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July 27, 2023

Revealing Outlaw's Returning Features & New Tactics

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27
Jul 2023
Darktrace's investigation of the latest Outlaw crypto-mining operation, covering the resurgence of old tactics along with the emergence of new ones.

What is Outlaw Cryptocurrency Mining Operation?

The cybersecurity community has been aware of the threat of Outlaw cryptocurrency mining operation, and its affiliated activities since as early as 2018. Despite its prominence, Outlaw remains largely elusive to researchers and analysts due to its ability to adapt its tactics, procedures, and payloads.

Outlaw gained notoriety in 2018 as security researchers began observing the creation of affiliated botnets.[1][2]  Researchers gave Outlaw  its name based on the English translation of the “Haiduc” tool observed during their initial activity on compromised devices.[3],[4] By 2019, much of the initial Outlaw activity  focused on the targeting of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and other internet facing servers, reportedly focusing operations in China and on Chinese devices.[5],[6]  From the outset, mining operations featured as a core element of botnets created by the group.[7] This initial focus may have been a sign of caution by threat actors or a preliminary means of testing procedures and operation efficacy. Regardless, Outlaw actors inevitably expanded scope, targeting larger organizations and a wider range of internet facing devices across geographic scope.

Following a short period of inactivity, security researchers began to observe new Outlaw activity, showcasing additional capabilities such as the ability to kill existing crypto-mining processes on devices, thereby reclaiming devices already compromised by crypto-jacking. [8],[9]

Latest News on Outlaw

Although the more recently observed incidents of Outlaw did demonstrate some new tactics, many of its procedures remained the same, including its unique bundling of payloads that combine crypto-mining and botnet capabilities. [10] In conjunction, the continued use of mining-specific payloads and growth of affiliated botnets has bolstered the belief that Outlaw actors historically prioritizes financial gain, in lieu of overt political objectives.

Given the tendency for malicious actors to share tools and capabilities, true attribution of threat or threat group is extremely difficult in the wild. As such, a genuine survey of activity from the group across a customer base has not always been possible. Therefore, we will present an updated look into more recent activity associated with Outlaw detected across the Darktrace customer base.  

Darktrace vs Outlaw

Since late 2022, Darktrace has observed a rise in probable cyber incidents involving indicators of compromise (IoCs) associated with Outlaw. Given its continued prevalence and relative dearth of information, it is essential to take a renewed look at the latest campaign activity associated with threats like Outlaw to avoid making erroneous assumptions and to ensure the threat posed is correctly characterized.

While being aware of previous IoCs and tactics known to be employed in previous campaigns will go some way to protecting against future Outlaw attacks, it is paramount for organizations to arm themselves with an autonomous intelligent decision maker that can identify malicious activity, based on recognizing deviations from expected patterns of behavior, and take preventative action to effectively defend against such a versatile threat.

Darktrace’s anomaly-based approach to threat detection means it is uniquely positioned to detect novel campaign activity by recognizing subtle deviations in affected devices’ behavior that would have gone unnoticed by traditional security tools relying on rules, signatures and known IoCs.

Outlaw Attack Overview & Darktrace Coverage

From late 2022 through early 2023, Darktrace identified multiple cyber events involving IP addresses, domains, and payloads associated with Outlaw on customer networks. In this recent re-emergence of campaign activity, Darktrace identified numerous attack vectors and IoCs that had previously been associated with Outlaw, however it also observed significant deviations from previous campaigns.

Returning Features

As outlined in a previous blog, past iterations of Outlaw compromises include four identified, distinct phases:

1. Targeting of internet facing devices via SSH brute-forcing

2. Initiation of crypto-mining operations

3. Download of shell script and/or botnet malware payloads

4. Outgoing external SSH scanning to propagate the botnet

Nearly all affected devices analyzed by Darktrace were tagged as internet facing, as identified in previous campaigns, supporting the notion that Outlaw continues to focus on easily exposed devices. In addition to this, Darktrace observed three other core returning features from previous Outlaw campaigns in affected devices between late 2022 and early 2023:

1. Gzip and/or Script Download

2. Beaconing Activity (Command and Control)

3. Crypto-mining

Gzip and/or Script Download

Darktrace observed numerous devices downloading the Dota malware, a strain that is previously known to have been associated with the Outlaw botnet, as either a gzip file or a shell script from rare external hosts.

In some examples, IP addresses that provided the payload were flagged by open-source intelligence (OSINT) sources as having engaged in widespread SSH brute-forcing activities. While the timing of the payload transfer to the device was not consistent, download of gzip files featured prominently during directly observed or potentially affiliated activity. Moreover, Darktrace detected multiple devices performing HTTP requests for shell scripts (.sh) according to detected connection URIs. Darktrace DETECT was able to identify these anomalous connections due to the rarity of the endpoint, payloads, and connectivity for the devices.

