Hackers Exploit Misconfigured Jupyter Servers for Illegal Sports Streaming

Aqua Nautilus’ research reveals hackers are leveraging vulnerable and misconfigured Jupyter Notebook servers to steal live sports streams. Learn about the techniques used, the risks involved, and how to protect your organization from similar attacks.

Cybersecurity researchers at Aqua Nautilus uncovered a novel attack technique where threat actors exploited misconfigured JupyterLab and Jupyter Notebook servers to illegally stream sports events, drop live streaming capture tools, and duplicate broadcasts on their illegal server, causing stream ripping.

Unfortunately, illegal live streaming of sports events is a growing issue, impacting broadcasters, leagues, and legitimate platforms. With readily available streaming tools and high-speed internet, unauthorized broadcasts are flourishing, causing financial losses for both major leagues and smaller teams dependent on viewership revenue.

The targeted source streamed the UEFA Champions League match between Shakhtar Donetsk and BSC Young Boys on November 6, 2024 (Screenshot: Aqua Nautilus)

“The problem is widespread, with 5.1 million adults in England, Scotland, and Wales admitting to watching an illegal stream during the first six of last year,” researchers noted in the blog post.

In this instance, the red flag was the seemingly harmless tool, ffmpeg. This open-source software is widely used for video processing and streaming. While threat intelligence confirmed its legitimacy, closer inspection revealed a twist. The attackers exploited misconfigured JupyterLab and Jupyter Notebook environments to gain access and deploy ffmpeg for live stream ripping.

The attack started with exploiting unauthenticated access to JupyterLab or Jupyter Notebook, which allowed remote code execution. The attackers then updated the server and downloaded ffmpeg, which was repurposed to capture live sports streams and redirect them to a malicious server.

This reveals that the MITRE ATT&CK framework was used in an attack, where adversaries gained access through misconfigured Jupyter Notebook and JupyterLab environments. Attackers installed and ran ffmpeg, exfiltrated video content, and used the victim’s bandwidth to transfer the stolen streaming data.

This exploitation can result in “denial of service, data manipulation, data theft, corruption of AI and ML processes, lateral movement to more critical environments and, in the worst-case scenario, substantial financial and reputational damage,” researchers explained.

Attack flow (Screenshot: Aqua Nautilus)

Though seemingly minor in its immediate impact on organizations, the attack indicates the importance of behavioural analysis. Traditional security solutions might overlook such activity. However, the unusual deployment and execution of ffmpeg for live-stream capture alerted Aqua Nautilus’ security team. By analyzing network traffic, files, and memory dumps, Aqua Nautilus was able to reconstruct the entire attack sequence.

Undoubtedly, JupyterLab and Jupyter Notebook are valuable assets for data scientists, but security shortcomings can leave them vulnerable. Often, these servers are managed by individuals without a strong security background.

Leaving them connected to the internet with open access or weak firewalls allows threat actors to exploit them for attack. Token mishandling is another concern, as exposed tokens can grant full access. Thankfully, implementing best practices like restricted IPs, strong authentication, HTTPS, and proper token management can greatly lower these risks.

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