BlackBerry Prevents: Ficker Infostealer Malware

Ficker is a malicious information-stealer that is sold and distributed on underground Russian online forums by a threat actor using the alias @ficker. This Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) was first uncovered in the wild in mid-2020.

Ficker is distributed via Trojanized web-links and compromised websites. For example, it could direct victims to pages purporting to offer free downloads of legitimate paid services like Spotify and YouTube Premium. It has also recently been deployed via the known malware downloader, Hancitor.

Notably written in Rust, Ficker aims to steal several types of information, including information on the user’s web browsers, credit card information, crypto wallets, FTP clients, and other applications. Along with anti-analysis checks, the malware can also deploy further functionality and download additional malware once a system is successfully compromised.

The BlackBerry Research & Intelligence Team has analyzed the attack methods used by this threat, and in addition to recommending basic cyber hygiene steps, strongly urges BlackBerry customers to ensure their systems have the following BlackBerry® Cyber Suite components enabled with a blocking policy to detect threats that trigger the specific rule noted below. 

BlackBerry Cyber Suite and BlackBerry Guard stop these attacks.

BlackBerry customers can feel confident that our AI-driven BlackBerry Cyber Suite, as well as our Managed Detection & Response (MDR) solution BlackBerry® Guard, are all well-equipped to mitigate the risks posed by threat actors:

• BlackBerry® Protect provides automated malware prevention, application and script control, memory protection, and device policy enforcement.
• BlackBerry® Optics extends the threat prevention by using artificial intelligence (AI) to prevent security incidents. It provides true AI incident prevention, root cause analysis, smart threat hunting, and automated detection and response capabilities.
  • BlackBerry recommends the following BlackBerry Optics rule be activated to provide additional telemetry from a Ficker malware attack: 
    • Unsigned Application Network Beaconing
• The BlackBerry Mobile Threat Defense (MTD) solution prevents and detects advanced malicious threats at the device and application levels. It combines the mobile endpoint management capabilities of BlackBerry® Unified Endpoint Manager (UEM) with advanced AI-driven threat protection, to get in front of malicious cyberattacks in a Zero Trust environment.
• BlackBerry® Persona creates trust based on behavior analytics, app usage, and network and process invocation patterns. It uses adaptive risk scoring to provide continuous authentication.
• BlackBerry Guard customers are proactively protected from Ficker malware attacks. Our 24/7 MDR solution customers receive: 
  • Alerts monitored in real-time 
  • Corrective policies applied while discovering gaps in policy implementation 
  • Prioritized threat hunting 
  • The latest threat intelligence for fast-moving threats 

Prevention First

At BlackBerry, we take a prevention-first and AI-driven approach to cybersecurity. Putting prevention first neutralizes malware before the exploitation stage of the kill-chain.

By stopping malware at this stage, BlackBerry® solutions help organizations increase their resilience. It also helps reduce infrastructure complexity and streamline security management to ensure that your business, people, and endpoints are secure.

BlackBerry Assistance

The BlackBerry Incident Response team can work with organizations of any size and across any vertical, to evaluate and enhance their endpoint security posture and proactively maintain the security, integrity, and resilience of their network infrastructure.

For emergency assistance, please email us at DLIR@blackberry.com, or use our handraiser form.

Learn more about the latest cybersecurity threats and threat actors in the BlackBerry 2021 Annual Threat Report.