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    Ransomeware infected machine

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
    39 Posts 9 Posters 3.3k Views
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    • stephenw10S
      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
      last edited by

      If you have a backup of the config or had ACB configured recovering from that is not an issue.

      The problem is discovcering how that happened. I would physically examine the hardware. What is it actually booting from?

      Is that really the box you think it is? Was is running virtually maybe?

      Steve

      Y 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • chpalmerC
        chpalmer @KOM
        last edited by

        @KOM said in Ransomeware infected machine:

        He said he thought it was 2.4.3.

        Missed that. I saw-

        running fine for a good few years. orignally setup in ~2014.

        Triggering snowflakes one by one..
        Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4590T CPU @ 2.00GHz on an M400 WG box.

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        • Y
          YYJWalking @stephenw10
          last edited by

          @stephenw10

          Thanks guys,
          Ya I'm pretty sure it was 2.4.3 and it was on physical metal with a physical SSD.

          Disgruntled employee is a "possibility" have some peeps running CCTV stuff now but our access control to this room is shitty so 50/50. Also if this one individual was trying to be an ass there's much more serious stuff they could have done.
          As for admin ports being open from other interfaces, there are/were 2 WANs and 2 LANs on this setup. One pair for regular traffic and one for PBX traffic. There was some concerns back in the day about having open ports for the PBX to work so a fully segmented network was setup but still had a single PFSense box (with 4x Ethernet ports).
          I'm not 100% sure if admin was possible through the 2nd LAN/WAN (trying to sort out how to restrict access on the new install now actually).

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          • RicoR
            Rico LAYER 8 Rebel Alliance
            last edited by

            Can you post your config.xml Backup here so we can check for Config (Security) mistakes?

            -Rico

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            • KOMK
              KOM
              last edited by

              Is this going to be another one of those posts where we talk among ourselves for hours without ever seeing any evidence that pfSense has anything to do with this?

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • Y
                YYJWalking @Rico
                last edited by

                @Rico
                Would love too but don't have any from this install.
                For reference to the uninitiated access to the admin section is all done via firewall rules right?

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                • RicoR
                  Rico LAYER 8 Rebel Alliance
                  last edited by

                  Yes, to access the WebGUI or SSH from WAN side would require manual adding of Firewall Rules.

                  -Rico

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                  • RicoR
                    Rico LAYER 8 Rebel Alliance
                    last edited by

                    What happens if your try to login with User root and Password toor at the slax login prompt?
                    I'd also try to boot some rescue disk and check what is really going on the filesystem. Some ransomware is not even encrypting anything, just telling so.

                    -Rico

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                    • DerelictD
                      Derelict LAYER 8 Netgate
                      last edited by

                      Even with full remote root ssh/webgui access I struggle to come up with a procedure where such a result would be possible without physical/console access.

                      Is there IPMI? Is that accessible? Is that secured?

                      Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
                      A comprehensive network diagram is worth 10,000 words and 15 conference calls.
                      DO NOT set a source address/port in a port forward or firewall rule unless you KNOW you need it!
                      Do Not Chat For Help! NO_WAN_EGRESS(TM)

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • KOMK
                        KOM
                        last edited by

                        19 hours later, still nothing...

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • johnpozJ
                          johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                          last edited by

                          Slax login? So this pfsense was running on VM?

                          An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                          If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                          Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                          SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                          • KOMK
                            KOM
                            last edited by

                            I suspect this entire post is bogus:

                            • this is his first forum post ever
                            • he accuses pfSense of being vulnerable to ransomware attack despite no history whatsoever of this happening on FreeBSD
                            • the provided evidence is non-existent, confusing or irrelevant
                            • requests for follow-up information go unanswered

                            If this is as he claims, you would think he would be a little more proactive about reading replies and providing information. Instead, we all seem to care a lot more about his problem than he does.

                            However, he can feel free to prove me wrong by actually answering questions or providing more detail.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • stephenw10S
                              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                              last edited by

                              I think you're reading that into it. He didn't accuse pfSense of anything, he just asked if anyone had seen that before. That seems like a reasonable question given what he was seeing.

                              Steve

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                              • johnpozJ
                                johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                                last edited by johnpoz

                                Yeah I think it very well could be a legit question... But I understand KOMs frustration with such a question with no follow up at all..

                                An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                                If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                                Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                                SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                                • KOMK
                                  KOM
                                  last edited by

                                  I think you're reading that into it. He didn't accuse pfSense of anything

                                  'suspects' would have been a better choice of word.

                                  That seems like a reasonable question given what he was seeing.

                                  Slax Linux? Is this guy just trolling? None of this makes any sense.

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                                  • Y
                                    YYJWalking
                                    last edited by

                                    Hey all,
                                    Sorry for the delayed followup.

                                    For some additional background and rumor control. This is 100% legit (said every troll ever). I have been using PFSense very happily for years and have no doubts or concerns to it being insecure. Whatever this was (and I have a bit of a theory) it was most certainly 100% user error.

                                    This was NOT a VM install, this machine is running on bare metal on a 1U supermicro box with a SATA SSD.
                                    The drive had undergone some sort of formatting as it was not immediately mountable however I did not dig deep on what it was running (it was a work day and I had staff sitting on their thumbs). I debated rolling out a new drive and keeping the old to send to (someone?) once I ran into the problem yesterday but we didn't have any suitable drives in inventory + have deadlines to meet so I elected to just reformat the drive (knowing full well I was going to take flak for it.)

                                    Now to some updates:
                                    As previously mentioned we have 2 LANs and 2 WANs here. One LAN/WAN pair is for general internet and the second is for PBX/Telco.
                                    The PBX was running Asterisk with some exposed ports. The Pf sense admin panel was accessible from the PBX LAN.
                                    The PBX was running an old install, and appears to have been compromised (and is now also being rebuilt)
                                    Not 100% sure if the PBX was the point of entry or not but everything is now being hardened substantially as a result of this.

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • johnpozJ
                                      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                                      last edited by johnpoz

                                      So your saying someone compromised your pfsense box and put slax linux on it? From your internal pbx lan.. Via the web gui?

                                      An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                                      If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                                      Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                                      SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

                                      Y 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • DerelictD
                                        Derelict LAYER 8 Netgate
                                        last edited by

                                        @Derelict said in Ransomeware infected machine:

                                        Even with full remote root ssh/webgui access I struggle to come up with a procedure where such a result would be possible without physical/console access.
                                        Is there IPMI? Is that accessible? Is that secured?

                                        ???

                                        Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
                                        A comprehensive network diagram is worth 10,000 words and 15 conference calls.
                                        DO NOT set a source address/port in a port forward or firewall rule unless you KNOW you need it!
                                        Do Not Chat For Help! NO_WAN_EGRESS(TM)

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • johnpozJ
                                          johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                                          last edited by

                                          @YYJWalking said in Ransomeware infected machine:

                                          1U supermicro box

                                          Which specific hardware - IPMI would be by my guess to something like this happening.

                                          An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                                          If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                                          Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                                          SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • Y
                                            YYJWalking @johnpoz
                                            last edited by

                                            @johnpoz

                                            Well I'm not certain that the PBX controller was the entry point, just that it was also impacted. Would it even be possible to infect a machine from the WebGui? Maybe get the box to install a bogus manual package which runs a payload?

                                            The box DOES hsve IPMI (https://www.supermicro.com/products/system/1U/5015/SYS-5015A-EHF-D525.cfm) but I hadn't checked to see if it had been left open or not (will do so tomrrow and report back.)

                                            So just out of curriosity not a lot of other people have encountered this before is that correct?

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