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The Cyren Security Blog is where Cyren engineers and thought leaders provide insights, research and analysis on a range of current cybersecurity topics.

Canadian Phish Kits Reactivated as Tax-filing Deadlines are Moved

The COVID-19 Effect on Economy

The economic pain being caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is taking a big toll on a global scale and governments are not exempted by this crisis. Many governments around the world are moving their tax-filing deadlines and lifting late penalties to help their citizens cope up with the situation.

In Canada for example, the tax-filing deadline has been moved from April 30, 2020 to June 1, 2020 and also giving a penalty-free extension to Canadian taxpayers, including businesses, until August 31, 2020 to pay for taxes owed.

This move from the government appears to have gained phishing interests leading to a reactivation of an old phishing kit, which targets taxpayers who are expecting refunds from tax returns.

An Old Phish Kit

We recently came across a zip archive that was named “covid.zip” uploaded to a malicious site, which upon taking a closer look contains phishing pages targeted to taxpayers wanting to deposit their tax refunds to affiliate banks in Canada. This particular phish kit is known to have existed since 2018, but even though it is old, it still poses a threat to the users of the affiliated banks.

Figure 1.0 The covid.zip package contents (hxxps://amelzendez.com/covid.zip – 869e7dc7c2897e13385d6a26f348858b9f83321702eba383bd3381b7cd3d485e)

The index.htm component leads to a welcome page with an option to choose either English or French version, both options lead to a selection of associated Canadian banks where users can supposedly deposit money from their tax refunds.

Figure 2.0 Phishing Welcome Page

Figure 2.1 Affiliated banks selection page

Most of the phishing pages attempt to steal bank account details from taxpayers by luring them into updating their bank account profiles or personal information.

Figure 3.0 National Bank Phishing Page – Banking Profile Update Page

In one of the phishing pages, disguised as Alberta Treasury Branches’ (ATB) online banking page, personally identifiable information (PII) stolen by asking victims to confirm their personal information including their Social Insurance and Driver’s License numbers. A clear phishing indicator, however, should raise users’ suspicion that they are not on a legitimate online banking site when bank card information such as the CVV2 and ATM PIN as asked for, as also seen from the ATB phishing page.

Figure 4.0 Alberta Treasury Branches Phishing Page – Personal Information Update Page and Card Information

Most of the target bank websites are mirrored with a third-party tool and stolen information are sent to an email address, which is set in a configuration file for each targeted bank.

Figure 5.0 Configuration File

We highly recommend people to be very mindful of clicking links in emails and text messages and always check if the online banking websites they are visiting are legitimate by inspecting site security information on their browsers. It is also very important to keep your personal information safe at all times by knowing which information you only need to and can provide online.

Indicators of Compromise

Phishkit

hxxps://midiaplural.com.br/covid.zip 
 hxxp://midiaplural.com.br/covid.zip 
 hxxp://thechristianwardrobe.us/covid.zip 
 hxxps://amelzendez.com/covid.zip 
 hxxp://amelenedez.com/covid.zip 
 hxxps://amelenedez.com/covid.zip 
 hxxp://www.amelenedez.com/covid.zip 
 hxxp://amelzendez.com/covid.zip 
 hxxps://amqelendez.com/covid.zip 
 hxxp://amqelendez.com/covid.zip

Latest phishing sites

hxxp://whizkidtoys.com/wp/vraitax%20(2)/vraitax/tax/96322/tax/taxb/atb/login.aspx 
 hxxp://jevn.in/wp/vraitax%20(2)/vraitax/tax/96322/tax/taxb/cibc/index.php 
 hxxps://nombolepome.com/df/vraitax%202/vraitax/tax/96322/tax/taxb/bmo/index.php 
 hxxp://zeuohed.com/wp/tax/taxb/bnc/National%20Bank%20Online.html 
 hxxp://jevn.in/wp/vraitax%20(2)/vraitax/tax/96322/tax/taxb/cibc/index.php 
 hxxps://avdeeff.ca/wp/vraitax%20(2)/vraitax/tax/96322/tax/taxb/desj/index2.php 
 hxxp://shopoliverz.ch/wp/vraitax%20(2)/vraitax/tax/96322/tax/taxb/rbc2 
 hxxp://astrologicalshop.com/canda/vraitax%20(2)/vraitax/tax/96322/tax/taxb/sco/index.php 
 hxxp://occurator.com/wl/tax/tax/taxb/td

Related Detections

9E74627FBA0A2963828B4FD4E3BBC327D3AA917CF4D1CB841788A919C98E229A PHP/Phish.F
08F0FBD785256D3557A7054EC732B96169A83CC2B018D3C27267866579FEA24A PHP/Phish.F
1F1B01E996458631068021CD08D327EE45DB009A3BC0469E944CD048D8537680 PHP/Phish.F
34EF0CF4AA271B5F49A3A3EF8CE90DCE16E6172CADDECB1597BE73A82EAA3F6D PHP/Phish.F
EA5E4F68E9E8FC9CE271FE09280D49B1DED24B44BE2181C558E182D600A48099 PHP/Phish.G
20ED20944B24F38DE3BA08EAD78031546DE30DAF91E54B3D5089E768F371B137 PHP/Phish.H
D5542DEDFC3CB11E1B94B71D054612A5D6F9DF668CFF5B6CBF26B2110957955F HTML/Phish.AYA
FF998C013EA6E951B5E78D6F0FFD974260A968AD3B2876FC1254C6304BF8E1E2 HTML/Phish.AXK
1F9FE3ED114AA3B2EB4D8BD519C625A3E01DF030E2D306C46CD0C472D469D81A HTML/Phish.ARN
62F8D2736FEF4B986543AA7594164208015BA4ABB4A1E885DE766CF268D37CFD HTML/Phish.ARQ
7E4909131C296E04400CC53D605C1A11028B2C9731F873F570BB141A67AEB516 HTML/Phish.ARS
6FB0638B5D8781C55B954299FF117E73BEC80389229C146050FCB23126A78011 PHP/Phish.I

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