Hackers exploited a SQL injection vulnerability to install a post-exploitation toolkit directly inside an Oracle database that was used to breach a corporate network.
The attack was discovered by Huntress on July 27, 2026, after its security platform detected credential theft on a server hosting an Oracle database server.
Apache access logs showed that the attackers gained access through a vulnerable search engine endpoint in a public-facing Java application running Apache Tomcat.
The application failed to properly validate input submitted through an autocomplete search feature that allowed the attackers to issue SQL commands to the Oracle database.
Huntress traced the malicious requests to the IP address 178.162.151[.]229.
khunt Toolkit stored inside Oracle
After exploiting the SQL injection flaw, the attackers installed a post-exploitation toolkit called khunt directly into the Oracle database as a Java object.
Oracle has an embedded Java Virtual Machine and the CREATE JAVA SOURCE statement, which allows Java source code to be stored and compiled as a database schema object.
These Java objects can then be executed via SQL commands, which if configured to do so, can execute commands on the host operating system.
The attackers abused this functionality to compile and store the khunt toolkit directly inside the Oracle database rather than deploying them as executable files on the server.
"The use of the technique in the wild has rarely been documented," Huntress said.
The toolkit contained multiple Java components and PL/SQL wrappers that could execute commands, steal credentials, and manage files.
These components included:
- KhuntCmd, which launched cmd.exe and allowed attackers to execute operating system commands through SQL statements.
- KhuntHash, which accessed Oracle’s internal user table and wrote usernames and password data to a file.
- KhuntFS and KhuntFS2, which provided file browsing, reading, searching, and file-size checking capabilities.
- KhuntT, which acted as a ping-like test to confirm that the toolkit had been successfully installed.
- KhuntUnzip, which extracted compressed files.
The attackers used KhuntCmd to run cmd.exe /c whoami, confirming that commands executed through the Oracle database had SYSTEM-level permissions on the Windows server.
They then used PowerShell and Windows utilities to copy the SAM, SECURITY, and SYSTEM registry hives, which can be used to recover password hashes for local Windows accounts.
The attackers also ran tasklist /svc to enumerate running services and saved the output to khunttasks.txt.
Huntress said the registry hives were likely exfiltrated for credential dumping, but the report does not confirm whether the files were successfully stolen.
As a general rule, organizations should sanitize all user supplied input validation and limit the privileges granted to application database accounts.
Huntress recommends that database accounts used in public-facing applications should not have high enough privileges to create Java sources, execute unnecessary stored procedures, or perform other administrative actions.
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