Hackers Exploited Atlassian Confluence Bug to Deploy Ljl Backdoor for Espionage
Vulnerabilities mentionedAll →
| CVE | Vulnerability | CVSS | EPSS | Flags | Affected | Exposure | Published |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2022-22965 | Unauthenticated RCE in VMware Spring Framework (Spring4Shell) - JDK 9+ Tomcat WARs CVE-2022-22965 ('Spring4Shell') is a critical (CVSS 9.8) remote code execution flaw in VMware's Spring Framework, caused by insecure data binding that lets unauthenticated attackers overwrite internal class and module properties through crafted request parameters (CWE-94, code injection). It affects Spring MVC and Spring WebFlux applications running on JDK 9 or later; the demonstrated exploit path requires a Tomcat WAR deployment, while applications packaged as Spring Boot executable jars are not exploitable that way, though the underlying issue may be reachable via other routes. A successful attack yields full remote code execution with the privileges of the application server, with no authentication or user interaction required. VMware Spring Framework 5.3.0-5.3.17 and 5.2.0-5.2.19 (plus older releases) are affected, and the flaw also impacts bundled products from Cisco, Oracle, Siemens and Veritas, including multiple Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core components. It is being actively exploited in the wild: added to CISA's KEV on 2022-04-04, EPSS puts 30-day exploitation probability at 99.6% (100th percentile), a public PoC is available, and mass scanning of vulnerable servers has been observed. Do: Upgrade Spring Framework to 5.3.18, 5.2.20 or later (or apply vendor-supplied fixes for bundled products, e.g., via Oracle's patch release and Cisco's advisory), prioritizing internet-facing Tomcat WAR deployments on JDK 9+; this is a CISA KEV entry, so treat patching as urgent. If patching must wait, mitigate by running on JDK 8, deploying as a Spring Boot executable jar rather than a WAR on Tomcat, and applying the vendor-documented workaround that disallows 'class.*', 'Class.*' and 'module.*' fields in data binding. Inventory exposed Tomcat/Spring services and hunt for signs of exploitation given confirmed in-the-wild use. | 9.8 | 100% | KEV PoC |
| massmass - on the order of 1M+ Spring-based Java deployments overall, with at least ~100,000 internet-exposed Tomcat servers on JDK 9+ plausibly meeting the… | |
| CVE-2022-26134 | Unauthenticated OGNL Injection RCE in Atlassian Confluence Server/Data Center Atlassian Confluence Server and Data Center contain an unauthenticated remote code execution flaw caused by improper neutralization of expression-language (OGNL) input (CWE-917): an attacker with network access to the application can submit a crafted request that is evaluated as an expression and executed by the server. Successful exploitation lets a remote, unauthenticated attacker run arbitrary code with the privileges of the Confluence process, without any credentials. All organizations running self-managed Confluence Server or Data Center are affected, particularly instances exposed to the internet; Confluence Cloud is not listed among the affected products. Exploitation is confirmed in the wild: the flaw was added to CISA's KEV on 2022-06-02 with ransomware use marked as known, and EPSS assigns a 100% probability of exploitation within 30 days (100th percentile). CVSS has not yet been scored in this data, but the KEV listing and known ransomware use make unpatched, internet-facing instances a top-priority patching target. Do: Immediately upgrade to the patched Confluence release specified in Atlassian's 2022-06-02 security advisory, and until patched follow the CISA required action to block all internet traffic to and from affected instances. Because in-the-wild exploitation and ransomware use are confirmed, also hunt for compromise indicators on both patched and unpatched hosts, such as webshells, unexpected child processes of the Confluence service, and unusual outbound connections. | 9.8 | 100% | KEV ransomware PoC ×2 |
| largetens of thousands of internet-exposed instances (public scan counts of roughly 60,000-90,000 Confluence Server/Data Center hosts around the June 2022… |
Full article432 words · extracted from thehackernews.com · click to collapse
Ravie LakshmananAug 04, 2022
A threat actor is said to have "highly likely" exploited a security flaw in an outdated Atlassian Confluence server to deploy a never-before-seen backdoor against an unnamed organization in the research and technical services sector.
The attack, which transpired over a seven-day-period during the end of May, has been attributed to a threat activity cluster tracked by cybersecurity firm Deepwatch as TAC-040.
"The evidence indicates that the threat actor executed malicious commands with a parent process of tomcat9.exe in Atlassian's Confluence directory," the company said. "After the initial compromise, the threat actor ran various commands to enumerate the local system, network, and Active Directory environment."
The Atlassian vulnerability suspected to have been exploited is CVE-2022-26134, an Object-Graph Navigation Language (OGNL) injection flaw that paves the way for arbitrary code execution on a Confluence Server or Data Center instance.
Following reports of active exploitation in real-world attacks, the issue was addressed by the Australian company on June 4, 2022.
But given the absence of forensic artifacts, Deepwatch theorized the breach could have alternatively entailed the exploitation of the Spring4Shell vulnerability (CVE-2022-22965) to gain initial access to the Confluence web application.
Not much is known about TAC-040 other than the fact that the adversarial collective's goals could be espionage-related, although the possibility that the group could have acted out of financial gain hasn't been ruled out, citing the presence of a loader for an XMRig crypto miner on the system.
While there is no evidence that the miner was executed in this incident, the Monero address owned by the threat actors has netted at least 652 XMR ($106,000) by hijacking the computing resources of other systems to illicitly mine cryptocurrency.
The attack chain is also notable for the deployment of a previously undocumented implant called Ljl Backdoor on the compromised server. Roughly 700MB of archived data is estimated to have been exfiltrated before the server was taken offline by the victim, according to an analysis of the network logs.
The malware, for its part, is a fully-featured trojan virus designed to gather files and user accounts, load arbitrary .NET payloads, and amass system information as well as the victim's geographic location.
"The victim denied the threat actor the ability to laterally move within the environment by taking the server offline, potentially preventing the exfiltration of additional sensitive data and restricting the threat actor(s) ability to conduct further malicious activities," the researchers said.
Found this article interesting? Follow us on Google News, Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.
Text extracted automatically; images, tables and formatting may be missing. Original: https://thehackernews.com/2022/08/hackers-exploited-atlassian-confluence.html