XMRig | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Security researchers have shed more light on the cryptocurrency mining operation conducted by the 8220 Gang by exploiting known security flaws in the Oracle WebLogic Server. "The threat actor employs fileless execution techniques, using DLL reflective and process injection, allowing the malware code to run solely in memory and avoid disk-based detection mechanisms," Trend Micro researchers Ahmed Mohamed Ibrahim, Shubham Singh, and Sunil Bharti said in a new analysis published today. The cybersecurity firm is tracking the financially motivated actor under the name Water Sigbin, which is known to weaponize vulnerabilities in Oracle WebLogic Server such as CVE-2017-3506 , CVE- 2017-10271 , and CVE-2023-21839 for initial access and drop the miner payload via a multi-stage loading technique. A successful foothold is followed by the deployment of PowerShell script that's responsible for dropping a first-stage loader ("wireguard2-3.exe") that mimics the legiti...

The threat actors behind the RedTail cryptocurrency mining malware have added a recently disclosed security flaw impacting Palo Alto Networks firewalls to its exploit arsenal. The addition of the PAN-OS vulnerability to its toolkit has been complemented by updates to the malware, which now incorporates new anti-analysis techniques, according to findings from web infrastructure and security company Akamai. "The attackers have taken a step forward by employing private crypto-mining pools for greater control over mining outcomes despite the increased operational and financial costs," security researchers Ryan Barnett, Stiv Kupchik, and Maxim Zavodchik said in a technical report shared with The Hacker News. The infection sequence discovered by Akamai exploits a now-patched vulnerability in PAN-OS tracked as CVE-2024-3400 (CVSS score: 10.0) that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code with root privileges on the firewall. A successful exploitatio...

Vulnerability Management (VM) has long been a cornerstone of organizational cybersecurity. Nearly as old as the discipline of cybersecurity itself, it aims to help organizations identify and address potential security issues before they become serious problems. Yet, in recent years, the limitations of this approach have become increasingly evident.  At its core, Vulnerability Management processes remain essential for identifying and addressing weaknesses. But as time marches on and attack avenues evolve, this approach is beginning to show its age. In a recent report, How to Grow Vulnerability Management into Exposure Management (Gartner, How to Grow Vulnerability Management Into Exposure Management, 8 November 2024, Mitchell Schneider Et Al.), we believe Gartner® addresses this point precisely and demonstrates how organizations can – and must – shift from a vulnerability-centric strategy to a broader Exposure Management (EM) framework. We feel it's more than a worthwhile read an...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new cryptojacking campaign that employs vulnerable drivers to disable known security solutions (EDRs) and thwart detection in what's called a Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver ( BYOVD ) attack. Elastic Security Labs is tracking the campaign under the name REF4578 and the primary payload as GHOSTENGINE. Previous research from Chinese cybersecurity firm Antiy Labs has codenamed the activity as HIDDEN SHOVEL. "GHOSTENGINE leverages vulnerable drivers to terminate and delete known EDR agents that would likely interfere with the deployed and well-known coin miner," Elastic researchers Salim Bitam, Samir Bousseaden, Terrance DeJesus, and Andrew Pease said . "This campaign involved an uncommon amount of complexity to ensure both the installation and persistence of the XMRig miner." It all starts with an executable file ("Tiworker.exe"), which is used to run a PowerShell script that retrieves an obfuscated Power...

A new malware campaign has been exploiting the updating mechanism of the eScan antivirus software to distribute backdoors and cryptocurrency miners like XMRig through a long-standing threat codenamed GuptiMiner targeting large corporate networks. Cybersecurity firm Avast said the activity is the work of a threat actor with possible connections to a North Korean hacking group dubbed  Kimsuky , which is also known as Black Banshee, Emerald Sleet, and TA427. "GuptiMiner is a highly sophisticated threat that uses an interesting infection chain along with a couple of techniques that include performing DNS requests to the attacker's DNS servers, performing sideloading, extracting payloads from innocent-looking images, signing its payloads with a custom trusted root anchor certification authority, among others," Avast  said . The intricate and elaborate infection chain, at its core, leverages a security shortcoming in the update mechanism of Indian antivi...

