An unknown Chinese state-sponsored hacking group has been linked to a novel piece of malware aimed at Linux servers.
French cybersecurity firm ExaTrack, which found three samples of the previously documented malicious software that date back to early 2022, dubbed it Mélofée.
“According to the vermagic metadata, it is compiled for a kernel version 5.10.112-108.499.amzn2.x86_64,” the company said in a report. “The rootkit has a limited set of features, mainly installing a hook designed for hiding itself.”
Mélofée’s features are no different from other backdoors of its kind, enabling it to contact a remote server and receive instructions that allow it to carry out file operations, create sockets, launch a shell, and execute arbitrary commands.
The malware’s ties to China come from infrastructure overlaps with groups such as APT41 (aka Winnti) and Earth Berberoka (aka GamblingPuppet).
Also discovered by ExaTrack is another implant codenamed AlienReverse, which shares code similarities with Mélofée and makes use of publicly-available tools like EarthWorm and socks_proxy.
“The Mélofée implant family is another tool in the arsenal of Chinese state sponsored attackers, which show constant innovation and development,” the company said.
“The capabilities offered by Mélofée are relatively simple, but may enable adversaries to conduct their attacks under the radar. These implants were not widely seen, showing that the attackers are likely limiting its usage to high value targets.”
Source: https://thehackernews.com/
