Malicious hackers are taking advantage of misconfigured JupyterLab and Jupyter Notebooks to facilitate sports piracy through live stream capture tools, according to a report by Aqua Security shared with The Hacker News.

The attack involves hijacking unauthenticated Jupyter Notebooks to gain initial access and execute a series of steps aimed at illegally streaming sports events. This activity was uncovered during an investigation into attacks on Aqua's honeypots.

"First, the attacker updated the server, then downloaded the tool FFmpeg," explained Assaf Morag, director of threat intelligence at Aqua Security. "This action alone is not a strong enough indicator for security tools to flag malicious activity."

Morag noted that the attackers then executed FFmpeg to capture live sports streams, redirecting them to their server. The campaign’s ultimate objective is to download FFmpeg from MediaFire, capture live feeds from Qatari network beIN Sports, and rebroadcast the content illegally via ustream[.]tv. This tactic allows the attackers to misuse compromised Jupyter Notebook servers as intermediaries while profiting from advertising revenues linked to the unauthorized streams.

Although the identity of the hackers remains unclear, one of the IP addresses used (41.200.191[.]23) suggests they may originate from an Arabic-speaking region.

"However, it's crucial to remember that the attackers gained access to a server intended for data analysis, which could have serious consequences for any organization's operations," Morag added.

He warned that the risks extend beyond piracy, potentially leading to denial-of-service attacks, data manipulation, theft, corruption of AI and ML processes, lateral movement within critical systems, and severe financial and reputational harm.