Cyber Risks · Cisco Talos

EXPLOIT-KIT Java User-Agent downloading Portable Executable - Possible Exploit Kit

Summary: Cisco Talos shipped two new Snort rules, 1:25041 and 1:25042, in a rule pack of 39: the first flags a Java User-Agent in an outbound HTTP header, and the second alerts when an executable is downloaded after that flowbit is set, meaning Java rather than a browser is pulling the file. Talos says the rules ran in its test systems for about a month with zero false positives, and cites Blackholev2 indicators such as a downloaded file named "calc.exe" that differs from the requested filename and URLs containing a MAC-address-like string, which rule 25043 also detects.

Bottom line: Talos states that almost every time a Java exploit downloads an executable onto a compromised box, it is malicious, and that this pattern appears in almost every exploit kit it has seen - so a Java User-Agent pulling an executable is a signal worth investigating rather than dismissing as routine Java traffic.

Read the original at Cisco Talos ↗

Topics
Malware
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