[nsp-sec] SSH scanning - we are now up over 1000

[Smith, Donald]

We asked for and received lots of additional information and binaries for the dd_ssh/phpmyadmin issue.

https://isc.sans.edu/diary.html?storyid=9370

We have received some reports about a new SSH brute force script, possibly named dd_ssh, that gets dropped onto web servers, most likely via an older phpmyadmin vulnerability.  If you have sample log entries from a successful attack or can share a copy of dd_ssh, please let us know.  The current DShield figures do show a recent uptick in the number of sources that participate in SSH scanning.

Update 1735UTC: We have received several samples of dd_ssh, with MD5 24dac6bab595cd9c3718ea16a3804009.  If your MD5 differs, please still send us a copy.  It also looks like the vulnerability exploited is indeed in phpmyadmin, but seems to be the rather old CVE-2009-1151. Again, if your information differs, please let us know.  Thanks to all the ISC readers who responded so far!

Update 2005UTC: Several readers have identified 91-193-157-206 as the most likely original source of the scanning for phpmyadmin's setup.exe. If successful, two files named "vmsplice.txt" and "dd.txt" were downloaded from that same IP. How exactly dd_ssh was installed is not yet clear, but most readers found it in /tmp after a POST request to phpmyadmin/scripts/setup.exe. A running dd_ssh was seen to talk to a bunch of IPs over port 54509 and 54510, this is most likely the C&C connection.

Update 2020UTC: We got it reasonably established that the vulnerability exploited to drop the SSH scanner was indeed CVE-2009-1151. C'mon, folks, if you insist to have your phpmyadmin reachable from the Internet (why would you?? Access control isn't hard!) then please at least upgrade to the most current version, which at this time is 2.11.10 or 3.3.5.


I have looked at a pcap and validated the control ports.
I have run a netflow report but not sure how much good it is without a lot of filtering as the control ports (54509 and 54510) are legit empherial ports:(


(coffee != sleep) & (!coffee == sleep)
Donald.Smith at qwest.com gcia

> -----Original Message-----
> From: nsp-security-bounces at puck.nether.net
> [mailto:nsp-security-bounces at puck.nether.net] On Behalf Of
> Kevin Oberman
> Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2010 11:57 AM
> To: Joel Rosenblatt
> Cc: nsp-security at puck.nether.net
> Subject: Re: [nsp-sec] SSH scanning - we are now up over 1000
>
> ----------- nsp-security Confidential --------
>
> > Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 10:02:15 -0400
> > From: Joel Rosenblatt <joel at columbia.edu>
> > Sender: nsp-security-bounces at puck.nether.net
> >
> > ----------- nsp-security Confidential --------
> >
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > Looks like this is going to get worse before it gets worse
> ... list attached.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Joel
> >
> > Joel Rosenblatt, Manager Network & Computer Security
> > Columbia Information Security Office (CISO)
> > Columbia University, 612 W 115th Street, NY, NY 10025 / 212 854 3033
> > http://www.columbia.edu/~joel
>
> This is the worst of these I've seen and it just keeps
> getting heavier.
>
> I have been seeing over 500 new unique source addresses daily from the
> start of this and the number is growing daily.  I only had 960 unique
> new addresses this morning, but I have rather careful vetting to avoid
> false positives as we feed this data into our RTBH and I don't want to
> block any legitimate access. I'm sure that if I looked at the data
> manually, theat I would have a number of added hits.
>
> BTW, all of the attempts log are reported to the Cymru
> brute-force list
> for inclusion in the daily reports.
> --
> R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
> Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
> Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
> E-mail: oberman at es.net                        Phone: +1 510 486-8634
> Key fingerprint:059B 2DDF 031C 9BA3 14A4  EADA 927D EBB3 987B 3751
>
>
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