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Network Products Guide, the industry’s leading technology research and advisory guide, recently named the winners in their 15th Annual 2020 Network PG’s IT World Awards. Judges from a broad spectrum of industry voices around the world participated and their average scores determined the 2020 award winners. McAfee took center stage with three wins, including Gold for McAfee MVISION Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) and Silver for McAfee MVISION Cloud for Containers and McAfee MVISION Unified Cloud Edge (UCE).
The IT World Awards are industry and peer recognitions from Network Products Guide honoring achievements of world’s best in organizational performance, product and service innovations, hot technologies, executives and management teams, successful deployments, product management and engineering, customer satisfaction, and public relations in information technology and cyber security. These wins further validate McAfee’s position as a company poised to successfully help organizations solve for real-time security issues.
McAfee was recognized in the following categories:
For a complete list of McAfee’s accolades and industry recognition, visit: https://www.mcafee.com/enterprise/en-us/about/awards.html
The post McAfee Leapfrogs Competition with trio of awards at 2020 IT World Awards appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Corporate boards have many dimensions of responsibility. Cybersecurity can be one of the most nuanced and important areas of focus for a board, but not all board members are well versed in why and what they need to care about related to cybersecurity.
Cybersecurity is a board level topic for three main reasons:
Security breaches can hurt companies financially, negatively impact brand reputation, and result in data loss (both personal and company intellectual property) just to name a few of the impacts. Unfortunately breaches that impact hundreds of millions or even billions of people are more common that we would like. Some of the more notable cybersecurity breaches you may remember are Equifax back in 2017, Adobe in 2013, and Zynga (the company that makes Words with Friends) in 2019. In July 2020, we saw key high-profile Twitter accounts compromised. You don’t want to see your company name in the news headlines due to a breach!
Besides security breaches, governance in cybersecurity is becoming more important. Governance describes the policies and processes which determine how organizations detect, prevent, and respond to cyber incidents. In many organizations, there is a division between the governance and management activities. Board members should be involved in evaluating security related reporting requirements and overall competence of the cybersecurity program, policies and procedures. If you are a US public company, there are additional board requirements from the Securities and Exchange Commission that you should be familiar with such as requiring written disclosure of how the board administers its risk oversight function.
Government regulations and compliance also needs to be considered. However, just being compliant doesn’t mean you are secure. Cyber legislation has been frequently proposed by Congress over the years. Almost all US states have their own laws about what constitutes a security breach and when to disclose the breach. It is important to understand the local, state and federal laws (including international laws) related to cybersecurity for where you do business.
Everyone on the board is responsible and could potentially be held accountable for a breach both legally and financially. It is not only the CISO, CSO or CIO’s responsibility to care and do the right thing. We all have a role to play to ensure the company is protected and set up for success.
When one person doesn’t do their part, things can fall apart for a company. For instance, in August 2020, a former Uber company executive was criminally prosecuted for not disclosing a data breach back in 2016. Uber’s former Chief Security Officer was charged with obstruction of justice and concealing a felony for allegedly failing to report their 2016 breach to the Federal Trade Commission. This is the first direct example in the US of an executive facing criminal charges and jail time over how they responded to a data breach.
As you discuss cybersecurity on the board, how do you evaluate your company’s stance? Here are some tips you can start doing today. This list is by no way complete, but here are things you can start doing today.
Cybersecurity is a very important topic for the boardroom and should not be taken lightly; however, it doesn’t need to be overwhelming. Utilize these tips to get you on the right path for your company, and if you don’t have a cybersecurity expert on your board, there are experts who can provide guidance.
The post Are You Prepared for Cybersecurity in the Boardroom? appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Change happens – sometimes much faster than expected – like it has in 2020. When the threat landscape shifts suddenly, security professionals must quickly react and change their security posture. This not only means reconfiguring existing security investments but also adding new ones.
But given the number of heterogenous security applications sold by multiple vendors, new security expansions are tough to manage. They not only have to co-exist with the existing security infrastructure, but they must be integrated to avoid leaving security gaps attackers can exploit. User and business experience must be maintained as well. Is it any wonder, then, that CISOs continue to struggle? It’s hard to optimize and manage existing cybersecurity software investments — and expand security capabilities – all the while keeping up with shifting business needs.
It is time you demand more from your security vendors. It’s perfectly reasonable to expect them to do the following:
Here’s where “Composable Security,” a breakthrough architectural extension from McAfee addresses this chronic IT turbulence. In practice, the concept allows MVISION ePO (ePolicy Orchestrator) administrators to add multi-vendor security modules quickly and easily assemble best-in-class solutions that meet your particular needs. Users can compose, and then re-compose, powerful, cloud-based or on-prem security solutions certified to seamlessly plug-and-play. With a few clicks, you can add new capabilities to your existing security infrastructure in minutes.
MVISION ePO now offers Composable Security capabilities. Let’s take a closer look:
The era of monolithic and often disconnected, security solutions has passed. We believe customers want a connected security architecture that can rapidly adopt and implement new tools, sensors and data from a myriad of disparate but innovative solutions. When change occurs seemingly overnight, like we saw with the explosion in the number of people working from home due to Covid-19, executives don’t have the luxury of waiting until the next budget cycle to take action. But with MVISION Marketplace, we are enabling companies to easily scale their security infrastructure.
This new application marketplace enables McAfee and our partners to deliver pre-integrated, best-in-class solutions to customers. The marketplace offers products that expand and extend McAfee solutions. Organized in easy to understand categories, the marketplace features a tile per partner. Each integration is “McAfee Certified” which means that McAfee has certified the integration with that partner.
Clicking on the tile enables you to drill down and understand the value delivered by each integration. When you see something you like, click through and try it out. Here’s where pre-integration makes the combined value proposition easy to understand. The idea is for customers to experience the value quickly before they make a decision.
By utilizing our partners in the MVISION Marketplace, you can not only evolve your security architecture; you also improve your team’s responsiveness to real-time threats—and become less preoccupied with tool integration.
We worked closely with multiple partners to build out this marketplace. These composable solutions are from leaders in their field including Attivo Networks, IBM Security, Seclore, Service Now, Siemplify, and ThreatQ. Their certified solutions extend the capabilities of existing security environments, whether cloud-based or on premise. This new ability to mix and match applications over and over also addresses many pressing business challenges. It helps organizations address technology, time, compliance, and resource constraints in minutes — rather than in hours, days or weeks.
Attivo working with McAfee delivers the best endpoint solution in the industry. Attivo’s blog covers how McAfee + Attivo are better together for customers.
Seclore working with McAfee delivers the best Information security solution in the industry. Read their blog to learn how McAfee + Seclore are better together for customers.
ThreatQuotient, Swimlane, and Siemplify, working with McAfee, deliver one of the best SOC solutions in the industry. Learn more about how ThreatQuotient, Swimlane, and Siemplify are better together with McAfee for our customers.
Our market leading Security Innovation Alliance Program has created the largest integrated security ecosystem in the industry. We’re not done. You can expect us to add new partners quickly. In the meantime, if you find a partner missing that you want us to add to our list, please reach out to me.
We live in an era where more security is automated rather than managed through consoles. MVISION API’s goal is to be the single interface for your non-console interactions with the McAfee portfolio. It’s a powerful capability that delivers a single, web scale, global interface with unparalleled access to your McAfee portfolio. The goal is threefold:
The API, at launch, is tuned towards an Open EDR solution enabling customers to expand and extend MVISION EDR. Top use cases are driven by the need of SOC analysts to build playbooks, manage cases, search for IOCs, synchronize Incidents and build intelligent extensions to the vast amount of control visibility we provide.
We have very ambitious plans. So, watch this space as we make rapid progress.
Opening up the MVISION Developer Portal to all Innovators using the MVISION APIs, application developers and ISVs can build public or private applications. This portal for application developers enables them to build, test, and certify their applications prior to making them available on MVISION Marketplace or for customers to develop and deploy their private apps.
I expect startups will leverage MVISION APIs to build their innovation on top of McAfee products. In fact, we encourage them to do so and deliver their innovations next to McAfee products and deliver them to our customers through the marketplace.
Of course, organizations can also choose to create a variety of custom apps using MVISION APIs from the MVISION Developer Portal. The only limit is your own creativity. You can build new Intelligent apps, automate your current processes, integrate your SIEM, build an OT extension, or just sit back and enjoy a comprehensive dashboard that tracks your security posture.
These capabilities work together to deliver a Composable Security Platform enabling McAfee and its ecosystem to deliver pre-integrated, high-value solutions to customers. This is a big breakthrough that will make your job easier. All it now takes is a few minutes to make a few clicks to add valuable new capability.
Try it out and see for yourself at http://marketplace.mcafee.com/ and https://developer.mcafee.com/. I hope you will find this set of capabilities valuable and welcome your ideas on how to make them even better. And don’t be shy. Drop me a line @ javed_hasan@mcafee.com to tell me what improvements you want to see.
The post Bridge the Gap Between the Security You Have and the Security You Need appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Today’s U.S. government is in a race to modernize its IT infrastructure to support ever more complicated missions, growing workloads and increasingly distributed teams—and do so facing a constantly evolving threat landscape. To support these efforts, McAfee has pursued and received a Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) Authorization designation for McAfee MVISION for Endpoint at the moderate security impact level.
This FedRAMP Moderate designation is equivalent to DoD Impact Level 2 (IL2) and certifies that the McAfee solution has passed rigorous security requirements for the increasingly complex and expanding cloud environments of the U.S. government. The FedRAMP Moderate authorization validates the McAfee solution’s implementation of the baseline 325 NIST 800-53 controls, allowing users from federal agencies, state and local government, and other industries in regulated environments to manage Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) such as personally identifiable information (PII) and routine covered defense information (CDI).
By achieving FedRAMP Moderate Authorization for MVISION for Endpoint, McAfee can provide the command and control cyber defense capabilities government environments need to enable on-premise and remote security teams, allowing them to maximize time and resources, enhance security efficiency and boost resiliency.
McAfee MVISION for Endpoint consists of three primary components: McAfee MVISION Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), McAfee MVISION ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) and McAfee Endpoint Security Adaptive Threat Protection with Real Protect (ENS ATP):
Together, these solutions provide today’s U.S. government agencies the AI-guided endpoint threat detection, investigation and response capabilities they need to confront today’s ever evolving threats across a wide variety of devices. This important FedRAMP milestone is the latest affirmation of McAfee’s long-standing commitment to providing U.S. government agencies advanced, cloud-based cyber defenses to help them meet whatever mission they may confront today and in the future.
Other recent McAfee public sector achievements include:
Please see the following for more information on McAfee’s efforts in the FedRAMP mission:
The post McAfee MVISION Solutions Meet FedRAMP Cloud Security Requirements appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
2020 has been a tumultuous and unpredictable year, where we restructured our lives and redefined how we work and interact with each other. In the past nine months, we saw IT security and the digital world challenged and taken to new heights. Although 2020 has undoubtedly been a year of trials and tribulations, I wanted to share some of McAfee’s top highlights.
The list that follows is drawn from some of this year’s greatest accomplishments.
1. |
New Global Managed Detection and Response Platform |
At the RSA Conference in February, we launched our MDR platform and our first strategic partner to leverage our MVISION EDR solution to proactively detect cyber threats faced by customers and resolve security incidents faster. Our MDR service with DXC Technology provides 24/7 critical alert monitoring, managed threat hunting, advanced investigations, and threat disruption 365 days a year.
2. |
Cloud Risk & Adoption Report: Work-from-Home Edition |
With the new work from home environment, we released a report uncovering a correlation between the increased use of cloud services and collaboration tools, such as Cisco WebEx, Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Slack during the COVID-19 pandemic, along with an increase in cyber-attacks targeting the cloud.
3. |
MVISION Cloud Becomes First CASB to Receive U.S. Government’s FedRAMP High JAB P-ATO Designation |
To support today’s U.S. governments race to modernize its IT infrastructure in the constantly evolving threat landscape, McAfee has pursued and received a Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) Authorization designation for McAfee MVISION for Endpoint at the moderate security impact level. Learn more here.
4. |
Election Website Security Shortcomings |
Ahead of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, we released a survey revealing a severe lack of U.S. government .GOV validation and HTTPS encryption among county election websites in 13 states. The January 2020 survey found that as many as 83.3% of these county websites lacked .GOV validation across these states, and 88.9% and 90.0% of websites lacked such certification. Subsequently, reports emerged from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations and the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, which compelled us to conduct a follow-up survey of county election websites in all 50 U.S. states.
5. |
Industry’s First Proactive Security Solution to Help Organizations Stay Ahead of Emerging Threats |
MVISION Insights provides actionable and preemptive threat intelligence by leveraging our cutting-edge threat research, augmented with sophisticated AI applied to real-time threat telemetry streamed from over 1 billion sensors. The integration of MVISION Insights significantly enhances the capabilities of our award winning endpoint security platform by managing the attack surface, preventing ransomware and aiding security teams to easily investigate and respond to advanced attacks.
6. |
Threat Actor Evolution During the Pandemic |
Our McAfee Labs team released a report examining cybercriminal activity related to COVID-19 and the evolution of cyber threats in Q1 2020. The team saw an average of 375 new threats per minute and a surge of cybercriminals exploiting the pandemic through COVID-19 themed malicious apps, phishing campaigns, malware, and more. Read the full report Q1 2020 here, and feel free to enjoy the bumper edition of the McAfee Labs Threats Report: November 2020, here.
7. |
Introducing MVISION CNAPP |
McAfee announced CNAPP, a new security service that combines solutions from Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP), Data Loss Prevention (DLP), and Application Protection into a single solution. Now in beta with a target launch date of Q1, 2021, we built CNAPP to provide InfoSec teams broad visibility into their cloud native applications.
8. |
Taking Threat Detection and Response to a New Level |
At MPOWER 2020, we announced McAfee XDR, a complete platform that provides SOCs visibility into how threats are impacting your key business processes, prioritizes response and delivers a full-integrated platform of security technologies. Our AI and Big Data analytics capabilities supplies SOCs with threat and campaign insights before an attack changes course, to avoid wasting time chasing false positives. Defenders get fewer and more meaningful alerts, making it easier to prioritize their response based on the severity and potential impact of a threat.
9. |
Expansions to McAfee’s MVISION Platform |
Continuing on MPOWER’s momentum, we launched MVISION Marketplace, MVISION API and MVISION Developer Portal, allowing customers to quickly and easily integrate McAfee and trusted SIA partner applications as well as privately developed applications within their current security environment. The launch enables security teams to swiftly address security gaps in their architecture and easily improve security posture.
10. |
McAfee Goes Public |
On October 22, 2020, McAfee rang the bell on NASDAQ and officially became a publicly traded company again. It was a momentous occasion for the company and all our dedicated employees and partners. A huge thank you goes out to our employees for their support and invaluable contributions in helping McAfee reach this milestone We’re excited for the future!
Thank you to our wonderful employees, partners and customers for helping us achieve our goals and we look forward to working with everyone in the new year!
The post 2020 Hindsight – Top 10 Highlights from McAfee appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Everyone deserves a break after surviving this past year and I cannot think of better way to celebrate than to share some of our greatest accomplishments from 2020.
1. |
January 2020 Gartner Peer Insights VOC Customers’ Choice for CASB |
McAfee was the only vendor to be named the January 2020 Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’ Customers’ Choice for Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASBs). The recognition is based on customer feedback and ratings for McAfee MVISION Cloud, which we believe provides a cloud-native and frictionless way for organizations to consistently protect their data and defend from threats across the spectrum of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). Everyone at McAfee is extremely proud and honored to be named by customers as a 2020 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for CASB.
Disclaimer: Gartner, Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’: Cloud Access Security Brokers, 13 March 2020
2. |
Coolest Cloud and Coolest Endpoint Security Companies |
CRN, the top news source for solution providers and the IT channel, included McAfee on its Security 100 list and named McAfee one of “The 20 Coolest Cloud Security Companies” and “The 20 Coolest Endpoint Security Companies” of 2020.
3. |
Most Innovative and Scalable Cloud and Endpoint Security Company |
During RSA 2020, Cyber Defense Magazine, the industry’s leading electronic information security magazine, named McAfee the Most Innovative Company in its Cloud Security category for McAfee MVISION Cloud. The magazine also listed McAfee Endpoint Security Most Innovative and McAfee MVISION EDR Most Scalable, both in the Endpoint Security category.
4. |
CASB Category Winner |
Info Security Products Guide, the industry’s leading information security research and advisory guide, named McAfee a winner in the 16th Annual 2020 Info Security PG’s Global Excellence Awards® in its Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) category for MVISION Cloud for Container Security.
5. |
2020 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice VOC for Secure Web Gateways |
We’re thrilled to be named the 2020 Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’ Customers’ Choice for Secure Web Gateways (SWGs) for the second year in a row. The recognition is based on customer feedback and ratings for the McAfee Web Security portfolio which consists of McAfee Web Protection (MWP), McAfee Web Gateway (MWG) and McAfee Web Gateway Cloud Service (MWGCS). We believe this customer recognition validates our commitment to innovate and invest in technology that aims to reduce the cost and complexity of modern cybersecurity. With the McAfee Web Security portfolio, organizations can enforce their internet policy compliance and extend their perimeter security for a borderless IT environment.” said Ash Kulkarni, executive vice president and chief product officer, McAfee.
Disclaimer: Gartner, Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’: Secure Web Gateways, 09 April 2020
6. |
MVISION Cloud Wins 2020 Fortress Cyber Security Award |
McAfee MVISION Cloud took top honors in the 2020 Fortress Cyber Security Awards in the data protection category for its cloud access security broker (CASB) technology. The industry awards program seeks to highlight, discuss and reward the creative thinking, engineering, people and projects that are taking proactive steps to thwart cybersecurity attacks.
7. |
2020 Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’ for Both Enterprise DLP and SIEM Solutions Report |
We’re excited to be named a 2020 Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’ Customers’ Choice for Enterprise Data Loss Prevention (DLP) and a 2020 Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’ Customers’ Choice for Security Information Event Management (SIEM). The Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice Recognition is based on feedback and ratings from end-user professionals who purchase, implement and/or use McAfee’s DLP and SIEM solutions. “We think rigorously validated customer reviews are the true mark of value and quality,” said Anand Ramanathan, vice president of enterprise products, McAfee.
Disclaimer: Gartner, Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’: Enterprise Data Loss Prevention, 01 July 2020 & Gartner, Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’: Security Information Event Management, 03 July 2020
8. |
Named to the Diversity Best Practices Inclusion Index |
It’s an honor to be recognized as an inclusive workplace by Diversity Best Practices (DBP), a division of Working Mother Media. McAfee was among the 98 organizations that earned a place on the fourth annual Inclusion Index. McAfee’s efforts to create a more inclusive workplace focus on attracting and hiring diverse talent, cultivating an environment where everyone thrives, and igniting change within our industry and community. Read more about McAfee’s strategy and results in the 2019 Impact Report.
9. |
Named a Leader in 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Access Security Brokers |
This year, we are positioned as a Leader in the 2020 Gartner “Magic Quadrant for Cloud Access Security Brokers” (CASB) for every one of the four years the quadrant has been published. The report, which evaluates vendors based on their ability to execute and on their completeness of vision, positioned McAfee highest and furthest, respectively, for these attributes in the entire Magic Quadrant. A complimentary copy is available on the McAfee web site.
Disclaimer: Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Cloud Access Security Brokers, Steve Riley, Craig Lawson, 30 October 2020.
10. |
Ken McCray Named One of CRN’s 50 Most Influential Channel Chiefs |
Ken McCray, head of channels sales and operations Americas at McAfee, was named to CRN’s exclusive list of the 50 Most Influential Channel Chiefs for 2020. This annual list recognizes the elite vendor executives who lead, influence, innovate, and disrupt the IT channel. We congratulate McCray for his outstanding commitment, ability to lead, and passion for progress within the channel through our partner programs.
The GARTNER PEER INSIGHTS CUSTOMERS’ CHOICE badge is a trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc., and/or its affiliates, and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice constitute the subjective opinions of individual end-user reviews, ratings, and data applied against a documented methodology; they neither represent the views of, nor constitute an endorsement by, Gartner or its affiliate.
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
The post 10 Reasons to Celebrate 2020 appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
With 2021 approaching, it is a time to both reflect on the outstanding progress we have each made – personally and professionally, and warmly welcome a new chapter in 2021!
2020 has been one of the most unexpected years in our history. However, despite COVID-19, we had some amazing successes.
January brought McAfee our new CEO – Peter Leav. It’s hard to believe it has only been a year under his leadership. What an impact! And, McAfee is back on the stock exchange.
2020 has also seen the rapid acceleration of cloud adoption. Typically, a move like that involves immense planning to minimize complexity. That didn’t always happen. And, as our Advanced Threat Research team has reported, cybercriminals took full advantage of more ransomware, malware, and general bad behavior. In fact, a recent McAfee report estimates global cybercrime losses will exceed $1 Trillion. Fortunately, McAfee customers benefited from the get-go with a robust, award-winning cloud-native portfolio that became even stronger in 2020.
Shortly after Peter joined, we closed our LightPoint Acquisition, enabling us to add Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) to MVISION Unified Cloud Edge (UCE). In March, we delivered multi-vector data protection for unified and comprehensive data protection across endpoints, web, and cloud. In August, we further enhanced our MVISION UCE offering by announcing pivotal SD-WAN Technology integrations. Finally, at MPOWER, we announced the industry first integration of Remote Browser Isolation into our Unified Cloud Edge solution.
To our award-winning and unmatched MVISION Cloud solution which is natively integrated into UCE, we were the first CASB to map cloud threats to MITRE ATT&CK. Introducing MITRE ATT&CK into the MVISION Cloud workflow helps SOC analysts to investigate cloud threats and security managers defend against future attacks with increased precision. Our new MVISION Cloud Security Advisor (CSA) – provides recommendations – broken into visibility and control metrics – to help prioritize cloud security controls implementation. We also delivered MVISION Cloud for Teams, which provides policy and collaboration controls to enable organizations to safely collaborate with partners without having to worry about exposing confidential data to guest users.
MVISION Cloud received its FedRAMP High JAB P-ATO designation and McAfee MVISION for Endpoint achieved FedRAMP Moderate Authorization. Both of those are important to enable our Federal customers to take advantage of the MVISION portfolio.
All of this helps our customers accelerate the easy adoption of a more complete Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architecture and better defend against advanced web and cloud-based threats. In fact, our MVISION UCE customers can enjoy a nearly 40% annual TCO savings when they go from on-prem to cloud.
For our customers who want cloud native IaaS security while dealing existing on-prem data center deployments, we rolled out our new McAfee MVISION Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP), an integrated hybrid cloud security platform for comprehensive data protection, threat prevention, governance, and compliance for the cloud-native application lifecycle. We also announced native AWS Integrations for MVISION CNAPP.
The team and I are also extremely excited about the progress with our Endpoint portfolio across ENS, EDR and momentum behind MVISION Insights.
The still unfolding SolarWinds supply chain compromise has shown how unprepared SOC teams can be and why it is ever more important to have proactive and actionable threat intelligence at your fingertips. As news of an emerging campaign becomes viral, SOC teams must answer the topical question raised by the C-level or the Board “Are we impacted” which unfortunately till now took weeks if not days of scrambling to answer. We launched MVISION Insights early this summer to solve for exactly this problem. MVISION Insights leverages McAfee’s cutting-edge threat research, augmented with AI applied to real-time telemetry streamed from over a Billion sensors to identify and prioritize threats, before they hit. MVISION Insights can predict the impact on your countermeasures, and then tells you exactly how and where to improve your security posture. In essence, it enables you to “shift left” and anticipate and stop breaches before they happen. As the SolarWinds compromise was unfolding, MVISION Insights delivered actionable threat intelligence to McAfee’s customers within hours. The fact that we now have hundreds of customers who have adopted MVISION Insights as part of their SOC framework within a few months of release is a testament to the real value add they are enjoying. Best part is that it is also free for all our customers who have our integrated EPP+EDR SKUs: MV6 or MV7.
Our latest Endpoint protection product, ENS 10.7, is stronger with the highest quality and customer satisfaction than ever. ENS 10.7 couples all our endpoint protection capabilities with machine learning, behavior monitoring, fileless threat defense and Rollback Remediation. It’s also backed by our Global Threat Intelligence (GTI) to provide adaptable, defense in depth capability against the techniques used in targeted ransomware attacks. ENS 10.7 delivers meaningful value. Rollback Remediation, for instance, can save an average $500 per node in labor and productivity costs by eliminating need to reimage machines. ENS 10.7 became generally available about a year ago and has emerged as our #1 deployed enterprise product worldwide – the fastest ramp of any ENS release.
Equally on the EDR front, we delivered capabilities that make a measurable improvement for the ever tired SOC teams. The included AI Guided investigations can speed threat investigations from greater than 2 hours to as little as 6 minutes per incident. The SolarWinds compromise also showed that Organizations need an integrated platform that delivers complete visibility and control across their infrastructure including their supply chain. The recently announced MVISION XDR builds upon our EDR solution making it easier for our customers to achieve this complete visibility and control. It extends MVISION Insights across endpoints, network and cloud, making it the first proactive XDR platform to manage your risk. MVISION XDR dramatically expands the capabilities of traditional Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) point solutions by delivering a fully integrated, SaaS-based platform to rapidly discover and mitigate the real threats to your users and data across all threat vectors. And, complementing our MVSION XDR solution is a host of partner solutions available via MVISION Marketplace.
Finally, we rolled out the Device-to-Cloud suites, making it easier for our customers to move to a cloud-native architecture. These three SaaS offerings all feature MVISION Insights and endpoint protection to provide right-sized security solutions in a simple-to-acquire package.
I am so proud that our customers and the industry also recognize the McAfee teams’ hard work. We were able to add a long list of awards and accolades to our portfolio in 2020.
Now that we’ve looked back at our successes, let’s take a moment to look forward and set goals for ourselves in the coming year. My team and I are committed to:
Against today’s increasingly sophisticated adversaries, your success is our success.
As we head into 2021, I want to take a moment to wish each of you peace, good health, and prosperity.
Happy holidays to you and yours!
Thanks, Shishir
The post Bring on 2021! appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
This year’s RSA Conference will look a little different. Instead of booking flights and hotel rooms in the busy city of San Francisco, we’ll be powering up computers in our home office with family in the next room. We’ve all had a tumultuous year and with that comes resilience, which is also this year’s conference theme.
Ahead of the RSA virtual conference, I spoke with a few of my colleagues about the major themes we should expect to see at RSA this year.
Scott Howitt, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer – The COVID lockdown has exposed to enterprises that the ability to recover your business (Business Continuity) is important in the face of disaster, but Business Resilience means that your business will be able to adapt to Black Swan events. I’ve seen technology be the catalyst for resilience for most organizations.
Raj Samani, Chief Scientist and McAfee Fellow – For me, it would be ability to continue operations in light of disruption. Whether that disruption originated from digital factors, or indeed physical but to keep the wheels turning.
John Fokker, Principal Engineer and Head of Cyber Investigations for McAfee ATR – Just like Boxing: Isn’t as much about not being hit, because you are in the ring and punches are thrown, but resilience to me is more about how fast you can get back up on your feet once you do get hit. The same is true with security operations, attackers are going to try to hit you, but how good is your defense so you can minimize the impact of the attack and in the case you do get knocked down what controls do you have in place that you can get back up and resume operations.
Amanda House, Data Scientist – Cybersecurity is a unique industry in that new cyberthreats are always improving to avoid detection. A machine learning model made a month ago could now have weakness an adversary has learned to exploit. Machine learning model practitioners need to be resilient in always innovating and improving on past models to outpace new threats. Resilience is constantly monitoring machine learning models so that when we notice decay we can quickly improve them to stop new cyberthreats.
Sherin Mathews, Senior Research Scientist – To me, cyber-resilience implies being able to protect critical assets, maintain operations, and, most importantly, embrace new technologies in the face of evolving threats. The cybersecurity field is an arms race scenario with the threat landscape changing so much. In case of threats like deepfakes, some deepfakes will reach ultra-realism in the coming few years, many will still be more amateurish, and we need to keep advancing towards the best detection methods with newer forms of threats. I feel resiliency doesn’t mean you can survive or defend against all attacks, but it means that if you are compromised, you have a plan that lets us recover quickly after a breach and continue to function. Deepfakes and other offshoots of AI will require businesses to create a transparent, agile, and holistic detection approach to protect endpoints, data, apps, and cloud services.
Samani – I anticipate Zero Trust will play a prominent role, considering the year of remote working, and a myriad of significant threats being realised.
Fokker – Definitely Zero-Trust but also combatting threats that come with working from home, and threat intelligence so organization can better understand the actions of their adversaries even before they step into the ring.
Howitt – I am hoping to see how others have adapted to life with COVID and now that it is receding, what do they think life with look like after. As for my session, I want to highlight the importance of adaptability and stress that this paradigm shift means we will never go back to normal.
House – Cybersecurity is not a career path I ever imagined for myself. As a student I always enjoyed math and computer science and I naturally gravitated toward those topics. My love of both subjects led me to pursue data science and machine learning. My first job out of college was in the cybersecurity industry and that was my first introduction to this career. Since then, I have loved how cybersecurity requires constant innovation and creative ways of using AI to stop new threats.
Mathews – My background and Ph.D. focused on developing novel dictionary learning and deep learning algorithms for classification tasks related to remote health monitoring systems (e.g., activity recognition for wearable sensors and heartbeat classification). With a background in machine learning, deep learning with applications to computer vision areas, I entered the field of cybersecurity during my work at Intel Security/Mcafee in 2016. I contributed towards increasing the effectiveness of cybersecurity products by creating novel machine learning/deep learning models to detect advanced threats(e.g., ransomware & steganography). In my industry work experience, I also had a chance to develop leading-edge research such as eXplainable A.I. (XAI) and deepfakes. Overall, the advent of artificial intelligence can be considered a significant milestone as A.I. is steadily flooding several industries. However, A.I. platforms can also be misused if in the wrong hands, and as research professionals, we need to step up to detect attacks or mishaps before they happen. I feel deeply passionate about XAI, ethical A.I., the opportunity to combat deepfakes and digital misinformation, and topics related to ML and DL with cybersecurity applications. Overall, it is an excellent feeling as a researcher to use your knowledge to combat threats that affect humanity and safeguard humans. Also, I believe that newer A.I. research topics such as GANs, Reinforcement learning, and few-shot learning have a lot to offer to combat advanced cybersecurity threats.
House – I am fortunate to work with a lot of great women in technology at McAfee. Not only are these women on the cutting edge of innovation but they are also great mentors and leaders. We need more smart people pursuing jobs in this industry and in order to recruit new talent, especially young graduates, we need to mentor and encourage them to pursue this career. Every woman I have met in this industry wants to see new talent succeed and will go the extra mile to provide mentorship. I have also noticed women tend to have unique backgrounds in this industry. For example, some of the women I look up to have degrees in biomedical engineering or physics. These unique backgrounds allow these women to bring innovative ideas from outside cybersecurity to solve some of the toughest problems in the cybersecurity industry. We need more talent from diverse backgrounds to bring in fresh ideas.
McAfee is a proud platinum with keynote level sponsor of RSA Conference 2021. Take in the McAfee virtual booth and sessions presented by McAfee industry leaders Here are some of the best ways to catch McAfee at RSA. Can’t wait to see you there!
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At McAfee, we believe no one person, product or organization can combat cybercrime alone. That is why we continue to build our device-to-cloud security platform on the premise of working together – together with customers, partners and even other cybersecurity vendors. We continue this fight against the greatest challenges of our digital age: cybercrime. As part of our ongoing effort to protect what matters, we have developed breakthrough technologies over the past several years that enable customers to proactively respond to emerging threats and adversaries despite a constantly evolving threat landscape. So, today, we are extremely proud to announce that McAfee is positioned as a “Leader” in the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms (EPP).
This is a monumental development in so many ways, especially when you consider that we were not recognized in the Magic Quadrant a few years ago. This recognition speaks volumes about the innovations we are bringing to market that resonate both with our customers and industry experts. Let me review, from my perspective, why McAfee is recognized in the Leaders Quadrant.
Here are some key innovations in our Endpoint Protection Platform that contributed to our Leader recognition:
We set out with a vision, to create the most powerful endpoint protection platform and we are aggressively executing towards this vision. Over the past 12 months, we have made great strides in developing a market leading product, MVISION Insights, and our cloud delivered MVISION EDR. Looking ahead, our goal is to develop a unified and open eXtended Detection and Response (XDR) solution and strategy that further delivers on our device-to-cloud strategy.
We believe, McAfee’s position as a Leader further acknowledges some of our key differentiators, such as MVISION Insights, and our ability to eclipse the market with an innovative device-to-cloud strategy that spans the portfolio, including web gateway, cloud, and our network security offerings.
We started by redefining our endpoint security offering with the release of MVISION Insights, a game-changing product that functions as the equivalent of an early warning system – effectively delivering preventative security. It’s hard to understate the significance of this innovation; we’re breaking the old paradigm of post-attack detection and analysis and enabling customers to stay ahead of threats. In parallel, we streamlined our EDR capabilities, which now provide AI-driven, guided investigations that ease the burden on already-stretched Security Operations Centers (SOCs).
The bottom line is that we’re the only vendor taking a proactive risk management approach for safer cloud usage while reducing total cost of ownership. In addition, we have improved our licensing structure to fit customer needs and simplify consumption of our endpoint security solutions. We’ve made it easy to choose from a simplified licensing structure allowing customers to buy subscriptions for complete endpoint protection with no add-ons or extra costs. Our user-based licensing agreements provide for 5 devices, thus enabling frictionless expansion to incorporate additional device support in remote work environments.
In just under a year, our latest release of McAfee Endpoint Security (ENS) 10.7 has emerged as our highest deployed version of any McAfee product worldwide and our fastest-ever single-year ramp. More than 15,000 customers comprising tens of millions of nodes are now on ENS 10.7 and are deploying its advanced defenses against escalating threats. Customers get added protected because ENS 10.7 is backed by our Global Threat Intelligence (GTI) service to provide adaptable, defense in-depth capabilities against the techniques used in targeted attacks, such as ransomware or fileless threats. It’s also easier to use and upgrade. All of this means your SOC can be assured that customers are protected with ENS 10.7 on their devices.
Customer input guides our thinking about what to do next. Since the best critics are the people who use our products, let’s give them the last word here.
“We are now positioned to block usage of personal instances of Sanctioned services while allowing the business to move forward with numerous cloud initiatives, without getting in the way. We also now have the visibility that was lacking to ensure that we can allow our user community to work safely from their homes without introducing risks to our corporate environment.”
–Kenn Johnson, Cybersecurity Consultant
Our continued commitment to our customers is to protect what matters. We believe that McAfee’s position in the Leaders Quadrant validates that we are innovating at the pace and scale that meets the most stringent needs of our enterprise customers. We are proud of our product teams and threat researchers who continue to be driven by our singular mission, and who strive to stay ahead of adversaries with their focus on technological breakthroughs, and advancements in researching threats and vulnerabilities.
What we have accomplished over the past several years, and our position as a Leader in the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for EPP, is only the tip of the iceberg for what’s ahead.
McAfee named a Leader in the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms. Download the Magic Quadrant report, which evaluates the 19 vendors based on ability to execute and completeness of vision.
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
Gartner Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms, 5 May 2021 Paul Webber, Peter Firstbrook, Rob Smith , Mark Harris, Prateek Bhajanka
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May 2021 has been an extraordinary month in the cybersecurity world, with the DoD releasing its DoD Zero Trust Reference Architecture (DoDZTRA), the Colonial Pipeline being hit with a ransomware attack, and the White House releasing its Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity (EO). Add to that several major vendors that our government depends on for its critical operations disclosing critical vulnerabilities that could potentially expose our nation’s critical infrastructure to even more risk, ranging from compromised email and cloud infrastructures to very sophisticated supply chain attacks like the SolarWinds hack, which could have started as early as 2019.
If the situation sounds ominous, it is. The words and guidance outlined in the DoDZTRA and EO must be followed up with a clear path to action and all the stakeholders, both public and private, are not held accountable for progress. This should not be another roll-up reporting exercise, time to study the situation, or end up in analysis paralysis thinking about the problem. Our adversaries move at speeds we never anticipated by leveraging automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning, social engineering, and more vectors against us. It’s time for us to catch up and just very possibly think differently to get ahead.
There is no way around it: This time our nation must invest in protecting our way of life today and for future generations.
The collective “we” observed what happened when ransomware hit a portion of the nation’s critical infrastructure at Colonial Pipeline. If the extortion wasn’t bad enough, the panic buying of gasoline and even groceries in many of Eastern U.S. states impacted thousands of people seemingly overnight, with help from social and traditional media. It’s too early to predict what the exact financial and social impacts may have been on this attack. I suspect the $4.4M ransom paid was very small in the greater scheme of the event.
May 2021 has provided a wake-up call for public-private cooperation like we’ve never seen before. Perhaps we need to rethink cybersecurity altogether. During his keynote remarks at the recent RSA Conference, McAfee CTO Steve Grobman talked about how “as humans, we are awful at perceiving risk.” Influenced by media, anecdotal data, and evolutionary biology, we let irrational fears drive decision-making, which leads humans to misperceive actual risks and sub-optimize risk reduction in both the physical and cyber world. To combat these tendencies, Steve encourages us to “be aware of our biases and embrace data and science-based approaches to assess and mitigate risk.”
Enter Zero Trust Cybersecurity, which is an architectural approach – not a single vendor product or solution. The DoDZTRA takes a broader view of Zero Trust than the very narrow access control focus, saying it is “a cybersecurity strategy and framework that embeds security throughout the architecture to prevent malicious personas from accessing our most critical assets.” And our most critical assets are data.
NSA also recently weighed in on Zero Trust, recommending that an organization invest in identifying its critical data, assets, applications, and services. The NSA guidance goes on to suggest placing additional focus on architecting from the inside out; ensuring all paths to data, assets, applications, and services are secure; determining who needs access; creating control policies; and finally, inspecting and logging all traffic before reacting.
These practices require full visibility into all activity across all layers — from endpoints to the network (which includes cloud) — to enable analytics that can detect suspicious activity. The ability to have early or advanced warnings of global and local threat campaigns, indicators of compromise, and the capability to deliver proactive countermeasures is a must-have as part of an organization’s defensive strategies.
The Zero Trust guidance from both DoD and NSA is worth following. It’s also worth reprising the concept of defense in depth – the cybersecurity strategy of leveraging multiple security mechanisms to protect an organization’s assets. Relying on a single vendor for all an organization’s IT and security needs makes it much easier for the adversary.
If you believe in a good conspiracy theory, the month of May 2021 could provide great material for a made-for-TV movie. Earlier I mentioned that the collective “we” needs to be held accountable. Part of that accountability is defining success metrics as we take on a new path to real cybersecurity.
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On May 12, the President signed the executive order (EO) on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity. As with every executive order, it establishes timelines for compliance and specific requirements of executive branch agencies to provide specific plans to meet the stated objectives.
It is clear from the EO that the Executive Office of the President is putting significant emphasis on cyber threat intelligence and how it will help government agencies make better decisions about responding to cyber threats and incidents. The EO also focuses on how federal agencies will govern resource access through Zero Trust and how to comprehensively define and protect hybrid service architectures. These are critical aspects as government agencies are moving more and more mission-critical applications and services to the cloud.
The call to action in this executive order is long overdue, as modernizing the nation’s cybersecurity approach and creating coordinated intelligence and incident response capabilities should have occurred years ago. Requiring that agencies recognize the shift in the perimeter and start tearing down silos between cloud services and physical data center services is going serve to improve visibility and understanding of how departments and sub-agencies are being targeted by adversaries.
I am sure government leaders have started to review their current capability along with their strategic initiatives to ensure they map to the new EO requirements. Where gaps are identified, agencies will need to update their plans and rethink their approach to align with the new framework and defined capabilities such as endpoint detection and response (EDR) and Zero Trust.
While the objectives outlined are critical, I do believe that agencies need to take appropriate cautions when deciding their paths to compliance. The goal of this executive order is not to add additional complexity to an already complex security organization. Rather, the goal should be to simplify and automate wherever possible. If the right approach is not decided on early, the risk is very real of adding too much complexity in pursuit of compliance, thus eroding the desired outcomes.
On the surface, it would seem that the areas of improvement outlined in the EO can be taken individually – applied threat intelligence, EDR, Zero Trust, data protection, and cloud services adoption. In reality, they should be viewed collectively. When considering solutions and architectures, agency leaders should be asking themselves some critical questions:
The executive order presents a great opportunity for government to evolve their cybersecurity approach to defend against modern threats and enable a more aggressive transition to the cloud and cloud services. There is also significant risk, as the urgency expressed in the EO could lead to hasty decisions that create more challenges than they solve. To capitalize on the opportunity presented in this executive order, federal leaders must embrace a holistic approach to cybersecurity that integrates all the solutions into a platform approach including robust threat intelligence. A standalone Zero Trust or EDR product will not accomplish an improved or modernized cybersecurity approach and could lead to more complexity. A well-thought-out platform, not individual products, will best serve public sector organizations, giving them a clear architecture that will protect and enable our government’s future.
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The mass migration of employees working from home in the last 14 months has accelerated the digital transformation of businesses. Cloud applications are no longer a “nice to have,” they are now essential to ensure that businesses survive. This introduces new security challenges in being able to locate and control sensitive data across all the potential exfiltration vectors regardless of whether they are in the cloud; on premise via managed or unmanaged machines. Attempting to control these vectors through multiple products results in unnecessary cost and complexity.
McAfee anticipated and responded to this trend, solving all these challenges through the launch of our MVISION Unified Cloud Edge solution in 2020. Unified Cloud Edge doesn’t simply offer data protections controls for endpoints, networks, web and the cloud; rather, Multi-Vector Data Protection provides customers with unified data classification and incident management that enables them to define data workflows once and have policies enforced consistently across each vector. Because of the unified approach and our extensive data protection heritage, we are delighted to be named a Leader in The Forrester Wave: Unstructured Data Security Platforms, Q2 2021. In our opinion, we were the top ranked dedicated cyber security vendor within the report.
We received the highest possible score in nine criteria with Forrester Research commenting on our “cloud-first data security approach” and customer recognition of our “breadth of capabilities (in particular for supporting remote work and cloud use)”.
We continue to innovate within our Unified Cloud Edge solution through the introduction of remote browser isolation to protect against risky web sites (our “heavy focus in supporting security and data protection in the cloud”), which uniquely to the market allows us to continue applying DLP controls even during isolated sessions. Delivering on increased customer value through innovation isn’t just limited to new features, for instance we continue to drive down costs through an unlimited SaaS application bundle.
Click below to read the full report.
: Unstructured Data Security Platforms, Q2 2021McAfee is delighted to be named a Leader in The Forrester Wave Unstructured Data Security Platforms, Q2 2021 report. We received the highest possible score in nine criteria with Forrester Research
The Forrester Wave: Unstructured Data Security Platforms, Q2 2021, 17 May 2021, Heidi Shey with Amy DeMartine, Shannon Fish, Peggy Dostie
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The McAfee team is very proud to announce that, for the third year in a row, McAfee was named a 2021 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Secure Web Gateways for its Web Solution.
