Security News > 2021 > March > Microsoft Exchange exploits now used by cryptomining malware
The operators of Lemon Duck, a cryptomining botnet that targets enterprise networks, are now using Microsoft Exchange ProxyLogon exploits in attacks against unpatched servers.
Lemon Duck's ongoing attacks on vulnerable Exchange servers have already reached a massive scale, according to Costin Raiu, director of Kaspersky's Global Research and Analysis Team.
These indicators of compromise associated with Lemon Duck were also observed by Huntress Labs while analyzing mass exploitation of on-premises Microsoft Exchange servers.
Lemon Duck also supports spreading to servers running exposed Redis databases and Hadoop clusters managed using YARN. Its operators also employed large-scale COVID-19-themed spam campaigns for propagation in the past, exploiting the CVE-2017-8570 Microsoft Office remote code execution vulnerability to deliver the malware payload. "The Lemon Duck cryptominer is one of the more advanced types of cryptojacker payloads we've seen," Sophos security researcher Rajesh Nataraj said.
Since Microsoft disclosed ongoing attacks using ProxyLogon exploits last week, at least ten APT groups have been spotted by Slovak internet security firm ESET targeting unpatched Exchange servers.
Starting on March 9th, the operators of new human-operated ransomware dubbed DearCry have also started encrypting unpatched Microsoft Exchange servers.
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Related Vulnerability
| DATE | CVE | VULNERABILITY TITLE | RISK |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-07-11 | CVE-2017-8570 | Unspecified vulnerability in Microsoft Office Microsoft Office allows a remote code execution vulnerability due to the way that it handles objects in memory, aka "Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability". | 7.8 |