From ERMAC to Hook: Investigating the technical differences between two Android malware variants

Authored by Joshua Kamp (main author) and Alberto Segura. Summary Hook and ERMAC are Android based malware families that are both advertised by the actor named “DukeEugene”. Hook is the latest variant to be released by this actor and was first announced at the start of 2023. In this announcement, the actor claims that Hook … Continue reading From ERMAC to Hook: Investigating the technical differences between two Android malware variants →

From ERMAC to Hook: Investigating the technical differences between two Android malware variants

Global Threat Intelligence

Uncategorized

September 11, 2023

23 Minutes

Authored by Joshua Kamp (main author) and Alberto Segura.

Summary

Hook and ERMAC are Android based malware families that are both advertised by the actor named “DukeEugene”. Hook is the latest variant to be released by this actor and was first announced at the start of 2023. In this announcement, the actor claims that Hook was written from scratch [1]. In our research, we have analysed two samples of Hook and two samples of ERMAC to further examine the technical differences between these malware families.

After our investigation, we concluded that the ERMAC source code was used as a base for Hook. All commands (30 in total) that the malware operator can send to a device infected with ERMAC malware, also exist in Hook. The code implementation for these commands is nearly identical. The main features in ERMAC are related to sending SMS messages, displaying a phishing window on top of a legitimate app, extracting a list of installed applications, SMS messages and accounts, and automated stealing of recovery seed phrases for multiple cryptocurrency wallets.

Hook has introduced a lot of new features, with a total of 38 additional commands when comparing the latest version of Hook to ERMAC. The most interesting new features in Hook are: streaming the victim’s screen and interacting with the interface to gain complete control over an infected device, the ability to take a photo of the victim using their front facing camera, stealing of cookies related to Google login sessions, and the added support for stealing recovery seeds from additional cryptocurrency wallets.

Hook had a relatively short run. It was first announced on the 12th of January 2023, and the closing of the project was announced on April 19th, 2023, due to “leaving for special military operation”. On May 11th, 2023, the actors claimed that the source code of Hook was sold at a price of $70.000. If these announcements are true, it could mean that we will see interesting new versions of Hook in the future.

The launch of Hook

On the 12th of January 2023, DukeEugene started advertising a new Android botnet to be available for rent: Hook.

Forum post where DukeEugene first advertised Hook.

Hook malware is designed to steal personal information from its infected users. It contains features such as keylogging, injections/overlay attacks to display phishing windows over (banking) apps (more on this in the “Overlay attacks” section of this blog), and automated stealing of cryptocurrency recovery seeds.

Financial gain seems to be the main motivator for operators that rent Hook, but the malware can be used to spy on its victims as well. Hook is rented out at a cost of $7.000 per month.

Forum post showing the rental price of Hook, along with the claim that it was written from scratch.

The malware was advertised with a wide range of functionality in both the control panel and build itself, and a snippet of this can be seen in the screenshot below.

Some of Hook’s features that were advertised by DukeEugene.

Command comparison

Analyst’s note: The package names and file hashes that were analysed for this research can be found in the “Analysed samples” section at the end of this blog post.

While checking out the differences in these malware families, we compared the C2 commands (instructions that are sent by the malware operator to the infected device) in each sample. This analysis did lead us to find several new commands and features on Hook, as can be seen just looking at the number of commands implemented in each variant.

All 30 commands that exist in ERMAC also exist in Hook. Most of these commands are related to sending SMS messages, updating and starting injections, extracting a list of installed applications, SMS messages and accounts, and starting another app on the victim’s device (where cryptocurrency wallet apps are the main target). While simply launching another app may not seem that malicious at first, you will think differently after learning about the automated features in these malware families.

Automated features in the Hook C2 panel.

Both Hook and ERMAC contain automated functionality for stealing recovery seeds from cryptocurrency wallets. These can be used to gain access to the victim’s cryptocurrency. We will dive deeper into this feature later in the blog.

When comparing Hook to ERMAC, 29 new commands have been added to the first sample of Hook that we analysed, and the latest version of Hook contains 9 additional commands on top of that. Most of the commands that were added in Hook are related to interacting with the user interface (UI).

Hook command: start_vnc

The UI interaction related commands (such as “clickat” to click on a specific UI element and “longpress” to dispatch a long press gesture) in Hook go hand in hand with the new “start_vnc” command, which starts streaming the victim’s screen.

A decompiled method that is called after the “start_vnc” command is received by the bot.

In the code snippet above we can see that the createScreenCaptureIntent() method is called on the MediaProjectionManager, which is necessary to start screen capture on the device. Along with the many commands to interact with the UI, this allows the malware operator to gain complete control over an infected device and perform actions on the victim’s behalf.

Controls for the malware operator related to the “start_vnc” command.*

Command implementation

For the commands that are available in both ERMAC and Hook, the code implementation is nearly identical. Take the “logaccounts” command for example:

Decompiled code that is related to the “logaccounts” command in ERMAC and Hook.

This command is used to obtain a list of available accounts by their name and type on the victim’s device. When comparing the code, it’s clear that the logging messages are the main difference. This is the case for all commands that are present in both ERMAC and Hook.

Russian commands

Both ERMAC and the Hook v1 sample that we analysed contain some rather edgy commands in Russian, that do not provide any useful functionality.

Decompiled code which contains Russian text in ERMAC and first versions of Hook.

The command above translates to “Die_he_who_reversed_this“.

All the Russian commands create a file named “system.apk” in the “apk” directory and immediately deletes it. It appears that the authors have recently adapted their approach to managing a reputable business, as these commands were removed in the latest Hook sample that we analysed.

New commands in Hook V2

In the latest versions of Hook, the authors have added 9 additional commands compared to the first Hook sample that we analysed. These commands are:

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*Original source*