Microsoft has not yet attributed StilachiRAT to a specific threat actor or geolocation. Based on Microsoft’s current visibility, the malware does not exhibit widespread distribution at this time. However, due to its stealth capabilities and the rapid changes within the malware ecosystem, we are sharing these findings as part of our ongoing efforts to monitor, analyze, and report on the evolving threat landscape.

Microsoft security solutions can detect activities related to attacks that use StilachiRAT. To help defenders protect their network, we are also sharing mitigation guidance to help reduce the impact of this threat, detection details, and hunting queries. Microsoft continues to monitor information on the delivery vector used in these attacks. Malware like StilachiRAT can be installed through multiple vectors; therefore, it is critical to implement security hardening measures to prevent the initial compromise. 

This blog presents our detailed findings on all the key capabilities of StilachiRAT, which include:

• System reconnaissance: Collects comprehensive system information, including operating system (OS) details, hardware identifiers, camera presence, active Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) sessions, and running graphical user interface (GUI) applications, allowing detailed profiling of the target system.
• Digital wallet targeting: Scans for configuration data of 20 different cryptocurrency wallet extensions for the Google Chrome browser.
• Credential theft: Extracts and decrypts saved credentials from Google Chrome, gaining access to usernames and passwords stored in the browser.
• Command-and-control (C2) connectivity: Establishes communication with remote C2 servers using TCP ports 53, 443, or 16000, enabling remote command execution and potentially SOCKS like proxying.
• Command execution: Supports a variety of commands from the C2 server, including system reboots, log clearing, registry manipulation, application execution, and system suspension.
• Persistence mechanisms: Achieves persistence through the Windows service control manager (SCM) and uses watchdog threads to ensure self-reinstatement if removed.
• RDP monitoring: Monitors RDP sessions, capturing active window information and impersonating users, allowing for potential lateral movement within networks.
• Clipboard and data collection: Continuously monitors clipboard content, actively searching for sensitive data like passwords and cryptocurrency keys, while tracking active windows and applications.
• Anti-forensics and evasion: Employs anti-forensic tactics by clearing event logs, detecting analysis tools, and implementing sandbox-evading behaviors to avoid detection.

Technical analysis of key capabilities

System reconnaissance

StilachiRAT gathers extensive system information, including OS details, device identifiers, BIOS serial numbers, and camera presence. Information is collected through the Component Object Model (COM) Web-based Enterprise Management (WBEM) interfaces using WMI Query Language (WQL). Below are some of the queries it executes:

Serial number

Camera

OS / System info (server, model, manufacturer)

Additionally, the malware creates a unique identification on the infected device that is derived from the system’s serial number and attackers’ public RSA key. The information is stored in the registry under a CLSID key.

Digital wallet targeting

StilachiRAT targets a list of specific cryptocurrency wallet extensions for the Google Chrome browser. It accesses the settings in the following registry key and validates if any of the extensions are installed:

\SOFTWARE\Google\Chrome\PreferenceMACs\Default\extensions.settings

The malware targets the following cryptocurrency wallet extensions:

Credential theft

StilachiRAT extracts Google Chrome’s encryption_key from the local state file in a user’s directory. However, since the key is encrypted when Chrome is first installed, it uses Windows APIs that rely on current user’s context to decrypt the master key. This allows access to the stored credentials in the password vault. The stored credentials are extracted from the following locations:

• %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Local State – stores Chrome’s configuration data, including the encrypted key.
• %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Login Data – stores entered user credentials.

The “Login Data” stores information using an SQLite database and the malware retrieves credentials using the following query:

Command-and-control (C2)

There are two configured addresses for the C2 server – one is stored in obfuscated form and the other is an IP address converted to its binary format (instead of a regular string):

• app.95560[.]cc
• 194.195.89[.]47

The communications channel is established using TCP ports 53, 443, or 16000, selected randomly. Additionally, the malware checks for presence of tcpview.exe and will not proceed if one is present. It also delays initial connection by two hours, presumably to evade detection. Once connected, a list of active windows is sent to the server. Additional technical findings regarding C2 communications functionality are listed in the section below.

Persistence mechanisms

StilachiRAT can be launched both as a Windows service or a standalone component. In both cases, there is a mechanism in place to ensure the malware isn’t removed.

A watchdog thread monitors both the EXE and dynamic link library (DLL) files used by the malware by periodically polling for their presence. If found absent, the files can be recreated from an internal copy obtained during initialization. Lastly, the Windows service component can be recreated by modifying the relevant registry settings and restarting it through the SCM.

RDP monitoring

StilachiRAT monitors RDP sessions by capturing foreground window information and duplicating security tokens to impersonate users. This is particularly risky on RDP servers hosting administrative sessions as it could enable lateral movement within networks.

The malware obtains the current session and actively launches foreground windows as well as enumerates all other RDP sessions. For each identified session, it will access the Windows Explorer shell and duplicate its privileges or security token. The malware then gains capabilities to launch applications with these newly obtained privileges.

Data collection

StilachiRAT collects a variety of user data, including software installation records and active applications. It monitors active GUI windows, their title bar text, and file location, and sends this information to the C2 server, potentially allowing attackers to track user behavior.

Clipboard monitoring

StilachiRAT has a functionality that is responsible for monitoring clipboard data. Specifically, the malware can periodically read the clipboard, extract text based on search expressions, and then exfiltrate this data. Clipboard monitoring is continuous, with targeted searches for sensitive information such as passwords, cryptocurrency keys, and potentially personal identifiers.

The list below includes the regular search expressions used to extract certain credentials. These are associated with the Tron Cryptocurrency blockchain that is popular in Asia, especially in China.

The same search expressions are then used to iterate files in the following locations:

• %USERPROFILE%\Desktop
• %USERPROFILE%\Recent

Anti-forensic measures

StilachiRAT displays anti-forensic behavior by clearing event logs and checking certain system conditions to evade detection. This includes looping checks for analysis tools and sandbox timers that prevent its full activation in virtual environments commonly used for malware analysis.

Additionally, Windows API calls are obfuscated in multiple ways and a custom algorithm is used to encode many text strings and values. This significantly slows down analysis time since extrapolating higher level logic and code design becomes a more complex effort.

The malware employs API-level obfuscation techniques to impede manual analysis, specifically by concealing its use of Windows APIs (e.g., RegOpenKey()). Instead of referencing API names directly, it encodes them as checksums that are resolved dynamically at runtime. While this is a common technique in malware, the authors have introduced additional layers of obfuscation.

Precomputed API checksums are stored in multiple lookup tables, each masked with an XOR value. During launch, the malware selects the appropriate table based on the hashed API name, applies the correct XOR mask to decode the value, and dynamically resolves the corresponding Windows API function. The resolved function pointer is then cached, but with an additional XOR mask applied, preventing straightforward memory scans from identifying API references.

Commands launched from the C2 server

StilachiRAT can launch various commands received from the C2 server. These commands include system reboot, log clearing, credential theft, executing applications, and manipulating system windows. Additionally, it can suspend the system, modify Windows registry values, and enumerate open windows, indicating a versatile command set for both espionage and system manipulation. The C2 server’s command structure assigns specific numbers to what commands it will initiate. The following section presents details on the said commands.

07 – Dialog box

Uses the Windows API function ShowHTMLDialogEx() to display a dialog box with rendered HTML contents from a supplied URL.

08 – Log clearing

Given an event log type, the relevant Windows APIs are used to open and then clear the log entries.

09 – System reboot

Adjusts its own executing privileges to enable system shutdown and uses an undocumented Windows API to perform the action.

13 – Network sockets

Appears to contain capability to receive a network address from C2 server and establish a new outbound connection.

14 – TCP incoming

Accepts an incoming network connection on the supplied TCP port.

15 – Terminate

If there’s an open network connection, then close it and disable the Windows service controlling this process. This appears to be the self-removal (uninstall) command.

16 – Initiate application

The malware creates a console window and initiates a command to launch the program provided by the C2 operator using the WinExec() API.

19 – Enumerate Windows

Iterates all windows of the current desktop to look for a requested title bar text. This might allow the operator to access specific GUI applications and their contents, both onscreen and clipboard.

26 – Suspend

Uses the SetSuspendState() API to put the system into either a suspended (sleep) state or hibernation.

30 – Chrome credentials

Launches the earlier mentioned functionality to steal Google Chrome passwords.

Mitigations

Malware like StilachiRAT can be installed through various vectors. The following mitigations can help prevent this type of malware from infiltrating the system and reduce the attack surface:

• In some cases, RATs can masquerade as legitimate software or software updates. Always download software from the official website of the software developer or from reputable sources.
• Encourage users to use Microsoft Edge and other web browsers that support SmartScreen, which identifies and blocks malicious websites, including phishing sites, scam sites, and sites that host malware.
• Turn on Safe Links and Safe Attachments for Office 365. In organizations with Microsoft Defender for Office 365, Safe Links scanning protects your organization from malicious links that are used in phishing and other attacks. Specifically, Safe Links provides URL scanning and rewriting of inbound email messages during mail flow, and time-of-click verification of URLs and links in email messages, Microsoft Teams, and supported Office 365 apps. Safe Attachments provides an additional layer of protection for email attachments that have already been scanned by anti-malware protection in Exchange Online Protection (EOP).
• Enable network protection in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to prevent applications or users from accessing malicious domains and other malicious content on the internet. You can audit network protection in a test environment to view which apps would be blocked before enabling network protection.

General hardening guidelines:

• Ensure that tamper protection is enabled in Microsoft Dender for Endpoint.
• Run endpoint detection and response in block mode so that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can block malicious artifacts, even when your non-Microsoft antivirus does not detect the threat or when Microsoft Defender Antivirus is running in passive mode.
• Configure investigation and remediation in full automated mode to let Microsoft Defender for Endpoint take immediate action on alerts to resolve breaches, significantly reducing alert volume.
• Turn on Potentially unwanted applications (PUA) protection in block mode in Microsoft Defender Antivirus. PUA are a category of software that can cause your machine to run slowly, display unexpected ads, or install other software that might be unexpected or unapproved.
• Turn on cloud-delivered protection in Microsoft Defender Antivirus or the equivalent for your antivirus product to cover rapidly evolving attacker tools and techniques.
• Turn on Microsoft Defender Antivirus real-time protection.

Microsoft Defender XDR detections

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can refer to the list of applicable detections below. Microsoft Defender XDR coordinates detection, prevention, investigation, and response across endpoints, identities, email, apps to provide integrated protection against attacks like the threat discussed in this blog.

Customers with provisioned access can also use Microsoft Security Copilot in Microsoft Defender to investigate and respond to incidents, hunt for threats, and protect their organization with relevant threat intelligence.

Microsoft Defender Antivirus

Microsoft Defender Antivirus detects this threat as the following malware:

• TrojanSpy:Win64/Stilachi.A

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

The following alerts might indicate threat activity related to this threat. Note, however, that these alerts can be also triggered by unrelated threat activity.

• A process was injected with potentially malicious code
• Process hollowing detected
• Suspicious service launched
• Possible theft of passwords and other sensitive web browser information

Microsoft Security Copilot

Security Copilot customers can use the standalone experience to create their own prompts or run the following pre-built promptbooks to automate incident response or investigation tasks related to this threat:

• Incident investigation
• Microsoft User analysis
• Threat actor profile
• Threat Intelligence 360 report based on MDTI article
• Vulnerability impact assessment

Note that some promptbooks require access to plugins for Microsoft products such as Microsoft Defender XDR or Microsoft Sentinel.

Hunting queries

Microsoft Defender XDR

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can run the following query to find related activity in their networks:

Look for suspicious outbound network connections

Monitor network traffic for malicious activity caused by remote access trojans by focusing on identifying unusual outbound connections, irregular port activity, and suspicious data exfiltration patterns that may indicate RAT presence.

Outbound ports associated with common data transfer protocols such as HTTP/HTTPS (port 80/443), SMB (port 445), and DNS (port 53) or less common ports like 16000 used for specific applications and services for network communications might indicate such activity.

let domains = dynamic(['domain1', 'domain2', 'domain3']);
DeviceNetworkEvents
| where RemotePort in (53, 443, 16000)
| where Protocol == "Tcp"
| where RemoteUrl has_any (domains)
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, RemoteIP, RemotePort, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, ActionType, DeviceId, LocalIP, RemoteUrl, InitiatingProcessFileName

Look for signs of persistence

The malware can be run both as a Windows Service or a standalone component. To identify persistence and suspicious services, monitor for the following event IDs:

• Event ID 7045 – a new service was installed on the system. Monitor for suspicious services.
• Event ID 7040 – start type of a service is changed (boot, on-request). Boot may be a vector for the RAT to persist during a system reboot. On request indicates that the process must request the SCM to start the service.
• Correlated with Event ID 4697 – a service was installed on the system (Security log)

DeviceEvents
|where ActionType == “ServiceInstalled”
| project Timestamp, DeviceId,ActionType, FileName, FolderPath, InitiatingProcessCommandLine

Look for anti-forensic behavior

To identify potential event log clearing, monitor for the following event IDs:

• Event ID 1102 (Security log)
• Event ID 104 (System log)

Microsoft Sentinel

Microsoft Sentinel customers can use the TI Mapping analytics (a series of analytics all prefixed with ‘TI map’) to automatically match the malicious domain/IP/Hash indicators mentioned in this blog post with data in their workspace. If the TI Map analytics are not currently deployed, customers can install the Threat Intelligence solution from the Microsoft Sentinel Content Hub to have the analytics rule deployed in their Sentinel workspace.

Additionally, Sentinel users can use the following query to detect when the security event log has been cleared, a potential indicator of an attempt to erase system evidence.

SecurityEvent
  | where EventID == 1102 and EventSourceName == "Microsoft-Windows-Eventlog"
  | summarize StartTimeUtc = min(TimeGenerated), EndTimeUtc = max(TimeGenerated), EventCount = count() by Computer, Account, EventID, Activity
  | extend HostName = tostring(split(Computer, ".")[0]), DomainIndex = toint(indexof(Computer, '.'))
  | extend HostNameDomain = iff(DomainIndex != -1, substring(Computer, DomainIndex + 1), Computer)
  | extend AccountName = tostring(split(Account, @'\')[1]), AccountNTDomain = tostring(split(Account, @'\')[0])

Sentinel users can also use the following query to detect service installations or modifications in service settings, which may indicate potential persistence mechanisms used by attackers.

