Oh no, you're thinking, yet another cookie pop-up. Well, sorry, it's the law. We measure how many people read us, and ensure you see relevant ads, by storing cookies on your device. If you're cool with that, hit “Accept all Cookies”. For more info and to customize your settings, hit “Customize Settings”.

Review and manage your consent

Here's an overview of our use of cookies, similar technologies and how to manage them. You can also change your choices at any time, by hitting the “Your Consent Options” link on the site's footer.

Manage Cookie Preferences
  • These cookies are strictly necessary so that you can navigate the site as normal and use all features. Without these cookies we cannot provide you with the service that you expect.

  • These cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests.

  • These cookies collect information in aggregate form to help us understand how our websites are being used. They allow us to count visits and traffic sources so that we can measure and improve the performance of our sites. If people say no to these cookies, we do not know how many people have visited and we cannot monitor performance.

See also our Cookie policy and Privacy policy.

This article is more than 1 year old

Cyberscum target Microsoft SQL Server boxen – and some careless sysadmins were reinfected after cleaning it out

Two-year campaign observed by Guardicore

A malware gang is targeting Microsoft SQL servers with such precision that they're disabling rival gangs' software nasties in their quest to steal control of servers from their rightful owners.

Israeli infosec outfit Guardicore Labs today dubbed the attack group Vollgar, saying it had been operating "under the radar for almost two years."

"The Vollgar attack chain also demonstrates the competitive nature of the attacker, who diligently and thoroughly kills other threat actors' processes," the firm said in a statement.

Lead researcher Ophir Harpaz said in a research report: "Overall, Vollgar attacks originated in more than 120 IP addresses, the vast majority of which are in China. These are most likely compromised machines, repurposed to scan and infect new victims."

Eyecatchingly, although the majority of infected machines were cleaned up by their owners to remove the malware, a fifth of those weren't cleansed of badness for up to a fortnight in some cases. Worse, around 10 per cent of the machines observed by Harpaz and her team were reinfected by Vollgar's operators – suggesting sysadmins may not be taking routine infosec hygiene as seriously as they perhaps ought to be.

Cryptomining, backdoors

Vollgar's two main attack methods are planting cryptominers to create virtual currency through stealing compute resources, and planting remote-access tools. Their main vector is good old fashioned brute-forcing of passwords to gain access to compromisable machines.

Once inside the target box, Vollgar's operatives create a series of admin users to give themselves a backdoor for later exploitation. Harpaz described the hackers' tactics as "noisy", observing that their command'n'control machines were using a block of IP addresses registered to a Gmail account rather than a business, such as a server host, which is a little suspicious.

Speculating that MS-SQL servers exposed to the internet with weak credentials might explain how the attackers gained illicit access to "2,000 – 3,000 database machines daily", Harpaz explained that heathcare, aviation, IT, telcos and higher education institutions appeared to be the hacking crew's main targets.

Guardicore Labs is also providing a free Powershell detection script aiding detection of Vollgar's tracks on infected machines, the outfit said. ®

 

Similar topics

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like