• Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
MUST READ

U.S. CISA adds AMI MegaRAC SPx, D-Link DIR-859 routers, and Fortinet FortiOS flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

CitrixBleed 2: The nightmare that echoes the 'CitrixBleed' flaw in Citrix NetScaler devices

 | 

Hackers deploy fake SonicWall VPN App to steal corporate credentials

 | 

Mainline Health Systems data breach impacted over 100,000 individuals

 | 

Disrupting the operations of cryptocurrency mining botnets

 | 

Prometei botnet activity has surged since March 2025

 | 

The U.S. House banned WhatsApp on government devices due to security concerns

 | 

Russia-linked APT28 use Signal chats to target Ukraine official with malware

 | 

China-linked APT Salt Typhoon targets Canadian Telecom companies

 | 

U.S. warns of incoming cyber threats following Iran airstrikes

 | 

McLaren Health Care data breach impacted over 743,000 people

 | 

American steel giant Nucor confirms data breach in May attack

 | 

The financial impact of Marks & Spencer and Co-op cyberattacks could reach £440M

 | 

Iran-Linked Threat Actors Cyber Fattah Leak Visitors and Athletes' Data from Saudi Games

 | 

SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 50

 | 

Security Affairs newsletter Round 529 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION

 | 

Iran confirmed it shut down internet to protect the country against cyberattacks

 | 

Godfather Android trojan uses virtualization to hijack banking and crypto apps

 | 

Cloudflare blocked record-breaking 7.3 Tbps DDoS attack against a hosting provider

 | 

Linux flaws chain allows Root access across major distributions

 | 
  • Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
  • Home
  • Breaking News
  • Cyber Crime
  • Hacking
  • Malware
  • ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware affiliate targets Veritas Backup solution bugs

ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware affiliate targets Veritas Backup solution bugs

Pierluigi Paganini April 04, 2023

An ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware affiliate was spotted exploiting vulnerabilities in the Veritas Backup solution.

An affiliate of the ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware gang, tracked as UNC4466, was observed exploiting three vulnerabilities in the Veritas Backup solution to gain initial access to the target network.

Unlike other ALPHV affiliates, UNC4466 doesn’t rely on stolen credentials for initial access to victim environments. Mandiant researchers first observed this affiliate targeting Veritas issues in the wild on October 22, 2022. Below is the list of flaws exploited by the ransomware gang’s affiliate:

  • CVE-2021-27876: The communication between a client and an Agent requires successful authentication, which is typically completed over a secure TLS communication. However, due to a vulnerability in the SHA Authentication scheme, an attacker is able to gain unauthorized access and complete the authentication process. Subsequently, the client can execute data management protocol commands on the authenticated connection. By using crafted input parameters in one of these commands, an attacker can access an arbitrary file on the system using System privileges.. (CVSS score: 8.1).
  • CVE-2021-27877: An issue was discovered in Veritas Backup Exec before 21.2. It supports multiple authentication schemes: SHA authentication is one of these. This authentication scheme is no longer used in current versions of the product, but hadn’t yet been disabled. An attacker could remotely exploit this scheme to gain unauthorized access to an Agent and execute privileged commands. (CVSS score: 8.2).
  • CVE-2021-27878: An issue was discovered in Veritas Backup Exec before 21.2. The communication between a client and an Agent requires successful authentication, which is typically completed over a secure TLS communication. However, due to a vulnerability in the SHA Authentication scheme, an attacker is able to gain unauthorized access and complete the authentication process. Subsequently, the client can execute data management protocol commands on the authenticated connection. The attacker could use one of these commands to execute an arbitrary command on the system using system privileges. (CVSS score: 8.8)

The three flaws were addressed with the release of version 21.2 in March 2021, but many public-facing endpoints are yet to be updated. The researchers identified over 8,500 installations of Veritas Backup Exec instances that are currently exposed to the internet, some of which may still be vulnerable.

