E-Card Remote Code Execution Scam

From: Jonathan A. Zdziarski (jonathanat_private)
Date: Sat Sep 28 2002 - 02:25:12 PDT

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    This seems an aweful lot to me like a Remote Code Execution Scam...
    
    I received an email addressed to "Undisclosed Recipients" notifying me
    that I received an E-Card today, so I went to the site
    http://www.surprisecards.net/viewcard.htm?id_num=[Undisclosed]&card=Pick
    +up to view the card.  Oddly, I received a security warning asking me if
    I wanted to allow some code to run on my machine.  Noticing the odd
    choice of form variables as opposed to other e-card sites (not to
    mention the fact that I could type in any number and get the same
    screen), and with an eyebrow now raised I went to the main website
    http://www.surprisecards.net to find "Welcome to the future home of
    richardoliver.web.aplus.net".  So I figure, if there's no way to send a
    card from this website then chances are nobody sent me a valid card.
    
    I took a look at the Thawte certificate for the card viewer "code" and
    got www.cytron.com, some no-name development website with nothing more
    than a phone number.
    
    At the moment I'm not in front of any sacrificial machine to test the
    card out on, but I suspect this email is being mailed out as a scam in
    an attempt to run arbitrary code on the user's machine using a valid
    Thawte certificate.  What the code does when it loads I've no idea as
    I'm not dumb enough to try it on my home machine.
    
    In summary, my suspicion that this is the case is based on the
    following:
    
    1. The email was from egreetingsat_private, yet was not redirecting me
    to a yahoo site.  (It was in fact coming from a yahoo mail server
    though).  
    
    2. The email was NOT from surprisecard.net
    
    3. The email was addressed to undisclosed recipients
    
    4. There is no medium for sending cards from this site
    
    5. www.cytron.com has no credible information about any card reader
    product or even the company.
    
    Perhaps someone in front of some extra hardware can take this and roll
    with it.
    
    
    
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