Malware targeting Linux users may not be as widespread as the strains targeting the Windows ecosystem, but Linux malware is becoming just as complex and multi-functional as time passes by.
The latest example of this trend is a new trojan discovered this month by Russian antivirus maker Dr.Web. This new malware strain doesn't have a distinctive name, yet, being only tracked under its generic detection name of Linux.BtcMine.174.
But despite the generic name, the trojan is a little bit more complex than most Linux malware, mainly because of the plethora of malicious features it includes.
The trojan itself is a giant shell script of over 1,000 lines of code. This script is the first file executed on an infected Linux system. The first thing this script does is to find a folder on disk to which it has write permissions so it can copy itself and later use to download other modules.
Once the trojan has a foothold on the system it uses one of two privilege escalation exploits CVE-2016-5195 (also known as Dirty COW[1]) and CVE-2013-2094 to get root permissions and have full access to the OS.
The trojan then sets itself up as a local daemon, and even downloads the nohup utility to achieve this operation if the utility is not already present.
After the trojan has a firm grasp on the infected host, it then moves on to executing its primary function for which it was designed for, which is cryptocurrency mining. The trojan first scans and terminates the processes of several rival cryptocurrency-mining malware families, and then downloads and starts its own Monero-mining operation.
It also downloads and runs another malware, known as the Bill.Gates trojan, a known DDoS malware strain, but which