Patched Elasticsearch Vulnerabilities Used to Spread Cryptocurrency Miner (CVE-2014-3120, CVE-2015-1427)
Attackers are actively scanning for vulnerable Elasticsearch systems in order to implant cryptocurrency mining scripts.
Background
In recent weeks, attackers have been observed scanning for vulnerabilities in Elasticsearch, a distributed, RESTful search and analytics engine. According to research from Trend Micro, the attackers are targeting unpatched Elasticsearch systems using vulnerabilities from 2014 and 2015 to break into systems in order to implant cryptocurrency mining (also known as “coinminer”) scripts. These scripts are designed to hijack a system’s computing resources in a race to solve complex mathematical problems (“mining”) first in order to receive a reward of cryptocurrency.
Vulnerability details
The Elasticsearch vulnerabilities used in these attacks include CVE-2014-3120, a remote code execution vulnerability in the ‘source' parameter of the '/_search' page as part of the Elasticsearch default configuration and CVE-2015-1427, a remote code execution vulnerability in the Groovy scripting engine part of the default configuration in Elasticsearch up to version 5.0.0. Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities can allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code, gain a remote shell or manipulate files on the remote system.
Urgently required actions
Upgrading to Elasticsearch version 1.2.0 or later resolves CVE-2014-3120 while upgrading to version 1.3.8 / 1.4.3 or later resolves CVE-2015-1427. Disabling scripting altogether will also mitigate these vulnerabilities. It is also extremely important to ensure your Elasticsearch is properly secured.
Identifying affected systems
A list of Nessus plugins to identify these vulnerabilities can be found here.
Get more information
- CoinMiners searching for hosts
- Cryptocurrency Miner Spreads via Old Vulnerabilities on Elasticsearch
- Securing the Elastic Stack
Learn more about Tenable, the first Cyber Exposure platform for holistic management of your modern attack surface. Get a free 60-day trial of Tenable.io Vulnerability Management.
Related Articles
CVE-2024-7593: Ivanti Virtual Traffic Manager Authentication Bypass Vulnerability
August 14, 2024Ivanti released a patch for a critical severity authentication bypass vulnerability and a warning that exploit code is publicly available
CVE-2024-20419: Cisco Smart Software Manager On-Prem Password Change Vulnerability
August 9, 2024Critical vulnerability in Cisco Smart Software Manager On-Prem exposes systems to unauthorized password changes, exploit code now available.BackgroundOn July 17, 2024, Cisco published an advisory for ...
Detecting Risky Third-party Drivers on Windows Assets
August 7, 2024Kernel-mode drivers are critical yet risky components of the Windows operating system. Learn about their functionality, the dangers they pose, and how Tenable's new plugins can help identify and mitigate vulnerabilities using community-driven resources like LOLDrivers.
CVE-2024-7593: Ivanti Virtual Traffic Manager Authentication Bypass Vulnerability
August 14, 2024Ivanti released a patch for a critical severity authentication bypass vulnerability and a warning that exploit code is publicly available
Microsoft’s August 2024 Patch Tuesday Addresses 88 CVEs
August 13, 2024Microsoft addresses 88 CVEs with seven critical vulnerabilities and 10 zero-day vulnerabilities, six of which were exploited in the wild.
Compromising Microsoft's AI Healthcare Chatbot Service
August 13, 2024Tenable Research discovered multiple privilege-escalation issues in the Azure Health Bot Service via a server-side request forgery (SSRF), which allowed researchers access to cross-tenant resources.
- Vulnerability Management