Powerful Malware Disguised as Crypto Miner Infects 1M+ Windows, Linux PCs
Antivirus provider Kaspersky uncovers a sophisticated piece of 'StripedFly' malware camouflaged as a cryptocurrency miner that's been targeting PCs for more than five years.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/powerful-malware-disguised-as-crypto-miner-infects-1m-plus-windows-linuxOpen linkView original on lemmy.world275
Comments54
this makes use of an old windows specific vulnerability. Linux is only mentioned on the title, not again in the whole article. clickbait.
edit: downvote me if you want, but the original article didn't say a thing about Linux.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/stripedfly-malware-framework-infects-1-million-windows-linux-hosts/
That's from a completely different article.
And it doesn't say how this is achieved without already having root privilegies. I'm not sure I believe this can in fact infect a Linux system, except if it's already heavily compromised, for instance by a user logging in as root as default.
.bashrc and .profile can be modified without root, as can autostarting .desktop files. I think systemd and anything in /etc require root though.
Also a lot of users set
sudoto not require a password (I am guilty of this) which makes privilege escalation easy.It is a different article, but both articles are simply reporting research by Kaspersky, and Kaspersky goes into quite a bit of depth covering the Linux side of the threat, which is very real. PCMag focuses mostly on the windows side, because it's a windows focused site.
This isn't a single exploit, this is a "framework" that can take advantage of multiple exploits and will use which ever one it can find. You don't need to be "heavily compromised" you just need to be vulnerable to one of the compromises. And you definitely don't need root either.
Maybe if root is shared via SMB1 and is rw
Not possible AFAIK, I don't use anything Microsoft, but AFAIK SMB1 shares on Linux are through Samba, and you can't just enable write permissions without root. So as I stated before, the Linux system needs to be already compromised.
Users can configure the system however they want.
I'm not a Linux user (except for Chromebook and Android) so honestly the Linux section wasn't personally important to me. Another commentor wanted more information on the Linux side so I looked briefly if I could find an article that might be helpful. Linux terminology is all Greek to me so I honestly wouldn't know. I thought the article was interesting and I thought other people might find it interesting. The Linux part didn't even enter into my mind.
It does include this:
But that's a completely ridiculous lack of detail of any actual vulnerability. Smells like bullshit.
The quote from OP is from a different article.
I wasn't intentionally trying to imply that it came from the article. That's why I posted the naked link. I wasn't really thinking about the Linux component when I posted the article.
Which is perfectly fine and dandy. I think some people just had a knee jerk reaction, based on a misunderstanding of context.
It does though: "On Linux, the malware assumes the name 'sd-pam'. It achieves persistence using systemd services, an autostarting .desktop file, or by modifying various profile and startup files, such as /etc/rc*, profile, bashrc, or inittab files."
So technically useless . it can't do shit.
It can pwn poorly configured dev systems.
Malware disguised as malware? Interesting
It's always the one you least suspect, like disguising yourself as an impersonation of yourself.
It's just malware all the way down
Malware turtles?
A disc of malware resting on top of 4 malware elephants, riding a giant malware turtle
Morris balanced on Michelangelo standing on the shoulders of ILOVEYOU holding stuxnet giving HeartBleed
It's like inception
Yeah I call bullshit on that. Absolutely zero description of any vulnerability.
This is a different article but you should find at least some more information on how the malware works with Linux here:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/stripedfly-malware-framework-infects-1-million-windows-linux-hosts/
I'm not a Linux user so I honestly don't know if that article is incredibly helpful or not.
From what it's describing, it sounds like it would only impact Linux computers that allow SMB1 access, such as domain-joined systems with samba access allowed. It sounds like this would target mainly enterprise Linux deployments but home Linux setups should be fine for the most part.
They describe an SSH infector, as well as a credentials scanner. To me, that sounds like it started like from exploited/infected Windows computers with SSH access, and then continued from there.
With how many unencrypted SSH keys there are, how most hosts keep a list of the servers they SSH into, and how they can probably bypass some firewall protections once they're inside the network: not a bad idea.
I think the original article talked about "spreading" to Linux machines so that generally tracks with what you're saying that it starts on a Windows machine that itself has access to a Linux machine.
My job still had Windows 95 machines running just a couple years ago. Could there still be Samba1 running out there or does Linux update differently?
Of course there is. Unfortunately the average Linux self-hoster doesn't have much of a clue and probably runs vulnerable Samba (even if it's not S1). Of course it doesn't help that Samba seems to get a vulnerability about once a week. It's one of the most targeted pieces of network software you could run.
I know that Linux is a host of OSs but generally speaking is it up to the user to keep their software up to date or is there some kind of automatic updating process?
There are automated updates, especially for security issues, but since Linux users feel they are power users and seldom have to deal with security issues, they often disable updates and do them manually. If and when they remember. And for self-hosted software it's worst because often they don't even consider running updates.
The bank I work at still has core systems running Lotus 🙃
Lotus 123 was outdated when I was still a kid. That's impressive.
Yeah windows 2000 assembly robots, too expensive to replace and too critical to not keep alive.
Well those were controlling a conveyor belt system that maintenance told me they bought used in the 90s.
Those machines were controlling a conveyor belt system and weren't online. I was told the software they were running wasn't available for other OSs. They were locked in a cabinet. That entire conveyor system is now gone so those machines are probably gone too.
Interesting, thanks for that
From the part you quoted earlier, it's absolutely useless, and not worth reading.
That's fair
I don't know why op did not want to share the original report, but it is linked in the article: https://securelist.com/stripedfly-perennially-flying-under-the-radar/110903/
I too am struggling to find the actual Linux vuln. It sounds like it steals ssh keys, so maybe just poorly configured hosts?
You should always have a file your home folder named SSH keys and Root password. /s
That's not just poor configuration, that's complete disregard for security.
I won’t argue about the legitimacy of crypto simply because I don’t care enough but you have to be fucking stupid to run non-FOSS crypto miners and instead go with something proprietary like this and then be surprised it fucks up your shit.
Is there a difference between FLOSS & FOSS? Besides the word libre?
Libre is Spanish for free, so I guess not.
From https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/floss-and-foss.en.html
They also say:
Fixed that for you.
Why would the article not share the name of the miner in question?
magician never reveals his secrets