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Inside the SOC
PrivateLoader: network-based indicators of compromise
Instead of delivering their malicious payloads themselves, threat actors can pay certain cybercriminals (known as pay-per-install (PPI) providers) to deliver their payloads for them. Since January 2022, Darktrace’s SOC has observed several cases of PPI providers delivering their clients’ payloads using a modular malware downloader known as ‘PrivateLoader’.
This blog will explore how these PPI providers installed PrivateLoader onto systems and outline the steps which the infected PrivateLoader bots took to install further malicious payloads. The details provided here are intended to provide insight into the operations of PrivateLoader and to assist security teams in identifying PrivateLoader bots within their own networks.
Threat Summary
Between January and June 2022, Darktrace identified the following sequence of network behaviours within the environments of several Darktrace clients. Patterns of activity involving these steps are paradigmatic examples of PrivateLoader activity:
1. A victim’s device is redirected to a page which instructs them to download a password-protected archive file from a file storage service — typically Discord Content Delivery Network (CDN)
2. The device contacts a file storage service (typically Discord CDN) via SSL connections
3. The device either contacts Pastebin via SSL connections, makes an HTTP GET request with the URI string ‘/server.txt’ or ‘server_p.txt’ to 45.144.225[.]57, or makes an HTTP GET request with the URI string ‘/proxies.txt’ to 212.193.30[.]45
4. The device makes an HTTP GET request with the URI string ‘/base/api/statistics.php’ to either 212.193.30[.]21, 85.202.169[.]116, 2.56.56[.]126 or 2.56.59[.]42
5. The device contacts a file storage service (typically Discord CDN) via SSL connections
6. The device makes a HTTP POST request with the URI string ‘/base/api/getData.php’ to either 212.193.30[.]21, 85.202.169[.]116, 2.56.56[.]126 or 2.56.59[.]42
7. The device finally downloads malicious payloads from a variety of endpoints
The PPI Business
Before exploring PrivateLoader in more detail, the pay-per-install (PPI) business should be contextualized. This consists of two parties:
1. PPI clients - actors who want their malicious payloads to be installed onto a large number of target systems. PPI clients are typically entry-level threat actors who seek to widely distribute commodity malware [1]
2. PPI providers - actors who PPI clients can pay to install their malicious payloads
As the smugglers of the cybercriminal world, PPI providers typically advertise their malware delivery services on underground web forums. In some cases, PPI services can even be accessed via Clearnet websites such as InstallBest and InstallShop [2] (Figure 1).
To utilize a PPI provider’s service, a PPI client must typically specify:
(A) the URLs of the payloads which they want to be installed
(B) the number of systems onto which they want their payloads to be installed
(C) their geographical targeting preferences.
Payment of course, is also required. To fulfil their clients’ requests, PPI providers typically make use of downloaders - malware which instructs the devices on which it is running to download and execute further payloads. PPI providers seek to install their downloaders onto as many systems as possible. Follow-on payloads are usually determined by system information garnered and relayed back to the PPI providers’ command and control (C2) infrastructure. PPI providers may disseminate their downloaders themselves, or they may outsource the dissemination to third parties called ‘affiliates’ [3].
Back in May 2021, Intel 471 researchers became aware of PPI providers using a novel downloader (dubbed ‘PrivateLoader’) to conduct their operations. Since Intel 471’s public disclosure of the downloader back in Feb 2022 [4], several other threat research teams, such as the Walmart Cyber Intel Team [5], Zscaler ThreatLabz [6], and Trend Micro Research [7] have all provided valuable insights into the downloader’s behaviour.
Anatomy of a PrivateLoader Infection
The PrivateLoader downloader, which is written in C++, was originally monolithic (i.e, consisted of only one module). At some point, however, the downloader became modular (i.e, consisting of multiple modules). The modules communicate via HTTP and employ various anti-analysis methods. PrivateLoader currently consists of the following three modules [8]:
- The loader module: Instructs the system on which it is running to retrieve the IP address of the main C2 server and to download and execute the PrivateLoader core module
- The core module: Instructs the system on which it is running to send system information to the main C2 server, to download and execute further malicious payloads, and to relay information regarding installed payloads back to the main C2 server
- The service module: Instructs the system on which it is running to keep the PrivateLoader modules running
Kill Chain Deep-Dive
The chain of activity starts with the user’s browser being redirected to a webpage which instructs them to download a password-protected archive file from a file storage service such as Discord CDN. Discord is a popular VoIP and instant messaging service, and Discord CDN is the service’s CDN infrastructure. In several cases, the webpages to which users’ browsers were redirected were hosted on ‘hero-files[.]com’ (Figure 2), ‘qd-files[.]com’, and ‘pu-file[.]com’ (Figure 3).
