Erbium info-stealing malware, a new option in the threat landscape

The recently discovered Erbium information-stealer is being distributed as fake cracks and cheats for popular video games.

Threat actors behind the new ‘Erbium’ information-stealing malware are distributing it as fake cracks and cheats for popular video games to steal victims’ credentials and cryptocurrency wallets.

The Erbium info-stealing malware was first spotted by researchers at threat intelligence firm Cluster25 on July 21, 2022. The Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) was advertised on a Dark Web forum by a Russian-speaking threat actor.

The author said that he spent several months developing Erbium which supports unique functionalities. According to cybersecurity firm Cyfirma, the Erbium Stealer supports the following capabilities:

• Ability to enumerate drives.
• Ability to enumerate paths, files, and folders.
• Capability to load other libraries, processes, and DLLs in memory.
• Ability to Gather System Information.
• Network communication capability.
• Collecting user credentials, such as passwords, from a range of popular chat and email programs, as well as web browsers.
• Ability to obtain information from various installed applications.
• Ability to obtain cryptocurrency wallet information [log-in credentials and stored funds].
• Ability to collect data of Authentication (2FA) and password-managing software.

“Recently CYFIRMA’s research team detected a new sample of Erbium stealer in wild. We observed one of the recent gaming campaigns where the threat actors lure gamers/players who want to acquire an unfair or prohibited edge over other players with the malicious binary posted on MediaFire [free service for file hosting].” states CYFIRMA. “Threat actors are spreading this malware using drive-by-download techniques and pretending as cracked software/game hacks.”

Experts at Cyfirma recently analyzed a new sample Erbium stealer in the wild targeting gamers and players. Threat actors were offering to the gamers malicious binaries masquerading as software that can give them a prohibited edge over other players.

Initially, the malware was sold at a price ranging between 9 to 150 dollars depending on the subscription plan that goes from one week to one year of license. Starting from July, the authors significantly increased the price which ranges from 100 dollars up to a thousand dollars for a one-year subscription and access to a control panel.

Cluster25 researchers discovered that the malware is administered through a Telegram bot.

The malware can harvest the following information from the victim systems:

• Desktop screenshot from all monitors.
• System information (CPU, GPU, DISK, RAM, number of monitors, monitor resolutions, monitor resolutions, MAC, Windows version, Windows owner, PC name, PC architecture, Windows license key)
• Passwords, cookies, history, maps, autofill from most popular browsers based on Gecko and Chromium
• Cold wallets from browsers (MetaMask, TronLink, Binance Chain Wallet, Yoroi, Nifty Wallet, Math Wallet, Coinbase Wallet, Guarda, EQUAL Wallet, Jaxx Liberty, BitApp Wallet, iWallet, Wombat, MEW CX, GuildWallet, Saturn Wallet, Ronin Wallet, NeoLine, Clover Wallet, Liquality Wallet, Terra Station, Keplr, Sollet, Auro Wallet, Polymesh Wallet, ICONex, Nabox Wallet, KHC, Temple, TezBox, Cyano Wallet, Byone, OneKey, LeafWallet, DAppPlay, BitClip, Steem Keychain, Nash Extension , Hycon Lite Client, ZilPay, Coin98 Wallet, Harmony, KardiaChain, Rabby, Phantom, TON Crystal Wallet)
• Other browser plugins (Authenticator, Authy, Trezor Password Manager, GAuth Authenticator, EOS Authenticator)
• Steam (list of accounts and authorization files)
• Discord (tokens)
• FTP clients (FileZilla, Total Commander)
• Telegram (authorization files)
• Cold desktop wallets (Exodus, Atomic, Armory, Bitecoin-Core, Bytecoin, Dash-Core, Electrum, Electron, Coinomi, Ethereum, Litecoin-Core, Monero-Core, Zcash, Jaxx)

“Erbium is an info-stealer capable of strongly impacting the confidentiality and integrity of the data and information contained in the systems it affects and is an example of how the panorama of malicious tools is constantly evolving, offering proposals that are increasingly within reach of all, in consideration of the low selling prices.” says Emanuele De Lucia, Director of Cyber Intelligence presso Cluster25.

According to Cluster25 visibility, the malware has already infected systems in multiple countries, including the USA, France, Colombia, Spain, Italy, India, Vietnam, and Malaysia.

“Cyber-crime is constantly evolving within an underground market where it is not uncommon to come across new proposals for the purchase of MaaS solutions. In Cluster25’s opinion Erbium could become one of the most used infostealers by cyber criminals due to its wide range of capabilities and due to the growing demand for MaaS.” concludes Cluster25.

Both Cluster25 and Cyfirma shared Indicators of Compromise (IoCs) for this threat.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Erbium stealer)

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