Cyber Crime

Sysrv-K, a new variant of the Sysrv botnet includes new exploits

Microsoft reported that the Sysrv botnet is targeting Windows and Linux servers exploiting flaws in the Spring Framework and WordPress.

Microsoft Security Intelligence team Microsoft reported that a new variant of the Sysrv botnet, tracked as Sysrv-K, now includes exploits for vulnerabilities in the Spring Framework and WordPress. Threat actors use the botnet in a cryptomining campaign targeting Windows and Linux servers.

The botnet has been active since at least the end of 2020, but its activity was documented in April 2021 by multiple security researchers.

Sysrv-K leverages the exploits to take over the vulnerable web servers, the malware targets different issues, including a code injection vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2022-22947, that resides in the Spring Cloud Gateway library. A remote attacker could send specially-crafted requests to vulnerable systems to gain arbitrary code execution.

The botnet also supports scanning capabilities for WordPress configuration files and their backups, the feature allows operators to access sensitive data, including database credentials.

“Like older variants, Sysrv-K scans for SSH keys, IP addresses, and host names, and then attempts to connect to other systems in the network via SSH to deploy copies of itself.” reads a Tweet published by Microsoft.

Microsoft experts also observed the new variant of the Sysrv botnet supports new communication capabilities, including the ability to use a Telegram bot.

The Sysrv was designed to deploy Monero (XMRig) miners on vulnerable servers and implements wormable capabilities.

“Sysrv-hello is a multi-architecture Cryptojacking (T1496) botnet that first emerged in late 2020, and employs Golang malware compiled into both Linux and Windows payloads. The malware is equal parts XMRig cryptominer and aggressive botnet-propagator. The propagator leverages MySQL and Tomcat brute forcing (T1110) along with a suite of exploits including those for Atlassian and Apache.” reads an analysis published by Lacework last year. “The malware also leverages several “No CVE” command execution techniques including those for Jupyter notebook and Tomcat Manager.”

Please vote for Security Affairs as the best European Cybersecurity Blogger Awards 2022 – VOTE FOR YOUR WINNERS
Vote for me in the sections “The Underdogs – Best Personal (non-commercial) Security Blog” and “The Tech Whizz – Best Technical Blog” and others of your choice.
To nominate, please visit: 
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfxxrxICiMZ9QM9iiPuMQIC-IoM-NpQMOsFZnJXrBQRYJGCOw/viewform  

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook

[adrotate banner=”9″][adrotate banner=”12″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Sysrv botnet)

[adrotate banner=”5″]

[adrotate banner=”13″]

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

Recent Posts

Cisco warns of password-spraying attacks targeting Secure Firewall devices

Cisco warns customers of password-spraying attacks that have been targeting Remote Access VPN (RAVPN) services…

2 hours ago

American fast-fashion firm Hot Topic hit by credential stuffing attacks

Hot Topic suffered credential stuffing attacks that exposed customers' personal information and partial payment data.…

6 hours ago

Cisco addressed high-severity flaws in IOS and IOS XE software

Cisco addressed multiple vulnerabilities in IOS and IOS XE software that can be exploited to…

20 hours ago

Google: China dominates government exploitation of zero-day vulnerabilities in 2023

Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) and Mandiant reported a surge in the number of actively…

1 day ago

Google addressed 2 Chrome zero-days demonstrated at Pwn2Own 2024

Google addressed two zero-day vulnerabilities in the Chrome web browser that have been demonstrated during…

2 days ago

INC Ransom stole 3TB of data from the National Health Service (NHS) of Scotland

The INC Ransom extortion group hacked the National Health Service (NHS) of Scotland and is threatening…

2 days ago

This website uses cookies.