After reviewing the Top 10 Not So Common SSH Usernames and Passwords [1] published by Johannes 2 weeks ago, I noticed activity by one in his list that we don't really know what it is. Beginning 12 October 2024, my DShield sensor started storing one of the usernames mentioned in his diary that I had never seen before (I have over a year of data). The username chenzilong has been used with 5 different passwords including, some combination with the same username. So far, this account activity has been used with 302 different IPs.

Today, Apple released updates for all of its operating systems. These updates include new AI features. For iOS 18 users, the only upgrade path is iOS 18.1, which includes the AI features. Same for users of macOS 15 Sequoia. For older operating systems versions (iOS 17, macOS 13, and 14), patches are made available, addressing only the security issues.

Phishing authors have long ago discovered that adding HTML attachments to the messages they send out can have significant benefits for them – especially since an HTML file can contain an entire credential-stealing web page and does not need to reach out to the internet for any other reason than to send the credentials a victim puts in a login form to an attacker-controlled server[1]. Since this approach can be significantly more effective than just pointing recipients to a URL somewhere on the internet, the technique of sending out entire credential-stealing pages as attachments has become quite commonplace.

We do keep seeing attackers "poking around" looking for enabled development features. Developers often use these features and plugins to aid in debugging web applications. But if left behind, they may provide an attacker with inside to the application. In their simplest form, these features provide detailed configuration information. More severe cases may leak credentials or even provide full remote code execution access.

Our list of "Top" ssh usernames and password is pretty static. Well known defaults, like "root" and "admin" are at the top of the list. But there are always some usernames and password in the list that are not as well known, or only showed up more recently. I will focus in this diary on these "second tier" credentials.

Demo scripts left behind after installing applications or frameworks are an ongoing problem. After installation, removing any "demo" or "example" folders is usually best. A few days ago, Ravindu Wickramasinghe noticed that the Angular-base64-upload project is leaving behind a demo folder with a script allowing arbitrary file uploads without authentication [1]. Exploitation of the vulnerability is trivial. An attacker may use the file upload script to upload a web shell, and in response, the attacker will obtain remote command execution with all the privileges granted to the web server.

Wireshark release 4.4.1 fixes 2 vulnerabilities and 27 bugs. One of these bugfixes is for the missing IP address plugin on Windows, see "Wireshark 4.4's IP Address Functions".

A few days ago, a new stealthy malware targeting Linux hosts made a lot of noise: perfctl[1]. The malware has been pretty well analyzed and I won’t repeat what has been already disclosed. I found a copy of the "httpd" binary (SHA256:22e4a57ac560ebe1eff8957906589f4dd5934ee555ebcc0f7ba613b07fad2c13)[2]. I dropped the malware in my lab to see how it detonated. I infected the lab without root privileges and detected the same behavior except files were not written to some locations due to a lack of access (not root). When executing without root privileges, the rootkit feature is unavailable and the malware runs "disclosed".