In its announcement, Gartner explains, “The Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice is a recognition of vendors in this market by verified end-user professionals, taking into account both the number of reviews and the overall user ratings.” To ensure fair evaluation, Gartner applies rigorous methodology for recognizing vendors with a high customer satisfaction rate.
For the distinction, a vendor needs at least 20+ Reviews from Customers with over $50M Annual Review in 18-month timeframe, above Market Average Overall Rating, and above Market Average User Interest and Adoption.
Gartner Peer Insights is a peer review and ratings platform designed for enterprise software and services decision makers. Reviews are organized by products in markets that are defined by Gartner Research in Magic Quadrant and Market Guide documents.
The “Voice of the Customer” is a document that applies a methodology to aggregated Gartner Peer Insights’ reviews in a market to provide an overall perspective for IT decision makers. This aggregated peer perspective, along with the individual detailed reviews, is complementary to expert-generated research such as Magic Quadrants and Market Guides. It can play a key role in your buying process, as it focuses on direct peer experiences of buying, implementing and operating a solution. A complimentary copy of the Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’ report is available on the McAfee Web site.
“We were using an on-prem web gateway and we have been migrated to UCE recently due to the pandemic situations. It gives us the flexibility to manage our Web GW as a SaaS solution. The solution also provides us bunch of rulesets for our daily usage needs.” CIO in the Manufacturing Industry [Link here]
“McAfee Secure web gateway provides the optimum security required for the employees of the Bank surfing the Internet. It also provides the Hybrid capabilities which allows to deploy same policies regardless of the physical location of the endpoint.” [Link here]
MVISION Unified Cloud Edge was specifically designed to enable our customers to make a secure cloud transformation by bringing the capabilities of our highly successful Secure Web Gateway appliance solution to the cloud as part of a unified cloud offering. This way, users from any location or device can access the web and the cloud in a fast and secure manner.
“The McAfee Web Gateway integrated well with existing CASB and DLP solutions. It has been very effective at preventing users from going to malware sites. The professional services we purchased for implementation was the best we’ve ever had from any vendor of any IT security product.” Senior Cybersecurity Professional in the Healthcare Industry [Link here]
McAfee’s Next-Gen Secure Web Gateway technology features tight integration with our CASB and DLP solutions through a converged management interface, which provides unified policies that deliver unprecedented cloud control while reducing cost and complexity. By integrating our SWG, CASB, DLP, and RBI solutions, MVISION Unified Cloud Edge provides a complete SASE security platform that delivers unparalleled data and threat protection.
“We benchmarked against another very well known gateway and there was no comparison. The other gateway only caught a small fraction of what MWG caught when filtering for potentially harmful sites.” Information Security Officer in the Finance Industry [Link here]
As the threat landscape continues to evolve, it’s important for organizations to have a platform that is integrated and seamless. That’s why McAfee provides integrated multi-layer security including global threat intelligence, machine learning, sandboxing, UEBA, and Remote Browser Isolation to block known threats and detect the most elusive attacks.
To learn more about this distinction, or to read the reviews written about our products by the IT professionals who use them, please visit Gartner Peer Insights’ Customers’ Choice announcement for Web. To all of our customers who submitted reviews, thank you! These reviews mold our products and our customer journey, and we look forward to building on the experience that earned us this distinction!
McAfee is named a Customers’ Choice in the June 2021 Gartner Peer Insights “Voice of the Customer”: Secure Web Gateways.
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How much of the global economy is managed from a home network these days? Or, more importantly, what percentage of your company’s most sensitive data passes through employee home networks right now?
If you’re like me, working from a home office, you can’t help but think about all of the cybersecurity tradeoffs that accompanied the widespread shift from on-premises to cloud-delivered services. Better productivity in exchange for deeper vulnerabilities—like man-in-the-middle attacks—wasn’t a choice many cybersecurity pros would make under normal circumstances.
Yet, for better—and worse—there’s no going back to how things were. When Gartner revealed its annual list of top cybersecurity trends last month, we learned that while 64% of employees now work from home, at least 30-40% will continue to do so once the pandemic is over.1 In the foreseeable future, the Wi-Fi streaming your kids’ favorite shows will transport an untold amount of business data, too. All of which must be protected from device to cloud.
In the same report, Gartner said that with so many employees continuing to work from home, “endpoint protection services will need to move to cloud-delivered services.” While the vast majority of our customers made the overnight switch—many still need to adopt a cloud-native architecture.
No doubt the best transformations are the ones you plan for and manage from end-to-end. But the cloud transformation that many didn’t plan for—and most cybersecurity defenses couldn’t handle—turned out to pack the biggest punch. Here are three ways to better prepare for what comes next.
Stopping unauthorized access to corporate assets—and protecting them—is, on the face of it, a never-ending battle. You can’t build a moat, a wall, or a bubble and say, hey, my work here is done. We’ve found our customers need to solve two primary issues:
So, we created the MVISION Device-to-Cloud Suites to protect all of this data coursing through home networks. Among the many types of threats we’ve tracked, one of the biggest threats is viruses infecting browsers and capturing keystrokes to steal sensitive information. We solve this by isolating a browser so that no one can see what information has been entered.
While paradigms may shift, going forward we believe it’s predictive defenses that will enable faster, smarter and more effective data loss prevention. We get there by enabling optimized endpoint threat protection, Extended Detection and Response (EDRs) that improve mean time to detect and respond to threats, and useful analytics that not only empower your SOC but also help inform and engage executives.
Gaining executive and board-level buy-in has long been a topic of concern in the cybersecurity field. Thanks in part to the harsh publicity and severe damage caused by state-sponsored hacks that day is finally in sight. In a recent blog, McAfee’s Steve Grobman indicated SolarWinds is the first major supply chain attack which represents a shift in tactics where a nation state has employed a new weapon for cyber-espionage.”2
Cybersecurity is perceived as the second highest source of risk for enterprises, losing out to regulatory concerns, notes Gartner.3 While today only one in 10 board of directors have a dedicated cybersecurity committee, Gartner projects that percentage will rise to 40% in four years.
One reason why cybersecurity hasn’t been elevated to an ongoing board concern previously is that many executives lack a window into the cybersecurity in their midst. And lacking a window, they have no keen understanding of their organization’s vulnerabilities. Which also makes it difficult to assess the operational value of various cybersecurity investments.
The ability to gain visual insights and predictive assessments of your security posture against dangerous threats is what generates actionable intelligence. A CISO or CSO should be able to look at a single screen and understand in minutes how well protected they are against potential threats. They also need a team that’s ready to take action on these insights and enact appropriate countermeasures to protect corporate assets from imminent attack.
You want to protect your palace from thieves, but when do you finally have too many latches, locks, and bars on your doors? At some point, less is more, particularly if you can’t remember where you put your keys. Consolidation is one of Gartner top five trends this year. Four out of five companies plan to trim their list of cybersecurity vendors in the next three years.4
In fact, Gartner’s 2020 CISO Effectiveness Survey found that 78% of CISOs have 16 or more tools in their cybersecurity vendor portfolio, while 12% have a whopping 46 or more.5 Mind you, we know there is no end-all, be-all Security vendor who does everything. But with our Device-to-Cloud Suites, your security technology resides in one umbrella platform. Without McAfee, you’d need one vendor on the desktop, another in the cloud, and one more on the web gateway.
Consolidation is intended to remove headaches rather than create them. With one SaaS-based suite that addresses your core security issues, you have lower maintenance, plus the ability to visualize where you’re vulnerable and learn what you need to do to protect it.
McAfee is here to help organizations manage the transformation to a predictive cybersecurity defense and we provide the footprint to secure the data, endpoints, web, and cloud. From my vantage point, securing distributed digital assets demands effective security controls from device to cloud.
MVISION Device-to-Cloud Suites provide a simplified way to help accelerate your cloud transformation and adoption, better defend against attacks, and lower your total cost of operations. The suites scale with your security needs to deliver a unified endpoint, web, and cloud solution.
Learn More About McAfee Device-to-Cloud Suites:
Source:
1. Gartner Identifies Top Security and Risk Management Trends for 2021 (Gartner)
2. Why SolarWinds-SUNBURST is a Wakeup Call (McAfee)
3. Gartner Identifies Top Security and Risk Management Trends for 2021 (Gartner)
4. Ibid.
5. Gartner Survey Reveals Only 12% of CISOs Are Considered “Highly Effective” (Gartner)
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The latest guidance in the Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity (EO), Section 2, discusses removing the barriers to sharing threat information. It describes how security partners and service providers are often hesitant or contractually unable to share information about a compromise. The EO helps ensure that security partners and service providers can share intelligence with the government and requires them to share certain breach data with executive level departments and agencies responsible for investigating and remediating incidents, namely CISA, the FBI, and the IC. This approach will enable better comprehensive threat visibility across the Executive Branch departments and agencies to promote early detection and coordinated response actions. Indeed, the threat information sharing section will help enhance the public-private sector partnership that McAfee, and our colleagues in the cyber security industry are committed to supporting. To achieve this goal the EO requires:
The EO is a positive first step towards improving incident awareness at a macro level, though the EO would be even more impactful if it pushed government agencies to share more threat information with the private sector. The U.S. government represents an incredibly large attack surface and being able to identify threats early in one agency or department may very well serve to protect other agencies by enabling stronger predictive and more proactive defenses. While a government-built threat intelligence data lake is a critical first step, I think a logical next step should be opening the focus of threat intelligence sharing to be both real-time and bi-directional.
The EO focuses on the need for the private sector to improve its information sharing and collaboration with the government. However, the guidance is focused more on “post-breach” and unidirectional threat sharing. Real-time, not just “post-breach,” threat sharing improves the speed and effectiveness of countermeasures and early detection. Bi-directional data sharing opens possibilities for things like cross-sector environmental context, timely and prescriptive defensive actions, and enhanced remediation and automation capabilities. Harnessing real-time sector-based threat intelligence is not a unique concept; companies like McAfee have started to deliver on the promise of predictive security using historical threat intelligence to guide proactive security policy decision making.
Real-time threat sharing will make one of the EO’s additional goals, Zero Trust, ultimately more achievable. Zero Trust requires a dynamic analysis layer that will continuously evaluate user and device trust. As environmental variables change, so should the trust and ultimately access and authorization given. If the intent of threat intelligence sharing is to identify potentially compromised or risky assets specific to emerging campaigns, then it stands to reason that the faster that data is shared, the faster trust can be assessed and modified to protect high-value assets.
McAfee has identified the same benefits and challenges as the government for targeted threat intelligence and has developed a useful platform to enable robust threat sharing. We understand the value of sector specific data acting as an early indicator for organizations to ensure protection. Focusing on our own threat intelligence data lakes, we deliver on the promise of sector-specific intelligence by identifying targeted campaigns and threats and then correlating those campaigns to protective measures. As a result, government agencies now have the advantage of predicting, prioritizing, and prescribing appropriate defense changes to stay ahead of industry-focused emerging campaigns. We call that capability MVISION Insights.
This approach serves to drive home the need for collaborative shared threat intelligence. McAfee’s broad set of customers across every major business sector, combined with our threat research organization and ability to identify sector-specific targeted campaigns as they’re emerging, allows customers to benefit from threat intelligence collected from others in their same line of business. The federal government has a wide range of private sector business partners across healthcare, finance, critical infrastructure, and agriculture, to name a few. Each of these partners extends the government attack surface beyond the government-controlled boundary, and each represents an opportunity for compromise.
Imagine a scenario where an HHS healthcare partner is alerted, in real-time across a public/private sector threat intelligence sharing grid, to a threat affecting either the federal government directly or a healthcare partner for a different government agency. This approach allows them to assess their own environment for attack indicators, make quick informed decisions about defensive changes, and limit access where necessary. This type of real-time alerting not only allows the HHS partner to better prepare for a threat, but ultimately serves to reduce the attack surface of the federal government.
Allowing industry partners to develop and participate in building out cyber threat telemetry enables:
The U.S. government can begin to effectively shift focus from a reactive culture to one that is more proactive, enabling faster action against threats (or something like this). In the next EO, the Administration should bulk up its commitment to sharing cyber threat information with the private sector. The capability to exchange cyber threat intelligence data across the industry in standards-based formats in near real time exists today. The collective “we” just needs to make it a priority.
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Every organization has data moving to the multi-cloud; digital transformation is occurring rapidly, is here to stay, and is impacting every major industry. Organizations are working hard to adopt Zero Trust architectures as their critical information, trade secrets, and business applications are no longer stored in a single datacenter or location. As a result, there is a rapid shift to cloud resources to support dynamic mission requirements, and the new perimeter to defend is data. At its core, Zero Trust is a data-centric model and is fundamental to what McAfee Enterprise offers. In the Public Sector, data has now been classified as a strategic asset – often referred to as the “crown jewels” of an organization. Reinforced by the publication of the DoD Zero Trust Reference Architecture, we have arrived at a crossroads where demonstrating a sound data strategy will be a fundamental requirement for any organization.
All DoD data is an enterprise resource, meaning data requires consistent and uniform protections wherever it is created or wherever it traverses. This includes data transmitted across multi-cloud services, through custom mission applications, and on devices. Becoming a data-centric organization requires that data be treated as the primary asset. It must also be available so that it can be leveraged by other solutions for discovery and analytics purposes. To achieve this, interoperability and uniform data management are strategic elements that underpin many sections of DoD’s official vision of Zero Trust.
Let us dissect how the DoD plans to create a data advantage and where McAfee Enterprise can support these efforts as we explore the four essential capabilities – Architecture, Standards, Governance, and Talent & Culture:
Figure 1 – DoD Data Strategy Framework
McAfee Enterprise’s open architectural methodology emphasizes the efficiencies that cloud adoption and open frameworks can offer. The ability to leverage agile development and continuously adapt to dynamic mission requirements – faster than our adversaries – is a strategic advantage. Data protection and cloud posture, however, must not take a back seat to innovation.
The rapid pace of cloud adoption introduces new risks to the environment; misconfigurations and mistakes happen and are common. Vulnerabilities leave the environment exposed as DevOps tends to leverage open-source tools and capabilities. Agile development introduces a lot of moving parts as applications are updated and changed at an expedited pace and based on shorter, prescriptive measures. Customers also utilize multiple cloud service providers (CSP) to fit their mission needs, so consistent and uniform data management across all the multi-cloud services is a necessity. We are at a pivotal inflection point where native, built-in CSP protections have introduced too much complexity, overhead, and inconsistency. Our data security solution is a holistic, open platform that enforces standardized protections and visibility across the multi-cloud.
Together with our partners, we support the architecture requirements for data-centric organizations and take charge as the multi-cloud scales. Several items – visibility and control over the multi-cloud, device-to-cloud data protection, cloud posture, user behavior and insider threat – play into our strengths while organic partner integrations (e.g., ZTNA) further bolster the Zero Trust narrative and contribute to interoperability requirements. We are better together and can facilitate an open architecture to meet the demands of the mission.
DoD requires proven-at-scale methods for managing, representing, and sharing data of all types, and an open architecture should be used wherever possible to avoid stovepiped solutions and facilitate an interoperable security ecosystem. Past performance is key, and McAfee Enterprise has a long track record of delivering results, which is crucial as the DoD moves into a hybrid model of management.
Data comes in many forms, and the growth of telemetry architectures requires machines to do more with artificial intelligence and machine learning to make sense of data. How do we share indicators of compromise (IoCs) so multiple environments – internal and external – can leverage intelligence from other organizations? How do we share risks in multi-clouds and ensure data is secured in a uniform manner? How do we weaponize intelligence to shift “left of boom” and eliminate those post-compromise autopsies? Let’s explore how McAfee Enterprise supports data standards.
Made possible by Data Exchange Layer (DXL) and a strategic partner, the sharing of threat intelligence data has proven successful. Multiple environments participate in a security-connected ecosystem where an “attack against one is an attack against all” and advanced threats are detected, stopped, and participants are inoculated in near real-time. This same architecture scales to the hybrid cloud where the workloads in cloud environments can benefit from broad coverage.
Furthermore, DXL was built as open source to foster integrations and deliver cohesive partner solutions to promote interoperability and improve threat-informed intelligence. All capabilities speak the same language, tip and cue, and provide much greater return on investment. Consider the sharing of cloud-derived threats. No longer should we be limited to traditional hashes or IoCs. Perhaps we should share risky or malicious cloud services and/or insider threats. Maybe custom-developed solutions should leverage our MVISION platform via API to take advantage of the rich global telemetry and see what we see.
Our global telemetry is unmatched and can be leveraged to organizations’ advantage to proactively fortify the device-to-cloud environment, effectively shifting security to the “left” of impact. This is all done through the utilization of MVISION Insights. Automated posture assessments pinpoint where potential gaps in an organization’s countermeasures may exist and provide the means to take proactive action before it is hit. Through MVISION Insights, cyber operators can learn about active global campaigns, emerging threats, and whether an organization is in the path – or even the target. Leadership can grasp the all-important risk metric and deliver proof that the security investments are working and operational. Combined with native MITRE ATT&CK Framework mappings – an industry standard being mapped across our portfolio – this proactive hardening is a way we use threat telemetry to customers’ advantage.
Standardized data protection, end-to-end, across all devices and multi-cloud services is a key tenant of the DoD Data Strategy. Protecting data wherever it lives or moves, retaining it within set boundaries and making it available to approved users and devices only, and enforcing consistent controls from a single, comprehensive solution spanning the entire environment is the only data security approach. This is what Unified Cloud Edge (UCE) does. This platform’s converged approach is tailored to support DoD’s digital transformation to the multi-cloud and its journey to a data-centric enterprise.
DoD’s data governance element is comprised of the policies, procedures, frameworks, tools, and metrics to ensure data is managed at all levels, from when it is created to where it is stored. It encompasses increased data oversight at multiple levels and ensures that data will be integrated into future modernization initiatives. Many organizations tend to be driven by compliance requirements (which typically outweigh security innovation) unless there is an imminent mission need; we now have the compliance requirement. Customers will need to demonstrate a proper data protection and governance strategy as multi-cloud adoption matures. What better way to incorporate Zero Trust architectures than by leveraging UCE? Remember, this is beyond the software defined perimeter.
McAfee Enterprise can monitor, discover, and analyze all the cloud services leveraged by users – both approved and unapproved (Shadow IT) – and provide a holistic assessment. Closed loop remediation ensures organizations can take control and govern access to the unapproved or malicious services and use the information to lay the foundation for building effective data protection policies very relevant to mission needs.
Granular governance and control – application-level visibility – by authenticated users working within the various cloud services is just as important as controlling access to them. Tight API integrations with traditional SaaS services guarantee only permitted activities occur. With agile development on the rise, it is just as important that the solution is flexible to control these custom apps in the same way as any commercial cloud service. Legacy mission applications are being redesigned to take advantage of cloud scale and efficiency; McAfee Enterprise will not impose limits.
Governance over cloud posture is equally important, and customers need to ensure the multi-cloud environment is not introducing any additional source of risk. Most compromises are due to misconfigurations or mistakes that leave links, portals, or directories open to the public. We evaluate the multi-cloud against industry benchmarks and best practices, provide holistic risk scoring, and provide the means to remediate these findings to fortify an organization’s cloud infrastructure.
Unified data protection is our end goal; it is at the core of what we do and how we align to Zero Trust. Consistent protections and governance over data wherever it is created, wherever it goes, from device to multi-cloud. The same engine is shared across the environment and provides a single place for incidents and management across the enterprise. Customers can be confident that all data will be tracked and proper controls enforced wherever its destination may be.
Becoming a data-centric organization will require a cultural change. Decision-making capabilities will be empowered by data and analytics as opposed to experienced situations and scenarios (e.g., event response). Machine learning and artificial intelligence will continue to influence processes and procedures, and an open ecosystem is needed to facilitate effective collaboration. Capabilities designed to foster interoperability and collaboration will be the future. As more telemetry is obtained, solutions must support the SOC analyst with reduced noise and provide relevant, actionable data for swift decision-making.
At McAfee Enterprise, we hear this. UCE provides simplified management over the multi-cloud to ensure consistent and unified control over the environment and the data. No other vendor has the past performance at scale for hybrid, centralized management. MVISION Insights ensures that environments are fortified against emerging threats, allowing the cyber operators to focus on the security gaps that can leave an organization exposed. Threat intelligence sharing and an open architecture has been our priority over the past several years, and we will continue to enrich and strengthen that architecture through our platform approach. There is no silver bullet solution that will meet every mission requirement, but what we can collectively do is ensure we are united against our adversaries.
Data and Zero Trust will be at the forefront as we move forward into adopting cloud in the public sector. There is a better approach to security in this cloud-first world. It is a mindset change from the old perimeter-oriented view to an approach based on adaptive and dynamic trust and access controls. McAfee’s goal is to ensure that customers can support their mission objectives in a secure way, deliver new functionality, improved processes, and ultimately give better return on investments.
We are better together.
The post Data as a Strategic Asset – Securing the New Perimeter in the Public Sector appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Hyperautomation is a process where artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), event-driven software, and other tools are used to automate as many business and IT processes as possible. Forecasted by Gartner to reach $596.6 billion by 20221, hyperautomation and the global software market that enables it show no signs of slowing.
The myriad of technologies used by a typical organization often are not integrated and exist as siloed disparate tools. Hyperautomation aims to reduce this “organizational debt” to improve value and brand. In the context of cybersecurity, a patchwork of stovepipe solutions not only exposes the environment to risk, but also impacts the cyber defender’s ability to fortify the environment and respond to threats at machine speed. Our target is “shift-left” security — leveraging intelligence to enhance predictability and encourage proactive responses to cyber threats.
The rise of telemetry architectures, combined with cloud adoption and data as the “new perimeter,” pose new challenges to cybersecurity operations. Organizations will be forced to contend with increased “security debt” unless we figure out how to optimize, connect, and streamline the solutions. In some cases, we have technologies available to begin this journey (MVISION Insights, MVISION Extended Detection and Response (XDR), MVISION API). In others, our customers demand more. They challenge us to build next-generation platforms to see themselves, see their cyberspace, and understand their cyberspace. Some cyber defenders need more than traditional cyber threat intelligence telemetry to make critical operational impact decisions.
MVISION Insights and MVISION XDR are great starts. It all begins with the build-up of an appropriate telemetry architecture, and McAfee Enterprise’s billion-sensor global telemetry is unmatched. Insights provides an automated means to fortify the environment against emerging threats, weaponizing threat intelligence to take a proactive stance in reducing your attack surface from device to cloud. Why start engaging at an attack’s point of impact when an organization can begin its own awareness at the same point an attacker would? MVISION XDR brings together the fragmented security solutions accumulated over the years, sharing information and coordinating actions to deliver an effective, unified response across every threat vector. Workflows are effortless to orchestrate. The powerful combination of Insights and XDR provides management and visibility of the complete attack lifecycle. Open architectures reinforce our belief that we are better together and facilitate a cybersecurity ecosystem consistent with the concepts of hyperautomation enablement.
Figure 1 – Attack Lifecycle
Where can we go from here? How do we secure tomorrow? From my perspective, we should expand the definition and scope of cybersecurity.
The answer is to look beyond traditional cyber threat telemetry; external factors (environmental, social media, geolocation, law enforcement, etc.) truly matter and are vital in making business impact decisions. Complete operational visibility, and the ability to investigate, research, and rationalize what matters most to make accurate, critical judgments, is the missing link. This is a Cyber Common Operating Picture (COP). A natural extension of our current initiatives within the industry, a COP answers the growing need to provide an integrated cyber defender’s visualization workbench that manages multiple data telemetry sources (beyond cyber threats) and delivers our customers wisdom – a true understanding – regarding their cyberspace on a local, regional, and global scale.
Telemetry data represents change, and telemetry architectures will require new forms of advanced analytics, AI, and ML to make sense of the vast sea of all-source intelligence flowing in from the environment to enhance observations and take definitive action. If we can “shift-left” for cyber threats, we can leverage that same predictability to identify and prepare for the impact of peripheral threats. Open source, custom, and third-party data feeds are widely available and create integration opportunities with emerging markets and capabilities to solve unique challenges typically not associated with our platform:
Non-traditional sensor telemetry, a multitude of feeds, and threat intelligence must be overlayed across the Cyber COP to provide AI-driven predictability modeling for next-gen systems and actionable conclusions. This is a potential future for how hyperautomation can impact cybersecurity; this is orchestrating beyond standard capabilities and expanding the definition and scope of how our complex environments are secured. AI engineering strategies will continue to expand and deliver data analytics at machine speeds.
McAfee Enterprise has always been a proponent of a platform approach to cybersecurity, creating interoperability and extending the security investments its customers have made. Loosely coupled security systems introduce gaps, and hyperautomation aims to solve that at a much larger scale. As we look toward the future, we can collectively build the requirements for the next generation of security solutions and broaden the scope of how we defend against our common adversaries. I am confident that the technologies currently exist to provide the framework(s) of a COP solution for enhanced cyber situational awareness.
Source: 1Gartner Press Release: Gartner Forecasts Worldwide Hyperautomation-Enabling Software Market to Reach Nearly $600 Billion by 2022 (April 28, 2021)
The post Hyperautomation and Cybersecurity – A Platform Approach to Telemetry Architectures appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
The DotNet based CyaX-Sharp loader, also known as ReZer0, is known to spread commodity malware, such as AgentTesla. In recent years, this loader has been referenced numerous times, as it was used in campaigns across the globe. The tale of CyaX-Sharp is interesting, as the takeaways provide insight into the way actors prefer to use the loader. Additionally, it shines a light onto a spot that is not often illuminated: the inner workings of loaders.
This blog is split up into several segments, starting with a brief preface regarding the coverage of loaders in reports. After that, the origin of the loader’s name is explored. Next, the loader’s capabilities are discussed, as well as the automatic extraction of the embedded payload from the loader. Lastly, the bulk analysis of 513 unique loader samples is discussed.
To conceal the malware, actors often use a loader. The purpose of a loader is, as its name implies, to load and launch its payload, thereby starting the next stage in the process. There can be multiple loaders that are executed sequentially, much like a Russian Matryoshka doll in which the smallest doll, which is hidden inside numerous others, is the final payload. The “smallest doll” generally contains the malware’s main capabilities, such as stealing credentials, encrypting files, or providing remote access to the actor.
While there is a lot of research into the actions of the final payload, the earlier stages are just as interesting and relevant. Even though the earlier stages do not contain the capabilities of the malware that is eventually loaded, they provide insight as to what steps are taken to conceal the malware. Blogs generally mention the capabilities of a loader briefly, if at all. The downside here lies in the potential detection rules that others can create with the blog, as the focus is on the final step in the process, whereas the detection should start as soon as possible.
Per best security practices, organizations should protect themselves at every step along the way, rather than only focusing on the outside perimeter. These threat models are often referred to as the, respectively, onion and egg model. The egg’s hard shell is tough to break, but once inside, an attacker has free roam. The onion model opposes the attacker every step of the way, due to its layered approach. Knowing the behavior of the final payload is helpful to detect and block malware although, ideally, the malware would be detected as early on as possible.
This blog focuses on one specific loader family, but the takeaways are valid in a broader sense. The preferred configurations of the actors are useful to understand how loaders can be used in a variety of attacks.
A recent blog by G Data’s Karsten Hahn provides a more in-depth look into malware families ambiguous naming schemes. This loader’s name is also ambiguous, as it is known by several names. Samples are often named based on distinctive characteristics in them. The name CyaX-Sharp is based upon the recurring string in samples. This is, however, exactly why it was also named ReZer0.
When looking at the most used names within the 513 obtained samples, 92 use CyaX-Sharp, whereas 215 use ReZer0. This would make it likely that the loader would be dubbed ReZer0, rather than CyaX-Sharp. However, when looking at the sample names over time, as can be seen in the graph below, the reason why CyaX-Sharp was chosen becomes apparent: the name ReZer0 was only introduced 8 months after the first CyaX-Sharp sample was discovered. Based on this, McAfee refers to this loader as CyaX-Sharp.
Within the settings, one will find V2 or V4. This is not a reference of the loader’s version, but rather the targeted DotNet Framework version. Within the sample set, 62% of the samples are compiled to run on V4, leaving 38% to run on V2.
Each version of the loader contains all core capabilities, which may or may not be executed during runtime, based on the loader’s configuration. The raw configurations are stored in a string, using two pipes as the delimiting value. The string is then converted into a string array using said delimiter. Based on the values at specific indices, certain capabilities are enabled. The screenshots below show, respectively, the raw configuration value, and some of the used indices in a sample (SHA-256: a15be1bd758d3cb61928ced6cdb1b9fa39643d2db272909037d5426748f3e7a4).
The loader can delay its execution by sleeping for a certain number of seconds, use a mutex to ensure it is not already running, display a message box with a custom message, persist itself as a scheduled task, and/or execute a given payload in several ways. The payload can be downloaded from an external location, after which it is started. Alternatively, or additionally, the embedded payload within the loader can be launched. This can be done directly from the loader’s memory with the help of reflective calls, or by hollowing a newly created process. The flowchart below visualizes the process. Note that the dotted line means the linked step can be skipped, depending on the loader’s configuration.
The newly created process is one of the following: MSBuild.exe, vbc.exe, RegSvcs.exe, or a new instance of the loader. The process hollowing code segment seems to be taken from NYAN-x-CAT’s GitHub, as the for-loop to start the process hollowing method is present in both the loader and the linked repository. The way an error is handled is not a standardized method, making the link between the publicly available code very likely. The first image below shows the original code from the repository, whereas the second image shows the code from the loader (SHA-256: a15be1bd758d3cb61928ced6cdb1b9fa39643d2db272909037d5426748f3e7a4)
The loop calls the process hollowing function several times to more easily handle exceptions. In the case of an exception during the process hollowing, the targeted process is killed and the function returns. To try several times, a loop is used.
Even though the loader has changed over time, it maintained the same core structure. Later versions introduced minor changes to existing features. Below, different loader versions will be described, where the length of the string array that contains the loader’s configuration is used to identify different versions. The graph shows the rise and fall for each of the versions.
There are two notable differences in versions where the config array’s size is larger than 29. Some specific samples have slightly different code when compared with others, but I did not consider these differences sizable enough to warrant a new version.
Firstly, the ability to enable or disable the delayed execution of a sample. If enabled, the execution is delayed by sleeping for a predefined number of seconds. In config_29, the delay functionality is always enabled. The duration of the delay is based on the System.Random object, which is instantiated using the default seed. The given lower and upper limits are 45,000 and 60,000, resulting in a value between these limits, which equals in the number of milliseconds the execution should be delayed.
Secondly, the feature to display a custom message in a prompt has been added. The config file contains the message box’ title, text, button style, and icon style. Prompts can be used to display a fake error message to the victim, which will appear to be legitimate e.g. 43d334c125968f73b71f3e9f15f96911a94e590c80955e0612a297c4a792ca07, which uses “You do not have the proper software to view this document” as its message.
To automatically extract the payload and configuration of a given loader, one can recreate the decryption mechanism in a language of choice, get the encrypted data from the loader, and decrypt it. The downside here is the need for an exact copy of the decryption mechanism. If the key were to change, or a slightly different algorithm were to be used, the copy would also need to reflect those changes. To avoid dealing with the decryption method, a different approach can be taken.
This loader mistakenly uses static variables to store the decrypted payload and configuration in. In short, these variables are initialized prior to the execution of the main function of the loader. As such, it is possible to reflectively obtain the value of the two variables in question. A detailed how-to guide can be found on my personal website. The data that was extracted from the 513 samples in the set is discussed in the next section.
The complete set consists of 513 samples, all of which were found using a single Yara rule. The rule focuses on the embedded resource which is used to persist the loader as a scheduled task on the victim’s system. In some cases, the Yara rule will not match a sample, as the embedded resource is obfuscated using ConfuserEx (one example being SHA-256 0427ebb4d26dfc456351aab28040a244c883077145b7b529b93621636663a812). To deobfuscate, one can use ViRb3’s de4dot-cex fork of de4dot. The Yara rule will match with the deobfuscated binary. The graph below shows the number of unique samples over time.
The dates are based on VirusTotal’s first seen date. Granted, this date does not need to represent the day the malware was first distributed. However, when talking about commodity malware that is distributed in bulk, the date is reliable enough.
The sample set that was used is smaller than the total amount of loaders that have been used in the wild. This loader is often not the first stage, but rather an in-memory stage launched by another loader. Practically, the sample set is sizable enough for this research, but it should be noted that there are more unique loader samples in the wild for the given date range than are used in this report.
It is useful to know what the capabilities of a single sample are, but the main area of interest of this research is based upon the analysis of all samples in the set. Several features will be discussed, along with thoughts on them. In this section, all percentages refer to the total of 513 unless otherwise specified.
The loader’s usage is widespread, without a direct correlation towards a specific group or geographical region. Even though some reports mention a specific actor using or creating this loader, the fact that at least one builder has leaked makes attribution to one or more actors difficult. Coupled with the wide variety of targeted industries, as well as the broad geographic targeted areas, it looks like several actors utilise this loader. The goal of this research is not to dig into the actors who utilise this loader, but rather to look at the sample set in general. Appendix A provides a non-exhaustive list of public articles that (at least) mention this loader, in descending chronological order.
The two options to launch a payload, either reflectively or via process hollowing, are widely apart in usage: 90% of all loaders uses process hollowing, whereas only 10% of the samples are launched via reflection. Older versions of the loader sometimes used to reflectively load a decrypted stager from the loader’s resources, which would then launch the loader’s payload via process hollowing. The metrics below do not reflect this, meaning the actual percentage of direct launches might be slightly lower than is currently stated. The details can be viewed in the graph below.
Note that the reflective loading mechanism will default to the process hollowing of a new instance of the loader if any exception is thrown. Only DotNet based files can be loaded reflectively, meaning that other files that are executed this way will be loaded using a hollowed instance of the loader.
The persistence method, which uses a scheduled task to start the loader once the computer boots, is used by 54% of the loaders. This does not mean that the other 46% of the samples are not persisted on the victim’s machine, as a different stage could provide persistence as well. Notable is the date within the scheduled task, which equals 2014-10-25T14:27:44.8929027. This date is, at the time of writing, nearly 2500 days ago. If any of the systems in an organization encounter a scheduled task with this exact date, it is wise to verify its origin, as well as the executable that it points to.
A third of all loaders are configured to avoid running when an instance is already active using a mutex. Similar to the persistence mechanism, a mutex could be present in a different stage, though this is not necessarily the case. The observed mutexes seem to consist of only unaccented alphabetical letters, or [a-zA-Z]+ when written as a regular expression.
Delayed execution is used by nearly 37% of the samples, roughly half of which are config_29, meaning this setting was not configurable when creating the sample. The samples where the delayed execution was configurable, equal nearly 19% of the total. On average, a 4 second delay is used. The highest observed delay is 600 seconds. The graph below shows the duration of the delay, and the frequency.
Note that one loader was configured to have a delay of 0 seconds, essentially not delaying the execution. In most cases, the delayed time is a value that can be divided by five, which is often seen as a round number by humans.
Prior to launching the payload, the loader can perform several checks. A virtual environment can be detected, as well as a sandbox. Roughly 10% of the samples check for the presence of a virtual machine, whereas roughly 11% check if it is executed in a sandbox. Roughly 8% of the 513 samples check for the presence of both, prior to continuing their execution. In other words, 88% of the samples that try to detect a virtual machine, also attempted to detect a sandbox. Vice versa, 74% of the samples that attempted to detect the sandbox, attempted to detect if they were executed on a virtual machine.
The option to disable Windows Defender was mainly present in the earlier samples, which is why only 15% of the set attempts to disable it.
The loader’s final goal is to execute the next stage on the victim’s machine. Knowing what kind of malware families are often dropped can help to find the biggest pain points in your organization’s additional defensive measures. The chart below provides insight into the families that were observed the most. The segment named other contains all samples that would otherwise clutter the overview due to the few occurrences per family, such as the RedLine stealer, Azorult, or the lesser known MrFireMan keylogger.
The percentages in the graph are based on 447 total payloads, as 66 payloads were duplicates. In other words, 66 of the unique loaders dropped a non-unique payload. Of all families, AgentTesla is the most notable, both in terms of frequency and in terms of duplicate count. Of the 66 duplicates, 48 were related to AgentTesla.
Two functions of the loader that are barely used are the message box and the download of a remote payload. The usage of both is, respectively, 1.3% and 0.8%. All of the remote payloads also contained an embedded payload, although one of the four remotely fetching loaders does not contain a URL to download the remote payload from. The external file can be used as an additional module for a next stage, a separate malicious payload, or it can be used to disable certain defense mechanisms on the victim’s device.
Companies using the aforementioned onion security model benefit greatly from the dissection of such a loader, as their internal detection rules can be improved with the provided details. This stops the malware’s execution in its tracks, as is shown in the sequential diagram of McAfee’s detection below.
The techniques that this loader uses are commonly abused, meaning that the detection of a technique such as process hollowing will also prevent the successful execution of numerous other malware families. McAfee’s Endpoint Security (ENS) and Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR) detect the CyaX-Sharp loader every step of the way, including the common techniques it uses. As such, customers are protected against a multitude of families based on a program’s heuristics.
Below, a non-exhaustive chronologically descending list of relevant articles is given. Some articles contain information on the targeted industries and/or target geographical area.
The hashes that are mentioned in this blog are listed below, in order of occurrence. The SHA-1 and SSDeep hashes are also included. A full list of hashes for all 513 samples and their payloads can be found here.
Sample 1
SHA-256: a15be1bd758d3cb61928ced6cdb1b9fa39643d2db272909037d5426748f3e7a4
SHA-1: 14b1a50c94c2751901f0584ec9953277c91c8fff
SSDeep: 12288:sT2BzlxlBrB7d1THL1KEZ0M4p+b6m0yn1MX8Xs1ax+XdjD3ka:O2zBrB7dlHxv0M4p+b50yn6MXsSovUa
Sample 2
SHA-256: 43d334c125968f73b71f3e9f15f96911a94e590c80955e0612a297c4a792ca07
SHA-1: d6dae3588a2a6ff124f693d9e23393c1c6bcef05
SSDeep: 24576:EyOxMKD09DLjhXKCfJIS7fGVZsjUDoX4h/Xh6EkRlVMd3P4eEL8PrZzgo0AqKx/6:EyycPJvTGVijUDlhfEEIUvEL8PrZx0AQ
Sample 3
SHA-256: 0427ebb4d26dfc456351aab28040a244c883077145b7b529b93621636663a812
SHA-1: 8d0bfb0026505e551a1d9e7409d01f42e7c8bf40
SSDeep: 12288:pOIcEfbJ4Fg9ELYTd24xkODnya1QFHWV5zSVPjgXSGHmI:EEj9E/va
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In the last week there has been change, but a lot remains the same, too. First, we are now McAfee Enterprise, a pure-play enterprise cybersecurity company under the new ownership of Symphony Technology Group (STG). It’s an exciting change and true focus for our company, allowing us to concentrate on enterprise and commercial business needs. Our partners are an important part of our journey, and together we are excited to continue to win and drive success.
As we start this chapter as a pure-play enterprise security company, my focus is on adding value for our partners at all levels, ensuring our joint customers understand the power of our technology portfolio, and driving profitability and growth through better cybersecurity outcomes for our customers.
Our strategy continues to be Channel First, and we have worked to create continuity in all that we do for our channel partners and customers through the transition. That means our operations as a company will remain very much the same, so there will be no new systems or tools to learn, and our partners will continue to receive the same program benefits. At the same time, we will continue to evaluate and enhance program benefits, enablement and sales engagement.
We look forward to embarking on this journey with our partners as McAfee Enterprise. Our vision cannot be achieved without our partners’ trust and confidence in us.
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McAfee Enterprise is pleased to announce that the Network Security Platform (NSP), our industry leading next-gen Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) solution, has been awarded Miercom Certified Secure for superior security and performance.
Miercom has been reviewing network products for over 30 years, forming standardized test programs that have grown into a worldwide evaluation service for the latest technology. Miercom has published hundreds of network product analyses in leading trade periodicals and other publications, thus gaining the reputation of being a leading, independent product test center.
The NSP Next Generation Intrusion Prevention System (NGIPS) solution was independently assessed by Miercom engineers for security, performance, and hands-on use to provide unbiased verification of McAfee Enterprise’s unique qualities. The NGIPS solution was deployed in a real-world environment and subject to performance tests, multiple iterations of attacks from Miercom’s proprietary malware suite, and exploits from Ixia BreakingPoint and other test tools.
Figure 1. Test Bed Diagram
Figure 2. Test Tools
NSP demonstrated security effectiveness in the attack lifecycle detection and protection through its efficient signature engine along with multiple advanced signature-less detection technologies, including file analysis, protocol behavior analysis, and network behavior analysis. The results not only showed NSP continued to hold the highest standard in exploit prevention capability, but also proved its advantage in zero-day malware and malicious URL protection compared to other IPS solutions in the market.
“Based on our findings, the McAfee Network Security Platform with NS9500 sensors demonstrates competitively superior security and performance. The McAfee solution was stressed under real-world known and not yet discovered exploits and heavily loaded conditions and passed these tests with ease. McAfee Network Security Platform has rightfully earned the distinction as Miercom Certified Secure.” – Rob Smithers, CEO, Miercom
McAfee Enterprise’s new appliance offerings, NS9500 and NS7500, are scalable hardware platforms that provide investment protection. They offer multiple throughput options with the inspection throughput being controlled by a software license. This provides customers the flexibility to only buy capacity that is needed, and easily scale inspection throughput as needs increase via a software upgrade license and/or by stacking appliances. The appliances are purpose-built for line speed DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) and its efficient architecture preserves performance regardless of security settings unlike other IPS offerings in the market.
To download a copy of the report, please visit McAfee.com/nsp-Miercom
To learn more about McAfee NSP, please visit McAfee.com/nsp
To learn more about Miercom, please visit https://Miercom.com
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If you are part of an organization aspiring to evolve and modernize your SecOps practice with greater efficiencies with XDR, this read is for you.
So, what’s all the continuous hype about XDR? Is it for you and what does it mean to your organization? If you haven’t already, I invite you to read our XDR—Please Explain and Unravel to XDR Noise blogs for added context. From here we can begin to ask, what are XDRs and what are they not? What happens once you acquire components that add the “X-factor” to your threat detection and response (TDR) practice? And how can SOC teams use it for investigation, prioritization, remediation and hunting?
I’ll cover the basics in this blog and hopefully by the end I’ve piqued your interest enough to watch our on-demand webinar where we will cover these aspects in detail.
For security practitioners, there’s one question that is top of mind—am I protected against the latest threats? But let’s face it, threats are evolving, adversaries are evolving too and a shortage of talent make it near impossible to keep up with alerts.
In fact, according to the latest XDR research by ESG, The Impact of XDR in the Modern SOC March 2021 [1], the top challenges related to TDR for respondents were:
Advanced threats are now commonplace, challenging most security professionals to detect and respond before damage is done, we know that these attacks leverage multiple attack vectors to gain a foothold and execute. XDR solutions bring together security telemetry across multiple controls, correlating and stitching together complex attacks so analyst can quickly assess and investigate. XDR is seen as having the potential to modernize the SOC with enriched and aggregated security analytics capabilities to accelerate the investigation to a resolution.
