Blog
Inside the SOC
Growing your onion: AutoIt malware in the Darktrace kill chain
Introduction
Good defence is like an onion, it has layers. Each part of a security implementation should have checks built in so that if one wall is breached, there are further contingencies. Security aficionados call this ‘defence in depth’, a military concept introduced to the cyber-sphere in 2009 [1]. Since then, it has remained a central tenet when designing secure systems, digital or otherwise [2]. Despite this, the attacker’s advantage is ever-present with continued development of malware and zero-day exploits. No matter how many layers a security platform has, how can organisations be expected to protect against a threat they do not know or even understand?
Take the case of one Darktrace customer, a government-contracted manufacturing company located in the Americas. This company possesses a modern OT and IT network comprised of several thousand devices. They have dozens of servers, a few of which host Microsoft Exchange. Every week, these few mail servers receive hundreds of malicious payloads which will ultimately attempt to make their way into over a thousand different inboxes while dodging different security gateways. Had the RESPOND portion of Darktrace for Email been properly enabled, this is where the story would have ended. However, in June 2022 an employee made an instinctual decision that could have potentially cost the company its time, money, and reputation as a government contractor. Their crime: opening an unknown html file attached to a compelling phishing email.
Following this misstep, a download was initiated which resulted in compromise of the system via vulnerable Microsoft admin tools from endpoints largely unknown to conventional OSINT sources. Using these tools, further malicious connectivity was accomplished before finally petering out. Fortunately, their existing Microsoft security gateway was up to date on the command and control (C2) domains observed in this breach and refused the connections.
Darktrace detected this activity at every turn, from the initial email to the download and subsequent attempted C2. Cyber AI Analyst stitched the events together for easy understanding and detected Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) that were not yet flagged in the greater intelligence community and, critically, did this all at machine speed.
So how did the attacker evade action for so long? The answer is product misconfiguration - they did not refine their ‘layers’.
Attack Details
On the night of June 8th an employee received a malicious email. Darktrace detected that this email contained a html attachment which itself contained links to endpoints 100% rare to the network. This email also originated from a never-before-seen sender. Although it would usually have been withheld based on these factors, the customer’s Darktrace/Email deployment was set to Advisory Mode meaning it continued through to the inbox. Late the next day, this user opened the attachment which then routed them to the 100% rare endpoint ‘xberxkiw[.]club’, a probable landing page for malware that did not register on OSINT available at the time.
Only seconds after reaching the endpoint, Darktrace detected the Microsoft BITS user agent reaching out to another 100% rare endpoint ‘yrioer[.]mikigertxyss[.]com’, which generated a DETECT/Network model breach, ‘Unusual BITS Activity’. This was immediately suspicious since BITS is a deprecated and insecure windows admin tool which has been known to facilitate the movement of malicious payloads into and around a network. Upon successfully establishing a connection, the affected device began downloading a self-professed .zip file. However, Darktrace detected this file to be an extension-swapped .exe file. A PCAP of this activity can be seen below in Figure 2.
This activity also triggered a correlating breach of the ‘Masqueraded File Transfer’ model and pushed a high-fidelity alert to the Darktrace Proactive Threat Notification (PTN) service. This ensured both Darktrace and the customer’s SOC team were alerted to the anomalous activity.
At this stage the local SOC were likely beginning their triage. However further connections were being made to extend the compromise on the employee’s device and the network. The file they downloaded was later revealed to be ‘AutoIT3.exe’, a default filename given to any AutoIt script. AutoIt scripts do have legitimate use cases but are often associated with malicious activity for their ability to interact with the Windows GUI and bypass client protections. After opening, these scripts would launch on the host device and probe for other weaknesses. In this case, the script may have attempted to hunt passwords/default credentials, scan the local directory for common sensitive files, or scout local antivirus software on the device. It would then share any information gathered via established C2 channels.
After the successful download of this mismatched MIME type, the device began attempting to further establish C2 to the endpoint ‘dirirxhitoq[.]kialsoyert[.]tk’. Even though OSINT still did not flag this endpoint, Darktrace detected this outreach as suspicious and initiated its first Cyber AI Analyst investigation into the beaconing activity. Following the sixth connection made to this endpoint on the 10th of June, the infected device breached C2 models, such as ‘Agent Beacon (Long Period)’ and ‘HTTP Beaconing to Rare Destination’.
As the beaconing continued, it was clear that internal reconnaissance from AutoIt was not widely achieved, although similar IOCs could be detected on at least two other internal devices. This may represent other users opening the same malicious email, or successful lateral movement and infection propagation from the initial user/device. However comparatively, these devices did not experience the same level of infection as the first employee’s machine and never downloaded any malicious executables. AutoIt has a history of being used to deliver information stealers, which suggests a possible motivation had wider network compromise been successful [3].
