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Cyberium malware-hosting domain employed in multiple Mirai variants campaigns

highMalware exploited in the wildimportance 60CVE-2020-10987CVE-2017-17215CVE-2014-8361

Vulnerabilities mentionedAll →

CVEVulnerabilityCVSSEPSSFlagsAffectedExposurePublished
CVE-2014-8361
Improper Input Validation in Realtek SDK miniigd SOAP Service Enables Remote RCE

The Realtek SDK, a software development kit embedded in routers, gateways, and similar network equipment sold under many OEM brands, contains an improper input validation flaw (CWE-20) in its miniigd UPnP SOAP service. A remote, unauthenticated attacker can trigger it by sending a crafted NewInternalClient request to the vulnerable SOAP interface, causing execution of malicious code on the device. Successful exploitation gives attackers control of affected devices, which can be used for botnet recruitment, staging further attacks, or ransomware operations. Affected parties are owners of devices built on the Realtek SDK, particularly routers and gateways with the UPnP service exposed to the internet. Exploitation is ongoing: CISA added the flaw to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2023-09-18 and EPSS assigns it a 100% probability of exploitation within 30 days, though ransomware use is not confirmed.

Do: Inventory devices that use the Realtek SDK and check whether the miniigd UPnP/SOAP service is reachable from untrusted networks; apply firmware updates from your device vendor as soon as available, or per CISA's required action, disable UPnP or block the service from internet exposure if mitigations are unavailable. No patch level is published in this dataset, so verify fix status against OEM advisories and review device logs for crafted NewInternalClient SOAP requests.

100% KEV
  • Realtek SDK
mass≈1,000,000+ devices (hundreds of thousands of internet-exposed hosts observed in public scans; SDK embedded in many OEM routers)
CVE-2017-17215
Huawei HG532 with some customized versions has a remote code execution vulnerability.

Huawei HG532 with some customized versions has a remote code execution vulnerability. An authenticated attacker could send malicious packets to port 37215 to launch attacks. Successful exploit could lead to the remote execution of arbitrary code.

NVD description · AI analysis pending
8.878%
  • huawei hg532 firmware
CVE-2020-10987
Unauthenticated OS Command Injection in Tenda AC15 AC1900 Router

CVE-2020-10987 is an unauthenticated OS command injection flaw (CWE-78) in the goform/setUsbUnload endpoint of the Tenda AC15 AC1900 router, demonstrated on firmware version 15.03.05.19. An attacker triggers it by sending a crafted deviceName POST parameter to that endpoint, which is not properly sanitized before being used in a system command. Successful exploitation yields arbitrary remote code execution on the router, giving the attacker full control of the device and a foothold to pivot into the local network, as is typical for IoT botnet recruitment. Owners of Tenda AC15 routers are affected, with greatest risk on units whose web administration interface is reachable from the internet. Exploitation is confirmed in the wild: the flaw is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2021-11-03), carries a 79.8% EPSS score (top percentile), and a public proof of concept has been available since its 2020 disclosure; ransomware use is unknown.

Do: Apply the latest Tenda AC15 firmware available from the vendor (newer than 15.03.05.19) per CISA's required action and vendor instructions. Until patched, disable or restrict WAN-side remote web administration to trusted source IPs, since the flaw is exploitable without credentials over the network. Check router HTTP logs for unexpected POST requests to /goform/setUsbUnload containing suspicious deviceName values, and monitor for botnet-style command activity.

9.880% KEV PoC
  • Tenda AC15 AC1900 router firmware Firmware version 15.03.05.19 (the only version named in the advisory; the full affected version range is not specified, so other AC15 firmware releases may also
moderateLikely on the order of thousands to tens of thousands of remotely exploitable Tenda AC15 units (estimate; no authoritative install-base or scan count provided).

