Outlaw Threat Group Using Perl Shellbot to Target Enterprise IoT Devices

A cybercriminal group called Outlaw is using a Perl Shellbot to go after large organizations’ Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

The Trend Micro Cyber Safety Solutions Team observed a Perl Shellbot exploiting CVE-2017-1000117 to distribute an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) bot. This vulnerability enables attackers to pass a crafted “ssh://…” URL to unsuspecting victims and execute programs on their devices. According to Trend Micro, this threat can affect enterprise IoT devices, Linux servers, Windows-based environments and Android devices.

Outlaw communicates with the botnet using two compromised servers that belong to a Japanese art institution and a Bangladeshi government website. The threat group linked these two servers to a high-availability cluster to host an IRC bouncer and leveraged this asset for command-and-control (C&C) to target large businesses in more than a dozen countries, including the U.S., Germany, Israel and Japan.

The Ongoing Threat of IRC Botnets

IRC botnets are nothing new. In late 2016, MalwareMustDie observed attackers using new malware they called Linux/IRCTelnet to perform distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks via an IRC botnet. More than a year later, Arbor Networks reported that attackers had used MedusaIRC and its IRC-based C&C to craft MedusaHTTP, an HTTP-based DDoS botnet written in .NET.

Unfortunately, it’s not difficult for cybercriminal groups like Outlaw to create this type of threat. Trend Micro observed that the code Outlaw used in its attacks is available online. Anyone can use that code to create a bot with an undetectable toolset.

How to Protect Enterprise IoT Devices From Outlaw

To protect their organizations against Outlaw’s activity, Trend Micro recommended monitoring for the creation of new accounts and restricting the use of FTP as much as possible. Security teams should also use reliable threat intelligence to block known malicious URLs and invest in security information and event management (SIEM) technology to identify unknown threats.

Sources: Trend Micro, MalwareMustDie, Arbor Networks

David Bisson

Contributing Editor

How CTEM is providing better cybersecurity resilience for organizations

4 min read - Organizations today continuously face a number of fast-moving cyber threats that regularly challenge the effectiveness of their cybersecurity defenses. However, to keep pace, businesses need a proactive and adaptive approach to their security planning and execution.Cyber threat exposure management (CTEM) is an effective way to achieve this goal. It provides organizations with a reliable framework for identifying, assessing and mitigating new cyber risks as they materialize.The importance of developing cybersecurity resilienceRegardless of the industry, all organizations are subject to certain…

Insights from CISA’s red team findings and the evolution of EDR

3 min read - A recent CISA red team assessment of a United States critical infrastructure organization revealed systemic vulnerabilities in modern cybersecurity. Among the most pressing issues was a heavy reliance on endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions, paired with a lack of network-level protections.These findings underscore a familiar challenge: Why do organizations place so much trust in EDR alone, and what must change to address its shortcomings?EDR’s double-edged swordA cornerstone of cyber resilience strategy, EDR solutions are prized for their ability to…

Is the water safe? The state of critical infrastructure cybersecurity

4 min read - On September 25, CISA issued a stark reminder that critical infrastructure remains a primary target for cyberattacks. Vulnerable systems in industrial sectors, including water utilities, continue to be exploited due to poor cyber hygiene practices. Using unsophisticated methods like brute-force attacks and leveraging default passwords, threat actors have repeatedly managed to compromise operational technology (OT) and industrial control systems (ICS).Attacks on the industrial sector have been particularly costly. The 2024 IBM Cost of a Data Breach report found the average total…

Security Intelligence

{{title}}

{{title}}

{{title}}

Topics

The Ongoing Threat of IRC Botnets

How to Protect Enterprise IoT Devices From Outlaw

More from

How CTEM is providing better cybersecurity resilience for organizations

Insights from CISA’s red team findings and the evolution of EDR

Is the water safe? The state of critical infrastructure cybersecurity

Topic updates