Figure 1: Darktrace Cyber AI Analyst technical details summary from an incident during the analysis timeframe that highlights a breach device retrieving the anomalous shell scripts using wget.

Beaconing Activity – Command and Control (C2) Endpoint

Across all Outlaw activity identified by Darktrace, devices engaged in some form of beaconing behavior, rather than one-off connections to IPs associated with Outlaw. While the use of application protocol was not uniform, repeated connectivity to rare external IP addresses related to Outlaw occurred across many analyzed incidents. Darktrace’s Self-Learning AI understood that this beaconing activity represented devices deviating from their expected patterns of life and was able to bring it to the immediate attention of customer security teams.

Figure 2: Model breach log details showing sustained, repeated connectivity to Outlaw affiliated endpoint over port 443, indicating potential C2 activity.

Crypto-mining

In almost every incident of Outlaw identified across the fleet, Darktrace detected some form of cryptocurrency mining activity. Devices affected by Outlaw were consistently observed making anomalous connections to external endpoints associated with crypto-mining operations. Furthermore, the Minergate protocol appeared consistently across hosts; even when devices did not make direct crypto-mining commands, such hosts attempted connections to external entities that were known to support crypto-mining operations.

Figure 3: Advanced Search results showing a sudden spike in mining activity from a device observed connecting to Outlaw-affiliated IP addresses. Such crypto-mining activity was observed consistently across analyzed incidents.

Is Outlaw Using New Tactics?

While in the past, Outlaw activity was identified through a systematic kill chain, recent investigations conducted by Darktrace show significant deviations from this.

For instance, affected devices do not necessarily follow the previously outlined kill chain directly as they did previously. Instead, Darktrace observed affected devices exhibiting these phases in differing orders, repeating steps, or missing out attack phases entirely.

It is essential to study such variation in the kill chain to learn more about the threat of Outlaw and how threat actors are continuing to use it is varying ways. These discrepancies in kill chain elements are likely impacted by visibility into the networks and devices of Darktrace customers, with some relevant activity falling outside of Darktrace’s purview. This is particularly true for internet-exposed devices and hosts that repeatedly performed the same anomalous activity (such as making Minergate requests). Moreover, some devices involved in Outlaw activity may have already been compromised prior to Darktrace’s visibility into the network. As such, these conclusions must be evaluated with a degree of uncertainty.

SSH Activity

Although external SSH connectivity was apparent in some of the incidents detected by Darktrace, it was not directly related to brute-forcing activity. Affected devices did receive anomalous incoming SSH connections, however, wide ranging SSH failed connectivity following the initiation of mining operations by compromised devices was not readily apparent across analyzed compromises. Connections over port 22 were more frequently associated with beaconing and/or C2 activity to endpoints associated with Outlaw, than with potential brute-forcing. As such, Darktrace could not, with high confidence correlate such SSH activity to brute-forcing. This could suggest that threat actors are now portioning or rotation of botnet devices for different operations, for example dividing between botnet expansion and mining operations.

Command line tools

In cases of Outlaw investigated by Darktrace, there was also a degree of variability involving the tools used to retrieve payloads. On the networks of customers affected by Outlaw, Darktrace DETECT identified the use of user agents and command line tools that it considered to be out of character for the network and its devices.

When retrieving the Dota malware payload or shell script data, compromised devices frequently relied on numerous versions of wget and curl user agents. Although the use of such tools as a tactic cannot be definitively linked to the crypto-mining campaign, the employment of varying and/or outdated native command line tools attests to the procedural flexibility of Outlaw campaigns, and its potential for continued evolution.

Figure 4: Breach log data showing use of curl and wget tools to connect to IP addresses associated with Outlaw.

Outlaw in 2023

Given Outlaw’s widespread notoriety and its continued activities, it is likely to remain a prominent threat to organizations and security teams across the threat landscape in 2023 and beyond.

As Darktrace has observed within its customer base from late 2022 through early 2023, activity linked with the Outlaw cryptocurrency mining campaign continues to transpire, offering security teams and research a renewed look at how it has evolved and adapted over the years. While many of its features and tactics appear to have remained consistent, Darktrace has identified numerous signs of Outlaw deviating from its previously known activities.

While relying on previously established IoCs and known tactics from previous campaigns will go some way to protecting an organization’s network from Outlaw compromises, there is a greater need than ever to go further than this. Rather than depending on a list of known-bads or traditional signatures and rules, Darktrace’s anomaly-based approach to threat detection and unparallel autonomous response capabilities mean it is uniquely positioned to DETECT and RESPOND to Outlaw activity, regardless of how it evolves in the future.

