Targeted attack using journalists as a lure

May 12th, 2010 admin
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We found a new malicious XLS file which contains lots of names, details and contact information for journalists around the world: This file was emailed to unknown persons, apparently in order to launch a targeted attack. The relevance of the journalists mentioned in the attack file is unknown. When the file (md5 hash: 46d0edc0a11ed88c0a39bc2118b3c4e071413a4b) is opened, it exploits a vulnerability in Excel. The vulnerability executes a piece of embedded code that drops several new executables to hard drive and launches them, including:


Originally posted on F-Secure

 
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