Severity
High
Analysis Summary
Recently, NSIS installers for fake VPN clients have been detected distributing Cobalt Strike. All of these installers drop “InsHelper.exe” which loads “c2hex”. Below is a sample VPN installer that deploys CobaltStrike using Side-Loading Technique via TaskServer.exe process. After download and execution, communication with C2 begins.
Impact
- System Compromise
- Network-wide attack
- Unauthorized access to information
Indicators of Compromise
MD5
- 7f5539fb392b465d0c40eea99f8b1fa3
- 7dc65336c95d13bb58cb9472eaa6872f
- e452dd334c0c1dbf4b5949095ebd0ef2
- 44071052bde88a61108a7e5e2dbdd210
- e078ae440ed5b50171f47afd3eb336c8
SHA-256
- 6be0e17ae33448f07aec1968f74962d021229792b60214780d4e56cc4c194e1d
- 0790e138f23c1335d30fae4b1cd42937f6c43b1300b40bc02c15f48f48aac6d7
- be96d1dd3a515e229b25183556c2dd3209f23bd2239dbf0b4791be31864311de
- 37abf46946d478f17de5b0f15c2d3a1ae79b7d41c48384cc0d3afb26e9c8ce57
- 9aa374e8bc755d6b49175a8644aa7c7e715062261b41ee98ae939b4dfe3975ea
SHA1
- e3cda43df2370dd5e07d8f8cac91921287a37de1
- 8347590b404cd8d1d084fef29dec1ac7af419b80
- f441d34a5eb36cc4a101d2abc8da5c03be72fed9
- 9171e0460e6dff6d2b98470b49282e09f9295e61
- 23314fa5cb70a12df64f430394e3a779da561b22
Source IP
- 116[.]85[.]25[.]159
- 39[.]101[.]207[.]158
URL
- https[:]//116[.]85[.]25[.]159/
- http[:]//116[.]85[.]25[.]159
- https[:]//39[.]101[.]207[.]158
- http[:]//39[.]101[.]207[.]158[:]39999/
- http[:]//39[.]101[.]207[.]158/
- http[:]//39[.]101[.]207[.]158
Remediation
- Block the threat indicators at their respective controls.
- Only use authentic VPNs downloaded from official sources.
- Do not download random untrusted software from random sources on the internet.

