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Akamai Warns: Linux Systems Infiltrated and Controlled In a DDoS Botnet
An anonymous reader writes Akamai Technologies is alerting enterprises to a high-risk threat of IptabLes and IptabLex infections on Linux systems. Malicious actors may use infected Linux systems to launch DDoS attacks against the entertainment industry and other verticals. The mass infestation of IptabLes and IptabLex seems to have been driven by a large number of Linux-based web servers being compromised, mainly by exploits of Apache Struts, Tomcat and Elasticsearch vulnerabilities. Attackers have used the Linux vulnerabilities on unmaintained servers to gain access, escalate privileges to allow remote control of the machine, and then drop malicious code into the system and run it. As a result, a system could then be controlled remotely as part of a DDoS botnet. The full advisory is available for download only with registration, but the (Akamai-owned) Prolexic page to do so is quite detailed.
So, to remove this do I just have to do this? /sbin/iptables
sudo rm -r
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
They should have installed Gentoo!
In hopes that the 'malicious actors' would get tired of waiting for the required binaries to be built and give up?
Never start vast projects with half-vast ideas.
Not a Linux apologist (Windows pays my bills), but in defense of Linux, these were programs running on Linux that had exploits. Of course, many of the exploits in Windows are through programs running on Windows and not the OS itself.......but Linux fanboys wouldn't be as quick to point that out.
The people that have their servers compromised in this way are amateurs and shouldn't have put their servers on the web, EVER. This is roughly equivalent to fielding IIS from 2001 on windows XP and not keeping your patch set up to date. You are going to be hacked.
Any sysadmin who is thinking about it, would put a web server and all it's components in a chroot jail and force it to run in user space and set up to refuse interactive logins for this user.. That way any "escalations" of privilege won't get you much more than the web server. It's easy, quick and effective.
So this isn't a really fair comparison you are making. Linux is BY DEFAULT more secure than Windows, mainly by design. Microsoft has made great strides of late, but fundamentally they are starting from a weak position (remember Windows 3.1?) and you have to install components to make it more secure, where Linux starts secure and gets security downgrades when you install and configure stuff. Either way, if you don't manage your server, you will have problems.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
This used to be true, it's by far no longer the case.
It's the ancient battle of usability vs. security. The most secure system is by design also the least usable one. And that's where the two systems came from. Windows was once "usability trumps security, no matter what". Linux was the exact opposite. Hence the reputation of Linux that you need to have a masters in CS to boot the damn thing, and for a network connection nothing less than a doctorate will do.
Various distributions now made it all a bit easier while at the same time Windows tightened security quite a bit (I mean, look back at Win95 and tell me they didn't...). The are approaching each other... if they haven't met already in the middle between the two extremes.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yes, but there is a logical reason for this.
Linux and Windows approach security in totally different ways. When you load a Linux kernel, it's secure, it starts that way. When you load windows, it's NOT secure, you have to load other stuff to make it secure.
Sorry, but that is BS. When you load Linux it comes up with a security model through which there has already (by design) been punched a big hole: SUID. When you load Windows it comes up with a security model which has no need for such a massive hole. Countless otherwise benign bug has been turned into total system compromise bugs because of SUID.
Under Windows, all kernel objects types are securable with security descriptors. Linux was designed with only file system permissions. Processes did not have security descriptors, and such objects need to be mapped to files and filepermissions used to (inadequately) describe access permissions.
Windows services run in a separate session - interprocess communication is severely restricted. A process in another session cannot break through to e.g. the desktop, i.e. a daemon/background service cannot interact with the desktop. There is no such isolation in Linux unless you run SELinux. In Windows it is the default.
Most Windows services run under service hardening. Even custom sites you set up will by default run under service hardening. Under service hardening an ad-hoc identity is implicitly created for the service/website and this identity has no permissions whatsoever by default. It has to be granted any access permission it needs. You'd have to run SELinux or apparmor with a significant amount of configuration to achieve the same level of isolation under Linux. Under Windows it is default and straightforward.
Windows has mandatory DEP, much stronger ASLR, stack and heap encryption/checksumming and several other mitigation technologies not found in Linux. On by default.
Windows boxes? They come out of the install process wide open with a whole raft of dangerous services turned on. Not to mention they are starting from the security posture of Windows 3.1
What century do you live in? Since Windows Server 2008 (!) only the minimal set of services are turned on, and *no* network facing services until you configure them.
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Let me see, last time I loaded Windows 8 pro, there was a raft of services turned on for me by default.
Windows 8, Windows 7 and even Windows Vista comes up and asks you if you *want* to turn on services. If you answer no, it will not have any network ports listening. Get it yet? That's the *desktop user* targeted operating systems.
Windows Server comes by default with NO network services turned on by default, and NO listening ports. Get it yet?
Linux *desktop user* targeted distros do turn on network services. Get it yet?
Yes the distribution may turn on some services
Yes, indeed. Get it yet?
Linux distributions targeted at "servers" generally come w/o any services even installed by default.
Yes. Just like the Windows Server versions. Get it?
If you go to "desktop" installs, where Windows 8 Pro lives, Linux comes out of the normal distribution much more locked down and secure
Nope. Linux lacks many, many of the security features in Windows 8. In distros using apparmor it only protects some of the daemons. Windows 8 comes with Mandatory Integrity Control built-in sandboxing.
Windows 8 supports multiple (and simultaneous) network firewall profiles which are automatically selected based on where you are: On a corporate network SMB services may be available, on a public network without a trusted domain controller it selects the public (locked down) profile. Linux does not.
I still cannot believe that the DEFAULT behavior of a Windows box is to have the main user be an Administrator
Good you do not believe it, because it is false. This is one of the hardest things for Linux fanatics to understand: Windows has tokens and with UAC even if you do log in with an account with administrative rights, the token will not have administrative rights. This means that the processes started by the shell will not have administrative rights. Get it yet?
Linux is not like this, and most desktop distributions today don't allow you to login as root.
No, but they do allow you to elevate to root as effective user - using sudo or other SUID utilities, which is a blatant violating of one of the most fundamental security principles: Least privilege.
In Linux you elevate to the highest, unrestricted and all-powerfull user just to change your own password??? Have you any idea how f* up that is?
Get it yet?
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