Thursday, April 10, 2025
HomeCyber Security NewsHackers Exploiting ThinkPHP Vulnerability To Expand Hakai and Yowai Botnets

Hackers Exploiting ThinkPHP Vulnerability To Expand Hakai and Yowai Botnets

Published on

SIEM as a Service

Follow Us on Google News

Threat actors actively exploiting the patched ThinkPHP remote code execution vulnerability to gain control over the web servers.

Trend Micro observed the new campaign in which the Cybercriminals exploiting ThinkPHP Vulnerability to expand the Hakai and Yowai Botnets.

In this campaign threat, actors used botnets to breach websites using the vulnerability in the framework invoke function method to execute malicious code on the server.

- Advertisement - Google News

“Cybercriminals use websites created using the PHP framework to breach web servers via dictionary attacks on default credentials and gain control of these routers for distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS).” reads Trend Micro blog post.

ThinkPHP
Default Credentials

According to researchers, Yowai botnet has the same configuration table as like the Mirai variants and additionally adds the ThinkPHP exploit with other vectors.

Yowai carries out communication with command and control server over port 6 to receive commands and once it infects the router, then it launches a dictionary attack to infect other devices.

All the infected devices then turn to be a part of the botnet and the threat actors use the botnet to launch highly intensive DDoS attacks.

Along with ThinkPHP Vulnerability Yowai exploiting following vulnerabilities that includes CVE-2014-8361, a Linksys RCE, CVE-2018-10561, CCTV-DVR RCE.

Hakai botnet previously targets only IoT devices, in this new campaign it adds a number of exploits including ThinkPHP, D-Link DSL-2750B router vuln, CVE-2015-2051, CVE-2014-8361, and CVE-2017-17215.

Hakai and Yowai can easily be abused by cybercriminals to breach web servers and attack websites, researchers concluded.

Related Read

Outlaw Hacking Group Using Command Injection Flow To Attack Organizations Network using Botnet via C&C Server

Hackers Offering DDoS-for-Hire Service Powered by Bushido Botnet in Dark Web Markets

Chalubo Botnet Compromise Your Server or IoT Device & Use it for DDOS Attack

Gurubaran
Gurubaran
Gurubaran is a co-founder of Cyber Security News and GBHackers On Security. He has 10+ years of experience as a Security Consultant, Editor, and Analyst in cybersecurity, technology, and communications.

Latest articles

Shuckworm Group Leverages GammaSteel Malware in Targeted PowerShell Attacks

The Russia-linked cyber-espionage group known as Shuckworm (also identified as Gamaredon or Armageddon) has...

ViperSoftX Malware Spreads Through Cracked Software, Targeting Unsuspecting Users

AhnLab Security Intelligence Center (ASEC) has unearthed a complex cyber campaign in which attackers,...

The State of AI Malware and Defenses Against It

AI has recently been added to the list of things that keep cybersecurity leaders...

Rogue Account‑Creation Flaw Leaves 100 K WordPress Sites Exposed

A severe vulnerability has been uncovered in the SureTriggers WordPress plugin, which could leave...

Resilience at Scale

Why Application Security is Non-Negotiable

The resilience of your digital infrastructure directly impacts your ability to scale. And yet, application security remains a critical weak link for most organizations.

Application Security is no longer just a defensive play—it’s the cornerstone of cyber resilience and sustainable growth. In this webinar, Karthik Krishnamoorthy (CTO of Indusface) and Phani Deepak Akella (VP of Marketing – Indusface), will share how AI-powered application security can help organizations build resilience by

Discussion points


Protecting at internet scale using AI and behavioral-based DDoS & bot mitigation.
Autonomously discovering external assets and remediating vulnerabilities within 72 hours, enabling secure, confident scaling.
Ensuring 100% application availability through platforms architected for failure resilience.
Eliminating silos with real-time correlation between attack surface and active threats for rapid, accurate mitigation

More like this

Shuckworm Group Leverages GammaSteel Malware in Targeted PowerShell Attacks

The Russia-linked cyber-espionage group known as Shuckworm (also identified as Gamaredon or Armageddon) has...

ViperSoftX Malware Spreads Through Cracked Software, Targeting Unsuspecting Users

AhnLab Security Intelligence Center (ASEC) has unearthed a complex cyber campaign in which attackers,...

Rogue Account‑Creation Flaw Leaves 100 K WordPress Sites Exposed

A severe vulnerability has been uncovered in the SureTriggers WordPress plugin, which could leave...