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Novel Botnet Hunts Down and Destroys Crypto Mining Malware

Botnet

A Botnet is a number of Internet-connected devices, each of which is running one or more bots. Botnets can be used to perform Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks, steal data,[1] Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal spam, and allows the attacker to access the device and its connection. The owner can control the botnet using command and control (C&C) software.[2] The word "botnet" is a portmanteau of the words "robot" and "network". The term is usually used with a negative or malicious connotation.

Overview[edit]

A botnet is a logical collection of Internet-connected devices such as computers, smartphones or IoT devices whose security have been breached and control ceded to a third party. Each compromised device, known as a "bot", is created when a device Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal penetrated by software from a Malware (malicious software) distribution. The controller of a botnet is able to direct the activities of these compromised computers through communication channels formed by standards-based network protocols, such as IRC and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).[3][4]

Botnets are increasingly rented out by cyber criminals as commodities for a variety of purposes.[5]

Architecture[edit]

Botnet architecture has evolved over time in an effort to evade detection and disruption. Traditionally, bot programs are constructed as clients which communicate via existing servers. This allows the Bot herder (the Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal controlling the botnet) to perform all control from a remote location, which obfuscates the traffic.[6] Many recent botnets now rely on existing peer-to-peer networks to communicate. These P2P bot programs perform the same actions as the client-server model, but they do not require a central server to communicate.

Client-server model[edit]

The first botnets on the internet used a client-server model to accomplish their tasks. Typically, these botnets operate through Internet Relay Chat networks, domains, or websites. Infected clients access a predetermined location and await Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal commands from the server. The bot herder sends commands to the server, which relays them to the clients. Clients execute the commands and report their results back to the bot herder.

In the case of IRC botnets, infected clients connect to an infected IRC server and join a channel pre-designated for C&C by the bot herder. The bot herder Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal commands to the channel via the IRC server. Each client retrieves the commands and executes them. Clients send messages back to the IRC channel with the results of their actions.[6]

Peer-to-peer[edit]

In response to efforts to detect and decapitate IRC botnets, bot herders have begun deploying malware on peer-to-peer networks. These bots may use digital signatures so that only someone with access to the private key can control the botnet.[7] See e. g. Gameover ZeuS and ZeroAccess botnet.

Newer botnets fully operate over P2P networks. Rather than communicate with a centralized server, P2P bots perform as both a command distribution server and a client which receives commands.[8] This avoids having any single point of failure, which is an issue for centralized botnets.

In order to find other infected machines, the bot discreetly probes random IP Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal until it contacts another infected machine. The contacted bot replies with information such as its software version and list of known bots. If one of the bots' version is lower than the other, they will initiate a file transfer to update.[7] This way, each bot grows its list of infected machines and updates itself by periodically communicating to all known bots.

Core components[edit]

A botnet's originator (known as a "bot herder" or "bot master") controls the botnet remotely. This is known as the command-and-control (C&C). The program for the operation which must communicate via a covert channel to the client on the victim's machine (zombie computer).

Control protocols[edit]

IRC is a historically favored means of C&C because of its communication protocol. A bot herder creates an IRC channel for infected clients to join. Messages sent to the channel are broadcast to all channel members. The bot herder may set the channel's topic to command the botnet. E. g. the message from the bot herder alerts all infected clients belonging to #channel to begin a DDoS attack on the website www. victim. com. An example response by a bot client alerts the bot herder that it has Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal the attack.[7]

Some botnets implement custom versions of well-known Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal. The implementation differences can be used for detection of botnets. For example, Mega-D features a slightly modified SMTP implementation for testing spam capability. Bringing down the Mega-D's SMTP server disables the entire pool of bots that rely upon the same SMTP server.[9]

Zombie computer[edit]

In computer science, a zombie computer is a computer connected to the Internet that has been compromised by a hacker, computer virus or trojan horse and can be used to perform malicious tasks of one sort or another under remote direction. Botnets of zombie computers are often used to spread e-mail spam and launch denial-of-service attacks. Most owners of zombie computers are unaware that their system is being used in this way. Because the owner tends to be unaware, these computers are metaphorically compared to zombies. A coordinated DDoS attack by multiple botnet machines also resembles a zombie horde attack. Many computer users are unaware that their computer is infected with bots.[10]

The process of stealing computing resources as a result of a system being joined to a "botnet" is sometimes referred to as "scrumping".[11]

Command and control[edit]

Botnet Command and control (C&C) protocols have been implemented in a number of ways, from traditional IRC approaches to more sophisticated versions.

Telnet[edit]

Telnet botnets use a simple C&C botnet Protocol in which bots connect to the main command server to host the botnet. Bots are added to the botnet by using a scanning script, the scanning script is run on an external server and scans IP ranges for telnet and SSH server default logins. Once a login is found it is added to an infection list and infected with a malicious infection line via SSH on from the scanner server. When the SSH command is run it infects the server and commands the Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal to ping to the control server and becomes its slave from the malicious code infecting it. Once servers are infected to the server the bot controller can launch DDoS attacks of high volume using the C&C panel on the host server.

IRC[edit]

IRC networks use simple, low bandwidth communication methods, making them widely used to host botnets. They tend to be relatively simple in construction and have Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal used with moderate success for coordinating DDoS attacks and spam campaigns while being able to continually switch channels to avoid being taken down. However, in some cases, merely blocking of certain keywords has proven effective in stopping IRC-based botnets. The RFC 1459 (IRC) standard is popular with botnets. The first known popular botnet controller script, "MaXiTE Bot" was using IRC XDCC protocol Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal private control commands.

