News

Botnet Bruteforces Over 1.5 million RDP Servers Globally

Giulio Saggin
Giulio Saggin
Tuesday, 28 November 2023

A botnet has been discovered attempting to bruteforce its way into over 1.5 million Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) servers exposed to the Internet.

The botnet, named GoldBrute, was discovered by security researcher Renato Marinho of Morphus Labs, and affects RDP servers around the world.

"Shodan lists about 2.4 million exposed servers. GoldBrute uses its own list and is extending it as it continues to scan and grow," said Marinho. "The botnet is using a single command and control server, with bots exchanging data with the C2 via AES encrypted WebSocket connections to port 8333."

Infected systems are first instructed to download the bot code, which includes the complete Java Runtime. The bot itself is implemented in a Java class called GoldBrute.

"Initially, the bot scans random IP addresses to find more hosts with exposed RDP servers," said Marinho. "These IPs are reported back to the C&C server. After the bot reported 80 new victims, the C&C server will assign a set of targets to brute force to the bot."

Rather sneakily, each bot only tries one particular username and password per target. Because each authentication attempt comes from a different address, it avoids detection by security tools designed to prevent brute force attacks.

In the wake of the recent "Bluekeep" vulnerability (CVE-2019-0708) discovery, which is still 'out there', Microsoft and the NSA have issued warnings urging users to apply security updates as soon as possible.

Never miss a vulnerability like this again

Sign up to SecAlerts for real-time vulnerability data matched to your software, aggregated from hundreds of sources.

Contact

SecAlerts Pty Ltd.
132 Wickham Terrace
Fortitude Valley,
QLD 4006, Australia
info@secalerts.co
By using SecAlerts services, you agree to our services end-user license agreement. This website is safeguarded by reCAPTCHA and governed by the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. All names, logos, and brands of products are owned by their respective owners, and any usage of these names, logos, and brands for identification purposes only does not imply endorsement. If you possess any content that requires removal, please get in touch with us.
© 2024 SecAlerts Pty Ltd.
ABN: 70 645 966 203, ACN: 645 966 203