Thankfully, after the 10th of June no further exploitation was observed. This was likely due to the combined awareness and action brought by the PTN alerting, static security gateways and action from the local security team. The company were protected thanks to defence in depth.
Darktrace Coverage
Despite this, the role of Darktrace itself cannot be understated. Darktrace/Email was integral to the early detection process and provided insight into the vector and delivery methods used by this attacker. Post-compromise, Darktrace/Network also observed the full range of suspicious activity brought about by this incursion. In particular, the AI analyst feature played a major role in reducing the time for the SOC team to triage by detecting and flagging key information regarding some of the earliest IOCs.
Alongside the early detection, there were several instances where RESPOND/Network would have intervened however autonomous actions were limited to a small test group and not enabled widely throughout the customer’s deployment. As such, this activity continued unimpeded- a weak layer. Figure 4 highlights the first Darktrace RESPOND action which would have been taken.
This Darktrace RESPOND action provides a precise and limited response by blocking the anomalous file download. However, after continued anomalous activity, RESPOND would have strengthened its posture and enforced stronger curbs across the wider anomalous activity. This stronger enforcement is a measure designed to relegate a device to its established norm. The breach which would generate this response can be seen below:
Although Darktrace RESPOND was not fully enabled, this company had an extra layer of security in the PTN service, which alerted them just minutes after the initial file download was detected, alongside details relevant to the investigation. This ensured both Darktrace analysts and their own could review the activity and begin to isolate and remediate the threat.
Concluding Insights
Thankfully, with multiple layers in their security, the customer managed to escape this incident largely unscathed. Quick and comprehensive email and network detection, customer alerting and local gateway blocking C2 connections ensured that the infection did not have leeway to propagate laterally throughout the network. However, even though this infection did not lead to catastrophe, the fact that it happened in the first place should be a learning point.
Had RESPOND/Email been properly configured, this threat would have been stopped before reaching its intended recipients, removing the need to rely on end-users as a security measure. Furthermore, had RESPOND/Network been utilized beyond a limited test group, this activity would have been blocked at every other step of the network-level kill chain. From the anomalous MIME download to the establishment of C2, Darktrace RESPOND would have been able to effectively isolate and quarantine this activity to the host device, without any reliance on slow-to-update OSINT sources. RESPOND allows for the automation of time-sensitive security decisions and adds a powerful layer of defence that conventional security solutions cannot provide. Although it can be difficult to relinquish human ownership of these decisions, doing so is necessary to prevent unknown attackers from infiltrating using unknown vectors to achieve unknown ends.
In conclusion, this incident demonstrates an effective case study around detecting a threat with novel IOCs. However, it is also a reminder that a company’s security makeup can always be improved. Overall, when building security layers in a company’s ‘onion’, it is great to have the best tools, but it is even greater to use them in the best way. Only with continued refining can organisations guarantee defence in depth.
Thanks to Connor Mooney and Stefan Rowe for their contributions.
Appendices
Darktrace Model Detections
· Anomalous File / EXE from Rare External Location
· Compromise / Agent Beacon (Long Period)
· Compromise / HTTP Beaconing to Rare Destination
· Device / Large Number of Model Breaches
· Device / Suspicious Domain
· Device / Unusual BITS Activity
· Enhanced Monitoring: Anomalous File / Masqueraded File Transfer
Like this and want more?
More in this series
Blog
Inside the SOC
Protecting Prospects: How Darktrace Detected an Account Hijack Within Days of Deployment
Cloud Migration Expanding the Attack Surface
Cloud migration is here to stay – accelerated by pandemic lockdowns, there has been an ongoing increase in the use of public cloud services, and Gartner has forecasted worldwide public cloud spending to grow around 20%, or by almost USD 600 billion [1], in 2023. With more and more organizations utilizing cloud services and moving their operations to the cloud, there has also been a corresponding shift in malicious activity targeting cloud-based software and services, including Microsoft 365, a prominent and oft-used Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).
With the adoption and implementation of more SaaS products, the overall attack surface of an organization increases – this gives malicious actors additional opportunities to exploit and compromise a network, necessitating proper controls to be in place. This increased attack surface can leave organization’s open to cyber risks like cloud misconfigurations, supply chain attacks and zero-day vulnerabilities [2]. In order to achieve full visibility over cloud activity and prevent SaaS compromise, it is paramount for security teams to deploy sophisticated security measures that are able to learn an organization’s SaaS environment and detect suspicious activity at the earliest stage.
