Oracle WebLogic application server is vulnerable to cryptocurrency mining.The security researcher has found this exploit to mine monero coins in the compromised machine.
This critical bug allows hackers to run arbitrary commands with WebLogic server with user privileges.
The vulnerability (CVE 2017-10271) was present in the WebLogic Web Services component (wls-wsat) and due to lack of improperly user input sanitizing which allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to install and run crypto miners and hijacking their processing power to mine Monero coins makes the spike in CPU usage.
The attackers begun using Chinese security researcher Lian Zhang published a proof-of-concept exploit in December, says Johannes Ullrich, dean of research for SANS Technology Institute.
Also Read: CoffeeMiner – Hacking into WiFi Networks to Inject Cryptocurrency Miners
Ullrich explains Crypto mining relies on lots of processing power generated by computers, servers, and even mobile devices, to mine cryptocurrency.
The attackers use Dropper script which checks for the Web Services while accessing the URL <HOST>/wls-wsat/CoordinatorPortType, then dropped script download the miner and executes it.intentionally kills the Weblogic service on the target.check figure
The script downloads the miner and executes it and intentionally kills the Weblogic service on the target.
The attackers using this exploit to launch crypto miners on PeopleSoft, WebLogic app servers and Amazon cloud environments that were tied to WebLogic app servers, Ullrich says
According to Ullrich, the miner software being used in the campaign is xmrig, which is a legitimate crypto coin miner for Monero.
According to SANS threat list cryptocurrencies, miners in your network can be found out by correlating the network traffic which contains IP addresses.
Ullrich said finally “It is very likely that more sophisticated attackers used this to gain a persistent foothold on the system. In this case, the only ‘persistence’ we noticed was the CRON job. But there are many more – and more difficult to detect – ways to gain persistence.”
The indicators for this specific campaign includes:
IOCs (Indicators of Compromise)
Network
Hashes (MD5) Monero Miner
