Something evil on 64.20.51.16/29 (customer of Interserver, Inc)

I wrote about this evil network on 64.20.51.16/29 (a customer of Interserver, Inc) over a year ago, identifying it as a hotbed of fraud. Usually these bad networks don't hang around for very long, but in this case it seems to be very persistent.

This time it came to notice from a terse spam with a PDF attached:

From:    Lisa Liang [ineedu98@hanmail.net]
To:    me@yahoo.com
Date:    20 November 2016 at 23:23
Subject:    11/21/2016 Amended

FYI

Attached is a file Amended copy.pdf which when you open it (not recommended) looks blurry with "VIEW" in big red letters.

The link in the email goes to bit.ly/2fJbyol - if you put the "+" on the end of a Bitly link then you can see the number of clickthroughs and what the landing page is (www.serviceupgrade.tech/pdf.php in this case).

Clicking through gives you a login page for "Adobe PDF Online" which is of course a generic phishing page.

Analysis of the 64.20.51.16/29 range finds 193 sites historically connected with it marked as being phishing or some other malicious activity. There are at least 284 sites currently within that range, of which the following are both hosted in that range currently and are malicious:

sparvicharityfoundation.com
ftp.eurocontrol-int.net
eurocontrol-int.net
bocusin.com
eurocontrol-int.net
meclp.com
lntedg.com
bs-shipmanagements.com
rolloninz.com
outlook-excell.com
safetech-online.com
lrbis.com
stmposlka.com
combinaparts.com
gsctechinology.com
writverify-online.com
ubsinvbnk.com
kiy-carbon.com
hsbcoffshores.com
natural-live.top
ftp.daemon-mail.com
ftp.paypalcenter.com
mobile-secure.us
zharmonics-online.com
nahpa-vn.com
djhexport.com
paypalcenter.com
victorialmpex.com
schmiditsports.com
lindner-stofftiere.com
novady.top

11% of the total sites in the range have been tagged by SURBL or Google as being bad, and to be honest there are probably a LOT more but those services haven't caught up yet.

In any case, there seems to be nothing of value in 64.20.51.16/29 and I strongly recommend that you block traffic to the entire range.

Phishing: "Office 365 Tax Refund Service" / updatemicrosoftonline.com

Microsoft Office 365 offering a tax refund service? Really? No, of course not, it's a phishing scam..

From:    Microsoft Office 365 Team [noreply@cloud.baddogwebdesign.com]
Date:    16 November 2016 at 10:58
Subject:    Office 365 Tax Refund Service

     Office 365 Microsoft


Office 365 Tax Refund Service.
    –
–    

CONFIGURE TODAY

Thanks for using Office 365. We are delighted to present our new service associated with HM Revenue & Customs. To continue processing your tax refund please configure your bank account.

It's easy to configure your bank account:

1     –    

Sign in to your account.
1     –    

Configure your bank account.
1     –    

You are eligible to receive a tax refund of £537.25 GBP

Thanks for subscribing to Office 365. We hope to continue serving you.
    –

–     Helpful resources

How to reactivate your Office 365 subscription
Already renewed? Verify your subscription here
What happens to my data and access when my subscription expires?
Get help and support for Office 365
    –
–    

This is a mandatory service communication. To set your contact preferences for other communications, visit the Promotional Communications Manager.

This message was sent from an unmonitored e-mail address. Please do not reply to this message.
Privacy | Legal
    –
–    

Microsoft Office
One Microsoft Way

The link in the email leads to updatemicrosoftonline.com on 89.248.168.13 (Quasi Networks LTD, Seychelles). Despite the email and the domain name it leads to an HMRC-themed phishing page..

This multi-phish page has twelve UK banks set up on it:

• Barclays
• Halifax
• HSBC
• Lloyds Bank
• NatWest
• Royal Bank of Scotland
• Santander
• TSB
• Metro Bank
• Clydesdale Bank
• The Co-Operative Bank
• Tesco Bank

Clicking on any of the links goes to a pretty convincing looking phish page, personalised for each bank and carefully extracting all the information they need for account theft.  The screenshots below are the sequence if you choose TSB bank.

