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The Stark Truth Behind the Resurgence of Russia’s Fin7

The Russia-based cybercrime group dubbed β€œFin7,” known for phishing and malware attacks that have cost victim organizations an estimated $3 billion in losses since 2013, was declared dead last year by U.S. authorities. But experts say Fin7 has roared back to life in 2024 β€” setting up thousands of websites mimicking a range of media and technology companies β€” with the help of Stark Industries Solutions, a sprawling hosting provider that is a persistent source of cyberattacks against enemies of Russia.

In May 2023, the U.S. attorney for Washington state declared β€œFin7 is an entity no more,” after prosecutors secured convictions and prison sentences against three men found to be high-level Fin7 hackers or managers. This was a bold declaration against a group that the U.S. Department of Justice described as a criminal enterprise with more than 70 people organized into distinct business units and teams.

The first signs of Fin7’s revival came in April 2024, when Blackberry wrote about an intrusion at a large automotive firm that began with malware served by a typosquatting attack targeting people searching for a popular free network scanning tool.

Now, researchers at security firm Silent Push say they have devised a way to map out Fin7’s rapidly regrowing cybercrime infrastructure, which includes more than 4,000 hosts that employ a range of exploits, from typosquatting and booby-trapped ads to malicious browser extensions and spearphishing domains.

Silent Push said it found Fin7 domains targeting or spoofing brands including American Express, Affinity Energy, Airtable, Alliant, Android Developer, Asana, Bitwarden, Bloomberg, Cisco (Webex), CNN, Costco, Dropbox, Grammarly, Google, Goto.com, Harvard, Lexis Nexis, Meta, Microsoft 365, Midjourney, Netflix, Paycor, Quickbooks, Quicken, Reuters, Regions Bank Onepass, RuPay, SAP (Ariba), Trezor, Twitter/X, Wall Street Journal, Westlaw, and Zoom, among others.

Zach Edwards, senior threat analyst at Silent Push, said many of the Fin7 domains are innocuous-looking websites for generic businesses that sometimes include text from default website templates (the content on these sites often has nothing to do with the entity’s stated business or mission).

Edwards said Fin7 does this to β€œage” the domains and to give them a positive or at least benign reputation before they’re eventually converted for use in hosting brand-specific phishing pages.

β€œIt took them six to nine months to ramp up, but ever since January of this year they have been humming, building a giant phishing infrastructure and aging domains,” Edwards said of the cybercrime group.

In typosquatting attacks, Fin7 registers domains that are similar to those for popular free software tools. Those look-alike domains are then advertised on Google so that sponsored links to them show up prominently in search results, which is usually above the legitimate source of the software in question.

A malicious site spoofing FreeCAD showed up prominently as a sponsored result in Google search results earlier this year.

According to Silent Push, the software currently being targeted by Fin7 includes 7-zip, PuTTY, ProtectedPDFViewer, AIMP, Notepad++, Advanced IP Scanner, AnyDesk, pgAdmin, AutoDesk, Bitwarden, Rest Proxy, Python, Sublime Text, and Node.js.

In May 2024, security firm eSentire warned that Fin7 was spotted using sponsored Google ads to serve pop-ups prompting people to download phony browser extensions that install malware. Malwarebytes blogged about a similar campaign in April, but did not attribute the activity to any particular group.

A pop-up at a Thomson Reuters typosquatting domain telling visitors they need to install a browser extension to view the news content.

Edwards said Silent Push discovered the new Fin7 domains after a hearing from an organization that was targeted by Fin7 in years past and suspected the group was once again active. Searching for hosts that matched Fin7’s known profile revealed just one active site. But Edwards said that one site pointed to many other Fin7 properties at Stark Industries Solutions, a large hosting provider that materialized just two weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine.

As KrebsOnSecurity wrote in May, Stark Industries Solutions is being used as a staging ground for wave after wave of cyberattacks against Ukraine that have been tied to Russian military and intelligence agencies.

β€œFIN7 rents a large amount of dedicated IP on Stark Industries,” Edwards said. β€œOur analysts have discovered numerous Stark Industries IPs that are solely dedicated to hosting FIN7 infrastructure.”

Fin7 once famously operated behind fake cybersecurity companies β€” with names like Combi Security and Bastion Secure β€” which they used for hiring security experts to aid in ransomware attacks. One of the new Fin7 domains identified by Silent Push is cybercloudsec[.]com, which promises to β€œgrow your business with our IT, cyber security and cloud solutions.”