Event 
  // 7045: A service was installed in the system
 //  7040: A service setting has been changed
  | where Source == "Service Control Manager" 
  | where EventID in ( '7045', '7040')
  | parse EventData with * 'ServiceName">' ServiceName "<" * 'ImagePath">' ImagePath "<" *
  | parse EventData with * 'AccountName">' AccountName "<" *
  | summarize StartTime = min(TimeGenerated), EndTime = max(TimeGenerated) by EventID, Computer, ServiceName, ImagePath, AccountName

Indicators of compromise

Learn more

For the latest security research from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community, check out the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Blog: https://aka.ms/threatintelblog.

To get notified about new publications and to join discussions on social media, follow us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/microsoft-threat-intelligence, and on X (formerly Twitter) at https://x.com/MsftSecIntel.

To hear stories and insights from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community about the ever-evolving threat landscape, listen to the Microsoft Threat Intelligence podcast: https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/microsoft-threat-intelligence.

Microsoft is committed to delivering comprehensive customer experience through various Microsoft Offerings. Our approach goes beyond traditional support by focusing on detection, prevention, and in-depth mitigation to help customers quickly respond to security incidents and build resiliency. Want to know how to Build a More Secure Tomorrow? Check our Unified and Security eBook and visit https://aka.ms/Unified

Dmitriy Pletnev and Daria Pop
Microsoft Incident Response

The post StilachiRAT analysis: From system reconnaissance to cryptocurrency theft appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

This phishing attack specifically targets individuals in hospitality organizations in North America, Oceania, South and Southeast Asia, and Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western Europe, that are most likely to work with Booking.com, sending fake emails purporting to be coming from the agency.

In the ClickFix technique, a threat actor attempts to take advantage of human problem-solving tendencies by displaying fake error messages or prompts that instruct target users to fix issues by copying, pasting, and launching commands that eventually result in the download of malware. This need for user interaction could allow an attack to slip through conventional and automated security features. In the case of this phishing campaign, the user is prompted to use a keyboard shortcut to open a Windows Run window, then paste and launch a command that the phishing page adds to the clipboard.

Microsoft tracks this campaign as Storm-1865, a cluster of activity related to phishing campaigns leading to payment data theft and fraudulent charges. Organizations can reduce the impact of phishing attacks by educating users on recognizing such scams. This blog includes additional recommendations to help users and defenders defend against these threats.

Phishing campaign using the ClickFix social engineering technique

In this campaign, Storm-1865 identifies target organizations in the hospitality sector and targets individuals at those organizations likely to work with Booking.com. Storm-1865 then sends a malicious email impersonating Booking.com to the targeted individual. The content of the email varies greatly, referencing negative guest reviews, requests from prospective guests, online promotion opportunities, account verification, and more.

The email includes a link, or a PDF attachment containing one, claiming to take recipients to Booking.com. Clicking the link leads to a webpage that displays a fake CAPTCHA overlayed on a subtly visible background designed to mimic a legitimate Booking.com page. This webpage gives the illusion that Booking.com uses additional verification checks, which might give the targeted user a false sense of security and therefore increase their chances of getting compromised.

The fake CAPTCHA is where the webpage employs the ClickFix social engineering technique to download the malicious payload. This technique instructs the user to use a keyboard shortcut to open a Windows Run window, then paste and launch a command that the webpage adds to the clipboard:

The command downloads and launches malicious code through mshta.exe:

This campaign delivers multiple families of commodity malware, including XWorm, Lumma stealer, VenomRAT, AsyncRAT, Danabot, and NetSupport RAT. Depending on the specific payload, the specific code launched through mshta.exe varies. Some samples have downloaded PowerShell, JavaScript, and portable executable (PE) content.

All these payloads include capabilities to steal financial data and credentials for fraudulent use, which is a hallmark of Storm-1865 activity. In 2023, Storm-1865 targeted hotel guests using Booking.com with similar social engineering techniques and malware. In 2024, Storm-1865 targeted buyers using e-commerce platforms with phishing messages leading to fraudulent payment webpages. The addition of ClickFix to this threat actor’s tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) shows how Storm-1865 is evolving its attack chains to try to slip through conventional security measures against phishing and malware.

Attribution

The threat actor that Microsoft tracks as Storm-1865 encapsulates a cluster of activity conducting phishing campaigns, leading to payment data theft and fraudulent charges. These campaigns have been ongoing with increased volume since at least early 2023 and involve messages sent through vendor platforms, such as online travel agencies and e-commerce platforms, and email services, such as Gmail or iCloud Mail.

Recommendations

Users can follow the recommendations below to spot phishing activity. Organizations can reduce the impact of phishing attacks by educating users on recognizing these scams.

Check the sender’s email address to ensure it’s legitimate. Assess whether the sender is categorized as first-time, infrequent, or marked as “[External]” by your email provider. Hover over the address to ensure that the full address is legitimate. Keep in mind that legitimate organizations do not send unsolicited email messages or make unsolicited phone calls to request personal or financial information. Always navigate to those organizations directly to sign into your account.

Contact the service provider directly. If you receive a suspicious email or message, contact the service provider directly using official contact forms listed on the official website.

Be wary of urgent calls to action or threats. Remain cautious of email notifications that call to click, call, or open an attachment immediately. Phishing attacks and scams often create a false sense of urgency to trick targets into acting without first scrutinizing the message’s legitimacy.

Hover over links to observe the full URL. Sometimes, malicious links are embedded into an email to trick the recipient. Simply clicking the link could let a threat actor download malware onto your device. Before clicking a link, ensure the full URL is legitimate. For best practice, rather than following a link from an email, search for the company website directly in your browser and navigate from there.

Search for typos. Phishing emails often contain typos, including within the body of the email, indicating that the sender is not a legitimate, professional source, or within the email domain or URL, as mentioned previously. Companies rarely send out messages without proofreading content, so multiple spelling and grammar mistakes can signal a scam message. In addition, check for very subtle misspellings of legitimate domains, a technique known as typosquatting. For example, you might see micros0ft[.]com, where the second o has been replaced by 0, or rnicrosoft[.]com, where the m has been replaced by r and n.

Microsoft recommends the following mitigations to reduce the impact of this threat.

• Pilot and deploy phishing-resistant authentication methods for users.
• Enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) on all accounts, remove users excluded from MFA, and strictly require MFA from all devices in all locations at all times.
• Configure Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to recheck links on click. Safe Links provides URL scanning and rewriting of inbound email messages in mail flow, and time-of-click verification of URLs and links in email messages, other Microsoft 365 applications such as Teams, and other locations such as SharePoint Online. Safe Links scanning occurs in addition to the regular anti-spam and anti-malware protection in inbound email messages in Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP). Safe Links scanning can help protect your organization from malicious links used in phishing and other attacks.
• Encourage users to use Microsoft Edge and other web browsers that support Microsoft Defender SmartScreen, which identifies and blocks malicious websites, including phishing sites, scam sites, and sites that host malware.
• Turn on cloud-delivered protection in Microsoft Defender Antivirus or the equivalent for your antivirus product to cover rapidly evolving attack tools and techniques. Cloud-based machine learning protections block a majority of new and unknown variants.
• Enable network protection to prevent applications or users from accessing malicious domains and other malicious content on the internet.
• Enable investigation and remediation in full automated mode to allow Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to take immediate action on alerts to resolve breaches, significantly reducing alert volume.
• Enable Zero-hour auto purge (ZAP) in Office 365 to quarantine sent mail in response to newly acquired threat intelligence and retroactively neutralize malicious phishing, spam, or malware messages that have already been delivered to mailboxes.

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can turn on attack surface reduction rules to prevent common attack techniques:

• Block executable files from running unless they meet a prevalence, age, or trusted list criterion
• Block execution of potentially obfuscated scripts
• Block JavaScript or VBScript from launching downloaded executable content
• Block credential stealing from the Windows local security authority subsystem

Detection details

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can refer to the list of applicable detections below. Microsoft Defender XDR coordinates detection, prevention, investigation, and response across endpoints, identities, email, apps to provide integrated protection against attacks like the threat discussed in this blog.

Customers with provisioned access can also use Microsoft Security Copilot in Microsoft Defender to investigate and respond to incidents, hunt for threats, and protect their organization with relevant threat intelligence.

Microsoft Defender Antivirus

Microsoft Defender Antivirus detects threat components as the following malware:

• TrojanDownloader:Win32/XWorm
• Trojan:Win32/XWorm
• Trojan:Win64/Xworm
• Trojan:VBS/XWorm
• Trojan:MSIL/Xworm
• Backdoor:MSIL/XWorm
• TrojanDropper:Win32/LummaStealer
• Trojan:Win64/LummaStealer
• Trojan:Win32/LummaStealer
• Trojan:MSIL/LummaStealer
• Trojan:JS/LummaStealer
• Trojan:Win32/VenomRat
• Trojan:MSIL/VenomRAT
• TrojanDropper:MSIL/AsyncRAT
• TrojanDownloader:Win64/AsyncRAT
• TrojanDownloader:VBS/AsyncRAT
• TrojanDownloader:PowerShell/AsyncRAT
• TrojanDownloader:MSIL/AsyncRAT
• Trojan:Win64/AsyncRat
• Trojan:Win32/AsyncRat
• Trojan:VBS/AsyncRAT
• Trojan:PowerShell/AsyncRAT
• Trojan:MSIL/AsyncRAT
• Trojan:JS/AsyncRat
• Trojan:BAT/AsyncRat
• RemoteAccess:MSIL/AsyncRAT
• Backdoor:MSIL/AsyncRAT
• Trojan:Win32/Danabot
• Trojan:VBS/Danabot
• Trojan:Win64/Danabot
• TrojanSpy:Win32/Danabot
• TrojanSpy:Win64/Danabot
• TrojanDownloader:VBS/Danabot
• TrojanDownloader:Win32/Danabot
• TrojanDownloader:PowerShell/NetSupport
• TrojanDownloader:JS/NetSupport
• Trojan:VBS/NetSupportRat
• TrojanDownloader:JS/NetSupportRat
• Trojan:Win32/NetSupportRat

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

The following alerts might indicate threat activity associated with this threat. These alerts, however, can be triggered by unrelated threat activity:

• Suspicious command in RunMRU registry
• Suspicious PowerShell command line
• Use of living-off-the-land binary to run malicious code
• Possible theft of passwords and other sensitive web browser information
• Suspicious DPAPI Activity
• Suspicious mshta process launched
• Suspicious phishing activity detected

Microsoft Defender for Office 365

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 detects malicious activity associated with this threat through the following alerts:

• This URL has known registrant pattern for malicious activity.
• This URL impersonates booking.com
• This PDF has generic phishing traits.
• This URL has generic phishing traits.

Microsoft Security Copilot

Security Copilot customers can use the standalone experience to create their own prompts or run the following pre-built promptbooks to automate incident response or investigation tasks related to this threat:

• Incident investigation
• Microsoft User analysis
• Threat actor profile
• Threat Intelligence 360 report based on MDTI article
• Vulnerability impact assessment

Note that some promptbooks require access to plugins for Microsoft products such as Microsoft Defender XDR or Microsoft Sentinel.

Threat intelligence reports

Microsoft customers can use the following reports in Microsoft products to get the most up-to-date information about the threat actor, malicious activity, and techniques discussed in this blog. These reports provide the intelligence, protection information, and recommended actions to prevent, mitigate, or respond to associated threats found in customer environments.

Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence

• Storm-1865 phishing campaigns over vendor platforms lead to payment data theft and fraudulent charges
• Danabot
• NetSupport RAT
• AsyncRAT
• Lumma stealer

Microsoft Security Copilot customers can also use the Microsoft Security Copilot integration in Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence, either in the Security Copilot standalone portal or in the embedded experience in the Microsoft Defender portal to get more information about this threat actor.

Hunting queries

Microsoft Defender XDR

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can run the following query to find related activity in their networks:

Network connections to known C2 infrastructure related to this activity

Look for network connections with known C2 infrastructure.

let c2Servers = dynamic(['92.255.57.155','147.45.44.131','176.113.115.170','31.177.110.99','185.7.214.54','176.113.115.225','87.121.221.124','185.149.146.164']);
DeviceNetworkEvents
| where RemoteIP has_any(c2Servers)
| project Timestamp, DeviceId, DeviceName, LocalIP, RemoteIP, InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine

Microsoft Sentinel

Microsoft Sentinel customers can use the TI Mapping analytics (a series of analytics all prefixed with ‘TI map’) to automatically match the malicious domain indicators mentioned in this blog post with data in their workspace. If the TI Map analytics are not currently deployed, customers can install the Threat Intelligence solution from the Microsoft Sentinel Content Hub to have the analytics rule deployed in their Sentinel workspace.

Below are the queries using Sentinel Advanced Security Information Model (ASIM) functions to hunt threats across both Microsoft first-party and third-party data sources. ASIM also supports deploying parsers to specific workspaces from GitHub, using an ARM template or manually.

Hunt normalized Network Session events using the ASIM unifying parser _Im_NetworkSession for IOCs:

let lookback = 30d;
let ioc_ip_addr = dynamic(['92.255.57.155','147.45.44.131','176.113.115.170','31.177.110.99','185.7.214.54','176.113.115.225','87.121.221.124','185.149.146.164']); 
_Im_NetworkSession(starttime=todatetime(ago(lookback)), endtime=now())
| where DstIpAddr in (ioc_ip_addr) or DstDomain has_any (ioc_domains)
| summarize imNWS_mintime=min(TimeGenerated), imNWS_maxtime=max(TimeGenerated), EventCount=count() by SrcIpAddr, DstIpAddr, DstDomain, Dvc, EventProduct, EventVendor

Hunt normalized Web Session events using the ASIM unifying parser _Im_WebSession for IOCs:

let lookback = 30d;
let ioc_ip_addr = dynamic(['92.255.57.155','147.45.44.131','176.113.115.170','31.177.110.99','185.7.214.54','176.113.115.225','87.121.221.124','185.149.146.164']); 
_Im_WebSession(starttime=todatetime(ago(lookback)), endtime=now())
| where DstIpAddr has_any (ioc_ip_addr)
 | summarize imWS_mintime=min(TimeGenerated), imWS_maxtime=max(TimeGenerated), EventCount=count() by SrcIpAddr, DstIpAddr, Url, Dvc, EventProduct, EventVendor

Hunt normalized File events using the ASIM unifying parser imFileEvent for IOCs:

let ioc_sha_hashes =dynamic(["01ec22c3394eb1661255d2cc646db70a66934c979c2c2d03df10127595dc76a6"," f87600e4df299d51337d0751bcf9f07966282be0a43bfa3fd237bf50471a981e ","0c96efbde64693bde72f18e1f87d2e2572a334e222584a1948df82e7dcfe241d"]);  imFileEvent
  | where SrcFileSHA256 in (ioc_sha_hashes) or TargetFileSHA256 in (ioc_sha_hashes)
  | extend AccountName = tostring(split(User, @'\')[1]), AccountNTDomain = tostring(split(User, @'\')[0])
  | extend AlgorithmType = "SHA256"

Indicators of compromise

References

• Booking.com Customers Hit by Phishing Campaign Delivered Via Compromised Hotels Accounts (Perception Point)
• What is XWorm Malware? (AnyRun)

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For the latest security research from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community, check out the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Blog: https://aka.ms/threatintelblog.

