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Compromised SSH Keys Lead To Linux Rootkit Attack
Tech Groupie writes "The US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) has issued a warning for what it calls 'active attacks' against Linux-based computing infrastructures using compromised SSH keys. The attack appears to initially use stolen SSH keys to gain access to a system, and then uses local kernel exploits to gain root access. Once root access has been obtained, a rootkit known as 'phalanx2' is installed."
Stolen login credentials leads to unauthorized access of computer resources!
"Obscenity is the crutch of the inarticulate motherfucker." - cloak42
What it means is that there are apparently some administrators not running Debian that have naively thought that the issue didn't affect them. However, if they haven't blacklisted those keys, they will undoubtedly have some users that generated their keys on Debian, which are vulnerable.
The worm will exploit this to obtain local non-root user access, and through local privilege escalation exploits will obtain root. Then, they will steal the keys stored on the host that might be used to connect out to other hosts. The last part of this is the deadly part, because those keys are not blacklisted, and will thus connect to and infect the hosts that don't have vulnerable-old-debian keys.
What this means for me, as the administrator of a web hosting company that has patched their servers, is that we will undoubtedly see illicit login attempts. With some really bad luck, one of those login attempts might work, despite our patching. Then, we are at the whim of how well we're secure against local privilege escalation.
Even the openssh guys don't seem interested in including blacklist support for probably-compromised keys: see https://bugzilla.mindrot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1469
This means that, since the compromise arose, Debian and Ubuntu distros are safe once patched with the blacklist code. However, for keys generated on Debian/Ubuntu but uploaded to non-Debian/Ubuntu servers, those non-Debian/Ubuntu servers will still be vulnerable unless manually checked. This means: OpenBSD servers, Fedora servers etc.
Have any distros apart from Debian/Ubuntu provided blacklist-like tools for this issue? Any of the *BSDs?
"If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it." --- Arthur Kasspe