Credit to: Adam Potter, Cyber Analyst, Nahisha Nobregas, SOC Analyst, and Ryan Traill, Threat Content Lead

Relevant DETECT Model Breaches:

Compliance / Incoming SSH  

Device / New User Agent and New IP

Device / New User Agent  

Anomalous Connection / New User Agent to IP Without Hostname  

Compromise / Crypto Currency Mining Activity  

Anomalous File / Internet Facing System File Download  

Anomalous Server Activity / New User Agent from Internet Facing System  

Anomalous File / Zip or Gzip from Rare External Location  

Anomalous File / Script from Rare External Location  

Anomalous Connection / Multiple Failed Connections to Rare Endpoint  

Compromise / Large Number of Suspicious Failed Connections  

Anomalous Server Activity / Outgoing from Server  

Compromise / Sustained TCP Beaconing Activity To Rare Endpoint

Indicators of Compromise

Indicator - Type - Description

/dota3.tar.gz​

File  URI​

Outlaw  payload​

/tddwrt7s.sh​

File  URI​

Outlaw  payload​

73e5dbafa25946ed636e68d1733281e63332441d​

SHA1  Hash​

Outlaw  payload​

debian-package[.]center​

Hostname​

Outlaw  C2 endpoint​

161.35.236[.]24​

IP  address​

Outlaw  C2 endpoint​

138.68.115[.]96​

IP  address​

Outlaw C2  endpoint​

67.205.134[.]224​

IP  address​

Outlaw C2  endpoint​

138.197.212[.]204​

IP  address​

Outlaw C2  endpoint​

45.9.148[.]59 ​

IP  address​

Possible  Outlaw C2 endpoint​

45.9.148[.]117​

IP  address​

Outlaw C2  endpoint​

45.9.148[.]125​

IP  address​

Outlaw C2  endpoint​

45.9.148[.]129​

IP  address​

Outlaw C2  endpoint​

45.9.148[.]99 ​

IP  address​

Outlaw C2  endpoint​

45.9.148[.]234​

IP  address​

Possible  Outlaw C2 endpoint​

45.9.148[.]236​

IP  address​

Possible  Outlaw C2 endpoint​

159.203.102[.]122​

IP  address​

Outlaw C2  endpoint​

159.203.85[.]196​

IP  address​

Outlaw C2  endpoint​

159.223.235[.]198​

IP  address​

Outlaw C2  endpoint​

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Tactic -Technique

Initial Access -T1190  Exploit - Public Facing Application

Command and Control - T1071 - Application - Layer Protocol

T1071.001 - Application Layer Protocol: Web Protocols

Impact - T1496 Resource Hijacking

Inside the SOC
Darktrace cyber analysts are world-class experts in threat intelligence, threat hunting and incident response, and provide 24/7 SOC support to thousands of Darktrace customers around the globe. Inside the SOC is exclusively authored by these experts, providing analysis of cyber incidents and threat trends, based on real-world experience in the field.
Author
Adam Potter
Senior Cyber Analyst
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December 10, 2024

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Darktrace’s view on Operation Lunar Peek: Exploitation of Palo Alto firewall devices (CVE 2024-2012 and 2024-9474)

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Introduction: Spike in exploitation and post-exploitation activity affecting Palo Alto firewall devices

As the first line of defense for many organizations, perimeter devices such as firewalls are frequently targeted by threat actors. If compromised, these devices can serve as the initial point of entry to the network, providing access to vulnerable internal resources. This pattern of malicious behavior has become readily apparent within the Darktrace customer base. In 2024, Darktrace Threat Research analysts identified and investigated at least two major campaigns targeting internet-exposed perimeter devices. These included the exploitation of PAN-OS firewall exploitation via CVE 2024-3400 and FortiManager appliances via CVE 2024-47575.

More recently, at the end of November, Darktrace analysts observed a spike in exploitation and post-exploitation activity affecting, once again, Palo Alto firewall devices in the days following the disclosure of the CVE 2024-0012 and CVE-2024-9474 vulnerabilities.

Threat Research analysts had already been investigating potential exploitation of the firewalls’ management interface after Palo Alto published a security advisory (PAN-SA-2024-0015) on November 8. Subsequent analysis of data from Darktrace’s Security Operations Center (SOC) and external research uncovered multiple cases of Palo Alto firewalls being targeted via the likely exploitation of these vulnerabilities since November 13, through the end of the month. Although this spike in anomalous behavior may not be attributable to a single malicious actor, Darktrace Threat Research identified a clear increase in PAN-OS exploitation across the customer base by threat actors likely utilizing the recently disclosed vulnerabilities, resulting in broad patterns of post-exploitation activity.