The fake Fin7 security firm Cybercloudsec.

Like other phishing groups, Fin7 seizes on current events, and at the moment it is targeting tourists visiting France for the Summer Olympics later this month. Among the new Fin7 domains Silent Push found are several sites phishing people seeking tickets at the Louvre.

β€œWe believe this research makes it clear that Fin7 is back and scaling up quickly,” Edwards said. β€œIt’s our hope that the law enforcement community takes notice of this and puts Fin7 back on their radar for additional enforcement actions, and that quite a few of our competitors will be able to take this pool and expand into all or a good chunk of their infrastructure.”

Further reading:

Stark Industries Solutions: An Iron Hammer in the Cloud.

A 2022 deep dive on Fin7 from the Swiss threat intelligence firm Prodaft (PDF).

NetworkSherlock - Powerful And Flexible Port Scanning Tool With Shodan

By: Zion3R


NetworkSherlock is a powerful and flexible port scanning tool designed for network security professionals and penetration testers. With its advanced capabilities, NetworkSherlock can efficiently scan IP ranges, CIDR blocks, and multiple targets. It stands out with its detailed banner grabbing capabilities across various protocols and integration with Shodan, the world's premier service for scanning and analyzing internet-connected devices. This Shodan integration enables NetworkSherlock to provide enhanced scanning capabilities, giving users deeper insights into network vulnerabilities and potential threats. By combining local port scanning with Shodan's extensive database, NetworkSherlock offers a comprehensive tool for identifying and analyzing network security issues.


Features

  • Scans multiple IPs, IP ranges, and CIDR blocks.
  • Supports port scanning over TCP and UDP protocols.
  • Detailed banner grabbing feature.
  • Ping check for identifying reachable targets.
  • Multi-threading support for fast scanning operations.
  • Option to save scan results to a file.
  • Provides detailed version information.
  • Colorful console output for better readability.
  • Shodan integration for enhanced scanning capabilities.
  • Configuration file support for Shodan API key.

Installation

NetworkSherlock requires Python 3.6 or later.

  1. Clone the repository:
    git clone https://github.com/HalilDeniz/NetworkSherlock.git
  2. Install the required packages:
    pip install -r requirements.txt

Configuration

Update the networksherlock.cfg file with your Shodan API key:

[SHODAN]
api_key = YOUR_SHODAN_API_KEY

Usage

Port Scan Tool positional arguments: target Target IP address(es), range, or CIDR (e.g., 192.168.1.1, 192.168.1.1-192.168.1.5, 192.168.1.0/24) options: -h, --help show this help message and exit -p PORTS, --ports PORTS Ports to scan (e.g. 1-1024, 21,22,80, or 80) -t THREADS, --threads THREADS Number of threads to use -P {tcp,udp}, --protocol {tcp,udp} Protocol to use for scanning -V, --version-info Used to get version information -s SAVE_RESULTS, --save-results SAVE_RESULTS File to save scan results -c, --ping-check Perform ping check before scanning --use-shodan Enable Shodan integration for additional information " dir="auto">
python3 networksherlock.py --help
usage: networksherlock.py [-h] [-p PORTS] [-t THREADS] [-P {tcp,udp}] [-V] [-s SAVE_RESULTS] [-c] target

NetworkSherlock: Port Scan Tool

positional arguments:
target Target IP address(es), range, or CIDR (e.g., 192.168.1.1, 192.168.1.1-192.168.1.5,
192.168.1.0/24)

options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-p PORTS, --ports PORTS
Ports to scan (e.g. 1-1024, 21,22,80, or 80)
-t THREADS, --threads THREADS
Number of threads to use
-P {tcp,udp}, --protocol {tcp,udp}
Protocol to use for scanning
-V, --version-info Used to get version information
-s SAVE_RESULTS, --save-results SAVE_RESULTS
File to save scan results
-c, --ping-check Perform ping check before scanning
--use-shodan Enable Shodan integration for additional information

Basic Parameters

  • target: The target IP address(es), IP range, or CIDR block to scan.
  • -p, --ports: Ports to scan (e.g., 1-1000, 22,80,443).
  • -t, --threads: Number of threads to use.
  • -P, --protocol: Protocol to use for scanning (tcp or udp).
  • -V, --version-info: Obtain version information during banner grabbing.
  • -s, --save-results: Save results to the specified file.
  • -c, --ping-check: Perform a ping check before scanning.
  • --use-shodan: Enable Shodan integration.

