BlockThreat - Week 36, 2019

Gluteba | Istanbul | QR | Side-Channel

Sep 11, 2019

∙ Paid

A quieter week in blockchain security where we can deep dive into several interesting research articles. Check out the novel malware communication channel using Bitcoin’s OP_RETURN transactions to embed updated C2 servers, security considerations in the upcoming Ethereum Istanbul hard fork, detailed steps on executing hardware wallet side-channel attacks, and Bitcoin QR code scams.

Malware

Glupteba Campaign Hits Network Routers and Updates C&C Servers with Data from Bitcoin Transactions - a malware analysis report and Appendix on the older Glupteba family targeting Windows hosts and vulnerable MikroTik routers to miner Monero, steal credentials, and proxy malicious traffic. In addition to more traditional HTTP-based C2 communication, Glupteba can locate an updated C2 server name hidden inside Bitcoin OP_RETURN transactions sent by a hard-coded Bitcoin address. Normally this type of transactions is used to embed arbitrary binary data on the blockchain which also makes it a great place to…

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