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The post Phishing campaign impersonates Booking .com, delivers a suite of credential-stealing malware appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

GitHub was the primary platform used in the delivery of the initial access payloads and is referenced throughout this blog post; however, Microsoft Threat Intelligence also observed one payload hosted on Discord and another hosted on Dropbox.

The GitHub repositories, which were taken down, stored malware used to deploy additional malicious files and scripts. Once the initial malware from GitHub gained a foothold on the device, the additional files deployed had a modular and multi-stage approach to payload delivery, execution, and persistence. The files were used to collect system information and to set up further malware and scripts to exfiltrate documents and data from the compromised host. This activity is tracked under the umbrella name Storm-0408 that we use to track numerous threat actors associated with remote access or information-stealing malware and who use phishing, search engine optimization (SEO), or malvertising campaigns to distribute malicious payloads.

In this blog, we provide our analysis of this large-scale malvertising campaign, detailing our findings regarding the redirection chain and various payloads used across the multi-stage attack chain. We further provide recommendations for mitigating the impact of this threat, detection details, indicators of compromise (IOCs), and hunting guidance to locate related activity. By sharing this research, we aim to raise awareness about the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used in this widespread activity so organizations can better prepare and implement effective mitigation strategies to protect their systems and data.

We would like to thank the GitHub security team for their prompt response and collaboration in taking down the malicious repositories.

GitHub activity and redirection chain

Since at least early December 2024, multiple hosts downloaded first-stage payloads from malicious GitHub repositories. The users were redirected to GitHub through a series of other redirections. Analysis of the redirector chain determined the attack likely originated from illegal streaming websites where users can watch pirated videos. The streaming websites embedded malvertising redirectors within movie frames to generate pay-per-view or pay-per-click revenue from malvertising platforms. These redirectors subsequently routed traffic through one or two additional malicious redirectors, ultimately leading to another website, such as a malware or tech support scam website, which then redirected to GitHub.

Multiple stages of malware were deployed in this campaign, as listed below, and the several different stages of activity that occurred depended on the payload dropped during the second stage.

• The first-stage payload that was hosted on GitHub served as the dropper for the next stage of payloads.
• The second-stage files were used to conduct system discovery and to exfiltrate system information that was Base64-encoded into the URL and sent over HTTP to an IP address. The information collected included data on memory size, graphic details, screen resolution, operating system (OS), and user paths.
• Various third-stage payloads were deployed depending on the second-stage payload. In general, the third-stage payload conducted additional malicious activities such as command and control (C2) to download additional files and to exfiltrate data, as well as defense evasion techniques.

The full redirect chain was composed of four to five layers. Microsoft researchers determined malvertising redirectors were contained within an iframe on illegal streaming websites.

There were several redirections that occurred before arriving at the malicious content stored on GitHub.

Attack chain

Once the redirection to GitHub occurred, the malware hosted on GitHub established the initial foothold on the user’s device and functioned as a dropper for additional payload stages and running malicious code. The additional payloads included information stealers to collect system and browser information on the compromised device, of which most were either Lumma stealer or an updated version of Doenerium. Depending on the initial payload, the deployment of NetSupport, a remote monitoring and management (RMM) software, was also often deployed alongside the infostealer. Besides the information stealers, PowerShell, JavaScript, VBScript, and AutoIT scripts were run on the host. The threat actors incorporated use of living-off-the-land binaries and scripts (LOLBAS) like PowerShell.exe, MSBuild.exe, and RegAsm.exe for C2 and data exfiltration of user data and browser credentials.

After the initial foothold was gained, the activity led to a modular and multi-stage approach to payload delivery, execution, and persistence. Each stage dropped another payload with a different function, as outlined below. Actions conducted across these stages include system discovery (memory, GPU, OS, signed-in users, and others), opening browser credential files, Data Protection API (DPAPI) crypt data calls, and other functions such as obfuscated script execution and named pipe creations to conduct data exfiltration. Persistence was achieved through modification of the registry run keys and the addition of a shortcut file to the Windows Startup folder.

Several stages of malicious activity to conduct deployment of additional malware, collections, and exfiltration of data to a C2 were observed. While not every single initial payload followed these exact steps, this is an overall view of what occurred across most incidents analyzed:

First-stage payload: Establishing a foothold on the host

During the first stage, a payload is dropped onto the user’s device from the binary hosted on GitHub, establishing a foothold on that device. As of mid-January 2025, the first-stage payloads discovered were digitally signed with a newly created certificate. A total of twelve different certificates were identified, all of which have been revoked.

Most of these initial payloads dropped the following legitimate files to leverage their functionality. These files were either leveraged by the first-stage payload or by later-stage payloads, depending on the actions being conducted.

Depending on the first-stage payload that was initially established on the compromised device, Microsoft observed different second-stage payloads and several different methods for delivering these payloads to the device.

Second-stage payload: System discovery, collection, and exfiltration

The main purpose of the second-stage payload is to conduct system discovery and collect that data for exfiltration to the C2. The system information collected includes data such as memory size, graphic card details, screen resolution, operating system, user paths, and a reference to the second-stage payload’s file name.

This was accomplished by querying the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProductName for the Windows OS version and running commands, such as the echo command, to gather the device’s name (%COMPUTERNAME%) and domain name (%USERDOMAIN%).

System data collected by the second-stage payload is Base64-encoded and exfiltrated as a query parameter to an IP address.

Third-stage payload: PowerShell and .exe binary

Depending on the second-stage payload, either one or multiple executables are dropped onto the compromised device, and sometimes an accompanying encoded PowerShell script. These files initiate a chain of events that conduct command execution, payload delivery, defensive evasion, persistence, C2 communications, and data exfiltration. The analysis of the dropped executables is first discussed below, followed by review of the PowerShell scripts observed.

Third-stage .exe analysis

The second-stage payloads run the dropped third-stage executables using the command prompt (for example, cmd.exe  /d /s /c “”C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Temp\ApproachAllan.exe””). The /c flag ensures that the command runs and exits quickly. When the third-stage .exe runs, it drops a command file (.cmd) and launches it using the command prompt (for example, “cmd.exe” /c copy Beauty Beauty.cmd && Beauty.cmd). The .cmd file performs several actions, such as running tasklist, to initiate the discovery of running programs. This is followed by the findstr to search for keywords associated with security software:

The .cmd file also concatenates multiple files into one with a single character file name: “cmd /c copy /b ..\Verzeichnis + ..\Controlling + ..\Constitute + ..\Enjoyed + ..\Confusion + ..\Min +..\Statutory J”. This single character filename is used next.

Following this, the third-stage .exe produces an AutoIT v3 interpreter file that is renamed from the typical file name of AutoIt3.exe and uses a .com file extension. The .cmd file initiates the execution of the .com file against the single character binary (such as Briefly.com J). Note, most of the second-stage payloads follow this progression chain, and as mentioned a second-stage payload can also drop multiple executables, all following the same process. For example:

First stage

• X-essentiApp.exe

Second stage

• Ionixnignx.exe

Third stage

• EverybodyViewing.exe
• ReliefOrganizational.exe
• InflationWinston.exe

Third-stage command files

• Beauty.cmd
• Possess.cmd
• Villa.cmd

Fourth-stage AutoIT .com files

• Alexandria.com
• Kills.com
• Briefly.com

We observed multiple .com files originating from different dropped executables, each performing distinct functions while occasionally overlapping in behavior. These files facilitate persistence, process injection, remote debugging, and data exfiltration through various mechanisms. One .com file, such as Alexandria.com, drops a .scr file (another renamed AutoIT interpreter), and a .js (JavaScript) file with the same name as the .scr file. The purpose of the JavaScript file is to ensure persistence by creating a .url internet shortcut that points to the JavaScript file and is placed in the Startup folder, ensuring that the .scr file executes when the .js file executes (through Wscript.exe) upon user sign-in. Alternatively, persistence can be achieved using scheduled task creation. The .scr file can initiate C2 connections, enable remote debugging on Chrome or Edge within a hidden desktop session, or create TCP listening sockets on ports 9220-9229. This functionality allows threat actors to monitor browsing activity and interact with an active browser instance. These files can also open sensitive data files, indicating their role in facilitating post-exploitation activities.

Another .com file, such as affiliated.com, also focuses on remote debugging and browser monitoring. In addition to remote monitoring, affiliated.com initiates network connections to Telegram, Let’s Encrypt, and threat actor domains, potentially for C2 or exfiltration. It also accesses DPAPI to decrypt sensitive stored credentials and retrieve browser data.

The final observed .com file, such as Briefly.com, exhibits behavior similar to affiliated.com but extends its capabilities to include screenshot capture, data exfiltration, and PowerShell-based execution. This file accesses browser and user data for collection, establishes connections to Pastebin and additional C2 domains, and drops the fourth-stage PowerShell script.

The order in which these .com files run is not strictly defined, as one or multiple files can perform overlapping functions depending on the third-stage payload. In many cases, the .com files also leverage LOLBAS like RegAsm.exe by dropping a legitimate file into the %TEMP% directory or injecting malicious code into it using NtAllocateVirtualMemory and SetThreadContext API function calls. RegAsm.exe is used to establish C2 connections over TCP ports 15647 or 9000, exfiltrating data, accessing DPAPI for decryption, monitoring keystrokes using the WH_KEYBOARD_LL hook, and more. This flexibility in execution allows threat actors to tailor their approach based on environmental factors, such as security configurations and user activity.

Browser data files seen accessed:

• \AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<user profile uid>.default-release\cookies.sqlite
• \AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<user profile uid>.default-release\formhistory.sqlite
• \AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<user profile uid>.default-release\key4.db
• \AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<user profile uid>.default-release\logins.json
• \AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Web Data
• \AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Login Data
• \AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default\Login Data

User data file paths seen accessed:

• C:\\Users\<user>\\OneDrive
• C:\\Users\<user>\\Documents
• C:\\Users\<user>\\Downloads

Third-stage PowerShell analysis

If a PowerShell script is also dropped by the second-stage payload, it includes Base64-obfuscated commands to conduct actions, such as use curl to download additional files like NetSupport from the C2, create persistence for the NetSupport RAT, and exfiltrate system information to C2 servers. To ensure no errors or the progress meter is displayed on the compromised device, the curl command is often used with the –silent option when downloading files from the C2. PowerShell is often configured to run without restrictions with the -ExecutionPolicy Bypass parameter.

As an example, in some of the incidents, when the second-stage payload runs, a PowerShell script is dropped and executed. The script sends the compromised device’s name to the C2 and downloads NetSupport RAT from the same C2.

• Second-stage payload: Squarel.exe
• PowerShell script: SHA-256: d70ccae7914fc8c36c9e11b2a7f10bebd7f5696e78d8836554f4990b0f688dbb
• C2 domain: keikochio[.]com
• NetSupport RAT: SHA-256: 32a828e2060e92b799829a12e3e87730e9a88ecfa65a4fc4700bdcc57a52d995

In another case, a second-stage payload drops a PowerShell script, which connects to hxxps://ipinfo[.]io to gather the compromised device’s external-facing IP address. This information is sent to a Telegram chat, then drops presentationhost.exe (a renamed NetSupport binary) and remcmdstub.exe (NetSupport Command Manager) into the %TEMP% directory. Finally, the PowerShell script establishes persistence for presentationhost.exe by adding it to the auto-start extensibility points (ASEP) registry keys. When it runs, the NetSupport RAT connects to the C2 and captures a screenshot of the compromised device’s desktop. It also delivers a Lumma executable that drops a VBScript file with the same name. The VBScript file runs encoded PowerShell to initiate C2 connections and launches MSBuild.exe to enable Chrome remote debugging on a hidden desktop. Additionally, presentationhost.exe initiates remcmdstub.exe, which leverages iScrPaint.exe (iTop Screen Recorder) to run MSBuild.exe and access browser credential files for exfiltration. The iScrPaint.exe file also establishes persistence by placing a .lnk shortcut in the Windows Startup folder, ensuring it runs on system reboot.

• Second-stage payload: Application.exe
• PowerShell script: SHA-256: 483796a64f004a684a7bc20c1ddd5c671b41a808bc77634112e1703052666a64
• C2: hxxp://5.10.250[.]240/fakeurl.htm

The last observed third-stage PowerShell script was dropped by three second-stage payloads. The script sends the compromised device’s name to the C2 server. It then changes the working directory to $env:APPDATA, before using Start-BitsTransfer to download NetSupport from the C2. To evade detection, it modifies system security settings forcing TLS1.2 for encrypted C2 communication. These files are extracted into a newly created WinLibraryClient directory under AppData and then are launched. The script establishes persistence for the client32.exe (NetSupport RAT) by modifying the ASEP registry. Client32.exe initiates C2 connections to hxxp://79.132.128[.]77/fakeurl.htm.

• Second-stage payloads: SalmonSamurai.exe, LakerBaker.exe, and DisplayPhotoViewer.exe
• PowerShell script: SHA-256: 670218cfc5c16d06762b6bc74cda4902087d812e72c52d6b9077c4c4164856b6
• C2 domain: stocktemplates[.]net

Additionally, one observed execution included registry enumeration of HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\ to identify installed applications and security software. It also queries the system’s domain status using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) and scans for cryptocurrency wallets, including Ledger Live, Trezor Suite, KeepKey, BCVault, OneKey, and BitBox, indicating potential financial data theft.

Fourth-stage PowerShell analysis

Depending on the .com file that ran (like Briefly.com), the renamed AutoIT file may drop a PowerShell script (SHA-256: 2a29c9904d1860ea3177da7553c8b1bf1944566e5bc1e71340d9e0ff079f0bd3). The obfuscated PowerShell code uses the Add-MpPreference cmdlet to modify Microsoft Defender to add in exclusion paths for Microsoft Defender, so the specified folders are not scanned.

The script above is sometimes followed by an instance of Base64-encoded PowerShell commands. The PowerShell commands perform the following actions:

• Sends a web request to hxxps://360[.]net and closes the response.
• Sends a web request to hxxps://baidu[.]com and closes the response.
• Downloads data from hxxps://klipcatepiu0[.]shop/int_clp_sha.txt using a web client.
• Writes the downloaded data to a memory stream and saves it as a .zip file named null.zip (SHA-256: f07b8e5622598c228bfc9bff50838a3c4fffd88c436a7ef77e6214a40b0a2bae) in the C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Local\Temp directory.