The exploitation of these flaws can be easy by using a penetration testing framework like METASPLOIT which has a specific module to target these issues since September 2022.

“In late 2022, UNC4466 gained access to an internet-exposed Windows server, running Veritas Backup Exec version 21.0 using the Metasploit module `exploit/multi/veritas/beagent_sha_auth_rce`. Shortly after, the Metasploit persistence module was invoked to maintain persistent access to the system for the remainder of this intrusion.” reads the analysis published by Mandiant.

Once gained access to the target’s network, the affiliate used the legitimate Famatech’s Advanced IP Scanner and ADRecon utilities as part of an internal reconnaissance.

Then the threat actor used the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) to download additional tools such as LAZAGNE, LIGOLO, WINSW, RCLONE, and finally the ALPHV ransomware encryptor.

The UNC4466 group relies on SOCKS5 tunneling to communicate with compromised systems. The threat actor employed two separate tools to execute this technique, LIGOLO and REVSOCKS.

The group gathered clear-text credentials and credential material by using multiple credential access tools, including Mimikatz, LaZagne and Nanodump.

The threat actor evades detection by clearing event logs and disabling Microsoft Defender’s real-time monitoring capability using the built in Set-MpPrefernce cmdlet.

The report includes Indicators of Compromise (IoCs) for this threat.

Please vote for Security Affairs (https://securityaffairs.com/) as the best European Cybersecurity Blogger Awards 2022 – VOTE FOR YOUR WINNERS
Vote for me in the sections:

  • The Teacher – Most Educational Blog
  • The Entertainer – Most Entertaining Blog
  • The Tech Whizz – Best Technical Blog
  • Best Social Media Account to Follow (@securityaffairs)

Please nominate Security Affairs as your favorite blog.

Nominate here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfaFMkrMlrLhOBsRPKdv56Y4HgC88Bcji4V7OCxCm_OmyPoLw/viewform

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware)


facebook linkedin twitter

AlphV/BlackCat ransomware Hacking hacking news information security news IT Information Security Security Affairs Security News Veritas Backup solution

you might also like

Pierluigi Paganini June 26, 2025
U.S. CISA adds AMI MegaRAC SPx, D-Link DIR-859 routers, and Fortinet FortiOS flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog
Read more
Pierluigi Paganini June 26, 2025
CitrixBleed 2: The nightmare that echoes the 'CitrixBleed' flaw in Citrix NetScaler devices
Read more

leave a comment

newsletter

Subscribe to my email list and stay
up-to-date!

    recent articles

    U.S. CISA adds AMI MegaRAC SPx, D-Link DIR-859 routers, and Fortinet FortiOS flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

    Security / June 26, 2025

    CitrixBleed 2: The nightmare that echoes the 'CitrixBleed' flaw in Citrix NetScaler devices

    Hacking / June 26, 2025

    Hackers deploy fake SonicWall VPN App to steal corporate credentials

    Hacking / June 25, 2025

    Mainline Health Systems data breach impacted over 100,000 individuals

    Data Breach / June 25, 2025

    Disrupting the operations of cryptocurrency mining botnets

    Malware / June 25, 2025

    To contact me write an email to:

    Pierluigi Paganini :
    pierluigi.paganini@securityaffairs.co

    LEARN MORE

    QUICK LINKS

    • Home
    • Cyber Crime
    • Cyber warfare
    • APT
    • Data Breach
    • Deep Web
    • Digital ID
    • Hacking
    • Hacktivism
    • Intelligence
    • Internet of Things
    • Laws and regulations
    • Malware
    • Mobile
    • Reports
    • Security
    • Social Networks
    • Terrorism
    • ICS-SCADA
    • POLICIES
    • Contact me

    Copyright@securityaffairs 2024

    We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
    Cookie SettingsAccept All
    Manage consent

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities...
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
    Non-necessary
    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
    SAVE & ACCEPT