How Did I Find APT16 New Infa with VirusTotal pDNS and a lil Bit of Luck

Posted: January 25th, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: IT Related | Tags: , | No Comments »

[Quick and short update]

Last couple of weeks, I was reading the The EPS Awakens – Part 2 blog entry from FireEye and found this one IP, 121.127.249.74, was previously used as their C2 server. I used VirusTotal IP information, these few domains appeared:

2015-07-01 frppl.com
2015-07-01 jrjfj.com
2015-07-01 pjntx.com
2015-07-01 vzflx.com
2015-07-01 yeaqm.com

I went and check more information on each domain listed and found new infra (IPs) being used:

frppl.com domain information
2015-12-21 123.60.73.10
2015-07-01 121.127.249.74
 
jrjfj.com domain information
2015-12-21 123.60.73.8
2015-07-01 121.127.249.74
 
pjntx.com domain information
2015-12-28 123.60.73.9
2015-07-01 121.127.249.74
 
yeaqm.com domain information
2015-12-27 123.60.73.6
2015-07-01 121.127.249.74

I quickly check the server HTTP response header and this is what I’ve found that they are all the same:

HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden
Server: nginx/1.6.2
Date: (current time of check)
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 168
Connection: keep-alive

Okay, we already have 123.60.73.6, 123.60.73.8, 123.60.73.9, 123.60.73.10. Lets just quickly perform the HTTP response header loop for the whole /24 subnet (or maybeee i lil bit more). This is the result:

123.60.73.1
123.60.73.2
123.60.73.3
123.60.73.4
123.60.73.5
123.60.73.6
123.60.73.7
123.60.73.8
123.60.73.9
123.60.73.10
123.60.73.11
123.60.73.12
123.60.73.13
123.60.73.14
123.60.73.15
123.60.73.16
123.60.73.17
123.60.73.18
123.60.73.19
123.60.73.21
123.60.73.22
123.60.73.23
123.60.73.24
123.60.73.25
123.60.73.26
123.60.73.27
123.60.73.28
123.60.73.29
123.60.73.30
123.60.73.31
123.60.73.32
123.60.73.33
123.60.73.34
123.60.73.35
123.60.73.36
123.60.73.37
123.60.73.38
123.60.73.39
123.60.73.40
123.60.73.41
123.60.73.42
123.60.73.43
123.60.73.44
123.60.73.45
123.60.73.46
123.60.73.47
123.60.73.48
123.60.73.49
123.60.73.50
123.60.73.51
123.60.73.52
123.60.73.53
123.60.73.54
123.60.73.55
123.60.73.56
123.60.73.57
123.60.73.58
123.60.73.59
123.60.73.60
123.60.73.61
123.60.74.1
123.60.74.2
123.60.74.3
123.60.74.4
123.60.74.5
123.60.74.6
123.60.74.7
123.60.74.8
123.60.74.9
123.60.74.10
123.60.74.11
123.60.74.12
123.60.74.13
123.60.74.14
123.60.74.15
123.60.74.16
123.60.74.17
123.60.74.18
123.60.74.19
123.60.74.20
123.60.74.21
123.60.74.22
123.60.74.23
123.60.74.24
123.60.74.25
123.60.74.26
123.60.74.27
123.60.74.28
123.60.74.29
123.60.74.30
123.60.74.31
123.60.74.32
123.60.74.33
123.60.74.34
123.60.74.35
123.60.74.36
123.60.74.37
123.60.74.38
123.60.74.39
123.60.74.40
123.60.74.41
123.60.74.42
123.60.74.43
123.60.74.44
123.60.74.45
123.60.74.46
123.60.74.47
123.60.74.48
123.60.74.49
123.60.74.50
123.60.74.51
123.60.74.52
123.60.74.53
123.60.74.54
123.60.74.55
123.60.74.56
123.60.74.57
123.60.74.58
123.60.74.59
123.60.74.60
123.60.74.61

Okay i’m running out of time, my kids are waiting for me outside.

From my quick check on the domain resolved to the IP range 123.60.73.1 – 123.60.73.61 , I can safely assume that those are APT16 new infra. But I not really confident to attribute 123.60.74.1 – 123.60.74.61, but those IPs in that range, and domains revolved to that range, are fishy!

Happy hunting