Security researchers observed the “AnarchyGrabber3” malware modifying the Discord client to steal its victims’ plaintext passwords.

As reported by Bleeping Computer, a threat actor released a new version of the AnarchyGrabber malware family called “AnarchyGrabber3.” This Trojan variant modified a Discord client’s %AppData%\Discord\[version]\modules\discord_desktop_core\index.js file upon successful installation so it could load JavaScript files. It first loaded inject.js, a script that then called in discordmod.js. Together, these two scripts logged the victim out of the client and prompted them to reauthenticate themselves.

The modified client preyed upon its victims by attempting to disable two-factor authentication (2FA) on their accounts. It then stole various information from the victim including their login name, email address and even their plaintext password. Simultaneously, the client listened for commands sent by the attacker. One of those orders instructed the client to send a message to a victim account’s friends, thereby helping to spread the malware to even more Discord users.

A Look Back at AnarchyGrabber

The emergence of AnarachyGrabber3 marks the latest development in a still-nascent family of malware. It was back in November 2019 when security researchers such as MalwareHunterTeam first spotted the malware using a Discord webhook to steal victims’ tokens and send them off to its handlers. In April 2020, Bleeping Computer learned of a new variant of the threat that modified the Discord client so that it could evade detection while stealing user accounts.

Defend Against an Infostealing Discord Client

AnarchyGrabber highlights the dangers of users reusing their passwords across multiple accounts. If the malware preyed upon employees who had reused their Discord passwords across multiple sites, for instance, attackers could authenticate themselves on these services and abuse that access to commit identity theft, perpetrate credit fraud or conduct a series of other secondary attacks.

In light of those risks, security professionals should lead the charge in their organizations to discourage users from reusing their passwords. They should leverage ongoing security awareness training to teach the workforce about this security best practice. Simultaneously, teams should augment their employees’ account security by requiring them to activate multifactor authentication (MFA) whenever it’s an available option. Threats such as AnarchyGrabber3 might attempt to disable that layer of protection, but they might not be successful. This feature could also help to safeguard employees’ account access when confronted by less sophisticated threats.

More from

Data never dies: The immortal battle of data privacy

4 min read - More than two hundred years ago, Benjamin Franklin said there is nothing certain but death and taxes. If Franklin were alive today, he would add one more certainty to his list: your digital profile. Between the data compiled and stored by employers, private businesses, government agencies and social media sites, the personal information of nearly every single individual is anywhere and everywhere. When someone dies, that data becomes the responsibility of the estate; but what happens to the privacy rights…

Vulnerability resolution enhanced by integrations

2 min read - Why speed is of the essence in today's cybersecurity landscape? How are you quickly achieving vulnerability resolution? Identifying vulnerabilities should be part of the daily process within an organization. It's an important piece of maintaining an organization’s security posture. However, the complicated nature of modern technologies — and the pace of change — often make vulnerability management a challenging task. In the past, many organizations had to support manual integration work to get different security systems to ‘talk’ to each…

How I got started: SIEM engineer

3 min read - As careers in cybersecurity become increasingly more specialized, Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) engineers are playing a more prominent role. These professionals are like forensic specialists but are also on the front lines protecting sensitive information from the relentless onslaught of cyber threats. SIEM engineers meticulously monitor, analyze and manage security events and incidents within an organization. They leverage SIEM tools to aggregate and correlate data, enabling them to detect anomalies, identify potential threats and respond swiftly to security…

Tequila OS 2.0: The first forensic Linux distribution in Latin America

3 min read - Incident response teams are stretched thin, and the threats are only intensifying. But new tools are helping bridge the gap for cybersecurity pros in Latin America. IBM Security X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2023 found that 12% of the security incidents X-force responded to were in Latin America. In comparison, 31% were in the Asia-Pacific, followed by Europe with 28%, North America with 25% and the Middle East with 4%. In the Latin American region, Brazil had 67% of incidents that…