New YTStealer Malware Aims to Hijack Accounts of YouTube Content Creators

Cybersecurity researchers have documented a new facts-thieving malware that targets YouTube material creators by plundering their authentication cookies.

Dubbed “YTStealer” by Intezer, the destructive software is probable believed to be marketed as a company on the dark web, with it dispersed using fake installers that also fall RedLine Stealer and Vidar.

“What sets YTStealer aside from other stealers bought on the dark web marketplace is that it is exclusively concentrated on harvesting credentials for a person one provider as an alternative of grabbing every little thing it can get ahold of,” security researcher Joakim Kenndy claimed in a report shared with The Hacker Information.

The malware’s modus operandi, however, mirrors its counterparts in that it extracts the cookie information from the web browser’s databases documents in the user’s profile folder. The reasoning provided driving targeting information creators is that it makes use of just one of the put in browsers on the infected device to assemble YouTube channel data.

It achieves this by launching the browser in headless method and incorporating the cookie to the information retailer, followed by employing a web automation software referred to as Rod to navigate to the user’s YouTube Studio web page, which enables material creators to “manage your existence, expand your channel, interact with your viewers, and make funds all in one particular location.”

From there, the malware captures data about the user’s channels, including the identify, the number of subscribers, and its generation day, alongside examining if it is monetized, an official artist channel, and if the identify has been verified, all of which is exfiltrated to a distant server carrying the domain name “youbot[.]remedies.”

A different noteworthy part of YTStealer is its use of the open-supply Chacal “anti-VM framework” in an attempt to thwart debugging and memory assessment.

Even further evaluation of the area has exposed that it was registered on December 12, 2021, and that it truly is possibly related to a software program company of the exact same identify that is found in the U.S. point out of New Mexico and promises to offer “one of a kind answers for acquiring and monetizing qualified site visitors.”

That reported, open up-source intelligence collected by Intezer has also connected the emblem of the meant enterprise to a person account on an Iranian video clip-sharing provider named Aparat.

A bulk of the dropper payloads offering YTStealer together with RedLine Stealer are packaged below the guise of installers for respectable movie enhancing computer software such as Adobe Premiere Pro, Filmora, and HitFilm Specific audio tools like Ableton Live 11 and FL Studio match mods for Counter-Strike: International Offensive and Phone of Duty and cracked versions of security items.

“YTStealer doesn’t discriminate about what qualifications it steals,” Kenndy reported. “On the dark web, the ‘quality’ of stolen account qualifications influences the inquiring

price tag, so accessibility to a lot more influential Youtube channels would command higher costs.”

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Some pieces of this article are sourced from:
thehackernews.com