Darktrace Immediately Detects Hijacked Account
In May 2023, Darktrace observed a chain of suspicious SaaS activity on the network of a customer who was about to begin their trial of Darktrace/Cloud™ and Darktrace/Email™. Despite being deployed on the network for less than a week, Darktrace DETECT™ recognized that the legitimate SaaS account, belonging to an executive at the organization, had been hijacked. Darktrace/Email was able to provide full visibility over inbound and outbound mail and identified that the compromised account was subsequently used to launch an internal spear-phishing campaign.
If Darktrace RESPOND™ were enabled in autonomous response mode at the time of this compromise, it would have been able to take swift preventative action to disrupt the account compromise and prevent the ensuing phishing attack.
Account Hijack Attack Overview
Unusual External Sources for SaaS Credentials
On May 9, 2023, Darktrace DETECT/Cloud detected the first in a series of anomalous activities performed by a Microsoft 365 user account that was indicative of compromise, namely a failed login from an external IP address located in Virginia.
Just a few minutes later, Darktrace observed the same user credential being used to successfully login from the same unusual IP address, with multi-factor authentication (MFA) requirements satisfied.
A few hours after this, the user credential was once again used to login from a different city in the state of Virginia, with MFA requirements successfully met again. Around the time of this activity, the SaaS user account was also observed previewing various business-related files hosted on Microsoft SharePoint, behavior that, taken in isolation, did not appear to be out of the ordinary and could have represented legitimate activity.
The following day, May 10, however, there were additional login attempts observed from two different states within the US, namely Texas and Florida. Darktrace understood that this activity was extremely suspicious, as it was highly improbable that the legitimate user would be able to travel over 2,500 miles in such a short period of time. Both login attempts were successful and passed MFA requirements, suggesting that the malicious actor was employing techniques to bypass MFA. Such MFA bypass techniques could include inserting malicious infrastructure between the user and the application and intercepting user credentials and tokens, or by compromising browser cookies to bypass authentication controls [3]. There have also been high-profile cases in the recent years of legitimate users mistakenly (and perhaps even instinctively) accepting MFA prompts on their token or mobile device, believing it to be a legitimate process despite not having performed the login themselves.
New Email Rule
On the evening of May 10, following the successful logins from multiple US states, Darktrace observed the Microsoft 365 user creating a new inbox rule, named “.’, in Microsoft Outlook from an IP located in Florida. Threat actors are often observed naming new email rules with single characters, likely to evade detection, but also for the sake of expediency so as to not expend any additional time creating meaningful labels.
In this case the newly created email rules included several suspicious properties, including ‘AlwaysDeleteOutlookRulesBlob’, ‘StopProcessingRules’ and “MoveToFolder”.
Firstly, ‘AlwaysDeleteOutlookRulesBlob’ suppresses or hides warning messages that typically appear if modifications to email rules are made [4]. In this case, it is likely the malicious actor was attempting to implement this property to obfuscate the creation of new email rules.
The ‘StopProcessingRules’ rule meant that any subsequent email rules created by the legitimate user would be overridden by the email rule created by the malicious actor [5]. Finally, the implementation of “MoveToFolder” would allow the malicious actor to automatically move all outgoing emails from the “Sent” folder to the “Deleted Items” folder, for example, further obfuscating their malicious activities [6]. The utilization of these email rule properties is frequently observed during account hijackings as it allows attackers to delete and/or forward key emails, delete evidence of exploitation and launch phishing campaigns [7].
In this incident, the new email rule would likely have enabled the malicious actor to evade the detection of traditional security measures and achieve greater persistence using the Microsoft 365 account.
Account Update
A few hours after the creation of the new email rule, Darktrace observed the threat actor successfully changing the Microsoft 365 user’s account password, this time from a new IP address in Texas. As a result of this action, the attacker would have locked out the legitimate user, effectively gaining full access over the SaaS account.
Phishing Emails
The compromised SaaS account was then observed sending a high volume of suspicious emails to both internal and external email addresses. Darktrace was able to identify that the emails attempting to impersonate the legitimate service DocuSign and contained a malicious link prompting users to click on the text “Review Document”. Upon clicking this link, users would be redirected to a site hosted on Adobe Express, namely hxxps://express.adobe[.]com/page/A9ZKVObdXhN4p/.
Adobe Express is a free service that allows users to create web pages which can be hosted and shared publicly; it is likely that the threat actor here leveraged the service to use in their phishing campaign. When clicked, such links could result in a device unwittingly downloading malware hosted on the site, or direct unsuspecting users to a spoofed login page attempting to harvest user credentials by imitating legitimate companies like Microsoft.
