AlienSpy is a cross platform Java RAT with support for Windows, Linux and Mac systems.
The samples I was able to analyze used a demo version of the Allatori Java Obfuscator (v5.3) which can be seen in the obfuscated method naming and Splash page shown when the malware is launched.
 |
| Allatori Name Obfuscation |
 |
| Allatori Splash Screen |
 |
| Jar Overview |
- Init LoadStub Thread
- Load config.ini contents
- Spawn DecryptStub Thread
- Create key -- Load password.ini contents and append static_key (set in LoadPassword.class)
- Decrypt config.ini using created key
- Spawn LoadStubDecrypted
- Initialize JarInputStream object from decoded config data
- Spawn thread with decoded Jar
Unpacking the Payload
Analyzing the decryption method in the DecryptStub class shows the encryption has changed from previous versions. The payload stored in the config.ini file is encrypted using RC4 and the decrypt key is composed of the sha256 hash of a dynamic key stored in the password.ini file and a static key defined in the LoadPassword.class.
Looking at the de-obfuscated strings in the LoadPassword class shows the static key as ALSKEOPQLFKJDUSIKSJAUIE.
 |
| Appending Static Key |
The sha256 hash is then created from the combined dynamic and static key.
key = sha256(dynamic_key + static_key)
For this sample the key is calculated using the following:
sha256('l85T4gI3' + 'ALSKEOPQLFKJDUSIKSJAUIE')
To extract the properties (config.xml) or the entire payload I've put together a script to decode the latest version of the AlienSpy rat.
https://github.com/idiom/IRScripts/blob/master/alienspy-decrypt.py
key = sha256(dynamic_key + static_key)
For this sample the key is calculated using the following:
sha256('l85T4gI3' + 'ALSKEOPQLFKJDUSIKSJAUIE')
To extract the properties (config.xml) or the entire payload I've put together a script to decode the latest version of the AlienSpy rat.
https://github.com/idiom/IRScripts/blob/master/alienspy-decrypt.py
Once the rat is decoded we can decompile it and take a look at the layout and functionality. The decoded AlienSpy RAT has a simple layout containing a two resources config.xml & keystore.test and a collection of classes within three packages.
Persistence
When the malware is launched it checks the INSTALL property which is populated from the config.xml resource. If the property is set to True the installation method is triggered using the following properties to generate the directory and file on the host system.
- JAR_FOLDER - Name of folder to copy malware into
- JAR_NAME - Name of the file
- JAR_EXTENSION - Extension of the file
- JAR_REGISTRY - Name of persistence setting
Windows
On Windows systems the malware is copied to new directory with %appdata% and a new value under the Run key is created to launch the malware. The value name is the string defined within the JAR_REGISTRY config setting and the value is the command line to launch the malware 'java -jar <path-to-jar>'. The jar path and file name is defined by the JAR_ properties described above.
Depending if the user is a local administrator or not the value is created under the Run key in HKLM or HKCU to either infect the system or only the current user. To check if the user is an administrator the file tem.txt is created within the Windows directory and deleted. If this succeeds the Administrator Property is set to true.
Linux
On a Linux system the jar file is copied to the hidden directory <JAR_FOLDER> within the user's home directory and renamed to <JAR_NAME>.<JAR_EXTENSION>. The malware then creates a .desktop file within the users autostart directory ~/.config/autostart/<JAR_REGISTRY>.desktop to launch the RAT when the desktop is started.
MacOS
Like on Linux systems the malware creates a file under a new directory <JAR_FOLDER> in the user's home. It then creates a new job within the user's Library/LaunchAgents directory com.<JAR_REGISTRY>.plist
The generated configuration file has the optional key RunAtLoad set to true; this instructs launchd to run the job once when it is loaded.
Once the job file is created, it then runs the command "chflags hidden <JAR_FOLDER>" to set the hidden flag and hide the directory from the UI.
Sandbox Detection
When executed AlienSpy checks if it is running within either a VirtualBox or VMWare environment. If it detects that it is running within a VM the application exits. The detection technique isn't advanced and is done by detecting files installed as part of the VM host guest tools.
For VirtualBox this is either the file "/etc/init.d/vboxadd" in Linux or the directory "Oracle\Virtualbox Guest Additions" in Windows. If the RAT is running within a Mac environment it returns false.
 |
| VirtualBox Detection |
Similarily for VMware this is the directory "/etc/vmware-tools" in Linux "/Library/Application Support/VMware Tools" in Mac and "VMware\VMware Tools" in Windows.
 |
| VMWare Detection |
Communication
AlienSpy uses SSL Sockets to communicate with the C2 server. The server and port are both defined within the config.xml file.
