sentence stringlengths 1 13.5k | labels listlengths 0 15 | doc_title stringclasses 84
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T1056.001Input Capture: | [] | Operation Spalax Targeted malware attacks in Colombia |
KeyloggingThe attackers have used various RATs that have keylogging capabilities. | [
"T1056.001"
] | Operation Spalax Targeted malware attacks in Colombia |
T1113Screen | [] | Operation Spalax Targeted malware attacks in Colombia |
CaptureThe attackers have used various RATs that can capture screenshots of victim machines. | [
"T1113"
] | Operation Spalax Targeted malware attacks in Colombia |
T1125Video | [] | Operation Spalax Targeted malware attacks in Colombia |
CaptureThe attackers have used various RATs that can access the victim’s webcam. Command and ControlT1132.001Data Encoding: Standard EncodingThe attackers have used njRAT, which uses base64 encoding for C&C traffic. | [] | Operation Spalax Targeted malware attacks in Colombia |
T1573.001Encrypted Channel: | [] | Operation Spalax Targeted malware attacks in Colombia |
Symmetric CryptographyThe attackers have used Remcos RAT, which uses RC4 for encrypting C&C communications. | [
"T1573.001"
] | Operation Spalax Targeted malware attacks in Colombia |
T1095Non-Application Layer ProtocolThe attackers have used various RATs that use TCP for C&C communications. | [
"T1095"
] | Operation Spalax Targeted malware attacks in Colombia |
T1571Non-Standard PortThe attackers have used various RATs that communicate over different port numbers. | [] | Operation Spalax Targeted malware attacks in Colombia |
ExfiltrationT1041Exfiltration | [] | Operation Spalax Targeted malware attacks in Colombia |
Over C2 ChannelThe attackers have used various RATs that exfiltrate data over the same channel used for C&C. 12 Jan 2021 - 11:30AM | [
"T1041"
] | Operation Spalax Targeted malware attacks in Colombia |
Authored by: David Brown, Michael Matthews and Rob Smallridge tl;dr This post describes the techniques, tactics and procedures we observed during recent LAPSUS$ incidents. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Our findings can be summarised as below: Access and scraping of corporate Microsoft SharePoint sites in order to identify any credentials which may be stored in technical documentation. | [
"T1552.001"
] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Access to local password managers and databases to obtain further credentials and escalate privileges. | [
"T1552.001"
] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Living of the land – tools such as RVTools to shut down servers and ADExplorer to perform reconnaissance. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Cloning of git repositories and extraction of sensitive API Keys. | [
"T1078",
"T1552.001"
] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Using compromised credentials to access corporate VPNs. | [
"T1078"
] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Disruption or destruction to victim infrastructure to hinder analysis and consume defensive resource. | [
"T1078"
] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Summary LAPSUS$ first appeared publicly in December 2021, however, NCC Group first observed LAPSUS$ months prior during an incident response engagement. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
We believe the group has also operated prior to this date, though perhaps not under the “LAPSUS$” banner. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Over the last 5 months, LAPSUS$ has gained large notoriety with some successful breaches of some large enterprises including, Microsoft, Nvidia, Okta & Samsung. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Little is still known about this group with motivations appearing to be for reputation, money and “for the lulz”. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Notifications or responsibility of victims by LAPSUS$ are commonly reported via their telegram channel and in one case a victim’s DNS records were reconfigured to LAPSUS$ controlled domains/websites. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
However, not all victims or breaches appear to actively be announced via their telegram channel, nor are some victims approached with a ransom. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
This distinguishes themselves from more traditional ransomware groups who have a clear modus operandi and are clearly financially focused. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
The result of this is that LAPSUS$ are less predictable which may be why they have seen recent success. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
This serves as a reminder for defenders for defence in depth and the need to anticipate different tactics that threat actors may use. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
It is also worth mentioning the brazen behaviour of this threat actor and their emboldened attempts at Social Engineering by offering payment for insiders to provide valid credentials. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
This tactic is potentially in response to greater home working due to the pandemic which means there is a far larger proportion of employees with VPN access and as such a greater pool of potential employees willing to sell their credentials. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
To combat this, organisations need to ensure they have extensive VPN logging capabilities, robust helpdesk ticketing as well as methods to help identify anomalies in VPN access. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
It is notable that the majority of LAPSUS$ actions exploit the human element as opposed to technical deficiencies or vulnerabilities. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Although potentially viewed as unsophisticated or basic these techniques have been successful, so it is vital that organisations factor in controls and mitigations to address them. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Initial access Threat Intelligence shows that LAPSUS$ utilise multiple methods to gain Initial access. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
The main source of initial access is believed to occur via stolen authentication cookies which would grant the attacker access to a specific application. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
These cookies are usually in the form of Single sign-on (SSO) applications which would allow the attacker to pivot into other corporate applications ultimately bypassing controls such as multi-factor authentication (MFA). | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Credential access and Privilege escalation Credential Harvesting and privileged escalation are key components of the LAPSUS$ breaches we have seen, with rapid escalation in privileges the LAPSUS$ group have been seen to elevate from a standard user account to an administrative user within a couple of days. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
In the investigations conducted by NCC Group, little to no malware is used. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
