Review of TrickBot: A pernicious crimeware tool

Trickbot is an important type of malware developed for a banking Trojan. Developed in 2016, the malware is one of the latest banking Trojans, and several of its original characteristics have been inspired by Dyreza. As well as targeting a wide range of international banks via its web injects, Trickbot can also steal from Bitcoin wallets.

TrickBot comes in units along with a configuration file. Each module has a particular job like obtaining persistence, proliferation, stealing credentials, encryption, and so on. The endpoint user does not experience any symptoms of a Trickbot contagion. Nevertheless, a network admin is expected to see amendments in traffic or efforts to get to banned IPs and domains.

How do you know if you have been infected by Trickbot?

Stealing your online bank login credentials is not only quite bad, but Trickbot can also stake out other details to obtain access to email accounts, system and network information, tax information and more. The malware can begin spreading junk emails, and this is how it can proliferate to other victims. It is thought to have affected at least 250 million email accounts, and can also install a backdoor to your system so that it can be reached remotely and employed as a part of a botnet.

Currently, Trickbot is particularly a threat to business networks, but it has also been used to attack consumer networks. When aiming at companies, Trickbot’s information stealing abilities are particularly harmful and lucrative.

What can be done to prevent TrickBot infections?

To help prevent Trickbot infections, you should do the following.

• Train workers about social engineering and phishing.

• If there is no policy regarding doubtful emails, consider making one and mention that all doubtful emails should be sent to the security and/or IT departments.

• Spot external emails with a banner signifying it is from an external source. This will help users detect hoaxed emails.

• Apply appropriate fixes and updates shortly after suitable testing.

• Perform filters at the email gateway for emails with known malspam pointers, such as identified malicious subject lines, and block suspicious IP addresses at the firewall.

• To reduce the possibility of hoaxed or revised emails, execute Domain Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) policy and verification, beginning by applying the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and the DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) standards.

• Stick to the principal of least privilege, ensuring that users have the least level of access vital to achieve their duties. Limit administrative IDs to designated administrators.

What if a Trickbot infection is identified?

If a TrickBot infection is recognized, deactivate Internet access at the impacted site to help abate the degree of exfiltration of IDs linked with outside, third-party resources. Also, assess affected subnets to identify multi-homed systems which may unfavorably impact control efforts. In addition, think about briefly taking the network offline to perform identification, avoid reinfections, and stop the proliferation of the malware.

• Recognize, shut down, and take the infected machines off the network.

• Intensify monitoring of SMB communication or complete block it between workplaces, and configure firewall rules to only allow access from recognized administrative servers.

• Evaluate the need to have ports 445 (SMB) open on systems and, if needed, consider restricting connections to only precise, trusted hosts.

• As TrickBot is identified for scraping both domain and local IDs, it is recommended that a network-wide password rearrange take place. This is best done after the systems have been cleaned and moved to the new VLAN. This is recommended so new passwords are not scraped by the malware.

How to remove Trickbot infection

To eliminate Trickbot infection, it’s important to engage a reliable security software, capable of replicating genuine computer processes or files. Thus, trying to find and remove all malware-related files from the computer is a difficult and complex task that might lead to permanent damage to the system. It’s highly recommended that Reimage, SpyHunter 5 or Malwarebytes be installed and properly scan the system aided by one of those security programs. Finally, it must be kept in mind that the malware should be instantly removed because this data-stealing trojan might result in loss of money and other serious privacy-related problems.