On attempting to download cracked/pirated software, users’ browsers were typically redirected to download instruction pages. In one case however, a user’s device showed signs of being infected with the malicious Chrome extension, ChromeBack [9], immediately before it contacted a webpage providing download instructions (Figure 4). This may suggest that cracked software downloads are not the only cause of users’ browsers being redirected to these download instruction pages (Figure 5).
After users’ devices were redirected to pages instructing them to download a password-protected archive, they subsequently contacted cdn.discordapp[.]com over SSL. The archive files which users downloaded over these SSL connections likely contained the PrivateLoader loader module. Immediately after contacting the file storage endpoint, users’ devices were observed either contacting Pastebin over SSL, making an HTTP GET request with the URI string ‘/server.txt’ or ‘server_p.txt’ to 45.144.225[.]57, or making an HTTP GET request with the URI string ‘/proxies.txt’ to 212.193.30[.]45 (Figure 6).
Distinctive user-agent strings such as those containing question marks (e.g. ‘????ll’) and strings referencing outdated Chrome browser versions were consistently seen in these HTTP requests. The following chrome agent was repeatedly observed: ‘Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/74.0.3729.169 Safari/537.36’.
In some cases, devices also displayed signs of infection with other strains of malware such as the RedLine infostealer and the BeamWinHTTP malware downloader. This may suggest that the password-protected archives embedded several payloads.
It seems that PrivateLoader bots contact Pastebin, 45.144.225[.]57, and 212.193.30[.]45 in order to retrieve the IP address of PrivateLoader’s main C2 server - the server which provides PrivateLoader bots with payload URLs. This technique used by the operators of PrivateLoader closely mirrors the well-known espionage tactic known as ‘dead drop’.
The dead drop is a method of espionage tradecraft in which an individual leaves a physical object such as papers, cash, or weapons in an agreed hiding spot so that the intended recipient can retrieve the object later on without having to come in to contact with the source. When threat actors host information about core C2 infrastructure on intermediary endpoints, the hosted information is analogously called a ‘Dead Drop Resolver’ or ‘DDR’. Example URLs of DDRs used by PrivateLoader:
- https://pastebin[.]com/...
- http://212.193.30[.]45/proxies.txt
- http://45.144.225[.]57/server.txt
- http://45.144.255[.]57/server_p.txt
The ‘proxies.txt’ DDR hosted on 212.193.40[.]45 contains a list of 132 IP address / port pairs. The 119th line of this list includes a scrambled version of the IP address of PrivateLoader’s main C2 server (Figures 7 & 8). Prior to June, it seems that the main C2 IP address was ‘212.193.30[.]21’, however, the IP address appears to have recently changed to ‘85.202.169[.]116’. In a limited set of cases, Darktrace also observed PrivateLoader bots retrieving payload URLs from 2.56.56[.]126 and 2.56.59[.]42 (rather than from 212.193.30[.]21 or 85.202.169[.]116). These IP addresses may be hardcoded secondary C2 address which PrivateLoader bots use in cases where they are unable to retrieve the primary C2 address from Pastebin, 212.193.30[.]45 or 45.144.255[.]57 [10].
Once PrivateLoader bots had retrieved C2 information from either Pastebin, 45.144.225[.]57, or 212.193.30[.]45, they went on to make HTTP GET requests for ‘/base/api/statistics.php’ to either 212.193.30[.]21, 85.202.169[.]116, 2.56.56[.]126, or 2.56.59[.]42 (Figure 9). The server responded to these requests with an XOR encrypted string. The strings were encrypted using a 1-byte key [11], such as 0001101 (Figure 10). Decrypting the string revealed a URL for a BMP file hosted on Discord CDN, such as ‘hxxps://cdn.discordapp[.]com/attachments/978284851323088960/986671030670078012/PL_Client.bmp’. These encrypted URLs appear to be file download paths for the PrivateLoader core module.
