spear phishing mails that redirects them to the websites containing software, like Adobe Flash Player, that Careto can exploit. However, the player had been already patched and can no longer be exploited by Careto. The malware contains multiple backdoors to Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. It is now common knowledge that the attacks ceased in January 2014.

Characteristics

This malware installs a second and more complex backdoor program called SGH. This program can be easily modified and contains a variety of tools capable of doing many things, like- intercepting system events, file operations, and performing a wider range of surveillance features. Careto and SGH gathers information that can include encryption keys, virtual private networks configurations, and SSH keys and the other communication channels. 

Detection and Mitigation

Due to its stealth capabilities and digitally signed samples, Careto was hard to discover and remove. This malware was discovered when it tried to circumvent Kaspersky security products. Since it was caught while trying to exploit their software, Kaspersky further investigated it. They collected statistics and placed multiple sinkholes on the command and control servers during the process. As of now, the most updated Antivirus software can easily detect and remove this malware. 


To know more, please read- Careto




























































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