Security News
A new ransomware named 'Cheers' has appeared in the cybercrime space and has started its operations by targeting vulnerable VMware ESXi servers. We have seen many ransomware groups targeting the VMware ESXi platform in the past, with the most recent additions being LockBit and Hive.
Microsoft on Tuesday warned that it recently spotted a malicious campaign targeting SQL Servers that leverages a built-in PowerShell binary to achieve persistence on compromised systems. The intrusions, which leverage brute-force attacks as an initial compromise vector, stand out for their use of the utility "Sqlps.exe," the tech giant said in a series of tweets.
More than 380,000 Kubernetes API servers allow some kind of access to the public internet, making the popular open-source container-orchestration engine for managing cloud deployments an easy target and broad attack surface for threat actors, researchers have found. The Shadowserver Foundation discovered the access when it scanned the internet for Kubernetes API servers, of which there are more than 450,000, according to a blog post published this week.
The North Korean hacking group known as Lazarus is exploiting the Log4J remote code execution vulnerability to inject backdoors that fetch information-stealing payloads on VMware Horizon servers. According to a report published by analysts at Ahnlab's ASEC, Lazarus has been targeting vulnerable VMware products via Log4Shell since April 2022.
Microsoft warned of brute-forcing attacks targeting Internet-exposed and poorly secured Microsoft SQL Server database servers using weak passwords. Similar attacks against MSSQL servers were reported in March when they were targeted to deploy Gh0stCringe remote access trojans.
The latest variant of the Sysrv botnet malware is menacing Windows and Linux systems with an expanded list of vulnerabilities to exploit, according to Microsoft. The strain, which Microsoft's Security Intelligence team calls Sysrv-K, scans the internet for web servers that have security holes, such as path traversal, remote file disclosure, and arbitrary file download bugs, that can be exploited to infect the machines.
Microsoft has reminded customers today that Windows Server, version 20H2, will be reaching the end of service on August 9, 2022. In a support document published today, Microsoft says that Windows Server 20H2 will reach the mainstream support end date for Datacenter Core and Standard Core users.
A 28-year-old Ukrainian national has been sentenced to four years in prison for siphoning thousands of server login credentials and selling them on the dark web for monetary gain as part of a credential theft scheme. The illegal sale involved the trafficking of login credentials to servers located across the world and personally identifiable information such as dates of birth and Social Security numbers belonging to U.S. residents on a darknet marketplace.
Microsoft says the Sysrv botnet is now exploiting vulnerabilities in the Spring Framework and WordPress to ensnare and deploy cryptomining malware on vulnerable Windows and Linux servers. "The new variant, which we call Sysrv-K, sports additional exploits and can gain control of web servers" by exploiting various vulnerabilities, the Microsoft Security Intelligence team said in a Twitter thread. "These vulnerabilities, which have all been addressed by security updates, include old vulnerabilities in WordPress plugins, as well as newer vulnerabilities like CVE-2022-22947."
NET-based post-exploitation framework called IceApple that has been deployed on Microsoft Exchange server instances to facilitate reconnaissance and data exfiltration. "Suspected to be the work of a state-nexus adversary, IceApple remains under active development, with 18 modules observed in use across a number of enterprise environments, as of May 2022," CrowdStrike said in a Wednesday report.