After PrivateLoader bots retrieved the 'cdn.discordapp[.]com’ URL from 212.193.30[.]21, 85.202.169[.]116, 2.56.56[.]126, or 2.56.59[.]42, they immediately contacted Discord CDN via SSL connections in order to obtain the PrivateLoader core module. Execution of this module resulted in the bots making HTTP POST requests (with the URI string ‘/base/api/getData.php’) to the main C2 address (Figures 11 & 12). Both the data which the PrivateLoader bots sent over these HTTP POST requests and the data returned via the C2 server’s HTTP responses were heavily encrypted using a combination of password-based key derivation, base64 encoding, AES encryption, and HMAC validation [12].
These ‘/base/api/getData.php’ POST requests contain a command, a campaign name and a JSON object. The response may either contain a simple status message (such as “success”) or a JSON object containing URLs of payloads. After making these HTTP connections, PrivateLoader bots were observed downloading and executing large volumes of payloads (Figure 13), ranging from crypto-miners to infostealers (such as Mars stealer), and even to other malware downloaders (such as SmokeLoader). In some cases, bots were also seen downloading files with ‘.bmp’ extensions, such as ‘Service.bmp’, ‘Cube_WW14.bmp’, and ‘NiceProcessX64.bmp’, from 45.144.225[.]57 - the same DDR endpoint from which PrivateLoader bots retrieved main C2 information. These ‘.bmp’ payloads are likely related to the PrivateLoader service module [13]. Certain bots made follow-up HTTP POST requests (with the URI string ‘/service/communication.php’) to either 212.193.30[.]21 or 85.202.169[.]116, indicating the presence of the PrivateLoader service module, which has the purpose of establishing persistence on the device (Figure 14).
In several observed cases, PrivateLoader bots downloaded another malware downloader called ‘SmokeLoader’ (payloads named ‘toolspab2.exe’ and ‘toolspab3.exe’) from “Privacy Tools” endpoints [14], such as ‘privacy-tools-for-you-802[.]com’ and ‘privacy-tools-for-you-783[.]com’. These “Privacy Tools” domains are likely impersonation attempts of the legitimate ‘privacytools[.]io’ website - a website run by volunteers who advocate for data privacy [15].
After downloading and executing malicious payloads, PrivateLoader bots were typically seen contacting crypto-mining pools, such as NanoPool, and making HTTP POST requests to external hosts associated with SmokeLoader, such as hosts named ‘host-data-coin-11[.]com’ and ‘file-coin-host-12[.]com’ [16]. In one case, a PrivateLoader bot went on to exfiltrate data over HTTP to an external host named ‘cheapf[.]link’, which was registered on the 14th March 2022 [17]. The name of the file which the PrivateLoader bot used to exfiltrate data was ‘NOP8QIMGV3W47Y.zip’, indicating information stealing activities by Mars Stealer (Figure 15) [18]. By saving the HTTP stream as raw data and utilizing a hex editor to remove the HTTP header portions, the hex data of the ZIP file was obtained. Saving the hex data using a ‘.zip’ extension and extracting the contents, a file directory consisting of system information and Chrome and Edge browsers’ Autofill data in cleartext .txt file format could be seen (Figure 16).
When left unattended, PrivateLoader bots continued to contact C2 infrastructure in order to relay details of executed payloads and to retrieve URLs of further payloads.
Darktrace Coverage
Most of the incidents surveyed for this article belonged to prospective customers who were trialling Darktrace with RESPOND in passive mode, and thus without the ability for autonomous intervention. However in all observed cases, Darktrace DETECT was able to provide visibility into the actions taken by PrivateLoader bots. In one case, despite the infected bot being disconnected from the client’s network, Darktrace was still able to provide visibility into the device’s network behaviour due to the client’s usage of Darktrace/Endpoint.
