We got several reports (thanks to Seren Thompson, Tahir Khan and Harry Vann) about OAUTH phishing attacks against Google users. The phishing attack arrives, of course, as an e-mail where it appears that a user (potentially even one on your contact list, so it looks very legitimate) has shared a document.
hxxs://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth?client_id=1535050614-8i934kb9l0snc0iocqb0iv27lli0r858.apps.googleusercontent.com&scope=https%3A%2F%2Fmail.google.com%2F+https%3A%2F%2Fwww.googleapis.com%2Fauth%2Fcontacts&immediate=false&include_granted_scopes=true&response_type=token&redirect_uri=hxxps%3A%2F%2Fgoogledocs.g-docs.win%2Fg.php&customparam=customparam In browser, this is what you get:
Obviously, once you allow access it is game over - the attacker probably uses the phishied Gmail account to further distribute phishing e-mails - we'll see if we can get more details. So far at least the following domains are included: UPDATE: There are more domains - they all just change the TLD's for googledocs.g-docs.X or googledocs.docscloud.X. Most of them (if not all) appear to have been taken down (thanks @Jofo). It also appears that Google has reacted quickly and are now recognizing e-mails containing malicious (phishing) URL's so the message "Be careful with this message. Similar messages were used to steal people's personal information. Unless you trust the sender, don't click links or reply with personal information." will be shown when such an e-mail is opened. Finally, if you accidentally clicked on "Allow", go to https://myaccount.google.com/u/0/permissions?pli=1 to revoke permissions. I will be teaching next: Web App Penetration Testing and Ethical Hacking - SANS Cyber Security East: May 2021 |
Bojan 396 Posts ISC Handler May 3rd 2017 |
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May 3rd 2017 3 years ago |
We were flooded with user reports of this, and many logged in. We are a college in exams week and many receive docs from their students this way. It was big enough that some received this "from" actual students. I'm glad Google shut it down quickly--we were pretty frantic for an hour or so...
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John 88 Posts |
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May 3rd 2017 3 years ago |
What probably made this phishing/assimilation campaign so successful was that Google users are so accustomed to granular security, having to click allow for every app on their phone, that they we're willing to do it for Gmail too.
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G T S 1 Posts |
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May 3rd 2017 3 years ago |
There is a mechanism in this phishing campaign that is very interesting...
When a user enters their information on the OAUTH phishing page and compromises their account - the malicious actor's script then sends the OAUTH phishing page email from the newly acquired account to all of the account's contacts. Thus, this script is spreading based on each account compromised, appearing to be coming from a known source - leads to a more effective click through rate. Why harvest hundreds of thousands of email accounts when you can just compromise an account and start a "Ponzi" scheme type of "Contacts" abuse. @TheSecureStoic Traven |
Traven37 4 Posts |
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May 3rd 2017 3 years ago |
Yes, it was a very clever campaign with an insidious propagation mechanism. Several of our clients had large distro lists that were hit, which really made things interesting.
I'm surprised Google doesn't have restricted words or phrases for apps; calling it "Google Docs" probably fooled a lot of people into accepting the permissions. |
Anonymous |
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May 3rd 2017 3 years ago |
The first phishing worm ever?
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InfoSec33 1 Posts |
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May 3rd 2017 3 years ago |
Reminds me of the old days. We trust Google Docs just like we trusted attachments in emails before the Iloveyou virus
I was a young admin when the Iloveyou virus was spreading like wild fire across the internet. A simple vb script that anyone with a little training could have made demonstrated that Microsoft's handy scripting language and application api could be easily used for evil. |
Anonymous |
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May 4th 2017 3 years ago |
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