Security Experts:

Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Malware & Threats

IBM Supply Chain Breached as Storwize USBs Ship With Malware

The need to maintain security over the supply chain has been confirmed by alerts issued at the end of last week by both IBM and Lenovo. IBM has been shipping malware-infected initialization USBs for its Storwize storage systems which are used by Lenovo.

The need to maintain security over the supply chain has been confirmed by alerts issued at the end of last week by both IBM and Lenovo. IBM has been shipping malware-infected initialization USBs for its Storwize storage systems which are used by Lenovo.

“IBM has detected that some USB flash drives containing the initialization tool shipped with the IBM Storwize V3500, V3700 and V5000 Gen 1 systems contain a file that has been infected with malicious code,” warns IBM in its alert.

Lenovo published a similar alert: “Some USB flash drives containing the initialization tool shipped with the IBM Storwize for Lenovo V3500, V3700 and V5000 Gen 1 storage systems manufactured by IBM contain a file that has been infected with malicious code. The malicious file does not in any way affect the integrity or performance of the storage systems.”

The last statement is only true so long as the infected file is not manually executed by the user. Launching the initialization copies the malware and the initialization tool to a temporary folder, but does not execute the malware itself. 

This malware is not new. Detected variously as Win32/Pondre, VirTool:Win32/Injector.EG, W32.Faedevour!inf and others by different AV engines, it was detected by 57 out of 61 AV engines on Virus Total at the end of March 2017. It follows that most mainstream anti-virus products would immediately detect its presence.

USB drive models V3500-2071, V3700-2072, V5000-2077 and V5000-2078 may be infected. “IBM Storwize Systems with serial numbers starting with the characters 78D2 are not affected,” says IBM.

Lenovo recommends that users should destroy the affected drives. Users who have already used the drive should first check that their AV system has effectively quarantined or removed the malware. If it hasn’t, it can be manually removed by deleting the Windows directory %TMP%\initTool or the Mac or Linux directory /tmp/initTool; taking care to delete the directory rather than simply moving it to the Recycle Bin.

There are two primary aspects to this incident. The first is a serious embarrassment to IBM; but the most worrying aspect is that the supply chain of a company as large and prestigious as IBM can be affected. The malware itself seems to be neither difficult to detect, nor difficult to remove — but the supply chain has become a major attack vector. Both IBM and Lenovo can consider themselves lucky that it wasn’t more sophisticated new malware.

Written By

Click to comment

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 this webinar to learn best practices that organizations can use to improve both their resilience to new threats and their response times to incidents.

Register

Join this live webinar as we explore the potential security threats that can arise when third parties are granted access to a sensitive data or systems.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Cybercrime

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

Cybercrime

No one combatting cybercrime knows everything, but everyone in the battle has some intelligence to contribute to the larger knowledge base.

Risk Management

The supply chain threat is directly linked to attack surface management, but the supply chain must be known and understood before it can be...

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...

ICS/OT

The overall effect of current global geopolitical conditions is that nation states have a greater incentive to target the ICS/OT of critical industries, while...

Malware & Threats

Threat actors are increasingly abusing Microsoft OneNote documents to deliver malware in both targeted and spray-and-pray campaigns.

Malware & Threats

A vulnerability affecting IBM’s Aspera Faspex file transfer solution, tracked as CVE-2022-47986, has been exploited in attacks.

Malware & Threats

Microsoft plans to improve the protection of Office users by blocking XLL add-ins from the internet.