Ransomware Advisory: Log4Shell Exploitation for Initial Access & Lateral Movement
By Vitali Kremez & Yelisey Boguslavskiy

This redacted report is based on our actual proactive victim breach intelligence and subsequent incident response (not a simulated or sandbox environment) identified via unique high-value Conti ransomware collections at AdvIntel via our product “Andariel.”
This is a redacted TLP:WHITE version of the larger AdvIntel findings.

Conti Ransomware Log4Shell Operation
Background: Log4Shell Vulnerability
On December 11, 2021, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released an urgent announcement on possibly the most important vulnerability of recent years:
“To be clear, this (Log4j2) vulnerability poses a severe risk. We urge all organizations to join us in this essential effort and take action. By bringing together key government and private sector partners via the JCDC, including our partners at the FBI and NSA, we will ensure that our country’s strongest capabilities are brought to bear in an integrated manner against this risk.”
CISA’s concerning tone is understandable: the new vulnerability is not another hidden path for a malicious attack. Embedded deeply in the stack level it offers the attackers an entire new dimension of offensive patterns. The depth is transferred to scale as this vulnerability affects core library components supporting thousands of networks, companies, and machines across the world.
Recorded in the vulnerability database on Friday, November 26, 2021, the Apache Log4j2 Java-based logging library vulnerability CVE-2021-44228 has the highest possible severity score of Base Score: 10.0 CRITICAL allowing direct remote code execution on the vulnerable machines. Due to its core component impact, this vulnerability in some way can be compared to the Apache Struts vulnerability CVE-2019-0230: Apache Struts OGNL Remote Code Execution that led to the breach of Equifax.
Multiple technologies and products run Log4j2 library including popular vCenter, Kafka, Elastic, and Minecraft presenting an attack surface for the attackers.
The current activity surrounding the vulnerability resulted in massive world scanning with the payloads running from miners, unix DDoS malware, and framework stagers pushed to the compromised hosts.
Conti: A Quest For Ultimate Ransomware Exploitation
Naturally, this new attack domain became the focal point of hackers’ interests. Hacker teams suspected to work for foreign governments and US adversaries were quickly spotted to investigate Log4j2. And as the new adversarial pattern seen with ProxyLogon in March 2021 suggests, if one day a major CVE is spotted by APTs, the next week it is weaponized by ransomware.
And indeed, a week after the Log4j2 vulnerability became public, AdvIntel discovered the most concerning trend - the exploitation of the new CVE by one of the most prolific organized ransomware groups - Conti.
Conti plays a special role in today’s threat landscape, primarily due to its scale. Divided on several teams and involving tenths of full-time members, the Russian-speaking Conti made over $150 million USD in the last six months, according to AdvIntel research into the ransomware logs. And they continue to expand. It is this expansion that has set Conti on a long quest of searching for new attack surfaces and methods. Since August, they have employed many new means: hidden RMM backdoors, new backup removal solutions, and, most recently, even an entire operation to revive Emotet.
Moreover, Conti already had a history of leveraging exploits as an initial attack vector and for lateral movement. For instance, the group leverages Fortinet VPN vulnerability CVE-2018-13379 to target unpatched devices for the initial attack vector. Conti favors PrintNightmare privilege elevation CVE-2021-34527/CVE-2021-1675, Zerologon (CVE-2020-1472), and ms17-010 for local privilege elevation and lateral movement on the compromised hosts.
As such, Log4j2 vulnerability appears at a time for Conti: at the moment when the syndicate has both the strategic intention and the capability to weaponize it for its ransomware goals.
Discovery: Conti Becomes The First Sophisticated Crimeware Ransomware Group Weaponizing Log4j2
Ransomware Exploitation Timeline: Conti Search for Newer Attack Vectors

November 1, 2021 - Due to shrinking attack surfaces, Conti begins the quest to find new attack vectors
November 14, 2021 - Use of Emotet - CobaltStrike Chain for Attack
November 19, 2021 - Conti Redesigns Their Infrastructure Aiming for New Expansion
November 25, 2021 - Announcing New Conti Payload
December 6, 2021 - R&D work on advancing botnet modules
December 12, 2021 - Conti identifies Log4Shell as a novel possibility
December 13, 2021 - Scanning activity for initial access
December 15, 2021 - Targeting of vCenter networks for lateral movement
On December 12, through deep visibility into adversarial collections, AdvIntel discovered that multiple Conti group members expressed interest in the exploitation of the vulnerability for the initial attack vector resulting in the scanning activity leveraging the publicly available Log4J2 exploit. This is the first time this vulnerability entered the radar of a major ransomware group.
The current exploitation led to multiple use cases through which the Conti group tested the possibilities of utilizing the Log4J2 exploit. Most importantly, AdvIntel confirmed that the criminals pursued targeting specific vulnerable Log4J2 VMware vCenter for lateral movement directly from the compromised network resulting in vCenter access affecting US and European victim networks from the pre-existent Cobalt Strike sessions.
Early Warning: Ransomware Exploitation of Core Vulnerability
It is only a matter of time until Conti and possibly other groups will begin exploiting Log4j2 to its full capacity. It is recommended to patch the vulnerable system immediately and view the Log4j2 as a ransomware group exploitation vector.

AdvIntel provides direct customer access to targeting datasets related to CVE-2021-44228 Log4Shell exploitation from the Conti ransomware list. The Log4Shell dataset informs possible targeted devices from vulnerability scanner devices only. Targeted Searches are available using TLD & IP Range in Log4Shell Exposure Collections.
Recommendations & Mitigations
The Dutch National Cyber Security Center shared a list of the affected software and recommendations linked to each one of them - https://github.com/NCSC-NL/log4shell/tree/main/software
CVE-2021-44228 - VMSA-2021-0028 Workaround instructions to address CVE-2021-44228 in vCenter Server and vCenter Cloud Gateway (87081) - https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/87081
Mitre ATT&CK
Enterprise Attack - Course of Action
Account Discovery Mitigation - T1087
Brute Force Mitigation - T1110
Credential Dumping Mitigation - T1003
Data Encrypted Mitigation - T1022
Data from Local System Mitigation - T1005
Exploitation for Defense Evasion Mitigation - T1211
Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Mitigation - T1068
Exploitation of Remote Services Mitigation - T1210
Network Service Scanning Mitigation - T1046
PowerShell Mitigation - T1086
Supply Chain Compromise Mitigation - T1195
Attack Pattern
Spearphishing Attachment - T1193
Supply Chain Compromise - T1195
Command-Line Interface - T1059
PowerShell - T1086
Rundll32 - T1085
Regsvr32 - T1117
Scripting - T1064
Data Encrypted for Impact - T1486
Data Encrypted - T1022
Remote Access Tools - T1219
Domain Fronting - T1172
Data from Local System - T1005
Data from Network Shared Drive - T1039
Email Collection - T1114
Pass the Hash - T1075
Pass the Ticket - T1097
Logon Scripts - T1037
Exploitation of Remote Services - T1210
Kerberoasting - T1208
LLMNR/NBT-NS Poisoning and Relay - T1171
Credentials in Files - T1081
Brute Force - T1110
Network Share Discovery - T1135
File and Directory Discovery - T1083
Domain Trust Discovery - T1482
Process Hollowing - T1093
Process Doppelgänging - T1186
Process Injection - T1055
New Service - T1050
Exploitation for Privilege Escalation - T1068
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