In one case NCC Group observed LAPSUS$ using nothing more than the legitimate Sysinternals tool ADExplorer, which was used to conduct reconnaissance on the victim’s environment. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Access to corporate VPNs is a primary focus for this group as it allows the threat actor to directly access key infrastructure which they require to complete their objectives. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
In our incident response cases, we saw the threat actor leveraging compromised employee email accounts to email helpdesk systems requesting access credentials or support to get access to the corporate VPN. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Lateral Movement In one incident LAPSUS$ were observed to sporadically move through the victim environment via RDP in an attempt to access resources deeper in the victim environment. | [
"T1021.001"
] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
In some instances, victim controlled hostnames were revealed including the host “VULTR-GUEST” which refers to infrastructure hosted on the private cloud service, Vultr[3]. | [
"T1082"
] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Exfiltration LAPSUS$’s action on objectives appears to focus on data exfiltration of sensitive information as well as destruction or disruption. | [
"T1005"
] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
In one particular incident the threat actor is observed to utilise the free file drop service “filetransfer[.]io”. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Impact NCC Group has observed disruption and destruction to client environments by LAPSUS$ such as shutting down virtual machines from within on-premises VMware ESXi infrastructure, to the extreme of mass deletion of virtual machines, storage, and configurations in cloud environments making it harder for the victim to ... | [
"T1070.004"
] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
The theft of data reported appears to heavily be focused on application source code or proprietary technical information. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
With a targeting of internal source code management or repository servers. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
These git repositories can contain not only commercially sensitive intellectual property, but also in some cases may include additional API keys to sensitive applications including administrative or cloud applications. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Recommendations Ensure that Cloud computing environments have sufficient logging enabled. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Ensure that cloud administrative access is configured to prevent unauthorised access to resources and that API keys are not overly permissive to the permissions they require. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Utilise MFA for user authentication on both cloud and remote access solutions to help reduce the risk of unauthorised access. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Ensure logging is in place to record MFA device enrolmentSecurity controls such as Conditional Access can help restrict or prevent unauthorised access based on criteria such as geographical location. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Implement activities to detect and investigate anomalies in VPN access. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Ensure a system is in place to record all helpdesk queries. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Avoid using SMS as an MFA vector to avoid the risk of SIM swapping. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Securing source code environments to ensure that users can only access the relevant repositories. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Secret Scanning[1][2] on source code repositories should be conducted to ensure that sensitive API credentials are not stored in source code. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
GitHub and Gitlab offer detection mechanisms for thisRemote Desktop services or Gateways used as a primary or secondary remote access solution should be removed from any corporate environment in favour for alternative solutions such as secured VPNs, or other Remote Desktop applications which mitigate common attack tech... | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Centralise logging including cloud applications (SIEM solution).Offline or immutable backups of servers should be taken to ensure that in the event of a data disruption or destruction attack, services can be restored. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Reduce MFA token/Session cookie validity timesEnsure principle of least privilege for user accounts is being adhered to. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Social engineering awareness training for all staff. | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Indicators of Compromise Indicator ValueIndicator TypeDescription104.238.222[.]158IP | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
addressMalicious Lapsus Network Address108.61.173[.]214IP | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
addressMalicious Lapsus Network Address185.169.255[.]74IP addressMalicious Lapsus Network AddressVULTR-GUESTHostnameThreat Actor Controlled Hosthxxps://filetransfer[.]ioDomainFree | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
File Drop Service Utilised by the Threat Actor MITRE ATT&CK Technique CodeTechniqueT1482Discovery – Domain Trust DiscoveryT1018Discovery – Remote System DiscoveryT1069.002Discovery – | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Groups Discovery: Domain GroupsT1016.001Discovery – System Network Configuration DiscoveryT1078.002Privilege Escalation – Domain AccountsT1555.005Credential Access – Credentials from Password Stores: Password ManagersT1021.001Lateral Movement – Remote Services: | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Remote Desktop ProtocolT1534Lateral Movement – Internal SpearphishingT1072Execution – Software Deployment ToolsT1213.002Collection – Data from Information Repositories: SharepointT1039Collection – Data from Network Shared DriveT1213.003Collection – Data from Information Repositories: Code RepositoriesT1567Exfiltration ... | [] | LAPSUS Recent techniques tactics and procedures |
Executive Summary Today, enterprises tend to use multiple layers of security defenses, ranging from perimeter defense on network entry points to host based security solutions deployed at the end user’s machines to counter the ever-increasing threats. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
This includes inline traffic filtering and management security solutions deployed at access and distribution layers in the network, as well as out of band solutions like NAC, SIEM or User Behavior Analysis to provide identity-based network access and gain more visibility into the user’s access to critical network resou... | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
However, layered security defenses face the major and recurring challenge of detecting newer exploitation techniques as they heavily rely on known behaviors. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
Additionally, yet another significant challenge facing the enterprise network is detecting post-exploitation activities, after perimeter security is compromised. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
