Detecting “Effluence”, An Unauthenticated Confluence Web Shell

Detecting “Effluence”, An Unauthenticated Confluence Web Shell
Cyber Labs

11 of 12

This insight is part 11 of 12 in this Collection.

November 9, 2023 9 mins

Detecting “Effluence”, An Unauthenticated Confluence Web Shell

Article by: Cyber Labs
Designing an Integrated Business and People Strategy for the Future of Insurance Hero Banner

Discovering Effluence, a unique web shell accessible on every page of an infected Confluence

Summary

Aon's Stroz Friedberg Incident Response Services ("Stroz Friedberg") observed the use of novel malware, dubbed "Effluence," in combination with the exploit of a recent Atlassian Confluence vulnerability. Once implanted, the malware acts as a persistent backdoor and is not remediated by applying patches to Confluence. The backdoor provides capability for lateral movement to other network resources in addition to exfiltration of data from Confluence. Importantly, attackers can access the backdoor remotely without authenticating to Confluence. The malware is difficult to detect and organizations with Confluence servers are advised to investigate thoroughly, even if a patch was applied.

Background

Stroz Friedberg was engaged to help a client perform diligence after they discovered that they had a known vulnerable (CVE-2023-22515) Atlassian Confluence Data Center server near the edge of their network. This vulnerability allows an attacker to gain unauthorized access to the administrative areas of a Confluence server.

In this specific client engagement, the cybercriminal gained initial access via the previously mentioned vulnerability and embedded a novel web shell into the Confluence server which allowed them persistent access to every web page on the server without the need for a valid user account. Typical web shells encountered with Confluence exploits are uploaded via the Confluence Plugin ability, e.g., https://github.com/dubfr33/atlassian-webshell-plugin. Such web shells are only accessible if a user has signed into Confluence or if a single webpage of the webserver has been hooked. The attacker must access the exact page of the web shell, for example, http://example.com/webshell.jsp.

The web shell encountered during Stroz Friedberg’s investigation, however, hijacks the underlying Apache Tomcat webserver and silently inserts itself between Confluence and Tomcat–making itself available on every webpage, including the unauthenticated login page. The web shell does not make any changes to the webpages and allows requests to pass through it unnoticed until a request matches specific parameters.

Stroz Friedberg identified this web shell on public malware repositories with no detections, indicating others may be at risk of this malware. Given ongoing attacks against Confluence, this post aims to raise awareness and provide initial detection methods. Public analysis of the inner workings of the malware will be published at a later date.

Technical Overview

The web shell is split into two parts, a loader and payload. The loader acts as a normal Confluence plugin but utilizes a modified legitimate Java collections class, similar to IdentityHashMap, to hide its malicious payload. The loader is triggered via an overloaded equals() method, which decrypts the payload into a byte array containing a Java class, then loads that class via reflection—hence the raw Java class is never written to the filesystem. Once the payload is loaded, it runs a function which hides the plugin among Confluence “System Apps”, whereas a user loaded plugin would normally be among “User-Installed Apps”.

The web shell traverses internal structures of the ServletContextFactory interface in order to locate and then add itself to Tomcat’s internal applicationEventListenersList. It implements a ServletRequestListener such that any request to the Confluence server passes through the web shell first, including all pages accessible to unauthenticated users. Because the web shell is available from the login page, attackers can trigger it without needing to maintain Confluence user access. The web shell itself takes no action unless a particular query parameter is supplied. When triggered, the web shell can execute any of the following functions (which closely align with a Godzilla webshell plugin):

  • Create a new administrator account to gain full control over the system.
  • Purge application logs to erase traces of unauthorized access.
  • Run any command on the host server.
  • Browse through the file system to inspect the structure and contents of directories.
  • Delete any file on the server.
  • Modify the timestamps of files to hide when they were last edited.
  • Read the contents of any file.
  • Edit any file, enabling the alteration of data or system settings.
  • Enumerate all Confluence collaboration spaces, capturing details such as space name, date of creation, title, creator, recent modifiers, modification dates, and their respective URLs.
  • Conceal unauthorized plugin uploads by misrepresenting them as official System Plugins rather than User Plugins.
  • Extract detailed LDAP1 configurations, including various identifiers, statuses, encryption settings, descriptions, types, classes, creation and update dates, permissible operations, and custom LDAP attributes specified within Confluence.
  • Acquire comprehensive information on configured mail servers, including names, protocols, host details, ports, login credentials, descriptions, and proxy configurations.
  • Collect environmental variables from the server, which may reveal system configuration and sensitive information.
  • Compile extensive user information such as usernames, full names, email addresses, the encryption status of credentials, actual user credentials, contact numbers, instant messaging handles, job titles, departments, locations, login frequency, account statuses, group memberships, and associated directory IDs.
  • Deploy additional plugins that could offer more features or vulnerabilities to exploit.
  • Remove users from Confluence.
  • Search and retrieve specific content from within Confluence pages, potentially accessing confidential or proprietary information.
  • Uninstall plugins.
  • Change user passwords, allowing for unauthorized access to user accounts.
  • Log usernames and passwords utilized during login attempts, which could be used for further unauthorized access to systems and data.