Indicators of compromiseAll →

TypeIndicatorContext
domaincyberium.cce variants had in common the same malware hosting page, dns.cyberium[.]cc, further investigations allowed the researchers to date s
Full article693 words · extracted from securityaffairs.com · click to collapse

A new variant of the Mirai botnet, tracked as Moobot, was spotted scanning the Internet for vulnerable Tenda routers.

Researchers from AT&T Alien Lab have spotted a new variant of the Mirai botnet, tracked asu Moobot, which was scanning the Internet for the CVE-2020-10987 remote code-execution (RCE) issue in Tenda routers. The botnet was linked to a new malware hosting domain that has been serving Mirai variants for several different botnets over the past year.

The experts pointed out that this vulnerability is not commonly targeted by web scanners.

“During the end of March, AT&T Alien Labs observed a spike in exploitation attempts for Tenda Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability CVE-2020-10987. This spike was observed throughout a significant number of clients, in the space of a few hours.” reads the analysis published by AT&T Alien Labs. “This exploit can be identified by the URL that is requested, which includes ‘setUsbUnload’ with the payload assigned to the vulnerable parameter ‘deviceName’. This payload contains the logic to change the execution path to a temporary location, wget a file from a malware hosting page, provide execution permissions, and execute it.”

Experts noticed that the scan for the CVE-2020-10987 flaw only lasted one day, anyway, they noticed that the same malware hosting domain was involved in activities targeting other vulnerabilities:

  • Port 80 and 8080: Axis SSI RCE.
  • Port 34567: DVR scanner attempting default credentials for Sofia main video application.
  • Port 37215: Huawei Home routers RCE Vulnerability (CVE-2017-17215).
  • Port 52869: Realtek SDK Miniigd UPnP SOAP Command Execution (CVE-2014-8361).

All the variants had in common the same malware hosting page, dns.cyberium[.]cc, further investigations allowed the researchers to date some of the campaigns back at least to May 2020. Experts also noticed that the domain was hosting several Mirai variants that were used in campaign that lasted for approximately a week.

Each campaign was using a different subdomain page under the Cyberium domain, and once the attacks were terminated the associated subdomains became unresolvable.

“During the time this domain was available and delivering malware, at least three different variants of Mirai were identified: Moobot, Satori/Fbot, and other samples unassociated with these botnets. One of the peculiarities of this domain was how it juggled between Mirai variants, even under the same filenames. The same URL could be hosting Satori one day and Moobot the week after.” continues the report.

Upon compromising an IoT device, the malicious code connects to the Cyberium domain to retrieve a bash script that is used as a downloader similarly to other Mirai variants.

Then the script attempts to download a list of filenames (associated with different CPU architectures), executes each one of them, achieves persistence through a crontab, and deletes itself.

The Moobot botnet was first spotted in April 2020 while targeting multiple types of fiber routers. In October a new variant of the Moobot botnet was spotted targeting vulnerable Docker APIs. The botnet was designed to carry out distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks like the original Mirai bot.

One of the main distinctions of the Moobot botnet is the presence of a hardcoded string that’s used several times throughout the code.

“Many samples available at Cyberium contained the above-mentioned string and this domain was already being used to distribute this botnet when Lacework first reported on it.  The number of samples Alien Labs has seen with that string has greatly increased in the last months, scattering from the original Moobot sample,” continues the report. “This could potentially mean that last year’s Moobots samples were used to create new branches of Mirai variants.”

According to AT&T, Cyberium domain was still active but at the time of the analysis, it was not hosting any malware samples, likely because the subdomain pages are awaiting new requests for command-and-control server (C2) lists.

“Several questions remain unanswered,” researchers conclud. “Why would the attackers deliver different Mirai variants with different C2s on the same campaign? Are they trying to avoid anti-virus detection through diversification of variants? Or, are they trying to improve the botnet resiliency by diversifying C2.”

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, ransomware)

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Text extracted automatically; images, tables and formatting may be missing. Original: https://securityaffairs.com/119018/malware/cyberium-malware-hosting-mirai.html