Lebal

Posted: January 26, 2018

Threat Metric

The Threat Meter is a malware assessment that SpywareRemove.com's research team is able to give every identifiable malware threat. Our Threat Meter includes several criteria based off of specific malware threats to value their severity, reach and volume. The Threat Meter is able to give you a numerical breakdown of each threat's initial Threat Level, Detection Count, Volume Count, Trend Path and Percentage Impact. The overall ranking of each threat in the Threat Meter is a basic breakdown of how all threats are ranked within our own extensive malware database. The scoring for each specific malware threat can be easily compared to other emerging threats to draw a contrast in its particular severity. The Threat Meter is a useful tool in the endeavor of seeking a solution to remove a threat or pursue additional analytical research for all types of computer users.

The following fields listed on the Threat Meter containing a specific value, are explained in detail below:

Threat Level: The threat level scale goes from 1 to 10 where 10 is the highest level of severity and 1 is the lowest level of severity. Each specific level is relative to the threat's consistent assessed behaviors collected from SpyHunter's risk assessment model.

Detection Count: The collective number of confirmed and suspected cases of a particular malware threat. The detection count is calculated from infected PCs retrieved from diagnostic and scan log reports generated by SpyHunter.

Volume Count: Similar to the detection count, the Volume Count is specifically based on the number of confirmed and suspected threats infecting systems on a daily basis. High volume counts usually represent a popular threat but may or may not have infected a large number of systems. High detection count threats could lay dormant and have a low volume count. Criteria for Volume Count is relative to a daily detection count.

Trend Path: The Trend Path, utilizing an up arrow, down arrow or equal symbol, represents the level of recent movement of a particular threat. Up arrows represent an increase, down arrows represent a decline and the equal symbol represent no change to a threat's recent movement.

% Impact (Last 7 Days): This demonstrates a 7-day period change in the frequency of a malware threat infecting PCs. The percentage impact correlates directly to the current Trend Path to determine a rise or decline in the percentage.

Threat Level:	2/10
Infected PCs:	60

First Seen:	September 19, 2023
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

Lebal is spyware that tries to collect information from a variety of sources on your PC, including Web-browsing clients and instant messengers. Cryptocurrency users also are at a particular risk from Lebal, which may try to collect the contents of their wallet accounts. Update your anti-malware solutions for deleting Lebal as soon as possible, and monitor e-mail-based infection exploits for attacks from its campaign.

The Spyware Problem Gets a Little More Intricate

January is the launching point for a campaign by threat actors who have an investment in collecting data that could be either lucrative financially or, possibly, valuable for corporate or state-sponsored espionage. Circumstantial evidence traces these attacks from Brazil, although their targets are variable, including a handful of government departments and higher-education institutions, as well as nearly two-dozen private companies. The weapon they're deploying is Lebal, a new spyware program.

Lebal utilizes slightly more than the usual level of obfuscation for delivering itself to other PCs. Although, as usually is the case, customized e-mail spam is the first step of the infection, the real package for installing this threat hides inside of a corrupted PDF document that the message links to, supposedly as a hyperlink for Google Drive. The original letter themes itself as being a package delivery notice.

The resources invested into the Lebal's abilities for collecting information aren't insubstantial. The spyware can take information from Web browsers, instant messaging clients, and e-mail accounts. However, malware researchers took extra notice of its FTP 'wallet' features, which could allow third parties to collect Bitcoins and similar cryptocurrencies. Since this attack has no point for purely espionage-related purposes, it's an indication of Lebal's threat actors requiring some level of financial benefit from their attacks.

Cutting Down on the Complexity of Dodging E-mail Spies

The infection vectors Lebal uses are well-crafted but, still, follow a template that most PC users should understand as being a ubiquitous tactic. Never click links or view attachments from e-mail messages that have any doubt as to their origins. The use of a PDF vulnerability playing the role of the 'dropper' also is significant since it shows how cybercrooks can use a 'real' document for harmful and non-obvious attacks.

Any information on a compromised PC is, at least potentially, in the ownership of Lebal's threat actors. As a consequence, all victims should change passwords and related security credentials as necessary. Network-monitoring software may detect Lebal's attempts to upload the data to a C&C server, firewall rules may block this activity outright, and various anti-malware programs may remove Lebal or block its delivery mechanisms.

Over three hundred e-mail messages are identifiable as being carriers for Lebal. Since these attacks tend to come in waves, businesses and government employees should remain alert for other, high-volume attempts to infect their servers for purposes either monetary or informational theft.

Technical Details

Additional Information

The following URL's were detected:

news-pecihe.cc