Once you have entered all the information, the process appears to fail and you are directed to a genuine HMRC site instead.

A list of sites found in 89.248.168.0/24 can be found here [pastebin]. I suggest that the entire network range looks questionable and should be blocked.

Generic email phish tries to bamboozle with jargon

This phishing spam tries to confuse potential victims by throwing legitimate-looking jargon around.

From: Postmaster [mailer-daemon@mailhost.rceit.com]	Date: 24 October 2016 at 15:43
To: victim@victimdomain.tld Subject: Warning: Incoming Messages for victim@victimdomain.tld is [13 undelivered messages]
This message was created automatically by mail delivery software inbound-mail-x1.501.102.43.1 I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver 13 contact email messages since October 16 2016 for victim@victimdomain.tld To retrieve your emails and reconfigure Port 486, Click Here Warning: Failure to do this will lead to total suspension of your email account. Remote host said: 550 sorry, can't deliver message to your inbox                                                                                                Please delete and Ignore if this is not your email address.

Clicking on the link ends up at a generic phishing site (in this case the link was foodworkshighcountry.com.au/inbound/index2.htm?victim@victimdomain.tld) which throws even more jargon including these lines:

An error in your SMTP/POP settings is blocking your incoming emails……
Message：     　
Date：   

Subject:     Error loading some of your inbox messages
User：     %0%
Bounce reason:   
An error in your SMTP/POP settings is blocking your incoming e-mails
550-5.1.1 :POP configuration text can not be verified
550-5.1.2:Login encountered an unhandled error in your SSL settings
550-5.1.3:Login encountered an unhandled error in your SSL settings
Suggested Solution:   

    Please fill out the form below. Once the error is fixed, our team will contact you.
    Email address:   
    Password:   
       

    
    Your e-mail may be completely blocked, if you do not report this error.


----------------
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=001a1135f63edd4472050da42d05.

Typing your username and password will send it to the bad guys. Not all phishing emails look stupid, and although this one doesn't really make sense when you look at it closely, it looks authentic enough that it might fool some people.

Phish: "Final PO Contract..xlsx"

This spam email is phishing for email credentials. Unlike some, this one seems to be quite well done and might convince unsuspecting people that it is genuine.

From:    M Tufail Shakir [admin@ebookmalls.com]
Date:    27 May 2016 at 08:42
Subject:    Re: Final PO Contract..xlsx

Please see below attachment for the final signed contract

Regards,
27-05-2016

Tom Yip | Regional Sales Team | Marchon Eyewear (HK) Ltd.
Room 1503-05, 15/F, One Island South, 2 Heung Yip Road, Wong Chuk Hang, Hong Kong
P: (852) 2814 6674  |  tyip@marchon.com

From: Marites [villaventures@hotmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2016 2:15 PM
To: [redacted]
Cc: Jeff Lam; Swallow Yeung
Subject: SF and CE Contract

Final Contact Statement.xlsx    1 file (Total 387.5 KB)    View | Download

The link in this email goes to:

cagselectrical.com.au/libraries/emb/excel/excel/index.php?email=[redacted]

This gives a pretty convincing looking facsimile of an Excel spreadsheet, prompting for credentials..

Entering any combination of username and password seems to work, then you get redirected to a GIF of a spreadsheet..

Curiously, this GIF is not part of a phishing site but is on a wholly legitimate site belonging to a software company called Aspera (you can see it here):

download.asperasoft.com/download/docs/console/2.0/linux/html/images/console/console-report-ex1-xls.gif

The asperasoft.com domain is NOT involved in the phishing nor has it been compromised. As ever, I would advise you not to explore links like this as they might lead to an exploit kit or malware, and bear in mind that some phishing pages are better than others, and this is one of the more convincing ones that I have seen recently.

Phish: "Please find attached telegraphic transfer copy for payment made to your account today."

At first glance this spam looks like malware, but it appears to be a phish instead:

From:    General trading ltd [info@7studio.co]
Date:    26 May 2016 at 05:04
Subject:    Payment

Dear Sir/Ma'am!

