How Earth Lamia Exploits SQL and RCE Bugs to Target Asia's Vulnerabilities

Earth Lamia SQL RCE Bugs: Black beetle on textured bark background.

Unveiling the Threat: Earth Lamia’s Attacks on Southeast Asia

A notorious Chinese threat group identified as Earth Lamia has emerged as a serious cyber threat in Southeast Asia, utilizing existing vulnerabilities in exposed servers across multiple sectors. From exploiting known SQL injection vulnerabilities to unpatched bugs in widely-used software, this group is rapidly becoming a significant player in the cyber threat landscape.

Understanding the Tactics: How Earth Lamia Operates

Earth Lamia, operating since 2023, first targeted financial services before expanding its focus to logistics and retail sectors. Its recent shift towards assaulting IT firms, universities, and government organizations raises alarms about the state of cybersecurity in Asia. The group primarily employs open-source tools like sqlmap to conduct SQL injection scans on potential targets, dropping backdoors that facilitate data exfiltration.

Exploiting Vulnerabilities: A Focus on Known Threats

The group’s operators have shown a knack for exploiting well-known vulnerabilities. For instance, they actively leverage bugs like CVE-2017-9805 and CVE-2021-22205, which relate to popular software like Apache Struts and GitLab, respectively. Their most recent endeavor includes exploiting CVE-2025-31324 in SAP’s NetWeaver Visual Composer, a vulnerability severe enough to earn a critical rating of 9.8 out of 10 on the CVSS scale. This highlights the urgent need for companies to patch these vulnerabilities actively to safeguard their data.

The Implications for Cybersecurity

As Earth Lamia targets organizations that may have weaker defenses, it signifies a tactical pivot towards softer targets, such as educational institutions and government entities. Jon Clay of Trend Micro emphasizes that financial services tend to have more robust security measures, making them less appealing to attackers compared to sectors like education and government, which may be ill-prepared for such sophisticated intrusions.

Looking Ahead: The Need for Enhanced Cyber Resilience

This situation presents a clear warning for organizations across Southeast Asia: the growing reliance on Internet-connected services demands that cybersecurity measures evolve rapidly. Regular audits, timely patching, and continuous monitoring of systems are essential to prevent breaches from groups like Earth Lamia, which are continuously refining their tactics.

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