One problem with using IRC is that each bot client must know the IRC server, port, and channel to be of any use to the botnet. Anti-malware organizations can detect and shut down these servers and channels, effectively halting the botnet attack. If this happens, clients are still infected, but they typically lie dormant since they have no way of receiving instructions.[7] To mitigate this problem, a botnet can consist of several servers or channels. If one of the servers or channels becomes disabled, the botnet simply switches to another. It is still possible to detect and disrupt additional botnet servers or channels by sniffing IRC traffic. A botnet adversary can even potentially gain knowledge of the control scheme and imitate the bot herder by issuing commands correctly.[12]

P2P[edit]

Since most botnets using IRC networks and domains can be taken down with time, hackers have moved to P2P botnets with C&C as a way to make it harder to be taken down.

Some have also used encryption as a way to secure or lock down the botnet from others, most of the time when they use encryption it is public-key cryptography and has presented challenges in both implementing it and breaking it.

Domains[edit]

Many large botnets tend to use domains rather than IRC in their construction (see Rustock botnet and Srizbi botnet). They are usually hosted with bulletproof hosting services. This is one of the earliest types of C&C. A zombie computer accesses a specially-designed webpage or domain(s) which serves the list of controlling commands. The advantages of using web pages or domains as C&C is that a large botnet can be effectively controlled and maintained with very simple code that can be readily updated.

Disadvantages of using this method are that it uses a considerable amount of bandwidth at large scale, and domains can be quickly seized by government agencies without much trouble or effort. If the domains controlling the botnets are not seized, they are also easy targets to compromise with denial-of-service attacks.

Fast-flux DNS can be used as a way to make it difficult to track down the control servers, which may change from day to day. Control servers may also hop from DNS domain to DNS domain, with domain generation algorithms being used to create new DNS names for controller servers.

Some botnets use free DNS hosting services such as DynDns. org, No-IP. com, and Afraid. org to Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal a subdomain towards an IRC server that harbors the bots. While these free DNS services do not themselves host attacks, they provide reference points (often hard-coded into the botnet executable). Removing such services can cripple an entire botnet.

Others[edit]

Calling back to large social media sites[13] such as GitHub,[14]Twitter,[15][16]Reddit,[17]Instagram,[18] the XMPP open source instant message protocol[19] and Torhidden services[20] are popular ways of avoiding egress filtering to communicate with a C&C server.[21]

Construction[edit]

Traditional[edit]

This example illustrates how a botnet is Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal and used for malicious gain.

A hacker purchases or builds a Trojan and/or exploit kit and uses it to start infecting users' computers, whose payload is a malicious application—the Bot.The Bot instructs the infected PC to connect to a particular command-and-control (C&C) server. (This allows the botmaster to keep logs of how many bots are active and online.)The botmaster may then use the bots to gather keystrokes or use form grabbing to steal online credentials and may rent out the botnet as DDoS and/or spam as a service Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal sell the credentials online for a profit. Depending on the quality and capability of the bots, the value is increased or decreased.

Newer bots can automatically scan their environment and propagate themselves using vulnerabilities and weak passwords. Generally, the more vulnerabilities a bot can scan and propagate through, the more valuable it becomes to a botnet controller community.[22]

Computers can be co-opted into a botnet when they execute malicious software. This can be accomplished by luring users into making a drive-by download, exploiting web browser vulnerabilities, or by tricking the user into Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal a Trojan horse program, which may come from an email attachment. This malware will typically install modules that allow the computer to be commanded and Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal by the botnet's operator. After the software is downloaded, it will call home (send a reconnection packet) to the host computer. When the re-connection Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal made, depending on how it is written, a Trojan may then delete itself or may remain present to update and Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal the modules.

Others[edit]

In some cases, a botnet may be temporarily created by volunteer hacktivists, such as with implementations of the Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal Orbit Ion Cannon as used by 4chan members during Project Chanology in 2010.[23]

China's Great Cannon of China allows the modification of legitimate web browsing traffic at internet backbones into China to create a large ephemeral botnet to attack large targets such as GitHub in 2015.[24]

Common features[edit]

Most botnets currently feature distributed denial-of-service attacks in which multiple systems submit as Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal requests as possible to a single Internet computer or service, overloading it and preventing it from servicing legitimate requests. An example is an attack on a victim's server. The victim's server is bombarded with requests by the bots, attempting to connect to the server, therefore, overloading it. Spyware is software Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal sends information to its creators about a user's activities – typically passwords, credit card numbers and other information that Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal be sold on the black market. Compromised machines that are located within a corporate network can be worth more to the bot herder, as they can often gain access to confidential corporate information. Several targeted attacks on large corporations aimed to steal sensitive information, such as the Aurora botnet.[25]E-mail spam are e-mail messages disguised as messages from people, but are either advertising, annoying, or malicious. Click fraud occurs when the user's computer visits websites without the user's awareness to create false web traffic for personal or commercial gain.[26]Bitcoin mining was used in some of the more recent botnets have which include bitcoin mining as a feature in order to generate profits for the operator of the botnet.[27][28]Self-spreading functionality, to seek for pre-configured command-and-control (CNC) pushed instruction contains targeted devices or network, to aim for more infection, is also spotted in several botnets. Some of the botnets are utilizing this function to automate their infections.

