Ebury

Over 300 Tor Exit Nodes Hijacked to Intercept SSH Passwords and Deploy Ebury Backdoor

Attackers compromised hundreds of Tor exit nodes and repurposed them to perform man-in-the-middle attacks against SSH connections. Instead of reaching the intended server, users were redirected to attacker-controlled infrastructure where they could be tricked into accepting a forged host key and revealing their credentials. Researcher kaba identified 333 malicious exit nodes routing traffic through the same 12 interception servers after noticing an unexpected host-key warning on October 2. The campaign also attempted to install the Ebury Linux backdoor designed to steal authentication data. The Tor Project confirmed that operators' servers had their configurations altered and some middle relays were converted into exit nodes. The initial access vector remains unknown, but the activity window was limited to October 1-5. Users who connected via Tor during this period, accepted an unfamiliar key, and entered a password should treat their credentials as compromised.