Recommendations

Microsoft recommends the following mitigations to reduce the impact of this threat.

Strengthen Microsoft Defender for Endpoint configuration

• Ensure that tamper protection is enabled in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. 
• Enable network protection in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. 
• Turn on web protection.
• Run endpoint detection and response (EDR) in block mode so that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can block malicious artifacts, even when your non-Microsoft antivirus does not detect the threat or when Microsoft Defender Antivirus is running in passive mode. EDR in block mode works behind the scenes to remediate malicious artifacts that are detected post-breach.     
• Configure investigation and remediation in full automated mode to let Microsoft Defender for Endpoint take immediate action on alerts to resolve breaches, significantly reducing alert volume.  
• Microsoft Defender XDR customers can turn on the following attack surface reduction rules to prevent common attack techniques used by threat actors. 
  • Block executable files from running unless they meet a prevalence, age, or trusted list criterion 
  • Block execution of potentially obfuscated scripts
  • Block JavaScript or VBScript from launching downloaded executable content
  • Block process creations originating from PSExec and WMI commands
  • Block credential stealing from the Windows local security authority subsystem 
  • Block use of copied or impersonated system tools

Strengthen operating environment configuration

• Require multifactor authentication (MFA). While certain attacks such as adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) phishing attempt to circumvent MFA, implementation of MFA remains an essential pillar in identity security and is highly effective at stopping a variety of threats.
  • Leverage phishing-resistant authentication methods such as FIDO Tokens, or Microsoft Authenticator with passkey. Avoid telephony-based MFA methods to avoid risks associated with SIM-jacking.
• Implement Entra ID Conditional Access authentication strength to require phishing-resistant authentication for employees and external users for critical apps.
• Encourage users to use Microsoft Edge and other web browsers that support Microsoft Defender SmartScreen, which identifies and blocks malicious websites, including phishing sites, scam sites, and sites that host malware.
• Enable Network Level Authentication for Remote Desktop Service connections.
• Enable Local Security Authority (LSA) protection to block credential stealing from the Windows local security authority subsystem. 
• AppLocker can restrict specific software tools prohibited within the organization, such as reconnaissance, fingerprinting, and RMM tools, or grant access to only specific users.

Microsoft Defender XDR detections

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can refer to the list of applicable detections below. Microsoft Defender XDR coordinates detection, prevention, investigation, and response across endpoints, identities, email, apps to provide integrated protection against attacks like the threat discussed in this blog.

Customers with provisioned access can also use Microsoft Security Copilot in Microsoft Defender to investigate and respond to incidents, hunt for threats, and protect their organization with relevant threat intelligence.

Microsoft Defender Antivirus

Microsoft Defender Antivirus detects threat components as the following malware:

• Trojan:Win64/LummaStealer
• Trojan:Win32/Malgent
• Behavior:Win32/Eldorado
• Behavior:Win32/LuammaStealer
• Trojan:PowerShell/Powdow
• Trojan:Win64/Shaolaod
• Behavior:Win64/Shaolaod

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

The following alerts might indicate threat activity associated with this threat. These alerts, however, can be triggered by unrelated threat activity.

• Possible theft of passwords and other sensitive web browser information
• Possible Lumma Stealer activity
• Renamed AutoIt tool
• Use of living-off-the-land binary to run malicious code
• Suspicious startup item creation
• Suspicious Scheduled Task Process Launched
• Suspicious DPAPI Activity
• Suspicious implant process from a known emerging threat
• Security software tampering
• Suspicious activity linked to a financially motivated threat actor detected
• Ransomware-linked threat actor detected
• A file or network connection related to a ransomware-linked emerging threat activity group detected
• Information stealing malware activity
• Possible NetSupport Manager activity
• Suspicious sequence of exploration activities
• Defender detection bypass
• Suspicious Location of Remote Management Software
• A process was injected with potentially malicious code
• Process hollowing detected
• Suspicious PowerShell download or encoded command execution
• Suspicious PowerShell command line
• Suspicious behavior by cmd.exe was observed
• Suspicious Security Software Discovery
• Suspicious discovery indicative of Virtualization/Sandbox Evasion
• A process was launched on a hidden desktop
• Monitored keystrokes
• Suspicious Process Discovery
• Suspicious Javascript process
• A suspicious file was observed
• Anomaly detected in ASEP registry

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

The following alerts might indicate threat activity associated with this threat. These alerts, however, can be triggered by unrelated threat activity.

• Detected suspicious combination of HTA and PowerShell
• Suspicious PowerShell Activity Detected
• Traffic detected from IP addresses recommended for blocking
• Attempted communication with suspicious sinkholed domain
• Communication with suspicious domain identified by threat intelligence
• Detected obfuscated command line
• Detected suspicious named pipe communications

Microsoft Security Copilot

Security Copilot customers can use the standalone experience to create their own prompts or run the following pre-built promptbooks to automate incident response or investigation tasks related to this threat:

• Incident investigation
• Microsoft User analysis
• Threat actor profile
• Threat Intelligence 360 report based on MDTI article
• Vulnerability impact assessment

Note that some promptbooks require access to plugins for Microsoft products such as Microsoft Defender XDR or Microsoft Sentinel.

Threat intelligence reports

Microsoft customers can use the following reports in Microsoft products to get the most up-to-date information about the threat actor, malicious activity, and techniques discussed in this blog. These reports provide intelligence, protection information, and recommended actions to prevent, mitigate, or respond to associated threats found in customer environments.

Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence

• Storm-0408
• Agent Tesla credential theft malware
• Information stealers
• Lumma stealer
• Abuse of remote monitoring and management tools
• Malicious use of PowerShell

Microsoft Security Copilot customers can also use the Microsoft Security Copilot integration in Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence, either in the Security Copilot standalone portal or in the embedded experience in the Microsoft Defender portal to get more information about this threat actor.

Hunting queries

Microsoft Defender XDR

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can run the following query to find related activity in their networks:

Github-hosted first-stage payload certificate serial numbers

let specificSerialNumbers = dynamic(["70093af339876742820d7941", "15042512e67e8275f3f7f36b", "5608cab7e2ce34d53abcbb73",
 "0fa27d2553f24da79d1cc6bd8773ee9a", "7a7bf2ae0cbc0f5500db2946", "30d6c83a715bddb32e7956fe52d6b352",
  "301385aa36fae635e74bb88e", "30013cbbb16a7fd3c57f82707fb99c32", "5d00264a6b804ae6b28d9b16",
   "3a9c76f8304f77bd271921d9982f1ab6", "01f2c6c363767056abd80e9c", "0b09c88c0c8d15bed51a9eb4440f4bb0"]); 
union
(
    DeviceFileCertificateInfo
    | where CertificateSerialNumber in (specificSerialNumbers)
    | project DeviceName, CertificateSerialNumber, Signer, SHA1, IsSigned, Issuer, Timestamp
),
(
    DeviceTvmCertificateInfo
    | where SerialNumber in (specificSerialNumbers)
    | project DeviceId, SerialNumber, SignatureAlgorithm, Thumbprint, Path, IssueDate, ExpirationDate
)

Dropbox-hosted first-stage payload certificate serial number

Surface devices that may contain first-stage payloads hosted on Dropbox related to this activity. This query will search for the unique serial number of the known certificate related to this activity.

let specificSerialNumbers = dynamic(["7a7bf2ae0cbc0f5500db2946"]); 
union
(
    DeviceFileCertificateInfo
    | where CertificateSerialNumber in (specificSerialNumbers)
    | project DeviceName, CertificateSerialNumber, Signer, SHA1, IsSigned, Issuer, Timestamp
),
(
    DeviceTvmCertificateInfo
    | where SerialNumber in (specificSerialNumbers)
    | project DeviceId, SerialNumber, SignatureAlgorithm, Thumbprint, Path, IssueDate, ExpirationDate
)

Second-stage C2 IP addresses

Surface devices that may have communicated with second stage C2 IP addresses related to this activity.

let ipAddressToSearch = dynamic(["159.100.18.192", "192.142.10.246", "79.133.46.35", "84.200.24.191", "84.200.24.26", "89.187.28.253", "185.92.181.1"]);
union isfuzzy=true
(
    AzureDiagnostics
    | where identity_claim_ipaddr_s == ipAddressToSearch or conditions_sourceIP_s == ipAddressToSearch or CallerIPAddress == ipAddressToSearch or clientIP_s == ipAddressToSearch or clientIp_s == ipAddressToSearch or primaryIPv4Address_s == ipAddressToSearch or conditions_destinationIP_s == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp = TimeGenerated, Table = "AzureDiagnostics", IPAddress = coalesce(identity_claim_ipaddr_s, conditions_sourceIP_s, CallerIPAddress, clientIP_s, clientIp_s, primaryIPv4Address_s, conditions_destinationIP_s), AdditionalInfo = tostring(AdditionalFields)
),
(
    IdentityQueryEvents
    | where IPAddress == ipAddressToSearch or DestinationIPAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp, Table = "IdentityQueryEvents", IPAddress = coalesce(IPAddress, DestinationIPAddress), AdditionalInfo = Query
),
(
    AADSignInEventsBeta
    | where IPAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp, Table = "AADSignInEventsBeta", IPAddress, AdditionalInfo = UserAgent
),
(
    Heartbeat
    | where ComputerIP == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp = TimeGenerated, Table = "Heartbeat", IPAddress = ComputerIP, AdditionalInfo = OSName
),
(
    CloudAppEvents
    | where IPAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp, Table = "CloudAppEvents", IPAddress, AdditionalInfo = UserAgent
),
(
    DeviceNetworkEvents
    | where LocalIP == ipAddressToSearch or RemoteIP == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp, Table = "DeviceNetworkEvents", IPAddress = coalesce(LocalIP, RemoteIP), AdditionalInfo = InitiatingProcessCommandLine
),
(
    AADUserRiskEvents
    | where IpAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp = TimeGenerated, Table = "AADUserRiskEvents", IPAddress = IpAddress, AdditionalInfo = RiskEventType
),
(
    AADNonInteractiveUserSignInLogs
    | where IPAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp = TimeGenerated, Table = "AADNonInteractiveUserSignInLogs", IPAddress, AdditionalInfo = UserAgent
),
(
    MicrosoftAzureBastionAuditLogs
    | where TargetVMIPAddress == ipAddressToSearch or ClientIpAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp = TimeGenerated, Table = "MicrosoftAzureBastionAuditLogs", IPAddress = coalesce(TargetVMIPAddress, ClientIpAddress), AdditionalInfo = UserAgent
)
| sort by Timestamp desc

Fourth-stage C2 IP addresses

Surface devices that may have communicated with fourth stage C2 IP addresses related to this activity.

let ipAddressToSearch = dynamic(["45.141.84.60", "91.202.233.18", "154.216.20.131", "5.10.250.240", "79.132.128.77"]);
union isfuzzy=true
(
    AzureDiagnostics
    | where identity_claim_ipaddr_s == ipAddressToSearch or conditions_sourceIP_s == ipAddressToSearch or CallerIPAddress == ipAddressToSearch or clientIP_s == ipAddressToSearch or clientIp_s == ipAddressToSearch or primaryIPv4Address_s == ipAddressToSearch or conditions_destinationIP_s == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp = TimeGenerated, Table = "AzureDiagnostics", IPAddress = coalesce(identity_claim_ipaddr_s, conditions_sourceIP_s, CallerIPAddress, clientIP_s, clientIp_s, primaryIPv4Address_s, o),
(
    IdentityQueryEvents
    | where IPAddress == ipAddressToSearch or DestinationIPAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp, Table = "IdentityQueryEvents", IPAddress = coalesce(IPAddress, DestinationIPAddress), AdditionalInfo = Query
),
(
    AADSignInEventsBeta
    | where IPAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp, Table = "AADSignInEventsBeta", IPAddress, AdditionalInfo = UserAgent
),
(
    Heartbeat
    | where ComputerIP == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp = TimeGenerated, Table = "Heartbeat", IPAddress = ComputerIP, AdditionalInfo = OSName
),
(
    CloudAppEvents
    | where IPAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp, Table = "CloudAppEvents", IPAddress, AdditionalInfo = UserAgent
),
(
    DeviceNetworkEvents
    | where LocalIP == ipAddressToSearch or RemoteIP == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp, Table = "DeviceNetworkEvents", IPAddress = coalesce(LocalIP, RemoteIP), AdditionalInfo = InitiatingProcessCommandLine
),
(
    AADUserRiskEvents
    | where IpAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp = TimeGenerated, Table = "AADUserRiskEvents", IPAddress = IpAddress, AdditionalInfo = RiskEventType
),
(
    AADNonInteractiveUserSignInLogs
    | where IPAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp = TimeGenerated, Table = "AADNonInteractiveUserSignInLogs", IPAddress, AdditionalInfo = UserAgent
),
(
    MicrosoftAzureBastionAuditLogs
    | where TargetVMIPAddress == ipAddressToSearch or ClientIpAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp = TimeGenerated, Table = "MicrosoftAzureBastionAuditLogs", IPAddress = coalesce(TargetVMIPAddress, ClientIpAddress), AdditionalInfo = UserAgent
)
| sort by Timestamp desc

Browser remote debugging 

Identify AutoIT scripts launching chromium-based browsers (such as chrome.exe, msedge.exe, brave.exe) in remote debugging mode.

DeviceProcessEvents 
| where InitiatingProcessVersionInfoInternalFileName == "AutoIt3.exe" // Check for "AutoIt" scripts, even if it's renamed.  
| where ProcessCommandLine has "--remote-debugging-port" // Identify Chromium based browsers (chrome.exe, msedge.exe, brave.exe etc) being launched in remote debugging mode. 
| project DeviceId, Timestamp, InitiatingProcessParentFileName, InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessFolderPath, InitiatingProcessVersionInfoInternalFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, FileName, ProcessCommandLine

DPAPI decryption via AutoIT

Identify DPAPI decryption activity originating from AutoIT scripts.

