MVISION Insights: Cloud tunneling used to hide malicious activity
Technical Articles ID:
KB95693
Last Modified: 5/19/2022
Last Modified: 5/19/2022
Environment
IMPORTANT: This Knowledge Base article discusses a specific threat that is being automatically tracked by MVISION Insights technology. The content is intended for use by MVISION Insights users, but is provided for general knowledge to all customers. Contact us for more information about MVISION Insights.
Summary
Description of Campaign
Cloud tunneling is a service that's designed to allow developers and end users to expose systems, applications, and services to the internet without having to configure routers, firewalls, web hosting, and domain registration to deploy services to the internet. It might be useful to test a product before deploying to production, or to host a gaming server, chat application, or file share. But, as with most things intended for good, threat actors use the tunneling service to host phishing pages or C2 servers to mask their identity and location. The events investigated deliver malware such as AsynchRAT, CobaltStrike, Dark Comet, Metasploit Shellcode, Nanocore RAT, and njRAT. With the cloud tunneling service, threat actors can blend traffic and circumvent security measures.
Our ATR Team gathers and analyzes information from multiple open and closed sources before disseminating intelligence reports. This campaign was researched by Trend Micro and shared publicly.
How to use this article:Threat Hunting
This Knowledge Base article discusses a specific threat that's being tracked. The list of IOCs will change over time; check MVISION Insights for the latest IOCs.
Campaign IOC
Minimum Content Versions
Detection Summary
Minimum set of Manual Rules to improve protection to block this campaign:
IMPORTANT: Always follow best practices when you enable new rules and signatures.
When you implement new rules or signatures, always set them to Report mode first and check the alerts generated. Resolve any issues that arise and then set the rules to Block. This step mitigates against triggering false positives and allows you to refine your configuration.
For more information, see KB87843 - List of and best practices for Endpoint Security Dynamic Application Containment rules.
Endpoint Security - Advanced Threat Protection:
Endpoint Security - Exploit Prevention:
Host Intrusion Prevention:
Aggressive set of Manual Rules to improve protection to block this campaign:
IMPORTANT: Always follow best practices when you enable new rules and signatures.
When you implement new rules or signatures, always set them to Report mode first and check the alerts generated. Resolve any issues that arise and then set the rules to Block. This step mitigates against triggering false positives and allows you to refine your configuration.
For more information, see KB87843 - List of and best practices for Endpoint Security Dynamic Application Containment rules.
VirusScan Enterprise - Access Protection Rules:
Host Intrusion Prevention:
Cloud tunneling is a service that's designed to allow developers and end users to expose systems, applications, and services to the internet without having to configure routers, firewalls, web hosting, and domain registration to deploy services to the internet. It might be useful to test a product before deploying to production, or to host a gaming server, chat application, or file share. But, as with most things intended for good, threat actors use the tunneling service to host phishing pages or C2 servers to mask their identity and location. The events investigated deliver malware such as AsynchRAT, CobaltStrike, Dark Comet, Metasploit Shellcode, Nanocore RAT, and njRAT. With the cloud tunneling service, threat actors can blend traffic and circumvent security measures.
Our ATR Team gathers and analyzes information from multiple open and closed sources before disseminating intelligence reports. This campaign was researched by Trend Micro and shared publicly.
How to use this article:
- If a Threat Hunting table has been created, use the rules contained to search for malware related to this campaign.
- Review the product detection table and confirm that your environment is at least on the specified content version.
To download the latest content versions, go to the Security Updates page. - Scroll down and review the "Product Countermeasures" section of this article. Consider implementing them if they are not already in place.
- Review
KB91836 - Countermeasures for entry vector threats . - Review KB87843 - Dynamic Application Containment rules and best practices.
- Review KB82925 - Identify what rule corresponds to an Adaptive Threat Protection and Threat Intelligence Exchange event.
