Emeraldwhale gobbles 15K credentials from clouds • The Register

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srcset="/design_picker/f5daacc84b9722c1e31ba85f836c37e4ad993fc4/graphics/icons/bubble_comment_white.svg"> </a> </div> </div> <div class="header_right"> <h1>Gang gobbles 15K credentials from cloud and email providers' garbage Git configs</h1> </div> <div class="header_left"> <div class="comments_wrap desktop_only"> <a class="comment_count" aria-label="Read comments on this article, currently there are 2 comments" title="View comments on this article" href="https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2024/10/31/emeraldwhale_credential_theft/"> <strong aria-hidden="true">2</strong> <img aria-hidden="true" width="18" height="16" alt="comment bubble on white" src="/design_picker/f5daacc84b9722c1e31ba85f836c37e4ad993fc4/graphics/icons/bubble_comment_white.png" srcset="/design_picker/f5daacc84b9722c1e31ba85f836c37e4ad993fc4/graphics/icons/bubble_comment_white.svg"> </a> </div> </div> <div class="header_right"> <h2>Emeraldwhale looked sharp – until it made a common S3 bucket mistake</h2> <div class="byline_and_dateline_and_share_and_comments"> <div class="byline_wrap"> <img class="vulture_icon" src="/design_picker/d518b499f8a6e2c65d4d8c49aca8299d54b03012/graphics/icon/vulture_red.svg" alt="icon"> <a class="byline" href="/Author/Jessica-Lyons" title="Read more by this author"> Jessica Lyons </a> </div> <div class="dateline_wrap"> <span class="dateline"> Thu 31 Oct 2024 <span class="slashes"> // </span> 23:59 UTC </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div id=main-col> <div id="article-wrapper" class="article_wrap"> <div class="left_col"> <div class="floating_bar"> <div class="sharing_widget_story_desktop uses_overlay"> <button class="top_blob" aria-label="Share this story" title="Share this story"> <img width="25" height="25" src="/design_picker/d2e337b97204af4aa34dda04c4e5d56d954b216f/graphics/icons/social_share_icon.svg" alt=""> </button> <div class="sharing_widget_overlay" id="sharing_widget_overlay_2"> <div class="sharing_box"> <a data-social="reddit" 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<a data-social="linkedin" class="linkedin_social" href="https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/31/emeraldwhale_credential_theft/%3futm_medium%3dshare%26utm_content%3darticle%26utm_source%3dlinkedin&title=Gang%20gobbles%2015K%20credentials%20from%20cloud%20and%20email%20providers%27%20garbage%20Git%20configs&summary=Emeraldwhale%20looked%20sharp%20%e2%80%93%20until%20it%20made%20a%20common%20S3%20bucket%20mistake" target="_blank"> </a> <a data-social="whatsapp" href="https://api.whatsapp.com/send?text=https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/31/emeraldwhale_credential_theft/%3futm_medium%3dshare%26utm_content%3darticle%26utm_source%3dwhatsapp" target="_blank"> </a> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="promo_advert"> </div> </div> <div class="centre_col"> <div id="article"> <div id="body"> <p>A criminal operation dubbed Emeraldwhale has been discovered after it dumped more than 15,000 credentials belonging to cloud service and email providers in an open AWS S3 bucket, according to security researchers.</p> <p>The unknown data thieves embarked on a "massive scanning campaign" between August and September, looking for servers with exposed Git configuration and Laravel environment files, we're told.</p> <p>"This campaign used multiple private tools that abused multiple misconfigured web services, allowing attackers to steal credentials, clone private repositories, and extract cloud credentials from their source code," <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://sysdig.com/blog/emeraldwhale/">wrote</a> Miguel Hernandez, a senior engineer in container security vendor Sysdig's Threat Research Team.</p> <div aria-hidden="true" class="adun" data-pos="top" data-raptor="condor" data-xsm=",fluid,mpu," data-sm=",fluid,mpu," data-md=",fluid,mpu,"> <noscript> <a href="https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/research&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z0hJLTK4FuHbq-6fef50agAAANc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0" target="_blank"> <img src="https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ad?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/research&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z0hJLTK4FuHbq-6fef50agAAANc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0" alt=""> </a> </noscript> </div> <p>These stolen credentials provided access to more than 10,000 private repositories, he added.</p> <div aria-hidden="true" class="adun" data-pos="top" data-raptor="falcon" data-xmd=",fluid,mpu,leaderboard," data-lg=",fluid,mpu,leaderboard," data-xlg=",fluid,billboard,superleaderboard,mpu,leaderboard," data-xxlg=",fluid,billboard,superleaderboard,brandwidth,brandimpact,leaderboard,mpu,"> <noscript> <a href="https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/research&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z0hJLTK4FuHbq-6fef50agAAANc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0" target="_blank"> <img src="https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ad?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/research&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z0hJLTK4FuHbq-6fef50agAAANc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D426raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0" alt=""> </a> </noscript> </div> <div class="adun_eagle_desktop_story_wrapper"> <div aria-hidden="true" class="adun" data-pos="mid" data-raptor="eagle" data-xxlg=",mpu,dmpu,"> <noscript> <a href="https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/research&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z0hJLTK4FuHbq-6fef50agAAANc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0" target="_blank"> <img src="https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ad?