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A new variant of the notorious Mirai botnet has been found leveraging several security vulnerabilities to propagate itself to Linux and IoT devices. Observed during the second half of 2022, the new version has been dubbed V3G4 by Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, which identified three different campaigns likely conducted by the same threat actor. […]
The first-ever Linux variant of the Clop ransomware has been detected in the wild, but with a faulty encryption algorithm that has made it possible to reverse engineer the process. “The ELF executable contains a flawed encryption algorithm making it possible to decrypt locked files without paying the ransom,” SentinelOne researcher Antonis Terefos said in […]
A new Linux malware developed using the shell script compiler (shc) has been observed deploying a cryptocurrency miner on compromised systems. “It is presumed that after successful authentication through a dictionary attack on inadequately managed Linux SSH servers, various malware were installed on the target system,” AhnLab Security Emergency Response Center (ASEC) said in a […]
WordPress sites are being targeted by a previously unknown strain of Linux malware that exploits flaws in over two dozen plugins and themes to compromise vulnerable systems. “If sites use outdated versions of such add-ons, lacking crucial fixes, the targeted web pages are injected with malicious JavaScripts,” Russian security vendor Doctor Web said in a […]
A cryptocurrency mining attack targeting the Linux operating system also involved the use of an open source remote access trojan (RAT) dubbed CHAOS. The threat, which was spotted by Trend Micro in November 2022, remains virtually unchanged in all other aspects, including when it comes to terminating competing malware, security software, and deploying the Monero […]
A new piece of stealthy Linux malware called Shikitega has been uncovered adopting a multi-stage infection chain to compromise endpoints and IoT devices and deposit additional payloads. “An attacker can gain full control of the system, in addition to the cryptocurrency miner that will be executed and set to persist,” AT&T Alien Labs said in […]
Details of an eight-year-old security vulnerability in the Linux kernel have emerged that the researchers say is “as nasty as Dirty Pipe.” Dubbed DirtyCred by a group of academics from Northwestern University, the security weakness exploits a previously unknown flaw (CVE-2022-2588) to escalate privileges to the maximum level. “DirtyCred is a kernel exploitation concept that […]
A never-before-seen Linux malware has been dubbed a “Swiss Army Knife” for its modular architecture and its capability to install rootkits. This previously undetected Linux threat, called Lightning Framework by Intezer, is equipped with a plethora of features, making it one of the most intricate frameworks developed for targeting Linux systems. “The framework has both […]
Cybersecurity researchers have taken the wraps off a new and entirely undetected Linux threat dubbed OrBit, signally a growing trend of malware attacks geared towards the popular operating system. The malware gets its name from one of the filenames that’s utilized to temporarily store the output of executed commands (“/tmp/.orbit”), according to cybersecurity firm Intezer. […]
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) this week moved to add a Linux vulnerability dubbed PwnKit to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. The issue, tracked as CVE-2021-4034 (CVSS score: 7.8), came to light in January 2022 and concerns a case of local privilege escalation in polkit’s pkexec utility, […]
A new Golang-based peer-to-peer (P2P) botnet has been spotted actively targeting Linux servers in the education sector since its emergence in March 2022. Dubbed Panchan by Akamai Security Research, the malware “utilizes its built-in concurrency features to maximize spreadability and execute malware modules” and “harvests SSH keys to perform lateral movement.” The feature-packed botnet, which […]
Windows and Linux systems are being targeted by a ransomware variant called HelloXD, with the infections also involving the deployment of a backdoor to facilitate persistent remote access to infected hosts. “Unlike other ransomware groups, this ransomware family doesn’t have an active leak site; instead it prefers to direct the impacted victim to negotiations through […]
Cybersecurity researchers have taken the wraps off what they call a “nearly-impossible-to-detect” Linux malware that could be weaponized to backdoor infected systems. Dubbed Symbiote by threat intelligence firms BlackBerry and Intezer, the stealthy malware is so named for its ability to conceal itself within running processes and network traffic and drain a victim’s resources like […]
A nascent Linux-based botnet named Enemybot has expanded its capabilities to include recently disclosed security vulnerabilities in its arsenal to target web servers, Android devices, and content management systems (CMS). “The malware is rapidly adopting one-day vulnerabilities as part of its exploitation capabilities,” AT&T Alien Labs said in a technical write-up published last week. “Services […]
Microsoft on Tuesday disclosed a set of two privilege escalation vulnerabilities in the Linux operating system that could potentially allow threat actors to carry out an array of nefarious activities. Collectively called “Nimbuspwn,” the flaws “can be chained together to gain root privileges on Linux systems, allowing attackers to deploy payloads, like a root backdoor, […]
The recently disclosed critical Spring4Shell vulnerability is being actively exploited by threat actors to execute the Mirai botnet malware, particularly in the Singapore region since the start of April 2022. “The exploitation allows threat actors to download the Mirai sample to the ‘/tmp’ folder and execute them after permission change using ‘chmod,’” Trend Micro researchers […]
Muhstik, a botnet infamous for propagating via web application exploits, has been observed targeting Redis servers using a recently disclosed vulnerability in the database system. The vulnerability relates to CVE-2022-0543, a Lua sandbox escape flaw in the open-source, in-memory, key-value data store that could be abused to achieve remote code execution on the underlying machine. […]
A financially motivated threat actor has been observed deploying a previously unknown rootkit targeting Oracle Solaris systems with the goal of compromising Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) switching networks and carrying out unauthorized cash withdrawals at different banks using fraudulent cards. Threat intelligence and incident response firm Mandiant is tracking the cluster under the moniker UNC2891, […]
A previously undocumented backdoor has been observed targeting Linux systems with the goal of corralling the machines into a botnet and acting as a conduit for downloading and installing rootkits. Qihoo 360’s Netlab security team called it B1txor20 “based on its propagation using the file name ‘b1t,’ the XOR encryption algorithm, and the RC4 algorithm […]
Details have emerged about a now-patched high-severity vulnerability in the Linux kernel that could potentially be abused to escape a container in order to execute arbitrary commands on the container host. The shortcoming resides in a Linux kernel feature called control groups, also referred to as cgroups version 1 (v1), which allows processes to be […]
A new cross-platform backdoor called “SysJoker” has been observed targeting machines running Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems as part of an ongoing espionage campaign that’s believed to have been initiated during the second half of 2021. “SysJoker masquerades as a system update and generates its [command-and-control server] by decoding a string retrieved from a […]