Evil network revisited: Specialist Ltd / Specialist-ISP-PI2 AS48691(194.28.112.0/22)

Specialist Ltd is a small Black Hat hosting company in Transnistria, a breakaway part of the former Soviet Republic of Moldavia. No UN members recognise Transnistria, and effectively it sits beyond the reach of international law enforcement. Quite a handy place for criminals to do business then.

I first wrote about this block last year, but it recently came into my sights again as the host for a very widespread injection attack using the lilupophilupop.com domain.

Since last year the number of malicious sites has dropped, but there is still not a legitimate site in sight. Most of the bad sites are currently on 194.28.114.102 but you should block access to 194.28.112.0/22 (194.28.112.0 - 194.28.115.255) if you can, because this range of IP addresses is nothing but trouble.

A list of sites hosted in this range is at the end of this post, or you can download a CSV with the MyWOT ratings and IP addresses from here.

Google's prognosis of this block is pretty horrible:

Safe Browsing
Diagnostic page for AS48691 (SPECIALIST)

What happened when Google visited sites hosted on this network?

    Of the 44 site(s) we tested on this network over the past 90 days, 1 site(s), including, for example, rthur87seeks.rr.nu/, served content that resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent.

    The last time Google tested a site on this network was on 2011-12-12, and the last time suspicious content was found was on 2011-12-12.

Has this network hosted sites acting as intermediaries for further malware distribution?

    Over the past 90 days, we found 15 site(s) on this network, including, for example, lilupophilupop.com/, sweepstakesandcontestsinfo.com/, sweepstakesandcontestsnow.com/, that appeared to function as intermediaries for the infection of 190 other site(s) including, for example, teas.com.au/, rogersplus.ca/, cicomra.org.ar/.

Has this network hosted sites that have distributed malware?

    Yes, this network has hosted sites that have distributed malicious software in the past 90 days. We found 30 site(s), including, for example, lilupophilupop.com/, sweepstakesandcontestsinfo.com/, sweepstakesandcontestsnow.com/, that infected 2524 other site(s), including, for example, jri.ir/, psu.ac.th/, longoservice.it/.

The WHOIS details for the bloack are:

inetnum:         194.28.112.0 - 194.28.115.255
netname:         Specialist-ISP-PI2
descr:           Specialist, Ltd.
country:         MD
org:             ORG-SL206-RIPE
admin-c:         VP2841-RIPE
tech-c:          AB16163-RIPE
status:          ASSIGNED PI
mnt-by:          RIPE-NCC-END-MNT
mnt-lower:       RIPE-NCC-END-MNT
mnt-by:          SPECIALIST-MNT
mnt-routes:      SPECIALIST-MNT
mnt-domains:     SPECIALIST-MNT
source:          RIPE # Filtered

organisation:   ORG-SL206-RIPE
org-name:       Specialist, Ltd
org-type:       OTHER
descr:          Specialist, Ltd, Rybnitsa, MD
address:        I. Soltysa 12, Rybnitsa, MD
phone:          +373-777-12921
phone:          +373-693-18189
phone:          +373-777-65071
fax-no:         +373-555-43073
mnt-ref:        MONITORING-MNT
abuse-mailbox:  abuse@lan-rybnitsa.com
mnt-by:         SPECIALIST-MNT
source:         RIPE # Filtered

person:         Vladimir Pilan
address:        I. Soltysa 12, Rybnitsa, MD
phone:          +373-777-12921
fax-no:         +373-555-43073
nic-hdl:        VP2841-RIPE
source:         RIPE # Filtered
mnt-by:         SPECIALIST-MNT

person:         Anatoly Belitsky
address:        I. Soltysa 12, Rybnitsa, MD
phone:          +373-777-65071
fax-no:         +373-555-43073
nic-hdl:        AB16163-RIPE
source:         RIPE # Filtered
mnt-by:         SPECIALIST-MNT

route:          194.28.112.0/22
descr:          Specialst-route2
origin:         AS48691
mnt-by:         SPECIALIST-MNT
source:         RIPE # Filtered

Some domains and sites hosted in this block are:



ation72histor.rr.nu
blogsvk.ru
cliffordtravel.biz
comm98andsp.rr.nu
doutl31inesst.rr.nu
earni61ngunde.rr.nu
ensm60erch.rr.nu
eorge00gamee.rr.nu
ggesti51ngbina.rr.nu
globalpoweringgathering.com
globalpoweringgatheringit.com
globalpoweringgatheringon.com
h102-114.net.lan-rybnitsa.com
hoperjoper.ru
iess70elec.rr.nu
ift72hbot.rr.nu
ilto27nint.rr.nu
infoitpoweringgathering.com
infoitpoweringgatheringit.com
infoitpoweringgatheringon.com
inful07commi.rr.nu
lessthenaminutehandle.com
lessthenaseconddeal.com
lilupophilupop.com
lilypophilypop.com
llowe31dmeth.rr.nu
mail.lilupophilupop.com
mail.sweepstakesandcontestsinfo.com
ns1.hoperjoper.ru
ns2.hoperjoper.ru
root.sweepstakesandcontestsinfo.com
sekurepays.org
sical59lymemo.rr.nu
sokoloperkovuske.com
sokoloperkovuskeci.com
sokoloperkovuskedi.com
sweepstakesandcontestsdo.com
sweepstakesandcontestsinfo.com
sweepstakesandcontestsnow.com
tyco93uplin.rr.nu
wbesnancer.org
welcometotheglobaliscom.com
welcometotheglobalisnet.com
welcometotheglobalisorg.com
zevkblog.ru