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Two and a half years after being discovered, the Shellshock vulnerability continues to be abused in attacks, and for a good reason: it is a very cheap and easy attack, IBM says.

Discovered in September 2014, Shellshock is a vulnerability found within the bourne-again shell (BASH), the default command shell in almost each and every Linux and Unix system at the time. An attacker able to abuse the security flaw could execute commands with super-user privileges remotely.

Tracked as CVE-2014-6271, the issue was found to affect a great deal of devices, including Web servers and Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices such as DVRs, printers, automotive entertainment systems, routers and even manufacturing systems. Mac OS X systems were also impacted.

With many applications relying on BASH, an attacker could exploit the vulnerability by sending a command sequence to the web server to be interpreted with the BASH.

In July 2015, researchers warned that Shellshock was still being abused, and the attacks continue nearly two years later. Many vulnerable devices haven’t been patched to this day, and attackers are enticed to continue hitting those targets.

“Attackers need only a server, basic programming skills and access to malware to carry out this type of attack. The level of knowledge and effort required is quite low. Fraudsters can simply launch attacks against hundreds of different IP addresses per minute and wait to hit a vulnerable server by chance,” IBM’s Joerg Stephan explains.

To carry out a Shellshock attack, an attacker only needs to spend around $5 a month, Stephan says. For just over $30, an attacker could target around 1 million servers within a six-month period, which could translate into 100,000 victims, as roughly 10% of all servers remain unpatched, IBM says.

To show just how simple it would be to come up with the necessary code, IBM’s researcher published some basic Python code that can do the trick.

A bash script would download a bot from the server, save it to a certain path, make the file executable and run it, and could also include a line to execute the bot after each reboot, for persistence.

The persistence of the Shellshock vulnerability remains high more than a month after it first surfaced.

The latest attacks involved SMTP servers belonging to web hosts, said a report published by the SANS Internet Storm Center.

“The attack leverages Shellshock as a main attack vector through the subject, body, to, from fields,” BDS said on its website. “Once compromised, a perl botnet is activated and beaconing on IRC for further instructions.”

The SANS alert said the perl bot contains simple DDoS commands, and can also receive and execute additional malware.

“It’s unknown which product would specifically be vulnerable to this since Shellshock relies on system level calls and leveraging bash however it seems to be a fairly wide-scale delivery of emails across the United States,” BDS added.
- See more at: http://threatpost.com/shellshock-exploits-targeting-smtp-servers-at-webhosts/109034#sthash.LbhvONhW.dpuf

By default, the shell used by DD-WRT is displayed when you ssh into your router:
BusyBox v1.21.0 (2014-06-07 21:56:38 CEST) built-in shell (ash)
1

BusyBox v1.21.0 (2014-06-07 21:56:38 CEST) built-in shell (ash)

The built-in BusyBox “ash” shell is different than Bash, and I’ve run the exploit tests from my Fedora Shellshock article against ash in DD-WRT and got the following results

So the good news is that the default ash shell in DD-WRT is not affected by the Shellshock bug.

Now the bad news…

If you’ve installed OptWare on your DD-WRT router (if you don’t know what OptWare is… relax, because that means you haven’t installed it), Bash was installed on your DD-WRT router with OptWare. And the Bash shell installed with OptWare is vulnerable to the Shellshock bug, as users on the DD-WRT forums are reporting after running the exploit tests.

“The only way the shellshock bug could be exploited is, that a user installs an app, e.g. apache that uses cgi to call bash and is available from wan.”

A new version of the BASHLITE malware is designed to scan compromised networks for devices that use BusyBox and attempts to gain control of them by leveraging the recently disclosed GNU Bash vulnerability referred to as ShellShock.

ELF_BASHLITE.A checked to see if infected devices were running BusyBox, a set of programs needed to run a Linux system. BusyBox is designed for embedded operating systems such as the ones running on routers.

A newer version of BASHLITE spotted by Trend Micro researchers (ELF_BASHLITE.SMB) is designed not only to identify systems running BusyBox, but to also hijack them.

The malware first scans the network for BusyBox devices and attempts to access them by using a predefined list of usernames and passwords. The list of passwords includes “root,” “admin,” “12345,” “pass,” “password” and “123456.”

“Once a connection is established, it runs the command to download and run bin.sh and bin2.sh scripts, gaining control over the Busybox system,”

Trend Micro advises administrators to make sure they change the default credentials on their network devices and disable remote shell if possible.

Earlier this week, the cross-browser testing service BrowserStack revealed that cybercriminals breached an unpatched server using ShellShock and ultimately gained access to customer information.

Malware writers have crafted new wares to attack embedded devices running BusyBox and not yet patched against the ShellShock vulnerability, researcher Rhena Inocencio says.

Miscreants’ tool of choice for such attacks is malware called “Bashlite” that, once executed on a victim machine, probes for devices such as routers and Android phones running BusyBox to brute force logins through a preset list of usernames and passwords.

Trend Micro’s Inocencio said the variant would download and run bin.sh and bin2.sh scripts to gain control over Busybox systems once a connection was established.

“Remote attackers can possibly maximise their control on affected devices by deploying other components or malicious software into the system depending on their motive,” Inocencio said.

“As such, a remote attacker can issue commands or download other files on the devices thus compromising its security.”

