This sneaky credit card stealer hides within payment processors to avoid security scans

A sneaky new credit card stealer has been discovered hiding in places that are difficult to scan, and thus managing to steal payment information without triggering any alarms.

A report from cybersecurity experts Sucuri notes how it stumbled upon the malware when called in to investigate an “unusual infection” at one of its clients’ payment endpoints.

As it turns out, the malware was hiding in the site's WooCommerce payment gateway module called Authorize.net, which process payment details on checkout. As this module works after the user submits data at checkout, cybersecurity solutions have a harder time detecting potentially malicious code hiding within. 

No vulnerabilities

Usually, threat actors would inject malicious code into the HTML of the store of customer checkout pages. The code would then grab the data being inputted during checkout - giving hackers access to sensitive data such as full credit card numbers, CVV numbers, expiration dates, phone numbers, email addresses, and other important information. 

But today’s cybersecurity solutions can scan the HTML code for malware and thus keep the ecommerce sites safe. 

That’s why this creative malware developer turned to the Authorize.net payment processing system. Apparently, it is currently being used by more than 400,000 merchants all over the world. 

But the WordPress ecommerce plugin WooCommerce, or the Authorize.net payment gateway, are not flawed, and do not carry any vulnerabilities, Sucuri stressed. 

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“Overall they are both robust and secure payment platforms that are perfectly safe to use. Instead, this article highlights the importance of maintaining good security posture and keeping environments locked down to prevent tampering from threat actors.” 

“Just like any other piece of software, if malicious actors compromise an environment they can tamper with existing controls,” they concluded.

To remain secure, businesses are advised to leverage file integrity monitoring, keep a close eye on modified files, and urged to “take every possible avenue to keep the attackers at bay.”

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Via: BleepingComputer