With Black Hat USA 2021 drawing to a close, this blog post breaks down the six key trends that emerged during the conference.
Earlier this month, the industry’s largest hybrid event – Black Hat USA 2021 – took place online and at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas. The event, which highlighted the latest security trends and technology best practices, attracted over 6,000 in-person attendees, while over 14,000 tuned in via the virtual platform. Eloy Avila shares his six key takeaways.
1. The cyber security landscape is changing, but the threat types remain the same
As hackers continue to innovate and the attack surface widens, the threat landscape is evolving drastically. Despite a massive shift to remote work, the significant threats themselves have not changed since Black Hat 2020 and the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Zero-days, ransomware, APTs, supply chain attacks, targeted phishing, and threats to OT and IoT environments are still the top concerns, though we have seen an increase in attacks on the email and SaaS side. While the attack methods largely remain the same, high-profile attacks like that on Colonial Pipeline have business leaders paying increased attention.
2. CISOs rise to new prominence within the C-suite
CISOs report that their engagement with the rest of the C-suite has dramatically improved due to new priorities and discussions around cyber security. Broader fears about hackers’ sophistication – and that nation-state attacks can directly impact private sector companies even outside of critical infrastructure – have spotlighted the vital role a CISO plays within an organization.
3. The future of security tools: Understanding both OT and IT
Over the past year, more operational technology (OT) institutions have moved away from security tools that focus solely on OT environments to those that understand IT and OT. Before Stuxnet in 2010, most cyber-attacks targeted traditional IT environments. Now, operational technology environments are victims, too (for example, the attacks on Colonial Pipeline and JBS).
With the digitization of our world, IT and OT have become more interconnected (also known as IT/OT convergence), forcing OT security practices to adapt. CISOs are now widely recognizing the importance of tools that can defend both OT and IT. Security tools need to operate in both IT and OT environments with a multi-layered approach to intelligently interrupt cyber threats early in the kill chain, on both sides of the network, and minimize disruption.
4. Supply chain attacks heavily reduce the operational cost of mass exploitation
Supply chain attacks create indiscriminate damage, as we saw with SolarWinds in December 2020 and Kaseya in July 2021. Regulation alone will not be enough to combat supply chain attacks, so businesses themselves need to invest in the right security tools and procedures to ensure cyber health and resilience. Supply chain attacks are virtually impossible to detect with legacy, signature-based security: the malicious software is packaged as legitimate and delivered into the heart of thousands of organizations by trusted suppliers and partners.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is making huge steps forward in this area. Today, the most cyber-mature organizations already rely on AI systems to continually monitor their risk across globally distributed networks, made up of multiple third parties worldwide.
5. Zero-day vulnerabilities are on the rise
Newly identified zero-day vulnerabilities in the wild have steadily risen over the past few years. 2021 saw an unprecedented spike in zero-day vulnerability detection, rapid reconnaissance, and active exploitation. Data compiled by Google’s Project Zero reveals that 2021 is the biggest year on record for ‘in the wild’ zero-day exploits. While security professionals can usually anticipate 20 to 25 exploited zero-days in any given year, 2021 saw a massive 33 before July alone. Notably, both supply chain attacks listed above (SolarWinds and Kaseya) resulted from hackers exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities.
6. Offensive vs. defensive security
Cyber compromises have increased over the past decade, and defenses that look in the rear-view mirror are struggling to withstand the new wave of attacks.
Improving defensive security is possible with a better understanding of “action bias” (e.g., individuals will act without fully understanding or evaluating the situation). Security professionals need to fully understand what occurs when compromised before acting, even when the case is stressful or time sensitive.
Innovations like AI help augment human teams by providing complete visibility into the network, giving context around an attack, and helping human teams triage, prioritize, and summarize incidents. We need to put cyber teams on the front foot: proactively monitoring and investigating threats in real-time as they develop instead of consistently reacting to threats that have already escalated into attacks.
