A financially motivated threat actor from Indonesia known as GUI-vil has been identified using Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances for conducting illegal cryptocurrency mining operations.
GUI-vil, named by cloud security company Permiso P0 Labs, initially utilizes Graphical User Interface (GUI) tools like S3 Browser for their operations and later gains AWS Console access to continue their activities directly through web browsers.
At the same time, the attack chains employed by GUI-vil involve exploiting publicly exposed AWS keys in source code repositories or targeting vulnerable GitLab instances to gain initial access.
After successful entry, the threat actor escalates privileges and conducts internal reconnaissance to assess available S3 buckets and accessible services through the AWS web console.
Furthermore, GUI-vil’s distinctive approach involves blending into the victim environment by creating new users with matching naming conventions or establishing login profiles for existing users without arousing suspicion. The group’s origin in Indonesia is indicated by the source IP addresses associated with their activities, which are linked to Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs) in the Southeast Asian country.
Researchers have determined that GUI-vil’s primary objective is financially driven, focusing on creating EC2 instances to support their cryptocurrency mining endeavors.
However, the profits they obtain from mining often pale in comparison to the expenses incurred by the victim organizations for operating the EC2 instances.
The discovery of GUI-vil underscores the need for enhanced security measures to protect against such threat actors leveraging cloud infrastructure for illicit activities.