What’s more, McAfee Enterprise is here to help you evolve your SecOps practice into the next era of security analytics, threat detection and response. McAfee’s MVISION XDR tools provide visibility across multiple control points to not only detect threats but to help organizations improve their security posture. In addition, MVISION Insights provides relevant threat intel to help customers proactively prevent threats on multiple control points like endpoint.
We invite view our on-demand webinar with Mo Cashman, Enterprise Architect at McAfee Enterprise, and Dave Gruber, Senior Analyst at ESG, as they cover what XDRs are and aren’t, the keys to SOC modernization for XDR with a focus on the SOAPA approach to security, and how McAfee’s MVISION XDR lays out the flexible groundwork for organizations aspiring to evolve with XDR. Here is the link to watch.
Whether you are building a SOC function with limited resources or maturing a well-established SOC, McAfee Enterprise is here to help you simplify and strengthen your security operations with MVISION XDR. With MVISION XDR, you can proactively identify, investigate and mitigate threat actors targeting your organization before they can gain a foothold in the network. By combining the latest machine-learning techniques with human analysis, XDR connects and amplifies the early warning signals from your sensors at the network, endpoint, and cloud to improve situational awareness, drive better and faster decisions, and elevate your SOC. [2]
1 – ESG Research Report: The Impact of XDR in the Modern SOC by Jon Oltsik
2 – Cyber Cyber, Burning Bright: Can XDR Frame Thy Fearful Asymmetry?
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This is the third in a series of blogs on the Cybersecurity EO, and I encourage you to read those you may have missed. (Part 1, Part 2).
Between the initial publication of the Executive Order (EO) for Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity on May 12 and late July, a flurry of activity by departments and agencies continues to occur on how best to understand and address potential security gaps. Once identified, these analyses will facilitate plans to fulfill the requirements and further augment agencies’ existing preventative measures to improve their cybersecurity posture. Due to numerous far-reaching cybersecurity breaches that have occurred throughout the past year, one of the primary areas of emphasis in the Executive Order is enhancing the Federal Government’s ability to be more proactive in detecting vulnerabilities and preventing cybersecurity incidents throughout an agency’s network. By introducing an Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solution into an enterprise environment, the Government will be able to empower agency SOC teams to engage in active cyber hunting, containment, remediation, and incident response activities more universally.
The potential loss and impact of a cyberattack is no longer constrained to a single silo within an agency’s network or a small subset of devices. It can quickly escalate and impact the mission of an agency in seconds. That is why the Executive Order states it is crucial a government-wide initiative is undertaken to begin to get ahead of malicious actors by developing a comprehensive security strategy to prevent attacks before they happen.
Many cyberthreats use multiple attack mechanisms, requiring a different approach to keep our enterprises secure from malicious actors. Endpoint protection platforms still play a critical role in defending agency assets, but they are only one component of a multilayered approach to a robust cybersecurity strategy. Fortunately, McAfee Enterprise’s endpoint protection platform offers a threat detection capability that allows incorporating a next-generation solution (EDR) to track down potential threats if they break through the first layer of countermeasures.
By incorporating endpoint detection and response (EDR), organizations have granular control and visibility into their endpoints to detect suspicious activity. As a cloud service, EDR can incorporate new features and services in much more agile fashion than other solutions. MVISION EDR can discover and block threats in the pre-execution stage, investigate threats through analytics, and help provide an incident response plan. Additionally, by leveraging AI and machine learning to automate the steps in an investigative process, more experienced threat hunters can focus on in-depth analysis of sophisticated attacks, and other members of the SOC team can discover key findings to triage potential threats much faster and with less experience. These new capabilities can learn an agency’s baseline behaviors and use this information, along with a variety of other threat intelligence sources, to interpret findings.
As the attack surface continues to evolve, a far more holistic approach to detection is needed. Although EDR is crucial to surfacing anomalous threats and malicious behavior for workstations, servers, and cloud workloads, their area of influence is confined to the telemetry provided by the endpoint. Realizing EDR is network blind and SIEM is endpoint blind, we integrated McAfee Enterprise EDR and SIEM technologies to enrich investigations. Still, more telemetry sources are needed to reveal all potential threat vectors an enterprise may encounter. This is where Extended Detection and Response (XDR) comes in, supporting agencies in a journey beyond the endpoint and allowing them to close even more gaps.
XDR isn’t a single product or solution but rather a journey, as it refers to compiling multiple security products and technologies that comprise a unified platform. An XDR approach will shift processes and likely merge and encourage tighter coordination between different functions like SOC analysts, hunters, incident responders and IT administrators.
SIEMs are largely data-driven, meaning they need data definitions, custom parsing rules and pre-built content packs to retrospectively provide context based on the data they have ingested. In contrast, XDR is hypothesis driven, harnessing the power of machine learning and artificial intelligence engines to analyze high-fidelity threat data from a multitude of sources across the environment to support specific lines of investigation mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK framework.
Technically speaking, an XDR is a converged platform leveraging a common taxonomy and unifying language. An effective XDR must bring together numerous heterogeneous signals and return a homogenous visual and analytical representation. XDR must clearly show the potential security correlations that the SOC should focus on. Such a solution would de-duplicate information on one hand, but would emphasize the truly high-risk attacks, while filtering out the mountains of noise. The desired outcome would not require excessive amounts of repetitive manual work. Instead, it would allow SOC teams to focus on leading investigations and mitigating attacks. XDR’s presentation of data would be aware of context and content, be advanced technologically, yet be simple enough for analysts to understand and act upon.
As many organizations begin to adopt EDR solutions with the capability to embrace XDR, they also must consider how these solutions enable them to migrate toward a Zero Trust architecture. The wealth of information that will be available in a platform capable of distilling threat telemetry not only from endpoints, the networks they are accessing, and the cloud services they consume will create real advantages. It will greatly improve the granularity, flexibility, and accuracy of the policy engines granting access to enterprise resources and using that degree of trust to determine how much access is granted within the application.
The ideal solution must provide enhanced detection and response capabilities across endpoints, networks, and cloud infrastructures. It needs to prioritize and predict threats that matter before the attack and prescribe necessary countermeasures allowing the organization to proactively harden their environment. The ideal solution also must incorporate Zero Trust, and it should be built on an open security ecosystem.
McAfee Enterprise recognized early on that a multi-vendor security ecosystem is a key requirement to building a defense in depth security practice. One of the key building blocks was the Data Exchange Layer (DXL), which was subsequently made available as an open-source project (OpenDXL) for the community to further develop innovative use cases. This enabled our diverse ecosystem of partners from threat intelligence platforms to orchestration tools to use a common transport mechanism and information exchange protocol, thereby encouraging participating vendors to not only communicate vital threat details but also inform them of actions that all connected security solutions should take.
When you combine XDR and an open security ecosystem for XDR capabilities, agencies will have a solid foundation to advance their visibility and detection capabilities across their entire cyber infrastructure.
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This month’s Patch Tuesday brings us a relatively small number of CVEs being patched, but an abnormally high percentage of noteworthy critical vulnerabilities.
One such vulnerability is identified as CVE-2021-34535, which is a remote code execution flaw in the Remote Desktop client software, observed in mstscax.dll, which is used by Microsoft’s built-in RDP client (mstsc.exe). The vulnerability is very closely related to a bug released in July of 2020, CVE-2020-1374, which also came through Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday process and had highly similar characteristics. The vulnerability is an integer overflow due to an attacker-controllable payload size field, which ultimately leads to a heap buffer overflow during memory allocation. The vulnerability can be triggered via the RDP Video Redirection Virtual Channel Extension feature [MS-RDPEV], which is typically deployed on port 3389, and is contained inside of compressed UDP payload and encrypted RDP using TLS.
But does this flaw, despite its impressive 9.9 CVSS score, rise to the level of past RDP vulnerabilities, including the infamous BlueKeep (CVE-2019-0708)? Not so fast – there are a few additional factors to take into consideration.
First and foremost, this is a client-side vulnerability, meaning there is no real ability for self-propagation, or “wormability” from an Internet perspective. The most likely attack scenario would be to convince a user to authenticate to a malicious RDP server, where the server could trigger the bug on the client side. During reproduction of the issue, we were able to easily trigger the crash and observe a later memcpy using the controlled overflow, which should facilitate exploitation. We think it is likely that exploits will be developed for this vulnerability but the availability of a patch prior to any known public exploitation helps to mitigate risks for organizations and individuals.
Secondly, thanks to the widespread proliferation and reach of BlueKeep and other related RDP vulnerabilities, a significant portion of RDP clients and servers have been disabled or moved from the network perimeter. This is less important given the client-side nature of the bug but does help with the overall attack surface.
In addition to Microsoft’s built-in RDP client (mstsc.exe), which is the more common Remote Desktop network connection, we have also confirmed that some lesser- known RDP vectors are affected by this vulnerability. Microsoft Hyper-V Manager “Enhanced Session Mode” and Microsoft Defender’s Application Guard (WDAG) both use RDP to screen share and present the secured browser respectively. This gives the end user a remote view of their isolated instance in the context of the host system. Rather than reimplementing the RDP session sharing capability, Microsoft ported the existing RDP client code base into Hyper-V and WDAG. Since the RDP client code is self-contained in mstscax.dll (an ActiveX COM object) it can simply be loaded into the Hyper-V (vmconnect.exe) and WDAG (hvsirdpclient.exe) processes to avail of the RDP client functionality. There does not appear to have been any attack surface reduction on this code base as the same DLL is loaded within all three processes mstsc.exe, vmconnect.exe and hvsirdpclient.exe. The impacted components are:
Mitigation: Patch
Mitigation: Patch or disable “Enhanced Session Mode”
The built-in RDP client and Hyper-V/WDAG clients communicate over different transport mediums in the form of TCP/IP and VMBus but they both use the same RDP client protocol implementation. Given that the flaw is contained within mstscax.dll, and is self-contained, the vulnerability was ported to these two implementations along with the rest of the code base.
While the urgency for patching remains somewhat lower than past critical vulnerabilities, threat actors will look to weaponize any of these low-hanging fruit that leverage common network protocols. Patching should be a top priority, and furthermore, a comprehensive and ongoing review of internet-facing and internal networked RDP clients and servers would be highly recommended. Eliminating or reducing the attack surface is one of the best counter attacks to vulnerability exploitation.
Microsoft have published a Knowledge Base article for the issue here with corresponding patch information. In the meantime, we are continuing to monitor this vulnerability closely; if exploitation is observed we may release additional content for customers.
For RDP security best practices please see https://www.mcafee.com/blogs/other-blogs/mcafee-labs/rdp-security-explained/
With thanks to Cedric Cochin, McAfee.
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As outlined in Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity (EO 14028), Section 3: Modernizing Federal Government Cybersecurity, CISA has been tasked with developing a Federal cloud-security strategy to aid agencies in the adoption of a Zero Trust Architecture to meet the EO Requirements. While the government awaits the completion of that effort, I think it’s important to look at the two government reference architectures that have already been published, as they will undoubtedly be considered in the development of CISA’s cloud-security strategy. Both NIST (800-207) and DoD (Version 1.0) have released Zero Trust reference architectures. Both define a Zero Trust telemetry architecture informed by security sensors to dynamically evaluate device and user trust and automatically change access permissions with changes in entity trust. They each accomplish the same goal, even if they take slightly different paths to get there.
Whereas the DoD architecture establishes control planes that each have their own decision point, with data given its own decision point, NIST takes a broader approach to Zero Trust and emphasizes Zero Trust in relation to all resources, not just data. The data control plane within the DoD architecture encompasses data processing resources and applies data-specific context to them. As most networks, applications, storage and services exist to process and store data, it makes sense that access to these resources should be specific to the data contained within them, and not just the access to the resources themselves. Protecting data is central to Zero Trust, and the DoD’s architecture acknowledges this.
Today, most Zero Trust efforts seem to focus on defending the applications, networks and services that contain the data but fall short of building data specific protections. And while protecting network, application, and service resources is certainly important and essential to layered protections, improving protection around the data is imperative to successfully adopt Zero Trust architecture. People with alarm systems on their homes still lock up valuables in a safe to guard against failures in controls, or less than trustworthy house guests and hired workers.
The DoD puts data at the center of its reference architecture. User and entity trust is assessed in relation to the data being accessed, and permission levels are dynamically changed specific to individual data resources. If Zero Trust operates under the assumption that networks and applications are already compromised, then the only logical way to successfully implement Zero Trust is to combine network, application, and service access technologies with a comprehensive data protection platform. In a well-designed Zero Trust architecture, a comprehensive data protection platform serves not only to protect data, but also as a means to inform the analytics layer of potentially malicious insiders or compromised user accounts in order to automatically trigger changes in access permissions.
Imagine a very simple scenario where an organization has classified specific types of data and implemented controls to protect the data. Jane is a contractor, who, because of her contract function, was vetted and cleared for access to critical applications and controlled unclassified data. Jane has a government-issued laptop with data protection software, and she has access to government cloud applications like Office 365 that are protected and governed by the agencies’ CASB solution. Unfortunately, Jane has been having well disguised and undisclosed financial troubles, which have put her in a compromised situation. In order to try to get herself out of it, she has agreed to act as an insider. Jane initially attempts to send sensitive data to herself through her Office 365 email, but the attempt is blocked by the CASB. She then attempts to share the records from SharePoint to an untrusted email domain and again is blocked by the CASB and reported to security. Desperate, she tries to move the data to an external hard drive, and yet again she is blocked. At this point, Jane gives up and realizes the data is well protected.
On the backend of this scenario, each one of these attempts is logged as an incident and reported. These incidents now inform a Zero Trust dynamic access control layer, which determines that Jane’s trust level has changed, resulting in an automatic change to her user access policies and a Security Operations alert. This is one very basic example of how a data protection platform can inform and affect user trust.
Effectively architecting a comprehensive data protection platform requires a multi-vector and integrated approach. The platform should be a combination of control points that leverage a common classification mechanism and a common incident management workflow. Data protection enforcement should facilitate enforcement controls across managed hosts, networks, SaaS, and IaaS resources, and whenever possible restrict sensitive data from being placed into areas where there are no controls.
McAfee enables this today through a Unified DLP approach that combines:
This comprehensive approach enables data protection policies to follow the data throughout the managed environment, ensuring that enterprise data is protected at rest, in transit, and in use. Within the platform, user trust is evaluated conditionally based on policy at each enforcement point, and any change to a user’s group through the Zero Trust architecture automatically modifies policies within the data protection platform.
Data protection has long been a challenge for every enterprise. Successful implementation of data protection technologies requires a programmatic effort that includes data owners to accurately and successfully identify and build protections around sensitive information. If not implemented properly, data protection opens the door to user disruptions that many organizations have very little tolerance for. That’s why so many organizations focus their efforts on improving perimeter and access protections. Adversaries know this, which is why compromising user credentials or the supply chain to gain access remains a highly leveraged entry point for threat actors, because perimeter and access control protections fail to guard against people already inside the network with appropriate access. As enterprises plan for Zero Trust architectures, data protection has to take center stage.
By mandating that agencies quantify the type and sensitivity of their unclassified data, the EO appears to be steering Executive Branch agencies down the path of data centricity. The Executive Order focuses on improving the adoption of encryption best practices around data and implementing multifactor authentication in an effort to protect access to sensitive data from malicious outsiders. It falls short, however, of encouraging broad adoption of data loss prevention architectures to protect against accidental and malicious data leakage.
CISA has an opportunity to prioritize data as an enterprise’s central resource in their upcoming cloud-security strategy, which will drive agency adoption of Zero Trust Architecture. They should take this opportunity to emphasize the importance of designing a comprehensive data protection platform to serve as both a trust identifier and a mechanism of protection.
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Now that we’ve officially kicked off our journey as McAfee Enterprise, a pure-play enterprise cybersecurity company under the new ownership of Symphony Technology Group (STG), we’re celebrating a lot of new firsts and changes. But one thing remains the same: our passion and commitment to make the world a safer, more secure place. And that passion starts with our people. In this new blog series, you’ll meet some of the executives devoted to tackling today’s most pressing security concerns and innovating for the future.
Q: How did you come into this field of work? |
I didn’t start out in information technology, I graduated from college with a degree in physics at the end of the Cold War. At the time, all the physics jobs had evaporated, so I started out as an intern in programming at EDS. I did that for a few years and then went into management. I eventually became a CTO and then a CIO.
When I was a CIO, I learned that I really didn’t know much about information security, and it was hindering me in the CIO role. My next job was a director of information security at a financial services company, and I never looked back. I found that I had a passion for information security and have been the CISO at two different Fortune 500 companies. My current role as CIO for a company that creates enterprise cybersecurity software is a perfect marriage of both skill sets.
Q: With cybersecurity and AI capabilities expanding at a rapid pace, what will the future look like for companies like McAfee Enterprise in the coming years? |
I think our products like Insights and MVISION XDR are going to change the way we think about security. We have always relied on “after-the-fact” data as opposed to proactively looking at our environment. The days of looking at packet capture and syslogs as our primary defense method are behind us. While they are great for those “after-the-fact” forensic studies, they really don’t do much to proactively defend your enterprise.
Understanding user and device behavior and being able to spot anomalies is the future. Information security leaders need to stop having a negative reaction to new technology and instead embrace it. I also believe blockchain will likely be a good solution for IoT identity and machine learning will take over for the SEIM. You will start to see our tools evolving to meet these new challenges and paradigms.
Q: Since joining the company just over a year ago, how do you feel you’ve been able to help the company grow since last year and the impact you’ve had in your role? |
My team has done a very good job in leading the charge to the cloud while at the same time reducing costs. But we are just at the beginning of the journey, and have a long way to go.
We have also challenged our lack of standards and formed the Enterprise Architecture team to drive these patterns into the organization. As Hamlet said, we must suffer “the slings and arrow of outrageous fortune” for trying to drive that change, but I have been impressed by the dedication of members of our Technology Services team. Our security team has worked in lock step with the rest of the organization to drive our outward facing security vulnerabilities down to zero. That is not where we were when I arrived, but the team took a measured approach to dramatically improve our security posture.
I also enjoy spending time with the sales organization and helping them in supporting our customers. After being in the CISO role for over 12 years, I understand how difficult the role can be. I like to help our sales team understand what pain CISOs are experiencing and how our products can help.
Q: How do you hope to impact change in cybersecurity? |
I have been involved in the clean-up of two major breaches. While it is easy to get caught up in the numbers of records lost or how the breach will affect the organization’s stock price, there is a very human cost. Many security or IT leaders lose their job after a breach where stolen records are used to commit identity theft which is very painful to reconcile if you are victim, as we have seen in some of the ransomware attacks on healthcare systems that may have led to the death of patients. The great thing about being a leader in cybersecurity is that you feel you are doing something for the good of the public.
My teams have worked closely with various law enforcement agencies and have caught attackers. There is no better feeling than knowing you have taken down a criminal. I personally want to look back on my career and believe the field of cybersecurity is in a better place than when I started and that the company I work for played a major role in that change.
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As part of our continued goal to provide safer products for enterprises and consumers, we at McAfee Advanced Threat Research (ATR) recently investigated the B. Braun Infusomat Space Large Volume Pump along with the B. Braun SpaceStation, which are designed for use in both adult and pediatric medical facilities. This research was done with support from Culinda – a trusted leader in the medical cyber-security space. Though this partnership, our research led us to discover five previously unreported vulnerabilities in the medical system which include:
Together, these vulnerabilities could be used by a malicious actor to modify a pump’s configuration while the pump is in standby mode, resulting in an unexpected dose of medication being delivered to a patient on its next use – all with zero authentication.
Per McAfee’s vulnerability disclosure policy, we reported our initial findings to B. Braun on January 11, 2021. Shortly thereafter, they responded and began an ongoing dialogue with ATR while they worked to adopt the mitigations we outlined in our disclosure report.
This paper is intended to bring an overview and some technical detail of the most critical attack chain along with addressing unique challenges faced by the medical industry. For a brief overview please see our summary blog here.
The most important part of any product assessment is a solid understanding of the purpose and function of the product under test. Without this it is simply too easy for research to produce less than meaningful results. Therefore, for this research it is first important to answer these few simple questions. What are infusion pumps? What security research has already been performed?
To start with the basics using a trusted resource – fda.gov says “An infusion pump is a medical device that delivers fluids, such as nutrients and medications, into a patient’s body in controlled amounts.” The FDA goes on to explain they are typically used by a “trained user who programs the rate and duration”. Infusion pumps can be simple, administering a single intravenous (IV) medication in the home setting, or complex, delivering multiple medications simultaneously in the ICU setting. From the 1960’s to 2000 infusion pumps were mostly electromechanical devices with some embedded electronics, but the turn of the century delivered “smarter” devices with better safety mechanisms and the possibility to program them, which slowly opened the door to information security challenges. Cross referencing the specific product we have chosen to look at, the Infusomat® Space® Large Volume Pump (Figure 1), we see that this pump is meant only for a medical setting and not designed for a home user. Infusion pumps exist mostly to remove the need to perform manual infusion, which requires dose conversion into drops per minute and visually counting drops to set a rate which is both time consuming and unreliable. It is estimated that there are over 200 million IV infusions administered globally each year, and 2020 sales of IV pumps in the US were at $13.5 billion. Clearly infusion pumps have cemented their place in the medical world.
Figure 1: B. Braun Infusomat Pump
Since infusion pumps are such a large part of the medical field and there are several different types, it is reasonable to expect our team is not the first to inquire about their security. As expected, there have been many different research projects on infusion pumps over the years. Perhaps the most well-known research was presented in 2018 at Blackhat by Billy Rios and Johnathan Butts. The infusion pump portion of their research was focused on the Medtronic insulin pumps. They found they were able to remotely dose a patient with extra insulin due to cleartext traffic and the ability to issue a replay attack. Even earlier, in 2015 research was published on the Hospira Symbiq Infusion Pump showing that it was possible to modify drug library files and raise dose limits through “unanticipated operations”, although authentication was required.
Of course, for our purpose, the most important question remains – is there any previous research performed on our specific device. Initially the answer was no; however, during our research project a very large study, ManiMed, was released under the aegis of German authorities to examine the security of network-connected medical devices produced or in use in their country. This included research done on the B. Braun Infusomat pump. This is a fantastic piece of work which covers many network-connected devices. We will reference this study and talk about their findings where appropriate throughout this document, as we additionally explore our enhancements to this research and demonstrate a new attack that was previously called impossible.
If we consider the Background section earlier, it becomes apparent there is still a large amount of critical research to be performed in this space. Infusion pumps are a prominent and continuously developing area within the medical device space, where previous research has only scratched the surface. Due to the potential critical impact and the state of medical device security, many previous projects didn’t need to dig very deep to find security issues or concerns. The infusion pump industry has numerous devices which have not been researched publicly at all, and even more that only received a cursory analysis from the information security community. For these reasons, we decided to have an in-depth look at one of the largest infusion pumps vendors, B. Braun, and specifically focus on one of their devices used worldwide to analyze it at a depth never seen before. Tackling every aspect of this pump, we wanted to answer the basic question: In a realistic scenario, leveraging original security vulnerabilities, could a malicious attacker impact human life?
For this research project our system consisted of three main components– a B. Braun Infusomat Large Volume Pump Model 871305U (the actual infusion pump), a SpaceStation Model 8713142U (a docking station holding up to 4 pumps) and a software component called SpaceCom version 012U000050. These models and the corresponding software for the B. Braun Infusomat system were released in 2017. In industries such as consumer electronics, this would be considered obsolete and therefore less relevant to research. However, as discussed above, in the medical field this is simply not the case. Since older devices are still widely used and perhaps originally developed with a less emphasis on security, it increases the importance of investigating them. For due diligence, we consulted and confirmed with our industry partners that this specific model was still actively being used in hospital systems across the country.
SpaceCom is an embedded Linux system that can run either on the pump from within its smart-battery pack or from inside the SpaceStation. However, when the pump is plugged into the SpaceStation, the pump’s SpaceCom gets disabled. We performed most of our research with the pump attached to the SpaceStation as we found this was the most common use case. If a SpaceStation was compromised, it could potentially affect multiple pumps at once. SpaceCom acts as the external communication module for the system and is separated from the pump’s internal operations, regardless of where it is running from.
If we consider the pump attached to the SpaceStation as one system, it has three separate operating systems running on three distinct chipsets. SpaceCom running on the SpaceStation runs a standard version of Linux on a PowerPC chipset. The WIFI module for the SpaceStation also runs a standard version of Linux on an ARM chipset and communicates over a PCI bus with SpaceCom. Lastly, the pump runs its own custom Real Time Operating System (RTOS) and firmware on a M32C microcontroller. An additional microcontroller is used to monitor the M32C microcontroller, but this goes beyond the scope of our research. Due to this modular and isolated design, the Spacecom communication module and the pump need a dedicated path for exchanging data. This is resolved via a CAN bus, shared throughout the SpaceStation, where it allows pumps and accessories to communicate with each other. This is what SpaceCom and any pump docked into the Space Station rely on for their exchange. An architecture diagram below helps demonstrates the system layout and design when a pump is present in the docking station.
Figure 2: System Architecture
SpaceCom contains many different pieces of propriety software and applications to support the many functions of the larger B. Braun and medical facility ecosystem. Our team spent time analyzing each one in great detail; however, for the purpose of this paper we will only touch on key components which are important to the most critical findings mention in the opening summary.
An important function of SpaceCom is to be able to update the drug library and pump configuration stored on the pump. The drug library contains information such as ward and department, a list of pre-configured drugs with their default concentrations, information messages to be printed on the screen when selected, and more importantly, soft, and hard limits to prevent medication error. One of the biggest selling points of the smart infusion pumps is their ability to prevent incorrect dosing of drugs, which is partly done through the limits in the drug library. Another risk the drug library helps mitigate is human error. By having the most common dosage and infusion lengths preprogrammed into the pump, it eliminates errors associated with rate calculations, and drop counting previously mentioned, associated with manual infusion therapy.
The pump RTOS contains a database of over 1500 key/value pairs used during operation. This data consists of everything from status about current components, battery life, motor speed, alarms and values used for tube calibration. As such, this data would be considered extremely sensitive in the context of the pump’s operation and is not intended to have direct user interaction, nor is it presented to the user. A subset of the keys can be indirectly modified via a dedicated servicing software by certified technicians.
To interact with both the drug library and pump configuration on the pump from SpaceCom, a propriety binary called PCS is used. The PCS binary uses the canon binary to interface with the CAN bus to send commands to the pump’s system for both reading and writing values based on the drug library or pump configuration provided to it. The main interface to accomplish this task is via a propriety TCP networking protocol, which by default is sent over port 1500. This protocol is both unauthenticated and unencrypted and we relied heavily on these weaknesses for our research and attacks. Additionally, this resulted in the filing of CVE-2021-33882 and CVE-2021-33883 as stated in the overview above.
What could be the goal of a malicious attacker? Realistically speaking, most attacks have been proven to be financially motivated. When translating this to our infusion pump, the question becomes: What would medical executives, without hesitation, pay large sums of money for? If we look at recent events, in May of 2021, Colonial Pipeline paid hackers 4.4 million dollars to get their oil pipeline running again from ransomware attacks. Attacks on healthcare settings are increasing with the FBI estimating a cyberattack using “Ryuk” ransomware took in $61 million over a 21-month period in 2018 and 2019. Attacks are now showing potential for patient harm with one example beginning on October 28th, 2020. The University of Vermont Health Network was part of a larger coordinated attack on multiple US healthcare which resulted in a complete loss of their electronic medical record system for weeks. The results of the ransomware-based attack led to 75% of active chemotherapy patients being turned away, rerouting of ambulances, and delays in testing and treatment. Considering IV pumps are directly supporting human life in some cases, it is easy to suggest an attacker could demand any “ransom” amount leveraging threats to actual patients. To accomplish this an attacker would therefore need to control the operation of the pump.
This task is easier said than done when considering the design of the pump as outlined above. The traditional “getting root” on the network component (SpaceCom) proves ineffective. To make any changes to the pump itself, an attacker needs to interact with the pump’s RTOS, which is not network connected. In this section we provide an outline on how we were able to accomplish this goal by using the five reported CVEs.
Even though getting root access on SpaceCom will not provide us everything we need to accomplish the ultimate goal, it is still the first step. During our reconnaissance and enumeration of the system we discovered a remote interface listening at https://{ipaddress}/rpc. This interface was connected to a common open source service referred to as “json-dbus-bridge”. As described on GitHub, this service “is a fast-cgi application that provides access to D-Bus. It accepts JSON-RPC calls and translates these into D-Bus calls. Any response is converted back to JSON and sent to the client.” This piqued our interest since external access to the D-Bus subsystem could provide us access to internal communication, which may have a different level of security than typical external networking.
When doing any type of vulnerability research, product security assessment or evaluation it is critical to not forget to search for existing issues in any third-party components. This is even more important since we are working on a software released in 2017. While scouring GitHub pages for the json-dbus-bridge, we noticed a format string vulnerability that was patched in 2015. Of course, we had to test if the version we encountered had the existing vulnerability.
Figure 3: Format String Vulnerability Testing
The tests in Figure 3 confirmed the existence of the format sting vulnerability. While this format string vulnerability had been publicly discovered in 2015 in the json-dbus-bridge code, the update was never included in B. Braun’s software and hence satisfied the condition for a vendor specific zero-day vulnerability disclosure. This was filed as CVE-2021-33886 and was our first reported discovery to B. Braun. Over the next several weeks we were able to leverage this vulnerability and create a working exploit to gain www user level shell access to the device. Due to the potential impact to unpatched devices, the exact technical details of our exploit have not been included.
Although user access is the first step, root access will be needed in order to interact with the CAN bus to communicate with the actual pump. A good target and well-known process for privilege escalation is to find a binary owned by root with the setuid bit enabled. We could not find one ready to use; however, the web interface has an option to backup and export settings which relies on tarring a folder containing a handful of files and encrypting it with AES using a user-provided password. The backup archive can then be downloaded for later restore of the settings. When restoring this backup, root is the user doing the untarring in such a way that file permissions are being preserved from the provided tar file. Thus, if we can tamper with the archive, we might be able to create a privilege escalation scenario.
To use this to our advantage we need to embed a binary in the backup archive owned by root with the “setuid” bit set so we can use it to elevate privileges. Ironically, the code responsible for the import/export of settings is already doing most of the work for us. The “configExport” binary located on the filesystem is a wrapper to call setuid/setgid (and sanitize inputs) which then calls execve on the script “/configExport/configExport.sh.” We can use a hex editor to change which script the “configExport” binary is running and replace “configExport.sh” with an attacker-controlled script, while also patching out the input sanitizing. We could absolutely have compiled our own binary instead, but this approach saves us from a couple of hours of PPC cross-compiling fun.
While we were working through this component of our attack chain, researchers working on the ManiMed project, in coordination with B. Braun, published a report which included this finding, listed as CVE-2020-16238 on B. Braun’s website. As described in section 4.6.2.2 of their report “An authenticated arbitrary file upload vulnerability combined with an unvalidated symbolic link and local privilege escalations enables attackers to execute commands as the root user.” We commend the ManiMed researchers for also discovering this vulnerability and practicing responsible disclosure.
The real work begins once root access is obtained. The challenge becomes how to affect change on the pump RTOS with root access on the SpaceCom communication module. One common approach would be to continue to look for vulnerabilities in the pump’s RTOS that would lead to code execution within its system. This method poses many challenges during black box testing and could lead to damaging our limited number of test devices.
Another approach which we have leveraged in past projects is hijacking the standard functionality of the device to further the attack. This can be more manageable, but it first requires a deep understanding of how the device works and the desired outcome. This also tests the device’s defense in depth and can prove to be very difficult depending on the security measures in place. In our case, this would force the question of how well-protected the area is surrounding the communication between the pump and SpaceCom.
As mentioned in the system description section above, the PCS binary is responsible for communicating with the pump’s system for two critical operations – updating the drug library and updating the pump config. These are key functions that would likely be of interest to an attacker. There are several different approaches which could be taken by an attacker to interact with these key operations, especially given root access. Considering the various alternatives, we chose to leverage our root access on SpaceCom to inject code into PCS’s memory and use existing functions and objects to communicate with the pump’s internal system.
Our chosen path required a deep understanding of the data structures and functions used to facilitate this communication. The key is to find the perfect place in a larger operation call stack where we can modify or inject the data we want, while still utilizing lower-level functions to avoid the need to unnecessarily create objects and data from scratch. To illustrate this point, consider if we want to send a simple signal to power off the pump from within PCS’s memory space. The fact that all data sent from SpaceCom to the pump’s RTOS is done through CAN messages, with root access meant that we could send CAN messages directly on the CAN bus. This would require an extensive knowledge and breakdown of the CAN message structure as the underlying protocol is designed by B. Braun and would have to be reverse engineered. Although possible, it is very difficult, especially with CAN’s data frame field having a lack of strict specifications. Inside PCS there is a call chain which builds this message. If we were to inject and utilize functions very low in the call chain, such as the trySend function which sends a CAN message (as seen in figure 4) , we would need to understand all of its arguments and the data format it uses. We’d essentially have the same problem as before.
Figure 4: trySend function
If we look higher in the call stack for a function that performs the operation we are interested in, switching off the device, we can instead let the rest of the call chain do the heavy lifting for us. Notice in Figure 5 below there is a function for just this purpose, which only requires one parameter to be passed.
Figure 5: switchOffDevice
Leveraging this concept, we are able to use the functions within PCS in a manner similar to an API to perform read and write operations to the pump’s database and force a change.
If we want to send and write data such as the drug library and pump config, we first need to understand the format of the data, how it is processed and any security measures in place which need to be accounted for. Our team spent extensive time reversing both the drug library and pump configuration data. A portion of the pump configuration is referred to as calibration and disposable data. Both can be modified through our attack chain; however, for this paper we will just touch on the more critical of the two the calibration and disposable data.
The calibration and disposable data are usually seen in the form of files that are living in SpaceCom. At a more granular level, they are a collection of key/value pairs that are meant to be read or written to the pump’s database. Each file can also be a large blob of data living on the pump flash. The physical location of each key within this blob is hardcoded in the pump and sometimes in PCS. This representation is relevant when it comes to computing various CRCs that operate on blobs of data rather than key pairs. These checksums are used heavily throughout the pump’s infrastructure with critical data to ensure the integrity of the data. This goes to ensure the safety of patients by ensuring data can’t be accidently modified or corrupted. Figure 6 shows an example of disposable data as contained in files on SpaceCom.
Figure 6: Disposable Data
Looking at the variable names inside the disposable data file and relevant code in the pump firmware led us to one key/value pair that specifies the “head volume” of the tube, which can be seen in the figure above. After extensive analysis, we determined that “head volume” is the parameter dictating the amount of medication being delivered per cycle to the patient. We determined that if this value was to be changed, it could be potentially harmful. We detail this analysis in section “Unique Consideration for Infusion Pump Hacking” below.
With a target key/value pair in mind, the next step would be to understand how to calculate the CRCs. Since the system is constantly checking the integrity of the data, if an attacker wanted to modify any value, they would also need to modify the CRCs which validate the changed data. Through reverse engineering we determined the CRC was a custom implementation of a CRC16, where the initial value is 0xFFFF and relies on a hardcoded polynomial table. We were able to extract this algorithm and write custom python scripts to compute the CRC needed for the disposable data.
With a basic understanding of the critical operational data and the ability to compute the CRCs, we are able to leverage the PCS binary, in an API fashion to send commands to the pump to modify this data. This holds true for both the drug library and the pump configuration data. Although CRCs are great for integrity checking, they provide no security or level of trust of the where the data is coming from. This lack of origin verification is what led to the filing of CVE-2021-33885.
If we review our attack chain, we can gain user-level access to the device without authentication or authorization. We can then escalate our privileges to root and leverage the existing functionality of the PCS binary to make modifications to the pump’s disposable data. Conceptually, the process is complete; however, we can do some additional housekeeping in order to make our attack chain slightly more realistic and efficient.
Since the proprietary protocol for the PCS binary is unauthenticated, there are certain configuration options which can be modified for an attacker to make their job even easier. One of these configuration options tells the pump which server is “trusted” to receive operational data from (such as the drug library). An attacker can send a command to SpaceCom which clears the current trusted server configuration and rewrites it to an attacker-controlled server. This is not required for this attack when leveraging the format string and privilege escalation path outlined above; however, it does provide alternative methods and simplifies the attack process.
Lastly, the pump has an audible and visual notification when any configuration or drug information has been modified on the pump. Once again in the spirit of a realistic attack, a malicious attacker is going to want to be as stealthy as possible. To accomplish this, it was worth determining a method in which to clear these notifications. This process turned out to be as simple as restarting the pump after our modifications were complete. The reboot operation happens in a matter of seconds, so by using this technique, all alerts to the end user were quickly cleared. The complete attack process can be seen outlined in the diagram below.
Figure 7: Complete Attack Chain
Although this attack chain presents a complete method to modify critical pump data, it is important to recognize the conditions required for this attack to be successful. These pumps are designed to be network connected to a local internal network. Therefore, under normal operating conditions an attacker would need to have found a method to gain access to the local network. Could this attack take place over the internet? Technically speaking, yes; however, it would be very unlikely to see a setup where a pump is directly internet-connected.
In addition to being on the local network, the pump does have safeguards in place to ensure no modifications can occur while the pump is operational. From what we discovered during our research, if the pump is actively administering medication, it ignores any request on the CAN bus to modify library or configuration data. This means the attack can only be successful when a pump is idle or in standby mode in between infusions.
The prerequisites for this attack are minimal and are not enough to mitigate the overall threat. In today’s world there are a wide range of documented and utilized methods for attackers to gain access to local networks. If we also consider that hospital or medical facilities are generally public places with little to no barriers to entry, it is easy to see how someone malicious can go unnoticed and obtain network access. Pumps are also not always actively administering mediation. Even in the busiest of hospitals there is downtime between patients or times when pumps are simply not in use.
With the ability to modify disposable and configuration data on the pump, there are a wide range of possibilities for which an attacker could choose to have an impact. An attacker could simply put the device in an unusable state or write arbitrary messages on the screen. We chose to focus on the disposable data, specifically the key/value pair labeled “TUBE_HEADVOLUME_A” since we determined it would demonstrate the greatest impact, bringing harm to a patient. In the below video you will first see the pump under normal operation. After demonstrating the system working as intended, we modify the configuration remotely using the attack chain explained above and then illustrate its effect on the pump when administering medication.
An interesting characteristic of this project is that its impact and consequences are inherently grounded in the physical world. Where common software hacks end with the ability to get root access or kernel privileges, in this project, the way the device is used by medical staff and how it can affect patient safety is crucial to the outcome. The next few sections will focus on various aspects of the project that fall under this umbrella.
As described previously, our attack relies on modifying the disposable data that governs the way the pump is used to deliver medication. But why and how did we decide to go investigate this? An interesting side-effect of the pump being built to be safe is that most of the inputs and outputs it receives from the CAN bus are extensively checked against out-of-range access. From an attacker’s perspective who has already compromised SpaceCom, this would usually be the prime target for memory corruption bugs. Fuzzing and emulating the M32C architecture is cost-heavy in terms of upfront work, so instead, we started looking for a path of least resistance and searched for blind spots in the secure design.
In our case, we wanted to be able to affect the amount of drug being dispensed, preferably without having something on screen as that would indicate a malfunction or abnormality. Our original plan was to tamper with the device drug library, but it turns out that data we could alter would be displayed on screen, which could raise concern as medical staff verify the prescribed drug and rate against the order before, and immediately after starting the infusion. This would not be ideal for an attacker, so we kept investigating. The other files we could modify were the calibration data and the disposable data. These files are interesting as they describe internal parameters; the calibration one specifies the physical parameters of the device itself, while the disposable one is for the specifics regarding the tubing going through the pump. Anyone familiar with precision tools know how important a good calibration is. If the calibration is off it will lead to improper operations or results. From an operational standpoint this makes sense, but from an attacker perspective this has a strong likelihood of fitting the bill for the attack we had in mind: modifying an internal value so the pump thinks it is dispensing the right amount of drug, while it is actually incorrect in its calculations.
Looking at the variable names inside the disposable file and relevant code in the pump firmware led us to one that specifies the “head volume” of the tube. From our understanding, each time the pump pumps, it compresses the IV tubing thereby pushing a small quantity of drug towards the patient. Overall, there are many physical parameters that would govern this volume –the internal tube diameter, the length of the compressed region, how much the tube is being compressed, etc.—but in the end, it seemed that all these values were summed up in one variable. Cutting this value in half would make the pump believe it is pushing half the actual amount, and therefore would have to pump twice as fast to deliver it. We tried our hypothesis, and by doing so, the amount of drug dispensed doubled while the pump assumed everything was normal.
Now that we have an idea of what happens to the device when we alter its internal configuration, we can consider how this could play out in the real world. As mentioned previously, medical staff are expected to be extra-careful when using these devices, ensuring the numbers match the doctor’s order. In the United States, both the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the American Society of Clinical Oncology require standard of practice be followed with high risk or hazardous infusions like blood or chemotherapy. This standard requires two appropriately trained people (usually nurses), one who will be infusing the medication, and the other to verify the order and configuration prior to administration. Looking internationally, we were also able to find this same protocol in use at an Irish hospital. It confirms the attention to detail and the requirement to double-check each value is correct. However, another document describing the adoption of a smart pump system in a Swedish hospital hints at concerns (p. 47) that invalid drug protocols might be followed if a nurse picked the wrong default settings on the pump. These documents are anecdotal, but the overall feeling is that strong checks are in place. Under pressure or with multiple infusions, mistakes can be made, which smart pumps should prevent.
One of our industry partners, Shaun Nordeck, M.D. is an Interventional Radiology Resident Physician at a Level 1 Trauma Center and prior, served as an Army Medic and Allied Health Professional. Leaning on more than 20 years in the medical field. Dr. Nordeck states “A high-pressure environment such as the ICU may be at increased risk for infusion errors since these critical and often medically complex patients have multiple infusions which are being adjusted frequently. Errors, however, are not limited to the ICU and may just as easily occur in the inpatient ward or outpatient settings. Essentially with each increase in variable (patient complexity or acuity, number of medications, rate changes, nurse to patient ratio, etc.) there is an increased risk for error.”
As a measure of safety, it is important to keep in mind that one can visually count the number of drops to verify the infusion rate (there’s even an optional module to do it automatically). However, depending on the parameters, a minor change of speed (e.g., halved or doubled) might not be immediately obvious but could still be deleterious. Dr. Nordeck further stated that “something as routine as correcting a person’s high blood sugar or sodium level too quickly can cause the brain to swell or damage the nerves which can lead to permanent disability or even death.” The FDA’s MAUDE database keeps track of adverse events involving medical devices and can be used to see what type of problems actually occurred in the field. Certain drugs are particularly potent, in which case the speed at which they are delivered matters. In this instance, an over-sedation at 4 times the intended rate led to the death of a patient a few hours after the incident occurred. Under-dosing can also be problematic as the required medication does not reach the patient in the appropriate quantity. These examples highlight that a pump not delivering the correct amount of drug occurs in the field and may remain unnoticed for multiple hours, which can lead to injury or death.
