A newly discovered cyber threat campaign, named "Elektra-Leak," is actively focused on exploiting publicly available Amazon Web Service (AWS) Identity and Access Management (IAM) credentials that are inadvertently exposed in GitHub repositories. The attackers leverage these credentials to conduct cryptocurrency mining operations, with a specific focus on mining Monero. This campaign has been ongoing since December 2020 and has enabled threat actors to establish a substantial number of AWS Elastic Compute (EC2) instances. Between August 30 and October 6, 2023, they deployed as many as 474 unique Amazon EC2 instances for their mining activities. Notably, this attack involves the rapid and automated targeting of AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) credentials on GitHub. The attackers take action within just four minutes of these credentials being exposed, indicating the use of automated tools to swiftly identify and capture these vulnerable keys. Additionally, the attackers have a known practice of blocking AWS accounts that reveal IAM credentials, presumably to impede any investigative efforts. Furthermore, the campaign's success hinges on exploiting GitHub's secret scanning and AWS's AWSCompromisedKeyQuarantine policy, which is designed to prevent the use of compromised IAM credentials for launching EC2 instances. Despite the prompt activation of the quarantine policy, there are concerns that the keys may be exposed through an undisclosed method. The threat actors seem adept at identifying AWS keys that elude AWS's automated detection, allowing them to use these keys beyond the reach of the AWSCompromisedKeyQuarantine policy. The attack process involves using pilfered AWS credentials for initial account reconnaissance, the creation of AWS security groups, and the deployment of multiple EC2 instances across various regions via a VPN connection. Cryptocurrency mining is carried out on efficient c5a.24xlarge AWS instances. The cryptojacking software is sourced from a Google Drive URL, leveraging trust in widely used applications to avoid detection. Additionally, the threat actor's Amazon Machine Images (AMI) are kept private and not publicly listed in the AWS Marketplace, setting them apart from typical configurations.
A large-scale phishing campaign has been identified leveraging RFQ (Request for Quotation) themed emails to distribute credential-stealing malware. Attackers disguise malicious HTM...
Two critical vulnerabilities in Progress ShareFile have been identified that can be chained to achieve pre-authentication remote code execution (RCE). Discovered by watchTowr resea...
The FBI has issued a warning highlighting potential security and privacy risks associated with widely used mobile applications developed by Chinese companies. These applications, a...