In a recent post by ZDI, researchers found an out-of-bounds access flaw (CVE-2021-31440) in the Linux kernel’s (5.11.15) implementation of the eBPF code verifier: an incorrect register bounds calculation occurs while checking unsigned 32-bit instructions in an eBPF program. The flaw can be leveraged to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of the kernel.

Since the release of CVE-2020-8554 on GitHub this past December, the vulnerability has received widespread attention from industry media and the cloud security community. This man-in-the-middle (MITM) vulnerability affects Kubernetes pods and underlying hosts, and all Kubernetes versions—including future releases—are vulnerable. Despite this, there is currently no patch for the issue.

In April 2020, MalwareHunterTeam found a number of suspicious files in an open directory and posted about them in a series of tweets. Trend Micro later confirmed that these files were part of the first cryptojacking malware by TeamTNT, a cybercrime group that specializes in attacking the cloud—typically using a malicious Docker image—and has proven itself to be both resourceful and creative.