VMware Alert: Uninstall EAP Now - Critical Flaw Puts Active Directory at Risk

VMware is urging users to uninstall the deprecated Enhanced Authentication Plugin (EAP) following the discovery of a critical security flaw. Tracked as CVE-2024-22245 (CVSS score: 9.6), the vulnerability has been described as an arbitrary authentication relay bug. "A malicious actor could trick a target domain user with EAP installed in their web browser into requesting and relaying

Chinese Hackers Silently Weaponized VMware Zero-Day Flaw for 2 Years

An advanced China-nexus cyber espionage group previously linked to the exploitation of security flaws in VMware and Fortinet appliances has been attributed to the abuse of a critical vulnerability in VMware vCenter Server as a zero-day since late 2021. "UNC3886 has a track record of utilizing zero-day vulnerabilities to complete their mission without being detected, and this latest example

Citrix, VMware, and Atlassian Hit with Critical Flaws — Patch ASAP!

Citrix is warning of two zero-day security vulnerabilities in NetScaler ADC (formerly Citrix ADC) and NetScaler Gateway (formerly Citrix Gateway) that are being actively exploited in the wild. The flaws are listed below - CVE-2023-6548 (CVSS score: 5.5) - Authenticated (low privileged) remote code execution on Management Interface (requires access to NSIP, CLIP, or SNIP with management

8Base Group Deploying New Phobos Ransomware Variant via SmokeLoader

The threat actors behind the 8Base ransomware are leveraging a variant of the Phobos ransomware to conduct their financially motivated attacks. The findings come from Cisco Talos, which has recorded an increase in activity carried out by the cybercriminals. “Most of the group’s Phobos variants are distributed by SmokeLoader, a backdoor trojan," security researcher Guilherme Venere said in an

Urgent: VMware Warns of Unpatched Critical Cloud Director Vulnerability

VMware is warning of a critical and unpatched security flaw in Cloud Director that could be exploited by a malicious actor to get around authentication protections. Tracked as CVE-2023-34060 (CVSS score: 9.8), the vulnerability impacts instances that have been upgraded to version 10.5 from an older version. "On an upgraded version of VMware Cloud Director Appliance 10.5, a malicious actor with

Researchers Find 34 Windows Drivers Vulnerable to Full Device Takeover

As many as 34 unique vulnerable Windows Driver Model (WDM) and Windows Driver Frameworks (WDF) drivers could be exploited by non-privileged threat actors to gain full control of the devices and execute arbitrary code on the underlying systems. "By exploiting the drivers, an attacker without privilege may erase/alter firmware, and/or elevate [operating system] privileges," Takahiro Haruyama, a

Act Now: VMware Releases Patch for Critical vCenter Server RCE Vulnerability

VMware has released security updates to address a critical flaw in the vCenter Server that could result in remote code execution on affected systems. The issue, tracked as CVE-2023-34048 (CVSS score: 9.8), has been described as an out-of-bounds write vulnerability in the implementation of the DCE/RPC protocol. "A malicious actor with network access to vCenter Server may trigger an out-of-bounds

Alert: PoC Exploits Released for Citrix and VMware Vulnerabilities

Virtualization services provider VMware has alerted customers to the existence of a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for a recently patched security flaw in Aria Operations for Logs. Tracked as CVE-2023-34051 (CVSS score: 8.1), the high-severity vulnerability relates to a case of authentication bypass that could lead to remote code execution. "An unauthenticated, malicious actor can inject files

Who’s Behind the 8Base Ransomware Website?

The victim shaming website operated by the cybercriminals behind 8Base — currently one of the more active ransomware groups — was until earlier today leaking quite a bit of information that the crime group probably did not intend to be made public. The leaked data suggests that at least some of website’s code was written by a 36-year-old programmer residing in the capital city of Moldova.

8Base maintains a darknet website that is only reachable via Tor, a freely available global anonymity network. The site lists hundreds of victim organizations and companies — all allegedly hacking victims that refused to pay a ransom to keep their stolen data from being published.

The 8Base darknet site also has a built-in chat feature, presumably so that 8Base victims can communicate and negotiate with their extortionists. This chat feature, which runs on the Laravel web application framework, works fine as long as you are *sending* information to the site (i.e., by making a “POST” request).

