Researchers Observe Threat Actor Using Varied Tools and Payloads to Distribute Monero Miners

A new threat actor is leveraging a varied tool kit and multiple payloads to distribute cryptomining malware, including Monero miners.

In April, Cisco Talos observed a new threat actor named Rocke using western and Chinese Git repositories to deliver cryptomining malware to honeypots that were vulnerable to an Apache Struts vulnerability.

Researchers detected Rocke conducting a similar campaign in July. In that operation, the threat actor communicated with an HTTP File Server (HFS) hosting 11 files. Two of those files — “TermsHost.exe” and “Config.json” — were the executables or configuration files for Monero miners. Many of the other hosted assets were shell scripts responsible for downloading and executing the miners or for killing processes that are commonly associated with other cryptomining malware or cryptomining in general.

Cryptomining Malware Continues to Grow

Rocke’s attack campaigns represent the latest offensives in an ongoing surge of cryptomining malware. In the first quarter of 2018, McAfee Labs detected a 629 percent increase in these threats, with the total number of detected samples rising from 400,000 to more than 2.9 million.

This growth coincides with a FireEye report that found a sharp increase in underground conversations containing cryptocurrency mining-related keywords beginning in 2017 and continuing through the first quarter of 2018.

These findings are also consistent with a sixfold increase in attacks involving embedded mining tools, which IBM Managed Security Services (MSS) observed between January and August 2017.

Defending Against Monero Miners

Security professionals can defend their organizations against threat actors that aim to spread Monero miners by scanning for the indicators of compromise (IoCs) identified in Cisco Talos’ report. Organizations should also consider implementing security best practices that offer blanket protection against malware and other digital threats. These controls should include the creation of a patch prioritization plan for security weaknesses affecting servers and other critical IT assets.

Sources: Cisco Talos, McAfee Labs, FireEye

David Bisson

Contributing Editor

What we can learn from the best collegiate cyber defenders

3 min read - This year marked the 19th season of the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (NCCDC). For those unfamiliar, CCDC is a competition that puts student teams in charge of managing IT for a fictitious company as the network is undergoing a fundamental transformation. This year the challenge involved a common scenario: a merger. Ten finalist teams were tasked with managing IT infrastructure during this migrational period and, as an added bonus, the networks were simultaneously attacked by a group of red…

A spotlight on Akira ransomware from X-Force Incident Response and Threat Intelligence

7 min read - This article was made possible thanks to contributions from Aaron Gdanski.IBM X-Force Incident Response and Threat Intelligence teams have investigated several Akira ransomware attacks since this threat actor group emerged in March 2023. This blog will share X-Force’s unique perspective on Akira gained while observing the threat actors behind this ransomware, including commands used to deploy the ransomware, active exploitation of CVE-2023-20269 and analysis of the ransomware binary.The Akira ransomware group has gained notoriety in the current cybersecurity landscape, underscored…

New proposed federal data privacy law suggests big changes

3 min read - After years of work and unsuccessful attempts at legislation, a draft of a federal data privacy law was recently released. The United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce released the American Privacy Rights Act on April 7, 2024. Several issues stood in the way of passing legislation in the past, such as whether states could issue tougher rules and if individuals could sue companies for privacy violations. With the American Privacy Rights Act of 2024, the U.S. government established…

Security Intelligence

{{title}}

{{title}}

{{title}}

Topics

Cryptomining Malware Continues to Grow

Defending Against Monero Miners

More from

What we can learn from the best collegiate cyber defenders

A spotlight on Akira ransomware from X-Force Incident Response and Threat Intelligence

New proposed federal data privacy law suggests big changes

Topic updates