defense

Wiz Threat Research has reported a new variant of a malicious campaign targeting misconfigured and publicly exposed PostgreSQL servers, attributed to the threat actor JINX-0126. This actor exploits vulnerable PostgreSQL instances with weak login credentials to gain unauthorized access and deploy XMRig-C3 cryptominers. The campaign has evolved to include advanced evasion techniques, such as using unique hashes for binaries and executing payloads in a fileless manner to avoid detection. The analysis indicates that the threat actor assigns unique mining workers to each victim, with three distinct wallets identified, suggesting over 1,500 affected victims. Nearly 90% of cloud environments host PostgreSQL instances, with about one-third publicly exposed. The threat actor scans for poorly configured services, exploiting default weak credentials to gain access and execute malicious payloads. Upon successful login, the actor performs reconnaissance and executes a dropper script to deploy an obfuscated Golang binary, which contains an encrypted configuration with critical system information. The malware establishes persistence by creating cron jobs and modifying access controls. The actor also creates high-privilege roles for continued access and weakens the default admin user. The analysis identified three wallets associated with the campaign, with each wallet having around 550 workers. The Wiz Dynamic Scanner can identify exposed PostgreSQL services, while the Wiz Runtime Sensor detects malicious activities associated with this threat. The report includes specific wallet addresses, a file hosting service, and file hashes related to the malware. Techniques used by the malware align with various MITRE ATT&CK® techniques, including credential access, defense evasion, and resource hijacking.