However, if one were to try to fetch data from the same chat service (i.e., by making a “GET” request), the website until quite recently generated an extremely verbose error message:

That error page revealed the true Internet address of the Tor hidden service that houses the 8Base website: 95.216.51[.]74, which according to DomainTools.com is a server in Finland that is tied to the Germany-based hosting giant Hetzner.

But that’s not the interesting part: Scrolling down the lengthy error message, we can see a link to a private Gitlab server called Jcube-group: gitlab[.]com/jcube-group/clients/apex/8base-v2. Digging further into this Gitlab account, we can find some curious data points available in the JCube Group’s public code repository.

For example, this “status.php” page, which was committed to JCube Group’s Gitlab repository roughly one month ago, includes code that makes several mentions of the term “KYC” (e.g. KYC_UNVERIFIED, KYC_VERIFIED, and KYC_PENDING).

This is curious because a FAQ on the 8Base darknet site includes a section on “special offers for journalists and reporters,” which says the crime group is open to interviews but that journalists will need to prove their identity before any interview can take place. The 8base FAQ refers to this vetting process as “KYC,” which typically stands for “Know Your Customer.”

“We highly respect the work of journalists and consider information to be our priority,” the 8Base FAQ reads. “We have a special program for journalists which includes sharing information a few hours or even days before it is officially published on our news website and Telegram channel: you would need to go through a KYC procedure to apply. Journalists and reporters can contact us via our PR Telegram channel with any questions.”

The 8Base darknet site also has a publicly accessible “admin” login page, which features an image of a commercial passenger plane parked at what appears to be an airport. Next to the airplane photo is a message that reads, “Welcome to 8Base. Admin Login to 8Base dashboard.”

Right-clicking on the 8Base admin page and selecting “View Source” produces the page’s HTML code. That code is virtually identical to a “login.blade.php” page that was authored and committed to JCube Group’s Gitlab repository roughly three weeks ago.

It appears the person responsible for the JCube Group’s code is a 36-year-old developer from Chisinau, Moldova named Andrei Kolev. Mr. Kolev’s LinkedIn page says he’s a full-stack developer at JCube Group, and that he’s currently looking for work. The homepage for Jcubegroup[.]com lists an address and phone number that Moldovan business records confirm is tied to Mr. Kolev.

The posts on the Twitter account for Mr. Kolev (@andrewkolev) are all written in Russian, and reference several now-defunct online businesses, including pluginspro[.]ru.

Reached for comment via LinkedIn, Mr. Kolev said he had no idea why the 8Base darknet site was pulling code from the “clients” directory of his private JCube Group Gitlab repository, or how the 8Base name was even included.

“I [don’t have] a clue, I don’t have that project in my repo,” Kolev explained. “They [aren’t] my clients. Actually we currently have just our own projects.”

Mr. Kolev shared a screenshot of his current projects, but very quickly after that deleted it. However, KrebsOnSecurity captured a copy of the image before it was removed:

Within minutes of explaining why I was reaching out to Mr. Kolev and walking him through the process of finding this connection, the 8Base website was changed, and the error message that linked to the JCube Group private Gitlab repository no longer appeared. Instead, trying the same “GET” method described above caused the 8Base website to return a “405 Method Not Allowed” error page:

Mr. Kolev claimed he didn’t know anything about the now-removed error page on 8Base’s site that referenced his private Gitlab repo, and said he deleted the screenshot from our LinkedIn chat because it contained private information.

Ransomware groups are known to remotely hire developers for specific projects without disclosing exactly who they are or how the new hire’s code is intended to be used, and it is possible that one of Mr. Kolev’s clients is merely a front for 8Base. But despite 8Base’s statement that they are happy to correspond with journalists, KrebsOnSecurity is still waiting for a reply from the group via their Telegram channel.

The tip about the leaky 8Base website was provided by a reader who asked to remain anonymous. That reader, a legitimate security professional and researcher who goes by the handle @htmalgae on Twitter, said it is likely that whoever developed the 8Base website inadvertently left it in “development mode,” which is what caused the site to be so verbose with its error messages.

“If 8Base was running the app in production mode instead of development mode, this Tor de-anonymization would have never been possible,” @htmalgae said.

A recent blog post from VMware/Carbon Black called the 8Base ransomware group “a heavy hitter” that has remained relatively unknown despite the massive spike in activity in Summer of 2023.

