Mongolian Certificate Authority Hacked to Distribute Backdoored CA Software
Jul 02, 2021
In yet another instance of software supply chain attack, unidentified hackers breached the website of MonPass , one of Mongolia's major certificate authorities, to backdoor its installer software with Cobalt Strike binaries. The trojanized client was available for download between February 8, 2021, and March 3, 2021, said Czech cybersecurity software company Avast in a report published Thursday. In addition, a public webserver hosted by MonPass was infiltrated potentially as many as eight separate times, with the researchers uncovering eight different web shells and backdoors on the compromised server. Avast's investigation into the incident began after it discovered the backdoored installer and the implant on one of its customers' systems. "The malicious installer is an unsigned [Portable Executable] file," the researchers said. "It starts by downloading the legitimate version of the installer from the MonPass official website. This legitimate versi...