Example Usage

Basic Port Scan

Scan a single IP address on default ports:

python networksherlock.py 192.168.1.1

Custom Port Range

Scan an IP address with a custom range of ports:

python networksherlock.py 192.168.1.1 -p 1-1024

Multiple IPs and Port Specification

Scan multiple IP addresses on specific ports:

python networksherlock.py 192.168.1.1,192.168.1.2 -p 22,80,443

CIDR Block Scan

Scan an entire subnet using CIDR notation:

python networksherlock.py 192.168.1.0/24 -p 80

Using Multi-Threading

Perform a scan using multiple threads for faster execution:

python networksherlock.py 192.168.1.1-192.168.1.5 -p 1-1024 -t 20

Scanning with Protocol Selection

Scan using a specific protocol (TCP or UDP):

python networksherlock.py 192.168.1.1 -p 53 -P udp

Scan with Shodan

python networksherlock.py 192.168.1.1 --use-shodan

Scan Multiple Targets with Shodan

python networksherlock.py 192.168.1.1,192.168.1.2 -p 22,80,443 -V --use-shodan

Banner Grabbing and Save Results

Perform a detailed scan with banner grabbing and save results to a file:

python networksherlock.py 192.168.1.1 -p 1-1000 -V -s results.txt

Ping Check Before Scanning

Scan an IP range after performing a ping check:

python networksherlock.py 10.0.0.1-10.0.0.255 -c

OUTPUT EXAMPLE

$ python3 networksherlock.py 10.0.2.12 -t 25 -V -p 21-6000 -t 25
********************************************
Scanning target: 10.0.2.12
Scanning IP : 10.0.2.12
Ports : 21-6000
Threads : 25
Protocol : tcp
---------------------------------------------
Port Status Service VERSION
22 /tcp open ssh SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_4.7p1 Debian-8ubuntu1
21 /tcp open telnet 220 (vsFTPd 2.3.4)
80 /tcp open http HTTP/1.1 200 OK
139 /tcp open netbios-ssn %SMBr
25 /tcp open smtp 220 metasploitable.localdomain ESMTP Postfix (Ubuntu)
23 /tcp open smtp #' #'
445 /tcp open microsoft-ds %SMBr
514 /tcp open shell
512 /tcp open exec Where are you?
1524/tcp open ingreslock ro ot@metasploitable:/#
2121/tcp open iprop 220 ProFTPD 1.3.1 Server (Debian) [::ffff:10.0.2.12]
3306/tcp open mysql >
5900/tcp open unknown RFB 003.003
53 /tcp open domain
---------------------------------------------

OutPut Example

$ python3 networksherlock.py 10.0.2.0/24 -t 10 -V -p 21-1000
********************************************
Scanning target: 10.0.2.1
Scanning IP : 10.0.2.1
Ports : 21-1000
Threads : 10
Protocol : tcp
---------------------------------------------
Port Status Service VERSION
53 /tcp open domain
********************************************
Scanning target: 10.0.2.2
Scanning IP : 10.0.2.2
Ports : 21-1000
Threads : 10
Protocol : tcp
---------------------------------------------
Port Status Service VERSION
445 /tcp open microsoft-ds
135 /tcp open epmap
********************************************
Scanning target: 10.0.2.12
Scanning IP : 10.0.2.12
Ports : 21- 1000
Threads : 10
Protocol : tcp
---------------------------------------------
Port Status Service VERSION
21 /tcp open ftp 220 (vsFTPd 2.3.4)
22 /tcp open ssh SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_4.7p1 Debian-8ubuntu1
23 /tcp open telnet #'
80 /tcp open http HTTP/1.1 200 OK
53 /tcp open kpasswd 464/udpcp
445 /tcp open domain %SMBr
3306/tcp open mysql >
********************************************
Scanning target: 10.0.2.20
Scanning IP : 10.0.2.20
Ports : 21-1000
Threads : 10
Protocol : tcp
---------------------------------------------
Port Status Service VERSION
22 /tcp open ssh SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_8.2p1 Ubuntu-4ubuntu0.9

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! To contribute to NetworkSherlock, follow these steps:

  1. Fork the repository.
  2. Create a new branch for your feature or bug fix.
  3. Make your changes and commit them.
  4. Push your changes to your forked repository.
  5. Open a pull request in the main repository.

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