“8Base is a Ransomware group that has been active since March 2022 with a significant spike in activity in June of 2023,” Carbon Black researchers wrote. “Describing themselves as ‘simple pen testers,’ their leak site provided victim details through Frequently Asked Questions and Rules sections as well as multiple ways to contact them. ”

According to VMware, what’s particularly interesting about 8Base’s communication style is the use of verbiage that is strikingly familiar to another known cybercriminal group: RansomHouse.

“The group utilizes encryption paired with ‘name-and-shame’ techniques to compel their victims to pay their ransoms,” VMware researchers wrote. “8Base has an opportunistic pattern of compromise with recent victims spanning across varied industries. Despite the high amount of compromises, the information regarding identities, methodology, and underlying motivation behind these incidents still remains a mystery.”

Update, Sept. 21, 10:43 a.m. ET: The author of Databreaches.net was lurking in the 8Base Telegram channel when I popped in to ask the crime group a question, and reports that 8Base did eventually reply: ““hi at the moment we r not doing interviews. we have nothing to say. we r a little busy.”

PoC Exploit Released for Critical VMware Aria's SSH Auth Bypass Vulnerability

Proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit code has been made available for a recently disclosed and patched critical flaw impacting VMware Aria Operations for Networks (formerly vRealize Network Insight). The flaw, tracked as CVE-2023-34039, is rated 9.8 out of a maximum of 10 for severity and has been described as a case of authentication bypass due to a lack of unique cryptographic key generation. “A

Critical Vulnerability Alert: VMware Aria Operations Networks at Risk from Remote Attacks

VMware has released software updates to correct two security vulnerabilities in Aria Operations for Networks that could be potentially exploited to bypass authentication and gain remote code execution. The most severe of the flaws is CVE-2023-34039 (CVSS score: 9.8), which relates to a case of authentication bypass arising as a result of a lack of unique cryptographic key generation. "A

8Base Ransomware Spikes in Activity, Threatens U.S. and Brazilian Businesses

A ransomware threat called 8Base that has been operating under the radar for over a year has been attributed to a "massive spike in activity" in May and June 2023. "The group utilizes encryption paired with 'name-and-shame' techniques to compel their victims to pay their ransoms," VMware Carbon Black researchers Deborah Snyder and Fae Carlisle said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "8Base

Alert! Hackers Exploiting Critical Vulnerability in VMware's Aria Operations Networks

VMware has flagged that a recently patched critical command injection vulnerability in Aria Operations for Networks (formerly vRealize Network Insight) has come under active exploitation in the wild. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2023-20887, could allow a malicious actor with network access to the product to perform a command injection attack, resulting in remote code execution. It impacts VMware

Chinese Hackers Exploit VMware Zero-Day to Backdoor Windows and Linux Systems

The Chinese state-sponsored group known as UNC3886 has been found to exploit a zero-day flaw in VMware ESXi hosts to backdoor Windows and Linux systems. The VMware Tools authentication bypass vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2023-20867 (CVSS score: 3.9), "enabled the execution of privileged commands across Windows, Linux, and PhotonOS (vCenter) guest VMs without authentication of guest credentials

Urgent Security Updates: Cisco and VMware Address Critical Vulnerabilities

VMware has released security updates to fix a trio of flaws in Aria Operations for Networks that could result in information disclosure and remote code execution. The most critical of the three vulnerabilities is a command injection vulnerability tracked as CVE-2023-20887 (CVSS score: 9.8) that could allow a malicious actor with network access to achieve remote code execution. Also patched by

Alarming Surge in TrueBot Activity Revealed with New Delivery Vectors

A surge in TrueBot activity was observed in May 2023, cybersecurity researchers disclosed. "TrueBot is a downloader trojan botnet that uses command and control servers to collect information on compromised systems and uses that compromised system as a launching point for further attacks," VMware's Fae Carlisle said. Active since at least 2017, TrueBot is linked to a group known as Silence that's

New Linux Ransomware Strain BlackSuit Shows Striking Similarities to Royal

An analysis of the Linux variant of a new ransomware strain called BlackSuit has covered significant similarities with another ransomware family called Royal. Trend Micro, which examined an x64 VMware ESXi version targeting Linux machines, said it identified an "extremely high degree of similarity" between Royal and BlackSuit. "In fact, they're nearly identical, with 98% similarities in

New 'MichaelKors' Ransomware-as-a-Service Targeting Linux and VMware ESXi Systems

A new ransomware-as-service (RaaS) operation called MichaelKors has become the latest file-encrypting malware to target Linux and VMware ESXi systems as of April 2023. The development points to cybercriminal actors increasingly setting their eyes on the ESXi, cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "This trend is especially noteworthy given the fact that ESXi

