There is no possibility to create and edit articles in Confluence (6.11.2)

Question

After moving to a new server and database MSSQL (previously used database H2), there is no possibility to add and edit articles. Confluence running on OS Windows Server 2019. Firewall disabled and added rules for Confluence

Error in the logs:

WARNING [ContainerBackgroundProcessor[StandardEngine[Standalone]]] org.apache.catalina.valves.StuckThreadDetectionValve.notifyStuckThreadDetected Thread [http-nio-80-exec-8] (id=[198]) has been active for [66,666] milliseconds (since [4/17/19 6:12 AM]) to serve the same request for [http://name.server/plugins/editor-loader/editor.action?parentPageId=&pageId=1835017&spaceKey=IT&atl_after_login_redirect=%2Fdisplay%2FIT%2FIT&timeout=12000&_=1555470720275] and may be stuck (configured threshold for this StuckThreadDetectionValve is [60] seconds). There is/are [3] thread(s) in total that are monitored by this Valve and may be stuck. java.lang.Throwable

There is an error when starting the server:

WARNING [main] org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.SetPropertiesRule.begin [SetPropertiesRule]{Server} Setting property 'debug' to '0' did not find a matching property.
17-Apr-2019 06:04:20.104 WARNING [main] org.apache.catalina.startup.SetAllPropertiesRule.begin [SetAllPropertiesRule]{Server/Service/Connector} Setting property 'debug' to '0' did not find a matching property.
17-Apr-2019 06:04:20.167 WARNING [main] org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.SetPropertiesRule.begin [SetPropertiesRule]{Server/Service/Engine} Setting property 'debug' to '0' did not find a matching property.
17-Apr-2019 06:04:20.167 WARNING [main] org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.SetPropertiesRule.begin [SetPropertiesRule]{Server/Service/Engine/Host} Setting property 'debug' to '0' did not find a matching property.
17-Apr-2019 06:04:20.198 WARNING [main] org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.SetPropertiesRule.begin [SetPropertiesRule]{Server/Service/Engine/Host/Context} Setting property 'debug' to '0' did not find a matching property.
17-Apr-2019 06:04:20.214 WARNING [main] org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.SetPropertiesRule.begin [SetPropertiesRule]{Server/Service/Engine/Host/Context} Setting property 'debug' to '0' did not find a matching property.

Viktor.Sykov · Answer

Hey Daniel,

Thanks for the information!
My confluence is installed on Windows server 2019, not Linux.
I have checked malware.
I also checked and disabled all tasks in the schedule.
I will try to raise the level of confluence to 6.13.4.  Still the addition of confluent does not look out

I'll let you know

Daniel Eads · Answer

Hey Viktor,

Based on your symptoms and Confluence version (6.11.2), it sounds like your instance was affected by an opportunistic attack against the CVE-2019-3396 Widget Connector vulnerability from March 20th (see Confluence Security Advisory - 2019-03-20). We've seen an infection going around that injects malware and the bitcoin miner it tries to run uses all the CPU available on the box. Initially the kerberods malware was being deployed as the payload, but other attacks might be trying to inject different payloads.

I'd recommend tackling things in this order:

* Kill malicious processes
* Clean up your crontab
* Upgrade Confluence
* Use a malware scanner to find remaining malware traces

Malicious processes

The top command will help you find processes (probably running under the confluence user account) that are consuming a large amount of CPU. If Confluence is currently stopped, you can probably plan on killing any processes running as the confluence user. note the process ID (pid) from the top output and then kill the process using kill -9 followed by the pid. Example:

sudo kill -9 12395

Clean up your crontab

Since most malware adds a cronjob that relaunches the malware every few minutes, you'll also need to check the crontab file and remove any suspicious-looking entries. For Ubuntu, this is stored in the /var/spool/cron/crontabs/ directory. Normally you should use the crontab command to edit the crontab, but for cleanup purposes we'll be inspecting the file for any pre-existing entries.

Using vim (or whichever text editor you're comfortable with), you'll open the file and remove suspicious-looking jobs.

sudo vim /var/spool/cron/crontabs/confluence

Confluence comes up on system startup through the SysV/systemd daemons, so we would expect the confluence user's crontab to not exist under normal circumstances. It's most likely the case that any entries in this file are malicious, but make sure you check them before deleting them entirely.

Upgrade Confluence

Once your CPU is under control and new malicious process aren't spawning, you need to upgrade Confluence to a version that isn't affected by the vulnerability. I'd recommend looking at one of these versions (latest releases as of this post):

* 6.13.4 (6.13 is an Enterprise release)
* 6.14.3
* 6.15.2

Use a malware scanner

Finally, you need to clean up any remaining traces of malware on your system. The LSD malware cleanup tool will be useful for removing the Kerberods malware. Other malware payloads might need different cleanup tools depending on which attack and payload were used. A good starting place for detecting other types of infections are the scanners linked here. Once a particular infection is identified, googling for "____ removal tool" is a good place to start if the scanner was unable to remove the malware automatically.

Please let me know if you have more questions!
Daniel | Atlassian Support