Let’s now take a step back and consider some generic shortcomings that became apparent while looking at the infusion pump ecosystem. We believe these problems are not specific to a brand or a product but rather may be found across the entire medical field. This is because throughout the years, this vertical has only received a limited amount of attention from both malicious actors and the cybersecurity industry. With the increased rate of cyber threats and the constant additions of new smart devices in private networks, new attack surfaces are being exposed and the hardening of many systems may turn into low hanging fruits for the ones lagging. The slower life cycle of smart medical devices means that best security practices and mitigations take longer to be adopted and deployed in the field. Awareness of this may help healthcare organizations, and their supporting IT administration have a more critical eye on the technology deployed in their environments while medical device vendors should remain vigilant of their “legacy” technologies and continually reassess the risk profile associated with legacy products in the current cybersecurity landscape.
Consumer products, both hardware and software are often nimbler than their counterparts in the medical industry. Your web-browser or operating system on your personal computer will auto-update immediately after a patch is released which come on a regular basis. This is radically different for medical devices which are often directly linked to patient safety and therefore need to undergo a more rigorous vetting process before applying updates. This often leads to the need to immobilize devices during updates, perform follow up tests and recalibrations. It is often very expensive and challenging for medical facilities to update products, resulting in deployed devices with firmware that is several years old. Because of this, “table stakes” security measures may never be fully adopted, and corresponding vulnerabilities may have a larger impact than in other industries.
When looking at the general architecture of the pump, it is obvious that it was designed with safety in mind. For instance, it relies on an application processor for the main processing but also has a control processor that makes sure nothing unexpected occurs by monitoring sensors output along with other components. Everything is CRC checked multiple times to flag memory corruption and every range is bounds-checked. All of this suggests that the design was intended to mitigate hardware and software faults, data accidentally being corrupted over the wire, and the flash module degrading which aligns with a high priority on safety.
However, it looks like preventing malicious intent was not given as much attention during the design process. Sometimes the difference between safety and security might be a little blurry. Preventing accidental memory corruption and out of bounds access due to faulty hardware will also make exploitation harder, yet an attacker will always attempt to escape these mitigations. Along the same lines, logic bugs that would be extremely unlikely to occur by chance might be the “keys to the kingdom” for an attacker. Internal audits and offensive security exercises can highlight the attacker mindset and bring valuable insights as how to harden existing safeguards to protect against intentional threats.
When looking at how the pump and its communication module handles communication and file handling, we observed that critical files are not signed (CVE-2021-33885), most of the data exchanges are done in plain-text (CVE-2021-33883), and there is an overall lack of authentication (CVE-2021-33882) for the proprietary protocols being used. There are a few password-protected areas for user facing systems, but not as many for the behind-the-scenes internal systems. This might be because a login page on a website is an “obvious” necessity, along with having a proper authentication mechanism for FTP and SSH, while ad-hoc protocols designed more customized uses are not as obvious. There is also an evolving landscape at play and its related threat assessment; the risk of an unauthorized person tampering with a configuration file (calibration data, drug library, etc.) is fairly low if it also requires dedicated software and physical access to the device. However, if suddenly the device becomes network-connected, the attack surface is extended and the original assumptions may not be refreshed. Defense-in-depth would dictate that in any case, important files should not be easy to tamper with. However, security vs functionality comes with legitimate compromises and when it comes to embedded devices, limited resources and usability also need to be factored into the equation.
Originally, the CAN bus was reserved for communication between trusted components such as a Servicing PC used for maintenance or for connecting multiples devices within an older model of the Space Station that did not have SpaceCom built in. The latter would come as an optional module that could be plugged into the Space Station to offer external connectivity. Hence, the CAN bus was used for “internal” communication between trusted components and an external module, the SpaceCom, could be added for data reporting over the network. Over the following decade, technology improved and miniaturized to the point where everything got merged, so that even a battery module could provide WIFI connectivity and the SpaceCom functionalities. This opened new possibilities, such as having the built-in SpaceCom module provide similar capabilities as the servicing PC. From a user perspective this is great as it simplifies operations, but from a security perspective, this created a situation where a “trusted” internal network suddenly became bridged to an external network that could even be accessed wirelessly. What might have been an acceptable risk, where only a few proprietary devices with physical access could perform privileged operations, became much more questionable when a WIFI-connected Linux device started to offer the same capabilities.
This kind of problem has been faced by nearly every industry vertical that evolved from reliance on trusted physical networks which suddenly got connected to the internet or other untrusted networks. Smart connected devices are a double-edged sword: in the same way they offer greater flexibility and synergy between systems, they can also lead to emergent security issues that need to be considered holistically.
When developing custom protocols and ad-hoc systems it’s natural to incur technical debt. This is even more true when the life cycle of a device is many years and when it is complicated and expensive to deploy patches and upgrades, leading to a heterogeneous customer base and multiple hardware revisions to support. This can cause situations where more obscure features are not looked at for years and their ownership might be lost or perfunctory. An example of this is the format string vulnerability affecting the json-dbus module. Its usage is obscure, and it was forked from an open-source project many years ago. The original repository fixed bugs that were security bugs but were not flagged as such which led them to fly under the radar for multiple years. Likely, at the time it was forked, the code served its purpose and was never revisited afterwards, leaving the security bug unnoticed. The same can be said for custom-designed protocols and file formats. It may be difficult to evolve them in line with the improvement of best security practices while avoiding breaking “legacy” deployments. In this scenario, mitigations might be the way to go; making sure the systems are isolated, unnecessary features can be disabled and their privilege and access limited to what’s needed. Future-proofing a system is a difficult challenge. If anything, transparency on how the system functions and the components it relies on, coupled with regular audits (code source review or black box audit) can help prevent components from falling in the cracks where they’re not checked against best practices for many years.
This concludes a research project which took two senior researchers a significant amount of time to showcase a life-threatening risk of a medical device being taken over by a remote attacker. For the time being, ransomware attacks are a more likely threat in the medical sector, but eventually these networks will be hardened against this type of attacks and malicious actors will look for other lower-hanging fruits. Given the lifespan of medical devices and the difficulties surrounding their updates, it is important to start planning now for tomorrow’s threats. We hope this research will help bring awareness to an area that has been a blind spot for far too long. Dr. Nordeck affirms the importance of this research stating: “The ability to manipulate medical equipment in a way that is potentially harmful to patients, without end-user detection, is effectively weaponizing the device and something only previously conceived by Hollywood yet, McAfee’s ATR team has confirmed is plausible. Device manufactures clearly aim to produce safe and secure products as evidenced by built-in safeguards. However, flaws may exist which allow the device to succumb to a ransom attack or potentially cause harm. Therefore, manufactures should collaborate with security professionals to independently test their products to detect and correct potential threats and thereby preserve patient safety and device security.”
Performing regular security audits, making it easier for medical professionals to keep their devices up to date and offering solid mitigations when this is not possible should really be on every medical vendor’s list of priorities. Medical professionals, policy makers and even the general public should also hold accountable the medical vendors and have them clearly articulate the risk profile of the devices they sell and demand better ways to keep their device secure. We recognize even with this mindset and a holistic approach to security, there will always be flaws that cannot be predetermined. In these cases, vendors should encourage and even seek out industry partners, embrace responsible disclosure and communicate broadly with researchers, stakeholders and customers alike.
From a security research perspective, it is crucial to understand how a device works at a holistic system level, and how each component interacts with each other, which components they can talk to, and so on. For manufacturers, it is important to read between the lines; something may not be in a design document or in the specifications, but sometimes emergent properties will occur as a side-effect of other design decisions.
An offensive project like ours is really meant to highlight structural weaknesses and point out risks. Now, defensive work is necessary to address these concerns. For instance, manufacturers should leverage cheaper and more powerful microcontrollers to implement proper authentication mechanisms. However, it is even more important to study and address the challenges hospitals face when it comes to keeping their devices up to date. This should come as both technical solutions from the vendors and advocacy to promote secure practices and raise awareness on the underlying risks associated with critical devices having outdated software. The FDA tried to lead the way in 2018 with its CyberMed Safety (Expert) Analysis Board (CYMSAB), but so far little progress has been made. The work the German BSI did with the ManiMed project is also extremely encouraging. We see this as an area of cybersecurity with lots of potential and need for attention and look forward to the information security industry taking on this challenge to make this critical sector always more secure.
One goal of the McAfee Advanced Threat Research team is to identify and illuminate a broad spectrum of threats in today’s complex and constantly evolving landscape. As per McAfee’s vulnerability public disclosure policy, McAfee’s ATR team informed and worked directly with the B.Braun team. This partnership resulted in the vendor working towards effective mitigations of the vulnerabilities detailed in this blog. We strongly recommend any businesses using the B.Braun Infusomat devices to update as soon as possible in line with your patch policy and testing strategy.
CVSSv3 Rating: 6.8/8.2
CVSS String: AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/ S:C/C:N/I:H/A:N/CR:H/IR:H/AR:M/MAV:A
CVE Description: Missing Authentication for Critical Function vulnerability in BBraun SpaceCom2 prior to 012U000062 allows a remote attacker to reconfigure the device from an unknown source through lack of authentication on proprietary networking commands.
CVSSv3 Rating: 5.9/7.1
CVSS String: AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N/CR:H/IR:H/AR:M/MAV:A
CVE Description: Cleartext Transmission of Sensitive Information vulnerability in BBraun SpaceCom2 prior to 012U000062 allows a remote attacker to obtain sensitive information by snooping the network traffic. The exposed data includes critical values for the pumps internal configuration.
CVSSv3 Rating: 7.3/5.8
CVSS String: AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L/CR:M/IR:M/AR:L/MAV:A
CVE Description: Unrestricted Upload of File with Dangerous Type vulnerability in BBraun SpaceCom2 prior to 012U000062 allows remote attackers to upload any files to the /tmp directory of the device through the webpage API. This can result in critical files being overwritten.
CVSSv3 Rating: 10.0/9.7
CVSS String: AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N/CR:H/IR:H/AR:M/MAV:A
CVE Description: Insufficient Verification of Data Authenticity vulnerability in BBraun SpaceCom2 prior to 012U000062 allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to send malicious data to the device which will be used in place of the correct data. This results in execution through lack of cryptographic signatures on critical data sets
CVSSv3 Rating: 8.1/7.7
CVSS String: AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N/RL:O/RC:C
CVE Description: Improper sanitization of input vulnerability in BBraun SpaceCom2 prior to 012U000062 allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to gain user level command line access through passing a raw external string straight through to printf statements. The attacker is required to be on the same network as the device.
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Cyberattacks on medical centers are one of the most despicable forms of cyber threat there is. For instance, on October 28th, 2020, a cyberattack at the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington VT led to 75% of the scheduled chemotherapy patients being turned away. Many of us have friends and loved ones who have had to undergo intensive treatments, and the last thing we want in this situation is for their critical care to be delayed due to on-going cyberattacks. Yet, as concerning as ransom attacks can be, what if the process of receiving the treatment was an even bigger threat than a system-wide ransomware event?
McAfee’s Enterprise Advanced Threat Research team, in partnership with Culinda, have discovered a set of vulnerabilities in B. Braun Infusomat Space Large Volume Pump and the B. Braun SpaceStation.
McAfee Enterprise ATR remotely hacks a B.Braun Infusomat Pump
These critical vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to conduct remote network attacks and modify the amount of medication a patient will receive through infusion. This modification could appear as a device malfunction and be noticed only after a substantial amount of drug has been dispensed to a patient, since the infusion pump displays exactly what was prescribed, all while dispensing potentially lethal doses of medication. This attack scenario is made possible through a chain of known and previously unknown vulnerabilities found by McAfee Enterprise ATR. A critical component of this attack is that the pump’s operating system does not verify who is sending commands or data to it, allowing an attacker to carry out remote attacks undetected. For those looking for a more technical analysis of the vulnerabilities, an in-depth blog can be found here.
From the 1960’s to 2000, infusion pumps were mostly electromechanical devices with an embedded operating system, but the turn of the century delivered “smarter” devices with better safety mechanisms and the possibility to program them, which slowly opened the door to computer security challenges. Today, it is estimated that there are over 200 million IV infusions administered globally each year. The infusion pump market is a clear potential target for attackers. The market is valued at an estimated $54 billion in annual revenue, with 2020 sales of IV pumps in the US at $13.5 billion. IV pumps are inherently trusted to be secure and have over time become the mainstay for efficient and accurate infusion delivery of medication. B. Braun is one of the key market share holders in this rapidly growing market, emphasizing the impact of these vulnerability discoveries.
Industry personnel can be the best source of information for determining impact. Shaun Nordeck, M.D, an Interventional Radiology Resident Physician at a Level 1 Trauma Center, prior Army Medic and Allied Health Professional, with more than 20 years in the medical field, states that: “Major vulnerability findings like the ones reported by McAfee’s Enterprise Advanced Threat Research team are concerning for security and safety minded medical staff. The ability to remotely manipulate medical equipment undetected, with potential for patient harm, is effectively weaponizing these point of care devices. This is a scenario previously only plausible in Hollywood, yet now confirmed to be a real attack vector on a critical piece of equipment we use daily. The ransomware attacks that have targeted our industry rely on vulnerabilities just like these; and is exactly why this research is critical to understanding and thwarting attacks proactively.”
These vulnerabilities were reported to B. Braun beginning in January 2021 through McAfee’s responsible disclosure program. Through ongoing dialog, McAfee Enterprise ATR have learned that the latest version of the pump removes the initial network vector of the attack chain. Despite this, an attacker would simply need another network-based vulnerability and all remaining techniques and vulnerabilities reported could be used to compromise the pumps. Additionally, the vulnerable versions of software are still widely deployed across medical facilities and remain at risk of exploitation. Until a comprehensive suite of patches is produced and effectively adopted by B. Braun customers, we recommend medical facilities actively monitor these threats with special attention, and follow the mitigations and compensating controls provided by B. Braun Medical Inc. in their coordinated vulnerability disclosure documentation.
This concludes a research project which took two senior researchers a significant amount of time to showcase a life-threatening risk of a medical device being taken over by a remote attacker. For the time being, ransomware attacks are a more likely threat in the medical sector, but eventually these networks will be hardened against this type of attack and malicious actors will look for other lower-hanging fruits.
The unfortunate reality is that individuals can’t do much to prevent or mitigate these enterprise-level risks, outside of staying mindful of security issues and maintaining awareness of possible threats. However, the good news is that security researchers continue to propel this industry towards a safer future through responsible disclosure. We strongly encourage vendors to embrace vulnerability research and consumers to demand it. The medical industry has lagged severely behind others in the realm of security for many years – it’s time throw away the digital “band-aids” of slow and reactive patching, and embrace a holistic “cure” through a security-first mindset from the early stages of development, combined with a rapid and effective patch solution.
In May 2021, B. Braun Medical Inc. disclosed information to customers and the Health Information Sharing & Analysis Center (H-ISAC) that addressed the potential vulnerabilities raised in McAfee’s report, which were tied to a small number of devices utilizing older versions of B. Braun software. Our disclosure included clear mitigation steps for impacted customers, including the instructions necessary to receive the patch to eliminate material vulnerabilities.
Braun has not received any reports of exploitation or incidents associated with these vulnerabilities in a customer environment.
The post Overmedicated: Breaking the Security Barrier of a Globally Deployed Infusion Pump appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Now more than ever, it’s critical to be mission-ready for the next cyber threat. Our digital-first, post-pandemic world is shifting back to a new normal. But the threats are still here.
And according to many reports, the threats have – and are continuing to – increase. McAfee Enterprise’s Advanced Threat Research recently published a report highlighting some of the biggest cyber stories dominating the year thus far, including recent ransomware attacks. While the topic itself is not new, there is no question that the threat is now truly mainstream. In fact, the June report provides a deep dive into the DarkSide ransomware, which resulted in an agenda item in talks between U.S. President Biden and Russian President Putin.
So how does the DoD approach modern-day threats like this? McAfee Enterprise’s online cyber training program is a great place to start. I’m proud to say the program is complimentary for our DoD partners and provides anywhere from 1-6 Continuing Professional Education (CPE) hours per course. You can login anywhere in the world to access the various trainings. Plus, the digital course are valid for 30 days from your registration date, so you can start and stop at any time. Not surprisingly, the tech industry is seeing a greater acceptance and return on investment from online training programs. Within the DoD for example, the Airforce recently launched Digital University. Airmen are elevating their digital literacy skills with up to 12,000 courses to better serve our country, while discovering new career paths in the process. Everything from leadership and public speaking to cloud computing and cybersecurity are covered, proving this platform may be the future of IT training.
I know the cyber industry that I joined 20+ years ago isn’t the same as it is today. And without access to trainings and CPE courses, my skill set would not be as strong. But if your day is anything like mine, finding time to squeeze in continuing education courses is a challenge. However, after hearing feedback from a long-time DoD partner, I know we’re on to something good. Success stories like these remind me of the importance of staying cyber-resilient in the field.
Don’t forget to reach out to your McAfee Enterprise Account Executive for your unique DoD voucher code!
The post Access Granted: How the DoD Can Stay Cyber-Resilient appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Welcome back to our executive blog series, where we’re sitting down with some of the pivotal players behind McAfee Enterprise to hear their takes on today’s security trends, challenges, and opportunities for enterprises across the globe.
Q: Do you have a role model? If so, who is it? |
Well, there are work and there are more personal role models. At work, I have several past and present role models I’ve met across my career that share the same traits. They’re typically great leaders who lead authentically and with a strong sense of purpose and values. For these, I often think when facing a challenge, “What would he or she do?”
Personally, I have many people who have inspired me. A current, topical favorite is Gareth Southgate – manager of the England national football team. He’s not only achieved great success in getting the team to their first final in over 50 years but has challenged the status quo by focusing on young talent and has played a pivotal role as a visible leader in support of diversity.
Q: What’s the most important thing happening in your field at the moment? |
The pandemic, coupled with the ongoing digitization of society, are probably the two most dominant topics in the cyber domain. Ransomware and cyber threats continue to rise in profile, as does cyber security and information assurance in the macro, geo-political sphere. Our purpose has never been greater as leaders in this field.
Q: Will zero trust be a requirement for agencies? |
Yes. Organizations deliver outcomes through partnerships, both at a human and systems level. Implementing mechanisms to ensure trust is increasingly important as these partnerships increasingly digitize in operation. Thinking of zero trust as an architecture and framework matters. Many suppliers articulate zero trust as a feature. It is not. As a true partner, it’s important to consider its role more broadly, to not trust and always verify, not just a virtual choke point (remember, there is no perimeter), but throughout the data journey.
Q: What was your mindset to build your team and establish the right culture to drive success for the new company and continue to strive for new goals in the future? |
In building a team with the culture to drive growth, the most fundamental attributes I seek in every team member is attitude and energy. Those are the power and velocity needed as a foundation. It’s amazing what people can achieve, and how they find ways to do so, with those fundamental ingredients.
When you combine a group of those people with a common goal and assign each a clear role to play, you end up with a phenomenal team. Rather than offering either no parameters, or parameters that are too narrow, you must empower them with a framework in which they can innovate and find ways to win. This is critical – giving them the scope to use their talent for a positive outcome. Listen to them. Hiring great people who push boundaries brings a lot of intellect and creativity. It’s a waste of intelligence if you don’t take the time to learn from them to continuously improve the business.
The post Executive Spotlight: Q&A with EMEA Senior Vice President, Adam Philpott appeared first on McAfee Blog.
I’m back at it again with another round of our executive blog series. This week I had the privilege to speak with Tom Gann, our Chief Public Policy officer and he had some interesting things to say on the cyber security issues that are shaping public policy dialogue in Washington DC and other capitals around the world, and much much more.
Q: What is one event in your life that made you who you are today? |
Teaching tennis. I know that teaching tennis is not an event, it’s a sport. For me it was a business at a young age that helped to change my life.
I grew up in Palo Alto, CA, when the town was middle-class. I went to Gunn High School when the school was very good at tennis – they had 10 undefeated seasons. My parents were kind enough to pay for tennis lessons and while I was only a so-so tennis player, my tennis coach thought that I would be a good teacher. And so, starting in the 11th grade, I began teaching tennis for a tennis shop in Menlo Park called the Better Backhand. Then later, when I was at Stanford, I started my own business teaching lessons on private tennis courts which helped me pay for school and a car.
Through this experience, I learned how to become a professional and most importantly, how to relate to people while helping them learn something valuable. I am amazed that many of the things I learned from teaching tennis still guide me today: treating people well, empowering them, and striving to get things done that matter.
Q: What are the biggest cyber security issues shaping the public policy dialogue in Washington DC and other capitals around the world? |
The reality today, and likely in the future, is that the bad guys have and will continue to have the advantage. Bad guys need to be right one time to get into a government or company environment. The good guys, playing defense, need to be right every time. This reality is made more challenging by the fact that today’s typical new, best-in-class cyber security solution is often out of date in two years because the bad guys are great at innovating. At the same time, unfortunately, many organizations are too slow or too distracted to ensure all their cyber security solutions work effectively together.
The threats from nation states, criminal organizations, and terrorist groups is only getting bigger as time goes on – meaning our challenge continually grows, shifts, and evolves. Today, these actors are perfecting a wide range of ransomware strategies to blackmail all types of organizations in the public and private sectors.
Responsible governments and citizens need to demand real change, they need to push non-compliant nation states to commit to a basic level of fair play. The public and private sectors also need to work together to create a firewall against these bad actors who use ransomware to achieve such strategic objectives as profit and intimidation.
Q: What is the true value cloud security has brought to the government contracting and federal sectors? Why is there so much hype around this technology? |
Everyone is moving to the cloud – private and public sector organizations as well as folks at home. This trend makes sense because the cloud is cost effective, reliable, and highly secure. However, the key in this shift is to make sure that government agencies have the flexibility to rapidly work with private sector experts – the data center, the enterprise software, and the cyber security leaders – to ensure long term success. Too often, I have seen government agencies use outdated procurement rules and processes that bog down progress. This often results in cloud and data center deployments, particularly when government agencies host these infrastructures, being completed with last generation solutions.
At the same time, outdated contracting rules can limit the ability of agencies to field the most up to date cyber security solutions. This challenge is becoming a bigger deal as agencies deploy multiple cloud solutions. These many cloud implementations create targets of opportunity for hackers who exploit security gaps between and among clouds, meaning agencies need to be proactive to ensure that their move to the cloud is safe and effective. Policymakers need to step up to the plate and modernize procurement rules and processes. Such support will help government agencies work quicker and more effectively to serve our citizens who demand first-class service from their government.
Q: How can our organization be the best partner to government agencies moving forward? |
It is all about trust. Without trust you have noting. Working with the government, a company, or your neighbor down the street is the same – it all depends on trust. This means doing what you say you will do and working to overdeliver on your commitments.
The post Executive Spotlight: Q&A with Chief Public Policy Officer, Tom Gann appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Co-authored with Intel471 and McAfee Enterprise Advanced Threat Research (ATR) would also like to thank Coveware for its contribution.
McAfee Enterprise ATR believes, with high confidence, that the Groove gang is associated with the Babuk gang, either as a former affiliate or subgroup. These cybercriminals are happy to put aside previous Ransomware-as-a-Service hierarchies to focus on the ill-gotten gains to be made from controlling victim’s networks, rather than the previous approach which prioritized control of the ransomware itself.
For many years the world of Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) was perceived as a somewhat hierarchical and structured organization. Ransomware developers would advertise their RaaS program on forums and gracefully open up slots for affiliates to join their team to commit crime. The RaaS admins would conduct interviews with potential affiliates to make sure they were skilled enough to participate. Historically, i.e., with CTB locker, the emphasis was on affiliates generating enough installs via a botnet, exploit kits or stolen credentials, but it has shifted in recent years to being able to penetrate and compromise a complete network using a variety of malicious and non-malicious tools. This essentially changed the typical affiliate profile towards a highly-skilled pen-tester/sysadmin.
Figure 1. Recruitment posting for CTB locker from 2014
Figure 2. Recruitment posting for REvil from 2020
Experts often describe the hierarchy of a conventional organized crime group as a pyramid structure. Historically, La Cosa Nostra, drug cartels and outlaw motor gangs were organized in such a fashion. However, due to further professionalization and specialization of the logistics involved with committing crime, groups have evolved into more opportunistic network-based groups that will work together more fluidly, according to their current needs.
While criminals collaborating in the world of cybercrime isn’t a novel concept, a RaaS group’s hierarchy is more rigid compared to other forms of cybercrime, due to the power imbalance between the group’s developers/admins and affiliates.
For a long time, RaaS admins and developers were prioritized as the top targets, often neglecting the affiliates since they were perceived as less-skilled. This, combined with the lack of disruptions in the RaaS ecosystem, created an atmosphere where those lesser-skilled affiliates could thrive and grow into very competent cybercriminals.
However, this growth isn’t without consequences. Recently we have observed certain events that might be the beginning of a new chapter in the RaaS ecosystem.
Trust in the cybercriminal underground is based on a few things, such as keeping your word and paying people what they deserve. Just like with legitimate jobs, when employees feel their contributions aren’t adequately rewarded, those people start causing friction within the organization. Ransomware has been generating billions of dollars in recent years and with revenue like that, it’s only a matter of time before some individuals who believe they aren’t getting their fair share become unhappy.
Recently, a former Conti affiliate was unhappy with their financial portion and decided to disclose the complete Conti attack playbook and their Cobalt Strike infrastructure online, as shown in the screenshot below.
Figure 3. Disgruntled Conti affiliate
In the past, ATR has been approached by individuals affiliated with certain RaaS groups expressing grudges with other RaaS members and admins, claiming they haven’t been paid in time or that their share wasn’t proportionate to the amount of work they put in.
Recently, security researcher Fabian Wosar opened a dedicated Jabber account for disgruntled cybercriminals to reach out anonymously and he stated that there was a high level of response.
Figure 4. Jabber group for unhappy threat actors
Moreover, the popular cybercrime forums have banned ransomware actors from advertising since the Colonial Pipeline attack. Now, the groups no longer have a platform on which to actively recruit, show their seniority, offer escrow, have their binaries tested by moderators, or settle disputes. The lack of visibility has made it harder for RaaS groups to establish or maintain credibility and will make it harder for RaaS developers to maintain their current top tier position in the underground.
After a turbulent shutdown of Babuk and the fallout from the Colonial Pipeline and Kaseya attacks, it seems that some of the ransomware-affiliated cybercriminals have found a home in a forum known as RAMP.
Figure 5. RAMP posting by Orange, introducing Groove and explaining relationships
Translated Posting
When analyzing RAMP and looking at the posting above from the main admin Orange, it’s hard to ignore numerous references that are made: From the names chosen, to the avatar of Orange’s profile, which happens to be a picture of a legitimate cyber threat intelligence professional.
Orange
Hello, friends! I am happy to announce the first contest on Ramp.
Let’s make it clear that we don’t do anything without a reason, so at the end of the day, it’s us who will benefit most from this contest
Here’s the thing: besides my new projects and old, I have always had this unit called
GROOVE — I’ve never revealed its name before and it’s never been mentioned directly in the media, but it does exist — we’re like Mossad (we are few and aren’t hiring). It’s Groove whom the babuk ransomware needs to thank for its fame.
Groove rocks, and babuk stinks
Challenge: Using a PHP stack+MYSQL+Bootstrap, code a standard ransomware operators’ blog in THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE with the following pages:
1) About us
The description of a group, which must be editable from the admin panel and use the same visual editor as our forum.
2) Leaks.
No hidden blogs, just leaks.
Use standard display, just like other ransomware operators’ blogs do.
3) News
A news page; it must be possible to add and edit news via the admin panel.
We’ll be accepting your submissions up to and including August 30.
Who will rate the entries and how?
There will be only one winner. I, Orange, will rate the usability and design of blogs. MRT will rate each entry’s source code and its security. In addition to USD 1k, the winner will most likely get a job in the RAMP team!
Now, for those of you who are interested in entirely different things:
1) No, we are not with the Kazakh intelligence agency.
https://www.fr.sogeti.com/globalassets/france/avis-dexperts–livres-blancs/cybersecchronicles_-_babuk.pdf
2) Groove has never had a ransomware product, nor will that ever change.
3) The babuk team doesn’t exist. We rented the ransomware from a coder who could not shoulder the responsibility, got too scared and decided to leave an error in the ESX builder — naturally, to give us a reason to chuck him out (his motives? Fxxx if I know)
babuk 2.0, which hit the headlines, is not to be taken seriously and must be regarded as nothing but a very stupid joke
4) GROOVE is first and foremost an aggressive financially motivated criminal organization dealing in industrial espionage for about two years. RANSOMWARE is no more than an additional source of income. We don’t care who we work with and how. You’ve got money? We’re in
RAMP was created in July 2021 by a threat actor TetyaSluha, who later changed their moniker to ‘Orange.’ This actor claimed the forum would specifically cater to other ransomware-related threat actors after they were ousted from major cybercrime forums for being too toxic, following the high-profile ransomware attacks against the Colonial Pipeline and Washington D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department in the spring of 2021.
At the time of the initial launch, Orange claimed the forum’s name was a tribute to a now-defunct Russian-language underground drug marketplace, “Russian Anonymous Marketplace,” which was taken down by Russian law enforcement agencies in 2017. The re-launched cybercrime forum’s name now supposedly stands for “Ransom Anon Mark[et] Place”.
The forum was initially launched on the same TOR-based resource that previously hosted a name-and-shame blog operated by the Babuk ransomware gang and the Payload.bin marketplace of leaked corporate data. The forum was later moved to a dedicated TOR-based resource and relaunched with a new layout and a revamped administrative team, where Orange acted as the admin, with other known actors MRT, 999 and KAJIT serving as moderators.
Why the admin changed handles from TetyaSluha to Orange isn’t 100 percent clear. However, looking back, the early days of RAMP provides us some evidence on who this person has been affiliated with. We found a posting from where the names Orange and Darkside are mentioned as potential monikers. Very shortly after that, TetyaSluha changed their handle to Orange. While the initial message has been removed from the forum itself, the content was saved thanks to Intel 471.
July 12th 2021 by Mnemo
Congratulations on the successful beginning of struggle for the right to choose and not to be evicted. I hope, the community will soon fill with reasonable individuals.
Oh yeah, you’ve unexpectedly reminded everyone about the wonderful RAMP forum. Are the handles Orange and Darkside still free?
The name Darkside might sound more familiar than Orange but, as we saw with the naming of RAMP, TetyaSluha is one for cybercrime sentiment, so there is almost certainly some hidden meaning behind it.
Based on ATR’s previous research, we believe the name Orange was chosen as a tribute to REvil/GandCrab. People familiar with those campaigns have likely heard of the actor ‘UNKN’. However, there was a less well known REvil affiliate admin named Orange. A tribute seems fitting if Tetyasluha isn’t the notorious Orange as that moniker is tied to some successful ransomware families, GandCrab and REvil, that shaped the RaaS ecosystem as we know it today.
In the past, UNKN was linked to several other monikers, however Orange was hardly mentioned since there wasn’t a matching public handle used on any particular cybercrime forum. However, REvil insiders will recognize the name Orange as one of their admins.
Based on ATR’s closed-source underground research, we believe with a high level of confidence, that UNKN was indeed linked to the aforementioned accounts, as well as the infamous “Crab”handle used by GandCrab. Crab was one of the two affiliate-facing accounts that the GandCrab team had (The other being Funnycrab). We believe with a high level of confidence that after the closure of GandCrab, the individual behind the Funnycrab account changed to the account name to Orange and continued operations with REvil, with only a subset of skilled GandCrab affiliates, (as described in our Virus Bulletin 2019 whitepaper) since GandCrab grew too big and needed to shed some weight.
The posting in figure 5 is also shedding some light on the start of the Groove Gang, their relationship to Babuk and, subsequently, BlackMatter.
In the post from Figure 5, “Orange” also claims to have always had a small group of people that the group collaborates with. Additionally, the actor claims that the name has not been mentioned in the media before, comparing the group to the Israeli secret service group Mossad. The group’s comparison to Mossad is extremely doubtful at best, given the drama that has publicly played out. Groove claims several of Babuk’s victims, including the Metropolitan Police Department, brought them a lot of attention. The several mentions to Babuk isn’t by mistake: we have evidence the two groups also have connections, which we’ve pieced together from examining the behavior of — and particularly the fallout between — the two groups.
Originally, the Babuk gang paid affiliates by each victim they attacked. Yet on April 30, it was reported that the gang suddenly had stopped working with affiliates, including the act of encrypting a victim’s system. Instead, their focus shifted to data exfiltration and extortion of targeted organizations. That was followed by the group releasing the builder for the old versions of its ransomware as it pivoted to a new one for themselves.
The attention that Babuk drew by hacking and extorting the Metropolitan Police Department meant their brand name became widely known. It also meant that more firms and agencies were interested in finding out who was behind it. This kind of heat is unwanted by most gangs, as any loose ends that are out there can come back to bite them.
Then, on September 3, the threat actor with the handle ‘dyadka0220’ stated that they were the principal developer of Babuk ransomware and posted what they claimed was the Babuk ransomware source code. They claimed the reason they were sharing everything was due to being terminally ill with lung cancer.
Figure 6. Dyadka0220 was possibly the developer that Orange hinted at in the posting (Figure 5) mentioned above.
On September 7, the Groove gang responded with a blog on their own website, titled “Thoughts about the meaning”, which rhymes in Russian. In this blog, the gang (allegedly) provides information on several recent happenings. Per their statement, the illness of ‘dyadka0220’ is a lie. Additionally, their response alleges that the Groove gang never created the Babuk ransomware themselves, but worked with someone else to produce it.
The validity of the claims in Groove’s latest blog is hard to determine, although this does not matter too much: the Babuk group, including affiliates, had a fallout that caused the group to break up, causing the retaliation of several (ex-)members.
The ATR team has covered Babuk multiple times. The first blog, published last February, covers the initial observations of the group’s malware. The second blog, published last July, dives into the ESXi version of the ransomware and its issues. The group’s tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) are in-line with commonly observed techniques from ransomware actors. The deployment of dual-use tools, which can be used for both benign and malicious purposes, is difficult to defend against, as intent is an unknown term for a machine. Together with other vendors we have narrowed down some of the TTPs observed by the Groove gang.
The actor needs to get a foothold within the targeted environment. The access can be bought, in terms of stolen (yet valid) credentials, or direct access in the form of a live backdoor on one or more of the victim’s systems. Alternatively, the actor can exploit publicly facing infrastructure using a known or unknown exploit. To ATR’s understanding, the latter has been used several times by exploiting vulnerable VPN servers.
Moving around within the network is an important step for the actor, for two reasons. Firstly, it allows the attacker to find as much data as possible, which is then exfiltrated. Secondly, access to all machines is required in order to deploy the ransomware at a later stage. By encrypting numerous devices at once, it becomes even harder to control the damage from a defender’s point of view. The actor uses commonly known tools, such as Ad-Find and NetScan, to gather information on the network. Based on the gathered information, the actor will move laterally through the network. One of the most frequently observed methods by this actor to do so, is by using RDP.
To work with more than user-level privileges, the actor has a variety of options to escalate their privilege to a domain administrator. Brute forcing RDP accounts, the dumping of credentials, and the use of legacy exploits such as EternalBlue (CVE-2017-0144), are ways to quickly obtain access to one or more privileged accounts. Once access to these systems is established, the next phase of the attack begins.
The actor navigates through the machines on the network using the earlier obtained access. To exfiltrate the collected data, the attacker uses WinSCP. Note that other, similar, tools can also be used. Once all relevant data has been stolen, the attacker will execute the ransomware in bulk. This can be done in a variety of ways, ranging from manually starting the ransomware on the targeted machines, scheduling a task per machine, or using PsExec to launch the ransomware.
As discussed above, there was a fallout within Babuk. From that fallout, a part of the group stayed together to form Groove. The server that Babuk used, which we will refer to as the “wyyad” server due to the ending of the onion URL, rebranded in late August 2021. The similarities can be seen in the two screenshots below.
Figure 7. The changes to the landing page from Babuk to Groove
Aside from this, data from old Babuk victims is still hosted on this server. The ATR team found, among others, leaks that belong to:
All these victims have previously been claimed by (and attributed to) Babuk.
Another gang, known as BlackMatter, uses a variety of locations to host their extorted files, which can be done out of convenience or to avoid a single notice and takedown to remove all offending files. Additionally, the ATR team assumes, with medium confidence, that different affiliates use different hosting locations.
The data of one of the BlackMatter gang’s victims, a Thai IT service provider, is stored on the “wyyad” server. As such, it can mean that the Groove gang worked as an affiliate for the BlackMatter gang. This is in line with their claim to work with anybody, as long as they profit from it. The image below shows the BlackMatter leak website linking to the “wyyad” server.
Figure 8. screenshot of BlackMatter, where the data is stored on the Groove server
The Groove gang’s website contains, at the time of writing, a single leak: data from a German printing company. Even though the website is accessible via a different address, the leaked data is stored on the “wyyad” server.
Figure 9. Another Groove victim but stored on their own page
The affected company does not meet BlackMatter’s “requirements,” the group has said it only goes after companies that make more than $US 100 million. This company’s annual revenue is estimated at $US 75 million, as seen in the below screenshot.
Figure 10. Posting on the Exploit forum by BlackMatter
At the end of Orange’s announcement comes a call to action and collaboration: “GROOVE is first and foremost an aggressive financially motivated criminal organization dealing in industrial espionage for about two years. RANSOMWARE is no more than an additional source of income. We don’t care who we work with and how. You’ve got money? We’re in”.
The group’s primary goal, making money, is not limited to ransomware. Inversely, ransomware would be the cherry on top. This is yet another indication of the ransomware group’s shift to a less hierarchical set-up and a more fluid and opportunistic network-based way of working.
In the Groove gang’s blog on September 7, a reference is made with regards to BlackMatter, and its links to DarkSide. If true, these insights show that the Groove gang has insider knowledge of the BlackMatter gang. This makes the collaboration between Groove and BlackMatter more likely. If these claims are false, it makes one wonder as to why the Groove gang felt the need to talk about other gangs, since they seem to want to make a name for themselves.
Due to the above outlined actions ATR believes, with high confidence, that the Groove gang is a former affiliate or subgroup of the Babuk gang, who are willing to collaborate with other parties, as long as there is financial gain for them. Thus, an affiliation with the BlackMatter gang is likely.
Ever since Ransomware-as-a-Service became a viable, and highly profitable, business model for cybercriminals, it has operated in much the same way with affiliates being the sometimes underpaid workhorses at the bottom of a rigid pyramid shaped hierarchy.
For some affiliates there was an opportunity to become competent cybercriminals while, for many others, the lack of recompense and appreciation for their efforts led to ill-feeling. Combined with underground forums banning ransomware actors, this created the perfect opportunity for the threat actor known as Orange to emerge, with the Groove gang in tow, with the offer of new ways of working where an associate’s worth was based entirely on their ability to earn money.
Time will tell if this approach enhances the reputation of the Groove gang to the level of the cybercriminals they seem to admire. One thing is clear though; with the manifestation of more self-reliant cybercrime groups the power balance within the RaaS eco-climate will change from he who controls the ransomware to he who controls the victim’s networks.
We have compiled a list of TTPs based on older Babuk cases and some recent cases linked to Groove:
If a partnership is achieved with a Ransomware family:
The post How Groove Gang is Shaking up the Ransomware-as-a-Service Market to Empower Affiliates appeared first on McAfee Blog.
McAfee Enterprise’s Advanced Threat Research (ATR) team provided deep insight into a long-term campaign Operation Harvest. In the blog, they detail the MITRE Tactics and Techniques the actors used in the attack. In this blog, our Pre-Sales network defenders describe how you can defend against a campaign like Operation Harvest with McAfee Enterprise’s MVISION Security Platform and security architecture best practices.
Operation Harvest, like other targeted attack campaigns, leverages multiple techniques to access the network and capture credentials before exfiltrating data. Therefore, as a Network Defender you have multiple opportunities to prevent, disrupt, or detect the malicious activity. Early prevention, identification and response to potentially malicious activity is critical for business resilience. Below is an overview of how you can defend against attacks like Operation Harvest with McAfee’s MVISION Security Architecture.
Throughout this blog, we will provide some examples of where MVISION Security Platform could help defend against this type of attack.
As Network Defenders our goal is to prevent, detect and contain the threat as early as possible in the attack chain. That starts with using threat intelligence, from blogs or solutions like MVISION Insights to get prepared and using tools like MITRE Attack Navigator to assess your defensive coverage. The ATR blog details the techniques, indicators and tools used by the attackers. Many of the tools used in Operation Harvest are common across other threat actors and detection details for PlugX, and Winnti are already documented in MVISION INSIGHTS.
Get a quick overview of the PlugX tool:
Easily search for or export PlugX IOCs right from MVISION Insights:
Get a quick overview of the Winnti tool:
Easily search for or export Winnti IOCs right from MVISION Insights:
Cross Platform Hunting Rules for Winnti:
MVISION Insights is also updated with the latest technical intelligence on Operation Harvest including a summary of the threat, prevalence, indicators of compromise and recommended defensive countermeasures.
In this attack, the initial access involved a compromised web server. Over the last year we have seen attackers increasingly use initial access vectors beyond spear-phishing, such as compromising remote access systems or supply chains. The exploiting of public-facing vulnerabilities for Initial Access is a technique associated with Operation Harvest and other APT groups to gain entry. Detecting this activity and stopping it is critical to limiting the abilities of the threat actor to further their execution strategy. Along with detecting the ongoing activity, it is also imperative to verify critical vulnerabilities are patched and configurations are security best practice to prevent exploitation. MVISION UCE provides visibility into threats, vulnerabilities, and configuration audits mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK Framework for protection against suspicious activity.
Many customer-facing applications and web servers are hosted on cloud infrastructure. As a Network Defender, gaining visibility and monitoring for misconfigurations on the infrastructure platforms is critical as this is increasingly the entry point for an attacker. MVISION Cloud Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) provides a continuous assessment capability for multiple cloud platforms in a single console so you can quickly correct misconfigurations and harden the security posture across AWS, AZURE or Google Cloud Platforms.
The attackers uploaded several known or potentially malicious tools to compromised systems. Many of these tools were detected on installation or execution by ENS Threat Prevention or Adaptative Threat Prevention Module. The following is a sample of the Threat Event log from ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) from our testing.
You can easily search for these events in ePO and investigate any systems with detections.
For best protection turn on Global Threat Intelligence (GTI) for both Threat Prevention and Adaptive Threat Protection modules. Ensure ATP Rules 4 (GTI File Reputation) and 5 (URL Reputation) are enabled in ATP. Global Threat Intelligence is updated with the latest indicators for this attack as well.
Additionally, based on other observables in this attack, we believe there are several other Adaptive Threat Prevention Rules that could prevent or identify potentially malicious activity on the endpoint or server. Monitor especially for these ATP events in the ePO threat event logs:
Rule 269: Detects potentially malicious usage of WMI service to achieve persistence
Rule 329: Identify suspicious use of Scheduled Tasks
Rule 336: Detect suspicious payloads targeting network-related services or applications via dual use tools
Rule 500: Block lateral movement using utilities such as Psexec from an infected client to other machines in the network
Rule 511: Detect attempts to dump sensitive information related to credentials via lsaas
Analysis will continue and additional ATP rules we think relate will be added to mitigation guidance in MVISION Insights.