How did exploitation occur?

CVE 2024-0012 is an authentication bypass vulnerability affecting unpatched versions of Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls. The vulnerability resides in the management interface application on the firewalls specifically, which is written in PHP. When attempting to access highly privileged scripts, users are typically redirected to a login page. However, this can be bypassed by supplying an HTTP request where a Palo Alto related authentication header can be set to “off”.  Users can supply this header value to the Nginx reverse proxy server fronting the application which will then send it without any prior processing [1].

CVE-2024-9474 is a privilege escalation vulnerability that allows a PAN-OS administrator with access to the management web interface to execute root-level commands, granting full control over the affected device [2]. When combined, these vulnerabilities enable unauthenticated adversaries to execute arbitrary commands on the firewall with root privileges.

Post-Exploitation Patterns of Activity

Darktrace Threat Research analysts examined potential indicators of PAN-OS software exploitation via CVE 2024-0012 and CVE-2024-9474 during November 2024. The investigation identified three main groupings of post-exploitation activity:

  1. Exploit validation and initial payload retrieval
  2. Command and control (C2) connectivity, potentially featuring further binary downloads
  3. Potential reconnaissance and cryptomining activity

Exploit Validation

Across multiple investigated customers, Darktrace analysts identified likely vulnerable PAN-OS devices conducting external network connectivity to bin services. Specifically, several hosts performed DNS queries for, and HTTP requests to Out-of-Band Application Security Testing (OAST) domains, such as csv2im6eq58ujueonqs0iyq7dqpak311i.oast[.]pro. These endpoints are commonly used by network administrators to harden defenses, but they are increasingly used by threat actors to verify successful exploitation of targeted devices and assess their potential for further compromise. Although connectivity involving OAST domains were prevalent across investigated incidents, this activity was not necessarily the first indicator observed. In some cases, device behavior involving OAST domains also occurred shortly after an initial payload was downloaded.

Darktrace model alert logs detailing the HTTP request to an OAST domain immediately following PAN-OS device compromise.
Figure 1: Darktrace model alert logs detailing the HTTP request to an OAST domain immediately following PAN-OS device compromise.

Initial Payload Retrieval

Following successful exploitation, affected devices commonly performed behaviors indicative of initial payload download, likely in response to incoming remote command execution. Typically, the affected PAN-OS host would utilize the command line utilities curl and Wget, seen via use of user agents curl/7.61.1 and Wget/1.19.5 (linux-gnu), respectively.

In some cases, the use of these command line utilities by the infected devices was considered new behavior. Given the nature of the user agents, interaction with the host shell suggests remote command execution to achieve the outgoing payload requests.

While additional binaries and scripts were retrieved in later stages of the post-exploitation activity in some cases, this set of behaviors and payloads likely represent initial persistence and execution mechanisms that will enable additional functionality later in the kill chain. During the investigation, Darktrace analysts noted the prevalence of shell script payload requests. Devices analyzed would frequently make HTTP requests over the usual destination port 80 using the command line URL utility (curl), as seen in the user-agent field.

The observed URIs often featured requests for text files, such as “1.txt”, or shell scripts such as “y.sh”. Although packet capture (PCAP) samples were unavailable for review, external researchers have noted that the IP address hosting such “1.txt” files (46.8.226[.]75) serves malicious PHP payloads. When examining the contents of the “y.sh” shell script, Darktrace analysts noticed the execution of bash commands to upload a PHP-written web shell on the affected server.

PCAP showing the client request and server response associated with the download of the y.sh script from 45.76.141[.]166. The body content of the HTTP response highlights a shebang command to run subsequent code as bash script. The content is base64 encoded and details PHP script for what appears to be a webshell that will likely be written to the firewall device.
Figure 2: PCAP showing the client request and server response associated with the download of the y.sh script from 45.76.141[.]166. The body content of the HTTP response highlights a shebang command to run subsequent code as bash script. The content is base64 encoded and details PHP script for what appears to be a webshell that will likely be written to the firewall device.

While not all investigated cases saw initial shell script retrieval, affected systems would commonly make an external HTTP connection, almost always via Wget, for the Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) file “/palofd” from the rare external IP  38.180.147[.]18.

Such requests were frequently made without prior hostname lookups, suggesting that the process or script initiating the requests already contained the external IP address. Analysts noticed a consistent SHA1 hash present for all identified instances of “/palofd” downloads (90f6890fa94b25fbf4d5c49f1ea354a023e06510). Multiple open-source intelligence (OSINT) vendors have associated this hash sample with Spectre RAT, a remote access trojan with capabilities including remote command execution, payload delivery, process manipulation, file transfers, and data theft [3][4].

