Criminals target businesses with malicious extension for Meta’s Ads Manager and accidentally leak stolen accounts

Criminals are targeting Facebook business accounts by promoting fraudulent Ads Manager software through malicious Chrome extensions that steal login credentials and ad budgets. The campaign uses phishing pages, a disguised extension loaded locally, and data exfiltration via Google Analytics, affecting hundreds of victims worldwide. #DuckTail #AdsManager #FacebookAdsManager #Meta #ChromeExtension #GoogleDrive #MediaFire #VietnameseThreatActors #FacebookBusinessAccounts

Keypoints

  • Vietnamese threat actors are actively targeting Facebook business accounts
  • Victims are lured via fake Ads Manager software promoted on Facebook
  • Malicious Google Chrome extensions are used to steal and extract login information
  • Over 800 victims worldwide, 310 in the US
  • More than $180K in compromised ad budget
  • 20+ malicious Facebook Ad Manager archives; some hosted on Google Drive and MediaFire
  • Accidental leak of stolen data and later updates to download links; Malwarebytes and Meta involved in mitigation

MITRE Techniques

  • [T1566.001] Phishing – The attackers lure victims via phishing site, prompting download of malicious software; “The lure is the Facebook Ads Manager program that is pushed via a download link.”
  • [T1059.003] Command and Scripting Interpreter – The batch script launches after the MSI installer completes and spawns a new browser window loaded with the custom extension, directing to Facebook; “The batch script is launched after the MSI installer completes and essentially spawns a new browser window launched with the custom extension from that previous installation path, pointing the victim to the Facebook login page.”
  • [T1036] Masquerading – The custom extension is disguised as Google Translate and loaded from a local path rather than the Chrome Web Store; “That custom extension is cleverly disguised as Google Translate… loaded from the local computer, rather than the Chrome Web Store.”
  • [T1555.003] Credentials from Web Browsers – The extension focuses on harvesting Facebook cookies to log into accounts; “the threat actors are interested in Facebook cookies which they request via the cookies.getAll method.”
  • [T1567.002] Exfiltration to Web Service – Data exfiltration is performed via Google Analytics to bypass CSP; “We also notice an interesting way to exfiltrate that data by using Google Analytics.”

Indicators of Compromise

  • [Domain] decoy site – fbadmanage.info
  • [Hash] Malware payload (archive) – e73f53ea5dca6d45362fef233c65b99e5b394e97f4f2fe39b374e49c6a273e60, 2082e4a8cd0495aabb0f72a41224f134214d0959e208facbfe960c8c74166cda and 2 more hashes
  • [Hash] Analyzed MSI file – fd637520a9ca34f7b4b21164581a4ec498bf106ba168b5cb9fcd54b5c2caafd0
  • [File Name] Meta Ads Manager.rar – hosted on Google Drive
  • [File Name] List_ADS_Tach.txt – contains authentication-related data and Vietnamese identifiers

Read more: https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/threat-intelligence/2023/07/criminals-target-businesses-with-malicious-extension-for-metas-ads-manager-and-accidentally-leak-stolen-accounts