As requested by our customer
Please find attached telegraphic transfer copy for payment made to your account today.

Kindly confirm once you received this payment.

Regards

Muhammad Farooq
Exchange Manager,
MCB New Garden Exchange
U.A.E (1080)
Contact: 971-35866698 - 03004278636

---

Disclaimer:

This E-mail is confidential. It may also be legally privileged. If you are not the addressee you may not copy, forward, disclose or use any part of it. If you have received this message in error, please delete it and all copies from your system and notify the sender immediately by return E-mail. Internet communications cannot be guaranteed to be timely, secure, error or virus-free. MCB Bank does not accept liability for any errors or omissions.

---

Attached is a file TT-USD.pdf .. as a rule I would recommend not opening PDF files or other attachments from unknown sources. When you open the file it looks like this:

Yes, it does look that blurry. The enticement here is to click the link in the document, which is something I wouldn't recommend that you do because it could lead to a malicious download, exploit kit or in this case a simple phishing page hosted on poloimport2012.com.

This seems to be phishing for general webmail credentials. Of course, once a hacker has those they can use your account to send spam or even rifle through your private emails and reset passwords and gain access to other important accounts.

Signing in with any credentials appears to fail, but of course the bad guys have just harvested your password..

As I said, I don't recommend opening files like this and clicking links to see where they go. I use a test environment to do this, but some similar spam emails can deliver malware that will silently plant itself on your computer which can be even more dangerous than this phish.

Phish: "TNT Consignment Notification" via rit.edu

This fake TNT notification is phishing for credentials:

From:    TNT Express
Reply-To:    sh3llsh0p@yahoo.com
Date:    24 May 2016 at 11:34
Subject:    TNT Consignment Notification

Attention: [redacted],

TNT is pleased to advise you that ANTONIOU KONSTANTINOS has arranged for a shipment to be collected from them on May 23, 2016 , and delivered to You on 275th May 2016.
The shipment has a TNT CONSIGNMENT NOTE NUMBER: 119138390

To be able to check the status of the shipment simply visit or click below to track.



http://www.tnt.com/webtracker/tracking.do?navigation=1&searchType=CON&respLang=en&respCountry=GENERIC&genericSiteIdent=.&cons=119138390


From :
ANTONIOU KONSTANTINOS
Theokritou 5
THESSALONIKI
THESSALONIKIS
546 27
GR

Pieces : 1
Weight : 0.5 KG
Shipment reference :
Description : sample
If you would like to find out about the many ways TNT helps you to track your shipment, or if you would like to know more about the services provided by TNT, simply connect to www.tnt.com and select your location at any time.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This message and any attachment are confidential and may be privileged or otherwise protected from disclosure.
If you are not the intended recipient, please telephone or email the sender and delete this message and any attachment from your system.
If you are not the intended recipient you must not copy this message or attachment or disclose the contents to any other person.
Please consider the environmental impact before printing this document and its attachment(s). Print black and white and double-sided where possible.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The link in the email is disguised to make it look like a link to tnt.com, but in face it goes to:

heurica.dk/tnt1/?email=[redacted]

which then forwards to

booking-smart-swim-school.co.uk/images/TNT/index.php?rand=13InboxLightaspxn.1774256418&fid&1252899642&fid.1&fav.1&email=[redacted]

This URLquery report shows what is going on, as the victim ends up on a laughably fake phishing page:

Presumably this is phishing for general email credentials rather than a TNT login. Orignating IP is 87.106.178.108 (1&1, Germany) via an apparently compromised account or server at pmdf01b.rit.edu

Evil network: 64.20.51.16/29 (Interserver Inc and Muhammad Naeem Nasir)

This DHL-themed phish got me looking at an IP address range of 64.20.51.16/29 which is a range belonging to Interserver Inc in the US, but which has been reallocated to a customer. But who? Because the WHOIS details for that block are not valid..

