“Operation Manic Menagerie” Uncovers “Extensive Compromise” of Australian Web Hosting Providers

The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) has just released a report of its technical findings and mitigation advice related to the extensive compromise of at least eight Australian web hosting providers, which it discovered through “Operation Manic Menagerie.” The compromises of these providers may have facilitated compromises of their customers’ websites. The goal of this campaign was financial gain: websites running on compromised servers were modified to insert advertising and to support search engine optimization for other websites. Two of the compromised servers were also used for cryptocurrency mining. The report also highlights the sophistication of the criminals, who evolved their techniques during the campaign and ran parts of their process manually. The information in the ACSC report is designed for use by technical cybersecurity officers within infrastructure organizations, large businesses, and government agencies to determine if they are victims of the campaign.