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
ABOUT ThE AUTHOR
Eloy Avila
Chief Technology Officer, Americhe
Eloy Avila has over fourteen years’ experience in enterprise software. Based in San Francisco, he works closely with Darktrace’s R&D team to develop its world-leading Self-Learning AI, and oversees the technology’s strategic direction in the US, Latin America and Canada. He currently sits on The Experiences Per Mile (EPM) Advisory Council, which brings together industry leaders to discuss the future of automotive and mobility industry. Prior to Darktrace, Eloy led global engineering teams at a number of listed technology companies, and has helped design and build ultra-efficient electric vehicles in the US and Australia. Eloy holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, California.
Detecting Attacks Across Email, SaaS, and Network Environments with Darktrace’s AI Platform Approach
30
Apr 2024
The State of AI in Cybersecurity
In a recent survey outlined in Darktrace’s State of AI Cyber Security whitepaper, 95% of cyber security professionals agree that AI-powered security solutions will improve their organization’s detection of cyber-threats [1]. Crucially, a combination of multiple AI methods is the most effective to improve cybersecurity; improving threat detection, accelerating threat investigation and response, and providing visibility across an organization’s digital environment.
In March 2024, Darktrace’s AI-led security platform was able to detect suspicious activity affecting a customer’s email, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), and network environments, whilst its applied supervised learning capability, Cyber AI Analyst, autonomously correlated and connected all of these events together in one single incident, explained concisely using natural language processing.
Attack Overview
Following an initial email attack vector, an attacker logged into a compromised SaaS user account from the Netherlands, changed inbox rules, and leveraged the account to send thousands of phishing emails to internal and external users. Internal users fell victim to the emails by clicking on contained suspicious links that redirected them to newly registered suspicious domains hosted on same IP address as the hijacked SaaS account login. This activity triggered multiple alerts in Darktrace DETECT™ on both the network and SaaS side, all of which were correlated into one Cyber AI Analyst incident.
In this instance, Darktrace RESPOND™ was not active on any of the customer’s environments, meaning the compromise was able to escalate until their security team acted on the alerts raised by DETECT. Had RESPOND been enabled at the time of the attack, it would have been able to apply swift actions to contain the attack by blocking connections to suspicious endpoints on the network side and disabling users deviating from their normal behavior on the customer’s SaaS environment.
Nevertheless, thanks to DETECT and Cyber AI Analyst, Darktrace was able to provide comprehensive visibility across the customer’s three digital estate environments, decreasing both investigation and response time which enabled them to quickly enact remediation during the attack. This highlights the crucial role that Darktrace’s combined AI approach can play in anomaly detection cyber defense
Attack Details & Darktrace Coverage
1. Email: the initial attack vector
The initial attack vector was likely email, as on March 18, 2024, Darktrace observed a user device making several connections to the email provider “zixmail[.]net”, shortly before it connected to the first suspicious domain. Darktrace/Email identified multiple unusual inbound emails from an unknown sender that contained a suspicious link. Darktrace recognized these emails as potentially malicious and locked the link, ensuring that recipients could not directly click it.
Figure 1: Suspected initial compromise email from an unknown sender, containing a suspicious link, which was locked by Darktrace/Email.
2. Escalation to Network
Later that day, despite Darktrace/Email having locked the link in the suspicious email, the user proceeded to click on it and was directed to a suspicious external location, namely “rz8js7sjbef[.]latovafineart[.]life”, which triggered the Darktrace/Network DETECT model “Suspicious Domain”. Darktrace/Email was able to identify that this domain had only been registered 4 days before this activity and was hosted on an IP address based in the Netherlands, 193.222.96[.]9.
3. SaaS Account Hijack
Just one minute later, Darktrace/Apps observed the user’s Microsoft 365 account logging into the network from the same IP address. Darktrace understood that this represented unusual SaaS activity for this user, who had only previously logged into the customer’s SaaS environment from the US, triggering the “Unusual External Source for SaaS Credential Use” model.
