Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a brand new marketing campaign during which the menace actors have printed greater than 67 GitHub repositories that declare to supply Python-based hacking instruments, however ship trojanized payloads as a substitute.
The exercise, codenamed Banana Squad by ReversingLabs, is assessed to be a continuation of a rogue Python marketing campaign that was recognized in 2023 as concentrating on the Python Bundle Index (PyPI) repository with bogus packages that had been downloaded over 75,000 occasions and got here with information-stealing capabilities on Home windows programs.
The findings construct on a earlier report from the SANS’s Web Storm Middle in November 2024 that detailed a supposed “steam-account-checker” software hosted on GitHub, which included stealthy options to obtain further Python payloads that may inject malicious code into the Exodus cryptocurrency pockets app and harvest delicate knowledge to an exterior server (“dieserbenni[.]ru”).
Additional evaluation of the repository and the attacker-controlled infrastructure has led to the invention of 67 trojanized GitHub repositories that impersonate benign repositories with the identical identify.
There may be proof to counsel that customers trying to find software program reminiscent of account cleansing instruments and sport cheats reminiscent of Discord account cleaner, Fortnite Exterior Cheat, TikTok username checker, and PayPal bulk account checker are the targets of the marketing campaign. All of the recognized repositories have since been taken down by GitHub.
“Backdoors and trojanized code in publicly obtainable supply code repositories like GitHub have gotten extra prevalent and signify a rising software program provide chain assault vector,” ReversingLabs researcher Robert Simmons mentioned.
“For builders counting on these open-source platforms, it is important to all the time double verify that the repository you are utilizing truly incorporates what you count on.”
GitHub as a Malware Distribution Service
The event comes as GitHub is more and more turning into the main focus of a number of campaigns as a malware distribution vector. Earlier this week, Development Micro mentioned it uncovered 76 malicious GitHub repositories operated by a menace actor it calls Water Curse to ship multi-stage malware.
These payloads are designed to siphon credentials, browser knowledge, and session tokens, in addition to to offer the menace actors with persistent distant entry to the compromised programs.
Then Verify Level make clear one other marketing campaign that is utilizing a prison service often called the Stargazers Ghost Community to focus on Minecraft customers with Java-based malware. The Stargazers Ghost Community refers to a group of GitHub accounts that propagate malware or malicious hyperlinks through phishing repositories.
“The community consists of a number of accounts that distribute malicious hyperlinks and malware and carry out different actions reminiscent of starring, forking, and subscribing to malicious repositories to make them seem reliable,” Verify Level mentioned.
The cybersecurity firm has additionally assessed that such “GitHub ‘Ghost’ accounts are just one a part of the grand image, with different ‘Ghost’ accounts working on totally different platforms as an integral a part of a fair bigger Distribution-as-a-Service universe.”
Some facets of the Stargazers Ghost Community had been uncovered by Checkmarx in April 2024, calling out the menace actor’s sample of utilizing pretend stars and pushing out frequent updates to artificially inflate the recognition of the repositories and ensure they surfaced on high on GitHub search outcomes.
These repositories are ingeniously disguised as reliable initiatives, usually associated to standard video games, cheats, or instruments like cryptocurrency value trackers and multiplier prediction for crash-betting video games.
These campaigns additionally dovetail with one other assault wave that has focused novice cybercriminals looking out for available malware and assault instruments on GitHub with backdoored repositories to contaminate them with info stealers.
In a single occasion highlighted by Sophos this month, the trojanized Sakura-RAT repository has been discovered to include malicious code that compromised those that compiled the malware on their programs with info stealers and different distant entry trojans (RATs).
The recognized repositories act as a conduit for 4 totally different sorts of backdoors which are embedded inside Visible Studio PreBuild occasions, Python scripts, screensaver information, and JavaScript to steal knowledge, take screenshots, talk through Telegram, in addition to fetch extra payloads, together with AsyncRAT, Remcos RAT, and Lumma Stealer.
In all, the cybersecurity firm mentioned it detected at least 133 backdoored repositories as a part of the marketing campaign, with 111 containing the PreBuild backdoor, and the others internet hosting Python, screensaver, and JavaScript backdoors.
Sophos additional famous that these actions are seemingly linked to a distribution-as-a-service (DaaS) operation that has been operational since August 2022, and which has used hundreds of GitHub accounts to distribute malware embedded inside trojanized repositories themed round gaming cheats, exploits, and assault instruments.
Whereas the precise distribution technique used within the marketing campaign is unclear, it is believed that the menace actors are additionally counting on Discord servers and YouTube channels to unfold hyperlinks to the trojanized repositories.
“It stays unclear if this marketing campaign is straight linked to some or the entire earlier campaigns reported on, however the method does appear to be standard and efficient, and is prone to proceed in a single type or one other,” Sophos mentioned. “Sooner or later, it is potential that the main focus might change, and menace actors might goal different teams apart from inexperienced cybercriminals and avid gamers who use cheats.”