The malicious site hosted on Adobe Express was subsequently taken down by Adobe, possibly in response to user reports of maliciousness. Unfortunately though, platforms like this that offer free webhosting services can easily and repeatedly be abused by malicious actors. Simply by creating new pages hosted on different IP addresses, actors are able to continue to carry out such phishing attacks against unsuspecting users.
In addition to the suspicious SaaS and email activity that took place between May 9 and May 10, Darktrace/Email also detected the compromised account sending and receiving suspicious emails starting on May 4, just two days after Darktrace’s initial deployment on the customer’s environment. It is probable that the SaaS account was compromised around this time, or even prior to Darktrace’s deployment on May 2, likely via a phishing and credential harvesting campaign similar to the one detailed above.
Darktrace Coverage
As the customer was soon to begin their trial period, Darktrace RESPOND was set in “human confirmation” mode, meaning that any preventative RESPOND actions required manual application by the customer’s security team.
If Darktrace RESPOND had been enabled in autonomous response mode during this incident, it would have taken swift mitigative action by logging the suspicious user out of the SaaS account and disabling the account for a defined period of time, in doing so disrupting the attack at the earliest possible stage and giving the customer the necessary time to perform remediation steps. As it was, however, these RESPOND actions were suggested to the customer’s security team for them to manually apply.
Nevertheless, with Darktrace DETECT/Cloud in place, visibility over the anomalous cloud-based activities was significantly increased, enabling the swift identification of the chain of suspicious activities involved in this compromise.
In this case, the prospective customer reached out to Darktrace directly through the Ask the Expert (ATE) service. Darktrace’s expert analyst team then conducted a timely and comprehensive investigation into the suspicious activity surrounding this SaaS compromise, and shared these findings with the customer’s security team.
Conclusion
Ultimately, this example of SaaS account compromise highlights Darktrace’s unique ability to learn an organization’s digital environment and recognize activity that is deemed to be unexpected, within a matter of days.
Due to the lack of obvious or known indicators of compromise (IoCs) associated with the malicious activity in this incident, this account hijack would likely have gone unnoticed by traditional security tools that rely on a rules and signatures-based approach to threat detection. However, Darktrace’s Self-Learning AI enables it to detect the subtle deviations in a device’s behavior that could be indicative of an ongoing compromise.
Despite being newly deployed on a prospective customer’s network, Darktrace DETECT was able to identify unusual login attempts from geographically improbable locations, suspicious email rule updates, password changes, as well as the subsequent mounting of a phishing campaign, all before the customer’s trial of Darktrace had even begun.
When enabled in autonomous response mode, Darktrace RESPOND would be able to take swift preventative action against such activity as soon as it is detected, effectively shutting down the compromise and mitigating any subsequent phishing attacks.
With the full deployment of Darktrace’s suite of products, including Darktrace/Cloud and Darktrace/Email, customers can rest assured their critical data and systems are protected, even in the case of hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
Credit: Samuel Wee, Senior Analyst Consultant & Model Developer
Appendices
References
[2] https://www.upguard.com/blog/saas-security-risks
[4] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/exchange/disable-inboxrule?view=exchange-ps
[7] https://blog.knowbe4.com/check-your-email-rules-for-maliciousness
Darktrace Model Detections
Darktrace DETECT/Cloud and RESPOND Models Breached:
SaaS / Access / Unusual External Source for SaaS Credential Use
SaaS / Unusual Activity / Multiple Unusual External Sources for SaaS Credential
Antigena / SaaS / Antigena Unusual Activity Block (RESPOND Model)
SaaS / Compliance / New Email Rule
Antigena / SaaS / Antigena Significant Compliance Activity Block
SaaS / Compromise / Unusual Login and New Email Rule (Enhanced Monitoring Model)
Antigena / SaaS / Antigena Suspicious SaaS Activity Block (RESPOND Model)
SaaS / Compromise / SaaS Anomaly Following Anomalous Login (Enhanced Monitoring Model)
SaaS / Compromise / Unusual Login and Account Update
Antigena / SaaS / Antigena Suspicious SaaS Activity Block (RESPOND Model)
IoC – Type – Description & Confidence
hxxps://express.adobe[.]com/page/A9ZKVObdXhN4p/ - Domain – Probable Phishing Page (Now Defunct)
37.19.221[.]142 – IP Address – Unusual Login Source
35.174.4[.]92 – IP Address – Unusual Login Source
MITRE ATT&CK Mapping
Tactic - Techniques
INITIAL ACCESS, PRIVILEGE ESCALATION, DEFENSE EVASION, PERSISTENCE
T1078.004 – Cloud Accounts
DISCOVERY
T1538 – Cloud Service Dashboards
CREDENTIAL ACCESS
T1539 – Steal Web Session Cookie
RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
T1586 – Compromise Accounts
PERSISTENCE
T1137.005 – Outlook Rules
Blog
Darktrace/Email in Action: Why AI-Driven Email Security is the Best Defense Against Sustained Phishing Campaigns
_11zon.jpg)
Stopping the bad while allowing the good
Since its inception, email has been regarded as one of the most important tools for businesses, revolutionizing communication and allowing global teams to become even more connected. But besides organizations heavily relying on email for their daily operations, threat actors have also recognized that the inbox is one of the easiest ways to establish an initial foothold on the network.