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/research&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z0hJLTK4FuHbq-6fef50agAAANc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0" alt=""> </a> </noscript> </div> </div> <p>Exposed Git directories make an especially attractive target for data thieves because they contain all sorts of valuable information – including commit history and messages, usernames, email addresses, and passwords or API keys.</p> <p>While spam and phishing campaigns appear to be the criminals' ultimate goal, the stolen credentials themselves can be sold for hundreds of dollars per account, Sysdig senior research director Michael Clark told <em>The Register</em>.</p> <div aria-hidden="true" class="adun" data-pos="top" data-raptor="falcon" data-xsm=",fluid,mpu," data-sm=",fluid,mpu," data-md=",fluid,mpu,"> <noscript> <a href="https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/research&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z0hJLTK4FuHbq-6fef50agAAANc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0" target="_blank"> <img src="https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ad?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/research&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z0hJLTK4FuHbq-6fef50agAAANc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D426raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0" alt=""> </a> </noscript> </div> <p>"There's a lot of value – $500, $600, $700 – to these credentials," Clark explained.</p> <h3 class="crosshead">Something smells fishy about this S3 bucket</h3> <p>The threat research team "accidentally" uncovered this treasure trove of stolen data – more than a terabyte of compromised credentials and logging info – in an AWS S3 bucket while monitoring the Sysdig cloud honeypot network, Clark revealed.</p> <p>The S3 bucket didn't belong to Sysdig's account; the crooks were storing the stolen goods in a bucket belonging to a previous victim of the same campaign.</p> <p>After the exposed bucket was reported to AWS, the cloud giant promptly took it down, we're told.</p> <p>While the security firm hasn't linked Emeraldwhale to an existing criminal gang, Clark thinks it's likely associated with an established group "due to the complexity" of its activities. "They knew what to look for, they knew what tools were being used by other groups."</p> <div aria-hidden="true" class="adun" id="story_eagle_xsm_sm_md_xmd_lg_xlg" data-pos="mid" data-raptor="eagle" data-xsm=",mpu,dmpu," data-sm=",mpu,dmpu," data-md=",mpu,dmpu," data-xmd=",mpu,dmpu," data-lg=",mpu,dmpu," data-xlg=",mpu,dmpu,"> <noscript> <a href="https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/research&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z0hJLTK4FuHbq-6fef50agAAANc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0" target="_blank"> <img src="https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ad?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/research&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z0hJLTK4FuHbq-6fef50agAAANc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0" alt=""> </a> </noscript> </div> <p>Although the threat hunters can't definitively say where the miscreants are located, two of the malware strains tools used in the attack were primarily written in French, Clark observed. Those tools of evil – MZR V2 and Seyzo-v2 – can be bought and sold in underground marketplaces, and they enable scanning for vulnerabilities in exposed Git repositories for exploitation.</p> <ul class="listinks"> <li><a href="https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/30/russia_wrangles_rdp_files_in/">Russian spies use remote desktop protocol files in unusual mass phishing drive</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/28/crims_selling_credit_cards_threads/">Brazen crims selling stolen credit cards on Meta's Threads</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/30/zeroday_windows_themes/">Windows Themes zero-day bug exposes users to NTLM credential theft</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/29/chatgpt_hex_encoded_jailbreak/">Cast a hex on ChatGPT to trick the AI into writing exploit code</a></li> </ul> <p>"Whether they are the original authors, it's hard to tell, but in the past we have seen this kind of email use, and phishing, traced back to French speakers," Clark noted.</p> <p>MZR V2, a collection of Python scripts and shell scripts, can scan target lists of IPs using the open source httpx tool, and extract URLs for further analysis. It also validates GitHub credentials, and stores them in a new file.</p> <p>Finally, the malware checks the credentials' permissions and capabilities, and then verifies that they can be used to send email messages for spam and phishing attacks.</p> <p>Seyzo-v2 is also a collection of scripts for finding and stealing SMTP, SMS, and cloud mail provider credentials. Similar to MZR V2, this malware uses the compromised credentials to create fraudulent users for spam and phishing campaigns.</p> <p>These tools both use lists of targets to start the attack chain.</p> <p>"Using one of these target lists, the attackers used the MZR V2 tool and were able to discover more than 67,000 URLs with the path <code>/.git/config</code> exposed," Hernandez wrote – adding that this list alone sells for $100 on Telegram. ®</p> <div class="wptl btm"> <noscript><strong>Get our</strong> <a href="https://whitepapers.theregister.com/" style="text-transform:uppercase">Tech Resources</a></noscript> </div> </div> <div class="article_body_btm mobile_only"> <div class="sharing_widget_story_desktop uses_overlay"> <button class="top_blob" aria-label="Share this story" title="Share this story"> <img width="25" height="25" src="/design_picker/d2e337b97204af4aa34dda04c4e5d56d954b216f/graphics/icons/social_share_icon.svg" alt=""> <span>Share</span> </button> <div 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