27th July
Alert: Potential legacy risk from malware targeting QNAP NAS devices
Campaigns
The NCSC and CISA have identified two campaigns of activity for QSnatch malware. The first campaign likely began in early 2014 and continued until mid-2017, while the second started in late 2018 and was still active in late 2019. The two campaigns are distinguished by the initial payload used as well as some differences in capabilities. This alert focuses on the second campaign as it is the most recent threat.It is important to note that infrastructure used by the malicious cyber actors in both campaigns is not currently active, but the threat remains to unpatched devices.
Although the identities and objectives of the malicious cyber actors using QSnatch are currently unknown, the malware is relatively sophisticated, and the cyber actors demonstrate an awareness of operational security.
Global distribution of infections
Analysis shows a significant number of infected devices. In mid-June 2020, there were approximately 62,000 infected devices worldwide; of these, approximately 3,900 were in the UK and 7,600 were in the US.
Original advisory
Community topic: UK/US Governments Warn of QNAP NAS Malware