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Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 reported that multiple malware families, including Dyreza, abused the Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN) protocol to discover public IP addresses and blend malicious traffic into communications commonly permitted for VoIP, messaging, and video services. The researchers said the investigation was prompted by earlier reporting on Dyreza and expanded through WildFire telemetry, which showed that STUN misuse was not isolated to a single threat family.
The analysis found notable spikes in malicious STUN activity across 2014 and identified two non-Dyreza-associated servers—stun.qvod.com and stun.qq.com—as the dominant destinations, with stun.qvod.com accounting for 4,705 samples, or about 75% of the extended-list total. Unit 42 also observed a sharp drop in QVOD-related STUN traffic around April that likely aligned with the service's shutdown, followed by a later increase in Dyreza-linked STUN use as the banking trojan incorporated the capability, underscoring how attackers were adopting legitimate network protocols to conceal command-and-control activity.
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Palo Alto Networks' WildFire telemetry showed notable spikes in malware using the STUN protocol in January, March, and again from July through September 2014, depending on the server set analyzed. The activity involved multiple malware families rather than Dyreza alone.
The analysis notes a sharp decline in malware STUN traffic tied to QVOD-related servers around April 2014, which it says likely correlates with the shutdown of the Qvod service. This marked a reduction in abuse involving stun.qvod.com.
After a Stop Malvertising report on Dyreza prompted further investigation, Palo Alto Networks analyzed WildFire telemetry and found several malware families abusing STUN. The report highlighted stun.qvod.com and stun.qq.com as the dominant servers in observed malicious STUN traffic, with stun.qvod.com accounting for 4,705 samples.
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