DeviceEvents
| where ActionType == "DpapiAccessed"
| where InitiatingProcessVersionInfoInternalFileName == "AutoIt3.exe"
| where (AdditionalFields has_any("Google Chrome", "Microsoft Edge") and AdditionalFields has_any("SPCryptUnprotect"))
| extend json = parse_json(AdditionalFields)
| extend dataDesp = tostring(json.DataDescription.PropertyValue)
| extend opType = tostring(json.OperationType.PropertyValue)
| where (dataDesp in~ ("Google Chrome", "Microsoft Edge") and opType =~ "SPCryptUnprotect")
| project Timestamp, ReportId, DeviceId, ActionType, InitiatingProcessParentFileName, InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessVersionInfoInternalFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, AdditionalFields, dataDesp, opType

DPAPI decryption via LOLBAS binaries

Identify DPAPI decryption activity originating from LOLBAS binaries (RegAsm.exe and MSBuild.exe).

DeviceEvents
| where ActionType == "DpapiAccessed"
| where InitiatingProcessFileName has_any ("RegAsm.exe", "MSBuild.exe")
| where (AdditionalFields has_any("Google Chrome", "Microsoft Edge") and  AdditionalFields has_any("SPCryptUnprotect"))
| extend json = parse_json(AdditionalFields)
| extend dataDesp = tostring(json.DataDescription.PropertyValue)
| extend opType = tostring(json.OperationType.PropertyValue)
| where (dataDesp in~ ("Google Chrome", "Microsoft Edge") and opType =~ "SPCryptUnprotect")
| project Timestamp, ReportId, DeviceId, ActionType, InitiatingProcessParentFileName, InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessVersionInfoInternalFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, AdditionalFields, dataDesp, opType

Sensitive browser file access via AutoIT

Identify AutoIT scripts (renamed or otherwise) accessing sensitive browser files.

let browserDirs = pack_array(@"\Google\Chrome\User Data\", @"\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\", @"\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\"); 
let browserSensitiveFiles = pack_array("Web Data", "Login Data", "key4.db", "formhistory.sqlite", "cookies.sqlite", "logins.json", "places.sqlite", "cert9.db");
DeviceEvents
| where AdditionalFields has_any ("FileOpenSource") // Filter for "File Open" events.
| where InitiatingProcessVersionInfoInternalFileName == "AutoIt3.exe"
| where (AdditionalFields has_any(browserDirs) or  AdditionalFields has_any(browserSensitiveFiles)) 
| extend json = parse_json(AdditionalFields)
| extend File_Name = tostring(json.FileName.PropertyValue)
| where (File_Name has_any (browserDirs) and File_Name has_any (browserSensitiveFiles))
| project Timestamp, ReportId, DeviceId, InitiatingProcessParentFileName, InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessVersionInfoInternalFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, File_Name

Sensitive browser file access via LOLBAS binaries

Identify LOLBAS binaries (RegAsm.exe and MSBuild.exe) accessing sensitive browser files.

let browserDirs = pack_array(@"\Google\Chrome\User Data\", @"\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\", @"\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\"); 
let browserSensitiveFiles = pack_array("Web Data", "Login Data", "key4.db", "formhistory.sqlite", "cookies.sqlite", "logins.json", "places.sqlite", "cert9.db");
DeviceEvents
| where AdditionalFields has_any ("FileOpenSource") // Filter for "File Open" events.
| where InitiatingProcessFileName has_any ("RegAsm.exe", "MSBuild.exe")
 | where (AdditionalFields has_any(browserDirs) or  AdditionalFields has_any(browserSensitiveFiles)) 
| extend json = parse_json(AdditionalFields)
| extend File_Name = tostring(json.FileName.PropertyValue)
| where (File_Name has_any (browserDirs) and File_Name has_any (browserSensitiveFiles))
| project Timestamp, ReportId, DeviceId, InitiatingProcessParentFileName, InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessVersionInfoInternalFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, File_Name

Microsoft Sentinel

Microsoft Sentinel customers can use the TI Mapping analytics (a series of analytics all prefixed with ‘TI map’) to automatically match the malicious domain indicators mentioned in this blog post with data in their workspace. If the TI Map analytics are not currently deployed, customers can install the Threat Intelligence solution from the Microsoft Sentinel Content Hub to have the analytics rule deployed in their Sentinel workspace.

Indicators of compromise

Streaming website domains with malicious iframe

Malicious iframe redirector domains

Malvertisement distributor

Malvertising website domains

GitHub referral URLs

GitHub URLs

DropBox URL

Discord URL

First stage GitHub-hosted payloads

First-stage Dropbox-hosted payload

First-stage Discord-hosted payload

Certificate signatures of GitHub-hosted payloads

Certificate signature of Dropbox-hosted payload

Second-stage payloads

Second-stage C2s

Third-stage payloads: .exe and PowerShell files

Fourth-stage AutoIT, NetSupport RAT, PowerShell, and Lumma

Third-stage C2s

Fourth-stage C2s

Fourth-stage testing connectivity sites

References

• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/iframe
• https://github.com/antivirusevasion69/doenerium
• https://curl.se/docs/manpage.html#-s
• https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/2a29c9904d1860ea3177da7553c8b1bf1944566e5bc1e71340d9e0ff079f0bd3

Learn more

For the latest security research from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community, check out the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Blog: https://aka.ms/threatintelblog.

To get notified about new publications and to join discussions on social media, follow us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/microsoft-threat-intelligence, and on X (formerly Twitter) at https://x.com/MsftSecIntel.

Hear more about this discovery and how threat actors in this campaign leverage trusted platforms and advanced techniques to achieve their malicious goals in this episode of the Microsoft Threat Intelligence podcast, hosted by Sherrod DeGrippo: https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/microsoft-threat-intelligence/39/notes. To hear stories and insights from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community about the ever-evolving threat landscape, listen to the Microsoft Threat Intelligence podcast: https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/microsoft-threat-intelligence.

The post Malvertising campaign leads to info stealers hosted on GitHub appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

That statistic alone tells us a great deal about the importance of preparedness for a potential cyberattack, which includes a robust incident response plan. To create such a plan, it is critical to understand potential risks, and one of the best ways to do that is to conduct a proactive threat hunt and compromise assessment.

Microsoft Incident Response is made up of highly skilled investigators, researchers, engineers, and analysts who specialize in handling global security incidents. In addition to reactive response, they also conduct proactive compromise assessments to find threat actor activity. They’ll provide recommendations and best practice guidance to strengthen an organization’s security posture.

Microsoft Incident Response

Your first call before, during, and after a cybersecurity incident.

Microsoft Incident Response compromise assessments utilizes the same methodology and resources as those used in an investigation but without the time pressure and crisis-driven decision making associated with a live cyberattack. Compromise assessments are often used by those who have had a prior incident and want to measure their security posture after the implementation of new security measures. Some customers use the service as an annual assessment prior to locking down change controls. Others may use it to assess the environment of an acquisition prior to joining infrastructures.

What happens when a compromise assessment turns into a reactive incident response engagement? Let’s dive into a recent situation where our team encountered this very scenario.

Why differentiate between proactive and reactive investigations?

It is important to understand the key differences between proactive and reactive investigations, as each has different goals and measures for success. Microsoft Incident Response’s proactive compromise assessments are focused on detection and prevention, which includes identifying potential indicators of compromise (IOCs), bringing attention to potential vulnerabilities, and helping customers mitigate risks by implementing security hardening measures.

Our reactive investigations are centered on incident management during and immediately after a compromise, including incident analysis, threat hunting, tactical containment, and Tier 0 recovery, all while under the pressure of an active cyberattack.

Proactive and reactive incident response are essential capabilities for providing a more robust defense strategy. They enable an organization to address an active cyberattack during a period when time and knowing the next steps are critical. At the same time, it provides experts with the experience needed to help prevent future incidents. Not all organizations have the resources required to maintain an incident response team capable of proactive and reactive approaches and may want to consider using a third-party service.

The importance of Microsoft’s “double duty” incident response experts

When confronted by an active threat actor, two things are at the forefront of success and can’t be lost—time and knowledge.

While conducting a proactive compromise assessment for a nonprofit organization in mid-2024, Microsoft Incident Response began their forensic investigation. Initially identifying small artifacts of interest, the assessment quickly changed as suspicious events began to unfold. At the time the threat actor was not known, but has since been tracked as Storm-2077, a Chinese state actor that has been active since at least January 2024. Storm-2077’s techniques focus on email data theft, using valid credentials harvested from compromised systems. Storm-2077 was lurking in the shadows of the organization’s environment. When they felt they had been detected, these threat actors put their fingers on keyboards and started making moves.

Precious time to remediate was not lost. Microsoft Incident Response immediately switched from proactive to reactive mode. The threat actor created a global administrator account and began disabling legitimate organizational global administrator accounts to gain full control of the environment. The targeted organization’s IT team was already synchronized with Microsoft Incident Response through the active compromise assessment that was taking place. The targeted customer took note of the event and came to Microsoft for deconfliction. Once the activity was determined to be malicious, the organization’s IT team disabled the access, and the proactive incident response investigation converted to being reactive. The threat actor was contained and access was remediated quickly because of this collaboration.

The threat actor had likely been present in the organization’s environment for a few months or more. They had taken advantage of a stolen session token to conduct a token replay attack, and through this had gained access to multiple accounts.

Proactive assessments that don’t utilize reactive investigation teams for delivery may result in a delay in responding or even generate more challenges for the incoming investigation team.

Thankfully, Microsoft Incident Response conducts proactive compromise assessments with the same resources that deliver reactive investigations. They can take immediate action to halt active cyberthreats before they do more harm.

Read the report to go deeper into the details of the cyberattack, including Storm-2077 tactics, the response activity, and lessons that other organizations can learn from this case.

What is the Cyberattack Series?

With our Cyberattack Series, customers will discover how Microsoft Incident Response investigates unique and notable attacks. For each cyberattack story, we will share:

• How the cyberattack happened.
• How the breach was discovered.
• Microsoft’s investigation and eviction of the threat actor.
• Strategies to avoid similar cyberattacks.

Learn more

To learn more about Microsoft Incident Response capabilities, please visit our website, or reach out to your Microsoft account manager or Premier Support contact.

Download our Unified Security e-book to learn more about how Microsoft can help you be more secure.

To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.

¹Cybercrime Expected To Skyrocket in Coming Years, Statista. February 22, 2024.

²World GDP Rankings 2024 | Top 10 Countries Ranked By GDP, Forbes India. November 4, 2024.

The post Build a stronger security strategy with proactive and reactive incident response: Cyberattack Series appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

While there are new vendors launching MDR services regularly, many security teams are turning to Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR, a recognized leader, to deliver comprehensive coverage.¹ Employed worldwide by organizations across industries, Microsoft’s team of dedicated experts proactively hunts for cyberthreats and triages, investigates, and responds to incidents on a customer’s behalf around the clock across their most critical assets. Our proven service brings together in-house security professionals and industry-leading protection with Microsoft Defender XDR to help security teams rapidly stop cyberthreats and keep their environments secure.² 

Frost & Sullivan names Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR a leader in the Frost Radar™ Managed Detection and Response for 2024.¹ 

Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR

Give your security operations center team coverage with end-to-end protection and expertise.

Learn more

Reduce the staffing burden, improve security coverage, and focus on other priorities

Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR improves operational efficacy greatly while elevating an organization’s security posture to a new level. The team of experts will monitor the environment, find and halt cyberthreats, and help contain incidents faster with human-led response and remediation. With Defender Experts for XDR, organizations will expand their threat protection capabilities, reduce the number of incidents over time, and have more resources to focus on other priorities.

More experts on your side

Scaling in-house security teams remains challenging. Security experts are not only scarce but expensive. The persistent gap in open security positions has widened to 25% since 2022, meaning one in four in-house security analyst positions will remain unfilled.³ In the Forrester Consulting New Technology Project Total Economic Impact study, without Defender Experts for XDR, the in-house team size for the composite organization would need to increase by up to 30% in mid-impact scenario or 40% in high-impact scenario in year one to provide the same level of threat detection service.⁴ When you consider the lack of available security talent, increasing an in-house team size by 40% poses significant security concerns to CISOs. Existing security team members won’t be able to perform all the tasks required. Many will be overworked, which may lead to burnout.

With more than 34,000 full-time equivalent security engineers, Microsoft is one of the largest security companies in the world. Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR reinforces your security team with Microsoft security professionals to help reduce talent gap concerns. In addition to the team of experts, customers have additional Microsoft security resources to help with onboarding, recommendations, and strategic insights.

“Microsoft has the assets and people I needed. All the technologies, Microsoft Azure, and a full software stack end-to-end, all combined together with the fabric of security. Microsoft [Defender Experts for XDR] has the people and the ability to hire and train those people with the most upmost skill set to deal with the issues we face.”

—Head of Cybersecurity Response Architecture, financial services industry

Accelerate and expand protection against today’s cyberthreats

Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR deploys quickly. That’s welcome news to organizations concerned about maturing their security program and can’t wait for new staffing and capabilities to be developed in-house. Customers can quickly leverage the deep expertise of the Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR team to tackle the increasing number of sophisticated threats. 

CISOs and security teams know that phishing attacks continue to rise because cybercriminals are finding success. Email remains the most common method for phishing attacks, with 91% of all cyberattacks beginning with a phishing email. Phishing is the primary method for delivering ransomware, accounting for 45% of all ransomware attacks. Financial institutions are most targeted at 27.7% followed by nearly all other industries.⁵

According to internal Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR statistics, roughly 40% of halted threats are phishing.

Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR is a managed extended detection and response service (MXDR). MXDR is an evolution of traditional MDR services, which primarily focuses on endpoints. Our MXDR service has greater protection across endpoints, email and productivity tools, identities, and cloud apps—ensuring the detection and disruption of many cyberthreats, such as phishing, that would not be covered by endpoint-only managed services. That expanded and consolidated coverage enables Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR to find even the most emergent threats. For example, our in-house team identified and disrupted a significant Octo Tempest operation that was working across previously siloed domains. 

The reduction in the likelihood of breaches with Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR is roughly 20% and is worth $261,000 to $522,000 over three years with Defender Experts.⁴

In addition to detecting, triaging, and responding to cyberthreats, Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR publishes insights to keep organizations secure. That includes recent blogs on file hosting services abuse and phishing abuse of remote monitoring and management tools. As well, the MXDR service vetted roughly 45 indicators related to adversary-in-the-middle, password spray, and multifactor authentication fatigue and added them to Spectre to help keep organizations secure.

From September 2024 through November 2024, Microsoft Security published multiple cyberthreat articles covering real-world exploration topics such as Roadtools, AzureHound, Fake Palo Alto GlobalProtect, AsyncRAT via ScreenConnect, Specula C2 Framework, SectopRAT campaign, Selenium Grid for Cryptomining, and Specula.

