Web-exposed Selenium Grid cases are being focused by dangerous actors for illicit cryptocurrency mining and proxyjacking campaigns.
“Selenium Grid is a server that facilitates operating check circumstances in parallel throughout completely different browsers and variations,” Cado Safety researchers Tara Gould and Nate Invoice stated in an evaluation revealed immediately.
“Nonetheless, Selenium Grid’s default configuration lacks authentication, making it weak to exploitation by risk actors.”
The abuse of publicly-accessible Selenium Grid cases for deploying crypto miners was beforehand highlighted by cloud safety agency Wiz in late July 2024 as a part of an exercise cluster dubbed SeleniumGreed.
Cado, which noticed two completely different campaigns towards its honeypot server, stated the risk actors are exploiting the dearth of authentication protections to hold out a various set of malicious actions.
The primary of them leverages the “goog:chromeOptions” dictionary to inject a Base64-encoded Python script that, in flip, retrieves a script named “y,” which is the open-source GSocket reverse shell.
The reverse shell subsequently serves as a medium for introducing the next-stage payload, a bash script named “pl” that retrieves IPRoyal Pawn and EarnFM from a distant server through curl and wget instructions.
“IPRoyal Pawns is a residential proxy service that permits customers to promote their web bandwidth in alternate for cash,” Cado stated.
“The person’s web connection is shared with the IPRoyal community with the service utilizing the bandwidth as a residential proxy, making it out there for numerous functions, together with for malicious functions.”
EarnFM can also be a proxyware resolution that is marketed as a “ground-breaking” solution to “generate passive earnings on-line by merely sharing your web connection.”
The second assault, just like the proxyjacking marketing campaign, follows the identical path to ship a bash script through a Python script that checks if it is operating on a 64-bit machine after which proceeds to drop a Golang-based ELF binary.
The ELF file subsequently makes an attempt to escalate to root by leveraging the PwnKit flaw (CVE-2021-4043) and drops an XMRig cryptocurrency miner known as perfcc.
“As many organizations depend on Selenium Grid for net browser testing, this marketing campaign additional highlights how misconfigured cases will be abused by risk actors,” the researchers stated. “Customers ought to guarantee authentication is configured, as it’s not enabled by default.”