4. SaaS Account Updates
A day later, Darktrace identified an unusual administrative change on the user’s Microsoft 365 account. After logging into the account, the threat actor was observed setting up a new multi-factor authentication (MFA) method on Microsoft Authenticator, namely requiring a 6-digit code to authenticate. Darktrace understood that this authentication method was different to the methods previously used on this account; this, coupled with the unusual login location, triggered the “Unusual Login and Account Update” DETECT model.
5. Obfuscation Email Rule
On March 20, Darktrace detected the threat actor creating a new email rule, named “…”, on the affected account. Attackers are typically known to use ambiguous or obscure names when creating new email rules in order to evade the detection of security teams and endpoints users.
This rule was seemingly created with the intention of obfuscating the sending of malicious emails, as the rule would move sent emails to the "RSS Feeds” folder, a commonly used tactic by attackers as the folder is often left unchecked by endpoint users. Interestingly, Darktrace identified that, despite the initial unusual login coming from the Netherlands, the email rule was created from a different destination IP, indicating that the attacker was using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) after gaining a foothold in the network.
Figure 2: Hijacked SaaS account making an anomalous login from the unusual Netherlands-based IP, before creating a new email rule.
6. Outbound Phishing Emails Sent
Later that day, the attacker was observed using the compromised customer account to send out numerous phishing emails to both internal and external recipients. Darktrace/Email detected a significant spike in inbound emails on the compromised account, with the account receiving bounce back emails or replies in response to the phishing emails. Darktrace further identified that the phishing emails contained a malicious DocSend link hidden behind the text “Click Here”, falsely claiming to be a link to the presentation platform Prezi.
Figure 3: Darktrace/Email detected that the DocSend link displayed via text “Click Here”, was embedded in a Prezi link.
7. Suspicious Domains and Redirects
After the phishing emails were sent, multiple other internal users accessed the DocSend link, which directed them to another suspicious domain, “thecalebgroup[.]top”, which had been registered on the same day and was hosted on the aforementioned Netherlands-based IP, 193.222.96[.]91. At the time of the attack, this domain had not been reported by any open-source intelligence (OSINT), but it has since been flagged as malicious by multiple vendors [2].
Figure 4: External Sites Summary showing the suspicious domain that had never previously been seen on the network. A total of 11 “Suspicious Domain” models were triggered in response to this activity.
8. Cyber AI Analyst’s Investigation
As this attack was unfolding, Darktrace’s Cyber AI Analyst was able to autonomously investigate the events, correlating them into one wider incident and continually adding a total of 14 new events to the incident as more users fell victim to the phishing links.
Cyber AI Analyst successfully weaved together the initial suspicious domain accessed in the initial email attack vector (Figure 5), the hijack of the SaaS account from the Netherlands IP (Figure 6), and the connection to the suspicious redirect link (Figure 7). Cyber AI Analyst was also able to uncover other related activity that took place at the time, including a potential attempt to exfiltrate data out of the customer’s network.
By autonomously analyzing the thousands of connections taking place on a network at any given time, Darktrace’s Cyber AI Analyst is able to detect seemingly separate anomalous events and link them together in one incident. This not only provides organizations with full visibility over potential compromises on their networks, but also saves their security teams precious time ensuring they can quickly scope out the ongoing incident and begin remediation.
Figure 5: Cyber AI Analyst correlated the attack’s sequence, starting with the initial suspicious domain accessed in the initial email attack vector.
Figure 6: As the attack progressed, Cyber AI Analyst correlated and appended additional events to the same incident, including the SaaS account hijack from the Netherlands-based IP.
Figure 7: Cyber AI Analyst correlated and appended additional events to the same incident, including additional users connecting to the suspicious redirect link following the outbound phishing emails being sent.
Conclusion
In this scenario, Darktrace demonstrated its ability to detect and correlate suspicious activities across three critical areas of a customer’s digital environment: email, SaaS, and network.