“The Microsoft MXDR service, Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR, is helping our SOC team around the clock and taking our security posture to the next level. On our second day of using the service, there was an alert we had previously dismissed, but Microsoft continued the investigation and identified a machine in our environment that was open to the internet. It was created by a threat actor using a remote desktop protocol (RDP). Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR’s MXDR investigation and response to remediate the issue was immediately valuable to us.”

—Director of Security Operations, financial services industry

Halt cyberthreats before they do damage

In 2024 the mean time for the average organization to identify a breach was 194 days and containment 64 days.⁶  Organizations must proactively look for cyberattackers across unified cross-domain telemetry versus relying solely on disparate product alerts. Proactive threat hunting is no longer a nice-to-have in an organization’s security practice. It’s a must-have to detect cyberthreats faster before they can do significant harm.

When every minute counts, Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR can help speed up the detection of an intrusion with proactive threat hunting informed by Microsoft’s threat intelligence, which tracks more than 1,500 unique cyberthreat groups and correlates insights from 78 trillion security signals per day.⁷

Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting proactively looks for threats around the clock across endpoints, email, identity, and cloud apps using Microsoft Defender and other signals. Threat hunting leverages advanced AI and human expertise to probe deeper and rapidly correlate and expose cyberthreats across an organization’s security stack. With visibility across diverse, cross-domain telemetry and threat intelligence, Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting extends in-house threat hunting capabilities to provide an additional layer of threat detection to improve a SOC’s overall threat response and security efficacy.

In a recent survey, 63% of organizations saw a measurable improvement in their security posture with threat hunting. 49% saw a reduction in network and endpoint attacks along with more accurate threat detection and a reduction of false positives.⁸

Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting enables organizations to detect and mitigate cyberthreats such as advanced persistent threats or zero-day vulnerabilities. By actively seeking out hidden risks and reducing dwell time, threat hunting minimizes potential damage, enhances incident response, and strengthens overall security posture.

Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR, which includes Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting, allows customers to stay ahead of sophisticated threat actors, uncover gaps in defenses, and adapt to an ever-evolving cyberthreat landscape.

“Managed threat hunting services detect and address security threats before they become major incidents, reducing potential damage. By implementing this (Defender Experts for Hunting), we enhance our cybersecurity posture by having experts who continuously look for hidden threats, ensuring the safety of our data, reputation, and customer trust.”

—CISO, technology industry

Spend less to get more

Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR helps CISOs do more with their security budgets. According to a 2024 Forrester Total Economic Impact™ study, Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR generated a project return on investment (ROI) of up to 254% with a projected net present value of up to $6.1 million for the profiled composite company.⁴

Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR includes trusted advisors who provide insights on operationalizing Microsoft Defender XDR for optimal security efficacy. This helps reduce the burden on in-house security and IT teams so they can focus on other projects.

Beyond lowering security operations costs, the Forrester study noted Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR efficiency gains for surveyed customers, including a 49% decrease in security-related IT help desk tickets. Other productivity gains included freeing up 42% of available full time employee hours and lowering general IT security-related project hours by 20%.⁴

Learn how Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR can improve organizational security

Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR is Microsoft’s MXDR service. It delivers round-the-clock threat detection, investigation, and response capabilities, along with proactive threat hunting. Designed to help close the security talent gap and enhance organizational security postures, the MXDR service combines Microsoft’s advanced Microsoft Defender XDR capabilities with dedicated security experts to tackle cyberthreats like phishing, ransomware, and zero-day vulnerabilities. Offering rapid deployment, significant ROI (254%, as per Forrester), and operational efficiencies, Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR reduces incident and alerts volume, improves the security posture, and frees up in-house resources. Organizations worldwide benefit from these scalable solutions, leveraging Microsoft’s threat intelligence and security expertise to stay ahead of evolving cyberthreats.

To learn more, please visit Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR or contact your Microsoft security representative.

To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.

¹Frost & Sullivan names Microsoft a Leader in the Frost Radar™: Managed Detection and Response, 2024, Srikanth Shoroff. March 25, 2024.

²Microsoft a Leader in the Forrester Wave for XDR, Microsoft Security Blog. June 3, 2024.

³ISC2 Cybersecurity Workforce Report, 2024.

⁴Forrester Consulting study commissioned by Microsoft, 2024, New Technology: The Projected Total Economic Impact™ of Microsoft Defender Experts For XDR.

⁵2024 Phishing Facts and Statistics, Identitytheft.org.

⁶Time to identify and contain data breaches global 2024, Statista.

⁷Microsoft Digital Defense Report, 2024.

⁸SANS 2024 Threat Hunting Survey, March 19, 2024.

The post Why security teams rely on Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR for managed detection and response appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

Legitimate hosting services, such as SharePoint, OneDrive, and Dropbox, are widely used by organizations for storing, sharing, and collaborating on files. However, the widespread use of such services also makes them attractive targets for threat actors, who exploit the trust and familiarity associated with these services to deliver malicious files and links, often avoiding detection by traditional security measures.

Importantly, Microsoft takes action against malicious users violating the Microsoft Services Agreement in how they use apps like SharePoint and OneDrive. To help protect enterprise accounts from compromise, by default both Microsoft 365 and Office 365 support multi-factor authentication (MFA) and passwordless sign-in. Consumers can also go passwordless with their Microsoft account. Because security is a team sport, Microsoft also works with third parties like Dropbox to share threat intelligence and protect mutual customers and the wider community.

In this blog, we discuss the typical attack chain used in campaigns misusing file hosting services and detail the recently observed tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), including the increasing use of certain defense evasion tactics. To help defenders protect their identities and data, we also share mitigation guidance to help reduce the impact of this threat, and detection details and hunting queries to locate potential misuse of file hosting services and related threat actor activities. By understanding these evolving threats and implementing the recommended mitigations, organizations can better protect themselves against these sophisticated campaigns and safeguard digital assets.

Attack overview

Phishing campaigns exploiting legitimate file hosting services have been trending throughout the last few years, especially due to the relative ease of the technique. The files are delivered through different approaches, including email and email attachments like PDFs, OneNote, and Word files, with the intent of compromising identities or devices. These campaigns are different from traditional phishing attacks because of the sophisticated defense evasion techniques used.

Since mid-April 2024, we observed threat actors increasingly use these tactics aimed at circumventing defense mechanisms:

• Files with restricted access: The files sent through the phishing emails are configured to be accessible solely to the designated recipient. This requires the recipient to be signed in to the file-sharing service—be it Dropbox, OneDrive, or SharePoint—or to re-authenticate by entering their email address along with a one-time password (OTP) received through a notification service.
• Files with view-only restrictions: To bypass analysis by email detonation systems, the files shared in these phishing attacks are set to ‘view-only’ mode, disabling the ability to download and consequently, the detection of embedded URLs within the file.

An example attack chain is provided below, depicting the updated defense evasion techniques being used across stages 4, 5, and 6:

Initial access

The attack typically begins with the compromise of a user within a trusted vendor. After compromising the trusted vendor, the threat actor hosts a file on the vendor’s file hosting service, which is then shared with a target organization. This misuse of legitimate file hosting services is particularly effective because recipients are more likely to trust emails from known vendors, allowing threat actors to bypass security measures and compromise identities. Often, users from trusted vendors are added to allow lists through policies set by the organization on Exchange Online products, enabling phishing emails to be successfully delivered.

While file names observed in these campaigns also included the recipients, the hosted files typically follow these patterns:

• Familiar topics based on existing conversations
  • For example, if the two organizations have prior interactions related to an audit, the shared files could be named “Audit Report 2024”.
• Familiar topics based on current context
  • If the attack has not originated from a trusted vendor, the threat actor often impersonates administrators or help desk or IT support personnel in the sender display name and uses a file name such as “IT Filing Support 2024”, “Forms related to Tax submission”, or “Troubleshooting guidelines”.
• Topics based on urgency
  • Another common technique observed by the threat actors creating these files is that they create a sense of urgency with the file names like “Urgent:Attention Required” and “Compromised Password Reset”.

Defense evasion techniques

Once the threat actor shares the files on the file hosting service with the intended users, the file hosting service sends the target user an automated email notification with a link to access the file securely. This email is not a phishing email but a notification for the user about the sharing action. In scenarios involving SharePoint or OneDrive, the file is shared from the user’s context, with the compromised user’s email address as the sender. However, in the Dropbox scenario, the file is shared from no-reply@dropbox[.]com. The files are shared through automated notification emails with the subject: “<User> shared <document> with you”. To evade detections, the threat actor deploys the following additional techniques:

• Only the intended recipient can access the file
  • The intended recipient needs to re-authenticate before accessing the file
  • The file is accessible only for a limited time window
• The PDF shared in the file cannot be downloaded

These techniques make detonation and analysis of the sample with the malicious link almost impossible since they are restricted.

Identity compromise

When the targeted user accesses the shared file, the user is prompted to verify their identity by providing their email address:

Next, an OTP is sent from no-reply@notify.microsoft[.]com. Once the OTP is submitted, the user is successfully authorized and can view a document, often masquerading as a preview, with a malicious link, which is another lure to make the targeted user click the “View my message” access link.

This link redirects the user to an adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) phishing page, where the user is prompted to provide the password and complete multifactor authentication (MFA). The compromised token can then be leveraged by the threat actor to perform the second stage BEC attack and continue the campaign.

Recommended actions

Microsoft recommends the following mitigations to reduce the impact of this threat:

• Enable Conditional Access policies in Microsoft Entra, especially risk-based access policies. Conditional access policies evaluate sign-in requests using additional identity-driven signals like user or group membership, IP address location information, and device status, among others, are enforced for suspicious sign-ins. Organizations can protect themselves from attacks that leverage stolen credentials by enabling policies such as compliant devices, Azure trusted IP address requirements, or risk-based policies with proper access control. If you are still evaluating Conditional Access, use security defaults as an initial baseline set of policies to improve identity security posture.
• Implement continuous access evaluation.
• Implement Microsoft Entra passwordless sign-in with FIDO2 security keys.
• Turn on network protection in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to block connections to malicious domains and IP addresses.
• Implement Microsoft Defender for Endpoint – Mobile Threat Defense on mobile devices used to access enterprise assets.
• Leverage Microsoft Edge to automatically identify and block malicious websites, including those used in this phishing campaign, and Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to detect and block malicious emails, links, and files. Monitor suspicious or anomalous activities in Microsoft Entra ID Protection. Investigate sign-in attempts with suspicious characteristics (such as the location, ISP, user agent, and use of anonymizer services). Educate users about the risks of secure file sharing and emails from trusted vendors.

Appendix

Microsoft Defender XDR detections

Microsoft Defender XDR raises the following alerts by combining Microsoft Defender for Office 365 URL click and Microsoft Entra ID Protection risky sign-ins signal.

• Risky sign-in after clicking a possible AiTM phishing URL
• User compromised through session cookie hijack
• User compromised in a known AiTM phishing kit

Hunting queries

Microsoft Defender XDR 

The file sharing events related to the activity in this blog post can be audited through the CloudAppEvents telemetry. Microsoft Defender XDR customers can run the following query to find related activity in their networks: 

Automated email notifications and suspicious sign-in activity

By correlating the email from the Microsoft notification service or Dropbox automated notification service with a suspicious sign-in activity, we can identify compromises, especially from securely shared SharePoint or Dropbox files.

let usersWithSuspiciousEmails = EmailEvents
    | where SenderFromAddress in ("no-reply@notify.microsoft.com", "no-reply@dropbox.com") or InternetMessageId startswith "<OneTimePasscode"
    | where isnotempty(RecipientObjectId)
    | distinct RecipientObjectId;
AADSignInEventsBeta
| where AccountObjectId in (usersWithSuspiciousEmails)
| where RiskLevelDuringSignIn == 100

Files share contents and suspicious sign-in activity

In the majority of the campaigns, the file name involves a sense of urgency or content related to finance or credential updates. By correlating the file share emails with suspicious sign-ins, compromises can be detected. (For example: Alex shared “Password Reset Mandatory.pdf” with you). Since these are observed as campaigns, validating that the same file has been shared with multiple users in the organization can support the detection.

let usersWithSuspiciousEmails = EmailEvents
    | where Subject has_all ("shared", "with you")
    | where Subject has_any ("payment", "invoice", "urgent", "mandatory", "Payoff", "Wire", "Confirmation", "password")
    | where isnotempty(RecipientObjectId)
    | summarize RecipientCount = dcount(RecipientObjectId), RecipientList = make_set(RecipientObjectId) by Subject
    | where RecipientCount >= 10
    | mv-expand RecipientList to typeof(string)
    | distinct RecipientList;
AADSignInEventsBeta
| where AccountObjectId in (usersWithSuspiciousEmails)
| where RiskLevelDuringSignIn == 100

BEC: File sharing tactics based on the file hosting service used

To initiate the file sharing activity, these campaigns commonly use certain action types depending on the file hosting service being leveraged. Below are the action types from the audit logs recorded for the file sharing events. These action types can be used to hunt for activities related to these campaigns by replacing the action type for its respective application in the queries below this table.

OneDrive or SharePoint: The following query highlights that a specific file has been shared by a user with multiple participants. Correlating this activity with suspicious sign-in attempts preceding this can help identify lateral movements and BEC attacks.

let securelinkCreated = CloudAppEvents
    | where ActionType == "SecureLinkCreated"
    | project FileCreatedTime = Timestamp, AccountObjectId, ObjectName;
let filesCreated = securelinkCreated
    | where isnotempty(ObjectName)
    | distinct tostring(ObjectName);
CloudAppEvents
| where ActionType == "AddedToSecureLink"
| where Application in ("Microsoft SharePoint Online", "Microsoft OneDrive for Business")
| extend FileShared = tostring(RawEventData.ObjectId)
| where FileShared in (filesCreated)
| extend UserSharedWith = tostring(RawEventData.TargetUserOrGroupName)
| extend TypeofUserSharedWith = RawEventData.TargetUserOrGroupType
| where TypeofUserSharedWith == "Guest"
| where isnotempty(FileShared) and isnotempty(UserSharedWith)
| join kind=inner securelinkCreated on $left.FileShared==$right.ObjectName
// Secure file created recently (in the last 1day)
| where (Timestamp - FileCreatedTime) between (1d .. 0h)
| summarize NumofUsersSharedWith = dcount(UserSharedWith) by FileShared
| where NumofUsersSharedWith >= 20

Dropbox: The following query highlights that a file hosted on Dropbox has been shared with multiple participants.