Advanced Search log metrics highlighting details of the “/palofd” file download over HTTP.
Figure 3: Advanced Search log metrics highlighting details of the “/palofd” file download over HTTP.

Several targeted customer devices were observed initiating TLS/SSL connections to rare external IPs with self-signed TLS certificates following exploitation. Model data from across the Darktrace fleet indicated some overlap in JA3 fingerprints utilized by affected PAN-OS devices engaging in the suspicious TLS activity. Although JA3 hashes alone cannot be used for process attribution, this evidence suggests some correlation of source process across instances of PAN-OS exploitation.

These TLS/SSL sessions were typically established without the specification of a Server Name Indication (SNI) within the TLS extensions. The SNI extension prevents servers from supplying an incorrect certificate to the requesting client when multiple sites are hosted on the same IP. SSL connectivity without SNI specification suggests a potentially malicious running process as most software establishing TLS sessions typically supply this information during the handshake. Although the encrypted nature of the connection prevented further analysis of the payload packets, external sources note that JavaScript content is transmitted during these sessions, serving as initial payloads for the Sliver C2 platform using Wget [5].

C2 Communication and Additional Payloads

Following validation and preliminary post-compromise actions, examined hosts would commonly initiate varying forms of C2 connectivity. During this time, devices were frequently detected making further payload downloads, likely in response to directives set within C2 communications.

Palo Alto firewalls likely exploited via the newly disclosed CVEs would commonly utilize the Sliver C2 platform for external communication. Sliver’s functionality allows for different styles and formatting for communication. An open-source alternative to Cobalt Strike, this framework has been increasingly popular among threat actors, enabling the generation of dynamic payloads (“slivers”) for multiple platforms, including Windows, MacOS, Linux.

These payloads allow operators to establish persistence, spawn new shells, and exfiltrate data. URI patterns and PCAPs analysis yielded evidence of both English word type encoding within Sliver and Gzip formatting.

For example, multiple devices contacted the Sliver-linked IP address 77.221.158[.]154 using HTTP to retrieve Gzip files. The URIs present for these requests follow known Sliver Gzip formatted communication patterns [6]. Investigations yielded evidence of both English word encoding within Sliver, identified through PCAP analysis, and Gzip formatting.

Sample of URIs observed in Advanced Searchhighlighting HTTP requests to 77.221.158[.]154 for Gzip content suggest of Sliver communication.
Figure 4: Sample of URIs observed in Advanced Searchhighlighting HTTP requests to 77.221.158[.]154 for Gzip content suggest of Sliver communication.
PCAP showing English word encoding for Sliver communication observed during post-exploitation C2 activity.
Figure 5: PCAP showing English word encoding for Sliver communication observed during post-exploitation C2 activity.

External connectivity during this phase also featured TCP connection attempts over uncommon ports for common application protocols. For both Sliver and non-Sliver related IP addresses, devices utilized destination ports such as 8089, 3939, 8880, 8084, and 9999 for the HTTP protocol. The use of uncommon destination ports may represent attempts to avoid detection of connectivity to rare external endpoints. Moreover, some external beaconing within included URIs referencing the likely IP of the affected device. Such behavior can suggest the registration of compromised devices with command servers.

Targeted devices also proceeded to download additional payloads from rare external endpoints as beaconing/C2 activity was ongoing. For example, the newly registered domain repositorylinux[.]org (IP: 103.217.145[.]112) received numerous HTTP GET requests from investigated devices throughout the investigation period for script files including “linux.sh” and “cron.sh”. Young domains, especially those that present as similar to known code repositories, tend to host harmful content. Packet captures of the cron.sh file reveal commands within the HTTP body content involving crontab operations, likely to schedule future downloads. Some hosts that engaged in connectivity to the fake repository domain were later seen conducting crypto-mining connections, potentially highlighting the download of miner applications from the domain.

Additional payloads observed during this time largely featured variations of shell scripts, PHP content, and/or executables. Typically, shell scripts direct the device to retrieve additional content from external servers or repositories or contain potential configuration details for subsequent binaries to run on the device. For example, the “service.sh” retrieves a tar-compressed archive, a configuration JSON file as well as a file with the name “solr” from GitHub, potentially associated with the Apache Solr tool used for enterprise search. These could be used for further enumeration of the host and/or the network environment. PHP scripts observed may involve similar web shell functionality and were retrieved from both rare external IPs identified as well by external researchers [7]. Darktrace also detected the download of octet-stream data occurring mid-compromise from an Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3 bucket. Although no outside research confirmed the functionality, additional executable downloads for files such as “/initd”(IP: 178.215.224[.]246) and “/x6” (IP: 223.165.4[.]175) may relate to tool ingress, further Trojan/backdoor functionality, or cryptocurrency mining.