Babuk Source Code Sparks 9 Different Ransomware Strains Targeting VMware ESXi Systems

Multiple threat actors have capitalized on the leak of Babuk (aka Babak or Babyk) ransomware code in September 2021 to build as many as nine different ransomware families capable of targeting VMware ESXi systems. "These variants emerged through H2 2022 and H1 2023, which shows an increasing trend of Babuk source code adoption," SentinelOne security researcher Alex Delamotte said in a report

VMware Releases Critical Patches for Workstation and Fusion Software

VMware has released updates to resolve multiple security flaws impacting its Workstation and Fusion software, the most critical of which could allow a local attacker to achieve code execution. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2023-20869 (CVSS score: 9.3), is described as a stack-based buffer-overflow vulnerability that resides in the functionality for sharing host Bluetooth devices with the

VMware patches break-and-enter hole in logging tools: update now!

You know jolly well/What we're going to say/And that's "Do not delay/Simply do it today."

Cisco and VMware Release Security Updates to Patch Critical Flaws in their Products

Cisco and VMware have released security updates to address critical security flaws in their products that could be exploited by malicious actors to execute arbitrary code on affected systems. The most severe of the vulnerabilities is a command injection flaw in Cisco Industrial Network Director (CVE-2023-20036, CVSS score: 9.9), which resides in the web UI component and arises as a result of

Chinese Hackers Exploit Fortinet Zero-Day Flaw for Cyber Espionage Attack

The zero-day exploitation of a now-patched medium-severity security flaw in the Fortinet FortiOS operating system has been linked to a suspected Chinese hacking group. American cybersecurity company Mandiant, which made the attribution, said the activity cluster is part of a broader campaign designed to deploy backdoors onto Fortinet and VMware solutions and maintain persistent access to victim

VMware Patches Critical Vulnerability in Carbon Black App Control Product

VMware on Tuesday released patches to address a critical security vulnerability affecting its Carbon Black App Control product. Tracked as CVE-2023-20858, the shortcoming carries a CVSS score of 9.1 out of a maximum of 10 and impacts App Control versions 8.7.x, 8.8.x, and 8.9.x. The virtualization services provider describes the issue as an injection vulnerability. Security researcher Jari

S3 Ep121: Can you get hacked and then prosecuted for it? [Audio + Text]

Latest epsiode. Listen now!

VMWare user? Worried about “ESXi ransomware”? Check your patches now!

To borrow from HHGttG, please DON'T PANIC. But if you are two years out of date with patches, please do ACT NOW!

VMware Finds No Evidence of 0-Day in Ongoing ESXiArgs Ransomware Spree

VMware on Monday said it found no evidence that threat actors are leveraging an unknown security flaw, i.e., a zero-day, in its software as part of an ongoing ransomware attack spree worldwide. "Most reports state that End of General Support (EoGS) and/or significantly out-of-date products are being targeted with known vulnerabilities which were previously addressed and disclosed in VMware

New Wave of Ransomware Attacks Exploiting VMware Bug to Target ESXi Servers

VMware ESXi hypervisors are the target of a new wave of attacks designed to deploy ransomware on compromised systems. "These attack campaigns appear to exploit CVE-2021-21974, for which a patch has been available since February 23, 2021," the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) of France said in an advisory on Friday. VMware, in its own alert released at the time, described the issue as an 

VMware Releases Patches for Critical vRealize Log Insight Software Vulnerabilities

VMware on Tuesday released software to remediate four security vulnerabilities affecting vRealize Log Insight (aka Aria Operations for Logs) that could expose users to remote code execution attacks. Two of the flaws are critical, carrying a severity rating of 9.8 out of a maximum of 10, the virtualization services provider noted in its first security bulletin for 2023. Tracked as CVE-2022-31706

Iranian Hackers Compromised a U.S. Federal Agency’s Network Using Log4Shell Exploit

Iranian government-sponsored threat actors have been blamed for compromising a U.S. federal agency by taking advantage of the Log4Shell vulnerability in an unpatched VMware Horizon server. The details, which were shared by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), come in response to incident response efforts undertaken by the authority from mid-June through mid-July 2022