It is essential that cyber defenders not only adopt AI but use a combination of AI technology capable of learning and understanding the context of an organization’s entire digital infrastructure. Darktrace’s anomaly-based approach to threat detection allows it to identify subtle deviations from the expected behavior in network devices and SaaS users, indicating potential compromise. Meanwhile, Cyber AI Analyst dynamically correlates related events during an ongoing attack, providing organizations and their security teams with the information needed to respond and remediate effectively.
Credit to Zoe Tilsiter, Analyst Consulting Lead (EMEA), Brianna Leddy, Director of Analysis
What are new entry points cyber attackers are using?
While traditional phishing attacks are very common for attackers, they are not the only method threat actors are using to initiate malware delivery and other malicious campaigns of cyber disruption.
For its End of Year Threat Report, Darktrace analyzed attacks targeting customer environments. While email remains the most common means of attempted initial compromise, the second half of 2023 saw a significant rise in alternative initial access methods.
Much of this is taking advantage of cloud-base applications and collaboration tools including Dropbox, Microsoft Teams, and SharePoint which have become fundamental to how organizations operate in the era of hybrid work.
DarkGate exploits Microsoft Teams
Darktrace analysts have seen threat actors attempting to infect target networks with malware by leveraging Microsoft Teams and SharePoint.
In one example, Darktrace detected an attacker delivering DarkGate a trojan used to download other malware, by sending messages and attachments in Microsoft Teams and SharePoint.
The External Access functionality in Microsoft Teams allows users to contact people who aren’t in their organization. It’s designed as a tool to aid collaboration, but threat actors have realized they can abuse it for their own gain.
Users are told to lookout for suspicious email phishing messages, but often this thinking isn’t applied to Microsoft Teams and other collaboration platforms.
Messages from outside the organization are marked with a note that they are coming from an external source, but a well-designed phishing message with an urgent call to action can persuade the target to ignore this, driving them towards an external SharePoint URL, which tricks the user into downloading and installing malware.
Because this happens outside of the inbox, the activity can be missed by traditional email security solutions. Fortunately, in this case, it was detected by Darktrace DETECT and the activity was contained by Darktrace RESPOND before it could drop any additional malware.
Dropbox has established itself as a leading cloud storage service by allowing users to share and access files, no matter where they are in the world or what device they’re using. But while this is legitimate and useful for organizations, it has also opened a new avenue for threat actors to exploit.
Dropbox as an attack vector
Darktrace recently detected attackers attempting to leverage Dropbox as an initial access method. Emails from ‘no-reply@dropbox[.]com’ – a legitimate email address – were sent to employees at a Darktrace customer.
The emails contained a link to push users towards to a PDF file hosted on Dropbox, which in turn contained a phishing link which if followed, took users to a convincing looking spoof of a Microsoft 365 login page designed to steal usernames and passwords.
A user fell victim to this campaign, unwittingly entering their Microsoft 365 credentials. Shortly after that, Darktrace/Apps started to see suspicious activity relating to the account, with multiple logins from unusual locations which had never been associated with the account previously.
While many traditional security solutions successfully detect and disrupt email-based attacks, many struggle with cloud-based apps and services like Dropbox, Microsoft 365 and others.
There are several reasons for this, including the way in which the use of multiple different cloud services fragments the attack surface, making it hard for network administrators to keep track of everything, alongside the way in which some security solutions don’t take behavior into account in a system which can be accessed from anywhere. That means even from the other side of the world, attackers who have the right cloud credentials could access the network, potentially without being disrupted.
Why are attackers turning to alternative access methods?
Attackers are turning to alternative methods because delivering malicious links and payloads via cloud-based services potentially bypasses traditional cybersecurity protections. That, combined with how attackers can take legitimate login credentials to access system means attackers actions can’t be easily traced.
This rise in alternative initial access methods is likely a result of the continued development and enhancement of traditional email security solutions. But in the cat and mouse game of cybersecurity, threat actors continue to evolve new techniques to get by defenses.
Darktrace’s Self-Learning AI learns the unique digital environment and patterns of each business, meaning it can recognize subtle deviations in activity, even within cloud services, helping to mitigate and neutralize attacks and helping to keep your organization safe from cyber disruption.