Preliminary Detection

To assist in identifying this web shell in an environment, the below includes multiple detections for this web shell. Please take note: at this time, patching Confluence to address CVE-2023-22515 and CVE-2023-22518 will not remediate the web shell if it has been deployed.

Endpoint Detection Response/File Integrity Monitoring

This detection looks for plugins created in the Atlassian plugin directories. This will only identify whether a plugin was installed and not whether the plugin is malicious. To identify if a plugin was installed, look for files with a “.jar” extension in any of the following directories:

  • <confluence_install_dir>/temp/
  • <confluence_app_dir>/application_data/plugins-osgi-cache/transformed-plugins/
  • <jira_app_dir>/application_data/plugins/installed-plugins/
  • <bitbucket_app_dir>/application_data/shared/plugins/installed-plugins/

Due to the customizable nature of Confluence installations, it is prudent to check other Confluence related directories including plugin-cache and bundled-plugins.

Web Log Analysis

Detecting usage of this web shell depends on review of the web server access logs. Due to the method the web shell uses, there are no obvious Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) in the web logs to detect usage of the web shell. However, one may be able to find potential usage by reviewing access to static confluence pages, such as “/login.action”, where the response size varies. For example, the following screenshot shows successful access to “/login.action” with response sizes that vary between 826 to 2574 bytes:

Figure 1 – Examples of malicious requests from logs located at /opt/atlassian/confluence/logs/conf_access_log.log

While we are still gathering information about this particular malware, as an early point of note – Stroz Friedberg recommends baselining your environment to find the normal range of response sizes for the environment to find the abnormal response sizes.

Yara rule over Memory

Detection of the web shell via this method relies on a memory capture from the server. Stroz Friedberg developed the following Yara rule which can detect the web shell in the preserved memory image:


rule ConfluencePageIndicator {
  meta:
    description = "Detects strings indicative of a web shell in Confluence page"
    author = "Stroz Friedberg"
    date = "2023-11-06"

  strings:
    $confluence_title = " - Confluence" ascii wide
    $hide_plugin_function = "hidePlugin(" ascii wide
    $system_plugin_key = "ALWAYS_SYSTEM_PLUGIN_KEYS" ascii wide
    $dashes = " ----- " ascii wide

  condition:
    $confluence_title and $hide_plugin_function and $dashes and $system_plugin_key
}

Beyond Confluence

Stroz Friedberg has not thoroughly tested to what extent this novel malware is applicable to other Atlassian products. Several of the web shell functions depend on Confluence-specific APIs. However, the plugin and the loader mechanism appear to depend only on common Atlassian APIs and are potentially applicable to JIRA, BitBucket, or other Atlassian products where an attacker can install the plugin.

If you suspect you are compromised or need assistance in assessing compromise, please call our Incident Response hotline. If you are from a Law Enforcement Agency or Endpoint Detection and Response vendor and wish for more details, please contact Aon Cyber Solutions.


1 Lightweight Directory Access Protocol

 

While care has been taken in the preparation of this material and some of the information contained within it has been obtained from sources that Stroz Friedberg believes to be reliable (including third-party sources), Stroz Friedberg does not warrant, represent, or guarantee the accuracy, adequacy, completeness or fitness for any purpose of the article and accepts no liability for any loss incurred in any way whatsoever by any person or organization who may rely upon it. It is for informational purposes only. You should consult with your own professional advisors or IT specialists before implementing any recommendation or following the guidance provided herein. Further, we endeavor to provide accurate and timely information, there can be no guarantee that such information is accurate as of the date it is received or that it will continue to be accurate in the future. Further, this article has been compiled using information available to us up to 11/8/23.

About Cyber Solutions:

Aon’s Cyber Solutions offers holistic cyber risk management, unsurpassed investigative skills, and proprietary technologies to help clients uncover and quantify cyber risks, protect critical assets, and recover from cyber incidents.

General Disclaimer

This document is not intended to address any specific situation or to provide legal, regulatory, financial, or other advice. While care has been taken in the production of this document, Aon does not warrant, represent or guarantee the accuracy, adequacy, completeness or fitness for any purpose of the document or any part of it and can accept no liability for any loss incurred in any way by any person who may rely on it. Any recipient shall be responsible for the use to which it puts this document. This document has been compiled using information available to us up to its date of publication and is subject to any qualifications made in the document.