If a system within an organization’s network becomes infected with PrivateLoader, it will display a range of anomalous network behaviours before it downloads and executes malicious payloads. For example, it will contact Pastebin or make HTTP requests with new and unusual user-agent strings to rare external endpoints. These network behaviours will generate some of the following alerts on the Darktrace UI:
- Compliance / Pastebin
- Device / New User Agent and New IP
- Device / New User Agent
- Device / Three or More New User Agents
- Anomalous Connection / New User Agent to IP Without Hostname
- Anomalous Connection / POST to PHP on New External Host
- Anomalous Connection / Posting HTTP to IP Without Hostname
Once the infected host obtains URLs for malware payloads from a C2 endpoint, it will likely start to download and execute large volumes of malicious files. These file downloads will usually cause Darktrace to generate some of the following alerts:
- Anomalous File / EXE from Rare External Location
- Anomalous File / Numeric Exe Download
- Anomalous File / Masqueraded File Transfer
- Anomalous File / Multiple EXE from Rare External Locations
- Device / Initial Breach Chain Compromise
If RESPOND is deployed in active mode, Darktrace will be able to autonomously block the download of additional malware payloads onto the target machine and the subsequent beaconing or crypto-mining activities through network inhibitors such as ‘Block matching connections’, ‘Enforce pattern of life’ and ‘Block all outgoing traffic’. The ‘Enforce pattern of life’ action results in a device only being able to make connections and data transfers which Darktrace considers normal for that device. The ‘Block all outgoing traffic’ action will cause all traffic originating from the device to be blocked. If the customer has Darktrace’s Proactive Threat Notification (PTN) service, then a breach of an Enhanced Monitoring model such as ‘Device / Initial Breach Chain Compromise’ will result in a Darktrace SOC analyst proactively notifying the customer of the suspicious activity. Below is a list of Darktrace RESPOND (Antigena) models which would be expected to breach due to PrivateLoader activity. Such models can seriously hamper attempts made by PrivateLoader bots to download malicious payloads.
- Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena Suspicious File Block
- Antigena / Network / Significant Anomaly / Antigena Controlled and Model Breach
- Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena File then New Outbound Block
- Antigena / Network / Significant Anomaly / Antigena Significant Anomaly from Client Block
- Antigena / Network / Significant Anomaly / Antigena Breaches Over Time Block
In one observed case, the infected bot began to download malicious payloads within one minute of becoming infected with PrivateLoader. Since RESPOND was correctly configured, it was able to immediately intervene by autonomously enforcing the device’s pattern of life for 2 hours and blocking all of the device’s outgoing traffic for 10 minutes (Figure 17). When malware moves at such a fast pace, the availability of autonomous response technology, which can respond immediately to detected threats, is key for the prevention of further damage.
Conclusion
By investigating PrivateLoader infections over the past couple of months, Darktrace has observed PrivateLoader operators making changes to the downloader’s main C2 IP address and to the user-agent strings which the downloader uses in its C2 communications. It is relatively easy for the operators of PrivateLoader to change these superficial network-based features of the malware in order to evade detection [19]. However, once a system becomes infected with PrivateLoader, it will inevitably start to display anomalous patterns of network behaviour characteristic of the Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) discussed in this blog.
Throughout 2022, Darktrace observed overlapping patterns of network activity within the environments of several customers, which reveal the archetypal steps of a PrivateLoader infection. Despite the changes made to PrivateLoader’s network-based features, Darktrace’s Self-Learning AI was able to continually identify infected bots, detecting every stage of an infection without relying on known indicators of compromise. When configured, RESPOND was able to immediately respond to such infections, preventing further advancement in the cyber kill chain and ultimately preventing the delivery of floods of payloads onto infected devices.
IoCs
MITRE ATT&CK Techniques Observed
References
[1], [8],[13] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldp7eESQotM
[4], [15] https://intel471.com/blog/privateloader-malware
[5] https://medium.com/walmartglobaltech/privateloader-to-anubis-loader-55d066a2653e
[6], [10],[11], [12] https://www.zscaler.com/blogs/security-research/peeking-privateloader
[14] https://www.proofpoint.com/us/blog/threat-insight/malware-masquerades-privacy-tool
[16] https://asec.ahnlab.com/en/30513/
[17]https://twitter.com/0xrb/status/1515956690642161669
[18] https://isc.sans.edu/forums/diary/Arkei+Variants+From+Vidar+to+Mars+Stealer/28468
[19] http://detect-respond.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-pyramid-of-pain.html
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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
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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.