NSA, FBI warning: Beware these 20 software flaws most used by hackers

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The National Security Agency (NSA), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have listed the top 20 software flaws that China-funded hackers have been using to compromise networks since 2020. 

The advisory emphasizes that China-backed hackers actively target not just the networks of the US government and its allies but also software and hardware companies in the supply chain to steal intellectual property and gain access to sensitive networks. These hackers are an active threat to the IT and telecoms sector, the defense industrial base, and critical infrastructure owners and operators. 

“NSA, CISA, and FBI continue to assess [People’s Republic of China] PRC state-sponsored cyber activities as being one of the largest and most dynamic threats to U.S. government and civilian networks,” they note. 

Also: White House warns: Do these 8 things now to boost your security ahead of potential Russian cyberattacks

CISA this week disclosed that several state-backed hacking groups were active on defense industrial base enterprise networks after gaining access through their Microsoft Exchange Server infrastructure from around mid-January 2021. Exchange Server is now under attack by newly discovered flaws similar to last year’s ProxyShell.

Among the top 20 flaws used by China-backed hackers are four Microsoft Exchange Server flaws: CVE-2021-26855, a remote code execution bug, as well CVE-2021-26857CVE-2021-26858, and CVE-2021-27065. These are all part of the the Exchange Server ProxyLogon pre-authentication vulnerabilities disclosed in 2021.   

Microsoft in July warned these bugs were being used in combination with malware tailored for networks using Microsoft’s Internet Information Services (IIS) web server to host Outlook on the web. 

Other commonly used flaws include those in Apache Log4Shell, and flaws in code-hosting site GitLab, F5’s network gear, VPN endpoints, and popular server products from VMware, Cisco, and Citrix. 

All the bugs are publicly known and present a risk for organizations that haven’t applied available firmware and software updates. 

The GitLab and Atlassian Confluence bugs stand out as examples of hackers targeting developer and IT operations tools.   

“These state-sponsored actors continue to use virtual private networks (VPNs) to obfuscate their activities and target web-facing applications to establish initial access,” CISA notes. 

Many of the top 20 vulnerabilities “allow the actors to surreptitiously gain unauthorized access into sensitive networks, after which they seek to establish persistence and move laterally to other internally connected networks,” it added. 

The agencies recommend patching systems, using multi-factor authentication, disabling unused protocols at the network edge, ditching end-of-life devices, adopting a model that trusts no person, device or app, and enabling logging of internet-facing systems.  

The top flaws used since 2020 are listed in the table below.

Vendor

CVE

Vulnerability Type

Apache Log4j

CVE-2021-44228

Remote Code Execution

Pulse Connect Secure

CVE-2019-11510

Arbitrary File Read

GitLab CE/EE

CVE-2021-22205

Remote Code Execution

Atlassian

CVE-2022-26134

Remote Code Execution

Microsoft Exchange

CVE-2021-26855

Remote Code Execution

F5 Big-IP

CVE-2020-5902

Remote Code Execution

VMware vCenter Server

CVE-2021-22005

Arbitrary File Upload 

Citrix ADC

CVE-2019-19781

Path Traversal

Cisco Hyperflex

CVE-2021-1497

Command Line Execution

Buffalo WSR

CVE-2021-20090

Relative Path Traversal

Atlassian Confluence Server and Data Center

CVE-2021-26084

Remote Code Execution

Hikvision Webserver

CVE-2021-36260

Command Injection

Sitecore XP

CVE-2021-42237

Remote Code Execution

F5 Big-IP

CVE-2022-1388

Remote Code Execution

Apache

CVE-2022-24112

Authentication Bypass by Spoofing

ZOHO

CVE-2021-40539

Remote Code Execution

Microsoft

CVE-2021-26857

Remote Code Execution

Microsoft

CVE-2021-26858

Remote Code Execution

Microsoft

CVE-2021-27065

Remote Code Execution

Apache HTTP Server

CVE-2021-41773

Path Traversal

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