ENS with Expert Rules
Expert Rules are a powerful, customizable signature language within ENS Threat Prevention Module. For this attack, you could use Expert Rules to identify potential misuse of Psexec or prevent execution or creation of certain file types used such as .rar files.
Additional guidance on creating your own Expert Rules and link to our repository are here:
How to Use Expert Rules in ENS to Prevent Malicious Exploits
Per standard practice, we recommend that customers test this rule in report mode before applying in block mode.
Like other attacks exploiting critical vulnerabilities, attackers may gain command and control over exploited systems to deliver payloads or other actions. MVISION EDR can both identify many command-and-control techniques such as Cobalt Strike beacons. In this case, MVISION EDR would have logged the DNS and HTTP connection requests to the suspicious domains and an SOC analysts could use Real Time and Historical search to hunt proactively for compromised machines.
Additionally, Unified Cloud Edge (UCE – SWG) can prevent access to risky web sites using threat intelligence, URL reputation, behaviour analysis and remote browser isolation. Ensure you have a strong web security policy in place and are monitoring logs. This is a great control to identify potentially malicious C2 activity.
The adversary used several techniques and tools to elevate privileges and run Mimikatz to steal credentials. In our simulation, MVISION EDR proactively identified the attempt to download and execute in memory a Mimikatz PowerShell script.
We simulated the attacker malicious attempt using potato tools reproducing a generic privilege escalation. From the EDR monitoring process tree we could observe the sequence of events with a change in terms of user name from a user account to SYSTEM.”
We started a guided investigation on the affected system. Analytics on the data identified anomalies in user behavior. Guided investigations make easier to visualize complex data sets and interconnections between artifacts and systems.
The attackers used a common dual use system utility, in this case Psexec.exe, to move laterally. In many cases, the malicious use of legitimate system tools is difficult to detect with signature-based detection only. MVISION EDR uses a combination of behaviour analytics and threat intelligence to proactively identify and flag a high severity alert on malicious use of Psexec for lateral movement.
Psexec.exe used for lateral movement:
The threat actors behind Operation Harvest utilized various tools to elevate privileges and exfiltrate data out of the impacted environment. Visualizing anomalies in user activity and data movement can be used to detect out of the ordinary behavior that can point to malicious activity going on in your environment. MVISION UCE will monitor user behavior and provide anomalies for the security team to pinpoint areas of concern for insider or external adversarial threats.
Identifying User Access Anomalies with UCE:
Identifying Data Transfer Anomalies with UCE:
MVISION Security Platform provides defense in depth to prevent, disrupt or detect many of the techniques used in Operation Harvest. As a network defender, focus on early prevention or detection of the techniques to better protect your organization against cyber-attacks.
The post McAfee Enterprise Defender’s Blog: Operation Harvest appeared first on McAfee Blog.
A special thanks to our Professional Services’ IR team, ShadowServer, for historical context on C2 domains, and Thomas Roccia/Leandro Velasco for malware analysis support.
Following a recent Incident Response, McAfee Enterprise‘s Advanced Threat Research (ATR) team worked with its Professional Services IR team to support a case that initially started as a malware incident but ultimately turned out to be a long-term cyber-attack.
From a cyber-intelligence perspective, one of the biggest challenges is having information on the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) an adversary is using and then keeping them up to date. Within ATR we typically monitor many adversaries for years and collect and store data, ranging from indicators of compromise (IOCs) to the TTPs.
In this report, ATR provides a deep insight into this long-term campaign where we will map out our findings against the Enterprise MITRE ATT&CK model. There will be parts that are censored since we respect the confidentiality of the victim. We will also zoom in and look at how the translation to the MITRE Techniques, historical context, and evidence artifacts like PlugX and Winnti malware led to a link with another campaign, which we highly trust to be executed by the same adversary.
IOCs that could be shared are at the end of this document.
McAfee customers are protected from the malware/tools described in this blog. MVISION Insights customers will have the full details, IOCs and TTPs shared via their dashboard. MVISION Endpoint, EDR and UCE platforms provide signature and behavior-based prevention and detection capability for many of the techniques used in this attack. A more detailed blog with specific recommendations on using the McAfee portfolio and integrated partner solutions to defend against this attack can be found here.
Forensic investigations identified that the actor established initial access by compromising the victim’s web server [T1190]. On the webserver, software was installed to maintain the presence and storage of tools [T1105] that would be used to gather information about the victim’s network [T1083] and lateral movement/execution of files [T1570] [T1569.002]. Examples of the tools discovered are PSexec, Procdump, and Mimikatz.
The adversary has been observed using multiple privilege escalation and persistence techniques during the period of investigation and presence in the network. We will highlight a few in each category.
Besides the use of Mimikatz to dump credentials, the adversaries used two tools for privilege escalations [T1068]. One of the tools was “RottenPotato”. This is an open-source tool that is used to get a handle to a privileged token, for example, “NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM”, to be able to execute tasks with System rights.
Example of RottenPotato on elevating these rights:
Figure 1 RottenPotato
The second tool discovered, “BadPotato”, is another open-source tool that can be used to elevate user rights towards System rights.
Figure 2 BadPotato
The BadPotato code can be found on GitHub where it is offered as a Visual Studio project. We inspected the adversary’s compiled version using DotPeek and hunted for artifacts in the code. Inspecting the File (COFF) header, we observed the file’s compilation timestamp:
TimeDateStamp: 05/12/2020 08:23:47 – Date and time the image was created
Another major and characteristic privilege escalation technique the adversary used in this long-term campaign was the malware PlugX as a backdoor. PlugX makes use of the technique “DLL Sideloading” [T1574.002]. PlugX was observed as usual where a single (RAR) executable contained the three parts:
The adversary used either the standalone version or distributed three files on different assets in the network to gain remote control of those assets. The samples discovered and analyzed were communicating towards two domains. Both domains were registered during the time of the campaign.
One of the PlugX samples consisted of the following three parts:
| Filename | Hashes |
| HPCustPartic.exe | SHA256: 8857232077b4b0f0e4a2c3bb5717fd65079209784f41694f8e1b469e34754cf6 |
| HPCustPartUI.dll | SHA256: 0ee5b19ea38bb52d8ba4c7f05fa1ddf95a4f9c2c93b05aa887c5854653248560 |
| HPCustPartic.bin | SHA256: 008f7b98c2453507c45dacd4a7a7c1b372b5fafc9945db214c622c8d21d29775 |
The .exe file is a valid and signed executable and, in this case, an executable from HP (HP Customer participation). We also observed other valid executables being used, ranging from AV vendors to video software. When the executable is run, the DLL next to it is loaded. The DLL is valid but contains a small hook towards the payload which, in our case, is the .bin file. The DLL loads the PlugX config and injects it into a process.
We executed the samples in a test setup and dumped the memory of the machine to conduct memory analysis with volatility. After the basic forensically sound steps, we ran the malfind plugin to detect possible injected code in a process. From the redacted output of the plugin, we observed the following values for the process with possible injected code:
Process: svchost.exe Pid: 860 Address: 0xb50000
Process: explorer.exe Pid: 2752 Address: 0x56a000
Process: svchost.exe Pid: 1176 Address: 0x80000
Process: svchost.exe Pid: 1176 Address: 0x190000
Process: rundll32.exe Pid: 3784 Address: 0xd0000
Process: rundll32.exe Pid: 3784 Address: 0x220000
One observation is the mention of the SVCHOST process with a ProcessID value of 1176 that is mentioned twice but with different addresses. This is similar to the RUNDLL32.exe that is mentioned twice with PID 3785 and different addresses. One way to identify what malware may have been used is to dump these processes with the relevant PID using the procdump module, upload them to an online analysis service and wait for the results. Since this is a very sensitive case, we took a different approach. Using the best of both worlds (volatility and Yara) we used a ruleset that consists of malware patterns observed in memory over time. Running this ruleset over the data in the memory dump revealed the following (redacted for the sake of readability) output:
Figure 3 Output Yarascan memory dump
The output of the Yara rule scan (and there was way more output) confirmed the presence of PlugX module code in PID 1176 of the SVCHOST service. Also, the rule was triggered on PID 3784, which belonged to RUNDLL32.exe.
Investigating the dumps after dynamic analysis, we observed two domain names used for C2 traffic:
In particular, we saw the following hardcoded value that might be another payload being downloaded:
sery.brushupdata.com/CE1BC21B4340FEC2B8663B69
The PlugX families we observed used DNS [T1071.001] [T1071.004] as the transport channel for C2 traffic, in particular TXT queries. Investigating the traffic from our samples, we observed the check-in-signature (“20 2A 2F 2A 0D”) that is typical for PlugX network traffic:
00000000: 47 45 54 20 2F 42 34 42 42 44 43 43 30 32 39 45
00000010: 31 31 39 37 31 39 46 30 36 35 36 32 32 20 48 54
00000020: 54 50 2F 31 2E 31 0D 0A 41 63 63 65 70 74 3A 20
00000030: 2A 2F 2A 0D 0A 43 6F 6F 6B 69 65 3A 20 44 36 43
00000040: 57 50 2B 56 5A 47 6D 59 6B 6D 64 6D 64 64 58 55
00000050: 71 58 4D 31 71 31 6A 41 3D 0D 0A 55 73 65 72 2D
During our analysis of the different PlugX samples discovered, the domain names as mentioned above stayed the same, though the payload values were different. For example:
Other PlugX samples we observed injected themselves into Windows Media Player and started a connection with the following two domains:
Another mechanism observed was to start a program as a service [T1543.003] on the Operating System with the acquired System rights by using the *Potato tools. The file the adversary was using seemed to be a backdoor that was using the DLL file format (2458562ca2f6fabddae8385cb817c172).
The DLL is used to create a malicious service and its name is “service.dll”. The name of the created service, “SysmainUpdate”, is usurping the name of the legitimate service “SysMain” which is related to the legitimate DLL sysmain.dll and also to the Superfetch service. The dll is run using the command “rundll32.exe SuperFrtch.dll, #1”. The export function has the name “WwanSvcMain”.
The model uses the persistence technique utilizing svchost.exe with service.dll to install a rogue service. It appears that the dll employs several mechanisms to fingerprint the targeted system and avoid analysis in the sandbox, making analysis more difficult. The DLL embeds several obfuscated strings decoded when running. Once the fingerprinting has been done, the malware will install the malicious service using the API RegisterServiceHandlerA then SetServiceStatus, and finally CreateEventA. A description of the technique can be found here.
The malware also decrypts and injects the payload in memory. The following screenshot shows the decryption routine.
Figure 4 Decryption routine
When we analyzed this unique routine, we discovered similarities and the mention of it in a publication that can be read here. The malware described in the article is attributed to the Winnti malware family. The operating method and the code used in the DLL described in the article are very similar to our analysis and observations.
The process dump also revealed further indicators. Firstly, it revealed artifacts related to the DLL analyzed, “C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\SuperfRtch\SuperfRtch.dat”. We believe that this dat file might be the loaded payload.
Secondly, while investigating the process dump, we observed activities from the backdoor that are part of the data exfiltration attempts which we will describe in more detail in this analysis report.
A redacted snippet of the code would look like this:
Creating archive ***.rar
Adding [data from location]
0%
OK
Another indicator of discovering Winnti malware was the following execution path we discovered in the command line dump of the memory:
cmd /c klcsngtgui.exe 1560413F7E <abbreviation-victim>.dat
What we observed here was the use of a valid executable, the AES 256 decryption key of the payload (.dat file). In this case, the payload file was named using an abbreviation of the victim company’s name. Unfortunately, the adversary had removed the payload file from the system. File carving did not work since the disk/unallocated space was overwritten. However, reconstructing traces from memory revealed that we were dealing with the Winnti 4.0 malware. The malware was injected into a SVCHOST process where a driver location pointed to the config file. We observed in the process dump the exfiltration of data on the system, such as OS, Processor (architecture), Domain, Username, etc.
Another clue that helped us was the use of DNS tunneling by Winnti which we discovered traces of in memory. The hardcoded 208.67.222.222 resolves to a legitimate OpenDNS DNS server. The IP is pushed into the list generated by the malware at runtime. At the start of the malware, it populates the list with the system’s DNS, and the OpenDNS server is only used as a backup to ensure that the C2 domain is resolved.
Another indicator in the process dump was the setup of the C2 connection including the User-Agent that has been observed being used by Winnti 4.0 malware:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/57.0.2987.133 Safari/537.36
WMI activity [T1546.003] was also observed to execute commands on the systems.
From a persistence point of view, scheduled tasks [T1053.005] and the use of valid accounts [T1078] acquired through the use of Mimikatz, or creating LSASS dumps, were observed being employed during the length of the campaign.
From a lateral movement perspective, the adversary used the obtained credentials to hop from asset to asset. In one particular case, we observed a familiar filename: “PsExec.exe”. This SysInternals tool is often observed being used in lateral movement by adversaries, however, it can also be used by the sysadmins of the network. In our case, the PsExec executable had a file size of 9.6 MB where the original PsExec (depending on 32- or 64-bit version) had a maximum file size of 1.3 MB. An initial static inspection of the file resulted in a blob of code that was present in the executable which had a very high entropy score (7.99). When running the file from the command line, the following output was observed:
Figure 5 PsExec output
The error notification and the ‘Impacket’ keyword tipped us off and, after digging around, we found more. The fake PsExec is an open-source Python script that is a PsExec alternative with shell/backdoor capability. It uses a script from this location: hxxps://github.com/SecureAuthCorp/impacket/blob/master/examples/psexec.pyi. The file is large since it incorporates a low-level protocol interaction from Impacket. The Python library combined with the script code is compiled with py2exe. The file was compiled during the time of the latest attack activities and signed with an expired certificate.
From what we observed, the adversary had a long-term intention to stay present in the victim’s network. With high confidence, we believe that the adversary was interested in stealing proprietary intelligence that could be used for military or intellectual property/manufacturing purposes.
The adversary used several techniques to exfiltrate the data. In some cases, batch (.bat) scripts were created to gather information from certain network shares/folders and use the ‘rar’ tool to compress them to a certain size [T1020] [T1030]. Example of content in a batch script:
C:\Windows\web\rar.exe a -[redacted] -r -v50000 [Target-directory]
On other occasions, manual variants of the above command were discovered after using the custom backdoor as described earlier.
When the data was gathered on a local system using the backdoor, the files were exfiltrated over the backdoor and the rar files were deleted [T1070.004]. Where external facing assets were used, like a web server, the data was stored in a location in the Internet Information Services (IIS) web server and exfiltrated over HTTP using GET requests towards the exact file paths [T1041] [T1567] [T1071].
An example of the [redacted] web traffic in the IIS logfiles:
| Date /Time | Request | TCP Src port | Source IP | User-Agent | |
| Redacted | GET /****/[redacted].rar | 80 | 180.50.*.* | MINIXL | |
| redacted | GET /****/[redacted].rar | 80 | 209.58.*.* | MINIXL | |
The source IP addresses discovered belonged to two different ISP/VPN providers based in Hong-Kong.
The User-Agent value is an interesting one, “MINIXL”. When we researched that value, we discovered a blog from Dell SecureWorks from 2015 that mentions the same User-Agent, but also a lot of the artifacts mentioned from the blog overlapped with the observations and TTPs of Operation Harvest [link].
What we could retrieve from open-source databases is that the use of this particular User-Agent is very limited and seems to originate from the APAC region.
That seems to be the one-million-dollar question to be asked. Within McAfee, attribution is not our main focus, protecting our customers is our priority. What we do care about is that if we learn about these techniques during an investigation, can we map them out and support our IR team on the ground, or a customer’s IR team, with the knowledge that can help determine which phase of the attack the evidence is pointing to and based on historical data and intelligence, assist in blocking the next phase and discover more evidence?
We started by mapping out all MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise techniques and sub-techniques, added the tools used, and did a comparison against historical technique data from the industry. We ended up with four groups that shared techniques and sub-techniques. The Winnti group was added by us since we discovered the unique encryption function in the custom backdoor and indicators of the use of the Winnti malware.
Figure 6 ATT&CK technique comparison
The diagram reflecting our outcome insinuated that APT27 and APT41 are the most likely candidates that overlap with the (sub-)techniques we observed.
Since all these groups are in a certain time zone, we extracted all timestamps from the forensic investigation with regards to:
When we converted all these timestamps from UTC to the aforementioned groups’ time zones, we ended up with the below scheme on activity:
Figure 7 Adversary’s time of operation
In this campaign, we observed how the adversary mostly seems to work from Monday to Thursday and typically during office hours, albeit with the occasional exception.
Correlating ATT&CK (sub-)techniques, timestamps, and tools like PlugX and Mimikatz are not the only evidence indicators that can help to identify a possible adversary. Command-line syntax, specific code similarity, actor capability over time versus other groups, and unique identifiers are at the top of the ‘pyramid of pain’ in threat intelligence. The bottom part of the pyramid is about hashes, URLs, and domains, areas that are very volatile and easy to change by an adversary.
Figure 8 Pyramid of Pain
Beyond investigating those artifacts, we also took possible geopolitical interests and potential deception into consideration when building our hypothesis. When we mapped out all of these, we believed that one of the two previously mentioned groups were responsible for the campaign we investigated.
Our focus was not about attribution though, but more around where the flow of the attack is, matches against previous attack flows from groups, and what techniques/tools they are using to block next steps, or where to locate them. The more details we can gather at the top of ‘the pyramid of pain’, the better we can determine the likely adversary and its TTP’s.
Well, not really. While correlating the observed (sub-)techniques, the malware families and code, we discovered another targeted attack against a similar target in the same nation with the major motivation of gathering intelligence. In the following diagram we conducted a high-level comparison of the tools being used by the adversary:
Figure 9 Tools comparison
Although some of the tools are unique to each campaign, if taken into consideration over time with when they were used, it makes sense. It demonstrates the development of the actor and use of newer tools to conduct lateral movement and to obtain the required level of user rights on systems.
Overall, we observed the same modus operandi. Once an initial foothold was established, the adversary would deploy PlugX initially to create a few backdoors in the victim’s network in case they were discovered early on. After that, using Mimikatz and dumping lsass, they were looking to get valid accounts. Once valid accounts were acquired, several tools including some of their own tools were used to gain information about the victim’s network. From there, several shares/servers were accessed, and information gathered. That information was exfiltrated as rar files and placed on an internet-facing server to hide in the ‘normal’ traffic. We represent that in the following graphic:
Figure 10 Attack flow
In the 2019/2020 case we also observed the use of a malware sample that we would classify as part of the Winnti malware family. We discovered a couple of files that were executed by the following command:
Start Ins64.exe E370AA8DA0 Jumper64.dat
The Winnti loader ‘Ins64.exe’ uses the value ‘E370AA8DA0’ to decrypt the payload from the .dat file using the AES-256-CTR decryption algorithm and starts to execute.
After executing this command and analyzing the memory, we observed a process injection in one of the svchost processes whereby one particular file was loaded from the following path:
C:\programdata\microsoft\windows\caches\ieupdate.dll
Figure 11 Memory capture
The malware started to open up both UDP and TCP ports to connect with a C2 server.
UDP Port 20502
TCP Port 20501
Figure 12 Network connections to C2
Capturing the traffic from the malware we observed the following as an example:
Figure 13 Winnti HTTP traffic to C2
The packet data was customized and sent through a POST request with several headers towards the C2. In the above screenshot the numbers after “POST /” were randomly generated.
The User-Agent is a good network indicator to identify the Winnti malware since it is used in multiple variants:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/50.0.2661.94 Safari/537.36
Indeed, the same User Agent value was discovered in the Winnti sample in Operation Harvest and seems to be typical for this malware family.
The cookie value consists of four Dword hex values that contain information about the customized packet size using a XOR value.
We learned more about the packet structure of Winnti from this link.
Applying what we learned about the handshake, we observed the following in our traffic sample:
Dword value 0 = 52 54 00 36
Dword value 1 = 3e ff 06 b2
Dword value 2 = 99 6d 78 fe
Dword value 3 = 08 00 45 00
Dword value 4 = 00 34 00 47
Initial handshake order:
Based on our cross-correlation with samples and other OSINT resources, we believe with a high confidence that this was a Winnti 4.0 sample that connects with a confirmed Winnti C2 server.
The identified C2 server was 185.161.211.97 TCP/80.
When analyzing the timestamps from this investigation, like we did for operation Harvest, we came to the below overview:
Figure 14 Beijing working hours case 2019/2020
Again, we observed that the adversary was operating Monday to Friday during office hours in the Beijing time-zone.
Operation Harvest has been a long-term operation whereby an adversary maintained access for multiple years to exfiltrate data. The exfiltrated data would have either been part of an intellectual property theft for economic purposes and/or would have provided insights that would be beneficial in case of military interventions. The adversaries made use of techniques very often observed in this kind of attack but also used distinctive new backdoors or variants of existing malware families. Combining all forensic artifacts and cross-correlation with historical and geopolitical data, we have high confidence that this operation was executed by an experienced APT actor.
After mapping out all data, TTP’s etc., we discovered a very strong overlap with a campaign observed in 2019/2020. A lot of the (in-depth) technical indicators and techniques match. Also putting it into perspective, and over time, it demonstrates the adversary is adapting skills and evolving the tools and techniques being used.
On a separate note, we observed the use of the Winnti malware. We deliberately mention the term ‘malware’ instead of group. The Winnti malware is known to be used by several actors. Within every nation-state cyber-offensive activity, there will be a department/unit responsible for the creation of the tools/malware, etc. We strongly believe that is exactly what we observe here as well. PlugX, Winnti and some other custom tools all point to a group that had access to the same tools. Whether we put name ‘X’ or ‘Y’ on the adversary, we strongly believe that we are dealing with a Chinese actor whose long-term objectives are persistence in their victims’ networks and the acquisition of the intelligence needed to make political/strategic or manufacturing decisions.
| Technique ID | Technique Title | Context Campaign |
| T1190 | Exploit Public-facing application | Adversary exploited a web-facing server with application |
| T1105 | Ingress Tool transfer | Tools were transferred to a compromised web-facing server |
| T1083 | File & Directory Discovery | Adversary browsed several locations to search for the data they were after. |
| T1570 | Lateral Tool Transfer | Adversary transferred tools/backdoors to maintain persistence |
| T1569.002 | System Services: Service Execution | Adversary installed custom backdoor as a service |
| T1068 | The exploitation of Privilege Escalation | Adversary used Rotten/Bad Potato to elevate user rights by abusing API calls in the Operating System. |
| T1574.002 | Hijack Execution Flow: DLL Side-Loading | Adversary used PlugX malware that is famous for DLL-Side-Loading using a valid executable, a DLL with the hook towards a payload file. |
| T1543.003 | Create or Modify System Process: Windows Service | Adversary launched backdoor and some tools as a Windows Service including adding of registry keys |
| T1546.003 | Event-Triggered Execution: WMI Event Subscription | WMI was used for running commands on remote systems |
| T1053.005 | Scheduled task | Adversary ran scheduled tasks for persistence of certain malware samples |
| T1078 | Valid accounts | Using Mimikatz and dumping of lsass, the adversary gained credentials in the network |
| T1020 | Automated exfiltration | The PlugX malware exfiltrated data towards a C2 and received commands to gather more information about the victim’s compromised host. |
| T1030 | Data transfer size limits | Adversary limited the size of rar files for exfiltration |
| T1070.004 | Indicator removal on host | Where in the beginning of the campaign the adversary was sloppy, during the last months of activity they became more careful and started to remove evidence |
| T1041 | Exfiltration over C2 channel | Adversary used several C2 domains to interact with compromised hosts. |
| T1567 | Exfiltration over Web Service | Gathered information was stored as ‘rar’ files on the internet-facing server, whereafter they were downloaded by a specific ip range. |
| T1071.004 | Application layer protocol: DNS | Using DNS tunneling for the C2 traffic of the PlugX malware |
Note: the indicators shared are to be used in a historical and timeline-based context, ranging from 2016 to March 2021.
PlugX C2:
| sery(.)brushupdata(.)com |
| Dnssery(.)brushupdata(.)com |
| Center(.)asmlbigip(.)com |
Tools:
Mimikatz
PsExec
RottenPotato
BadPotato
PlugX malware:
f50de0fae860a5fd780d953a8af07450661458646293bfd0fed81a1ff9eb4498
26e448fe1105b5dadae9b7607e3cca366c6ba8eccf5b6efe67b87c312651db01
e9033a5db456af922a82e1d44afc3e8e4a5732efde3e9461c1d8f7629aa55caf
3124fcb79da0bdf9d0d1995e37b06f7929d83c1c4b60e38c104743be71170efe
Winnti:
800238bc27ca94279c7562f1f70241ef3a37937c15d051894472e97852ebe9f4
c3c8f6befa32edd09de3018a7be7f0b7144702cb7c626f9d8d8d9a77e201d104
df951bf75770b0f597f0296a644d96fbe9a3a8c556f4d2a2479a7bad39e7ad5f
Winnti C2: 185.161.211.97
Tools:
PSW64 6e983477f72c8575f8f3ff5731b74e20877b3971fa2d47683aff11cfd71b48c6
NTDSDumpEx 6db8336794a351888636cb26ebefb52aeaa4b7f90dbb3e6440c2a28e4f13ef96
NBTSCAN c9d5dc956841e000bfd8762e2f0b48b66c79b79500e894b4efa7fb9ba17e4e9e
NetSess ddeeedc8ab9ab3b90c2e36340d4674fda3b458c0afd7514735b2857f26b14c6d
Smbexec e781ce2d795c5dd6b0a5b849a414f5bd05bb99785f2ebf36edb70399205817ee
Wmiexec 14f0c4ce32821a7d25ea5e016ea26067d6615e3336c3baa854ea37a290a462a8
Mimikatz
RAR command-line
TCPdump
The post Operation ‘Harvest’: A Deep Dive into a Long-term Campaign appeared first on McAfee Blog.
For this week’s executive spotlight, I’m highlighting Kathleen Curry, senior vice president, Global Enterprise Channels at McAfee Enterprise. Curry was named one of CRN’s 2021 Channel Chiefs. Joining the company in April 2020, she was acknowledged for her contributions expanding our partner program initiatives to reward partners for servicing customers in line with their modern needs and consumption preferences. This includes spearheading McAfee Enterprises’ “channel first” initiative and ethos, aimed to better empower our channel partner community and increase their profitability, while at the same time optimizing the end customer experience by scaling through McAfee Enterprise’s channels and partners. Read below for more.
Q: Who has been the most influential person in your life? |
My father instilled in me, from as far back as I can remember, that I can do whatever I set my mind to and that I am the owner of my life story. This helped create a positive, empowered mindset when facing challenges and opportunities throughout my life. And my father always kept our world big. Whether it was traveling to see other cultures, sharing his never-ending love of history, or getting involved in our community, his actions showed me the importance of taking time to connect with others, understand the context of things, and have compassion. While he is no longer with us, I still feel like I get advice from him every day.
Q: What are the most significant problems influencing cybersecurity professionals today? |
The ever-changing threat landscape is a real challenge. Finding the time to keep up on trends, proactively secure an environment, and address unexpected issues has become increasingly difficult. Together with our partners, we can help solve these problems.
Q: How do you separate hype from genuine innovation? |
Execution. True innovation delivers real outcomes. It can be big or small, but mostly, it must be realized and validated.
Q: With cybersecurity and AI capabilities expanding at a rapid pace, what will the future look like for companies like McAfee Enterprise and our partners in the coming years? |
There is tremendous opportunity ahead for us and our partners. With the complexity of the cybersecurity landscape, continuing threats, and talent gaps, our customers need our collective solutions, expertise, and services more than ever. We are charging ahead to optimize our channel program with partner profitability and growth at the forefront. Our dedication to a Channel First strategy coupled with best-in-class solutions positions us extremely well to win and best benefit the customers we serve together.
The post Executive Spotlight: Q&A with SVP of Global Channels, Kathleen Curry appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Why am I here?
There’s a lot of information out there on critical vulnerabilities; this short bug report contains an overview of what we believe to be the most news and noteworthy vulnerabilities. We don’t rely on a single scoring system like CVSS to determine what you need to know about; this is all about qualitative and experience-based analysis, relying on over 100 years of combined industry experience within our team. We look at characteristics such as wormability, ubiquity of the target, likelihood of exploitation and impact. Today, we’ll be focusing on CVE-2021-40444.
What is it?
CVE-2021-40444 is a vulnerability in Office applications which use protected view such as Word, PowerPoint and Excel which allows an attacker to achieve remote code execution (RCE). CVE-2021-40444 is a vulnerability which allows a carefully crafted ActiveX control and a malicious MS Cabinet (.cab) file to be launched from an Office document.
Most importantly, this vulnerability impacts the applications themselves, as well as the Windows Explorer preview pane.
Who cares?
This is a great question! Pretty much anyone who uses any Microsoft Office applications, or has them installed, should be concerned.
Office is one of the most widely-used applications on the planet. Odds are good you have it open right now. While many companies have disabled macros within Office documents at the Group Policy level, it is unlikely ActiveX is treated similarly. This means that without proper data hygiene, a large proportion of Office users will be vulnerable to this exploit.
Fortunately, “spray and pray” style email campaigns are unlikely to gain traction with this exploit, as mail providers have started flagging malicious files (or at least known PoCs) as potential malware and removing them as attachments.
What can I do?
Good news! You aren’t necessarily completely helpless. By default, Windows uses a flag known as the “Mark of the Web” (MoTW) to enable Protected Mode in Office. Email attachments, web downloads, and similar all have this MoTW flag set, and Protected Mode prevents network operations, ActiveX controls, and macros embedded within a document from being executed, which effectively disables exploitation attempts for this vulnerability.
That said, users have become so inured to the Protected View message, they often dismiss it without considering the consequences. Much like “confirmation fatigue” can lead to installing malicious software, attackers can leverage this common human response to compromise the target machine.
Even more so, while exploitation can occur via the Office applications themselves and via the Explorer preview pane, the Outlook preview pane operates in a completely different manner which does not trigger the exploit. Exactly why this distinction exists only MS can explain, but the upshot is that Outlook users have to explicitly open malicious files to be exploited – the more hoops users have to jump through to open a malicious, the less likely they are to be pwned.
If I’m protected by default, why does this matter?
It depends entirely on how the file gets delivered and where the user saves it.
There are many ways of getting files beyond email and web downloads – flash cards for cameras, thumb drives, external hard drives, etc. Files opened from these sources (and many common applications[1]) don’t have MoTW flag set, meaning that attackers could bypass the protection entirely by sending a malicious file in a .7z archive, or as part of a disk image, or dropping a USB flash drive in your driveway. Convincing users to open such files is no harder than any other social engineering strategy, after all.
Another fun workaround for bypassing default protections is to make use of an RTF file – emailed, downloaded, or otherwise. From our testing, an RTF file saved from an email attachment does not bear the MoTW but can still be used as a vector of exploitation. Whether RTF files become the preferred option for this exploit remains to be seen.
TL;DR
Ha! We put the tl;dr near the end, which only makes sense when the information above is so important it’s worth reading. But if all you care about is what you can actively do to ensure you’re not vulnerable, this section is for you.
Mitigations:
The Gold Standard
In case you simply can’t apply the patch or have a “production patch cycle” or whatever, McAfee Enterprise has you covered. Per our KB we provide comprehensive coverage for this attack across our protection and detection technology stack of endpoint (ENS Expert Rules), network (NSP) and EDR.
https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id=KB94876
[1] 7zip, files from disk images or other container formats, FAT formatted volumes, etc.
The post The Bug Report | September 2021: CVE-2021-40444 appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Microsoft is warning its users of a zero-day vulnerability in Windows 10 and versions of Windows Server that is being leveraged by remote, unauthenticated attackers to execute code on the target system using specifically crafted office documents. Tracked as CVE-2021-40444 (CVSS score: 8.8), the remote code execution flaw is rooted in MSHTML (aka Trident), a proprietary browser engine for the now-discontinued Internet Explorer and which is used in Microsoft Office to render web content inside Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents. This vulnerability is being actively exploited and protections should be put into place to prevent that. Microsoft has released guidance on a workaround, as well as updates to prevent exploitation, but below are additional McAfee Enterprise countermeasures you can use to protect your business.
Since originally reported, vulnerability exploitation has grown worldwide.
Figure 1. Latest MITRE ATT&CK framework for Exploitation of CVE-2021-40444. Source: MVISION Insights
Additional MITRE ATT&CK techniques have been identified since our original report. MVISION Insights will be regularly updated with the latest IOCs and hunting rules for proactive detection in your environment.
Figure 2. Latest MITRE ATT&CK framework for Exploitation of CVE-2021-40444. Source: MVISION Insights
The following McAfee Enterprise products can protect you against this threat.
Figure 3. Protection by ENS Module
For ENS, it’s important to have both Threat Protection (TP) and Adaptive Threat Protection (ATP) with GTI enabled. We are seeing 50% of detections based on ATP behavior analysis rules.
Figure 4. Protection by ENS Module
More details on Endpoint protection including MVISION EDR are included below.
McAfee Global Threat Intelligence (GTI) is currently detecting the analyzed IOCs for this exploitation. GTI will be continually updated as new indicators are observed in the wild.
ENS Threat Prevention module can provide added protections against exploitation of CVE-2021-40444 until a patch is deployed. The following signature in Exploit Prevention has shown coverage in testing of observed exploits; this signature could cause false positives, so it is highly advised to test in Report Mode or in sandbox environments before blocking in production environments.
Signature 2844: Microsoft Word WordPerfect5 Converter Module Buffer Overflow Vulnerability
Several custom Expert Rules can be implemented to prevent or detect potential exploitation attempts. As with all Expert Rules, please test them in your environment before deploying widely to all endpoints. Recommended to implement this rule in a log only mode to start.
Figure 5. Expert Rule to block or log exploitation attempts
Figure 6. Expert Rule to block or log exploitation attempts
ATP Rules
Adaptive Threat Protection module provides behavior-blocking capability through threat intelligence, rules destined to detect abnormal application activity or system changes and cloud-based machine-learning. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker must gain access to a vulnerable system, most likely through Spearphishing with malicious attachments. These rules may also be effective in preventing initial access and execution. It is recommended to have the following rules in Observe mode at least and monitor for threat events in ePO.
As with all ATP Rules, please test them in your environment before deploying widely to all endpoints or turning on blocking mode.
The Real-Time Search feature in MVISION EDR provides the ability to search across your environment for behavior associated with the exploitation of this Microsoft vulnerability. Please see the queries to locate the “mshtml” loaded module associated with various application processes.
EDR Query One
Processes where Processes parentimagepath matches “winword|excel|powerpnt” and Processes cmdline matches “AppData\/Local\/Temp\/|\.inf|\.dll” and Processes imagepath ends with “\control.exe”
EDR Query Two
HostInfo hostname and LoadedModules where LoadedModules process_name matches “winword|excel|powerpnt” and LoadedModules module_name contains “mshtml” and LoadedModules module_name contains “urlmon” and LoadedModules module_name contains “wininet“
Additionally, the Historical Search feature within MVISION EDR will allow for the searching of IOCs even if a system is currently offline.
Figure 7. Using Historical Search to locate IOCs across all devices. Source: MVISION EDR
McAfee Enterprise has published the following KB article that will be updated as more information and coverage is released.
McAfee Enterprise coverage for CVE-2021-40444 – MSHTML Remote Code Execution
Since public disclosure of the vulnerability, it has been observed from successful exploitation of CVE-2021-40444 in the wild that threat actors are utilizing a Cobalt Strike payload to then drop ransomware later in the compromised environment. The association between this vulnerability and ransomware point to the possibility that the exploit has been added to the tools utilized in the ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) ecosystem.
Figure 8. CVE-2021-40444-attack-chain (Microsoft)
The Ransomware Gangs that have been observed in these attacks have in the past been known to utilize the Ryuk and Conti variants of ransomware.
Please see below additional mitigations that can be utilized in the event your environment is compromised and added protections are needed to prevent further TTPs.
Cobalt Strike BEACON
MVISION Insights Campaign – Threat Profile: CobaltStrike C2s
Endpoint Security – Advanced Threat Protection:
Rule 2: Use Enterprise Reputations to identify malicious files.
Rule 4: Use GTI file reputation to identify trusted or malicious files
Rule 517: Prevent actor process with unknown reputations from launching processes in common system folders
Ryuk Ransomware Protection
MVISION Insights Campaign – Threat Profile: Ryuk Ransomware
Endpoint Security – Advanced Threat Protection:
Rule 2: Use Enterprise Reputations to identify malicious files.
Rule 4: Use GTI file reputation to identify trusted or malicious files
Rule 5: Use GTI file reputation to identify trusted or malicious URLs
Endpoint Security – Access Protection:
Rule: 1
Executables (Include):
*
Subrules:
Subrule Type: Files
Operations:
Create
Targets (Include):
*.ryk
Endpoint Security – Exploit Prevention
Signature 6153: Malware Behavior: Ryuk Ransomware activity detected
Conti Ransomware Protection
MVISION Insights Campaign – Threat Profile: Conti Ransomware
Endpoint Security – Advanced Threat Protection:
Rule 2: Use Enterprise Reputations to identify malicious files.
Rule 4: Use GTI file reputation to identify trusted or malicious files
Rule 5: Use GTI file reputation to identify trusted or malicious URLs
Endpoint Security – Access Protection Custom Rules:
Rule: 1
Executables (Include):
*
Subrules:
Subrule Type: Files
Operations:
create
Targets (Include):
*conti_readme.txt
Endpoint Security – Exploit Prevention
Signature 344: New Startup Program Creation
The post McAfee Enterprise Defender Blog | MSHTML CVE-2021-40444 appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Hyper-growth and a determination to stand above the crowd compelled a popular Eastern European telecom to upgrade its trusty McAfee Enterprise security infrastructure, which they relied on for many years to protect their 8,000 corporate endpoints. Competitive pressure to keep costs low and cybercriminals at bay for both their internal users and their customers spurred the mobile and fixed telephony company to enhance their existing security architecture with the latest endpoint and cloud-based protections from McAfee Enterprise.
The integrated McAfee Enterprise approach—with ePolicy Orchestrator ( ePO) at the helm as the single-pane-of-glass management hub—enabled the security architect to build out a strong security foundation, with McAfee Enterprise endpoint and data protection solutions and Microsoft Defender as the mainstays of the telecom’s line of defense.
With ransomware and other advanced threats grabbing headlines, the telecom company felt a pressing need to upgrade its McAfee Enterprise infrastructure and expand its on-premises endpoint protection to cloud-based McAfee Enterprise Endpoint Security. The organization also added MVISION Endpoint Threat Detection and Response (MVISION® EDR) and deployed two McAfee Enterprise Advanced Threat Defense appliances for dynamic and static sandboxing. These deployments were easily integrated into the telecom’s existing security architecture—with all solutions managed by McAfee Enterprise ePO software.
McAfee Enterprise Endpoint Security was instrumental in both simplifying and boosting endpoint protection, as multiple technologies—Threat Protection, Firewall, Web Control, and Adaptive Threat Prevention—are consolidated into a single agent. Leveraging threat data from local endpoints and McAfee Enterprise Global Threat Intelligence in the cloud, the telecom’s security team is also empowered to detect zero-day threats in near real time. When a threat is identified on a given endpoint, that information is automatically shared with all the other endpoints. And when an unknown or suspicious file is detected, it is immediately quarantined for analysis by MVISION EDR or the McAfee Endpoint Advanced Threat Defense sandbox.
Investigation had once been a lengthy and laborious manual process, often taking days or weeks. Sometimes detections of malicious activity were even ignored due to time constraints. But, after implementing MVISION EDR, things changed dramatically. Investigations and remediations now take as little as 10 to 15 minutes. The security team is catching more threats than ever before, their workflows are streamlined, and investigations are faster. Best of all, thanks to MVISION EDR, team members have expanded their threat-hunting capacity—without augmenting their staff.
Because McAfee Enterprise Advanced Threat Defense appliances and MVISION EDR are integrated with McAfee Enterprise SIEM solutions and McAfee Enterprise ePO software, suspicious activity at an endpoint automatically triggers an investigation. Advanced analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) in MVISION enable administrators to understand the alert, sort out the facts, and remediate any threat. MVISION EDR does all the preparatory work, gathering and distilling relevant data, such as IP addresses and information about devices and users. Graphic visualizations and AI-guided investigations help analysts quickly get a grasp on what’s happening. The security team can also run real-time queries to see if something similar has occurred anywhere else, and they can conduct historical searches for greater context.
“The volume of malware we have to deal with has definitely shrunk since implementing McAfee Enterprise Endpoint Security. But the addition of MVISION EDR has made an even bigger impact on security posture. When our endpoints do encounter malware, we can now respond many times faster and more effectively than ever before,” points out the security architect.
The enhanced McAfee Enterprise security architecture has transformed the telecom company’s approach to maintaining a more resilient security posture. The company is now taking a more proactive defense as a result of the new, fully coordinated McAfee Enterprise toolset.
In addition to advanced threat-hunting capabilities, the ability to share threat information across the organization via the Data Exchange Layer (DXL) has also contributed to a more proactive stance. For example, whenever a malicious file is identified, that information is automatically added to the McAfee Enterprise Threat Intelligence Exchange threat reputation database and shared with all DXL-connected systems: endpoints, SIEM, Advanced Threat Defense sandboxes, MVISION EDR software, and even the company’s Cisco pxGrid infrastructure, a multivendor, cross-platform network system that pulls together different parts of an IT infrastructure.
The European telecom company has plans to migrate to the cloud, beginning with Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Azure. For the time being, the organization plans to keep the McAfee Enterprise ePO management console on premises, but, in the very near future, the plan is to protect internet-only users with cloud-based MVISION ePO.
“Taking measured steps to augment our security infrastructure has helped us succeed at keeping our company and customers secure,” say the security architect. “It’s nice to know that McAfee Enterprise can support us wherever we are in our journey and can extend our integrated security infrastructure from device to cloud when we’re ready.”
The post European Telecom Company Expands Its Footprint to Better Protect Users and Customers appeared first on McAfee Blog.
BlackMatter is a new ransomware threat discovered at the end of July 2021.
This malware started with a strong group of attacks and some advertising from its developers that claims they take the best parts of other malware, such as GandCrab, LockBit and DarkSide, despite also saying they are a new group of developers. We at McAfee Enterprise Advanced Threat Research (ATR), have serious doubts about this last statement as analysis shows the malware has a great deal in common with DarkSide, the malware associated with the Colonial Pipeline attack which caught the attention of the US government and law enforcement agencies around the world.
The main goal of BlackMatter is to encrypt files in the infected computer and demand a ransom for decrypting them. As with previous ransomware, the operators steal files and private information from compromised servers and request an additional ransom to not publish on the internet.
McAfee’s EPP solution covers BlackMatter ransomware with an array of prevention and detection techniques.
ENS ATP provides behavioral content focusing on proactively detecting the threat while also delivering known IoCs for both online and offline detections. For DAT based detections, the family will be reported as Ransom-BlackMatter!<hash>. ENS ATP adds 2 additional layers of protection thanks to JTI rules that provide attack surface reduction for generic ransomware behaviors and RealProtect (static and dynamic) with ML models targeting ransomware threats.
Updates on indicators are pushed through GTI, and customers of Insights will find a threat-profile on this ransomware family that is updated when new and relevant information becomes available.
