Malware Strikes With Valid Digital Certificate

[steve2470]

http://www.cio.com/article/728222/Malware_Strikes_With_Valid_Digital_Certificate?taxonomyId=3089

One of the foundational elements of ecommerce is the web of trust enabled by digital certificates. When you go to a web site, you can feel confident that it's legitimate because it has a certificate from a recognized certificate authority that validates it. But the certificates themselves can be vulnerable. Case in point: Security firm Malwarebytes recently discovered some malware in the wild with a valid, signed digital certificate.

"One of our security researchers identified this piece of malware," says Jerome Segura, senior security researcher at Malwarebytes. "It's a typical Trojan with one peculiarity: It was signed, and unlike a lot of malware that uses signatures, this one was valid."

The malware is a banking/password stealer that Segura says uses email to spread. It appears to be a PDF invoice with a valid certificate issued to a real Brazilian software company called "Buster Paper Comercial Ltda," Segura says. The certificate was issued by SSL certificate authority DigiCert. Segura notes that although DigiCert has been notified about the malware, the certificate has not yet been revoked.

"I don't think it's stolen, per se," Segura says. "It looks like what [the criminals] did is they looked at this company in Brazil, which is a software company, and essentially made a request in their name to DigiCert. From the point of view of the certificate authority, it looks normal. [The criminals] probably spoofed the email address to buy the certificate. It looks to me as if it's too easy for anybody who does a bit of research to either impersonate a company or set up a fake web site as if it were a company and then buy a certificate."