VMware Warns of 3 New Critical Flaws Affecting Workspace ONE Assist Software

VMware has patched five security flaws affecting its Workspace ONE Assist solution, some of which could be exploited to bypass authentication and obtain elevated permissions. Topping the list are three critical vulnerabilities tracked as CVE-2022-31685, CVE-2022-31686, and CVE-2022-31687. All the shortcomings are rated 9.8 on the CVSS vulnerability scoring system. CVE-2022-31685 is an

VMware Releases Patch for Critical RCE Flaw in Cloud Foundation Platform

VMware on Tuesday shipped security updates to address a critical security flaw in its VMware Cloud Foundation product. Tracked as CVE-2021-39144, the issue has been rated 9.8 out of 10 on the CVSS vulnerability scoring system, and relates to a remote code execution vulnerability via XStream open source library. "Due to an unauthenticated endpoint that leverages XStream for input serialization in

Multiple Campaigns Exploit VMware Vulnerability to Deploy Crypto Miners and Ransomware

A now-patched vulnerability in VMware Workspace ONE Access has been observed being exploited to deliver both cryptocurrency miners and ransomware on affected machines. "The attacker intends to utilize a victim's resources as much as possible, not only to install RAR1Ransom for extortion, but also to spread GuardMiner to collect cryptocurrency," Fortinet FortiGuard Labs researcher Cara Lin said 

New Report Uncovers Emotet's Delivery and Evasion Techniques Used in Recent Attacks

Threat actors associated with the notorious Emotet malware are continually shifting their tactics and command-and-control (C2) infrastructure to escape detection, according to new research from VMware. Emotet is the work of a threat actor tracked as Mummy Spider (aka TA542), emerging in June 2014 as a banking trojan before morphing into an all-purpose loader in 2016 that's capable of delivering

New Malware Families Found Targeting VMware ESXi Hypervisors

Threat actors have been found deploying never-before-seen post-compromise implants in VMware's virtualization software to seize control of infected systems and evade detection. Google's Mandiant threat intelligence division referred to it as a "novel malware ecosystem" that impacts VMware ESXi, Linux vCenter servers, and Windows virtual machines, allowing attackers to maintain persistent access

VMware Releases Patches for Several New Flaws Affecting Multiple Products

Virtualization services provider VMware on Tuesday shipped updates to address 10 security flaws affecting multiple products that could be abused by unauthenticated attackers to perform malicious actions. The issues, tracked from CVE-2022-31656 through CVE-2022-31665 (CVSS scores: 4.7 - 9.8), impact VMware Workspace ONE Access, Workspace ONE Access Connector, Identity Manager, Identity Manager

LockBit Ransomware Abuses Windows Defender to Deploy Cobalt Strike Payload

A threat actor associated with the LockBit 3.0 ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operation has been observed abusing the Windows Defender command-line tool to decrypt and load Cobalt Strike payloads.  According to a report published by SentinelOne last week, the incident occurred after obtaining initial access via the Log4Shell vulnerability against an unpatched VMware Horizon Server. "Once initial

Log4Shell Still Being Exploited to Hack VMWare Servers to Exfiltrate Sensitive Data

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), along with the Coast Guard Cyber Command (CGCYBER), on Thursday released a joint advisory warning of continued attempts on the part of threat actors to exploit the Log4Shell flaw in VMware Horizon servers to breach target networks. "Since December 2021, multiple threat actor groups have exploited Log4Shell on unpatched,

S3 Ep84: Government demand, Mozilla velocity, and Clearview fine [Podcast]

Latest episode - listen now!

US Government says: Patch VMware right now, or get off our network

Find and patch. Right now. If you can't patch, get it off the network. Right now! Oh, and show us what you did to comply.

VMware Releases Patches for New Vulnerabilities Affecting Multiple Products

VMware has issued patches to contain two security flaws impacting Workspace ONE Access, Identity Manager, and vRealize Automation that could be exploited to backdoor enterprise networks. The first of the two flaws, tracked as CVE-2022-22972 (CVSS score: 9.8), concerns an authentication bypass that could enable an actor with network access to the UI to gain administrative access without prior

Two different “VMware Spring” bugs at large – we cut through the confusion

Whoever came up with the name "Spring4Shell" didn't help at all... we cut through the Spring Bug confusion

S3 Ep71: VMware escapes, PHP holes, WP plugin woes, and scary scams [Podcast + Transcript]

Latest episode - listen now!

VMware fixes holes that could allow virtual machine escapes

Hats off to VMware for not using weasel words: "When should you act?" Immediately...