AgeLocker ransomware operation targets QNAP NAS devices

Pierluigi Paganini May 01, 2021

Taiwanese vendor QNAP is warning its customers of AgeLocker ransomware attacks on their NAS devices.

Crooks behind the AgeLocker ransomware operation are targeting QNAP NAS devices, the Taiwanese vendor warns. The vendor doesn’t provide technical details of the attacks, it is not clear if the ransomware gang exploited know vulnerabilities.

“The QNAP security team has detected suspicious ransomware in the wild known as AgeLocker, which has the potential to affect QNAP NAS devices.” reads the security advisory published by the vendor.

The vendor is urging customers to immediately update the operating system of their NAS devices. It also recommends updating the apps running on the NAS that could be exploited as an entry point for attackers.

“To secure your device, we strongly recommend regularly updating QTS or QuTS hero and all installed applications to their latest versions to benefit from vulnerability fixes. You can check the product support status to see the latest updates available to your NAS model.” continues the advisory. “To further secure your device, do not expose your NAS to the internet. If you must connect your NAS to the internet, we highly recommend using a trusted VPN or a myQNAPcloud link.”

QNAP NAS devices continue to be under attack, earlier March, researchers at 360Netlab warned of a cryptocurrency malware campaign targeting unpatched QNAP network-attached storage (NAS) devices.

Threat actors were exploiting two unauthorized remote command execution vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2020-2506 & CVE-2020-2507, in the Helpdesk app that have been fixed by the vendor in October 2020.

In January, the Taiwanese vendor QNAP published a security advisory to warn customers of a new piece of malware named Dovecat that was targeting NAS devices. The malware was designed to abuse NAS resources and mine cryptocurrency.

In December, QNAP released security updates to fix eight vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attackers to over unpatched NAS devices.

The list of vulnerabilities addressed by QNAP is available here, it includes XSS and command injection issues. The flaws fixed by the vendor are rated as medium and high severity security.

In September, while the AgeLocker ransomware was continuing to target QNAP NAS systems, the Taiwanese vendor urged customers to update the firmware and apps.

In early August, the Taiwanese company urged its users to update the Malware Remover app to prevent NAS devices from being infected by the QSnatch malware.

In June the company also warned of eCh0raix ransomware attacks that targeted its NAS devices.

QNAP NAS devices were also targeted by Dovecat and UnityMiner crypto-miners operations.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, QNAP)

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