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Hackers aligned with the government of Iran are exploiting the critical Log4j vulnerability to infect unpatched VMware users with ransomware, researchers said on Thursday.
Security firm SentinelOne has dubbed the group TunnelVision. The name is meant to emphasize TunnelVision’s heavy reliance on tunneling tools and the unique way it deploys them. In the past, TunnelVision has exploited so-called 1-day vulnerabilities—meaning vulnerabilities that have been recently patched—to hack organizations that have yet to install the fix. Vulnerabilities in Fortinet FortiOS (CVE-2018-13379) and Microsoft Exchange (ProxyShell) are two of the group’s better-known targets.
Enter Log4Shell
Recently, SentinelOne reported, TunnelVision has started exploiting a critical vulnerability in Log4j, an open source logging utility that’s integrated into thousands of apps. CVE-2021-44228 (or Log4Shell, as the vulnerability is tracked or nicknamed) allows attackers to easily gain remote control over computers running apps in the Java programming language. The bug bit the Internet’s biggest players and was widely targeted in the wild after it became known.