Figure 7: PCAP specifying the HTTP response headers and body content for the service.sh file request. The body content shown includes variable declarations for URLs that will eventually be called by the device shell via bash command.

Reconnaissance and Cryptomining

Darktrace analysts also noticed additional elements of kill chain operations from affected devices after periods of initial exploit activity. Several devices initiated TCP connections to endpoints affiliated with cryptomining pools such as us[.]zephyr[.]herominers[.]com and  xmrig[.]com. Connectivity to these domains indicates likely successful installation of mining software during earlier stages of post-compromise activity. In a small number of instances, Darktrace observed reconnaissance and lateral movement within the time range of PAN-OS exploitation. Firewalls conducted large numbers of internal connectivity attempts across several critical ports related to privileged protocols, including SMB and SSH. Darktrace detected anonymous NTLM login attempts and new usage of potential PAN-related credentials. These behaviors likely constitute attempts at lateral movement to adjacent devices to further extend network compromise impact.

Model alert connection logs detailing the uncommon failed NTLM logins using an anonymous user account following PAN-OS exploitation.
Figure 8: Model alert connection logs detailing the uncommon failed NTLM logins using an anonymous user account following PAN-OS exploitation.

Conclusion

Darktrace Threat Research and SOC analysts increasingly detect spikes in malicious activity on internet-facing devices in the days following the publication of new vulnerabilities. The latest iteration of this trend highlighted how threat actors quickly exploited Palo Alto firewall using authentication bypass and remote command execution vulnerabilities to enable device compromise. A review of the post-exploitation activity during these events reveals consistent patterns of perimeter device exploitation, but also some distinct variations.

Prior campaigns targeting perimeter devices featured activity largely confined to the exfiltration of configuration data and some initial payload retrieval. Within the current campaign, analysts identified a broader scope post-compromise activity consisting not only of payloads downloads but also extensive C2 activity, reconnaissance, and coin mining operations. While the use of command line tools like curl featured prominently in prior investigations, devices were seen retrieving a generally wider array of payloads during the latest round of activity. The use of the Sliver C2 platform further differentiates the latest round of PAN-OS compromises, with evidence of Sliver activity in about half of the investigated cases.

Several of the endpoints contacted by the infected firewall devices did not have any OSINT associated with them at the time of the attack. However, these indicators were noted as unusual for the devices according to Darktrace based on normal network traffic patterns. This reality further highlights the need for anomaly-based detection that does not rely necessarily on known indicators of compromise (IoCs) associated with CVE exploitation for detection. Darktrace’s experience in 2024 of multiple rounds of perimeter device exploitation may foreshadow future increases in these types of comprise operations.  

Credit to Adam Potter (Senior Cyber Analyst), Alexandra Sentenac (Senior Cyber Analyst), Emma Foulger (Principal Cyber Analyst) and the Darktrace Threat Research team.

References

[1]: https://labs.watchtowr.com/pots-and-pans-aka-an-sslvpn-palo-alto-pan-os-cve-2024-0012-and-cve-2024-9474/

[2]: https://security.paloaltonetworks.com/CVE-2024-9474

[3]: https://threatfox.abuse[.]ch/ioc/1346254/

[4]:https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/4911396d80baff80826b96d6ea7e54758847c93fdbcd3b86b00946cfd7d1145b/detection

[5]: https://arcticwolf.com/resources/blog/arctic-wolf-observes-threat-campaign-targeting-palo-alto-networks-firewall-devices/

[6] https://www.immersivelabs.com/blog/detecting-and-decrypting-sliver-c2-a-threat-hunters-guide

[7] https://arcticwolf.com/resources/blog/arctic-wolf-observes-threat-campaign-targeting-palo-alto-networks-firewall-devices/

Appendices

Darktrace Model Alerts

Anomalous Connection / Anomalous SSL without SNI to New External

Anomalous Connection / Application Protocol on Uncommon Port  

Anomalous Connection / Multiple Failed Connections to Rare Endpoint

Anomalous Connection / Multiple HTTP POSTs to Rare Hostname

Anomalous Connection / New User Agent to IP Without Hostname

Anomalous Connection / Posting HTTP to IP Without Hostname

Anomalous Connection / Rare External SSL Self-Signed

Anomalous File / EXE from Rare External Location

Anomalous File / Incoming ELF File

Anomalous File / Mismatched MIME Type From Rare Endpoint

Anomalous File / Multiple EXE from Rare External Locations

Anomalous File / New User Agent Followed By Numeric File Download

Anomalous File / Script from Rare External Location

Anomalous File / Zip or Gzip from Rare External Location

Anomalous Server Activity / Rare External from Server

Compromise / Agent Beacon (Long Period)