%rwhois V-1.5:003fff:00 city.trouble-free.net (by Network Solutions, Inc. V-1.5.9.5)
network:Class-Name:network
network:ID:NETBLK-INTSRV.64.20.32.0/19
network:Auth-Area:64.20.32.0/19
network:Network-Name:INTSRV-64.20.51.16
network:IP-Network:64.20.51.16/29
network:Org-Name:N/A N/A
network:Street-Address:N/A
network:City:N/A
network:State:na
network:Postal-Code:N/A
network:Country-Code:US
network:Created:20150624
network:Updated:20150922
network:Updated-By:abuse@interserver.net

Well, that's quite a sloppy move by Interserver to allow that, but it doesn't mean that the block is evil. However, an analysis of the sites currently and formerly hosted in that range indicate a very high proportion of phishing sites.. in fact, the range is a hotbed of sophisticated fraud sites, many of which seem to be undiscovered.

I combined current reverse IP data from DomainTools and current and historical data from DNSDB and then ran them through an IP lookup and a check against the Google Safe Browsing and SURBL reputations. The results [csv] show a very large number of sites flagged by SURBL in particular, amounting to 47 out of 167 sites (i.e. 28%) that I can identify as being currently hosted in that range.

In addition, a large number of phishing and other malicious sites have been hosted on 64.20.51.16/29 in the past and are now hosted elsewhere.

nswo.co.uk / "La Casa Limpia - a Balaeric Island Villa"

At first glance, some of the remaining sites look legitimate. Consider nswo.co.uk entitled "La Casa Limpia - a Balaeric Island Villa".

It looks utterly legitmate, although it is an odd domain name for a villa in Spain. Let's check those WHOIS details..

    Domain name:
        nswo.co.uk

    Registrant:
        P J Green

    Registrant type:
        UK Sole Trader

    Registrant's address:
        100 Malderen Road
        Islington
        London
        Greater London
        LN23 6AU
        United Kingdom

    Data validation:
        Nominet was able to match the registrant's name and address against a 3rd party data source on 10-Dec-2012

Despite Nominet claiming to verify the address, there is no such road as "Malderen Road" anywhere in the United Kingdom, and the post code of "LN23 6AU" is also completely invalid and exists nowhere in the UK. A bit of investigation shows that the site is almost a complete rip-off of  a legitimate site at palmyramenorca.com.. but with different contact details.

dominioncollege.ca / "Dominion College"

Consider also dominioncollege.ca - a professional looking website billing itself as Dominion College of Canada.

Apparently, Dominion College is the "Highest Ranking Creative Arts University". But there is no such university in Canada, and the domain for this "150 year old" institution was only registered in August 2015.

Domain name:           dominioncollege.ca
Domain status:         registered
Creation date:         2015/08/14
Expiry date:           2016/08/14
Updated date:          2015/08/19
DNSSEC:                Unsigned

Registrar:
    Name:              PublicDomainRegistry.com Inc
    Number:            3059041

The "About Us" page gives another clue.

That is actually Old Dominion University in Virginia, United States. A completely different and wholly legitimate institution.

hkbbr.org / "Hong Kong Business Bureau Registry"

Consider hkbbr.org billing itself as the Hong Kong Business Bureau Registry..

Yet a Google search for that term only returns hardly anything except content from the site itself, indicating that there is no such organisation.

The domain was registered in 2013 to an anonymous registrant. What is the point of this site? Well, it looks like it is a register of legitimate Hong Kong businesses. You can search for business in their online services page..

Well, it looks like a search.. but in fact it just loads results from a page www.hkbbr.org/entity/ which has an open directory.. so you can see that there actually only 43 companies in the database. One or more of which will be fake.

Presumably this forms part of a scam where the victim has to deal with a fake company, and the scammers use this web site to try to convince the victim that they are dealing with a legitimate company.

tricountysalesmexia.com / "Tri County Sales Mexia"

Consider tricountysalesmexia.com, entitled "Tri County Sales Mexia's Premier Pre-Owned Late Model Luxury and Exotic Vehicle Dealer - Mexia | Texas"

We added up the value of the cars listed on this "Tri County Sales" site. There were 218 cars valued at around $13.2 million, or around $60,000 per car.