CloudAppEvents
| where ActionType in ("Added users and/or groups to shared file/folder", "Invited user to Dropbox and added them to shared file/folder")
| where Application == "Dropbox"
| where ObjectType == "File"
| extend FileShared = tostring(ObjectName)
| where isnotempty(FileShared)
| mv-expand ActivityObjects
| where ActivityObjects.Type == "Account" and ActivityObjects.Role == "To"
| extend SharedBy = AccountId
| extend UserSharedWith = tostring(ActivityObjects.Name)
| summarize dcount(UserSharedWith) by FileShared, AccountObjectId
| where dcount_UserSharedWith >= 20

Microsoft Sentinel

Microsoft Sentinel customers can use the resources below to find related activities similar to those described in this post:

The following query identifies files with specific keywords that attackers might use in this campaign that have been shared through OneDrive or SharePoint using a Secure Link and accessed by over 10 unique users. It captures crucial details like target users, client IP addresses, timestamps, and file URLs to aid in detecting potential attacks:

let OperationName = dynamic(['SecureLinkCreated', 'AddedToSecureLink']);
OfficeActivity
| where Operation in (OperationName)
| where OfficeWorkload in ('OneDrive', 'SharePoint')
| where SourceFileName has_any ("payment", "invoice", "urgent", "mandatory", "Payoff", "Wire", "Confirmation", "password", "paycheck", "bank statement", "bank details", "closing", "funds", "bank account", "account details", "remittance", "deposit", "Reset")
| summarize CountOfShares = dcount(TargetUserOrGroupName), 
            make_list(TargetUserOrGroupName), 
            make_list(ClientIP), 
            make_list(TimeGenerated), 
            make_list(SourceRelativeUrl) by SourceFileName, OfficeWorkload
| where CountOfShares > 10

Considering that the attacker compromises users through AiTM,  possible AiTM phishing attempts can be detected through the below rule:

• Possible AiTM Phishing Attempt

In addition, customers can also use the following identity-focused queries to detect and investigate anomalous sign-in events that may be indicative of a compromised user identity being accessed by a threat actor:

• Signins From VPS Providers
• Signins from Nord VPN Providers
• Successful Signin From Non-Compliant Device

Learn more

For the latest security research from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community, check out the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Blog: https://aka.ms/threatintelblog.

To get notified about new publications and to join discussions on social media, follow us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/microsoft-threat-intelligence, and on X (formerly Twitter) at https://twitter.com/MsftSecIntel.

To hear stories and insights from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community about the ever-evolving threat landscape, listen to the Microsoft Threat Intelligence podcast: https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/microsoft-threat-intelligence.

The post File hosting services misused for identity phishing appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

The key to fighting ransomware at scale is Microsoft’s unwavering commitment to simplifying, automating, and augmenting security analyst workstreams to meet the demands of today’s and tomorrow’s cyberthreat environment. We are excited to announce that Gartner has named Microsoft a Leader in the 2024 Gartner^® Magic Quadrant™ for Endpoint Protection Platforms for the fifth consecutive time. We believe this announcement reflects Microsoft’s continued progress in helping organizations protect their endpoints against even the most sophisticated attacks, while driving continued efficiency for security operations center (SOC) teams.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is an endpoint security platform that helps organizations secure their digital estate using AI-powered, industry-leading endpoint detection and response across Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, iOS, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. It is core to Microsoft Defender XDR and built on global threat intelligence—informed by more than 78 trillion daily signals and more than 10,000 security experts—empowering security teams to fend off sophisticated threats.²

Our customers and partners have been an invaluable part of this multiyear journey, and we are grateful for both their business and their partnership. Read the complimentary report providing more details on our positioning as a Leader.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is built from the ground up with operational resilience in mind. It starts with our agent architecture that follows best practices for Windows by limiting its reliance on kernel mode while protecting customers in real-time. It does not load content updates from files in the kernel mode driver. As an added safeguard, we deliver updates to customers applying Microsoft’s long-established safe deployment practices (SDP) model. Customers have full control over how these updates are delivered and how controls are applied to their device estate. This model of shared control helps provide security and resiliency. 

Over the last 12 months, Microsoft has delivered significant innovations that have helped defenders gain the upper hand against cyberthreats including: improved attack disruption, Microsoft Copilot for Security, a new Linux agent, simplified settings management, the unified security operations platform and Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR.

Automatic attack disruption, unique to Microsoft, is a self-defense capability that stops in-progress cyberattacks by analyzing the attacker’s intent, identifying compromised assets, and isolating or disabling assets like users or devices at machine speed. For example, in July 2024 we discovered the CVE-2024-37085 vulnerability. Numerous ransomware operators exploited it to encrypt the entire file system and move laterally in the network. Attack disruption fends off such sophisticated ransomware attempts by blocking lateral movement and remote encryption in a decentralized way across all your device estate—in just three minutes on average.³ This is a capability that Microsoft continues to invest in to disrupt more scenarios even earlier in the cyberattack chain.  

Microsoft Copilot for Security is the industry’s first generative AI that empowers security teams to protect at the speed and scale of AI, generally available as of April 2024. Embedded within the Defender XDR experience, it assists analysts by providing enriched context for faster and smarter decisions. It accelerates investigation, containment, and remediation with prescriptive step-by-step guidance. Analysts can now easily understand attacker actions with intuitive script analysis and launch complex Kusto Query Language (KQL) queries using plain language. The results from a randomized controlled trial based on 147 security professionals showed significant efficiency gains including speed and quality improvements when using Copilot for Security. Security professionals were up to 22% faster across all tasks, and more than 93% of users wanted to use Copilot again.

A new Linux agent has been built from scratch, using eBPF sensor technology to deliver the performance and stability needed for mission-critical server workloads while providing visibility into cyberthreats. We continue prioritizing innovations across every type of endpoint from Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS, Android, and IoT to provide the holistic endpoint security that organizations need.

Simplified setup and change management help analysts configure devices correctly to minimize threat exposure. With the general availability of simplified settings management, SOC analysts can manage security policies without leaving the Defender XDR portal.

Unified security operations platform brings the foundational tools a SOC needs into a single experience, with a consistent data model, unified capabilities, and broad protection. This unification helps SOCs close critical security gaps and streamline their operations, delivering better overall protection, reducing their response time, and improving overall efficiency. Defender for Endpoint is core to this platform, which combines “the power of leading solutions in security information and event management (SIEM), extended detection and response (XDR), and generative AI for security.” By working seamlessly across Microsoft Sentinel, Microsoft Defender XDR, and Microsoft Copilot for Security, security analysts need only a single set of automation rules and playbooks. Plus, they can use plain language to execute complex tasks in an instant with Copilot for Security embedded in the platform.

Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR gives your security team coverage with around-the-clock access to Microsoft expertise. Recognizing that sophisticated cyberthreats go beyond the endpoint, Microsoft offers Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR. This managed service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, helping organizations extend their SOC team to fully triage events and respond to incidents across domains.

Thank you to all our customers. You inspire us as together we work to create a safer world.

Learn more

If you’re not yet taking advantage of Microsoft’s leading endpoint security solution, visit Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and start a free trial today to evaluate our leading endpoint protection platform. 

Are you a regular user of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint? Review your experience on Gartner Peer Insights™ and get a $25 gift card.    

To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.

¹2024 Microsoft Digital Defense Report. Publishing October 15, 2024.

²Microsoft Digital Defense Report, Microsoft. 2023.

³Get end-to-end protection with Microsoft’s unified security operations platform, now in public preview, Rob Lefferts. April 3, 2024.

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms, Evgeny Mirolyubov, Franz Hinner, Deepak Mishra, Satarupa Patnaik, Chris Silva, September 23, 2024. 

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally, MAGIC QUADRANT and PEER INSIGHTS are registered trademarks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved. 

This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from Microsoft. 

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. 

The post ​​Microsoft is named a Leader in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Endpoint Protection Platforms appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

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Threat intelligence is often oversimplified to represent a feed of indicators of compromise (IOCs). The intersection between multiple types of threat intelligence, however, enables organizations and their threat hunters to have a holistic understanding of the cyberattackers and techniques that can and will target them. With this comprehensive cheat sheet of knowledge, threat hunters can not only increase efficiency when responding to a compromise, but proactively hunt their systems for anomalies and fine-tune protection and detection mechanisms. 

Figure 1. Three types of threat intelligence.

Figure 1 introduces three types of threat intelligence that will be outlined in this blog—strategic, operational, and tactical. It provides a visualization of organizational effort versus the value gained when utilizing threat intelligence in more than one way. Typically, security teams integrate IOC cyberthreat feeds at a tactical level, but incorporating threat intelligence operationally requires daily investment, especially when alert queues seem endless. Strategic threat intelligence may seem familiar to most organizations but can be challenging to apply effectively, as this requires concentrated effort at multiple levels to understand the organization’s position within the overall threat landscape. How can threat hunters leverage these types of threat intelligence effectively for the benefit of their organization? 

Strategic threat intelligence: Informed hunting driven by the overarching cyberthreat landscape 

Security teams should be industry aware—being cognizant of the types of digital threats and current trends affecting industry verticals allows any team to be better prepared for potential compromise. Strategic threat intelligence is fundamentally based on understanding threat actor motives, which gives organizations an understanding of which threat actors they should be most conscious of in relation to the industry vertical or their most valuable resources. For example, government entities are traditionally targeted by nation-state advanced persistent threats (APTs) to perform cyber espionage, whereas organizations in the healthcare industry are commonly targeted by cybercriminal actor groups for ransomware operations and financial extortion due to the sensitivity of the data they possess. Understanding where the organization fits into this strategic picture determines the investment where its resources (people and time) may be constrained. Furthermore, it’s a key step toward developing an effective threat-informed defense strategy prioritizing the cyberattacks that target the organization.  

Operational threat intelligence: Informed hunting to proactively understand the environment and its data 

Having broad visibility into an organization’s attack surface is imperative when applying threat intelligence at an operational level. The crucial components spanning the perimeter of the on-premises network and extended entities such as cloud, software-as-a-service, and overall supply chain should be well understood: 

• Where are the tier 0 systems in the organization? 
• What intermediary lateral movement pathways exist to tier 0 systems? 
• What security controls across the environment are (or aren’t) in place? 
• What telemetry is produced by all systems in the environment?  

Security teams should proactively analyze the data that comes from these entities to develop a baseline of normal operations. Along with this baseline, threat hunters should comprehend and exercise organizational processes. In the event of an identified anomaly, how is that behavior deconflicted? What teams within the organization need to be consulted? What is the process for ensuring false positives can be reported and circulated efficiently and effectively? Considering the secondary questions and tertiary actions of response steps greatly benefits threat hunting timeliness, staving off confusion during a rapidly evolving incident.

Tactical threat intelligence: Informed hunting to reactively respond to a live cyberthreat 

Tactical threat intelligence is often an organization’s main integration to enhance a threat hunt, particularly in response to an active cyberattack scenario. Known-bad entities and atomic indicators such as IP addresses, domains, and file hashes are used to identify anomalies aligning to attacker techniques against targeted systems quickly. Additionally, if the cyberattack is already attributed to a threat actor, or the attack aligns to a particular motive, security teams can use these patterns of behavior to prioritize their hunting scope to their known tactics, techniques, and procedures. Novel indicators or associated research from the analysis should be shared with other vetted threat hunters within the organization and are a particularly valuable contribution to the wider threat intelligence community to further enrich detections for all organizations.  

Putting it together: Threat intelligence and iterative threat hunting 

Armed with this breakdown, threat hunters can now turn their attention to using varied threat intelligence to execute threat hunts and track down threat actors. The threat hunting iterative workflow shown in Figure 2 is something security teams will likely be familiar with; but are threat intelligence artifacts effectively being applied to create a holistic threat-informed defense strategy? 

Figure 2. Feeding threat intelligence artifacts into an iterative threat hunting workflow.

When preparing a hunt, threat hunters should seek to apply strategic threat intelligence to prioritize the cyberthreats that target the organization. This directly leads into the hypothesis phase. Threat hunters include the gathered strategic artifacts in a hunt hypothesis based on the trends or threat actors impacting other organizations in the same vertical. This casts a wide net to identify anomalies and behaviors common to the industry. They are not limiting the hunt based on any one IOC, rather using the collective intelligence learned from similar intrusions to detect or prevent the attack scenario. For every investigation, whether it be proactive or reactive, Microsoft Incident Response threat hunters consider other incidents impacting victim organizations in the same industry as a guiding force to efficiently identify focus areas of analysis, leveraging research from Microsoft Threat Intelligence that outlines any applicable threat actor attribution. 

Daily workflows should be enhanced with operational threat intelligence artifacts to determine an environmental baseline. Proactive hunt hypotheses should seek to test the understanding and actively seek to identify gaps in various aspects of the baseline, identifying any behavioral anomalies straying from “normal operations” and developing high-fidelity, real-world detections based on the true attempts at intrusion to their environments. Existing detections should be continuously reviewed and refined, hunting threads should include interrogation of both successful and failed access attempts, and data integrity should be verified. Security teams should question if: 

• Centralized data is both complete and accurate—identifying if there are any gaps in the data and why. 
• The schema is consistent between all data sources (for example, timestamp accuracy). 
• The correct fields are flowing through from their distributed systems’ sources.  

When security teams embody being the experts of their environment, they become more adept at identifying when a proactive threat hunt shifts into reactive response to active threat. This is invaluable when improving the speed of returning to normal operations and engaging additional support such as Microsoft Incident Response, who can enhance the hunt with threat intelligence from previous global incidents, working with the customer to deconflict abnormalities quickly for swift takeback and eviction of threat actors. 

When incident response teams like Microsoft Incident Response are engaged during a reactive incident, the objective of threat hunting is to conduct analysis of live, historical, and contextual data on targeted and compromised systems and provide a detailed story of not only the attack chain, but the threat actor(s) conducting that attack. Enriching a threat hunt with tactical threat intelligence artifacts in the form of IOCs concentrates investigation scope and allows for rapid identification of threat actor activity. As the hunt progresses, relational entities to that indicator are uncovered, such as the identities involved in activity execution and lateral movement paths to different systems. Attention shifts from atomic indicators such as IP addresses and malicious domains, to artifacts left directly on compromised systems, such as commands that were run or persistent backdoors that were installed. This builds an end-to-end timeline of malicious activity and related indicators for organizations to stay informed, implement target security controls, and prevent the same, or similar, incidents in the future.  

Adhering to the collaborative cycle of threat intelligence, Microsoft Incident Response contributes front-line research to enhance and further develop detections for customers worldwide. Entities are aligned with industry frameworks such as the Diamond Model, to build threat actor profiles detailing the relationship between adversaries’ infrastructure, capabilities and victims. Microsoft Threat Intelligence is available in Microsoft Defender XDR for the community and fellow security teams to consume, validate, and refine into proactive detections for the organization. 

