January 16, 2024 at 12:41PM
CISA and the FBI warn about Androxgh0st malware, which is being used to create a botnet targeting cloud credential theft. The botnet exploits vulnerabilities in frameworks and servers. Additionally, it steals sensitive information, deploys malicious tools, and conducts spam campaigns. The agencies advise on mitigation measures to limit the impact of these attacks.
Based on the meeting notes, the key takeaways are as follows:
1. The CISA and FBI issued a warning regarding threat actors utilizing Androxgh0st malware to build a botnet focused on cloud credential theft and deploying additional malicious payloads.
2. Androxgh0st primarily targets .env files containing confidential information, such as credentials for various applications like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Office 365, SendGrid, and Twilio from the Laravel web application framework.
3. The malware supports various functions capable of abusing the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), scanning and exploiting exposed credentials and APIs, deploying web shells, and conducting spam campaigns using stolen Twilio and SendGrid credentials.
4. Threat actors have been observed creating fake pages on compromised websites, establishing backdoor access to sensitive databases, and deploying more malicious tools.
5. The attackers use stolen AWS credentials to attempt creating new users and user policies, as well as spin up new AWS instances for scanning vulnerable targets across the internet.
6. FBI and CISA recommend mitigation measures to limit the impact of Androxgh0st malware attacks, including keeping operating systems, software, and firmware up to date, denying unauthorized access to URIs, removing cloud credentials from .env files, and conducting regular reviews of stored credentials.
7. Organizations detecting suspicious or criminal activity linked to Androxgh0st malware are urged to share information with the FBI.
8. CISA added the CVE-2018-15133 Laravel deserialization vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog and ordered federal agencies to secure their systems against these attacks by February 6, 2022.
9. The CVE-2021-41773 Apache HTTP Server path traversal and CVE-2017-9841 PHPUnit command injection vulnerabilities have been added to the catalog in November 2021 and February 2022, respectively.
These takeaways summarize the key points from the meeting notes and provide a clear understanding of the implications and recommended actions.