Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

On Dec. 9, 2021, a remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in Apache log4j 2 was identified, (Dubbed “Log4Shell” by researchers), affecting massive amounts of servers all over the world. As this vulnerability gains high traction worldwide, it’s important to note, that not only internet facing java applications are vulnerable, as user input can traverse to another non-internet facing machines and exploit these as well.

Audit logging involves recording transactions and system events, making it an invaluable tool for regulatory compliance, digital forensics, and information security. In a typical Kubernetes ecosystem, auditing involves providing chronological, activity-relevant records documenting events and actions in a cluster. Modern logging tools come with aggregation and analytical functionalities so that teams can use log data to mitigate security threats.

A critical vulnerability in the popular log4j library is currently being actively targeted on a broad global scale and possibly exploited based on advisories from multiple CERTs and vendors: CISA, Apache, etc. This Java library is integrated into many IT and DevOps tooling and workflows. On Dec 10, 2021, Apache released version 2.15.0, fixing CVE-2021-44228 (dubbed Log4Shell) an RCE with a maximum CVSSv3 score of 10.

Authors and Contributors: As always, security at Splunk is a family business. Credit to authors and collaborators: Ryan Kovar, Shannon Davis, Marcus LaFerrera, John Stoner, James Brodsky, Dave Herrald, Audra Streetman, Johan Bjerke, Drew Church, Mick Baccio, Lily Lee, Tamara Chacon, Ryan Becwar. If you want just to see how to find detections for the Log4j 2 RCE, skip down to the “detections” sections.

Security researchers recently disclosed the vulnerability CVE-2021-44228 in Apache’s log4j, which is a common Java-based library used for logging purposes. Popular projects, such as Struts2, Kafka, and Solr make use of log4j. The vulnerability was announced on Twitter, with a link to a github commit which shows the issue being fixed. Proof-of-concept code was also released to github which shows that the vulnerability is trivial to exploit.

Earlier today, a serious flaw was discovered in the widely used Java logging library Apache Log4j. The vulnerability, ‘Log4Shell,’ was first identified by users of a popular Minecraft forum and was apparently disclosed to the Apache Foundation by Alibaba Cloud security researchers on Nov. 24, 2021. The vulnerability has the potential to allow unauthenticated remote code execution (RCE) on nearly any machine using Log4j.

Log4j zero-day vulnerability is flooding the security updates/news everywhere. This issue has been named Log4shell and assigned CVE-2021-44228 (still awaiting analysis at the time of writing).