Numando: Count once, code twice

Before concluding our series, there is one more LATAM banking trojan that deserves a closer look – Numando. The threat actor behind this malware family has been active since at least 2018. Even though it is not nearly as lively as Mekotio or Grandoreiro, it has been consistently used since we started tracking it, bringing interesting new techniques to the pool of Latin American banking trojans’ tricks, like using seemingly useless ZIP archives or bundling payloads with decoy BMP images. Geographically, it focuses almost exclusively on Brazil with rare campaigns in Mexico and Spain.

Characteristics

As with all the other Latin American banking trojans described in this series, Numando is written in Delphi and utilizes fake overlay windows to lure sensitive information out of its victims. Some Numando variants store these images in an encrypted ZIP archive inside their .rsrc sections, while others utilize a separate Delphi DLL just for this storage.

Backdoor capabilities allow Numando to simulate mouse and keyboard actions, restart and shutdown the machine, display overlay windows, take screenshots and kill browser processes. Unlike other Latin American banking trojans, however, the commands are defined as numbers rather than strings (see Figure 1), which inspired our naming of this malware family.

Figure 1. Numando command processing – part of command 9321795 processing (red)

Strings are encrypted by the most common algorithm among Latin American banking trojans (shown in Figure 5 of our Casbaneiro write-up) and are not organized into a string table. Numando collects the victimized machine’s Windows version and bitness.

Unlike most of the other Latin American banking trojans covered in this series, Numando does not show signs of continuous development. There are some minor changes from time to time, but overall the binaries do not tend to change much.

Distribution and execution

Numando is distributed almost exclusively by spam. Based on our telemetry, its campaigns affect several hundred victims at most, making it considerably less successful than the most prevalent LATAM banking trojans such as Mekotio and Grandoreiro. Recent campaigns simply add a ZIP attachment containing an MSI installer to each spammed message. This installer contains a CAB archive with a legitimate application, an injector, and an encrypted Numando banking trojan DLL. If the potential victim executes the MSI, it eventually runs the legitimate application as well, and that side-loads the injector. The injector locates the payload and then decrypts it using a simple XOR algorithm with a multi-byte key, as in the overview of this process illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Numando MSI and its contents distributed in the latest campaigns

For Numando, the payload and injector are usually named identically – the injector with the .dll extension and the payload with no extension (see Figure 3) – making it is easy for the injector to locate the encrypted payload. Surprisingly, the injector is not written in Delphi – something very rare among Latin American banking trojans. The IoCs at the end of this blogpost contain a list of legitimate applications we have observed Numando abuse.

Figure 3. Files used for executing Numando. Legitimate application (Cooperativa.exe), injector (Oleacc.dll), encrypted payload (Oleacc) and legitimate DLLs.

Decoy ZIP and BMP overlay

There is one interesting distribution chain from the recent past worth mentioning. This chain starts with a Delphi downloader downloading a decoy ZIP archive (see Figure 4). The downloader ignores the archive’s contents and extracts a hex-encoded encrypted string from the ZIP file comment, an optional ZIP file component stored at the end of the file. The downloader does not parse the ZIP structure, but rather looks for the last { character (used as a marker) in the whole file. Decrypting the string results in a different URL that leads to the actual payload archive.

Figure 4. The decoy is a valid ZIP file (ZIP structures highlighted in green) with an encrypted URL included in a ZIP file comment at the end of the archive (red)

The second ZIP archive contains a legitimate application, an injector and a suspiciously large BMP image. The downloader extracts the contents of this archive and executes the legitimate application, which side-loads the injector that, in turn, extracts the Numando banking trojan from the BMP overlay and executes it. The process is illustrated in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Numando distribution chain using a decoy ZIP archive

This BMP file is a valid image and can be opened in a majority of image viewers and editors without issue, as the overlaly is simply ignored. Figure 6 shows some of the decoy images the Numando threat actor uses.

Figure 6. Some BMP images Numando uses as decoys to carry its payload

Remote configuration

Like many other Latin American banking trojans, Numando abuses public services to store its remote configuration – YouTube and Pastebin in this case. Figure 7 shows an example of the configuration stored on YouTube – a technique similar to Casbaneiro, though much less sneaky. Google took the videos down promptly based on ESET’s notification.

Figure 7. Numando remote configuration on YouTube

The format is simple – three entries delimited by “:” between the DATA:{ and } markers. Each entry is encrypted separately the same way as other strings in Numando – with the key hardcoded in the binary. This makes it difficult to decrypt the configuration without having the corresponding binary, however Numando does not change its decryption key very often, making decryption possible.

Conclusion

Numando is a Latin American banking trojan written in Delphi. It targets mainly Brazil with rare campaigns in Mexico and Spain. It is similar to the other families described in our series – it uses fake overlay windows, contains backdoor functionality and utilizes MSI.

We have covered its most typical features, distribution methods and remote configuration. It is the only LATAM banking trojan written in Delphi that uses a non-Delphi injector and its remote configuration format is unique, making two reliable factors when identifying this malware family.

For any inquiries, contact us at threatintel@eset.com. Indicators of Compromise can also be found in our GitHub repository.

Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)

Hashes

Abused legitimate applications

C&C servers

• 138.91.168[.]205:733
• 20.195.196[.]231:733
• 20.197.228[.]40:779

Delivery URLs

• https://enjoyds.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws[.]com/H97FJNGD86R.zip
• https://lksluthe.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws[.]com/B876DRFKEED.zip
• https://procjdcals.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws[.]com/HN97YTYDFH.zip
• https://rmber.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws[.]com/B97TDKHJBS.zip
• https://sucessmaker.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws[.]com/JKGHFD9807Y.zip
• https://trbnjust.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws[.]com/B97T908ENLK.zip
• https://webstrage.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws[.]com/G497TG7UDF.zip

MITRE ATT&CK techniques

Note: This table was built using version 9 of the MITRE ATT&CK framework.