Their website shows plush offices..

Now, Tri County Sales is a real company and I suspect a reliable vendor of used vehicles. But in reality the company's premises look like this:

Does it look like somewhere that stocks $13 million dollars worth of high-end exotic vehicles? Of course not. Let's take a look at one of the more notable cars on the website.

This is a pretty rare car. But look closely at the partial logo in the top left hand corner of the large photo..

It's the logo of Southlake Motorcars, where the image was stolen from..

Several of the other vehicles also turn up on other sites. You can be assured that although Tri County Sales is a real company, this website does not belong to them and is a scam.

goldwestgroup.com / "Gold West Group"

Consider goldwestgroup.com calling itself "Gold West Group"..

It's a bit vague about where it has mines, but the facility pictured at the top is the Obuasi Gold Mine in Ghana belonging exclusively to AngloGold Ashanti and no-one else.

The site itself mentions a Chile address, and the WHOIS details are consistent.

Registrant Name: Manu DeSouza
Registrant Organization: Gold West Group
Registrant Street: Europa Oficinas
Registrant Street: Guardia Vieja 255
Registrant City: Providencia
Registrant State/Province: Santiago
Registrant Postal Code: 2103
Registrant Country: Chile
Registrant Phone: +56.22997704
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: webmaster@goldwestgroup.com

But AngloGold Ashanti have no operations in Chile. This site is a scam.

edichem.com / "Edible Chemical Inc"

Consider edichem.com describing itself as "Edible Chemical Inc"..

This site is riddle with spelling errors and has some comically bad photo manipulation.

The offices in the picture actually belong to a company called APAG.

Let's have a look at that so-called CEO..

"Birningham University"? Quite a typo. And that photo is of a completely different person called Peter Westenthaler.

This fake company has even gone to the effort of setting up a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/edichem.biz:

cllinternational.com / "Courier Logistics Limited"

Consider cllinternational.com calling itself "Courier Logistics Limited":

In what way is this logo meant to reflect "Courier Logistics Limited"?

It doesn't.. it belongs to the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society.

The purpose of this site appears to be to generate fake courier tracking numbers, so a victim who has ordered a product will assume that it is actually on it's way. The tracking lookup seems to respond to a six-digit tracking code. The fake tracking site is on another IP, 185.24.233.16 in Ireland.

steadyprivateloan.com / "Steady Private Loan"

Most of the fake companies I have found so far have zero internet footprint. This fake finance company has at least attractive a couple of complaints:

Edmond L.
Beware !!! Do not deal with TERRANCE CLARK / CLARK BRIAN of Goldmine Private Loan now with a new name "Steady Private Loan". These are scam artist.
8 months ago

Sharon Todd
I agree. We fell for their Goldmine Loan and now Steady Private Loan owe us $21,195 ...They look fantastic but do not fall for them. We are reporting them to the FBI
7 months ago

Unlike some of the other sites, this is a bit more amateurish and generic.

It claims to be based in Delaware.

The bottom line here is that there is no such corporation as "Steady Private Loan" in Delaware. This site is a scam.

madrewson.net / "Madrewson Consult"

Consider madrewson.net calling itself "Madrewson Consult". This bills itself as some sort of HR consultancy, but you can guarantee that everythig it touches is fake.

There are a bunch of testimonials on the "About Us" page.

These are all attractive, well-photographed people aren't they? And they pop up in so many places. The photo of "Helen Pyzowski" turns up in a bunch of places. "Adam Smith" is a stock image. "Kristin Malie" turns up in a bunch of places. "John L. Skelley" turns up in a bunch of places. The testimonials are fake, as is this so-called company.

mobgifts.net / "Coca Cola Promo"

"Coca Cola" themed prize scams are well known (and documented on the Coca Cola corporate site) but I've never seen anyone go to the effort of creating a fake website to go with it.

There are several photos of people being handed cheques. But what is that cheque exactly?

