September 20, 2021
New malware has been discovered in cyberattacks on WordPress and Linux platforms.
Larry Cashdollar, senior security researcher at Akamai, said the malware, called Capoae, was written in the Golang programming language and quickly became a favourite of threat actors because of its cross-platform capabilities – and infected through known bugs and poor administrative credentials.
Vulnerabilities exploited by Capoae include CVE-2020-14882, an RCE flaw in remote code execution in Oracle WebLogic Server, and CVE-2018-20062, another RCE in ThinkPHP.
The malware was discovered after a PHP malware sample arrived via a back door in conjunction with a WordPress plugin called Download monitor, which was installed after the lax credentials of the honeypot had been obtained in a brute force attack.
This plugin was then used as a way to transfer the main payload from Capoae to /tmp, a 3MB UPX packed binary file, which was then decrypted. XMRig was then installed to mine for the cryptocurrency Monero XMR.
Along with the cryptocurrency miner, several web shells are also installed, one of which is capable of uploading files stolen from the compromised system. In addition, a port scanner has been bundled with the miner to search for open ports for further exploitation.
For more information, view the original story on ZDnet.
