TLDR: perfctl is a crypto mining and proxy jacking malware that exploits about 20’000 common missconfigurations to install itself on Linux servers. Mostly using a 10/10 CVE on Apache RocketMQ.
It is very persistent and can reinstall itself even when you have deleted all the perfctl and perfcc files. It hides itself by removing logs, network packets, and stopping all activity once you login to the machine.
Monitoring cpu usage using tools (I use net data on my server) can help identify infections (100% cpu usage when « idle »).
Maybe not related but I had an issie with wireplumber where it would suddenly take up any free CPU resources and use them up, jacking up my cpu usage up to crazy high numbers, often to 100% at times where the expected cpu usage would be at 20% at most.
I haven’t experienced this in the last week or so, so maybe it was fixed in an update? I’m on Fedora, btw. I just wanted to share, so I can find out if anyone else had the same issue.