Attackers attempted to log in using user names ‘root’, ‘admin’ and ‘support’ and common and default passwords ‘toor’, ‘password’, ’123456′ and so on.

However unlikely, their stab in the dark approach is working

Targeting message transfer agents (MTAs), and mail delivery agents (MDAs), criminals are using Shellshock as a means to create botnets. The process is slow, but working, thanks to unpatched installations of Bash or certain implementations of it.

“We suspect bad actors may be conducting an initial dry run, in preparation for a real, potentially larger-scale attack. We believe it’s only a matter of time before attackers exploit the vulnerability to redirect users to malicious hosts, which can result in further compromise,” FireEye wrote at the time.

How right they were. Among the findings from FireEye was a proof-of-concept script that created an IRC-based (Internet Relay Chat) botnet, capable of sending spam, initiating a DDoS attack, or performing remote command execution on the compromised host.

On Friday, CSO became aware of a Shellshock-based campaign targeting organizations in Europe and the United States. It spreads via email, using Shellshock exploitation code in the message header fields. If successful, it delivers a simple Perl script as the payload, which adds the host to a botnet commanded form IRC.

The Shellshock campaign targets mail servers, searching for vulnerable MTAs / MDAs. The messages themselves are blank, but the code needed to exploit the Shellshock vulnerability is placed into the message’s headers.

The script that powers the botnet behind this recent campaign is called Legend, and it has existed for several years now. The Legend script is simplistic, but effective once installed on a system.

Once installed, Legend will connect the compromised host to a pre-configured IRC server, where the attacker can issue commands individually or as a group.

The following MTAs / MDAs are directly impacted by Shellshock in some cases, depending on their configuration.

Courier Mail Server
Exim
QMail
Postfix / Procmail

There is at least one Shellshock exploit for Postfix circulating online

Malicious and benign attacks against systems vulnerable to Shellshock had halved by Sunday after peaking three days following the bug’s disclosure, Akamai researchers say.

The variety of payloads targeting vulnerable sites increased dramatically over the same period before tapering off, in a possible sign that hackers were bored with the bug.

The number of unique payloads increased from 43 on day zero to a whopping 10,716 just 24 hours later. It peaked on 27 September at 20,753 before falling off.

The numbers demonstrated the effectiveness of Shellshock as an attack vector, researchers Ezra Caltum, Adi Ludmer and Ory Segal wrote in a co-authored post.

“One of the troubling aspects of the Shellshock vulnerability is the ease of exploitation, which can be seen by the dramatic increase in the number of unique payloads between the first and the second days,” they said.

“The sheer number of creative payloads also demonstrates how effective and deadly this vulnerability can be – most of the scanning and exploitation process is already fully automated.

“With such a low barrier to entry, and the simplicity of writing powerful exploits, we believe that Shellshock-based attacks are going to stay around for months if not years, and will probably top the botnet infection method charts in the near future.”

Almost 300,000 gaming domains made up the vast majority of Shellshock targets, with consumer electronics, email marketing among the less affected industries.

You have bash installed in your box. It will be vulnerable bash if you have not updated it last well (do test to see).
You need to have bash 4.3.27 or newer (if such has come up).
Let’s assume you have vulnerable bash. If anyone can use that to hit your computer depends on what you use it for.
The main attack vectors are:
Web services – if you run web server and use CGI-scripts your are in danger because anyone connecting to web server can run commands
SSH – users that have credentials to system (user account and password) might be able to run command at higher than their own right
OpenVPN server – if you run OpenVPN server with password authentication anyone can potentially run commands on your system
DHCP – if someone compromises your DHCP server (usually your broadband router) they can run command on your system

If you are not running web server or OpenVPN server, no worries on them.
SSH vulnerability is an issue mainly on multi-user systems where there are many different people using the same computer with different user levels, if you are the only user of your desktop then I would not worry much…
DHCP vulnerability could be issue after if someone hacks to your DHCP server or has physical access to your LAN to put in a rogue DHCP server in…

> Also, if I had a router hooked up to my computer that uses busybox and I had a firewall on that same router, would a hacker be able to compromise me that way?

The busybox as itself would not be vulnerable. If someone can hack in your router some way, they might or might not be able (depends on router design) to use it to make the DHCP attack.. Not very probable though.

> I want to know what to do to protect myself against this thing beyond what I am already doing, which is I am installing security updates every time Ubuntu tells me there is one available. Please let me know!

Install the security updates and verify the bash version you already have. That’s the best start.
This shellshock is a serious issue if you have an Internet facing public server – you need to worry (I spend some nights on this issue on this web site to keep it safe… first quick fix with firewall rules, then bash update and taking modsecurity to use, then fixing some issues that modsecurity caused)
If you have normal desktop Linux workstation behind the firewall that you keep up-to-date it is a less of an issue.

I am an at home user of Ubuntu 14.04. I have bash, dash and busybox installed on my Ubuntu desktop. Would I need to be worried about hackers hacking in to my computer? Also, if I had a router hooked up to my computer that uses busybox and I had a firewall on that same router, would a hacker be able to compromise me that way? I have been reading so much about this and am so confused by all of it that I want to know what to do to protect myself against this thing beyond what I am already doing, which is I am installing security updates every time Ubuntu tells me there is one available. Please let me know! You can email privately if you want to or respond here on your blog, whichever you want–I just need to know!