Market[edit]

The botnet controller community features a constant and continuous struggle over who has the most bots, the highest overall bandwidth, and the most "high-quality" infected machines, like university, corporate, and even government machines.[29]

While botnets are often named Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal the malware that created them, multiple botnets typically use the same malware but are operated by different entities.[30]

Phishing[edit]

Botnets can be used for many electronic scams. These botnets can be used to distribute malware such as viruses to take control of a regular users computer/software[31] By taking control of someone's personal computer they have unlimited access to their personal Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal, including passwords and login information to accounts. This is called phishing. Phishing is the acquiring of login information to the "victim's" accounts with a link the "victim" clicks on that is sent through an email or text.[32] A survey by Verizon found that around two-thirds of electronic "espionage" cases come from phishing.[33]

Countermeasures[edit]

The geographic dispersal of botnets means that each recruit must be individually identified/corralled/repaired and limits the benefits of filtering.

Computer security experts have succeeded in destroying or subverting malware command and control networks, by, among other means, seizing servers or getting them cut off from the Internet, denying access to domains that were due to be used by malware to contact its C&C infrastructure, and, in some cases, breaking into the C&C network itself.[34][35][36] In response to this, C&C operators Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal resorted to using techniques such as overlaying their C&C networks on other existing benign infrastructure such as IRC or Tor, using peer-to-peer networking systems that are not dependent on any fixed servers, and Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal public key encryption to defeat attempts to break into or spoof the network.

Norton AntiBot was Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal at consumers, but most target enterprises and/or ISPs. Host-based techniques use heuristics to identify bot behavior that has bypassed conventional anti-virus software. Network-based approaches tend to use the techniques described above; shutting down C&C servers, null-routing DNS entries, or completely shutting down IRC servers. BotHunter is software, developed with support from the U. S. Army Research Office, that detects botnet activity within a network by analyzing network traffic and comparing it to patterns characteristic of malicious processes.

Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories are analyzing botnets' behavior by simultaneously running one million Linux kernels—a similar scale to a botnet—as virtual machines on a 4,480-node high-performance computer cluster to emulate a very large network, Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal them to watch how botnets work and experiment with ways to stop them.[37]

Detecting automated bot attacks is becoming more difficult each day as newer and more sophisticated generations of bots are getting launched by attackers. For example, an automated attack can deploy a large bot army and apply brute-force methods with highly accurate username and password lists to hack into accounts. The idea is to overwhelm sites with tens of thousands of requests from Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal IPs all over the world, but with each bot only submitting a single request every 10 minutes or so, which can result in more than 5 million attempts per day.[38] In these cases, many tools try to leverage volumetric detection, but automated bot attacks now have ways of circumventing triggers of volumetric detection.

One of the techniques for detecting these bot attacks is what's known as "signature-based systems" in which the software will attempt to detect patterns in the request packet. But attacks are constantly evolving, so this may not be a viable option when patterns can't be discerned from thousands of requests. There's also the behavioral approach to thwarting bots, which ultimately is trying distinguish bots from humans. By identifying non-human behavior and recognizing known bot behavior, this process can be applied at the user, browser, and network levels.

The most capable method of using software to combat against a virus has been to utilize honeypot software in order to convince the malware that a system is vulnerable. The malicious files are then analyzed using forensic software.[39]

On July 15, 2014, the Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, held a hearing on the threats posed by botnets and the public and private efforts to disrupt and dismantle them.[40]

Historical list of botnets[edit]

The first botnet was first acknowledged and exposed by EarthLink during a lawsuit with notorious spammer Khan C. Smith[41] in 2001 for the purpose of bulk spam accounting for nearly 25% of all spam at the time.[42]

Around 2006, to thwart detection, some botnets were scaling back in size.[43]

Date created Date dismantled Name Estimated no. of bots Spam capacity (bn/day) Aliases

1999	!a	999,999,999	100000	!a
2003	MaXiTE	500-1000 servers	0	MaXiTE XDCC Bot, MaXiTE IRC TCL Script, MaxServ
2004 (Early)	Bagle	230,000[44]	5.7	Beagle, Mitglieder, Lodeight
Marina Botnet	6,215,000[44]	92	Damon Briant, BOB. dc, Cotmonger, Hacktool. Spammer, Kraken
Torpig	180,000[45]	Sinowal, Anserin
Storm	160,000[46]	3	Nuwar, Peacomm, Zhelatin
2006 (around)	2011 (March)	Rustock	150,000[47]	30	RKRustok, Costrat
Donbot	125,000[48]	0.8	Buzus, Bachsoy
2007 (around)	Cutwail	1,500,000[49]	74	Pandex, Mutant (related to: Wigon, Pushdo)
2007	Akbot	1,300,000[50]
2007 (March)	2008 (November)	Srizbi	450,000[51]	60	Cbeplay, Exchanger
Lethic	260,000[44]	2	None
Xarvester	10,000[44]	0.15	Rlsloup, Pixoliz
2008 (around)	Sality	1,000,000[52]	Sector, Kuku
2008 (around)	2009-Dec	Mariposa	12,000,000[53]
2008 (November)	Conficker	10,500,000+[54]	10	DownUp, DownAndUp, DownAdUp, Kido
2008 (November)	2010 (March)	Waledac	80,000[55]	1.5	Waled, Waledpak
Maazben	50,000[44]	0.5	None
Onewordsub	40,000[56]	1.8
Gheg	30,000[44]	0.24	Tofsee, Mondera
Nucrypt	20,000[56]	5	Loosky, Locksky
Wopla	20,000[56]	0.6	Pokier, Slogger, Cryptic
2008 (around)	Asprox	15,000[57]	Danmec, Hydraflux
0	Spamthru	12,000[56]	0.35	Spam-DComServ, Covesmer, Xmiler
2008 (around)	Gumblar
2009 (May)	November 2010 (not complete)	BredoLab	30,000,000[58]	3.6	Oficla
2009 (Around)	2012-07-19	Grum	560,000[59]	39.9	Tedroo
Mega-D	509,000[60]	10	Ozdok
Kraken	495,000[61]	9	Kracken
2009 (August)	Festi	250,000[62]	2.25	Spamnost
2010 (March)	Vulcanbot
2010 (January)	LowSec	11,000+[44]	0.5	LowSecurity, FreeMoney, Ring0.Tools
2010 (around)	TDL4	4,500,000[63]	TDSS, Alureon
Zeus	3,600,000 (US only)[64]	Zbot, PRG, Wsnpoem, Gorhax, Kneber
2010	(Several: 2011, 2012)	Kelihos	300,000+	4	Hlux
2011 or earlier	2015-02	Ramnit	3,000,000[65]
2013 (early)	2013	Zer0n3t	200+ server computers	4	Fib3rl0g1c, Zer0n3t, Zer0Log1x Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal (Around)	Chameleon	120,000[66]	None
2016 (August)	Mirai	380,000	None
2014	Necurs	6,000,000
2018	Smominru[Citation needed]

Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara took control of a botnet that was six times smaller than expected. In some countries, it is common that users change Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal IP address a few times in one day. Estimating the size of the botnet by the number of IP addresses is often used by researchers, possibly leading to inaccurate assessments.[67]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

^"Thingbots: The Future of Botnets in the Internet of Things". Security Intelligence. 20 February 2016. Retrieved 28 July 2017.^"botnet". Retrieved 9 June 2016.^Ramneek, Puri (8 August 2003). "Bots &; Botnet: An Overview"(PDF). SANS Institute. Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal 12 November 2013.^Putman, C. G. J.; Abhishta; Nieuwenhuis, L. J. M. (March 2018). "Business Model of a Botnet". 2018 26th Euromicro International Conference on Parallel, Distributed and Network-based Processing (PDP): 441–445. arXiv:1804.10848. Bibcode:2018arXiv180410848P. doi:10.1109/PDP2018.2018.00077. ISBN .^Danchev, Dancho (11 October 2013). "Novice cyberciminals offer commercial access to five mini botnets". Retrieved 28 June 2015.^ ABSchiller, Craig A.; Binkley, Jim; Harley, David; Evron, Gadi; Bradley, Tony; Willems, Carsten; Cross, Michael (1 January 2007). Botnets. Burlington: Syngress. pp. 29–75. doi:10.1016/B978-159749135-8/50004-4. ISBN .^ ABCDHeron, Simon (1 April 2007). "Botnet command and control techniques". Network Security. 2007 (4): 13–16. doi:10.1016/S1353-4858(07)70045-4.^Wang, Ping et al. (2010). "Peer-to-peer botnets". In Stamp, Mark; Stavroulakis, Peter (eds.). Handbook of Information and Communication Security. Springer. ISBN .CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)^C. Y. Cho, D. Babic, R. Shin, and D. Song. Inference and Analysis of Formal Models of Botnet Command and Control Protocols, 2010 ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security.^Teresa Dixon Murray (28 September 2012). "Banks can't prevent cyber attacks like those hitting PNC, Key, U. S. Bank this week". Cleveland. com. Retrieved 2 September 2014.^Arntz, Pieter (30 March 2016). "The Facts about Botnets". Retrieved Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal May 2017.^Schiller, Craig A.; Binkley, Jim; Harley, David; Evron, Gadi; Bradley, Tony; Willems, Carsten; Cross, Michael (1 January 2007). Botnets. Burlington: Syngress. pp. 77–95. doi:10.1016/B978-159749135-8/50005-6. ISBN .^Zeltser, Lenny. "When Bots Use Social Media for Command and Control".^Osborne, Charlie. "Hammertoss: Russian hackers target the cloud, Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal, GitHub in malware spread". ZDNet. Retrieved 7 October 2017.^Singel, Ryan (13 August 2009). "Hackers Use Twitter to Control Botnet". Retrieved 27 May 2017.^"First Twitter-controlled Android botnet discovered". 24 August 2016. Retrieved 27 May 2017.^Gallagher, Sean (3 October 2014). "Reddit-powered botnet infected thousands of Macs worldwide". Retrieved 27 May 2017.^Cimpanu, Catalin (6 June 2017). "Russian State Hackers Use Britney Spears Instagram Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal to Control Malware". Retrieved 8 June 2017.^Dorais-Joncas, Alexis (30 January 2013). "Walking through Win32/Jabberbot. A instant messaging C&C". Retrieved 27 May 2017.^Constantin, Lucian (25 July 2013). "Cybercriminals are using the Tor network to control their botnets". Retrieved 27 May 2017.^"Cisco ASA Botnet Traffic Filter Guide". Retrieved 27 May 2017.^Attack of the Bots at Wired^Norton, Quinn (1 January 2012). "Anonymous 101 Part Deux: Morals Triumph Over Lulz". Wired. com. Retrieved 22 November 2013.^Peterson, Andrea (10 April 2015). "China deploys new weapon for online censorship in form of 'Great Cannon'". The Washington Post. Retrieved 10 April 2015.^"Operation Aurora — The Command Structure". Damballa. com. Archived from the original on 11 June 2010. Retrieved 30 July 2010.^Edwards, Jim (27 November 2013). "This Is What It Looks Like When A Click-Fraud Botnet Secretly Controls Your Web Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal. Retrieved 27 May 2017.^Nichols, Shaun (24 June 2014). "Got a botnet? Thinking of using it to mine Bitcoin? Don't bother". Retrieved 27 May 2017.^"Bitcoin Mining". BitcoinMining. com. Archived from the original on 30 April 2016. Retrieved 30 April 2016.^"Trojan horse, and Virus FAQ". DSLReports. Retrieved 7 April 2011.^Many-to-Many Botnet Relationships, Damballa, 8 June 2009.^"Uses of botnets | The Honeynet Project". Www. honeynet. org. Retrieved 24 March 2019.^"What is phishing? - Definition from WhatIs. com". SearchSecurity. Retrieved 24 March 2019.^Aguilar, Mario. "The Number of People Who Fall for Phishing Emails Is Staggering". Gizmodo. Retrieved 24 March 2019.^"Detecting and Dismantling Botnet Command and Control Infrastructure using Behavioral Profilers and Bot Informants". Vhosts. eecs. umich. edu.^"DISCLOSURE: Detecting Botnet Command and Control Servers Through Large-Scale NetFlow Analysis"(PDF). Annual Computer Security Applications Conference. ACM. December 2012.^BotSniffer: Detecting Botnet Command and Control Channels in Network Traffic. Proceedings of the 15th Annual Network and Distributed System Security Symposium. 2008. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.110.8092.^"Researchers Boot Million Linux Kernels to Help Botnet Research". IT Security & Network Security News. 12 August 2009. Retrieved 23 April 2011.^"Brute-Force Botnet Attacks Now Elude Volumetric Detection". DARKReading from Information Week. 19 December 2016. Retrieved 14 November 2017.^Diva, Michael. "Marketing campaign efficiency and metrics - Finteza". Www. finteza. com. Retrieved 7 October 2019.^United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism (2018). Taking Down Botnets: Public and Private Efforts to Disrupt and Dismantle Cybercriminal Networks: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, Second Session, July 15, 2014. Washington, DC: U. S. Government Publishing Office. Retrieved 18 November 2018.^Credeur, Mary. "Atlanta Business Chronicle, Staff Writer". bizjournals. com. Retrieved 22 July 2002.^Mary Jane Credeur (22 July 2002). "EarthLink wins $25 million lawsuit against junk e-mailer". Retrieved 10 December 2018.^Paulson, L. D. (April 2006). "Hackers Strengthen Malicious Botnets by Shrinking Them"(PDF). Computer; News Briefs. IEEE Computer Society. 39 (4): 17–19. doi:10.1109/MC.2006.136. Retrieved 12 November 2013. ^ ABCDEFG"Symantec. cloud | Email Security, Web Security, Endpoint Protection, Archiving, Continuity, Instant Messaging Security"(PDF). Messagelabs. com. Retrieved 30 January 2014.[Dead link]^Stacheldraht botnet diagram showing a DDoS attack. (Note this is also an example of a type of client-server model of a botnet.)A network based on the client-server model, where individual clients request services and resources from centralized serversA peer-to-peer (P2P) network in which interconnected nodes ("peers") share resources among each other without the use of a centralized administrative system

