BOOSTWRITE

There are hacking groups, which are involved in activism strictly, there are others, which server various governments, and some act of pure greed. The latter is the case with the Chinese hacking group Carbanak Group, which also is known as FIN7. This hacking group became a known name ever since they launched the Carbanak Trojan. This threat managed to become one of the most notorious banking Trojans ever created and gave the name to the hacking group responsible for it. The Carbanak Group is known to mainly target companies that are involved in the restaurant, hospitality and retail industries. It appears that most of their victims are located in the United States. The Carbanak Group is developing new tools, and two of them have been spotted in the wild recently. It is likely that these new hacking tools may be utilized in campaigns targeting payment processing.

Serves to Plant Additional Malware

One of the previously mentioned new tools is called BOOSTWRITE. This is a high-end Trojan loader. The BOOSTWRITE Trojan loader serves to pave the way for more malicious payloads, which will be planted on the compromised host. The payload, which is being carried by the BOOSTWRITE Trojan loader, is encrypted. To decrypt the payload, the BOOSTWRITE Trojan loader needs to establish a connection with the C&C (Command & Control) server of its operators and retrieve the required decryption key alongside the initialization vector.

Known to Deploy Two Additional Threats

Malware researchers have identified two second-stage payloads that have been used in unison with the BOOSTWRITE Trojan loader. One of them is the trademark threat of the Carbanak Group, which gave it its name – the Carbanak malware. The second threat that the BOOSTWRITE loader would deploy is a new hacking tool developed by the same hacking group – the RDFSNIFFER RAT (Remote Access Trojan). This RAT is rather unusual as it only triggers the attack if the host has a certain software tool present on their system – the NCR Aloha Command Center.

For now, it would appear that the BOOSTWRITE Trojan loader is carrying only these two secondary-payloads. However, since this is a rather advanced Trojan loader, it is likely that the Carbanak Group will continue to use it in future campaigns and may use it to plant even more damaging threats. If you want to stay free from the BOOSTWRITE Trojan loader, we will advise you to look into obtaining a legitimate anti-malware application and keep it up to date.