Today, not only are phishing campaigns and social engineering attacks becoming more prevalent, but the level of sophistication of these attacks are also increasing with the help of generative AI tools that allow for the creation of hyper-realistic emails with minimal errors, effectively lowering the barrier to entry for threat actors. These diverse and stealthy types of attacks evade traditional email security tools based on rules and signatures, because they are less likely to contain the low-sophistication markers of a typical phishing attack.
In a situation where the sky is the limit for attackers and security teams are lean, how can teams equip themselves to tackle these threats? How can they accurately detect increasingly realistic malicious emails and neutralize these threats before it is too late? And importantly, how can email security block these threats while allowing legitimate emails to flow freely?
Instead of relying on past attack data, Darktrace’s Self-Learning AI detects the slightest deviation from a user’s pattern of life and responds autonomously to contain potential threats, stopping novel attacks in their tracks before damage is caused. It doesn’t define ‘good’ and ‘bad’ like traditional email tools, rather it understands each user and what is normal for them – and what’s not.
This blog outlines how Darktrace/Email™ used its understanding of ‘normal’ to accurately detect and respond to a sustained phishing campaign targeting a real-life company.
Responding to a sustained phishing attack
Over the course of 24 hours, Darktrace detected multiple emails containing different subjects, all from different senders to different recipients in one organization. These emails were sent from different IP addresses, but all came from the same autonomous system number (ASN).
The emails themselves had many suspicious indicators. All senders had no prior association with the recipient, and the emails generated a high general inducement score. This score is generated by structural and non-specific content analysis of the email – a high score indicates that the email is trying to induce the recipient into taking a particular action, which may lead to account compromise.
Additionally, each email contained a visually prominent link to a file storage service, hidden behind a shortened bit.ly link. The similarities across all these emails pointed to a sustained campaign targeting the organization by a single threat actor.
With all these suspicious indicators, many models were breached. This drove up the anomaly score, causing Darktrace/Email to hold all suspicious emails from the recipients’ inboxes, safeguarding the recipients from potential account compromise and disallowing the threats from taking hold in the network.
Imagining a phishing attack without Darktrace/Email
So what could have happened if Darktrace had not withheld these emails, and the recipients had clicked on the links? File storage sites have a wide variety of uses that allow attackers to be creative in their attack strategy. If the user had clicked on the shortened link, the possible consequences are numerous. The link could have led to a login page for unsuspecting victims to input their credentials, or it could have hosted malware that would automatically download if the link was clicked. With the compromised credentials, threat actors could even bypass MFA, change email rules, or gain privileged access to a network. The downloaded malware might also be a keylogger, leading to cryptojacking, or could open a back door for threat actors to return to at a later time.
The limits of traditional email security tools
Secure email gateways (SEGs) and static AI security tools may have found it challenging to detect this phishing campaign as malicious. While Darktrace was able to correlate these emails to determine that a sustained phishing campaign was taking place, the pattern among these emails is far too generic for specific rules as set in traditional security tools. If we take the characteristic of the freemail account sender as an example, setting a rule to block all emails from freemail accounts may lead to more legitimate emails being withheld, since these addresses have a variety of uses.
With these factors in mind, these emails could have easily slipped through traditional security filters and led to a devastating impact on the organization.
Conclusion
As threat actors step up their attacks in sophistication, prioritizing email security is more crucial than ever to preserving a safe digital environment. In response to these challenges, Darktrace/Email offers a set-and-forget solution that continuously learns and adapts to changes in the organization.
Through an evolving understanding of every environment in which it is deployed, its threat response becomes increasingly precise in neutralizing only the bad, while allowing the good – delivering email security that doesn’t come at the expense of business growth.