CRYSTALRAY hacker expands to 1,500 breached systems using SSH-Snake tool

CRYSTALRAY hacker expands to 1,500 breached systems using SSH-Snake tool

July 11, 2024 at 11:10AM

The new threat actor, CRYSTALRAY, has expanded its operations, targeting over 1,500 victims with stolen credentials and cryptominers. Utilizing SSH-Snake and various open-source tools, CRYSTALRAY aims to collect and sell credentials, deploy cryptominers, and maintain persistence in victim environments. It exploits vulnerabilities in various software and targets Atlassian Confluence products. As the threat grows, mitigating strategies include timely security updates to fix vulnerabilities.

Based on the meeting notes, it is evident that a new threat actor known as CRYSTALRAY has significantly expanded its targeting scope, with over 1,500 victims impacted by credential theft and cryptominer deployment. This threat actor leverages the SSH-Snake open-source worm to move laterally on breached networks and has demonstrated a significant increase in operations, now exploiting multiple vulnerabilities and utilizing various OSS security tools.

CRYSTALRAY’s motivations encompass collecting and selling credentials, deploying cryptominers, and maintaining persistence in victim environments. This threat actor targets vulnerabilities in products such as Control Web Panel (CWP), Ignition (Laravel), and Openfire, as well as Atlassian Confluence products. Additionally, CRYSTALRAY utilizes the Platypus web-based manager to handle multiple reverse shell sessions on breached systems.

Furthermore, CRYSTALRAY aims to monetize stolen data by selling credentials on the dark web or Telegram and deploying cryptominers to generate revenue. It was noted that the threat actor switched to a new configuration in April, making it challenging to determine its current revenue from cryptomining activities.

As the CRYSTALRAY threat continues to grow, the meeting notes emphasize the importance of minimizing the attack surface through timely security updates to address disclosed vulnerabilities.

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