Summary: Ransomware actors are increasingly targeting VMware ESXi bare metal hypervisors, exploiting SSH tunneling to maintain persistence and evade detection. These attacks can cripple organizations by encrypting files and rendering virtual machines inaccessible. Monitoring challenges related to ESXi logs further complicate detection and response efforts for system administrators.
Threat Actor: Ransomware Actors | ransomware actors
Victim: Organizations using VMware ESXi | VMware ESXi
Keypoints :
- Ransomware actors exploit known vulnerabilities and compromised credentials to gain access to ESXi hypervisors.
- SSH tunneling is used to establish a semi-persistent backdoor, allowing attackers to move laterally and deploy ransomware.
- Monitoring ESXi logs is challenging due to their distribution across multiple files, making it difficult to detect malicious activity.