Pierluigi Paganini
March 21, 2023
Cryptocurrency ATM manufacturers General Bytes suffered a security incident that resulted in the theft of $1.5M worth of cryptocurrency. GENERAL BYTES is the world’s largest Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Cryptocurrency ATM manufacturer.
The company revealed that the threat actors exploited a zero-day vulnerability, tracked as BATM-4780, that resides in the master service interface that Bitcoin ATMs use to upload videos. Once exploited the flaw, the remote attackers uploaded a JavaScript script and executed it with ‘batm’ user privileges.
“The attacker identified a security vulnerability in the master service interface used by Bitcoin ATMs to upload videos to server.” reported the Security Incident notice published by the company.
“The attacker scanned the Digital Ocean cloud hosting IP address space and identified running CAS services on ports 7741, including the General Bytes Cloud service and other GB ATM operators running their servers on Digital Ocean (our recommended cloud hosting provider). Using this security vulnerability, attacker uploaded his own application directly to application server used by admin interface. Application server was by default configured to start applications in its deployment folder.”
Once executed the uploaded script the attackers gained access to the database and were able to read and decrypt API keys used to access funds in hot wallets and exchanges.
The attackers were able to send funds from hot wallets and download user names and password hashes. The hackers were also able to turn off the two-factor authentication (2FA).
The threat actors also gained access to terminal event logs and scan for any instance where customers scanned private key at the ATM.
On March 17-18th, 2023, GENERAL BYTES experienced a security incident.
— GENERAL BYTES (@generalbytes) March 18, 2023
We released a statement urging customers to take immediate action to protect their personal information.
We urge all our customers to take immediate action to protect their funds and https://t.co/fajc61lcwR…
The company provided information on how to secure GB ATM servers (CAS) and recommends all its customers to implement the recommended measures.
“Please keep your CAS behind a firewall and VPN. Terminals should also connect to CAS via VPN. With VPN/Firewall attackers from open internet cannot access your server and exploit it. If your server was breached please reinstall the whole server including operation system.” continues the notice. “Additionally consider your all user’s passwords, and API keys to exchanges and hot wallets to be compromised. Please invalidate them and generate new keys & password. The CAS security fix is provided in two server patch releases, 20221118.48 and 20230120.44.”
The notice provides a list of crypto addresses used in the attack along with three IP addresses used by attackers.
The analysis of the wallets included in the notice revealed that the attackers stole more than $1.5 million worth of Bitcoin (56 BTC) from roughly 15 operators. Attackers also stole funds in other cryptocurrencies.
In August, threat actors exploited a zero-day vulnerability in the General Bytes Bitcoin ATM servers to steal BTC from multiple customers.
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