2019 TLS Telemetry Report Summary

Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal poll New Python-Based Crypto-Miner Botnet Flying Under the Radar Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal removao miming

F5 threat researchers have discovered a new Linux crypto-miner botnet that is spreading over the SSH protocol. The botnet, which we’ve named PyCryptoMiner:

Is based on the Python scripting language making it hard to detectLeverages Pastebin. com (under the username “WHATHAPPEN”) to receive new command and control server (C&C) assignments if the original server becomes unreachableThe registrant is associated with more than 36,000 domains, some of which have been known for scams, gambling, and adult services since 2012Is mining Monero, a highly anonymous crypto-currency favored by cyber-criminals. As of late December 2017, this botnet has made approximately US $46,000 mining MoneroNew scanner functionality hunting for vulnerable JBoss servers was introduced mid-December exploiting CVE-2017-12149

Targeting online Linux systems to construct botnets is a very common attack vector in the wild, especially in the last couple of years with the rise of IoT devices. We recently noticed an interesting crypto-miner botnet ney seems to be going under the radar. Based on the Python scripting language, it seems to be spreading silently. Unlike a rfmoval malware alternative, a scripting language-based malware is more evasive by nature as it can be easily Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal. It is also executed by a legitimate binary, which could be one of the PERL/Python/Bash/PowerShell interpreters shipped with almost every Linux/Windows distribution.

Botnet Operation

Once a scanning bot has successfully guessed the SSH login credentials of a target Linux machine, it will deploy a simple base64-encoded spearhead Python script which, in turn, connects to the command and control (C&C) server to fetch and execute the additional Python code.

Figure 1: Obfuscated spearhead Python script

However, this botnet vot is using another interesting trick. Most malwares hard-code the address of their C&C server, so when it is taken down, the attacker has no way to tell the botnet to switch to another Ent server. Here, the attacker is using Bircoin to publish an alternate C&C server address if the original one is unreachable.