BlackMatter is typically seen as an EXE program and, in special cases, as a DLL (Dynamic Library) for Windows. Linux machines can be affected with special versions of it too but in this report, we will only be covering the Windows version.
This report will focus on version 1.2 of BlackMatter while also noting the important changes in the current version, 2.0.
BlackMatter is programmed in C++ and has a size of 67Kb.
FIGURE 1. Information about the malware
The compile date of this sample is the 23rd of July 2021. While these dates can be altered, we think it is correct; version 1.9 has a compile time of 12 August 2021 and the latest version, 2.0, has a date four days later, on the 16th of August 2021. Is clear that the malware developers are actively improving the code and making detection and analysis harder.
The first action performed by BlackMatter is preparation of some modules that will be needed later to get the required functions of Windows.
FIGURE 2. BlackMatter searching for functions
BlackMatter uses some tricks to try and make analysis harder and avoid debuggers. Instead of searching for module names it will check for hashes precalculated with a ROT13 algorithm. The modules needed are “kernel32.dll” and “ntdll.dll”. Both modules will try to get functions to reserve memory in the process heap. The APIs are searched using a combination of the PEB (Process Environment Block) of the module and the EAT (Export Table Address) and enumerating all function names. With these names it will calculate the custom hash and check against the target hashes.
FIGURE 3. BlackMatter detecting a debugger
At this point BlackMatter will make a special code to detect debuggers, checking the last 2 “DWORDS” after the memory is reserved, searching for the bytes “0xABABABAB”. These bytes always exist when a process reserves memory in the heap and, if the heap has one special flag (that by default is set when a process is in a debugger), the malware will avoid saving the pointer to the memory reserved so, in this case, the variables will keep a null pointer.
In Windows operating systems the memory has different conditions based on whether a program is running in normal mode (as usual) or in debugging mode (a mode used by programmers, for example). In this case, when the memory is reserved to keep information, if it is in debugging mode, Windows will mark the end of this memory with a special value, “0xABABABAB”. BlackMatter checks for this value and, if found, the debugger is detected. To avoid having it run normally it will destroy the function address that it gets before, meaning it will crash, thus avoiding the execution.
FIGURE 4. Preparing the protection stub function
After this check it will create a special stub in the reserved memory which is very simple but effective in making analysis harder as the stub will need to be executed to see which function is called and executed.
This procedure will be done with all functions that will be needed; the hashes are saved hardcoded in the middle of the “.text” section in little structs as data. The end of each struct will be recognized by a check against the “0xCCCCCCCC” value.
FIGURE 5. Hashes of the functions needed
This behavior highlights that the BlackMatter developers know some tricks to make analysis harder, though it is simple to defeat both by patching the binary.
After this, the ransomware will use another trick to avoid the use of debuggers. BlackMatter will call the function “ZwSetInformationThread” with the class argument of 0x11 which will hide the calling thread from the debuggers.
If the malware executes it correctly and a debugger is attached, the debugging session will finish immediately. This code is executed later in the threads that will be used to encrypt files.
FIGURE 6. Another way to detect a debugger
The next action is to check if the user that launched the process belongs to the local group of Administrators in the machine using the function “SHTestTokenMembership”. In the case that the user belongs to the administrator group the code will continue normally but in other cases it will get the operating system version using the PEB (to avoid using API functions that can alter the version) and, if it is available, will open the process and check the token to see if that belongs to the Administrators group.
FIGURE 7. BlackMatter checking if it has administrator rights
In the case that the user does not belong to the Administrator group the process token will use a clever trick to escalate privileges.
The first action is to prepare the string “dllhost.exe” and enumerate all modules loaded. For each module it will check one field in the initial structure that all executables have that keeps the base memory address where it will be loaded (for example, kernel32.dll in 0x7fff0000) and will compare with its own base address. If it is equal, it will change its name in the PEB fields and the path and arguments path to “dllhost.exe” (in the case of the path and argument path to the SYSTEM32 folder, where the legitimate “dllhost.exe” exists). This trick is used to try and mislead the user. For each module found it will check the base address of the module with its own base address and, at that moment, will change the name of the module loaded, the path, and arguments to mislead the user.
FIGURE 8. Decryption of the string “dllhost.exe”
The process name will be “dllhost.exe” and the path will be the system directory of the victim machine. This trick, besides not changing the name of the process in the TaskManager, can make a debugger “think” that another binary is loaded and remove all breakpoints (depending on the debugger used).
FIGURE 9. Changing the name and path in the PEB
The second action is to use one exploit using COM (Component Object Model) objects to try to elevate privileges before finishing its own instance using the “Terminate Process” function.
For detection, the module uses an undocumented function from NTDLL.DLL, “LoadedModulesLdrCallback” that lets the programmer set a function as a callback where it can get the arguments and check the PEB. In this callback the malware will set the new Unicode strings using “RtlInitUnicodeString”; the strings are the path to “dllhost.exe” in the system folder and “dllhost.exe” as the image name.
The exploit used to bypass the UAC (User Access Control), which is public, uses the COM interface of CMSTPLUA and the COM Elevation Moniker.
In the case that it has administrator rights or uses the exploit with success, it will continue making the new extension that will be used with the encrypted files. For this task it will read the registry key of “Machine Guid” in the cryptographic key (HKEY LOCAL MACHINE).
This entry and value exist in all versions of Windows and is unique for the machine; with this value it will make a custom hash and get the final string of nine characters.
FIGURE 10. Creating the new extension for the encrypted files
Next, the malware will create the ransom note name and calculate the integrity hash of it. The ransom note text is stored encrypted in the malware data. Usually the ransom note name is “%s.README.txt”, where the wildcard is filled with the new extension generated previously.
The next step is to get privileges that will be needed later; BlackMatter tries to get many privileges:
| · SE_BACKUP_PRIVILEGE
· SE_DEBUG_PRIVILEGE, SE_IMPERSONATE_PRIVILEGE · SE_INC_BASE_PRIORITY_PRIVILEGE · SE_INCREASE_QUOTA_PRIVILEGE · SE_INC_WORKING_SET_PRIVILEGE · SE_MANAGE_VOLUME_PRIVILEGE · SE_PROF_SINGLE_PROCESS_PRIVILEGE · SE_RESTORE_PRIVILEGE · SE_SECURITY_PRIVILEGE · SE_SYSTEM_PROFILE_PRIVILEGE · SE_TAKE_OWNERSHIP_PRIVILEGE · SE_SHUTDOWN_PRIVILEGE |
FIGURE 11. Setting special privileges
After getting the privileges it will check if it has SYSTEM privileges, checking the token of its own process. If it is SYSTEM, it will get the appropriate user for logon with the function “WTSQueryUserToken”. This function only can be used if the caller has “SeTcbPrivilege” that, by default, only SYSTEM has.
FIGURE 12. Obtaining the token of the logged on user
After getting the token of the logged on user the malware will open the Windows station and desktop.
In the case that it does not have SYSTEM permissions it will enumerate all processes in the system and try to duplicate the token from “explorer.exe” (the name is checked using a hardcoded hash), if it has rights it will continue normally, otherwise it will check again if the token that was duplicated has administrator rights.
In this case it will continue normally but in other cases it will check the operating system version and the CPU (Central Processing Unit) mode (32- or 64- bits). This check is done using the function “ZwQueryInformationProcess” with the class 0x1A (ProcessWow64Information).
FIGURE 13. Checking if the operating system is 32- or 64-bits
In the case that the system is 32-bits it will decrypt one little shellcode that will inject in one process that will enumerate using the typical “CreateRemoteThread” function. This shellcode will be used to get the token of the process and elevate privileges.
In the case that the system is 64-bits it will decrypt two different shellcodes and will execute the first one that gets the second shellcode as an argument.
FIGURE 14. BlackMatter preparing shellcodes to steal system token
These shellcodes will allow BlackMatter to elevate privileges in a clean way.
Is important to understand that to get the SYSTEM token BlackMatter will enumerate the processes and get “svchost.exe”, but not only will it check the name of the process, it will also check that the process has the privilege “SeTcbPrivilege”. As only SYSTEM has it by default (and it is one permission that cannot be removed from this “user”) it will be that this process is running under SYSTEM and so it becomes the perfect target to attack with the shellcodes and steal the token that will be duplicated and set for BlackMatter.
FIGURE 15. Checking if the target process is SYSTEM
After this it will decrypt the configuration that it has embedded in one section. BlackMatter has this configuration encrypted and encoded in base64.
This configuration has a remarkably similar structure to Darkside, offering another clear hint that the developers are one and the same, despite their claims to the contrary.
After decryption, the configuration can get this information:
|
After getting the configuration and parsing it, BlackMatter will start checking if it needs to make a login with some user that is in the configuration. In this case it will use the function “LogonUser” with the information of the user(s) that are kept in the configuration; this information has one user and one password: “test@enterprise.com:12345” where “test” is the user, “@enterprise.com” is the domain and “12345” the password.
The next action will be to check with the flag to see if a mutex needs to be created to avoid having multiple instances.
This mutex is unique per machine and is based in the registry entry “MachineGuid” in the key “Cryptography”. If the system has this mutex already the malware will finish itself.
Making a vaccine with a mutex can sometimes be useful but not in this case as the developers change the algorithm and only need to set the flag to false to avoid creating it.
FIGURE 16. Creation of the mutex to avoid multiple instances
After, it will check if it needs to send information to the C2. If it does (usually, but not always) it will get information of the victim machine, such as username, computer name, size of the hard disks, and other information that is useful to the malware developers to know how many machines are infected.
This information is encoded with base64 and encrypted with AES using the key in the configuration.
FIGURE 17. Encrypted information sent to the C2
The C2 addresses are in the configuration (but not all samples have them, in this case the flag to send is false). The malware will try to connect to the C2 using a normal protocol or will use SSL checking the initial “http” of the string.
FIGURE 18. Get information of the victim machine and user
The information is prepared in some strings decrypted from the malware and sent in a POST message.
FIGURE 19. Choose to send by HTTP or HTTPS
The message has values to mislead checks and to try and hide the true information as garbage. This “fake” data is calculated randomly.
The C2 returns garbage data but the malware will check if it starts and ends with the characters “{“ and “}”; if it does the malware will ignore sending the information to another C2.
FIGURE 20. Checking for a reply from the C2 after sending
BlackMatter is a multithread application and the procedure to send data to the C2 is done by a secondary thread.
After that, BlackMatter will enumerate all units that are FIXED and REMOVABLE to destroy the recycle bin contents. The malware makes it for each unit that has it and are the correct type. One difference with DarkSide is that it has a flag for this behavior while BlackMatter does not.
The next action is to delete the shadow volumes using COM to try and avoid detection using the normal programs to manage the shadow volumes. This differs with DarkSide that has a flag for this purpose.
FIGURE 21. Destruction of the shadow volumes using COM
BlackMatter will check another flag and will enumerate all services based on one list in the configuration and will stop target services and delete them.
This behavior is the same as DarkSide.
FIGURE 22. Stopping services and deleting them
Processes will be checked and terminated as with DarkSide, based on other configuration flags.
After terminating the processes BlackMatter will stop the threads from entering suspension or hibernating if someone is using the computer to prevent either of those outcomes occurring when it is encrypting files. This is done using the function “ZwSetThreadExecutionState”.
FIGURE 23. Preventing the machine being suspended or hibernated
The next action will be to enumerate all units, fixed and on the network, and create threads to encrypt the files. BlackMatter uses Salsa20 to encrypt some part of the file and will save a new block in the end of the file, protected with the RSA key embedded in the configuration with the Salsa20 keys used to encrypt it. This makes BlackMatter slower than many other ransomwares.
After the encryption it will send to the C2 all information about the encryption process, how many files were crypted, how many files failed, and so on. This information is sent in the manner previously described, but only if the config is set to true.
FIGURE 24. Release of the mutex
If one mutex was created in this moment it will be released. Later it will check the way that the machine boots with the function “GetSystemMetrics”. If the boot was done in Safe Mode BlackMatter will set some keys for persistence in the registry for the next reboot and then attack the system, changing the desktop wallpaper.
FIGURE 25. Determining whether the system boots in safe mode or normal mode
Of course, it will disable the safeboot options in the machine and reboot it (it is one of the reasons why it needs the privilege of shutdown).
To ensure it can launch in safe mode, the persistence key value with the path of the malware will start with a ‘*’.
FIGURE 26. Setting the persistance registry key
If the machine starts in the normal way, it will change the desktop wallpaper with an alternative generated in runtime with some text about the ransom note.
FIGURE 27. BlackMatter makes the new wallpaper in runtime
The new versions have some differences compared with versions 1.2 to 1.6:
Additional changes in version 2.0:
These changes suggest the developers are active on social media, with an interest in malware and security researchers.
Unlike some ransomware we’ve seen in the past, such as GandCrab , BlackMatter has good code, but it does have some design flaws that can be used in some cases to avoid having the malware encrypt the files.
This vaccine is not intended to be used in the normal way, rather only in special cases as, while it works, other programs can be affected (we obviously cannot test all third party programs but potential issues are likely to include data corruption and unpredictable behavior), and the fix is not permanent.
Steps to make the vaccine (proceed at your own risk):
In this moment BlackMatter cannot affect the machine as it needs the registry key to make the ransom extension, and the most important thing is, if it cannot make it, it will return the function WITHOUT decrypting the config that is needed too. In this case it will destroy the recycle bin and shadow volumes anyways but later it will finish as it does not have any behavior to do, RSA Key to protect the files, or anything to send to the C2 as the flag was never read from the config (and the default values are false for all of them).
Though the behavior of other programs may be unpredictable, the vaccine is easy to make, and the system will boot, showing that the BlackMatter programmers made a mistake in the design of the code.
This vaccine works for all versions, including 2.0.
The sample uses the following MITRE ATT&CK techniques:
| Technique ID | Technique Description | Observable |
| T1134 | Access Token Manipulation | BlackMatter accesses and manipulates different process tokens. |
| T1486 | Data Encrypted for Impact | BlackMatter encrypts files using a custom Salsa20 algorithm and RSA. |
| T1083 | File and Directory Discovery
|
BlackMatter uses native functions to enumerate files and directories searching for targets to encrypt. |
| T1222.001 | Windows File and Directory Permissions Modification | BlackMatter executes the command icacls “<DriveLetter>:\*” /grant Everyone: F /T /C /Q to grant full access to the drive. |
| T1562.001 | Disable or Modify Tools | BlackMatter stops services related to endpoint security software. |
| T1106 | Native API | BlackMatter uses native API functions in all code. |
| T1057 | Process Discovery | BlackMatter enumerates all processes to try to discover security programs and terminate them. |
| T1489 | Service Stop | BlackMatter stops services. |
| T1497.001 | System Checks | BlackMatter tries to detect debuggers, checking the memory reserved in the heap. |
| T1135 | Network Share Discovery | BlackMatter will attempt to discover network shares by building a UNC path in the following format for each driver letter, from A to Z: \\<IP>\<drive letter>$ |
| T1082 | System Information Discovery | BlackMatter uses functions to retrieve information about the target system. |
| T1592 | Gather Victim Host Information | BlackMatter retrieves information about the user and machine. |
| T1070 | Valid Accounts | BlackMatter uses valid accounts to logon to the victim network. |
| T1547 | Boot or Logon Autostart Execution | BlackMatter installs persistence in the registry. |
| T1102 | Query Registry | BlackMatter queries the registry for information. |
| T1018 | Remote System Discovery | BlackMatter enumerates remote machines in the domain. |
| T1112 | Modify Registry | BlackMatter changes registry keys and values and sets new ones. |
BlackMatter is a new threat in the ransomware field and its developers know full well how to use it to attack their targets. The coding style is remarkably similar to DarkSide and, in our opinion, the people behind it are either the same or have a very close relationship.
BlackMatter shares a lot of ideas, and to some degree code, with DarkSide:
It is important to keep your McAfee Enterprise products updated to the latest detections and avoid insecure remote desktop connections, maintain secure passwords that are changed on a regular basis, take precautions against phishing emails, and do not connect unnecessary devices to the enterprise network.
Despite some effective coding, mistakes have been made by the developers, allowing the program to be read, and a vaccine to be created, though we will stress again that it can affect other programs and is not a permanent solution and should be employed only if you accept the risks associated with it.
The post BlackMatter Ransomware Analysis; The Dark Side Returns appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Welcome back to our executive blog series, where I chat with some of the pivotal players behind McAfee Enterprise and the Advanced Threat Research Team to hear their takes on today’s security trends, challenges, and opportunities for companies across the globe.
Q: What got you interested in technology and threat research? |
As a little kid, I was always fascinated by technology. I would wrench open devices to study the inner workings, and try to assemble again. At age 12 I worked for three years to assemble my first computer-setup: a Commodore 64, disk-drive, and printer followed by an Amiga with modem. From that point, it was a journey from sysadmin to ethical hacking into specializing in digital forensics and joining FoundStone to setup their EMEA Incident Response team. As I witnessed multiple malware incidents and later some of the largest cyber-attacks ever, I got fascinated by all the mechanics around threat research. From this, I made a move to lead and envision new ways (threat) research can assist both responders and customers.
Q: If you could relive any moment of your life, which would it be? |
Good question. There are so many moments to be thankful for that I cannot choose one but will mention a few that might sound obvious: My baptism, marrying my wife, and the birth of my kids.
Q: What are some of the trends you are currently noticing across the threat landscape? |
Of course, we still have ransomware around as an ongoing issue that keeps evolving and impacting not only companies around the world, but also our lives more and more when fuel is not available, supermarkets are closed, and delivery of goods cannot be executed. Secondly, I would say the volume and number of attacks that happen have increased dramatically over the years. The moment a vulnerability is announced, within days, a proof-of-concept is available and within a week it is used by adversaries (either cybercrime or nation-state motivated). The feedback from our customers has been tremendously positive.
Q: How do you react to constantly changing threats in the market? |
The only way to respond to the constant changing threats is to be flexible and willing to change. What works today might not work tomorrow, which should be part of your strategy when it comes to threat hunting, threat detection, and protection. My team is eager to learn and we are committed to protect our customers, innovate new research techniques, and adapt that into our technology.
The post Executive Spotlight: Q&A with Lead Scientist & Sr. Principal Engineer, Christiaan Beek appeared first on McAfee Blog.
This month Microsoft released patches for 86 vulnerabilities. While many of these vulnerabilities are important and should be patched as soon as possible, there is one critical vulnerability that McAfee Enterprise wants to immediately bring to your attention due to the simplicity of what is required to exploit, and evidence that possible exploitation is already being attempted.
The list of flaws, collectively called OMIGOD, impact a software agent called Open Management Infrastructure that’s automatically deployed in many Azure services –
CVE-2021-38647 (CVSS score: 9.8) – Open Management Infrastructure Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
CVE-2021-38648 (CVSS score: 7.8) – Open Management Infrastructure Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
CVE-2021-38645 (CVSS score: 7.8) – Open Management Infrastructure Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
CVE-2021-38649 (CVSS score: 7.0) – Open Management Infrastructure Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
Azure customers on Linux machines, including users of Azure Automation, Azure Automatic Update, Azure Operations Management Suite (OMS), Azure Log Analytics, Azure Configuration Management, and Azure Diagnostics, are at risk of potential exploitation. OMI can also be installed outside of Azure on any on-premises Linux system.
The Remote Code Execution is extremely simple and all that is required is to remove the auth header and root access is available remotely on all machines. With this vulnerability the attackers can obtain initial access to the target Azure environment and then move laterally within it.
Campaign: Multiple CVE’s Affecting the Azure OMI Agent Dubbed OMIGOD
Source: MVISION Insights
Multiple security researchers shared proof of concept attacks on the exploitation of the vulnerabilities and, soon thereafter, actors mimicked the efforts and have recently been seen actively exploiting CVE-2021-38647 via botnet activities.
Background on the Mirai Botnet and related campaigns
Source: MVISION Insights
One such botnet is Mirai, which is actively scanning for vulnerabilities, including those identified as OMIGOD, that will allow the operators to infect a system and spread to connected devices. If the Mirai botnet exploits a vulnerable machine, the operators will drop one of the Mirai DDoS botnet versions and close port 5896 on the internet to prevent other attackers from exploiting the same box. Reports of successful exploitation of OMIGOD have reported cryptominers being deployed on the impacted systems.
Microsoft does not have an auto update mechanism; a manual upgrade of the agents is required to prevent exploitation. Microsoft has released a patched OMI version (1.6.8.1), suggested steps by Microsoft are provided in the below link.
CVE-2021-38647 – Open Management Infrastructure Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
McAfee Enterprise will continue to update the following KB document with product coverage of CVE-2021-38647; please subscribe to the KB to be notified of updates.
McAfee Enterprise coverage for CVE-2021-38647 Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
To identify vulnerable systems in your environment, McAfee Enterprise recommends scanning for systems listening on Ports 5986. Port 5986 is the typical port leveraged by the OMI agent. Industry intelligence from the Wiz Research group is also noting vulnerable systems listening on non–default ports 5985 and 1270. It is recommended to limit network access to those ports immediately to protect from the RCE vulnerability.
MVISION Insights provides regularly updated threat intelligence for the ongoing attempts to exploit OMIGOD. The “Multiple CVE’s Affecting the Azure OMI Agent Dubbed OMIGOD” campaign will have up to date Global Prevalence, IOCs, and MITRE techniques being observed in the wild. The IOCs within MVISION Insights can be utilized by the Real-time Search function of MVISION Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR) to proactively search your entire Linux endpoint environment for detection.
Global Prevalence of OMIGOD Exploitation Source: MVISION Insights
Indicators of Compromise related to exploitation of OMIGOD Source: MVISION Insights
The McAfee ENS Firewall Rules will allow for the creation of custom rules to block specific ports until the OMI agent can be updated to the resolved version; please see the below screenshot for a sample rule to block the ports associated with the OMI agent.
Creation of Block Rule for OMI Agent Ports in McAfee ENS Firewall
The Real-time search feature in MVISION EDR with allow for the searching of your entire Linux environment utilizing several different parameters to identify systems that could be potential targets.
The below pre-built queries can be executed to locate systems listening on the noted ports for the OMI Agent and to verify the version of the OMI agent installed on your endpoint.
Processes and CurrentFlow and HostInfo hostname where Processes name equals omiengine
Software and HostInfo hostname where Software displayname contains om
Locating Installed Software Versions of OMI on Linux endpoints in MVISION EDR
Monitoring the traffic and user information of OMI in MVISION EDR
Another method to identify vulnerable systems in your cloud infrastructure is run an on-demand vulnerability scan and create security configuration audits with MVISION Cloud Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP). Please see below several examples of using the CWPP and CSPM features to locate vulnerable systems by CVE number and detect usage of the “root” account in Microsoft Azure.
Running Vulnerability Scans to Identify Vulnerable Systems by CVE
Setting Security Configuration Audits to be alerted of Root Access in Microsoft Azure
The post McAfee Enterprise Defender Blog | OMIGOD Vulnerability Opening the Door to Mirai Botnet appeared first on McAfee Blog.
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. 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 resources. However, layered security defenses face the major and recurring challenge of detecting newer exploitation techniques as they heavily rely on known behaviors. Additionally, yet another significant challenge facing the enterprise network is detecting post-exploitation activities, after perimeter security is compromised.
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. 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. Consequently, differentiating between the legitimate and malicious use of Windows’ internal tools and services becomes a high priority for enterprise networks.
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. 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 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. 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.
MITRE Shield, a knowledge base maintained by MITRE for active defense techniques highlights many of the methods in adversary engagement. 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. 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, Privilege Escalation |
| Decoy Diversity – DTE0013 | deployment of decoy systems with varying Operating Systems and software configurations | Reconnaissance |
| Decoy Network – DTE0014 | Multiple computing resources that can be used for defensive or deceptive purposes | Initial Access |
| Decoy Personna – DTE0015 | Used to establish background information about a user. 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 theft attacks executed by adversaries after the initial compromise and then move on to discuss defense techniques against the above MITRE Shield attacks and how to use them effectively to detect deceptive credential usage in the network.
Lateral movement refers to the tools and techniques used by attackers to progressively expand their foothold within an enterprise network after gaining initial access. 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. Once inside the network, attackers will deploy a range of techniques at each stage of lateral movement to achieve their end goal. 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. 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.
As per the Verizon DBIR report 2020, over 80% of data breaches involve credential theft attacks. Credential theft is one of the primary tasks attackers need to perform post-exploitation and after gaining initial control of the target machine. 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. As indicated earlier, attackers have long been abusing Windows legitimate features like SMB, RPC over SMB, Windows Management Instrumentation, Windows Remote Management, and many other features to perform lateral movement activities. Figure 1 below highlights where lateral movement falls within the attack chain and its different stages. To remain stealthier, these activities would span a period ranging from many weeks to months.
Figure 1 – Stages of Lateral movement
To be able to distinguish between the admissible and malicious use of these inbuilt services, it is extremely critical for organizations to deploy advanced Threat Detection solutions. Over the course of this blog, we will discuss various credential theft techniques used by adversaries during lateral movement. We will also discuss an approach that can be used to effectively detect these techniques inside the network.
Attackers use a variety of tools and techniques to execute credential theft attacks. Many of these tools are open source and readily available on the internet. Operating systems like Windows implement Single Sign On (SSO) functionality, which require the user’s credentials to be stored in memory, thereby allowing the OS to seamlessly access network resource without repeatedly asking the user to re-enter those credentials. Additionally, user credentials are stored in memory in a variety of formats like NTLM hashes, reversibly encrypted plaintext, Kerberos tickets, PINs, etc., which can be used to authenticate to services depending upon the supported authentication mechanism. These credentials can be acquired by attackers from memory by parsing appropriate credential storage structures or using the Windows credential enumeration APIs. Consequently, these attacks pose major security concerns, especially in the domain environment if the attacker gains access to privileged credentials which can then be reused to access critical network resources. In the following sections, we discuss some of the widely adapted credential stealing techniques used by malware, with respect to the Windows operating system. Similar credential stealing techniques can also be used with other operating systems as well.
The Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) process manages and stores the credentials of all the users with active Windows sessions. These credentials stored in the LSASS process memory will allow users to access other network resource such as files shares, email servers and other remote services without asking them for the credentials again. LSASS process memory stores the credentials in many formats including reversibly encrypted plaintext, NTLM hashes, Kerberos Tickets (Ticket Granting Tickets, etc.). These credentials are generated and stored in the memory of the LSASS process when a user initiates the interactive logon to the machine such as console logon or RDP, runs a scheduled task or uses remote administration tools. The encryption and decryption of credentials is done using LsaProtectMemory and LsaUnProtectMemory respectively and hence a decryption tool using these APIs will be able to decrypt LSASS memory buffers and extract them. However, malware would need to execute with local administrator privileges and enable “SeDebugPrivilege” on the current process to be able access the LSASS process memory.
Below is a code snapshot from one of the famous credential harvesting tools, Mimikatz, enabling the required privileges on the calling thread before dumping the credentials.
Figure 2 – Checking for required privileges
We can see that the NTLM hash of the user’s credentials is revealed, and this can be brute forced offline as shown below. Many Windows services, such as SMB, support NTLM authentication and NTLM hashes can be used directly for authentication eliminating the need for the clear text passwords.
Figure 3 – Cracking NTLM Hashes offline
Attackers avoid using freely available tools like Mimikatz directly on the target machine to harvest credentials since they are easily detected by AVs. Instead, they use recompiled clones of it with minimal functionality to avoid noise. Below is one such instance where malware embeds recompiled Mimikatz code with the minimal required functionality.
Figure 4 – Credential extraction tool embedded inside malicious executable
Detection can also be avoided by using several “living off the land’ mechanisms, available in many post-exploitation frameworks, to execute the credential harvesting tools directly from memory using Reflective PE injection, where the binary is never written to the disk. Yet another approach is to dump the LSASS process memory using process dumping tools, exfiltrate the dump and extract the credentials offline. Microsoft has documented multiple ways to configure additional LSASS process protection which can prevent credentials being compromised.
The SAM database is a file on a local hard drive that stores the credentials for all local accounts on the Windows computer. NT hashes for all the accounts on the local machine, including the local administrator credential hash, are stored in the SAM database. The SAM database file is in %SystemRoot%system32/config and the hashes of the credentials are within the registry HKLM\SAM. Attackers need to acquire elevated privileges to be able to access the credentials from the SAM database. The example below demonstrates how the credentials from the SAM database can be revealed through a simple Meterpreter session.
Figure 5 – Dumping SAM database
Windows Credential Manager stores the Web and SMB/RDP credentials of users if they choose to save them on the Windows machine, thereby preventing the authentication mechanism from asking for those passwords again on subsequent logins. These credentials are encrypted with Windows Data Protection APIs (DPAPI) CryptProtectData, either using the current user’s logon session or a generated master key, and then saved on the local hard drive. Consequently, any process running in the context of the logged in user will be able to decrypt the credentials using CryptUnProtectData DPAPI. In the domain environment, these credentials can be used by attackers to pivot to other systems in the network. Data Protection APIs provide the cryptographic functionalities that can be used to securely store credentials and keys. These APIs are used by several other Windows components like browsers (IE/Chrome), certificates and many other applications as well. Below is one example of how credential dumping tools like Mimikatz can be used to dump stored Chrome credentials.
Figure 6 – Dumping browser credentials
DPAPI can be abused in multiple ways. In the Active Directory domain joined environment, if other users have logged into the compromised machine, provided a malware is running with escalated privileges, it can extract other user’s master keys from the LSASS memory which can then be used to decrypt their secrets. Below is a screenshot of how the master key can be extracted by using the credential dumping tool.
Figure 7 – Extracting DPAPI Master Key
Malware also tends to use multiple variants of credential enumeration APIs available within Windows. These APIs can extract credentials from Windows Credential Manager. Below is one instance of the malware using CredEnumerateW API to retrieve credentials and then search for terminal services passwords which It would use to pivot to other systems.
Figure 8 – Extracting credentials using Windows API
In the domain joined environment, the Kerberos protocol has a significant role to play with respect to authentication and requesting access to services and applications. It provides Single-Sign-On functionality for accessing multiple shared resources within the enterprise network. The Kerberos authentication mechanism in Active Directory involves multiple requests and responses like Ticket Granting Ticket (TGT) and Ticket Granting Service (TGS) supported by a Key Distribution Server (KDC), usually a Domain Controller. Upon successful authentication, a user will be able to access the respective services.
Attackers gaining access to a system joined in the domain would usually look for high value assets like Active Directory Controller, Database server, SharePoint server, Web Server, etc., and these services are registered in the domain with the specific Service Principal Name (SPN) values, which is a unique identifier of the Service Account in the domain. These SPN values are used by Kerberos to map the instance with the logon account allowing the client to authenticate to the respective service. Well known SPN values are listed out here. Once the attacker is authenticated with any domain user credentials and has information about the SPN values of the services within the domain, they can initiate the Kerberos Ticket Granting Service request (TGS – REQ) to the Key Distribution Server with the specified SPN value. Details on how the SPN values are registered and used in Kerberos authentication is documented here. TGS response from the KDC will have the Kerberos Ticket encrypted with the hash of the service account. This ticket can be extracted from the memory and can be brute forced offline to acquire service account credentials, allowing a domain user to gain admin level access to the service.
Kerberoasting is a well-documented attack technique listed in MITRE ATT&CK and it essentially abuses the Kerberos authentication allowing adversaries to request the TGS Tickets for the valid service accounts and brute force the ticket offline to extract the plain text credentials of the service accounts, consequently enabling them to elevate their privileges from domain user to domain admin. As an initial step to this lateral movement technique, the attacker would perform an internal reconnaissance to gain information about the services registered in the domain and get SPN values. A simple PowerShell command after importing the Active Directory PowerShell module, as shown below, can initiate the LDAP query to get information about all the user accounts from the Domain Controller with the SPN value set.
Figure 9 – PowerShell command to generate LDAP query
Attackers can specifically choose to scan the domain for MSSQL service with the registered SPN value used for Kerberos authentication. PowerShell scripts like GetUserSPNs can scan all the user SPNs in the domain or MSSQL service registered in the domain with Discover-PSMSSQLServers or Invoke-Kerberoast scripts. Following is an example output from the script:
Figure 10 – Kerberoasting PowerShell script output
Once an attacker has the SPN value of the SQL service, a Kerberos Ticket Granting Service Ticket request (TGS-REQ) can be initiated to the domain controller with the SPN value. This can be done by a couple of PowerShell commands generating KRB-TGS-REQ as shown below:
Figure 11 – Kerberos TGS request
Consequently, the Domain Controller sends the TGS-RESP with the ticket of the service account which will be cached in the memory and can be extracted by dumping tools like Mimikatz as a .kirbi document. This can be brute forced offline by tgsrespcrack, allowing the attacker to gain unrestricted access to the service with elevated privileges.
As indicted earlier, once an attacker has penetrated the domain network, it will be natural to progress towards targeting critical assets, such as the Active Directory controller. The Active Directory Database Services AD DS Ntds.dit file is one of the most overlooked attack vectors in the domain environment but can have significant impact if the attacker is able to gain the domain administrative rights leading to complete domain compromise.
The Ntds.dit file is the authoritative store of credentials for all the users in the domain joined environment, storing all the information about the users, groups and memberships, including credentials (NT Hashes) of all the users in the domain with historical passwords and user’s DPAPI backup master keys. An Attacker with domain admin rights can gain access to the Domain Controller’s file system and acquire credentials like hashes, Kerberos tickets and other reversibly encrypted passwords of all the users joined in the domain by dumping and exfiltrating the Ntds.dit file. These credentials can then be used by the attacker to further access resources by using attack techniques like PTH within the network since the credentials used across other shared resource could be same.
Multiple techniques can be used to dump the Ntds.dit file from the Domain Controller locally as well as remotely and extract the NTLM hashes/DPAPI backup keys for all the domain joined users. One of the techniques is to use the Volume Shadow Copy Service using the vssadmin command line utility and then extract the Ntds.dit file from the volume shadow copy as shown below.
Figure 12 – Dumping Volume shadow copy for C drive
Sensitive data on Active Directory is encrypted with the Boot Key (Syskey) stored in the SYSTEM registry hive and dumping the SYSTEM registry hive is a prerequisite as well to be able to extract all the credentials.
Publicly available Active Directory auditing frameworks like DSInternals provide PowerShell cmdlets to extract the Syskey from the SYSTEM registry hive and extract all the credentials from the Ntds.dit file.
Ntds.dit can also give access to the powerful service account within the Active Directory Domain, KRBTGT (Key Distribution Centre Service account). Acquiring the NTLM hash of this account can enable the attacker to execute a Golden Ticket attack leading to complete domain compromise with unrestricted access to any service on the domain joined system.
A DCSync attack is a method of credential acquisition which allows an attacker to impersonate the Domain Controller and can consequently replicate all the Active Directory objects to the impersonating client remotely, without requiring the user to logon to the DC or dumping the Ntds.dit file. By impersonating the Domain Controller, the attacker could acquire the NTLM hash of the KRBTGT service account, enabling them to gain access to all the shared resources and applications in the domain joined environment. To be able to execute this credential stealing technique, an attacker would have to compromise the user account with the required permissions, specifically DS-Replication-Get-Changes and DS-Replication-Get-Changes-All, as shown below.
Figure 13 – User with privileges
Once the attacker compromises the user account with the required privileges, Pass-The-Hash attacks can be executed to spawn a command shell with the forged logon session. Credential dumping tools like Mimikatz do this by enumerating all the user logon sessions and replacing the user credentials with the stolen usernames and NTLM hashes provided, in the current logon session. Behind the scenes, this is executed by duplicating the current process’s access token, replacing the user credentials pointed by duplicated access token and subsequently using the modified access token to start a new process with the stolen credentials which will be used for network authentication. This is as shown below for example user “DCPrivUser”.
Figure 14 – Pass-the-Hash attack
Further, as indicated below, any subsequent NTLM authentication from the logon session will use the stolen credentials to authenticate to domain joined systems like the Active Directory Controller.
Attackers can now initiate the AD user objects Replication request to the Domain Controller using Directory Replication Services Remote Protocol (DRSUAPI). DRSUAPI is the RPC protocol used for replication of AD objects. With DCERPC bind request to DRSUAPI, an RPC call to DSGetNCChanges will replicate all the user AD objects to the impersonating client. Attackers would usually target the KRBTGT account since acquiring the NTLM hash of this account will enable them to execute a Golden Ticket attack resulting in unrestricted access to domain services and applications.
Figure 15 – DCSync Attack
As indicated earlier, with the NTLM hash of the KRBTGT account, adversaries can initiate a Golden Ticket attack (Pass-the-Ticket) by injecting the forged Kerberos tickets into the current session which can be used to authenticate to any service with the client that supports pass the ticket (for instance, sqlcmd.exe connection to DB server, PsExec, etc.)
Figure 16 – Golden ticket with forged Kerberos ticket
The credential theft techniques we discussed in the previous sections are just the tip of the iceberg. Adversaries can use many other sophisticated credential stealing techniques to take advantage of system misconfigurations and legitimate administrative tools and protocols and, at the same time, remain undetected for a longer period. With many other event management solutions with SIEMs, used in conjunction with other network security solutions, it becomes a challenge for administrators to distinguish malicious use of legitimate tools and services from lateral movement. Perimeter solutions have their limitations in terms of visibility once the attacker crosses the network boundary and is inside the domain environment. It is extremely critical for organizations to protect and monitor critical network assets like the Domain Controller, Database server, Exchange Servers, build systems and other applications or services, as compromising these systems will result in significant damages. Therefore, enterprise networks must deploy a solution to detect credential stealing attacks as they can be used to pivot to other systems on the network and move laterally once an attacker establishes an attack path to a high value target. If the deployment of a solution within the critical zones of the network can detect the use of stolen credentials before adversaries can reach their target, the critical assets could still be prevented from being compromised.
Network Deception is one such deployment within the domain environment where, using the MITRE Shield techniques like decoy systems and network, decoy credentials, decoy accounts, decoy contents, could potentially help detect lateral movement early in the adversary’s attack path to the target asset and at the same time, report significantly low false detection rates. The idea of deception originates from the decades old honeypot systems but, unlike those, relies more on forging trust and giving adversaries what they are looking for. With its inbuilt proactiveness it is configured to lure attackers towards deceptive systems. As shown in the figure below, Network Deception consists of authentic looking decoy systems placed within the domain network, specifically in the network where the critical assets are placed. These decoy systems (could be virtual machines) are the full-fledged OS with configured applications or services and could be replicating the crucial services like Domain Controller, Exchange or DB server and other decoy machines that could lead to those systems. The image below highlights the key foundational aspects of the Network Deception
Figure 17 – Network Deception
As visualized in the figure above, Network Deception comprises the following key basic facts with respect to the deployment in the domain joined environment:
Since credential theft plays an important role in a successful targeted attack, deception essentially focuses on planting fake credentials on the production and decoy endpoints at multiple places within the OS and monitoring the use of these credentials to pivot to other systems. With respect to the network setup, the following are the key aspects, however this list is not exhaustive, and much more could be added:
Some of the other setup required for effective deployment of deception is as summarized below:
Figure 18 – Deceptive network setup – Basic requirements
To detect the use of deceptive credentials, setting up decoy machines is an essential part of the solution as well. Primarily, decoy machines should enable the access attackers are looking to have during the lateral movement phase. Decoys should also be configured to enable relevant auditing services to be able to generate events. For instance, the following enables the account logon events to be audited:
Decoy machines must be setup to run the log collector agent that can collect the access logs generated and forward them to the correlation server. However, in the domain joined environment, it is also essential to tune the decoy machines to forward only the relevant logs to the correlation server to minimize false positives.
The below highlights some of the auditing required to be enabled on the decoy systems for effective correlation.
Figure 19 – Basic decoy setup
The following sections describe some examples of how deception can be achieved in the domain network, along with a visualization of how credential theft can be detected.
LSASS process memory is one of the prime targets for attackers, as well as malware armed with lateral movement capabilities since it caches a variety of credentials. Credential extraction from the LSASS process requires opening a read handle to the process itself which is closely monitored by EDR products but there are stealthier ways around it.
One of the primary tasks towards achieving credential-based deception is to stage the deceptive credentials in LSASS process memory. This can be accomplished on the production and decoy systems by executing a trivial credential injection code which uses the CreateProcessWithLogonW Windows API with the specified crafted credentials. CreateProcessWithLogonW creates the new logon session using the caller process access token and spawns the process specified as a parameter in the security context of the specified deceptive credentials and it will be staged in the LSASS memory until the process runs in the background. The below shows the example code calling the API with the specified credentials which is also visible when credentials are extracted with Mimikatz.
Figure 20 – Injecting credentials into LSASS memory
One of the parameters to CreateProcessWithLogonW is “dwLogonFlags” which should be specified as LOGON_NETCREDENTIALS_ONLY as shown in the code above. This ensures the specified credentials are used only on the network and not for local logons. Additionally, NETONLY credentials used to create a logon session are not validated by the system. Below is a code snapshot from credential extraction tool Mimikatz, using a similar approach to forge a logon session and replacing the credentials with the supplied ones while executing Pass-the-Hash attacks.
Figure 21 – Mimikatz code for PTH attack
Attackers or malware moving laterally inside the network might do a recon for interesting hostnames via nbtstat/nbtscan. To deflect the lateral movement path, decoy systems can be configured with real looking hostnames that match the production systems. These hostnames will then be visible on NetBIOS scans as shown below.
Figure 22 – Deceptive host names pointing to decoy machines
These decoy systems can also run the relevant client applications pointing to the decoy services, with authentication directed to the decoy Domain Controller in the network. Detection of this attack path happens much earlier, however the decoy network setup keeps the adversaries engaged, helping admins to study their Tools and Techniques.
Figure 23 – Decoy machines running clients pointing to decoy services
A similar deception setup can also be done for the browsers where saved credentials can point to the decoy applications and services within the domain. For instance, Chrome saves the credentials in the SQLite format on the disk which can be decrypted using DPAPI as discussed earlier sections. The below examples demonstrate deceptive browser credentials which can lure adversaries towards the decoy services.
Figure 24 – Inserting deceptive browser credentials
In addition to some of the techniques discussed above, and many others highlighted in the previous sections, setting up deception involves much more advanced configuration of decoy systems to minimize false positives and needs to be tuned to the environment to accurately identify malicious activities. Deception can also be configured to address multiple other phases of lateral movement activity including reconnaissance and target discovery, essentially redirecting the adversaries and giving them a path to the target. Below is a high-level visualization of how the decoy network can look like the domain environment.
Figure 25 – Deception network setup
On the occasion where one of the domain-joined or public facing systems is compromised, authentication would be attempted to other domain joined systems in the network. If an authentication is attempted and any of the decoy systems are accessed and logged on, the use of these planted deceptive credentials should be a red flag and something which must be investigated. The visualization below shows the flow and an event being sent to an administrator on accessing one of the decoy systems.
