Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

Cybercriminals, State-Sponsored Threat Actors Exploiting Confluence Server Vulnerability

A recently patched Confluence Server vulnerability is being exploited by multiple cybercrime and state-sponsored threat groups, according to Microsoft.

A recently patched Confluence Server vulnerability is being exploited by multiple cybercrime and state-sponsored threat groups, according to Microsoft.

The security hole, tracked as CVE-2022-26134, can be exploited by an unauthenticated attacker for remote code execution. It affects all supported versions of Confluence Server and Data Center, and it has been patched by Atlassian with the release of versions 7.4.17, 7.13.7, 7.14.3, 7.15.2, 7.16.4, 7.17.4 and 7.18.1.

The zero-day vulnerability was exploited before its existence came to light, but the volume of attacks has increased significantly following disclosure.

In the days immediately after the disclosure of the flaw, Censys and Shadowserver reported seeing thousands of internet-exposed Confluence servers that could have been vulnerable to attacks.

The initial attacks exploiting CVE-2022-26134 appeared to come from China and they focused on the delivery of web shells.

Threat intelligence company GreyNoise has so far seen more than 1,700 unique IP addresses attempting to exploit the vulnerability.

Microsoft reported on Saturday that it has seen multiple threat groups, including profit-driven cybercriminals and state-sponsored actors, exploiting the flaw in their attacks.

“In many cases impacted devices have been observed with multiple disparate instances of malicious activity, including extensive device and domain discovery, and the deployment of payloads like Cobalt Strike, web shells, botnets like Mirai and Kinsing, coin miners, and ransomware,” Microsoft said.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

The company has named two groups that have been observed targeting CVE-2022-26134: DEV-0401 and DEV-0234. The former is a China-based ransomware operator that has been known to deploy various ransomware families, including LockFile, AtomSilo and Rook.

In the attacks aimed at Confluence Server instances, Microsoft has seen the delivery of a piece of ransomware named Cerber2021.

Cloud security firm Lacework has also seen attacks targeting CVE-2022-26134. These operations involved the cryptocurrency miners named Kinsing a Hezb, as well as the Dark.IoT botnet.

Cybersecurity company Check Point has also seen attacks delivering cryptocurrency miners, including to Windows and Linux systems.

Related: Atlassian Patches Critical Code Execution Vulnerability in Confluence

Related: Atlassian Patches Critical Authentication Bypass Vulnerability in Jira

Related: USCYBERCOM Warns of Mass Exploitation of Atlassian Vulnerability Ahead of Holiday Weekend

Written By

Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a managing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Join the session as we discuss the challenges and best practices for cybersecurity leaders managing cloud identities.

Register

SecurityWeek’s Ransomware Resilience and Recovery Summit helps businesses to plan, prepare, and recover from a ransomware incident.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Vulnerabilities

Less than a week after announcing that it would suspended service indefinitely due to a conflict with an (at the time) unnamed security researcher...

Cybercrime

The changing nature of what we still generally call ransomware will continue through 2023, driven by three primary conditions.

Data Protection

The cryptopocalypse is the point at which quantum computing becomes powerful enough to use Shor’s algorithm to crack PKI encryption.

Cybercrime

A recently disclosed vBulletin vulnerability, which had a zero-day status for roughly two days last week, was exploited in a hacker attack targeting the...

Cybercrime

As it evolves, web3 will contain and increase all the security issues of web2 – and perhaps add a few more.

Cybercrime

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group informed some customers last week that their online accounts had been breached by hackers.

Data Breaches

OpenAI has confirmed a ChatGPT data breach on the same day a security firm reported seeing the use of a component affected by an...

Cyberwarfare

WASHINGTON - Cyberattacks are the most serious threat facing the United States, even more so than terrorism, according to American defense experts. Almost half...