Figure Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal Alternative C&C server address hosted on Pastebin. com

One of the bitcoun that adversaries need to deal with is how to maintain ndt sustainable C&C infrastructure without being quickly blacklisted by enterprise security solutions, or being frequently shut down by ISPs and hosting services following law enforcement and security vendors’ abuse reports.

Many of these adversaries use “bullet-proof” hosting services, however, a more sophisticated approach minong attackers are now poil is public file hosting services like Dropbox. com and Pastebin. com, which cannot be easily blacklisted or taken down. This technique also allows the attacker to update the address of the C&C server whenever they need to.

Note: At the time we were writing this article, removall C&C servers of the botnet stopped being accessible, making all newly infected bots idle, polling for the “Patebin. com” page. However, the attacker could update the page at any time to a new C&C server that could take control over the botnet again.

Being exposed as a public Pastebin. com resource allowed us also to rekoval more information about this operation. It seems to have been running since at least August of this nwt because the username “WHATHAPPEN” created the Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal on Aug. 21, 2017. At the time we were writing this article, this resource had been viewed 177,987 times, however, because we learned that the same bot might continue to periodically ask this resource if the C&C server is down, we could not determine that this number represents the size of nnet botnet. This number is climbing by about 1,000 a day.

Figure 3: Pastebin. com resource metadata

When digging further, we found more related resources created by the same “WHATHAPPEN” user that all seem to be similar spearhead scripts. The main difference is that Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal are communicating to two different C&C servers.

Figure 4: More related Pastebin. com resources

While inquiring on the domain bitcpin “zsw8.cc” of those C&C servers, we found that the registrant name is “xinqian Rhys”.

Figure 5: C&C domain registration data

This registrant miningg associated with 235 email addresses and more than 36,000 domains. A quick search on the registrant revealed bitccoin, gambling, and adult services have been associated with those domains since 2012. (We even found a lawsuit filed by “Sketchers” at the beginning of 2017.1)

Figure 6: Thousands of associated domains

Infection Flow

The botnet has a multi-staged deployment process.

As mentioned before, once the spearhead Python script is executed, another base64-encoded Python script is fetched and executed from the C&C server, which is the main controller (later referred to as the “bot” or “client”) of the infected machine.

Figure 7: Spearhead Python script

The controller script creates a persistency on the infected machine by registering as a cron job. The original spearhead bash script named “httpsd” includes a base64-encoded Python one-liner that runs every 6 hours.

Figure 8: Adding the spearhead script to crontab

Then it collects the following information on the infected device:

Host/DNS nameOS name and its polo of Pokl usage

The collected information signals that the business model behind this botnet is crypto-currency mining.

The bot also checks whether the machine was already infected by the malware and if so, what the current “state” (purpose) of the infected bot is. The check is done by got several predefined malware filenames in current running processes. It seems like the bot can function as a crypto-mining node (running the “httpsd” or “minerd” process), or as a scanner node (running the “webnode” or the “safenode” process).

Figure 9: “Minerd” and “Scannode” bot types

Then, Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal report with the collected information is sent to the C&C which, in turn, responds with “task” details in the form of a Python dictionary.

Figure 10: Infected node reconnaissance mlning sent to C&C

The “task” includes:

“cmd” — arbitrary command to be executed as a separate process“client_version” — if the version Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal not from the server is different from the current bot version, it will terminate the bot and wait for the cron to run the spearhead script again to deploy an updated version (current value is “4”)“task_hash” — task identifier so the C&C can synchronize botnet results, because each command has a different execution time“conn_cycler” — time interval to poll the C&C, which is controlled by the bot master, probably to balance the loads on its C&C infrastructure as the botnet grows (default value 15 seconds)

Once the task command is executed, the bot will send an output of the command to the Jining server, including task_hash and bot identifiers.

Figure 11: Miinng executing the task and nef the result to C&C

In our research case, the bot was purposed to be a crypto-miner, while also infecting with a binary executable file named “wipefs”, which is a known variant already detected by several anti-virus manufacturers (at least since August 13, 2017).

Figure 12: Malware information from VirusTotal (multiple AV scanning service)

The executable is based on the “Xmrminer”, which is mining the Monero crypto-currency that nowadays has become the cyber-criminals’ currency of choice due to its high anonymity.

Exploiting Recent JBoss Deserialization (CVE-2017-12149)

As we were in the process of writing Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal article, we discovered that the botnet already seems to be evolving. We noticed that an additional resource named “jboss” showed up under WHATHAPPEN’s account in mid-December.

Figure 13: The botnet appears to be evolving as an additional file was discovered in PasteBin on December 12, 2017

Figure 14: Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal resource is a base64-encoded Python code

The revealed code is a scanner functionality hunting for vulnerable JBoss servers. The bot will try to probe the target for potential exploitability to CVE-2017-12149, which was disclosed just a couple of months ago. It will send a request to the “/invoker/readonly” URL via seven different TCP ports commonly used by JBoss. If the server responds with an error (500 status code) including the “Jboss”/“jboss” string, it will report the target URL to the C&C server.

Figure 15: Scanning for vulnerable JBoss servers

The list of the targets to scan is controlled by the C&C server, while the bot has a separate thread that polls the C&C server for new targets. The server responds with a Class Minibg IP range to scan but could also provide a single IP address.