- DNS - Hostname or IP address
- PORT - TCP port
The jar file contains a keystore resource keystore.test which is used to trust the C2 SSL certificate. Using keytool we can look at the contained certificates.
Note: The password for the keystore is 'storepass' and is defined in utils\AlienSSLSocket.class
When examining the certificate details I was able to trace it back to a how-to post on SSLSockets and creating a keystore.
The majority of settings for the certificate have just been directly copied from the examples in the article (keystore name, password and certificate properties).
C2 Subscription
To subscribe to the C2 server the rat first creates and configures the SSL connection then sends 1 then sends the properties describing the host system. At this point the malware is in listening mode waiting for commands from the C2 server.
 |
Commands
Once connected to the C2 server the RAT waits for a command. Commands have a simple syntax of command_id [1..10] and an optional payload for the command.
| Id | Payload | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | [0] - Message Type
[1] - Option Type [2] - Title [3] - Message | Display Message Box |
| 2 | [0] - URL [1] - Number of times to open the URL | Open the URL the requested number of times. Hardcoded to sleep 2s every iteration. |
| 3 | N/A | Shutdown |
| 4 | N/A | Restart |
| 5 | N/A | Uninstall |
| 6 | N/A | Update Offline |
| 7 | URL for update. | Update Online |
| 8 | [0] - URL for download. [1] - Extension to append to file. |
Download & Execute |
| 9 | Plugin Name | Run Plugin |
| 10 | N/A | Start Heartbeat |
From what I've observed the first command after subscription is generally '10' which instructs the infected host to begin sending a heartbeat every 60 seconds.
The heartbeat will continue running on a separate user thread while the malware waits for the next command from the server.
- Write 1
- Write PINGPONG
- Sleep 60s
The heartbeat will continue running on a separate user thread while the malware waits for the next command from the server.
Updating
There are two commands the C2 server can send for updating infected hosts; an online update or an offline update.
An offline update instructs the client to make another connection to the C2 server. Once the updated rat is downloaded it will call uninstall to remove the existing version then launch the updated one from the temp file.
An online update includes a URL as the payload which instructs the RAT where to download the updated version from. A GET request is sent to the URL with the hardcoded UserAgent
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/33.0.1750.154 Safari/537.36
The same process seen in the update offline is followed, the new version is downloaded into a temporary file and the client uninstalls the existing version and updates to the newly downloaded version.
Download & Execute
The server can issue the command Id 8 which instructs the client to download and execute the downloaded file. The payload for this command includes the URL to download the file from and the extension to append to the file once it is downloaded.Requests are made using the UserAgent:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/24.0.1312.57 Safari/537.17
Once the file is downloaded the file is passed to an opener function where it determines how to launch the downloaded file. The opener first checks if the downloaded file ends in '.jar' if it does it will generate a string 'java -jar <downloaded jar>' and execute it.
If the malware is running on MacOS it will also append the argument -Dapple.awt.UIElement=true
If the file doesn't end in .jar the opener will use the preferred method to open files for the host OS. For Windows systems this is cmd, for Linux this is either /usr/bin/open or /usr/bin/xdg-open and for MacOs this is java.awt.Desktop.getDesktop().open
Open URL
The server can instruct clients to open a URL. The payload to this command contains the URL to open and the number of iterations. The client will then open the URL the requested number of times sleeping for 2 seconds between iterations.
- For MacOS it will launch the URL using: open -a Safari <URL>
- For Windows it will launch the URL using: cmd.exe /c START iexplore.exe <URL>
- For Linux it will launch the URL using: /usr/bin/xdg-open <URL>
Conclusion
Incident Responders looking for systems compromised by AlienSpy can extract host and network indicators from the properties defined in the config.xml file. Additionally systems would also be beaconing to the C2 server every 60 seconds.
AlienSpy is used to deliver other malicious payloads to infected systems. Detecting the presence of AlienSpy should be considered to be only part of the compromise.
If you have any samples, would like to collaborate feel free to reach out to me on twitter @seanmw. I'm interested in looking at how AlienSpy is being used in phishing campaigns to deliver malware.
Samples
The samples I used for the post can be found using the hashes below:- Sample 1: f3366d437f9461f1486406972f52e7aab47174db
- Sample 2: c932064fe6a7dfc96fb2a3ffec2b7f4e5b7e048f
References
- http://contagiodump.blogspot.ca/2014/11/alienspy-java-rat-samples-and-traffic.html
- https://developer.gnome.org/autostart-spec/
- https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPSystemStartup/Chapters/CreatingLaunchdJobs.html
- https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man5/launchd.plist.5.html#//apple_ref/doc/man/5/launchd.plist