This is someone winning a prize alright.. but for developing a mobile app, not a lottery. All the other pictures of people getting cheques are similarly bogus. There is no such thing a the Coca Cola Promo free lottery.

braincure-biotech.com / "Braincure Biotech"

Consider this so-called Taiwanese biochemistry firm, "Braincure Biotech" (braincure-biotech.com)

The site looks professional but very generic. But is it genuine? Unfortunately, the Taiwanese companies registry is in Chinese only and is quite difficult to use. So let's just Google it.

There are virtually zero references to this "company" apart from its own website. And by the time you look, probably this blog. A quick check of the body text of the site reveals that it is copied from other genuine biotech sites. This company does not exist, but presumably is there as part of an investment or employment scam.

What else is there?

Trawling through the IP address range shows many fake blogs (set up to promote goodness only knows what), some Bitcoin and make-money-fast sites and a whole load of sites that appear to be suspended. I cannot confirm a single legitimate site in this range.

Who is behind this?

Although the IP address range is owned by Interserver Inc it is allocated to a customer. However, Interserver seems to have displayed poor governance here because it not only has allocated the range to an anonymous registrant, but it has not acted on the extremely high concentration of fraudulent sites.

Looking at the range, I can see several nameservers..

ns3.boldhosts.com
64.20.51.18

ns4.boldhosts.com
64.20.51.19

ns2.paidhoster.com
64.20.51.20

ns1.ok2host.com
64.20.51.21

ns2.ok2host.com
64.20.51.22

ok2host.com has anonymous WHOIS details, but the other two are related:

BOLDHOSTS.COM
Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name: Abdul Razzaq
Registrant Organization: Boldhosts
Registrant Street: Street 18 Clifton Block 8  
Registrant City: Karachi
Registrant State/Province: Sind(en)
Registrant Postal Code: 75500
Registrant Country: PK
Registrant Phone: +92.2135491130
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: info@boldhosts.com

PAIDHOSTER.COM
Registrant Name: Sajid Mahmood
Registrant Organization: GroomHost
Registrant Street: Progressive Center Shahrah e Faisal  
Registrant City: Karachi
Registrant State/Province: Sind(en)
Registrant Postal Code: 75400
Registrant Country: PK
Registrant Phone: +92.215681734
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: info@boldhosts.com

Although paidhoster.com does not resolve, both boldhosts.com and ok2host.com do and are hosted on adjacent IPs of 76.73.85.141 and 76.73.85.142 respectively, indicating that they might be the same company. Groomhost.com is also mentioned in the WHOIS details above, and that is hosted on 76.73.85.140.

It turns out that there is another IP block of 76.73.85.136/29 hosting a variety of possibly white-label web hosts:

network:Auth-Area:76.73.0.0/17
network:Class-Name:network
network:OrgName:Naeem Nasir
network:OrgID;I:FDC-11211
network:Address:Street number 18 clifton block 8
network:City:Karachi
network:StateProv:Sindh
network:PostalCode:75500
network:Country:PK
network:NetRange:76.73.85.136 - 76.73.85.143
network:CIDR:76.73.85.136/29
network:NetName:FDC-11211-76.73.85.136

The WHOIS details for the IP range don't give a lot of data, but we can also find the same registrant details for the domain sandhost.com:

Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name: Muhammad Naeem Nasir
Registrant Organization:
Registrant Street: Street  18  clifton block 8
Registrant City: Karachi
Registrant State/Province: Sindh
Registrant Postal Code: 75500
Registrant Country: Pakistan
Registrant Phone:
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: naeem.nasir@yahoo.com

The AA419 database shows several hits for this email address going back to 2011, so it seems that whoever this Pakistani web host is, they have been tolerating this activity on their network for several years, even if they are just providing hosting services rather than perpetrating fraud.

Conclusion

I really just skimmed the surface with my analysis here, but it is clear that the 64.20.51.16/29 block is being used almost exclusively for fraud. Moreover, the fraud is extremely sophisticated involving things like fake business registries and couriers. It is also clear that the Pakistani web hosts apparently providing these services have been doing so for some time.

Recommended blocklist:
64.20.51.16/29
76.73.85.136/29
185.24.233.16