Figure 16: Getting targets for scanning from the C&C server

Monero Mining Earnings

Two pool addresses Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal by this botnet were paid approximately 94 and 64 Monero. The value fluctuates frequently. The value of 158 Monero at the time of this writing was Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal $60,000 USD. It is not known how much profit the threat actor has made overall.

Figure 17: Monero paid to mining address 1

Figure 18: Monero paid to mining address 2

More to Come

Our research is still ongoing while we hunt for more missing pieces of pooll puzzle, such as the “scanner node” component and additional C&C servers, if there are any. We are also waiting to see whether the current C&C server will come back to life. This technical report is part of a deeper ongoing investigation that might be related to this botnet, ner stay tuned.

IOCs

Hash

D47d2aa3c640e1563ba294a140ab3ccd22f987d5c5794c223ca8557b68c25e0d

C&C

Hxxp://pastebin. com/raw/yDnzKz72

Hxxp://pastebin. com/raw/rWjyEGDq

Hxxp://k. zsw8.cc:8080 (104.223.37.150)

Hxxp://i. zsw8.cc:8080 (103.96.75.115)

Hxxp://208.92.90.51

Hxxp://208.92.90.51:443

Hxxp://104.223.37.150:8090

Infected Machine

/tmp/VWTFEdbwdaEjduiWar3adW

/bin/httpsd

/bin/wipefs

/bin/wipefse

/bin/minerd

/bin/webnode

/bin/safenode

/tmp/tmplog

New Python-Based Crypto-Miner Botnet Flying Under the Radar

Smominru Monero mining botnet making millions for operators

Overview

Even with recent volatility in the price of most cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin, interest among mainstream Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal and the media remains high. At the same Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal, Bitcoin alternatives like Monero and Ethereum continue their overall upward trend in value (Figure 1), putting them squarely in the crosshairs of threat actors looking for quick profits and anonymous transactions. Because obtaining these cryptocurrencies through legitimate mining mechanisms is quite resource-intensive, cybercriminals are stealing them, demanding ransomware payments in them, and harnessing other computers to mine them for free. Recently, Proofpoint researchers have been tracking the massive Smominru botnet, the combined computing power of which has earned millions of dollars for its operators.

Figure 1: Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal cryptocurrency values (top) and relative values of major cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, over the past year (bottom)

Analysis

Since the end of Maywe Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal been monitoring a Monero miner that spreads using the EternalBlue Exploit (CVE). The miner itself, known as Smominru (aka Ismo [6]) has been well-documented [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [10], so we will not discuss its post-infection behavior. However, the miner’s use of Windows Management Infrastructure is unusual among coin mining malware.

The speed at which mining operations conduct mathematical operations to unlock new units of cryptocurrency is referred to as “hash power”. Based on the hash power associated with the Monero payment address for this operation, it appeared that this botnet was likely twice the size of Adylkuzz [9]. The operators had already mined approximately 8, Monero (valued this week between $M and $M). Each day, the botnet mined roughly 24 Monero, worth an average of $8, this week (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Smominru Stats and Payments on Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal MineXMR mining pool

We Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal also see that the average hash rate to date this year was quite high (Figure 3):

Figure 3: Smominru hash rate history on MineXMR

At least 25 hosts were conducting attacks via EternalBlue (CVE SMB) to infect Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal nodes and increase the size of the botnet. The hosts all appear to sit behind the network autonomous system AS Other researchers also reported attacks via SQL Server [3], and we believe the actors are also likely using EsteemAudit (CVE RDP), like most other EternalBlue attackers. The botnet’s command and control (C&C) infrastructure is hosted behind SharkTech, who we notified of the abuse but did not receive a reply.

With the help of www. doorway. ru [7] and the ShadowServer Foundation [8], we conducted a sinkholing operation to determine the botnet size and location of the individual nodes. Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal botnet includes more thaninfected Windows hosts, most of which we believe are servers. These nodes are distributed worldwide but we observed the highest numbers in Russia, India, and Taiwan (Figures 4 and 5).

Figure 4: Geographic distribution of Smominru nodes

Figure 5: Concentration of Smominru nodes worldwide

We contacted MineXMR to request that the current Monero address associated with Smominru be banned. The mining pool reacted several days after the beginning of the operation, after which we observed the botnet operators registering new domains and mining to a new address on the same pool. It appears that the group may have lost control over one third of the botnet in the process (Figure 6).

Figure 6: Smominru adapting to the sinkholing and returning to two thirds of its hash rate with a new Monero mining address

Figure 7: Smominru statistics and payments associated with their new mining address

Conclusion

Cryptocurrencies have been used by cybercriminals for years in underground markets, but in the last year, we have observed standalone coin miners and coin mining modules in existing malware proliferate rapidly. As Bitcoin has become prohibitively resource-intensive to mine outside of dedicated mining farms, interest in Monero has increased dramatically. While Monero can no longer be mined effectively on desktop computers, a distributed botnet like that described here can prove quite lucrative for its operators.

Because most of the nodes in this botnet appear to be Windows servers, the performance impact on potentially critical business infrastructure may be high, as can the cost of increased energy usage by servers running much closer to capacity. The operators of this botnet are persistent, use all available exploits to expand their botnet, and have found multiple ways to recover Bitcoin mining pool bot net removal sinkhole operations. Given the significant profits available to the botnet operators and the resilience of the botnet and its infrastructure, we expect these activities to continue, along with their potential impacts on infected nodes. We also expect botnets like that described here to become more common and to continue growing in size.

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank www. doorway. ru and ShadowServer for their help.

References

[1] www. doorway. ru

[2] www. doorway. ru

[3] www. doorway. ru (Taylor)

[4] www. doorway. ru

[5] https://wwwcom/html/html

[6] www. doorway. ru

[7] www. doorway. ru

[8] www. doorway. ru

[9] www. doorway. ru

[10] www. doorway. rucom/mykings-the-botnet-behind-multiple-active-spreading-botnets/

Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)

IOC	IOC Type	Description
Www. doorway. ru[.club | [.]	Domain:port|IP	Smominru C&C (Binary Server)
Www. doorway. ru[.xyz | [.]8	Domain:port|IP	Smominru C&C
Www. doorway. ru[.info | [.]8	Domain:port|IP	Smominru C&C (Binary Server)
Www. doorway. ru[.info | [.]	Domain:port|IP	Smominru C&C (WMI call)
Www. doorway. ru[.club | [.]	Domain:port|IP	Smominru C&C (WMI call)
Xmr.5b6b7b[.ru | [.]	Domain:port|IP	Smominru C&C
Myxmr[.pw | [.]	Domain:port|IP	Smominru C&C (binary server)
Www. doorway. ru[.xyz | [.]26	Domain:port|IP	Smominru C&C (WMI call) Sinkholed domain
Www. doorway. ruod[.ru | [.]82	Domain:port|IP	Smominru binary server
Www. doorway. ru[.me | [.]82	Domain:port|IP	Smominru binary server
Www. doorway. ru[.info | [.]82	Domain:port|IP	Smominru binary server
Www. doorway. ru[.info | [.]	Domain:port|IP	Smominru binary server
Www. doorway. ru[.xyz | [.]26	Domain:port|IP	Smominru C&C
Www. doorway. ru[.ru|[.]26	Domain:port|IP	Smominru C&C (Binary Server)
Www. doorway. ru[.ru|[.]26	Domain:port|IP	Smominru C&C (WMI call)
Www. doorway. ru[.ru]	Domain:port|IP	Smominru C&C
Www. doorway. ru5b[.ru] | [.]	Domain:port|IP	Smominru C&C
Mymyxmra[.ru] | [.]	Domain:port|IP	Smominru C&C (Binary Server)
Www. doorway. ru[.info] | [.]	Domain|IP	Smominru C&C
[]/www. doorway. ru	URI	Mirai
[]/rar	URI	Smominru
[]/www. doorway. ru	URI	List of tasks to terminate
Www. doorway. ru[.com]/dyndns/getip	URI	IP check
Xmr.5b6b7b[.ru]/www. doorway. ru	URI	Callback
Myxmr[.pw]/cudart32_dll	URI	Cuda component (?)
Myxmr[.pw]/www. doorway. ru	URI	File list and their hash
Www. doorway. ru[.xyz]/www. doorway. ru	URI	Smominru Callback
Www. doorway. ru[.xyz]/www. doorway. ru	URI	Additionnal Commands
Da3b2e4da23aaebfcbd01d0c5bddfa9b6ebec8	Sha	Www. doorway. ru
8cebe5f32ddcf8eda38cc9bd40adea3dca33b8c27ee38eb6f	Sha	EternalBlue dropped
5e15caae51e98a2de6e27aff4dcede4e2	Sha	EternalBlue dropped
2e3fbd6b7d1cf18dcfaed92fb28f1dcb9b3c	Sha	Rar
B7f8b5cb8fc7bd5cfdef5ac7aee52f16cb4bd28aa4b5a	Sha	Rar (Smominru - Coin Miner)
32eff24e5f9ab8eeacfefd86bd10a4e	Sha	Rar (Smominru Coin Miner)
3bb41feddbb57bd8a9a6ccf82ea87f	Sha	Rar (Smominru Coin Miner)
F1c36aebdcd92a04fddee7e9bec4cac7a04e6b0d	Sha	Rar (Smominru - Coin Miner)
45bbP2muiJHD8Fd5tZyPAfC2RsajyEcsRVVMZ7Tm5qJjdTMprexz6yQ5DVQ1BbmjkMYm9nMid2QSbiGLvvfau7At5V18FzQ	Monero Address	From /09 till Mined around Monero
47Tscy1QuJn1fxHiBRjWFtgHmvqkW71YZCQL33LeunfH4rsGEHx5UGTPdfXNJtMMATMz8bmaykGVuDFGWP3KyufBSdzxBb2	Monero Address	Used from before /05 till /09 Mined Monero
43Lm9q14s7GhMLpUsiXY3MH6G67Sn81B5DqmN46u8WnBXNvJmC6FwH3ZMwAmkEB1nHSrujgthFPQeQCFPCwwE7m7TpspYBd	Monero Address	Used after
[.]	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]70	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]14	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]58	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]98	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]58	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]78	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]58	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]46	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]34	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]46	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]6	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]86	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)
[.]14	IP	Attacking IP (via EB)

ET and ETPRO Suricata/Snort Signatures

|| ETPRO TROJAN Win32/Smominru Coinminer Checkin

|| ETPRO POLICY DynDNS IP Check getip

|| ET POLICY PE EXE or DLL Windows file download HTTP

|| ET INFO EXE IsDebuggerPresent (Used in Malware Anti-Debugging)

|| ET POLICY Crypto Coin Miner Login

|| ET POLICY DNS request for Monero mining pool

|| ETPRO TROJAN CoinMiner Known Malicious Stratum Authline ( 1)