Terms of Use

The contents herein may not be reproduced, reused, reprinted or redistributed without the expressed written consent of Aon, unless otherwise authorized by Aon. To use information contained herein, please write to our team.

Aon's Better Being Podcast

Our Better Being podcast series, hosted by Aon Chief Wellbeing Officer Rachel Fellowes, explores wellbeing strategies and resilience. This season we cover human sustainability, kindness in the workplace, how to measure wellbeing, managing grief and more.

Aon Insights Series UK

Expert Views on Today's Risk Capital and Human Capital Issues

Construction and Infrastructure

The construction industry is under pressure from interconnected risks and notable macroeconomic developments. Learn how your organization can benefit from construction insurance and risk management.

Cyber Labs

Stay in the loop on today's most pressing cyber security matters.

Cyber Resilience

Our Cyber Resilience collection gives you access to Aon’s latest insights on the evolving landscape of cyber threats and risk mitigation measures. Reach out to our experts to discuss how to make the right decisions to strengthen your organization’s cyber resilience.

Employee Wellbeing

Our Employee Wellbeing collection gives you access to the latest insights from Aon's human capital team. You can also reach out to the team at any time for assistance with your employee wellbeing needs.

Environmental, Social and Governance Insights

Explore Aon's latest environmental social and governance (ESG) insights.

Q4 2023 Global Insurance Market Insights

Our Global Insurance Market Insights highlight insurance market trends across pricing, capacity, underwriting, limits, deductibles and coverages.

Regional Results

How do the top risks on business leaders’ minds differ by region and how can these risks be mitigated? Explore the regional results to learn more.

Human Capital Analytics

Our Human Capital Analytics collection gives you access to the latest insights from Aon's human capital team. Contact us to learn how Aon’s analytics capabilities helps organizations make better workforce decisions.

Insights for HR

Explore our hand-picked insights for human resources professionals.

Workforce

Our Workforce Collection provides access to the latest insights from Aon’s Human Capital team on topics ranging from health and benefits, retirement and talent practices. You can reach out to our team at any time to learn how we can help address emerging workforce challenges.

Mergers and Acquisitions

Our Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) collection gives you access to the latest insights from Aon's thought leaders to help dealmakers make better decisions. Explore our latest insights and reach out to the team at any time for assistance with transaction challenges and opportunities.

Navigating Volatility

How do businesses navigate their way through new forms of volatility and make decisions that protect and grow their organizations?

Parametric Insurance

Our Parametric Insurance Collection provides ways your organization can benefit from this simple, straightforward and fast-paying risk transfer solution. Reach out to learn how we can help you make better decisions to manage your catastrophe exposures and near-term volatility.

Pay Transparency and Equity

Our Pay Transparency and Equity collection gives you access to the latest insights from Aon's human capital team on topics ranging from pay equity to diversity, equity and inclusion. Contact us to learn how we can help your organization address these issues.

Property Risk Management

Forecasters are predicting an extremely active 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. Take measures to build resilience to mitigate risk for hurricane-prone properties.

Technology

Our Technology Collection provides access to the latest insights from Aon's thought leaders on navigating the evolving risks and opportunities of technology. Reach out to the team to learn how we can help you use technology to make better decisions for the future.

Top 10 Global Risks

Trade, technology, weather and workforce stability are the central forces in today’s risk landscape.

Trade

Our Trade Collection gives you access to the latest insights from Aon's thought leaders on navigating the evolving risks and opportunities for international business. Reach out to our team to understand how to make better decisions around macro trends and why they matter to businesses.

Weather

With a changing climate, organizations in all sectors will need to protect their people and physical assets, reduce their carbon footprint, and invest in new solutions to thrive. Our Weather Collection provides you with critical insights to be prepared.

Workforce Resilience

Our Workforce Resilience collection gives you access to the latest insights from Aon's Human Capital team. You can reach out to the team at any time for questions about how we can assess gaps and help build a more resilience workforce.

More Like This

View All
  • 2025 Salary Increase Planning Tips

    Article 8 mins

    2025 Salary Increase Planning Tips

    Amid economic uncertainty, companies are taking a careful approach to hiring and salary planning — one that includes focused hiring strategies, revising salary budgets and implementing measures that respond to the current economic environment.

  • Responding to Heightened Risk in the Middle East

    Alert 7 mins

    Client Alert: Responding to Heightened Risk in the Middle East

    The current operating environment in the Middle East is increasingly complex and multifaceted, characterized by ongoing conflicts in Gaza, Israel, Lebanon and neighboring states, alongside significant changes in the business and insurance environment.

View All
Subscribe CTA Banner