Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Russian security outfit Dr. Web says it's found new malware for Linux.
The firms[sic] says the “Linux.Lady.1” trojan does the following three things:
- Collect information about an infected computer and transfer it to the command and control server.
- Download and launch a cryptocurrency mining utility.
- Attack other computers of the network in order to install its own copy on them.
The good news is that while the Trojan targets Linux systems, it doesn't rely on a Linux flaw to run. The problem is instead between the ears of those who run Redis without requiring a password for connections. If that's you, know that the trojan will use Redis to make a connection and start downloading the parts of itself that do real damage.
Once it worms its way in the trojan phones home to its command and control server and sends information including the flavour of Linux installed, number of CPUs on the infected machine and the number of running processes. The Register imagines that information means whoever runs the malware can make a decent guess at whether it is worth getting down to some mining, as there's little point working with an ancient CPU that's already maxed out.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 12 2016, @06:20AM
The summary says said Trojan requires a poorly configured redis in order to do full damage. How does it even get on the machine in the first place to take advantage of this misconfigured redis?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 12 2016, @08:24AM
Redis is a caching system that can be used to make the cache available to multiple servers so it allows connections from outside sources. The "poorly configured" part is not requiring a password on outside connections (which is always a bad idea for any software).