OMIGOD: Microsoft Azure VMs Exploited to Drop Mirai, Miners

September 20, 2021

Researchers have found that threat actors exploit Azure OMIGOD, a group of four vulnerabilities in the Open Management Infrastructure (OMI) that provide scope for privilege escalation and remote code execution.

Wiz researchers who first discovered the bugs noted that they may affect thousands of Azure customers and millions of endpoints.

The first attacks were discovered by security researchers, who showed that a Mirai botnet was behind some of the exploit attempts against Azure Linux OMI endpoints, which are vulnerable to CVE-2021-38647 RCE exploits.

In analyzing the botnet, digital forensics company Cado Security noted that it “also closes the ports of the vulnerabilities it exploited to stop other botnets taking over the system.”

Among the steps customers should take to mitigate the risk, Microsoft said: “While updates are being rolled out using safe deployment practices, customers can protect against the RCE vulnerability by ensuring VMs are deployed within a Network Security Group (NSG) or behind a perimeter firewall and restrict access to Linux systems that expose the OMI ports (TCP 5985, 5986, and 1207).”

For more information, read the original story in Bleeping Computer.

Top Stories

Related Articles

December 30, 2025 A fast-moving cyberattack has compromised more than 59,000 internet-facing Next.js servers in less than two days after more...

December 29, 2025 The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has warned that several of its Internet Time more...

December 29, 2025 A critical security flaw has been found in LangChain, one of the most widely used frameworks for more...

December 23, 2025 South Korea will require facial recognition scans to open new mobile phone accounts. The new rule is more...

Picture of TND News Desk

TND News Desk

Staff writer for Tech Newsday.
Picture of TND News Desk

TND News Desk

Staff writer for Tech Newsday.

Jim Love

Jim is an author and podcast host with over 40 years in technology.

Share:
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn