Hackers Target Apache Tomcat Servers for Mirai Botnet and Crypto Mining

Cyber Security

Jul 27, 2023THNServer Security / Cryptocurrency

Misconfigured and poorly secured Apache Tomcat servers are being targeted as part of a new campaign designed to deliver the Mirai botnet malware and cryptocurrency miners.

The findings come courtesy of Aqua, which detected more than 800 attacks against its Tomcat server honeypots over a two-year time period, with 96% of the attacks linked to the Mirai botnet.

Of these attack attempts, 20% (or 152) entailed the use of a web shell script dubbed “neww” that originated from 24 unique IP addresses, with 68% of them originating from a single IP address (104.248.157[.]218).

“The threat actor scanned for Tomcat servers and launched a brute force attack against it, attempting to gain access to the Tomcat web application manager by trying different combinations of credentials associated with it,” Aqua security researcher Nitzan Yaakov said.

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Upon gaining a successful foothold, the threat actors have been observed deploying a WAR file that contains a malicious web shell class named ‘cmd.jsp’ that, in turn, is designed to listen to remote requests and execute arbitrary commands on the Tomcat server.

This includes downloading and running a shell script called “neww” after which the file is deleted using the “rm -rf” Linux command.

“The script contains links to download 12 binary files, and each file is suitable for a specific architecture according to the system that has been attacked by the threat actor,” Yaakov pointed out.

The final stage malware is a variant of the infamous Mirai botnet that makes use of the infected hosts to orchestrate distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

“Once the threat actor gained access to the web application manager using valid credentials, they leveraged the platform to upload a web shell disguised in a WAR file,” Yaakov said. “Next, the threat actor executed commands remotely and launched the attack.”

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To mitigate against the ongoing campaign, it’s recommended that organizations secure their environments and follow credential hygiene to prevent brute-force attacks.

The development comes as the AhnLab Security Emergency Response Center (ASEC) reported that poorly managed MS-SQL servers are being breached to deploy a rootkit malware called Purple Fox, which acts as a loader to fetch additional malware such as coin miners.

These findings also demonstrate the lucrative nature of cryptocurrency mining, which has witnessed a 399% increase over last year, with 332 million cryptojacking attacks recorded in the first half of 2023 globally, according to SonicWall.

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