Figure 26 – Deceptive credentials usage for authentication in the domain
One such example event of successfully logging on to the decoy system is as shown below:
Figure 27 – Alert send to administrator on using deceptive credentials
Credential theft attacks discussed here are mapped by MITRE as below:
| Technique ID | Technique Name | Description |
| T1003.001 | LSASS Process Memory | Attackers may attempt to access LSASS process memory to extract credentials as it stores a variety of credentials. Administrative privileges are required to access the process memory. |
| T1003.002 | SAM Database | Accessing credentials from SAM database requires SYSTEM level privileges. Stores credentials for all the local user accounts on the machine. |
| T1003.003 | NTDS.dit file | Contains credentials for all the domain users. File is present on the DC and domain admin privileges are required to access this file. |
| T1003.006 | DCSync | Attacker can extract the credentials from the DC by impersonating the domain controller and use DRSUAPI protocol to replicate credentials from DC. |
| T1558.001 | Golden Ticket | Attackers acquiring credentials for KRBTGT account can forge the Kerberos ticket called Golden Ticket, allowing them to get unrestricted access to any system in the domain |
| T1558.002 | Silver Ticket | Allows attacker to get admin level access to the service accounts by abusing Kerberos authentication |
| T1558.003 | Kerberoasting | Allows attackers to extract the Kerberos tickets for service accounts from memory and brute force offline to get credentials |
As credential theft attacks play a significant role in an attacker’s lateral movement, so as in-network defense for the defenders. With attackers’ lateral movement tactics evolving and getting more stealthier, defenders will have to adapt to innovative ways of defending the critical network assets. In–network defense strategies like Deception could prove to be a promising and forward-looking approach towards detecting and mitigating data theft attacks. Strategic planting of decoy systems within the production network, inserting decoy credentials and decoy contents on calculative selection of endpoints and decoy systems and accurately setting up the logging and correlation via SIEMs for monitoring the use of decoy contents, could certainly detect and mitigate the attacks early in the lateral movement life cycle.
Endpoint solutions like User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) and Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) could also play a significant role in building the deception infrastructure. For instance, one of the ways UEBA solutions could prove useful is to baseline user behavior and monitor access to credential stores on the system. UEBA/EDR could raise the red flag on injection of forged Kerberos tickets in the memory. This can provide user level visibility to a greater extent when integrated with SIEM, playing a crucial role in mitigating credential theft attacks.
The post Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active In-Network Defense appeared first on McAfee Blog.
On March 21st, 2021, the McAfee Enterprise Advanced Threat Research (ATR) team released several vulnerabilities it discovered in the Netop Vision Pro Education software, a popular schooling software used by more than 9,000 school systems around the world. Netop was very responsive and released several updates to address many of the critical findings, creating a more secure product for our educators and children to use. During any vulnerability research project, as we continue to gain a deeper understanding on how a product works, additional threat vectors become apparent which may lead to additional findings; this proved once again true during the Netop research. In this blog we will highlight an additional finding: CVE-2021-36134, a vulnerability in the processing of JPEG images, on the Netop Vison Pro version 9.7.2 software. The main emphasis will focus on the process and techniques used during blackbox fuzzing of a Windows DLL.
Fuzzing can be a challenging exercise and just knowing where to start can be cause for confusion. There are many different fuzzers on the market, many of them primarily designed to handle open-source projects on Linux. In late 2020 Google’s Project Zero team released a new fuzzer named Jackalope. Jackalope is a coverage-guided fuzzer, meaning it keeps track of code paths during testing and uses that information to guide its future mutations. Jackalope leverages a library called TinyInst for its code coverage and allows for command line parameters related to code coverage to be passed directly to TinyInst. What caught my attention about Jackalope was that it was designed with a blackbox, Windows and MacOS first mentality. It was built to fill a gap in Windows blackbox fuzzing, which has existed for some time and therefore warranted further investigation. During the time of Jackalope’s release, we were working on the Netop Vision Pro research which runs primarily on Windows, so it was logical to test Jackalope to see if we could discover any new vulnerabilities on Netop Vision Pro.
The Jackalope documentation does a great job of explaining the setup and build process to get started. For this setup we set up shop on a Windows 10 fully patched system and compiled Jackalope from the GitHub repo using Visual Studio 2019. In a short amount of time, it was time to test the setup. The repo provides a test binary which can be built with the source and therefore is the best place to understand how the fuzzer works. There are just under a few hundred lines of code, but how it works can be summed up in just a few lines, as seen in Figure 1.
Figure 1 test.cpp
Examining the test code, it becomes apparent the test binary simply crashes if it finds the word “test” in memory. It causes a crash by attempting to write the value “1” at an invalid memory address, “NULL”. Therefore, to ensure the fuzzer is working properly we need to create a small input corpus. This can be done by creating an “in” directory and placing a couple of text files within it, one containing the word “test”. We are not looking for crashes or new vulnerabilities during this test, but simply making sure our setup is functioning as expected. The test run can be seen in Figure 2, where the command to execute the test case was taken from the Jackalope documentation.
Figure 2 Testing fuzzer
When selecting an overall target function, it’s first important to look at how an application takes input alongside with how the fuzzer can tailor that input. Jackalope is designed to provide either a file or a chunk of shared memory to the target. This gives a lot of flexibility since almost anything can be set up as shared memory including network packet payloads. The trick becomes how to pass the file or shared memory to the target. In larger applications on Windows, a typical approach is to determine what functionality you want to fuzz, find a DLL that exports a function within the target code path, and pass that function the input. The closer the exported function is to the end of the desired code path to fuzz, the less headaches, and better results you will have trying to exercise the desired code.
Through the research done on Netop, we had a deep insight into how the system functions and the very large number of DLLs that it contains along with the numerous amounts of exported functions. After review, the function MeImgLoadJpeg which is exported in MeImg.dll stuck out as a good place to get started.
Figure 3 MeImgLoadJpeg Header
What makes this a good candidate for fuzzing? First, how, and when this function is executed is important. This function gets executed on both the student and teacher machines whenever a JPEG image is loaded into the system. For students this is when an image is pushed over the network to them; for example: when a teacher uses the blank screen feature on a student. On the teacher’s machine this function is called when a teacher loads an image to send to the student. The key components here are that it is potentially executed often, input can come from a local file or a network file and it affects both components of our system.
Second, when investigating this function further, the parameters are fuzzing friendly. Through light reversing, it can easily be seen that it takes a file path and opens the file directly within the function. This makes fuzzing it with Jackalope very simple since it supports file fuzzing and we won’t need to open or manipulate the test file in memory. Also, very few parameters are passed, one of which (BITMAPINFOHEADER), is well documented by Microsoft, making it simpler to construct valid calls. This also is true for the return parameter, HBITMAP. This will make it easy to determine success and failure conditions. Lastly, the fuzzable component of this function is a JPEG file. JPEG is a well-documented format and a well-fuzzed format, making test corpus generation and potentially crash analysis simpler.
In most fuzzing setups, a custom program is necessary to setup the required structure and complete any initialization required by the target function. This is commonly referred to as the test harness. It is required any time your target for fuzzing is not the main binary or executable, which tends to be the case most of the time. For example, if you want to fuzz a small executable like the “file” command on Linux, you don’t always require a test harness, since the binary takes its input (a file) directly from the command line and there is little to no setup required to get to your desired state. However, in many cases, especially on Windows, it is common to be looking to fuzz part of the code that is often not as directly accessible or requires setup before it can be passed the fuzzed data. This is where a test harness comes into play. Using the Jackalope “test.cpp” file provided in the GitHub repo, it is easy to see an example of what is needed when writing a test harness. The harness needs to configure the incoming test case as ether a file or shared memory input, set up parameters for the target function, call the function, and, if needed, create a crash to indicate a found crash to Jackalope.
To get started we first must load the DLL which contains our target function. In Windows this is usually performed with a call to “LoadLibrary”. Since our entire purpose is to fuzz a function within this DLL, if it fails to load, we should just exit.
Figure 4 LoadLibrary
Now that the DLL is loaded into memory, we need to obtain the address of our target function. This is commonly done through “GetProcAddress”.
Figure 5 GetProcAddress
The next step, setting up the parameters for the target function, is arguably the most crucial and can be the most difficult step in building a test harness. The best trick to get this right is to find examples of your target function being called in the real application and then mimic this setup in your test harness. In Netop, this function is only called by one other function. Figure 6 shows a slightly cleaned up version of a portion of the IDA decompilation of the function which calls MeImgLoadJpeg.
Figure 6 IDA Pro Decomplication of call to MeImgLoadJpeg
We can learn some key points from this call that are important to keep consistent if we want to find a useful crash. We know the first parameter (a2) is simply a file path. In our code, we do need to ensure our file path is in the format of a wide-character, since this is the typical format for a Windows file path. The second parameter (v8) is a Windows BITMAPINFOHEADER object. We can see from this code all the members of the BITMAPHEADER object are being set to 0 using a “memset”, except the “biSize”, which is being set to “40”. Since this is the only time this function is called in the Netop application, if we want to find a bug that has a chance to be leveraged through Netop, we need to follow this format. Why the value is set to 40 is less relevant for our purposes within the test harness; however, it may require investigation depending on any crashes found. The same principle holds true for the 3rd and final parameter. We see here it is hardcoded to zero, so we want to do the same. Could we test other values? Of course, but if Netop is hardcoded to zero we would never actually be able to pass anything else outside of our exercise. Using our additional understanding from Figure 6, we put the below code in Figure 7 into our harness.
Figure 7 Target Function Setup
With our parameters configured, we now need to simply call the function we want to fuzz. Where is the fuzzed data? In this case, our fuzzed data will be the jpeg file. The fuzzer will be passing a file path of a mutated jpeg file.
Figure 8 Calling MeImgLoadJpeg
This next step is highly dependent on the target function. If the target function will not fail in a manner that will crash your harness (throw an unhandled exception), then you need to create a crash for a failed test case. This can be seen in Figure 1 test.cpp. In this case, the target function has error handling and we are interested in any case which causes an unhandled exception within our DLL. If the DLL throws an unhandled exception, it will crash our test harness. As a result, we only need to check the return value for our own purposes to confirm things are working properly. This is good for initially testing, but we will want to remove any unnecessary code for our actual fuzz run. A non-null return value means the jpeg image was parsed and null means a handled error occurred, which is uninteresting for our case.
Figure 9 Checking the return value
With all this framework in place, we can run our harness with a valid image and confirm we get the expected result.
Figure 10 Test run
Although the above test harness code will successfully execute the target function and fully function within our fuzzer, we can make a few targeted changes to increase performance and results. One of the slowest operations in an application is printing to the screen, and this is true when fuzzing. Error checking is extremely helpful for development; however, printing “Result was not null” or the inverse every time will reduce our executions per second and doesn’t add anything to our fuzzer. Additionally, it is important not to introduce any extra code in our “fuzz” function which could potentially introduce additional code paths. This could cause the mutators to think that it found a new path of interesting code, when in fact it’s only the harness. As a result, you want your “fuzz” function to be the absolute bare minimum required to execute your code and perform other setup actions outside this function.
Now that we have a working test harness, we need to create a test corpus or input files for the fuzzer. The importance of this step for fuzzing cannot be overstated. The test cases produced by a fuzzer or only as good as the ones provided. In most cases, you are looking to create a set of minimal test inputs (and minimal size) that generate maximal code coverage.
Selecting or building a test corpus can be a complicated process. One of the advantages to using a known and popular format like JPEG is that there are many open-source corpora. Strongcourage’s corpus on GitHub is a great repo since it is many corpora combined and is the testing corpus that was used to find CVE-2021-36134. Jackalope does not recursively traverse directories when reading the input directory and does not throw an error in this regard, therefore it is important to make sure your corpus directory is only one level deep.
Using this basic outlined method and running Jackalope in the same fashion as the example test binary, a write access violation crash is found in the MeImgLoadJpeg in just a few minutes. This write access violation bug is filed as CVE-2021-36134.
This violation occurs because of memory being allocated for the destination of a memory copy based on the default three color components of a JPEG image, instead of using the value provided in the input file’s JPEG header. The copy is using the values provided by the file to determine the address of where to copy the image in memory. A write access violation occurs when a malformed image reports having four color components instead of the default three and the memory allocated is not the same size as the actual image.
Given the extensive prior reports and full system vulnerabilities we submitted to NetOp before, we decided not to take the analysis further and determine if the bug was truly exploitable. The code path can be leveraged over the network, by utilizing the teacher’s blank student screen feature. It is worth noting this code runs on both the student and the teacher, so the teacher would be unable to load this image to send to a student without crashing their own system. An attacker could leverage the previously discovered and disclosed vulnerabilities to emulate a teacher and send this image to a student regardless. Since the destination of the memory copy is being calculated based on image width and number of color components, it is plausible for an attacker to control where the “write” takes place; however, they would need to use an address space that could be calculated without invalidating the image further. In addition, the code is writing pixels from the image which is also under the attacker’s control. As a result, this could lead to a partial arbitrary write.
Fuzzing can be a fantastic tool for discovering new vulnerabilities in software. Although having source code can enhance fuzzing, it should not be considered a barrier of entry. Many tools and techniques exist which can be used to successfully fuzz blackbox targets and in turn help enhance the security of the industry.
One goal of the McAfee Enterprise Advanced Threat Research team is to identify and illuminate a broad spectrum of threats in today’s complex and constantly evolving landscape. Leveraging Google Project Zero team’s Jackalope and blackbox fuzzing techniques a JPEG parsing vulnerability, CVE-2021-36134 was discovered in Netop Vision Pro version 9.7.2. As per McAfee Enterprise’s vulnerability public disclosure policy, the ATR team informed Netop on June 25th, 2021, and worked directly with the Netop team. This partnership resulted in the vendor working towards effective mitigations of the vulnerability detailed in this blog.
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You can’t automate every business process. While I love automation and promote the concept, I know its limitations. This viewpoint needs to be recognized and observed as more security officials implement automation within their organizations.
I’d estimate that for most enterprises, the first 80 percent of migrating and integrating processes to automation is easy to do. The last 20 percent is hard to accomplish.
This breakdown helps you set realistic expectations about automation. I enjoy how automation saves time by generating useful data through repetition. But right now, data compiled from some activities still require a human being to examine the results and make a decision. You will still need a critical eye from your security operations team or managed security services provider when looking at the useful data or anomalies.
We still need to address the 20 percent and realize that the situation may not be as much of a challenge as we think initially. Here are some examples of what I mean.
Your automation detects and notes that one of your executives is connecting to your network from Russia. How do you know whether that executive is actually in Russia or if someone there is impersonating that executive? For optimal security, there needs to be human interaction to review the information and determine whether to let that person should be allowed to connect.
Or consider when IT officials at a hospital used the McAfee Enterprise ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) console to automate a deeper level scan of physicians’ laptops. This scan occurred before the physicians began their daily scans by sending over someone from the hospital’s operations department to clean the laptop and comply with HIPAA regulations. To collect the events compiled from the laptops, the IT officials used IBM® QRadar® Device Support Module (DSM) for McAfee Enterprise ePO. This platform integrated from IBM Security uses analytics for insights into potential threats to data.
With this setup, whenever an anomaly appeared in QRadar, such as some unusual behavior at the network level, an IT official at the hospital would right-click and add the IP address to a different scan group in ePO through the application programming interfaces (APIs). Automating that initial first pass of scanning the laptop finds these discrepancies quickly. But ultimately humans like IT officials must review the notification and send a message to McAfee Enterprise expert to clean the anomaly from the laptop themselves and confirm the anomaly was removed.
So, it’s hard to automate the 20 percent done by humans in your organization as shown here. But what the 80 percent of easy automation does for the rest of your business processes can outweigh that perceived drawback.
You can easily find yourself at work engulfed in an ocean of data. Indicators from your automation help you find out what’s important. Activity from the endpoints of your network gives you or an MSSP a view of what’s happening with your data.
Most systems today have everything connected to the internet. The endpoints interact with your network. Having broad visibility and detection across your network — whether it’s looking at DNS logs, proxy logs, traffic and so on — allows you to correlate information and identify what’s taking place right now.
The real-time aspect of automation for data on your network is vital important. Threats to your network depends both on how much time they require to activate and how long before they are detected and remediated. Automation that’s easy to implement helps find attacks quickly with a real-time detection engine that can minimize the damage that takes place.
Experts at McAfee Enterprise and our partners at IBM Security can help with troubleshooting by providing support for the 20 percent automation you can’t fulfill. You can investigate a full lifecycle of endpoint events using McAfee Enterprise MVISION and IBM QRadar integrated together. And you can automate remediation with the IBM Security SOAR (security orchestration, automation and response) platform.
With these tools, you can integrate the data available from threat feeds in one platform for better visibility and context. IBM’s managed security services experts can help you answer questions around how to best configure, administrate and manage endpoint security incidents based on that data collected by automation.
We can also help you learn about other technologies and trends that are happening that our experts deal with every day. Consultants can help you identify how to lower or minimize costs of attacks and breaches as well as work proactively to address these issues. Automation can’t provide you with these resources, but we can.
We have researchers at work looking how to merge that last hard 20 percent of automation implementation into the 80 percent of easy migration and conversion. For now, accept the notion that automation can handle most tasks for your organization and save you time and costs in the process. And what automation can’t do in those areas, we at McAfee Enterprise and IBM Security can help fill in the gaps.
Learn more about what automation with expert support can do for you by reviewing the features of MVISION Endpoint Security and IBM Managed Security Services. Or schedule a free 30-minute consultation with IBM Security by clicking the “Let’s talk” button on the IBM Managed Security Services homepage.
The post Why Can’t We Automate Everything? appeared first on McAfee Blog.
I spoke with Anand Ramanathan, VP of Products and Marketing who brings over 20 years of enterprise SaaS product experience ranging from high growth startups to established market leaders. Read the interview below to understand his thoughts on McAfee Enterprise and where he see’s the company going in the coming years.
Q: What is your ideal way to spend a Sunday? |
Every ideal Sunday has 3 components:
Q: With cybersecurity and AI capabilities expanding at a rapid pace, what will the future look like for companies like McAfee Enterprise in the coming years? |
The adversarial landscape has always been a digital cat and mouse game. McAfee Enterprise’s investment in AI over the years has allowed its solution to stay ahead of adversaries and provide industry-best protection for its customers. With adversaries pivoting their techniques at a more rapid pace, it has become imperative for security solutions to leverage the cloud and AI capabilities.
Q: Can you talk about McAfee Enterprise’s history of Insights and how it is used to improve cybersecurity capabilities, including protecting against cyber threats? |
Insights was born out of two very simple questions that CISOs get asked: Were we impacted by a given threat? Will our defenses protect us from the threat?
With an increase in security breaches being covered by popular press; board and executive management are becoming more attune with the threat landscape. We are seeing them start to ask the important questions to their security teams.
At McAfee Enterprise, we saw the gap in knowledge within security teams to give quick and efficient answers to the two pivotal questions. And given our depth in threat research and data analytics capabilities, innovated with the industry’s first proactive security solution in MVISION Insights, we feel we can answer the above questions, placing crucial information in the hands of the security teams. The feedback from our customers has been tremendously positive.
Q: What goals and initiatives are you focusing on to drive the company for the rest of 2021 and beyond? What IT capabilities do you have your eye on? |
McAfee Enterprise is at the center of three key buzzwords of 2021 – SASE, ZTNA, and XDR. We have been at the forefront of innovating in these areas with the release of MVISION Insights, MVISION Private Access, and MVISION UCE with integrated Remote Browser Isolation. We also have leadership in MITRE based attack detection for endpoint and cloud and MVISION marketplace for security ecosystem integration. We will be continuing this innovation velocity and lead the market with new capabilities on Zero Trust and XDR integration with the security ecosystem. Stay tuned, more to come!
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The increasing prevalence of ransomware tops the findings of the McAfee Enterprise Advanced Threat Research Report: October 2021 released today.
While ransomware continues to hold cybersecurity headlines hostage, so much has changed since our last threat report. After shutting down the Colonial Pipeline, DarkSide created the appearance of walking away after attracting government scrutiny, thinking we would miss the (alleged) connection to BlackMatter.
Our Advanced Threat Research team also made a move to McAfee Enterprise, a newly dedicated Enterprise Cybersecurity company. While we will no longer publish our work under McAfee Labs, you can still find and follow our research on our new McAfee Enterprise ATR Twitter feed: @McAfee_ATR.
We’ve shifted the primary focus of our new Threat Report from frequency to prevalence. Our team is now paying attention to how often we see the threat around the globe and, more importantly, who it targets.
While DarkSide attempted to step out of the spotlight, other ransomware families including REvil/Sodinokibi, Ryuk, and Babuk wreaked havoc from among DarkSide’s shadow. In response, this threat report offers a deep dive into ransomware’s increasing prevalence including ransomware family detections and the delta of data between open-source intelligence and telemetry.
Our McAfee Enterprise team also offers research and analysis on relevant threat topics including:
Once you’ve consumed the research and findings in this report, don’t forget our MVISION Insights preview dashboard which updates and profiles the most prevalent threats, offering a knowledge base that includes targeted countries and sectors along with proactive solutions to help your enterprise stay ahead of emerging threats.
We welcome your feedback about this threat report and what you would like to see in the next report.
Each year, Americans observe National Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15th to October 15th, by celebrating the contributions and importance of Hispanics and Latinos to the United States.
The 2021 Hispanic Heritage Month theme invites us to celebrate Hispanic Heritage and to reflect on how great our tomorrow can be if we hold onto our resilience and hope. This year’s theme also encourages us to reflect on the contributions Hispanics have made in the past and will continue to make in the future.
I spoke with Sr. Principal Engineer, Ismael Valenzuela about how his heritage played a role in who he is today, advice for future generations and more. Read our conversation below.
I was born and raised in Malaga, Spain, and spent a good part of my professional career in my home country until I moved to the US in 2014. My favorite memories are those shared with my family and friends, enjoying some of the amazing food we have in Malaga, and the beautiful warm weather we have all year long. Enjoying a football game (we call it soccer here in the US, but it’s really football, since it’s played with the foot!) with the friends on a Friday evening or simply a walk by the beach to enjoy the fresh breeze of the Mediterranean sea. Those are some of my favorite memories.
I was very fortunate to have a business angel at a very young age, who happened to be an experienced Argentinian businessman. He recognized my passion for infosec (it wasn’t called cyber back then) and provided me with the support needed to make my ideas and projects a reality. Thanks to him I was able to co-found one of the first infosec consulting businesses in Spain in 2000, and I’m still very grateful for that opportunity. My experience in the US has not been very different. Since 2014 I’ve had the pleasure to work very closely with super talented colleagues from our McAfee Enterprise teams in Argentina and Chile. Some of them were a tremendous help when I established myself in the NY area, and they continue to be great co-workers and friends, who I admire and look up to.
I think that Hispanic/LatinX are curious by nature. And curiosity is the basis for the ‘hacker’ culture. And yes, I call it hacker culture, referring to the original meaning and roots of the word ‘hacker’, which connoted technical virtuosity and playfulness (from Walter Isaacson, The Innovators. Great book by the way!). I think I’ve always had that curiosity, especially since I was a kid and had my very first computer, a PCS 286 with just plain old MS-DOS. From that moment on, I knew what I wanted to work with, for the rest of my life. By the time I was in high school I was already programming in several languages, most self-taught, including BASIC, Assembly, and Pascal, and was already doing little applications for some family and friends with tools like DBase III and Clipper. It was a lot of fun! It wasn’t until I started college that I started to dig deeper into operating systems, networking, and lower-level languages like C. When I was introduced to Linux, I immediately fell in love with it, and this increased my curiosity. I started to learn more about how the Internet worked and one thing led to the other. Before I knew it, I was reading guidelines on security, hacking, protocols, asking questions on IRC channels (Slack is essentially IRC for millennials, for those that didn’t know), and setting up my labs at home to play more with the tools I was learning about. Shortly after I landed my first job, as both a web programmer and a system administrator, I found some serious security vulnerabilities in a government network, that happened to make the news, which led me to setup my own consulting business in 2000 with my Argentinian partner. And the rest is history from there! (it’s on LinkedIn too)
If I must pick three, I’ll go with these:
1) we love food!
2) we love having long meals with friends and family!
3) we love having food outdoors!
Yes, I’m working on making sure my kids learn to eat a wide variety of healthy and fresh food, instead of processed and refined stuff. And I hope their kids do the same! Did I say I like food?
My hope is that current and new generations realize that true success is more than just a title, a professional achievement, or a prestigious career, whether it is in IT, or anything else. We live in a world that puts too much emphasis in personal egos, competitiveness, and social status. However, most often those pursuing these goals end up with anxiety, health issues, and disappointment. So, we need to start taking some of that pressure off the young ones and emphasize more the values and principles that can make you happy in the long term, things like a good work ethic, resilience to deal with setbacks, patience to acquire the right training and work through problems, empathy for others, balance to take care of yourself and those you love, and respect for everyone’s opinions and ideas. It’s not all about cyber!
Don’t be afraid to ask for help or to ask for a mentor. I was very fortunate to have an amazing mentor that taught me the fundamentals of business and a good work ethic. Having technical skills is important, but it’s equally important to develop other soft skills, like the ability to communicate clearly, to think strategically, to follow through with your projects, and of course the importance to stick to your values and your principles, and to care about the people you interact with. Try to grow your network, and don’t limit yourself to a certain age group, background, or ethnicity. Embrace diversity and realize that there’s always something new to learn from everyone you work with. Stay humble, and never think you’re the smartest in the room. Not only will you be wrong, but you’ll be missing the opportunity to learn and grow. If you want to start a career in cybersecurity specifically, see what classes you can take in your area, and what local groups or conferences are available. One of the few positive things we have with COVID is that most of the conferences have moved to an online format. Many like SANS Summits allow you to join Slack or Discord channels where you can interact with practitioners and security professionals. Also the SANS Institute (from which I’m part of the faculty), have initiatives like the CyberStart America that is a free national program for high school students to learn and master cybersecurity. These can be a gateway to the industry and can lead to college scholarships. And if you need more help or advice, don’t hesitate to contact me on my Twitter account: @aboutsecurity. I can help to point you in the right direction.
I think one of the things we need to do as professionals is to demystify what we do in this field. We need to start admitting that this is not rocket science. It is true that it’s a fast-paced field, and that it can seem overwhelming at times, but nothing that we do is too hard that anyone should feel intimidated to try to break in. We all learned over time, and in many cases through a succession of failures and recoveries. We all have a responsibility, from corporations to professionals, to lower the entry barriers and give more opportunities. One way to do this is to make more information available in Spanish. In fact, I’ll be chairing a talk track in Spanish at the 2021 SANS Threat Hunting Summit on October 7th and I’ll be hosting breakout spaces for the attendees to network with and to continue the conversation in Spanish as well. So, if you’re reading this, you have no excuses!
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McAfee Enterprise is prepared to protect our customers from day 1 of their journey with the new Windows 11 release.
This summer Microsoft announced planned changes to its Windows platform with the release of Windows 11. McAfee Enterprise is proud to announce that we have delivered day 1 support for the benefit of our current and future customers. We know that today’s hybrid workspaces call for flexibility and ease of use without compromising security, so now that Windows 11 is here, we want to address a few important topics regarding what to expect from your trusted security vendor, McAfee Enterprise:
Customers can rely on McAfee Enterprise products to already have the most important Windows 11 box checked—ensuring your systems are secure and protected against threats from day 1.
McAfee Enterprise is committed to continue this same level of support for Microsoft’s future release cadence of Windows 11. We work closely with Microsoft to make sure that McAfee Enterprise security software and hardware products are fully compatible with Windows operating systems.
We recognize that not every environment will be ready to upgrade on day 1, or even at the start of the new year. Regardless of the date of your transition, McAfee Enterprise is here to ensure you remain protected across your devices and OS versions.
Our ongoing commitment is to continue to support our customers and the release cadence of the Windows 10 platform. We keep apprised of Microsoft OS support cycles and ensure that our customers remain covered throughout their lifecycles. For more information, see KB85784 – Windows 10 compatibility with McAfee Enterprise products
That said, having a plan outlined in advance is a key ingredient to any successful environment upgrade or transition. McAfee Enterprise Technical Support and your Enterprise Customer Success teams are available to support and partner with you on your journey and to answer any product questions along the way.
Related resources:
With McAfee Enterprise’s security platform, you can command a centrally managed solution that protects your environment across varied devices and operating systems. A combination of fully enabled Endpoint Security Adaptive Threat Protection (ENS ATP), EDR, and MVISION Insights delivers proactive threat intelligence and defenses across the entire attack lifecycle. Our security teams work around the clock to anticipate future security needs and drive home industry-leading innovation. More on the McAfee Enterprise Endpoint Protection Platform here.
Additional product resources:
Our product teams have outlined our portfolio’s support in KB94901 – Windows 11 compatibility with McAfee Enterprise products.
To ensure a quality experience, each McAfee Enterprise product team is required to complete validations of all new releases that Microsoft publishes for Windows 11. The McAfee Enterprise goal is to add same-day support for all Windows 11 releases over time, for those products that don’t currently offer this cadence.
For general upgrade guidance or questions, customers may contact Enterprise Technical Support or visit our Support Portal here.
Take advantage of our latest Endpoint Security offering by visiting us here.
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The nationally recognized Hispanic Heritage Month grew out of a desire to educate people all over the country about the many contributions the Hispanic community has made to U.S. culture.
Here at McAfee Enterprise, we’re taking this year’s Hispanic Heritage Month to spotlight members of the LatinX community who are using their platforms to make their voices heard and contribute to the cybersecurity community. I spoke with Arnie Lopez, Vice President Worldwide Systems Engineering, about his heritage and journey to cybersecurity.
I love our food and music. I remember my mom cooking up some great dishes while we danced around the house listening to fun music.
I had two great LatinX mentors/role models, Carlos Dominguez and Guillermo Diaz that helped tremendously early in my career.
Our culture is hard working and sometimes very stubborn. Early in my career I was very interested in technology and asked people to teach me different types of technologies and would not take no for an answer. I started early on with learning computers, then servers, networking, security, then cloud and applications. All of this helped my career and had a huge impact.
Embrace your LatinX culture, use it as a differentiator when competing for new roles.
1) Our passion makes us great team members
2) We love to have fun… Work hard and play hard
3) We come in many different colors and sub-cultures but have common core values
I hope my kids and nephews keep up the celebration of Bolivian Independence Day (Seis de Agosto). It’s a big national party on August 6 every year with music, food and dancing.
Don’t be intimated by the lack of LatinX in Cyber, it’s up to us to change the demographics and we will do it. Find a LatinX mentor or coach that already works in Cyber to provide you candid and honest feedback and guidance.
Get involved, participate, and give back. Get involved in LatinX youth, corporate and University panels and events and tell your story. “If they can SEE it, They can BE it!”
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Welcome back to our executive blog series, where I chat with some of the pivotal players behind McAfee Enterprise to hear their takes on today’s security trends, challenges, and opportunities for enterprises across the globe. Dive into the conversation below with Vice President, Global Commercial, Britt Norwood.
Q: What’s the first career you dreamed of having as a kid? |
My first career was as a paper boy from 5th through 8th grade, but I always wanted to be a professional golfer. However, when I realized I was not that good at golf, I decided to pursue a career in business and technology.
Q: What do you think about talent in the technology and security industry? |
The talent we have in this industry is amazing, people are working so hard every day, but our foes are relentless, and we will always need talent who can look at problems with diverse viewpoints.
Q: Which emerging technology do you think holds the most promise once it matures? |
I’m interested in seeing the continued progress around the unification of threat hunting (EDR, XDR, MDR), as we better understand the power of machine learning, automated detection, and AI as it pertains to quickly identifying malicious code and non-conforming behaviors. This is a world where the surface is just being scratched. As this technology matures and develops, there is power for good, but it will always need to be balanced in a way that makes sure the uses are ethical and moral. This will be a true new frontier as it unfolds.
Q: What are some of the trends you are currently noticing within the privacy and cybersecurity space? |
Everyone knows that a layered model is necessary to protect valuable data against attacks, but there is fatigue within many IT departments about the number of tools they need and that need to be connected to each other to work properly. Most CIOs and CISOs are looking for platforms that simplify management and streamline threat research to consolidate and reduce complexities.
On the attack front, both the cryptocurrency phenomenon is allowing bad actors to be more aggressive, as they have a way to anonymously launder ransoms, which is why there are so many ransomware attacks happening now. Cryptocurrency needs to be examined from a regulatory standpoint to protect innocent consumers and businesses who are vulnerable to such attacks. Until that time, it falls back to security platforms to assist them.
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Did you know, the timing of Hispanic Heritage Month coincides with the Independence Day celebrations of several Latin American nations?
At McAfee Enterprise, we’re celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month by recognizing some of our amazing employees and asking them about their heritage and the impact it had on their career and journey to cybersecurity. Read my conversation with Zuly Gonzalez below on how her family and culture have impacted her career.
My parents moved to mainland US when I was young. During the summers, we’d go on vacation to Puerto Rico and one of my fondest memories growing up are the plane flights to/from Puerto Rico. This was before 9/11, when flying wasn’t what it is today. My sisters and I would keep ourselves entertained playing games. It was an adventure for us and the highlight was always a warm chicken or pasta meal.
We had two Christmas celebrations, which as a kid, you can’t ask for anything better! We celebrated Christmas on the 25th, which was the big event where we got most of our presents. Then on January 6 we’d celebrate “Día de Reyes” (Three Kings Day) where we would get a few more presents.
I’d say three things that are central to Puerto Rican culture are: family, God, and passion/hard work. Puerto Ricans believe in traditional family values. Religion plays an important part in our culture. And the Puerto Rican passion is hard to understate. I have to be careful, because a lot of times my passion leads me to speak very loudly, which can sometimes be misinterpreted by non-Hispanics as anger or aggression, when in fact, it’s just excitement. I saw a T-shirt recently that said, “I’m not yelling. I’m Puerto Rican.” This is so true!
One of my favorite dishes growing up, because we didn’t have it often, was sancocho. It’s a rich, comfort soup made with root vegetables and other starchy vegetables common in Puerto Rico. Ingredients include ñame, yautia, pana, papas, platanos, guineos, maiz, and batatas, among other things. A few of the ingredients are hard to find in the US, and when you do find them, are expensive, so we didn’t have it often growing up. But when my mom did make it, it was always a treat!
My parents were by far the biggest influence in my life. They taught me that I could be and do anything I wanted in life. They didn’t set limits for what I could achieve and taught me that with hard work anything is possible.
I followed my father’s footsteps by pursuing a career in STEM and attending the same university he attended. In fact, thinking about it now as I answer this question, I think that even more so than my mom, my dad had the biggest influence on who I am today as an individual. He shaped a lot of my personality, my beliefs, and a lot of the decisions I’ve made in my life, both personally and professionally.
Family values are very important in Puerto Rican culture. My dad was a math teacher and growing up he was always ready to help me with my homework. During the summer trip to Puerto Rico before I graduated high school, we took a tour of the university my dad went to. I ended up going to that university, which set me on the path to where I am today in my career. I obtained a degree in Computer Engineering and a co-op opportunity (similar to an internship) at NSA. NSA led me to a career in cybersecurity. At NSA I met Beau Adkins, who later turned into my partner in life and in business. Beau and I founded Light Point Security, which ultimately led us to McAfee Enterprise. But it all started with my parents. Without my parents’ motivation, support, and ultimate push to attend the University of Puerto Rico, I wouldn’t be where I am today.
Same advice I’d give any young person interested in any career path. That is – look for ways to learn outside of a traditional school setting. Getting a hands on experience is so important. First, it shows initiative and passion. Second, to use an analogy: Reading and memorizing a cooking recipe, and even knowing the history behind each ingredient, isn’t necessarily going to translate into a delicious meal, it takes practice. Practice with the equipment, practice with the ingredients, and sprinkle in your own creativity to make an expert dish. One that people will pay money for!
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Today marks a significant and exciting step forward for the combined McAfee Enterprise and FireEye businesses as we create a pure play, cybersecurity market leader.
I’m incredibly proud to be writing this as the newly appointed CEO of this combined business. Keeping nations and large enterprises safe is – I believe – one of the most important challenges facing the world today. We have already started working together to bring together the best of McAfee Enterprise and FireEye. Together, we see vast opportunities to develop an integrated security platform powered by artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation that will offer an unbeatable security portfolio to protect customers across endpoints, infrastructure, applications, and in the cloud. With our combined energies, we will be able to bring these solutions to market faster, and with greater innovation than before.
And we will do this because of our incredibly talented team. Together, we have 5,000 of the best security professionals who have already been working tirelessly to protect our customers. I am energized about bringing together these two teams to relentlessly protect the world from cyberattacks. Our new company culture will be focused on continuing to deliver on this vision, particularly for our customers.
As a combined business, we have over 40,000 customers, including many of the most well-known businesses in the world. And supporting our customers to be more resilient and stay one step ahead of adversaries has always been a priority – that’s why the majority of our enterprise and government customers have worked with our companies for over 16 years. We are committed to continuing to deliver excellence to our customers through this integration.
Today is a monumental day for everyone in this team. It is also a monumental day for the future of threat detection, protection, and response. Together, we will deliver a new model that creates solutions that work together, in a continuous fashion, to secure our customers across the full attack continuum. We are already seen as market leaders, now our story keeps getting better.
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Although Hispanic Heritage Month is coming to an end on October 15th, it doesn’t mean we have to stop celebrating our employee’s and learning about their heritage and what led them to their career in cybersecurity. Take a look at the conversation below with McAfee Enterprise, Joyce Moros-Nahim, LTAM Legal Director
What I enjoy the most about being Hispanic is that we are very amiable. We are always exited to meet new people and have new experiences. One of my favorite memories growing up is all the time I spent with my family. It was never something my parents had to force my brother and I to do. We were always happy to hang out with our cousins, have lunch with our “abuelitos” (grandparents), and celebrate with our very large family.
I have met and worked closely with many Hispanic and LatinX individuals and their enthusiasm and dedication for their chosen career along with their zest for life has taken them very far in both their home country and around the world. This has inspired me to keep pushing and take on every day with positivity and joy.
I have always been interested in the technology industry because it changes every day and will be more prevalent as we move into the future. Having been born in a Latin American country (Venezuela), I was always intrigued in seeing how other countries evolved in this industry.
I hope that future generations will continue to appreciate and partake in their cultural traditions. No matter which country a Latinx individual is from, they’re typically very family oriented, respectful, hardworking, and loving; which I hope will continue in future generations.
Visiting my grandmothers almost every day and having a Cafecito. On Sundays, we would also go to church in our Sunday best and have lunch with the whole family. I always enjoyed this time because I would see my whole family and hear about their week. It kept us spiritually and physically united.
Venezuelans are extremely hospitable, hardworking, and love to befriend people with different nationalities.
The most celebrated holiday in my culture is New Year’s Eve. The families get together and have “hallacas” and pan de jamon, two traditional Venezuelan meals. As it is about to strike 12 AM, we each eat 12 grapes, symbolizing 12 wishes or resolutions we have for the upcoming year. Once it’s 12 AM, we all embrace and celebrate what is to come!
My advice to a young Hispanic/Latinx individual would be to gain experience in the field and to find a mentor with a similar heritage to guide and inspire you.
A great way to attract more Hispanic/LatinX people to cybersecurity is to have programs in Latin American countries that will teach children about technology and how it’s key in our everyday life.
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We’re closing McAfee Enterprise’s Hispanic Heritage Month with Solutions Architect, Gus Arias. Read the full interview below to see how his heritage impacted his life and career in technology.
I love the food and music. To this day I never get tired of eating Arepas, a staple of my Venezuelan heritage.
I’ve always liked technology and I took a leap into IT from the Mortgage Industry. I stayed hungry for knowledge and am always eager to learn which transformed my cybersecurity career to where it is today.
I want future generations to know that it is never too late to learn something new, and you should strive to learn something new every day.
Arepas, Mandocas, Hayacas, and Paella
I would have to say our Christmas celebrations throughout the month of December.
Do not let anything hold you back and when it comes to change, have an open and positive view. Learn from those changes to improve, also work on soft skills. From a technology perspective – keep up with the times. Meaning, stay informed on the evolution of technology and threats.
Educate and promote early by engaging with local schools. Also, provide internships at the High School/College levels as a summer program.
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Many people have heard of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), legislation that became law across the EU in May 2018. It was designed to regulate how businesses protect personal data, notably how personal data is processed, and granted rights to individuals to exercise more control over their personal data.
GDPR is a framework which requires businesses to implement processes to enable them to understand where data is held, how it is used, how long it is kept for, how this can be reported to individuals, and how they may request its correction or deletion.
A critical – and often misunderstood – aspect of GDPR is that it doesn’t just apply to EU businesses. Any company in the world that stores information on EU citizens must adhere to the regulations; serious breaches can result in significant fines. Even just the top five companies that were penalized since GDPR’s introduction run into the hundreds of millions of US dollars! These regulations have teeth, so people pay attention to them.
Beyond GDPR’s own impact in protecting the rights of EU residents, perhaps its greatest legacy has been to increase expectations for how organizations handle personal data the world over. GDPR has set a new global standard, and we are seeing it serve as the model for a number of similar laws being mooted or passed by governments all over the world. With that in mind, how many businesses have heard of the PIPL (Personal Information Protection Law)? In August 2021, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, the top legislative body in the People’s Republic of China, voted for this law to take effect on Nov. 1, 2021. It has many similarities to GDPR, a key one being that it also applies world-wide with respect to data held on Chinese citizens. If your company is a multi-national corporation that deals with Chinese individuals then it applies to you, no matter where your business is incorporated or headquartered.
Likely many of the processes you have in place for GDPR can be repurposed for PIPL, however you will be looking for different data. McAfee’s Data Protection products (MVISION Unified Cloud Edge, MVISION Cloud, Endpoint DLP, and Network DLP) will help you identify where PIPL-relevant data is held and how it is being used. Data classifications/data identifiers for the Chinese Resident Identity Card, passport numbers, mobile phones etc can be identified in data stored in the cloud and on premise. McAfee’s unique multi-vector data exfiltration protection (more on that here) can also assist in ensuring that sensitive PII data doesn’t end up somewhere it shouldn’t. Here’s a view of our management console showing how we can identify Chinese PII:
No individual product can claim to make a business “PIPL compliant”, but products such as McAfee’s Data Protection suites should be considered a key part of a toolbox to aid in this goal. The fact that we’ve had this capability within our products for an extended time, well before the introduction of PIPL, is yet another datapoint as to why Gartner named MVISION Cloud THE market leader in the CASB Magic Quadrant and why Forrester named us a leader in their Forrester Wave Unstructured Data Security Platforms.
November is barely a month away and if you’re not already considering how to handle PIPL, you now need to make this a priority. Consider testing and enabling our Chinese PII classifications. If you’re running another vendor’s product that doesn’t offer such capability then take a look at how our MVISION Unified Cloud Edge solution can help solve this along with the digital transformation to cloud first that most companies have already undertaken.
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Going by recent headlines you could be forgiven for thinking all ransomware operators are raking in millions of ill-gotten dollars each year from their nefarious activities.
Lurking in the shadows of every large-scale attack by organized gangs of cybercriminals, however, there can be found a multitude of smaller actors who do not have access to the latest ransomware samples, the ability to be affiliates in the post-DarkSide RaaS world or the financial clout to tool up at speed.
So what is a low-paid ransomware operator to do in such circumstances?
By getting creative and looking out for the latest malware and builder leaks they can be just as devastating to their victims and, in this blog, we will track the criminal career of one such actor as they evolve from homemade ransomware to utilizing major ransomware through the use of publicly leaked builders.
