An information stealing malware has had its source code released by the developer on a popular hacking forum. Cyber criminals have had free access to this malware since the start of this month, and it has already been updated three times by the developer to add new capabilities and streamline the attack.  

Cyble Research Labs discovered this malware when on a routine threat-hunting exercise and have already identified 25 instances of this source code being used in the wild. The code is written in Rust, a cross-platform programming language, so although all known attacks have so far been on Windows operating systems, threat actors can use this source code to attack MacOS and Linux platforms too. 

Named ‘Luca Stealer’ by Cyble Research Labs, this Rust-based malware targets Chromium-based browsers, including Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome, to steal login credentials, credit card information, and browser cookies. These are stored in text files in a newly created ‘logsxc’ file in the AppData directory amongst the other items stolen by the malware. Screenshots are taken, and saved as .png files. The IP address and geolocation of the infected device is also harvested, and stored as a file named ‘info.txt’. Another file named ‘system_info.txt’ is also created, where data is stored about the network interface name and transmission rate, number of CPUs and memory components, as well as a list of the running processes.  

Browser extensions, password managers, and crypto wallets are targeted by this malware, as well as messenger and gaming applications, including Steam, Uplay, Telegram, Discord, ICQ, Element, and Skype. Additional updates to the malware have also seen the capability to steal user files. Once the stealer malware has gathered all of the data, credentials, and user files, it creates a compressed file named ‘out.zip’. This is used to save and exfiltrate the stolen data, which is then sent to the threat actor using Discord Webhooks, or a Telegram Bot. Chat messaging is also used to transfer information about the stolen data or infected device, such as password counts, IP addresses, and OS details.  

This source code malware has been released for free on GitHub, so cyber criminals everywhere have access to it. This could mean a wide range of threat actors could adapt the functionalities of this malware further, or utilise it as-is for an easy attack vector, therefore it is important to be aware of this threat and take steps to protect against it. Enabling automatic software updates for browsers and the operating system, installing a well-regarded anti-virus software, and avoiding downloading files from untrusted sources are the best ways to protect your device from this sort of attack.