Compromise / Agent Beacon (Medium Period)

Compromise / Agent Beacon to New Endpoint

Compromise / Beacon for 4 Days

Compromise / Beacon to Young Endpoint

Compromise / Beaconing Activity To External Rare

Compromise / High Priority Tunnelling to Bin Services

Compromise / High Volume of Connections with Beacon Score

Compromise / HTTP Beaconing to New IP

Compromise / HTTP Beaconing to Rare Destination

Compromise / Large Number of Suspicious Failed Connections

Compromise / Large Number of Suspicious Successful Connections

Compromise / Slow Beaconing Activity To External Rare

Compromise / SSL Beaconing to Rare Destination

Compromise / Suspicious Beaconing Behavior

Compromise / Suspicious File and C2

Compromise / Suspicious HTTP and Anomalous Activity

Compromise / Suspicious TLS Beaconing To Rare External

Compromise / Sustained SSL or HTTP Increase

Compromise / Sustained TCP Beaconing Activity To Rare Endpoint

Device / Initial Attack Chain Activity

Device / New User Agent

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Tactic – Technique

INITIAL ACCESS – Exploit Public-Facing Application

RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT – Malware

EXECUTION – Scheduled Task/Job (Cron)

EXECUTION – Unix Shell

PERSISTENCE – Web Shell

DEFENSE EVASION – Masquerading (Masquerade File Type)

DEFENSE EVASION - Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information

CREDENTIAL ACCESS – Brute Force

DISCOVERY – Remote System Discovery

COMMAND AND CONTROL – Ingress Tool Transfer

COMMAND AND CONTROL – Application Layer Protocol (Web Protocols)

COMMAND AND CONTROL – Encrypted Channel

COMMAND AND CONTROL – Non-Standard Port

COMMAND AND CONTROL – Data Obfuscation

IMPACT – Resource Hijacking (Compute)

List of IoCs

IoC         –          Type         –        Description

  • sys.traceroute[.]vip     – Hostname - C2 Endpoint
  • 77.221.158[.]154     – IP - C2 Endpoint
  • 185.174.137[.]26     – IP - C2 Endpoint
  • 93.113.25[.]46     – IP - C2 Endpoint
  • 104.131.69[.]106     – IP - C2 Endpoint
  • 95.164.5[.]41     – IP - C2 Endpoint
  • bristol-beacon-assets.s3.amazonaws[.]com     – Hostname - Payload Server
  • img.dxyjg[.]com     – Hostname - Payload Server
  • 38.180.147[.]18     – IP - Payload Server
  • 143.198.1[.]178     – IP - Payload Server
  • 185.208.156[.]46     – IP - Payload Server
  • 185.196.9[.]154     – IP - Payload Server
  • 46.8.226[.]75     – IP - Payload Server
  • 223.165.4[.]175     – IP - Payload Server
  • 188.166.244[.]81     – IP - Payload Server
  • bristol-beaconassets.s3[.]amazonaws[.]com/Y5bHaYxvd84sw     – URL - Payload
  • img[.]dxyjg[.]com/KjQfcPNzMrgV     – URL - Payload
  • 38.180.147[.]18/palofd     – URL - Payload
  • 90f6890fa94b25fbf4d5c49f1ea354a023e06510     – SHA1 - Associated to file /palofd
  • 143.198.1[.]178/7Z0THCJ     – URL - Payload
  • 8d82ccdb21425cf27b5feb47d9b7fb0c0454a9ca     – SHA1 - Associated to file /7Z0THCJ
  • fefd0f93dcd6215d9b8c80606327f5d3a8c89712     – SHA1 - Associated to file /7Z0THCJ
  • e5464f14556f6e1dd88b11d6b212999dd9aee1b1     – SHA1 - Associated to file /7Z0THCJ
  • 143.198.1[.]178/o4VWvQ5pxICPm     – URL - Payload
  • 185.208.156[.]46/lUuL095knXd62DdR6umDig     – URL - Payload
  • 185.196.9[.]154/ykKDzZ5o0AUSfkrzU5BY4w     – URL - Payload
  • 46.8.226[.]75/1.txt     – URL - Payload
  • 223.165.4[.]175/x6     – URL - Payload
  • 45.76.141[.]166/y.sh     – URL - Payload
  • repositorylinux[.]org/linux.sh     – URL - Payload
  • repositorylinux[.]org/cron.sh     – URL - Payload

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About the author
Adam Potter
Senior Cyber Analyst

Blog

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November 28, 2024

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Cloud

Cloud security: addressing common CISO challenges with advanced solutions

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Cloud adoption is a cornerstone of modern business with its unmatched potential for scalability, cost efficiency, flexibility, and net-zero targets around sustainability. However, as organizations migrate more workloads, applications, and sensitive data to the cloud it introduces more complex challenges for CISO’s. Let’s dive into the most pressing issues keeping them up at night—and how Darktrace / CLOUD provides a solution for each.

