• 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

PerfektBlue Bluetooth attack allows hacking infotainment systems of Mercedes, Volkswagen, and Skoda

 | 

Qantas data breach impacted 5.7 million individuals

 | 

DoNot APT is expanding scope targeting European foreign ministries

 | 

Nippon Steel Solutions suffered a data breach following a zero-day attack

 | 

Iranian group Pay2Key.I2P ramps Up ransomware attacks against Israel and US with incentives for affiliates

 | 

Hackers weaponize Shellter red teaming tool to spread infostealers

 | 

Microsoft Patch Tuesday security updates for July 2025 fixed a zero-day

 | 

Italian police arrested a Chinese national suspected of cyberespionage on a U.S. warrant

 | 

U.S. CISA adds MRLG, PHPMailer, Rails Ruby on Rails, and Synacor Zimbra Collaboration Suite flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

IT Worker arrested for selling access in $100M PIX cyber heist

 | 

New Batavia spyware targets Russian industrial enterprises

 | 

Taiwan flags security risks in popular Chinese apps after official probe

 | 

U.S. CISA adds Google Chromium V8 flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

Hunters International ransomware gang shuts down and offers free decryption keys to all victims

 | 

SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 52

 | 

Security Affairs newsletter Round 531 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION

 | 

North Korea-linked threat actors spread macOS NimDoor malware via fake Zoom updates

 | 

Critical Sudo bugs expose major Linux distros to local Root exploits

 | 

Google fined $314M for misusing idle Android users' data

 | 

A flaw in Catwatchful spyware exposed logins of +62,000 users

 | 
  • 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
  • Malware
  • New Redis miner Migo uses novel system weakening techniques

New Redis miner Migo uses novel system weakening techniques

Pierluigi Paganini February 21, 2024

A new malware campaign targets Redis servers to deploy the mining crypto miner Migo on compromised Linux hosts.

Caro Security researchers have observed a new malware campaign targeting Redis servers with a crypto miner dubbed Migo. The campaign stands out for the use of several novel system weakening techniques against the data store itself. 

Migo is a Golang ELF binary with compile-time obfuscation, it is also able to maintain persistence on Linux hosts.

The researchers also observed the malware using a new version of a popular user mode rootkit to evade detection by hiding processes and on-disk artifacts.

The researchers initially discovered that new ‘Redis system weakening commands’ have been used in attacks in the wild, and then they noticed that these commands were used in a recent malware campaign aimed at Redis systems.

One of the honeypots used by Cado was targeted by an attack originating from the IP 103[.]79[.]118[.]221 which disabled the following configuration options using the Redis command line interface’s (CLI) config set feature:

  • set protected-mode;
  • replica-read-only;
  • aof-rewrite-incremental-fsync;
  • rdb-save-incremental-fsync;

The attackers disabled these options to send additional commands to the Redis server and allow future intrusion evading defense.

“After disabling these configuration parameters, the attacker uses the set command to set the values of two separate Redis keys.” reads the report published by Cado Security. “One key is assigned a string value corresponding to a malicious attacker-controlled SSH key, and the other to a Cron job that retrieves the malicious primary payload from Transfer.sh (a relatively uncommon distribution mechanism previously covered by Cado) via Pastebin.”

The main Migo payload (/tmp/.migo) is distributed as an ELF file packed with UPX, statically linked and stripped. This ELF file can target x86_64 architecture. The sample employs standard UPX packing, preserving the UPX header, and can be easily unpacked using the command upx -d.

Upon execution, the Migo binary checks the presence of a file at /tmp/.migo_running. If this file doesn’t exist, the malicious code creates it, determines its own process ID and writes it out the file. The file is a sort of infection market for the attacker.

Then the binary downloads an XMRig installer hosted on GitHub, terminates competing miners and establishes persistence, then it launches the miner.

Below a series of actions performed by the binary:

In summary, they perform the following actions:

  • Make the copied version of the binary executable, to be executed via a persistence mechanism
  • Disable SELinux and search for uninstallation scripts for monitoring agents bundled in compute instances from cloud providers such as Qcloud and Alibaba Cloud
  • Execute the miner and pass the dropped configuration into it
  • Configure iptables to drop outbound traffic to specific IPs
  • Kill competing miners and payloads from similar campaigns
  • Register persistence via the systemd timer system-kernel.timer

Migo demonstrates the interest of threat actors in targeting cloud infrastructure for mining purposes. The attackers continue to improve their capability to exploit web-facing services.

Researchers believe that the Migo developers possess knowledge of the malware analysis process, implementing extra measures to obscure symbols and strings within the pclntab structure, thereby complicating reverse engineering.

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – ransomware, miner) 


facebook linkedin twitter

Cybercrime Hacking hacking news IT Information Security Migo Malware miner Monero Pierluigi Paganini Redis Security Affairs Security News

you might also like

Pierluigi Paganini July 10, 2025
PerfektBlue Bluetooth attack allows hacking infotainment systems of Mercedes, Volkswagen, and Skoda
Read more
Pierluigi Paganini July 10, 2025
Qantas data breach impacted 5.7 million individuals
Read more

leave a comment

newsletter

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

    recent articles

    PerfektBlue Bluetooth attack allows hacking infotainment systems of Mercedes, Volkswagen, and Skoda

    Hacking / July 10, 2025

    Qantas data breach impacted 5.7 million individuals

    Data Breach / July 10, 2025

    DoNot APT is expanding scope targeting European foreign ministries

    APT / July 10, 2025

    Nippon Steel Solutions suffered a data breach following a zero-day attack

    Data Breach / July 09, 2025

    Iranian group Pay2Key.I2P ramps Up ransomware attacks against Israel and US with incentives for affiliates

    Malware / July 09, 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