How Microsoft Incident Response can support proactive threat protection

Microsoft Incident Response has cultivated and relies upon implementing the cycle between incident response and threat intelligence to protect our customers, leveraging insights from 78 trillion signals per day. Organizations can proactively position themselves to be well-informed by the threats targeting their organization by implementing threat intelligence in a holistic way, before an incident begins.  

Embracing a collaborative culture amongst the threat intelligence community to not only consume entities, but to further contribute, refine, and enhance existing research, results in improved detections, controls, and automation, allowing all security professionals to get behind the same goal—track down and protect themselves from threat actors and their malicious intent.  

You can read more blogs from Microsoft Incident Response. For more security research from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community, check out the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Blog.

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Learn more about Microsoft Incident Response.

To get notified about new Microsoft Threat Intelligence publications and to join discussions on social media, follow us on X (@MsftSecIntel).

To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.

¹The art and science behind Microsoft threat hunting: Part 1, Microsoft Incident Response Team. September 9, 2022.

²The art and science behind Microsoft threat hunting: Part 2, Microsoft Incident Response Team. September 21, 2022.

The post The art and science behind Microsoft threat hunting: Part 3 appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

This blog post, informed by insights from the Microsoft Incident Response team, will guide you through some key considerations of incident response readiness, structured through the people, process, and technology framework. Starting with the process, a key foundational piece, this blog post will provide guidance on actions such as:

• Developing a robust disaster recovery plan.
• Implementing a rigorous audit of admin accounts and services.
• Appointing an Incident Manager and outlining communication with vendors.

Read on to dive deeper into key technical concepts and actionable steps you can take to boost your incident response readiness and proactive threat engagements.

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The process

Developing a disaster recovery plan

Developing a robust disaster recovery plan ensures business continuity and resilience against cyberthreats, natural disasters, or other disruptive events. This plan specifies the procedures and protocols for responding to security incidents, emphasizing rapid response, data recovery, and the restoration of critical services. Many companies prepare for fires, so why not incidents? Due to lack of continuity and organization of efforts, organizations without disaster recovery plans usually experience greater impact from unforeseen incidents.

When crafting a disaster recovery plan, conduct a comprehensive risk assessment to pinpoint potential threats, vulnerabilities, and single points of failure within your infrastructure. This step requires defining recovery objectives, prioritizing critical assets and services, and setting recovery time objectives and recovery point objectives based on business requirements and risk tolerance. Many organizations lack the personnel or capability to maintain an in-house incident response team and outsource with services like Microsoft Incident Response.

Disaster recovery plans often include recommendations like implementing a tiered approach to network recovery, managing on-site backups, performing off-site replication, and using cloud-based recovery services. These practices boost resilience and redundancy, minimizing downtime and data loss. Regularly testing and validating your plan with tabletop exercises, simulations, and drills is critical for identifying gaps, refining procedures, and ensuring readiness for real-world incidents.

When Microsoft Incident Response engages with customers that have disaster recovery plans in place, those plans have tremendously aided in ensuring business continuity. Pre-existing processes, warm backups, trained staff, and communication agreements with applicable vendors all empower the investigation and recovery efforts. Rather than developing a reactive disaster recovery plan in parallel with investigation efforts, an existing disaster recovery plan allows Microsoft Incident Response and the organization to focus on investigating threat actor actions. This also enables the organization’s staff to focus solely on bringing up their line of business apps. Engaging an incident response team alongside a comprehensive disaster recovery plan greatly expedites restoration time to keep your environment running.

Figure 1. Workstreams that surround and support incident response throughout the lifecycle of an incident. See our team guide for context.

Validating effective deployment mechanisms

Ensuring the integrity and authenticity of software and system updates requires secure deployment mechanisms. Protect these systems—especially since threat actors often exploit them for tool deployment—by auditing their storage and configurations regularly. Adopting best practices like code signing, secure boot, and encrypted communications prevents unauthorized process tampering.

Correct setup requires varied deployment methods to be effective during incidents. Rapid tool deployment is important when working with an incident response team. Microsoft Configuration Manager, Microsoft Intune, Group Policy, and third-party tools are commonly used. Microsoft Incident Response deploys custom security tools alongside the Microsoft Defender suite to collect metadata efficiently across the environment, enabling a stronger response.

Enabling comprehensive auditing and logging

Auditing and logging are vital for a strong cybersecurity posture, offering insight into system activities and security events. Though enabling these features on all systems might increase overhead, the advantages in threat detection, incident response, and compliance outweigh the costs.

Adopting a risk-based approach to auditing and logging and focusing on critical assets and high-risk areas are essential. Configuring logs to capture relevant security events and optimizing retention policies ensure a balance between storage needs and forensic requirements.

Many Microsoft customers leverage Microsoft Sentinel, our cloud-native security information and event management (SIEM) solution for efficient large-volume data analysis. Microsoft Sentinel allows real-time log data aggregation, correlation, and analysis from various sources, aiding security teams in swift incident detection and response. Coupled with the Defender suite and Azure, Microsoft Sentinel offers invaluable trend data for incident response investigations.

The people

Appointing an incident manager for effective coordination

Appointing an Incident Manager is critical for leading and coordinating incident response efforts, from detection to recovery. This person serves as the main point of contact for stakeholders and response teams and ensures clear communication and effective collaboration. They examine, streamline, and log all environment change requests according to the disaster recovery plan.

An Incident Manager’s deep understanding of business processes and technical infrastructure aids in making informed decisions and prioritizing actions. Strong leadership and communication skills are essential for guiding teams and achieving consensus under pressure.

Without an Incident Manager, directionless and unclear communication allows threat actors to exploit chaos. A definitive leader streamlines work and facilitates clear communication, essential for efficient incident response. The absence of a coordinated effort can lead to fragmented work, prolonged network downtime, and severe access restoration delays for users or customers.

Figure 2. An example of the roles involved in incident response and the importance of an incident manager or controller. (See our team guide for more context.)

Maintaining open communication with security vendors

Open communication with security vendors is vital for enhancing cybersecurity. Strategic partnerships grant access to the latest technologies, threat intelligence, and best practices for threat management.

Security vendors assist in whitelisting tools, configuring policies, and optimizing security settings to meet standards and regulations. They also guide incident alert interpretation, remediation prioritization, and security measure implementation tailored to organizational needs.

Collaborating with vendors keeps organizations informed about emerging threats and attack techniques through threat intelligence feeds and security bulletins. This proactive intelligence sharing enables you to anticipate risks and mitigate them before security incidents escalate.

The technique

Enhancing security by hardening identity

Conduct a comprehensive Zero Trust audit on accounts and services with administrative privileges within your system to defend against potential security breaches effectively. This audit requires scrutinizing user and admin accounts, system configurations, and service permissions to spot anomalies or unauthorized access points. Leveraging robust identity and access management solutions is crucial to enforce the least-privilege principle. By giving users only the necessary permissions for their roles, organizations can significantly lower the attack surface and the risk of privilege escalation.

Use Enterprise Admins and Schema Admins, two built-in groups that can alter an Active Directory Forest, only for specific changes to the environment’s framework, then remove them. Also, you should audit AdminSDHolder, a common persistence method. Enforcing any privileges assigned to a user or group in the AdminSDHolder object remains effective regardless of changes in other Active Directory parts.

Microsoft Incident Response often recommends the enterprise access model or tiering to harden the identity plane for various environments. The tiering aims to protect identity (Tier 0) and all servers interacting with it, including Tier 0 management servers, all within the same plane. This model mandates administrators to have accounts in their specific plane, reducing the chances of lateral movement and privilege escalation.

Quick wins for safeguarding assets

When safeguarding accounts, methods like multifactor authentication introduce an additional security layer, making it harder for adversaries to compromise critical systems and data. Easy wins with multifactor authentication include enabling number matching and fraud alert, or mandating access through a Microsoft Entra-joined device.

Establishing an inactive (or stale) accounts policy is critical to reduce and eliminate potential entry points. Security vendors often create overprovisioned guest accounts that remain active until the contractor returns. Formulate a policy to disable and eventually delete accounts when not in use, marking a swift victory. A stale account policy, combined with a password policy and account lockout policy, helps secure the identity plane in an environment.

Proactively auditing services and machines

Auditing services and machines within the network is vital for identifying and mitigating security risks. Documenting the configurations and dependencies of all hardware and software assets, and assessing their vulnerability exposure, is important.

Automated asset management and vulnerability scanning tools streamline auditing and keep asset inventories current. Legacy software dependence, especially on unsupported systems, introduces vulnerabilities. Vulnerability scanning allows for proactive risk, patch, and configuration management, meeting security and compliance needs.

For best results, you should classify assets by criticality and sensitivity to prioritize security controls and resources. Distinguishing between protected legacy systems and risky end-of-life systems due to outdated or unsupported configurations is essential.

Driving incident response in your organization

Proactively preparing for incident response is essential given modern cybersecurity challenges. By strengthening defenses, maintaining a comprehensive disaster recovery plan, and leveraging expert resources like the Microsoft Incident Response team, you can confidently manage threats. Our expertise and quick response capabilities are invaluable in cyber risk mitigation.

Effective coordination and robust logging mechanisms reduce incident impacts and ensure operational resilience. Preparation is key in a world facing inevitable cyber threats. Learn more about Microsoft Incident Response proactive and reactive response services or find clarity in the maze of incident response in our helpful team guide.

To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.

The post How to boost your incident response readiness appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

Defender Experts for XDR offers a range of capabilities: 

• Managed detection and response: Let our expert analysts manage your Microsoft Defender XDR incident queue and handle triage, investigation, and response on your behalf.  
• Proactive threat hunting: Extend your team’s threat hunting capabilities and prioritize significant threats with Defender Experts for Hunting built in. 
• Live dashboards and reports: Get a transparent view of our operations conducted on your behalf, along with a noise-free, actionable view of prioritized incidents and detailed analytics. 
• Proactive check-ins: Benefit from remote, periodic check-ins with your named service delivery manager (SDM) team to guide your MXDR experience and improve your security posture. 
• Fast and seamless onboarding: Get a guided baselining experience to ensure your Microsoft security products are correctly configured.

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Cyberattacks detected by Defender Experts for XDR

In the first cyberattack, Defender Experts for XDR provided detection, visibility, and coverage under what Microsoft Threat Intelligence tracks as the threat actor Purple Typhoon. From the early steps in the intrusion, our team alerted the customer that 11 systems and 13 accounts were compromised via a malicious Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) session, leveraging a Dynamic Link Library (DLL) Search Order Hijacking on a legitimate Notepad++ executable. As is common with this threat actor, the next cyberattack, established a Quasar RAT backdoor triggering keylogging, capturing credentials for the domain admin. After the loaders were executed, scheduled tasks were used to move laterally, execute discovery commands on internal network areas, and complete credential theft dumping.       

For the second cyberattack, which used BlackCat ransomware, Defender Experts for XDR detected and provided extensive guidance on investigation and remediation actions. The BlackCat ransomware, also known as ALPHV, is a prevalent cyberthreat and a prime example of the growing ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) gig economy. It’s noteworthy due to its unconventional programming language (Rust), multiple target devices and possible entry points, and affiliation with prolific threat activity groups. While BlackCat’s arrival and execution vary based on the actors deploying it, the outcome is the same—target data is encrypted, exfiltrated, and used for “double extortion,” where attackers threaten to release the stolen data to the public if the ransom isn’t paid. This attack used access broker credentials to perform lateral movement, exfiltrate sensitive data via privileged execution, and execute ransomware encryption malware.    

In both cyberattacks, our team focused on providing focused email, in-product focus to guide the customer, and in a real world cyberattack, our service and product would take disruption actions to stop the cyberattack.

Comprehensive threat hunting, managed response, and product detections 

With complex cyberattacks, security operations teams need robust guidance on what is happening and how to prioritize remediation efforts. Throughout this evaluation, we provided over 18 incidents, 196 alerts, and enriched product detections with human-driven guidance via email and in product experiences using Managed responses. This includes a detailed investigation summary, indicators of compromise (IOCs), advanced hunting queries (AHQs), and prioritized remediation actions to help contain the cyberthreat. Our world class hunting team focuses on providing initial response to a cyberattack, then iterations on updates based on new threat intelligence findings and other enrichment.   

Figure 1. The incident and alerts are tagged with Defender Experts and detailed analysis provided under view Managed response.

Figure 2. Managed response showing details of investigation summary, IOCs, and TTPs.

Figure 3. Managed response focused remediation one-click actions such as blocking indicator, stopping a malicious process, and resetting passwords.

AI-driven attack disruption with Microsoft Defender XDR   

As the second cyberattack leveraged BlackCat ransomware, Microsoft Defender XDR’s attack disruption capability automatically contained the threat and then followed up with hunter guidance on additional containment. This capability combines our industry-leading detection with AI-powered enforcement mechanisms to help mitigate cyberthreats early on in the cyberattack chain and contain their advancement. Analysts have a powerful tool against human-operated cyberattacks while leaving them in complete control of investigating, remediating, and bringing assets back online. 

Figure 4. A summary attack graph, managed responses and attack disruption automatically handling this ransomware threat.

Seamless alert prioritization and consolidation into notifications for the SOC 

We provide prioritization and focus for a typical customer’s SOC team using tags and incident titles with Defender Experts where we enrich product detections. In addition, a dedicated SDM will conduct periodic touchpoints with customers to share productivity and service metrics, provide insights on any vulnerabilities or changes in their environment, solicit feedback, and make best practices recommendations. Our customers see a reduction in total incident volume over time, improvements in security posture, and overall lower operational overhead. Learn how Defender Experts helps Westminster School.  

Figure 5. Summary of all incidents and Defender Experts tag to help filter and prioritize for customers.

Commitment to Microsoft MXDR partners 

We continue our commitment to support our partners in our Microsoft-verified MXDR program. We know that a single provider can’t meet the unique needs of every organization, so we frequently collaborate with our ecosystem of partners to provide customers the flexibility to choose what works best for them—and to leverage those trusted relationships for the best outcomes and returns on their investment. 

We acknowledge that there are areas for discussion and enhancement, but we will take these as a valuable learning opportunity to continuously improve our products and services for the customers we serve. We appreciate our ongoing collaboration with MITRE as the managed services evaluation process evolves with the growing cyberthreat landscape. We thank MITRE Engenuity for the opportunity to contribute to and participate in this year’s evaluation. 

Learn more about Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR

To learn more, visit the Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR web page, read the Defender Experts for XDR docs page, and subscribe to our ongoing news at the Microsoft Security Experts blog. 

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© June 2024. The MITRE Corporation. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of The MITRE Corporation. 

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