Post initial compromise, to be able to execute meaningful attacks, attackers would need to steal credentials to move laterally inside the network, access critical network assets and eventually exfiltrate data. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
They will use several sophisticated techniques to perform internal reconnaissance and remote code execution on critical resources, which range from using legitimate operating system tools to discover network assets to using novel code execution techniques on the target. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
Consequently, differentiating between the legitimate and malicious use of Windows’ internal tools and services becomes a high priority for enterprise networks. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
To tackle this long-standing problem of detecting lateral movement, enterprise networks must formulate active in-network defense strategies to effectively prevent attackers from accessing critical network resources. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
Network Deception is one such defensive approach which could potentially prove to be an effective solution to detect credential theft attacks. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
Detecting credential stealing attacks with deception essentially requires building the necessary infrastructure by placing the decoy systems within the same network as production assets and configuring them with decoy contents to lure the attackers towards the decoy machines and services. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
Accurately configuring and tuning the deceptive network can deflect the attacker’s lateral movement path towards the deceptive services, consequently allowing the attackers to engage with the deceptive network, helping enterprises protect production assets. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
MITRE Shield, a knowledge base maintained by MITRE for active defense techniques highlights many of the methods in adversary engagement. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
Some of the techniques described by MITRE Shield Matrix with respect to network deception are as below: MITRE Shield Description ATT&CK Technique Decoy Account – DTE0010 A decoy account is created for defensive or deceptive purposes. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
The decoy account can be used to make a system, service, or software look more realistic or to entice an action Account Discovery, Reconnaissance Decoy Credentials – DTE0012 Seed a target system with credentials (such as username/password, browser tokens, and other forms of authentication data) Credential Access, Privi... | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
In order to have the adversary believe they are operating against real targets Initial Access, Discovery, Reconnaissance Decoy System – DTE0017 Computing resources presented to the adversary in support of active defense Reconnaissance Over the course of this paper, we will discuss some of the widely adapted credential ... | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
Network Deception – An Active in-network defensive approach Most of the targeted attacks involve stealing credentials from the system at a certain point in time as attackers would use them to pivot to other systems in the network. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
Some of the credential stealing techniques like Golden Ticket attacks have been found to be used in multiple ransomwares armed with lateral movement capabilities. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
Active in-network defense strategies described by the MITRE Shield matrix are significant and play a critical role in detecting credential abuse in the network. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
Network Deception uses these active defense techniques to build the deceptive network infrastructure which could potentially lead to redirecting an attacker’s lateral movement path and engaging them to the decoy services without touching the critical production systems. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
It involves placing decoy systems, decoy credentials and decoy contents all throughout the production network essentially converting it into a trap, playing a crucial role in mitigating the attacks. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
McAfee Protection McAfee MVISION Endpoint Security has the capabilities to protect against credential theft attacks like credential extraction from LSASS process memory via ATP rule 511. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
More details on configuring policies and a demo are available here. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
McAfee MVISION Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) has the capabilities to detect credential access from tools like Mimikatz. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
With McAfee MVISION EDR and ENS integration with Attivo’s network and endpoint deception sensor, McAfee can manage its agents and receive alerts for detections in ePO and EDR. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
Lateral Movement – Introduction Lateral movement refers to the tools and techniques used by attackers to progressively expand their foothold within an enterprise network after gaining initial access. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
As shown in the figure below, lateral movement activity comprises of several stages starting from credential theft, target enumeration and discovery, privilege escalation, gaining access to network resources and eventually remote code execution on the target before exfiltrating data to accomplish a successful attack. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
Once inside the network, attackers will deploy a range of techniques at each stage of lateral movement to achieve their end goal. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
One of the primary challenges an attacker will face while moving laterally inside a network is to hide their activities in plain sight by generating a minimum volume of legitimate looking logs to be able to remain undetected. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
To achieve this, an attacker might choose to embed the tool within a malicious executable or use the operating system’s internal legitimate tools and services to perform its lateral movement operations, consequently making this network traffic harder to distinguish. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
As per the Verizon DBIR report 2020, over 80% of data breaches involve credential theft attacks. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
Credential theft is one of the primary tasks attackers need to perform post-exploitation and after gaining initial control of the target machine. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
It will usually be the first step towards lateral movement strategies which will allow attackers to elevate their privileges and acquire access to other network resources. | [] | Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active InNetwork Defense |
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