1. Misconfigurations: The Silent Saboteur

Misconfigurations remain the leading cause of cloud-based data breaches. In 2023 alone over 80%  of data breaches involved data stored in the cloud.1  Think open storage buckets or overly permissive permissions; seemingly minor errors that are easily missed and can snowball into major disasters. The fallout of breaches can be costly—both financially and reputationally.

How Darktrace / CLOUD Helps:

Darktrace / CLOUD continuously monitors your cloud asset configurations, learning your environment and using these insights to flag potential misconfigurations. New scans are triggered when changes take place, then grouped and prioritised intelligently, giving you an evolving and prioritised view of vulnerabilities, best practice and mitigation strategies.

2. Hybrid Environments: The Migration Maze

Many organizations are migrating to the cloud, but hybrid setups (where workloads span both on-premises and cloud environments) create unique challenges and visibility gaps which significantly increase complexity. More traditional and most cloud native security tooling struggles to provide adequate monitoring for these setups.

How Darktrace / CLOUD Helps:

Provides the ability to monitor runtime activity for both on-premises and cloud workloads within the same user interface. By leveraging the right AI solution across this diverse data set, we understand the behaviour of your on-premises workloads and how they interact with cloud systems, spotting unusual connectivity or data flow activity during and after the migration process.

This unified visibility enables proactive detection of anomalies, ensures seamless monitoring across hybrid environments, and provides actionable insights to mitigate risks during and after the migration process.

3. Securing Productivity Suites: The Last Mile

Cloud productivity suites like Microsoft 365 (M365) are essential for modern businesses and are often the first step for an organization on a journey to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) or Platform as a Service (PaaS) use cases. They also represent a prime target for attackers. Consider a scenario where an attacker gains access to an M365 account, and proceeds to; access sensitive emails, downloading files from SharePoint, and impersonating the user to send phishing emails to internal employees and external partners. Without a system to detect these behaviours, the attack may go unnoticed until significant damage is done.

How Darktrace helps:

Darktrace’s Active AI platform integrates with M365 and establishes an understanding of normal business activity, enabling the detection of abnormalities across its suite including Email, SharePoint and Teams. By identifying subtle deviations in behaviour, such as:

   •    Unusual file accesses

   •    Anomalous login attempts from unexpected locations or devices.

   •    Suspicious email forwarding rules created by compromised accounts.

Darktrace’s Autonomous Response can act precisely to block malicious actions, by disabling compromised accounts and containing threats before they escalate. Precise actions also ensure that critical business operations are maintained even when a response is triggered.  

4. Agent Fatigue: The Visibility Struggle

To secure cloud environments, visibility is critical. If you don’t know what’s there, how can you secure it? Many solutions require agents to be deployed on every server, workload, and endpoint. But managing and deploying agents across sprawling hybrid environments can be both complex and time-consuming when following change controls, and especially as cloud resources scale dynamically.

How Darktrace / CLOUD Helps:

Darktrace reduces or eliminates the need for widespread agent deployment. Its agentless by default, integrating directly with cloud environments and providing instant visibility without the operational headache. Darktrace ensures coverage with minimal friction. By intelligently graphing the relationships between assets and logically grouping your deployed Cloud resources, you are equipped with real-time visibility to quickly understand and protect your environment.

So why Darktrace / CLOUD?

Darktrace’s Self-Learning AI redefines cloud security by adapting to your unique environment, detecting threats as they emerge, and responding in real-time. From spotting misconfigurations to protecting productivity suites and securing hybrid environments. Darktrace / CLOUD simplifies cloud security challenges without adding operational burdens.

From Chaos to Clarity

Cloud security doesn’t have to be a game of endless whack-a-mole. With Darktrace / CLOUD, CISOs can achieve the visibility, control, and proactive protection they need to navigate today’s complex cloud ecosystems confidently.

[1] https://hbr.org/2024/02/why-data-breaches-spiked-in-2023

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About the author
Adam Stevens
Director of Product, Cloud Security
Your data. Our AI.
Elevate your network security with Darktrace AI