A novel malware campaign has been observed targeting Redis servers for initial access with the ultimate goal of mining cryptocurrency on compromised Linux hosts. "This particular campaign involves the use of a number of novel system weakening techniques against the data store itself," Cado security researcher Matt Muir  said  in a technical report. The cryptojacking attack is facilitated by a malware codenamed Migo, a Golang ELF binary that comes fitted with compile-time obfuscation and the ability to persist on Linux machines. The cloud security company said it detected the campaign after it identified an "unusual series of commands" targeting its Redis honeypots that are engineered to lower security defenses by disabling the following configuration options - protected-mode   replica-read-only aof-rewrite-incremental-fsync , and rdb-save-incremental-fsync It's suspected that these options are turned off in order to send additional commands to the Re...

Exposed Docker API endpoints over the internet are under assault from a sophisticated cryptojacking campaign called  Commando Cat . "The campaign deploys a benign container generated using the  Commando project ," Cado security researchers Nate Bill and Matt Muir  said  in a new report published today. "The attacker  escapes this container  and runs multiple payloads on the Docker host." The campaign is believed to have been active since the start of 2024, making it the second such campaign to be discovered in as many months. In mid-January, the cloud security firm also shed light on  another activity cluster  that targets vulnerable Docker hosts to deploy XMRig cryptocurrency miner as well as the 9Hits Viewer software. Commando Cat employs Docker as an initial access vector to deliver a collection of interdependent payloads from an actor-controlled server that is responsible for registering persistence, backdooring the host, exfiltrating clou...

A pair of recently disclosed zero-day flaws in Ivanti Connect Secure (ICS) virtual private network (VPN) devices have been exploited to deliver a Rust-based payload called  KrustyLoader  that's used to drop the open-source Sliver adversary simulation tool. The  security vulnerabilities , tracked as CVE-2023-46805 (CVSS score: 8.2) and CVE-2024-21887 (CVSS score: 9.1), could be abused in tandem to achieve unauthenticated remote code execution on susceptible appliances. As of January 26,  patches for the two flaws  have been delayed, although the software company has released a temporary mitigation through an XML file. Volexity, which first shed light on the shortcomings, said they have been weaponized as zero-days since December 3, 2023, by a Chinese nation-state threat actor it tracks under the name UTA0178. Google-owned Mandiant has assigned the moniker UNC5221 to the group. Following public disclosure earlier this month, the vulnerabilities have  co...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Friday issued an  emergency directive  urging Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies to implement mitigations against two actively exploited zero-day flaws in Ivanti Connect Secure (ICS) and Ivanti Policy Secure (IPS) products. The development arrives as the  vulnerabilities  – an authentication bypass (CVE-2023-46805) and a code injection bug (CVE-2024-21887) – have come under widespread exploitation by multiple threat actors. The flaws allow a malicious actor to craft malicious requests and execute arbitrary commands on the system. The U.S. company  acknowledged  in an advisory that it has witnessed a "sharp increase in threat actor activity" starting on January 11, 2024, after the shortcomings were publicly disclosed. "Successful exploitation of the vulnerabilities in these affected products allows a malicious threat actor to move laterally, perform data exfiltration, and...

Vulnerable Docker services are being targeted by a novel campaign in which the threat actors are deploying XMRig cryptocurrency miner as well as the 9Hits Viewer software as part of a multi-pronged monetization strategy. "This is the first documented case of malware deploying the 9Hits application as a payload," cloud security firm Cado said , adding the development is a sign that adversaries are always on the lookout for diversifying their strategies to make money off compromised hosts. 9Hits advertises itself as a "unique web traffic solution" and an "automatic traffic exchange" that allows members of the service to drive traffic to their sites in exchange for purchasing credits. This is accomplished by means of a software called 9Hits Viewer, which runs a headless Chrome browser instance to visit websites requested by other members, for which they earn credits to pay for generating traffic to their sites. The exact method used to spread the malwa...

A new Mirai-based botnet called  NoaBot  is being used by threat actors as part of a crypto mining campaign since the beginning of 2023. "The capabilities of the new botnet, NoaBot, include a wormable self-spreader and an SSH key backdoor to download and execute additional binaries or spread itself to new victims," Akamai security researcher Stiv Kupchik said in a report shared with The Hacker News. Mirai , which had its source code leaked in 2016, has been the progenitor of a number of botnets, the most recent being  InfectedSlurs , which is capable of mounting distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. There are indications that NoaBot could be linked to another botnet campaign involving a Rust-based malware family known as  P2PInfect , which recently received an update to target routers and IoT devices. This is based on the fact that threat actors have also experimented with dropping P2PInfect in place of NoaBot in recent attacks targeting SSH servers, i...