✕

Rewterz Annual Threat Intelligence Report 2025 - Download Now

Request a Demo
Rewterz

Rewterz Threat Alert – Over 185,000 Payment Card Details Stolen by MageCart

June 10, 2019
Rewterz

Rewterz Threat Alert – MuddyWater Adds Exploits to their Arsenal

June 10, 2019

Rewterz Threat Alert – Government Sector in Central Asia Targeted With New HAWKBALL Backdoor

Severity

Medium

Analysis Summary

HAWKBALL is a backdoor that attackers can use to collect information from the victim, as well as to deliver payloads. HAWKBALL is capable of surveying the host, creating a named pipe to execute native Windows commands, terminating processes, creating, deleting and uploading files, searching for files, and enumerating drives.

The attack involved the new HAWKBALL backdoor being delivered via well-known Microsoft Office vulnerabilities CVE-2017-11882 and CVE-2018-0802.

Picture1.png

The decoy file, doc.rtf, contains an OLE object that uses Equation Editor to drop the embedded shellcode in %TEMP% with the name 8.t. This shellcode is decrypted in memory through EQENDT32.EXE. Figure 2 shows the decryption mechanism used in EQENDT32.EXE.

Picture2.png

The decrypted shellcode is dropped as a Microsoft Word plugin WLL into C:\Users\ADMINI~1\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word\STARTUP.

Picture3.png

Impact

Exposure of information

Indicators of Compromise

URLs

  • http[:]//149[.]28[.]182[.]78/?e=0&&t=
  • http[:]//149[.]28[.]182[.]78/?e=0&&t=0&&k=
  • http[:]//149[.]28[.]182[.]78/?t=0&&s=0&&p=wGH^69&&k=

Malware Hash (MD5/SHA1/SH256)

  • ac0eac22ce12eac9ee15ca03646ed70c
  • d90e45fbf11b5bbdca945b24d155a4b2

Remediation

  • Block threat indicators at your respective controls.
  • Always be suspicious about emails sent by unknown senders.
  • Never click on the link/attachments sent by unknown senders.

Reading this advisory was a good start.

Make it a habit.

Rewterz publishes threat advisories ahead of mainstream cybersecurity media, informed by an AI-Native Autonomous SOC that sees regional threat actor activity in real time. Subscribe to receive each new advisory as it publishes, plus a monthly Middle East threat landscape brief drawn from our own SOC telemetry. For teams evaluating their detection coverage, a 30-minute consultation with a senior analyst is also available, at your pace, when you're ready.

Request a demo