For years, the McAfee Enterprise Advanced Threat Research (ATR) team has observed the proliferation of ransomware and the birth and (apparent) death of large organized gangs of operators. The most notorious of these gangs have extorted huge sums of money from their victims, by charging for decryption of data or by holding the data itself to ransom against the threat of publication on their ‘leak’ websites.
With the income of such tactics sometimes running into the millions of dollars, such as with the Netwalker ransomware that generated 25 million USD between 1 March and 27 July 2020, we speculate that much of those ill-gotten funds are subsequently used to build and maintain arsenals of offensive cyber tools, allowing the most successful cybercriminals to stay one step ahead of the chasing pack
Figure 1: Babuk group looking for a corporate VPN 0-Day
As seen in the image above, cybercriminals with access to underground forums and deep pockets have the means to pay top dollar for the tools they need to continually generate more income, with this particular Babuk operator offering up 50,000 USD for a 0-day targeting a corporate virtual private network (VPN) which would allow easy access to a new victim.
For smaller ransomware operators, who do not have affiliation with a large group, the technical skills to create their own devastating malware or the financial muscle to buy what they need, the landscape looks rather different.
Unable to build equally effective attack chains, from initial access through to data exfiltration, their opportunities to make illegal profits are far slimmer in comparison to the behemoths of the ransomware market.
Away from the gaze of researchers who typically focus on the larger ransomware groups, many individuals and smaller groups are toiling in the background, attempting to evolve their own operations any way they can. One such method we have observed is through the use of leaks, such as the recent online posting of Babuk’s builder and source code.
Figure 2: Babuk builder public leak on Twitter
Figure 3: Babuk source code leak on underground forum
McAfee Enterprise ATR has seen two distinct types of cybercriminal taking advantage of leaks such as this. The first group, which we presume to be less tech-savvy, has merely copied and pasted the builder, substituting the Bitcoin address in the ransom note with their own. The second group has gone further, using the source material to iterate their own versions of Babuk, complete with additional features and new packers.
Thus, even those operators at the bottom of the ransomware food chain have the opportunity to build on others’ work, to stake their claim on a proportion of the money to be made from data exfiltration and extortion.
A Yara rule dedicated to Babuk ransomware triggered a new sample uploaded on VirusTotal, which brings us to our ‘lowly-paid’ ransomware actor.
From a quick glance at the sample we can deduce that it is a copied and pasted binary output from Babuk’s builder, with an edited ransom note naming the version “Delta Plus”, two recovery email addresses and a new Bitcoin address for payments:
Figure 4: Strings content of “Delta Plus” named version of Babuk
We’ve seen the two email recovery addresses before – they have been used to deliver random ransomware in the past and, by using them to pivot, we were able to delve into the actor’s resume:
The first email address, retrievedata300@gmail.com, has been used to drop a .NET ransomware mentioning “Delta Plus”:
Figure 5: Strings content of .NET ransomware related to previous Delta ransomware activities
| Filename | Setup.exe |
| Compiled Time | Tue Sep 7 17:58:34 2021 |
| FileType | Win32 EXE |
| FileSize | 22.50 KB |
| Sha256 | 94fe0825f26234511b19d6f68999d8598a9c21d3e14953731ea0b5ae4ab93c4d |
The ransomware is pretty simple to analyze; all mechanisms are declared, and command lines, registry modification, etc., are hardcoded in the binary.
Figure 6: .NET analysis with command line details
In fact, the actor’s own ransomware is so poorly developed (no packing, no obfuscation, command lines embedded in the binary and the fact that the .NET language is easy to analyze) that it is hardly surprising they started using the Babuk builder instead.
By way of contrast, their new project is well developed, easy to use and efficient, no to mention painful to analyze (as it is written in the Golang language) and provides executables for Windows, Linux and network attached storage (NAS) systems.
The second email address, deltapaymentbitcoin@gmail.com, has been used to drop an earlier version of the .NET ransomware
Figure 7: Strings content from first version of .NET ransomware
| Filename | test2.exe |
| Compiled Time | Mon Aug 30 19:49:54 2021 |
| FileType | Win32 EXE |
| FileSize | 15.50 KB |
| Sha256 | e1c449aa607f70a9677fe23822204817d0ff41ed3047d951d4f34fc9c502f761 |
By checking the relationships between “Delta ransomware”, the Babuk iteration and the domains contacted during process execution, we can observe some domains related to our sample:
| suporte01928492.redirectme.net |
| suporte20082021.sytes.net |
| 24.152.38.205 |
Thanks to a misconfiguration, files hosted on those two domains are accessible through Open Directory (OpenDir), which is a list of direct links to files stored on a server:
Figure 8: Open Directories website where samples are hosted
Figure 9: Privilege escalation to get system rights
Figure 10: Registry value modifications to disable Windows Defender
Other domains where files are hosted contain different tools used during attack operations:
Figure 11: Fake Flash website used to download fake Flash installer
When logging in, the website warns you that your Flash Player version is outdated and tries to download the Fake Flash Player installer:
Figure 12: JavaScript variables used to drop fake Flash Installer
A secondary site appears to have also been utilized in propagating the fake Flash Player, though it is currently offline :
Figure 13: JavaScript function to download the fake Flash Installer from another website
Figure 14: Functions and C2 configuration from ransomware sample
(host used for extraction)
The majority of domains used by this actor are hosted on the same IP: “24.152.38.205” (AS 270564 / MASTER DA WEB DATACENTER LTDA).
But as we saw by “analyzing” the extraction tool used by the actor, another IP is mentioned: “149.56147.236” (AS 16276 / OVH SAS). On this IP, some ports are open, such as FTP (probably used to store exfiltrated data), SSH, etc.
By looking at this IP with Shodan, we can get a dedicated hash for the SSH service, plus fingerprints to use on this IP, and then find other IPs used by the actor during their operations.
By using this hash, we were able to map the infrastructure by looking for other IPs sharing the same SSH key + fingerprintings.
At least 174 IPs are sharing the same SSH pattern (key, fingerprint, etc.); all findings are available in the IOCs section.
Some IPs are hosting different file types, maybe related to previous campaigns:
Figure 15: Open Directory website probably used by the same actor for previous campaigns
Most of the ransomware samples used by the actor mention different Bitcoin (BTC) addresses which we assume is an effort to obscure their activity.
By looking for transactions between those BTC addresses with CipherTrace, we can observe that all the addresses we extracted (see the circle highlighted with a yellow “1” below) from the samples we’ve found are related and eventually point to a single Bitcoin wallet, probably under control of the same threat actor.
From the three samples we researched, we were able to extract the following BTC addresses:
Figure 16: Follow the money with CipherTrace
As we have seen above, our example threat actor has evolved over time, moving from simplistic ransomware and demands in the hundreds of dollars, to toying with at least two builder leaks and ransom amounts in the thousands of dollars range.
While their activity to date suggests a low level of technical skill, the profits of their cybercrime may well prove large enough for them to make another level jump in the future.
Even if they stick with copy-pasting builders and crafting ‘stagers’, they will have the means at their disposal to create an efficient attack chain with which to compromise a company, extort money and improve their income to the point of becoming a bigger fish in a small pond, just like the larger RaaS crews.
In the meantime, such opportunitistic actors will continue to bait their hooks and catch any fish they can as, unlike affiliated ransomware operators, they do not have to follow any rules in return for support (pentest documentation, software, infrastructure, etc.) from the gang’s operators. Thus, they have a free hand to carry out their attacks and, if a victim wants to bite, they don’t care about ethics or who they target.
The good news for everyone else, however, is the fact that global law enforcement isn’t gonna need a bigger boat, as it already casts its nets far and wide.
| Technique ID | Technique Description | Observable |
| T1189 | Drive By Compromise | The actor is using a fake Flash website to spread fake a Flash installer. |
| T1059.001 | Command Scripting Interpreter: PowerShell | PowerShell is used to launch command lines (delete shadow copies, etc.). |
| T1059.007 | Command and Scripting Interpreter: JavaScript | JavaScript is used in the fake Flash website to download the fake Flash installer. |
| T1112 | Modify Registry | To disable Windows Defender, the actor modifies registry. “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender” and “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Real-Time Protection”. |
| T1083 | File and Directory Discovery | The actor is listing files on the victim system. |
| T1057 | Process Discovery | The actor is listing running processes on the victim system. |
| T1012 | Query Registry | To perform some registry modifications, the actor is first querying registry path. |
| T1082 | System Information Discovery | Before encrypting files, the actor is listing hard drives. |
| T1056.001 | Input Capture: Keylogging | The exfiltration tool has the capability to log user keystrokes. |
| T1005 | Data from Local System | |
| T1571 | Non-Standard Port | The actor is using port “1177” to exfiltrate data. |
| T1048 | Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol | |
| T1486 | Data Encrypted for Impact | Data encrypted by ransomware. |
| T1490 | Inhibit System Recovery | Delete Shadow Copies. |
| rule Ransom_Babuk {
meta: description = “Rule to detect Babuk Locker” author = “TS @ McAfee Enterprise ATR” date = “2021-01-19” hash = “e10713a4a5f635767dcd54d609bed977” rule_version = “v2” malware_family = “Ransom:Win/Babuk” malware_type = “Ransom” mitre_attack = “T1027, T1083, T1057, T1082, T1129, T1490, T1543.003”
strings: $s1 = {005C0048006F007700200054006F00200052006500730074006F0072006500200059006F00750072002000460069006C00650073002E007400780074} // \ How To Restore Your Files .txt $s2 = “delete shadows /all /quiet” fullword wide
$pattern1 = {006D656D74617300006D65706F63730000736F70686F730000766565616D0000006261636B7570000047785673730000004778426C7200 $pattern2 = {004163725363683253766300004163726F6E69734167656E74000000004341534144324457656253766300000043414152435570646174655376630000730071} $pattern3 = {FFB0154000C78584FDFFFFB8154000C78588FDFFFFC0154000C7858CFDFFFFC8154000C78590FDFFFFD0154000C78594FDFFFFD8154 $pattern4 ={400010104000181040002010400028104000301040003810400040104000481040005010400058104000601040006C104000781040008
condition: filesize >= 15KB and filesize <= 90KB and 1 of ($s*) and 3 of ($pattern*) } |
| rule CRIME_Exfiltration_Tool_Oct2021 {
meta: description = “Rule to detect tool used to exfiltrate data from victim systems” author = “TS @ McAfee Enterprise ATR” date = “2021-10-04” hash = “ceb0e01d96f87af0e9b61955792139f8672cf788d506c71da968ca172ebddccd”
strings: $pattern1 = {79FA442F5FB140695D7ED6FC6A61F3D52F37F24B2F454960F5D4810C05D7A83D4DD8E6118ABDE2055E4D $pattern2 = {B4A6D4DD1BBEA16473940FC2DA103CD64579DD1A7EBDF30638A59E547B136E5AD113835B8294F53B8C3A $pattern3 = {262E476A45A14D4AFA448AF81894459F7296633644F5FD061A647C6EF1BA950FF1ED48436D1BD4976BF8 $pattern4 = {F2A113713CCB049AFE352DB8F99160855125E5A045C9F6AC0DCA0AB615BD34367F2CA5156DCE5CA286CC
condition: 3 of ($pattern*) } |
| http://atualziarsys.serveirc.com/Update4/
http://services5500.sytes.net/Update6/Update.exe.rar http://suporte20082021.sytes.net/Update5/ http://atualziarsys.serveirc.com/update4/update.exe.rar http://suporte20082021.sytes.net/Update3/ http://suporte01928492.redirectme.net/ http://atualziarsys.serveirc.com/Update3/ http://services5500.sytes.net/update8/update.exe.rar http://suporte20082021.sytes.net/update/ http://suporte20082021.sytes.net/Update5/Update.exe.rar http://suporte01928492.redirectme.net/AppMonitorPlugIn.rar http://suporte01928492.redirectme.net/Update5/Update.exe.rar http://services5500.sytes.net/update7/update.exe.rar http://services5500.sytes.net/Update8/Update.exe.rar http://services5500.sytes.net/Update8/Update.bat.rar http://suporte01092021.myftp.biz/update/ http://services5500.sytes.net/Update7/Update.exe.rar http://suporte01928492.redirectme.net/Update7/Update.bat.rar http://suporte01928492.redirectme.net/Update7/Update.exe.rar http://services5500.sytes.net/update6/update.exe.rar http://suporte01092021.myftp.biz/ http://services5500.sytes.net/Update6/Update.bat.rar http://suporte01928492.redirectme.net/update6/update.exe.rar http://suporte01928492.redirectme.net/update5/update.exe.rar http://services5500.sytes.net/ http://suporte01928492.redirectme.net/Update6/Update.exe.rar http://atualziarsys.serveirc.com/Update3 http://atualziarsys.serveirc.com/update3/update.reg.rar http://24.152.38.205/pt/flashplayer28_install.zip http://suporte01928492.redirectme.net/Update7 http://atualziarsys.serveirc.com/ http://atualziarsys.serveirc.com/update3/mylink.vbs.rar http://suporte01928492.redirectme.net/update7/update.exe.rar http://atualziarsys.serveirc.com/Update4/Update.exe.rar http://suporte01928492.redirectme.net/appmonitorplugin.rar http://atualziarsys.serveirc.com/update3/update.exe.rar http://suporte20082021.sytes.net/ http://suporte20082021.sytes.net/update3/update.exe.rar http://atualziarsys.serveirc.com/Update4/Update.exe2.rar http://suporte20082021.sytes.net/Update3/Update.exe.rar http://suporte20082021.sytes.net/Update5/Update.reg.rar http://atualziarsys.serveirc.com/Update4/Update.exe2.rar/ http://atualziarsys.serveirc.com/Update4 http://suporte01092021.myftp.biz/update/WindowsUpdate2.rar http://suporte01092021.myftp.biz/update http://atualziarsys.serveirc.com/Update3/Update.reg.rar/ http://atualziarsys.serveirc.com/Update3/Update.exe.rar http://suporte20082021.sytes.net/Update3/Update.exe.rar/ http://suporte01092021.myftp.biz/update/WindowsUpdate2.rar/ http://atualziarsys.serveirc.com/Update4/Update.exe.rar/ http://atualziarsys.serveirc.com/Update3/mylink.vbs.rar http://atualziarsys.serveirc.com/update4 http://atualziarsys.serveirc.com/update3 http://suporte01092021.myftp.biz/update/Update.rar http://suporte01928492.redirectme.net/AppMonitorPlugIn.rar/ http://suporte20082021.sytes.net/update5/update.exe.rar http://suporte01092021.myftp.biz/update5/update.exe.rar http://atualziarsys.serveirc.com/update4/update.exe2.rar http://suporte01092021.myftp.biz/update/windowsupdate2.rar http://suporte20082021.sytes.net/update2/update.exe.rar http://suporte20082021.sytes.net/update/windowsupdate2.rar http://atualziarsys.serveirc.com/Update4/mylink.vbs.rar http://atualziarsys.serveirc.com/favicon.ico http://24.152.38.205/1.rar http://24.152.38.205/1.exe http://appmonitorplugin.sytes.net/appmonitorplugin.rar http://suporte20082021.sytes.net/update/WindowsUpdate2.rar http://appmonitorplugin.sytes.net/ http://suporte20082021.sytes.net/appmonitorplugin.rar http://suportmicrowin.sytes.net/appmonitorplugin.rar http://suportmicrowin.sytes.net/ http://suportmicrowin.sytes.net/AppMonitorPlugIn.rar http://appmonitorplugin.sytes.net/AppMonitorPlugIn.rar http://24.152.38.205/pt/setup.zip |
| services5500.sytes.net
atualziarsys.serveirc.com suporte01092021.myftp.biz suporte20082021.sytes.net suporte01928492.redirectme.net suportmicrowin.sytes.net appmonitorplugin.sytes.net |
| 149.56.147.236
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The post Is There Really Such a Thing as a Low-Paid Ransomware Operator? appeared first on McAfee Blog.
What cyber security threats should enterprises look out for in 2022?
Ransomware, nation states, social media and the shifting reliance on a remote workforce made headlines in 2021. Bad actors will learn from this year’s successful tactics, retool, and pivot them into next year’s campaigns wielding the potential to wreak more havoc in all our lives.
Skilled engineers and security architects from McAfee Enterprise and FireEye offer a preview of how the threatscape might look in 2022 and how these new or evolving threats could potentially impact the security of enterprises, countries, and civilians.
“Over this past year, we have seen cybercriminals get smarter and quicker at retooling their tactics to follow new bad actor schemes – from ransomware to nation states – and we don’t anticipate that changing in 2022,” said Raj Samani, fellow and chief scientist of the combined company. “With the evolving threat landscape and continued impact of the global pandemic, it is crucial that enterprises stay aware of the cybersecurity trends so that they can be proactive and actionable in protecting their information.”
Nation States will weaponize social media to target more enterprise professionals
By Raj Samani
We love our social media. From beefs between popstars and professional pundits, to an open channel to the best jobs in the industry.
But guess what?
The threat actors know this, and our appetite toward accepting connections from people we have never met are all part of our relentless pursuit of the next 1,000 followers.
A result of this has seen the targeting of executives with promises of job offers from specific threat groups; and why not? After all, it is the most efficient method to bypass traditional security controls and directly communicate with targets at companies that are of interest to threat groups. Equally, direct messages have been used by groups to take control over influencer accounts to promote messaging of their own.
While this approach is not new, it is nearly as ubiquitous as alternate channels. After all, it does demand a level of research to “hook” the target into interactions and establishing fake profiles are more work than simply finding an open relay somewhere on the internet. That being said, targeting individuals has proven a very successful channel, and we predict the use of this vector could grow not only through espionage groups, but other threat actors looking to infiltrate organizations for their own criminal gain.
Nation states will increase their offensive operations by leveraging cybercriminals
By Christiaan Beek
With a focus on strategic intelligence, our team is not only monitoring activity, but also investigating and monitoring open-source-intelligence from a diversity of sources to gain more insights into threat-activities around the globe – and these include an increase in the blending of cybercrime and nation-state operations.
In many cases, a start-up company is formed, and a web of front companies or existing “technology” companies are involved in operations that are directed and controlled by the countries’ intelligence ministries.
In May 2021 for example, the U.S. government charged four Chinese nationals who were working for state-owned front companies. The front-companies facilitated hackers to create malware, attack targets of interest to gain business intelligence, trade-secrets, and information about sensitive technologies.
Not only China but also other nations such as Russia, North Korea, and Iran have applied these tactics. Hire hackers for operations, do not ask questions about their other operations if they do not harm the interests of their own country.
Where in the past specific malware families were tied to nation-state groups, the blurring starts to happen when hackers are hired to write code and conduct these operations.
The initial breach with tactics and tools could be similar as “regular” cybercrime operations, however it is important to monitor what is happening next and act fast. With the predicted increase of blurring between cybercrime and nation-state actors in 2022, companies should audit their visibility and learn from tactics and operations conducted by actors targeting their sector.
Self-reliant cybercrime groups will shift the balance of power within the RaaS eco-kingdom
By John Fokker
For several years, ransomware attacks have dominated the headlines as arguably the most impactful cyber threats. The Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) model at the time opened the cybercrime career path to lesser skilled criminals which eventually led to more breaches and higher criminal profits.
For a long time, RaaS admins and developers were prioritized as the top targets, often neglecting the affiliates since they were perceived as less skilled. This, combined with the lack of disruptions in the RaaS ecosystem, created an atmosphere where those lesser-skilled affiliates could thrive and grow into very competent cybercriminals, eventually with a mind of their own.
In a response to the Colonial Pipeline attack, the popular cybercrime forums have banned ransomware actors from advertising. Now, the RaaS groups no longer have a third-party platform on which to actively recruit, show their seniority, offer escrow, have their binaries tested by moderators, or settle disputes. The lack of visibility has made it harder for RaaS groups to establish or maintain credibility and will make it harder for RaaS developers to maintain their current top tier position in the underground.
These events undermine their trusted position. Ransomware has generated billions of dollars in recent years and it’s only a matter of time before some individuals who believe they aren’t getting their fair share become unhappy.
The first signs of this happening are already visible as described in our blog on the Groove Gang, a cyber-criminal gang that branched off from classic RaaS to specialize in computer network exploitation (CNE), exfiltrate sensitive data and, if lucrative, partner with a ransomware team to encrypt the organization’s network.
In 2022, expect more self-reliant cybercrime groups to rise and shift the balance of power within the RaaS eco-climate from those who control the ransomware to those who control the victim’s networks.
Less-skilled operators won’t have to bend the knee in RaaS model power shift
By Raj Samani
The Ransomware-as-a-Service eco system has evolved with the use of affiliates, the middlemen and women that work with the developers for a share of the profits. While this structure was honed during the growth of GandCrab, we are witnessing potential chasms in what is becoming a not-so-perfect union.
Historically, the ransomware developers, held the cards, thanks to their ability to selectively determine the affiliates in their operations, even holding “job interviews” to establish technical expertise. As more ransomware players have entered the market, we suspect that the most talented affiliates are now able to auction their services for a bigger part of the profits, and maybe demand a broader say in operations. For example, the introduction of Active Directory enumeration within DarkSide ransomware could be intended to remove the dependency on the technical expertise of affiliates. These shifts signal a potential migration back to the early days of ransomware, with less-skilled operators increasing in demand using the expertise encoded by the ransomware developers.
Will this work? Frankly, it will be challenging to replicate the technical expertise of a skilled penetration tester, and maybe – just maybe – the impact will not be as severe as recent cases.
5G and IoT traffic between API services and apps will make them increasingly lucrative targets
By Arnab Roy
Threat actors pay attention to enterprise statistics and trends, identifying services and applications offering increased risk potential. Cloud applications, irrespective of their flavor (SaaS, PaaS, or IaaS), have transformed how APIs are designed, consumed, and leveraged by software developers, be it a B2B scenario or B2C scenario. The reach and popularity of some of these cloud applications, as well as, the treasure trove of business-critical data and capabilities that typically lie behind these APIs, make them a lucrative target for threat actors. The connected nature of APIs potentially also introduces additional risks to businesses as they become an entry vector for wider supply chain attacks.
The following are some of the key risks that we see evolving in the future:
1. Misconfiguration of APIs
2. Exploitation of modern authentication mechanisms
3. Evolution of traditional malware attacks to use more of the cloud APIs
4. Potential misuse of the APIs to launch attacks on enterprise data
5. The usage of APIs for software-defined infrastructure also means potential misuse.
For developers, developing an effective threat model for their APIs and having a Zero Trust access control mechanism should be a priority alongside effective security logging and telemetry for better incident response and detection of malicious misuse.
Expanded exploitation of containers will lead to endpoint resource takeovers
By Mo Cashman
Containers have become the de facto platform of modern cloud applications. Organizations see benefits such as portability, efficiency and speed which can decrease time to deploy and manage applications that power innovation for the business. However, the accelerated use of containers increases the attack surface for an organization. Which techniques should you look out for, and which container risk groups will be targeted? Exploitation of public-facing applications (MITRE T1190) is a technique often used by APT and Ransomware groups. The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) identified multiple container risk groups including Image, Orchestrator, Registry, Container, Host OS and Hardware.
The following are some of the key risks groups we anticipate will be targeted for expanded exploitation in the future:
1. Orchestrator Risks: Increasing attacks on the orchestration layer, such as Kubernetes and associated API mainly driven by misconfigurations.
2. Image or Registry Risk: Increasing use of malicious or backdoored images through insufficient vulnerability checks.
3. Container Risks: Increasing attacks targeting vulnerable applications.
Expanded exploitation of the above vulnerabilities in 2022 could lead to endpoint resource hijacking through crypto-mining malware, spinning up other resources, data theft, attacker persistence, and container-escape to host systems.
The time to repurpose vulnerabilities into working exploits will be measured in hours and there’s nothing you can do about it… except patch
By Fred House
2021 is already being touted as one of the worst years on record with respect to the volume of zero-day vulnerabilities exploited in the wild. The scope of these exploitations, the diversity of targeted applications, and ultimately the consequences to organizations were all notable. As we look to 2022, we expect these factors to drive an increase in the speed at which organizations respond.
When we first learned in 2020 that roughly 17,000 SolarWinds customers were compromised and an estimated 40 were subsequently targeted, many reacted in shock at the pure scope of the compromise. Unfortunately, 2021 brought its own notable increase in volume along with uninspiring response times by organizations. Case in point: two weeks after Microsoft patched ProxyLogon they reported that 30K Exchange servers were still vulnerable (less conservative estimates had the number at 60K).
ProxyShell later arrived as Exchange’s second major event of the year. In August, a Blackhat presentation detailing Exchange Server vulnerabilities was followed the next day by the release of an exploit POC, all of which had been patched by Microsoft months earlier in April/May. This analysis of data captured by Shodan one week after the exploit POC was released concluded that over 30K Exchange servers were still vulnerable, noting that the data may have underrepresented the full scope (i.e., Shodan hadn’t had time to scan the full Internet). In summary: patched in the Spring, exploited in the Fall.
So, what can we take away from all of this? Well, attackers and security researchers alike will continue to hone their craft until weaponized exploits and POCs are expected within hours of vulnerability disclosure. In turn however, and largely driven by the increased consequences of compromise, we can also expect renewed diligence around asset and patch management. From identifying public facing assets to quickly deploying patches despite potential business disruption, companies will have a renewed focus on reducing their “time to patch.” While we will inevitably continue to see high-impact exploitations, the scope of these exploitations will be reduced as more organizations get back to the basics.
The post McAfee Enterprise & FireEye 2022 Threat Predictions appeared first on McAfee Blog.
McAfee Enterprise and FireEye recently released its 2022 Threat Predictions. In this blog, we take a deeper dive into the continuingly aggressive role Nation States will play in 2022.
By Raj Samani
We love our social media. From beefs between popstars and professional pundits, to an open channel to the best jobs in the industry.
But guess what?
The threat actors know this, and our appetite toward accepting connections from people we have never met are all part of our relentless pursuit of the next 1,000 followers.
A result of this has seen the targeting of executives with promises of job offers from specific threat groups; and why not? After all, it is the most efficient method to bypass traditional security controls and directly communicate with targets at companies that are of interest to threat groups. Equally, direct messages have been used by groups to take control over influencer accounts to promote messaging of their own.
While this approach is not new, it is nearly as ubiquitous as alternate channels. After all, it does demand a level of research to “hook” the target into interactions and establishing fake profiles are more work than simply finding an open relay somewhere on the internet. That being said, targeting individuals has proven a very successful channel, and we predict the use of this vector could grow not only through espionage groups, but other threat actors looking to infiltrate organizations for their own criminal gain.
Potential Impacts & Implications
The potential impacts and implications for an executive or company that had their social media channels targeted by threat actors are endless. We began to see some nation state groups using platforms like LinkedIn to target executives, more specifically targeting the defense and aerospace industry. For years we’ve been accepting connections on LinkedIn to expand our network and threat actors are using this to their advantage with job adverts. Threat actors will find the executive they want to target in the company they want to go after and develop profiles that look like legitimate recruiters. By getting an executive on the hook, they could potentially convince them to download a job spec that is malware. These types of espionage campaigns can be carried out by other social networks as well, including Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, etc.
Techniques & Tactics
In the past, fake social profiles were relatively easy to spot, however in the case of DPRK, the cybercriminals spent time to setting up a profile, get hooked up into the infosec scene, gain followers and connections through LinkedIn, making it more difficult than before to detect a fraudulent account. When threat actors weaponize social media, they use techniques and tactics you see in the legitimate world. They diligently do their research into what types of jobs would be of interest to you and share an offer that will require you to open a document and trick you to carry out some type of action that will have you download malicious content onto your device.
Who Can Regulate?
We live in a world where we are governed by rules, territories, and jurisdictions; to hold a threat actor accountable, we would need digital evidence. We need to use regulations for digital investigations, and the bad guys don’t. While in territories where there isn’t an extradition treaty, threat actors can continue their malicious behaviors without any consequences. Unfortunately, cybercrime has nonrepudiation and threat actors can deny all knowledge and get away with it.
Prevention
Cybercrime will always be an issue and we need to be more aware of what threat actors are doing and what they’re after. It’s important to understand the threat and what is happening. At McAfee Enterprise and FireEye we work to track malicious actors and integrate intelligence into our products and make content available for CISO, CEO etc. to know what to do and what to look for in the event they are targeted.
By Christiaan Beek
With a focus on strategic intelligence, our team is not only monitoring activity, but also investigating and monitoring open-source-intelligence from a diversity of sources to gain more insights into threat-activities around the globe – and these include an increase in the blending of cybercrime and nation-state operations.
In many cases, a start-up company is formed, and a web of front companies or existing “technology” companies are involved in operations that are directed and controlled by the countries’ intelligence ministries.
In May 2021 for example, the U.S. government charged four Chinese nationals who were working for state-owned front companies. The front-companies facilitated hackers to create malware, attack targets of interest to gain business intelligence, trade-secrets, and information about sensitive technologies.
Not only China but also other nations such as Russia, North Korea, and Iran have applied these tactics. Hire hackers for operations, do not ask questions about their other operations if they do not harm the interests of their own country.
Where in the past specific malware families were tied to nation-state groups, the blurring starts to happen when hackers are hired to write code and conduct these operations.
The initial breach with tactics and tools could be similar as “regular” cybercrime operations, however it is important to monitor what is happening next and act fast. With the predicted increase of blurring between cybercrime and nation-state actors in 2022, companies should audit their visibility and learn from tactics and operations conducted by actors targeting their sector.
Potential Impacts & Implications
With more tools at their disposal, nation state actors are reshaping the cyberthreat landscape leaving destruction and disrupted operations in their wake. There have been many accusations of “spying” which poses as a major threat to economic and national security. The main aim of these attacks is to obtain intellectual property or business intelligence. We are seeing nation states devoting a significant number of resources, time and energy toward achieving strategic cyber advantages, resulting in the implications of divulging national interests, intelligence-gathering capabilities, and military strength through espionage, disruption and theft.
Techniques & Tactics
In May 2021 incident where four Chinese nationals were charged in a global hacking campaign; the indictment stated the threat actors used a front company to hide the Chinese government’s role in the information theft. We anticipate nation states will continue to team up with cybercriminals and create front companies to hide involvement and gain access to private information, military tactics, trade secrets and more. Adversaries will leverage techniques like phishing, known vulnerabilities, malware, crimeware and more to attain their goal.
On the blending of cybercrime/nation-state; understanding the functionalities of malware becomes more important than ever. Let me give an example, when you get a Trickbot infection, a part of the code will steal credentials, they could be sold to a ransomware crew with a possible ransomware attack as result, a complete cybercrime operation. But what if the Trickbot infection was ordered by a Nation State, the credentials are used for a long time operation; started as a crime, ends as a long APT.
Who Can Regulate?
It’s important for governments to hold actors accountable for cyber incidents. Government entities and researchers can likely assist public and private sector organizations in navigating this new cyber landscape by developing standards and/or template processes to drive cyber defense and maintaining operational resiliency.
Prevention
A threat actor’s goal is to gain access to data they can sell, leverage for ransom, or gain critical knowledge so it is important to properly encrypt critical data, rendering it unusable to unauthorized users. You should also maintain regular, offline backups and have an incident response plan ready. Maintaining and testing offline backups can similarly mitigate the impact of destructive malware.
Explore a preview of the only proactive solution to stay ahead of emerging threats.
The post Nation States Will Weaponize Social and Recruit Bad Guys with Benefits in 2022 appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Apache server version 2.4.50 (CVE-2021-42013)
Regardless of the origins, you’ve arrived at Advanced Threat Research team’s monthly bug digest – an overview of what we believe to be the most noteworthy vulnerabilities over the last month. We don’t rely on a single scoring system like CVSS to determine what you need to know about; this is all about qualitative and experience-based analysis, relying on over 100 years of combined industry experience within our team. We look at characteristics such as wormability, ubiquity of the target, likelihood of exploitation and impact. If you don’t agree with these picks, we encourage you to write a strongly worded letter to your local senator. In lieu of that, we present our top CVEs from the last month.
What is it?
2 CVES / 1 Vuln – It appears Apache struggled a bit with this latest critical vulnerability, where it took two tries to fix a basic path traversal bug, which was introduced while patching last month’s SSRF mod_proxy vulnerability. As path traversal bugs do, this allows unauthorized users to access files outside the expected document root on the web server. But wait, there’s more! This can lead to remote code execution provided mod-cgi is enabled on the server.
Who cares?
A quick Shodan scan told me there are at least 111,000 server admins that should care! With Apache being the second largest market share holder of implemented webservers, there is a good chance your organization is using it somewhere. It’s always important to consider both internal and external facing assets when looking at your exposure. Apache is even commonly used as an embedded webserver to other applications and should be reviewed for use in any installed 3rd party applications. Oh yeah – and if you overlook an instance you have installed somewhere, this IS currently being actively exploited in the wild – no pressure.
What can I do?
Oh! I know, use Microsoft IIS! If you’re not ready to completely abandon your webserver implementation, I suggest updating to Apache 2.4.51. Remember to avoid version 2.4.50 as it does not patch both vulnerabilities. If you have been an astute system admin and followed the Apache documentation using the default and pretty darn secure “require all denied” directive for all files outside the document root, kudos to you! Although patching is still highly recommended, you are not immediately vulnerable.
The Gold Standard
We recognize in some special cases patching is harder than compiling gcc from source, so McAfee Enterprise has you covered; we have been detecting path traversal attacks in our Network Security Platform (NSP) like it was going out of style since 1990 (and it was).
What is it?
Ain’t nothin’ free anymore! Except kernel module addresses on your Windows machines, thanks to Microsoft Windows CVE-2021-40449. This vulnerability is a use-after-free in the NtGdiResetDC function of the Win32k driver and can lead to attackers being able to locally elevate their privileges.
Who cares?
Are you currently reading this from a Microsoft Windows machine? Using Microsoft Server edition in your cloud? Local attacks are often given lower priority or downplayed. However, it is important to recognize that phishing attacks are still highly successfully as an initial point of entry, facilitating a need for privilege escalation bugs to obtain higher level access. So, unless you are a hardcore Linux and Mac-only shop, you may want to patch since this is actively being exploited by cybercriminals, according to our friends at Kaspersky.
What can I do?
That boring Microsoft patch Tuesday thing still works, or you could just use a superior operating system like FreeBSD.
The Gold Standard
Have you checked out the latest version of McAfee Enterprise ENS lately? Detecting exploitation and cybercriminal activity is sort of its thing, assuming you have grabbed the latest signatures.
What is it?
An integer overflow vulnerability in the iOS “IOMobileFrameBuffer” component can allow an application to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges. This has additionally been confirmed to be accessible from the browser.
Who cares?
Since Apple still reportedly holds 53% market share of all smartphone users, statistically speaking your organization should care too. It only takes one bad apple to hack your entire network, and with reported active exploitation in the wild it might happen sooner than you think.
What can I do?
You should be sensing a common theme in this section – and, in this case, you actually can take action! Stop reading this, plug that mobile device into a power source, and install the latest version of Apple iOS.
The Gold Standard
Since you stopped reading and updated already, congrats!
The post The Bug Report – October Edition appeared first on McAfee Blog.
McAfee Enterprise and FireEye recently released its 2022 Threat Predictions. In this blog, we take a deeper dive into a Game of Thrones power struggle among Ransomware-as-a-Service bad actors in 2022.
For several years, ransomware attacks have dominated the headlines as arguably the most impactful cyber threats. The Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) model at the time opened the cybercrime career path to lesser skilled criminals which eventually led to more breaches and higher criminal profits.
For a long time, RaaS admins and developers were prioritized as the top targets, often neglecting the affiliates since they were perceived as less skilled. This, combined with the lack of disruptions in the RaaS ecosystem, created an atmosphere where those lesser-skilled affiliates could thrive and grow into very competent cybercriminals, eventually with a mind of their own.
In a response to the Colonial Pipeline attack, the popular cybercrime forums have banned ransomware actors from advertising. Now, the RaaS groups no longer have a third-party platform on which to actively recruit, show their seniority, offer escrow, have their binaries tested by moderators, or settle disputes. The lack of visibility has made it harder for RaaS groups to establish or maintain credibility and will make it harder for RaaS developers to maintain their current top tier position in the underground.
These events have undermined their trusted position. Ransomware has generated billions of dollars in recent years and it’s only a matter of time before more individuals who believe they aren’t getting their fair share become unhappy.
The first signs of this happening are already visible as described in our blog on the Groove Gang, a cyber-criminal gang that branched off from classic RaaS to specialize in computer network exploitation (CNE), exfiltrate sensitive data and, if lucrative, partner with a ransomware team to encrypt the organization’s network. McAfee Enterprise ATR believes, with high confidence, that the Groove gang is associated with the Babuk gang, either as a former affiliate or subgroup. These cybercriminals are happy to put aside previous Ransomware-as-a-Service hierarchies to focus on the ill-gotten gains to be made from controlling victim’s networks, rather than the previous approach which prioritized control of the ransomware itself.
Trust in a few things remains important even among cybercriminals underground, such as keeping your word and paying people what they deserve. Cybercriminals aren’t immune from feeling like employees whose contributions aren’t being adequately rewarded. When this happens, these bad actors cause problems within the organization. Ransomware has been generating billions of dollars in recent years and with revenue like that, it was inevitable that some individuals who believe they aren’t getting their fair share become unhappy and let the cybercrime world know it.
Recently, a former Conti affiliate was unhappy with their financial portion and decided to disclose the complete Conti attack playbook and their Cobalt Strike infrastructure online. In the past, McAfee ATR has been approached by individuals affiliated with certain RaaS groups expressing grudges with other RaaS members and admins, claiming they haven’t been paid in time or that their share wasn’t proportionate to the amount of work they put in.
In 2022, expect more self-reliant cybercrime groups to rise and shift the balance of power within the RaaS eco-climate from those who control the ransomware to those who control the victim’s networks.
The Ransomware-as-a-Service eco system has evolved with the use of affiliates, the middlemen and women that work with the developers for a share of the profits. While this structure was honed during the growth of GandCrab, we are witnessing potential chasms in what is becoming a not-so-perfect union.
Historically, the ransomware developers, held the cards, thanks to their ability to selectively determine the affiliates in their operations, even holding “job interviews” to establish technical expertise. Using CTB locker as an example, prominence was placed on affiliates generating sufficient installs via a botnet, exploit kits or stolen credentials. But affiliates recently taking on the role and displaying the ability to penetrate and compromise a complete network using a variety of malicious and non-malicious tools essentially changed the typical affiliate profile towards a highly skilled pen-tester/sysadmin.
The hierarchy of a conventional organized crime group often is described as a pyramid structure. Historically, La Cosa Nostra, drug cartels and outlaw motor gangs were organized in such a fashion. However, due to further professionalization and specialization of the logistics involved with committing crime, groups have evolved into more opportunistic network-based groups that will work together more fluidly, according to their current needs.
While criminals collaborating in the world of cybercrime isn’t new, a RaaS group’s hierarchy has been more rigid compared to other forms of cybercrime, due to the power imbalance between the group’s developers/admins and affiliates. But things are changing. RaaS admins and developers were prioritized as the top targets, but often neglected the affiliates who they perceived to be less-skilled. This, combined with the lack of disruptions in the RaaS ecosystem, created an atmosphere where those lesser-skilled affiliates could thrive and grow into very competent cybercriminals.
As more ransomware players have entered the market, we suspect that the most talented affiliates are now able to auction their services for a bigger part of the profits, and maybe demand a broader say in operations. For example, the introduction of Active Directory enumeration within DarkSide ransomware could be intended to remove the dependency on the technical expertise of affiliates. These shifts signal a potential migration back to the early days of ransomware, with less-skilled operators increasing in demand using the expertise encoded by the ransomware developers.
Will this work? Frankly, it will be challenging to replicate the technical expertise of a skilled penetration tester, and maybe – just maybe – the impact will not be as severe as recent cases.
The post Who Will Bend the Knee in RaaS Game of Thrones in 2022? appeared first on McAfee Blog.
The holiday season is upon us, and many are preparing to celebrate with family and friends both near and far. While we tend to look at consumer tendencies during the holidays, the season also presents a significant challenge to industries coping with the increase in consumer demands. McAfee Enterprise and FireEye recently conducted a global survey of IT professionals to better understand their cyber readiness, especially during peak times like the holiday season, and the impact the pandemic has had on their business. Most notably, 86% of organizations are anticipating a moderate-to-substantial increase in demand during the 2021 holiday season. The question is: Are they ready for that demand?
This year, the “everything shortage” is real – from a drop in available workforce to limited supplies to lack of delivery services. This creates an urgency for organizations to have actionable security plans and to effectively contain and respond to threats. Supply chain and logistics, e-commerce and retail, and the travel industry traditionally experience holiday seasonal increases in consumer and business activity, making them more vulnerable to cyber threats and leaving business, employee, and consumer data at risk. Here’s a statistical snapshot of these affected industries and how they can prepare for the anticipated increase in seasonal risks:
According to BCI’s Supply Chain Resilience Report 2021, 27.8% of organizations reported more than 20 supply chain disruptions during 2020, up from just 4.8% reporting the same number in 2019. The loss of manufacturing and logistics capacity, and employee-power in 2021 are expected to increase demand for goods, creating the perfect attack vector for cybercriminals: a potentially weak and vulnerable infrastructure to break through. Supply chain managers must identify risks, understand the potential downstream effects of a security breach or cyberattack, and prepare response plans so they can act quickly in the event of an incident.
According to Adobe’s 2021 Digital Economy Index, global online spending is expected to increase by 11% in 2021 to $910 billion during the holiday season. With store closures and increases in online shopping, along with limited product availability and concerns about shipping, this industry is faced with more threats than before. According to McAfee Enterprise COVID-19 dashboard, the global retail industry accounts for 5.2% of the total detected cyber threats. Such threats include compromised payment credentials and cloud storage, as well as other forms of retail fraud and theft.
Cyber threats aren’t new to the travel industry with airports, airlines, travel sites and ride-sharing apps having been victims in years past. However, what sets this year apart is the travel industry enduring a holding pattern caused by pandemic-related health concerns and travel restrictions. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), coronavirus-related loss estimates for 2020 total $137.7 billion—with total industry losses in 2020-2022 expected to reach $201 billion. As demand for holiday travel is expected to increase over the coming months, cyber criminals are watching closely for vulnerabilities as the industry battles new related challenges – labor shortages, supply chain issues, travel bans, and vaccination requirements.
McAfee Enterprise and FireEye threat findings unwrap the imminently crucial need for organizations to prioritize and strengthen their cybersecurity architecture through the holidays and end of 2021. Our research indicates that 81% of global organizations experienced increased cyber threats and 79% experienced downtime in the wake of previous cyberattacks.
While IT professionals know cyber threats have intensified, the findings prove that many organizations have not effectively prioritized security during COVID-19:
Organizations can be proactive in defending their networks, data, customers, and employees against the anticipated increase in holiday cybercrime by implementing security measures including, but not limited to:
In addition, enterprises and commercial businesses can implement cloud-delivered security with MVISION Unified Cloud Edge (UCE) and FireEye Extended Detection and Response (XDR).
The post ‘Tis The Season for Holiday Cyber Threats Targeting Enterprises in a Pandemic World appeared first on McAfee Blog.
FreshRSS 