rule ngrok_traffic { condition: cuckoo.network.http_request(/https:\/\/.*\.ngrok\.io/) or cuckoo.network.http_request(/http:\/\/.*\.ngrok\.io/) or cuckoo.network.dns_lookup(/\d\.tcp\.ngrok\.io/) cuckoo.network.dns_lookup(/.*\.ngrok\.io/) } |
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{ meta: author = "kevoreilly, JPCERT/CC Incident Response Group" description = "AsyncRat Payload" cape_type = "AsyncRat Payload" strings: $salt = {BF EB 1E 56 FB CD 97 3B B2 19 02 24 30 A5 78 43 00 3D 56 44 D2 1E 62 B9 D4 F1 80 E7 E6 C3 39 41} $b1 = {00 00 00 0D 53 00 48 00 41 00 32 00 35 00 36 00 00} $b2 = {09 50 00 6F 00 6E 00 67 00 00} $string1 = "Pastebin" ascii wide nocase $string2 = "Pong" wide $string3 = "Stub.exe" ascii wide $kitty = "StormKitty" ascii condition: uint16(0) == 0x5A4D and not $kitty and ($salt and (2 of ($str*) or 1 of ($b*))) or (all of ($b*) and 2 of ($str*)) } |
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{ meta: author = "Kevin Breen date = "01.04.2014" description = "Detects DarkComet RAT" reference = "http://malwareconfig.com/stats/DarkComet" maltype = "Remote Access Trojan" filetype = "exe" strings: // Versions 2x $a1 = "#BOT#URLUpdate" $a2 = "Command successfully executed!" $a3 = "MUTEXNAME" wide $a4 = "NETDATA" wide // Versions 3x & 4x & 5x $b1 = "FastMM Borland Edition" $b2 = "%s, ClassID: %s" $b3 = "I wasn't able to open the hosts file" $b4 = "#BOT#VisitUrl" $b5 = "#KCMDDC" condition: all of ($a*) or all of ($b*) } |
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{ meta: description = "NanoCore Remote Access Trojan" reference = "https://spanning.com/blog/nanocore-rat-malware-of-the-month/" source = "VTDIFF https://support.virustotal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360010904818-VTDIFF-Automatic-YARA-rules" author = "king-tero" strings: $0 = {4E616E6F436F72652E436C69656E74506C7567696E486F7374.EN_US} $1 = {0444FF9DFC0DFCF072FF6C74FF0444FF9D6C78FF0444FFA2FCE072FFFC146C74FF0444FFA26C78FF0444FF9D6C74FF0444FF9DA9F30001C1E70444FF9D703EFF6C6CFF800C00FC90FC146B3EFFFB12FC0DFCF03CFFFCE03CFF6C6CFF800C00FCA06C6CFF6C5CFFE01C53016C6CFFEC6C64FFECB6F464EBB3FBE7E87160FF6C64FFEC6C60FFF501000000AAECF464EBB6B3F401EBABE8715CFF0460FFFD93.EN_US} condition: 1 of them } |
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meta: description = "detect njRAT in memory" author = "JPCERT/CC Incident Response Group" rule_usage = "memory scan" hash1 = "d5f63213ce11798879520b0e9b0d1b68d55f7727758ec8c120e370699a41379d" strings: $reg = "SEE_MASK_NOZONECHECKS" wide fullword $msg = "Execute ERROR" wide fullword $ping = "cmd.exe /c ping 0 -n 2 & del" wide fullword condition: all of them } |
This Knowledge Base article discusses a specific threat that's being tracked. The list of IOCs will change over time; check MVISION Insights for the latest IOCs.
Minimum Content Versions
Detection Summary
Minimum set of Manual Rules to improve protection to block this campaign:
IMPORTANT: Always follow best practices when you enable new rules and signatures.
When you implement new rules or signatures, always set them to Report mode first and check the alerts generated. Resolve any issues that arise and then set the rules to Block. This step mitigates against triggering false positives and allows you to refine your configuration.
For more information, see KB87843 - List of and best practices for Endpoint Security Dynamic Application Containment rules.
Endpoint Security - Advanced Threat Protection:
Rule ID: 239 Identify suspicious command parameter execution
Rule ID: 4 Use GTI file reputation to identify trusted or malicious files
Rule ID: 4 Use GTI file reputation to identify trusted or malicious files
Endpoint Security - Exploit Prevention:
Rule ID: 6086 PowerShell Command Restriction - Command
Rule ID: 6135 Unmanaged PowerShell Detected
Rule ID: 6135 Unmanaged PowerShell Detected
Host Intrusion Prevention:
Rule ID: 6081 PowerShell Command Restriction - NoProfile
Rule ID: 6135 Unmanaged PowerShell Detected
Rule ID: 6070 Hidden PowerShell Detected
Rule ID: 6083 PowerShell Command Restriction - NonInteractive
Rule ID: 6096 PowerShell Command Restriction - InvokeExpression
Rule ID: 6113 T1055 - Fileless Threat: Reflective Self Injection
Rule ID: 6135 Unmanaged PowerShell Detected
Rule ID: 6070 Hidden PowerShell Detected
Rule ID: 6083 PowerShell Command Restriction - NonInteractive
Rule ID: 6096 PowerShell Command Restriction - InvokeExpression
Rule ID: 6113 T1055 - Fileless Threat: Reflective Self Injection
Aggressive set of Manual Rules to improve protection to block this campaign:
IMPORTANT: Always follow best practices when you enable new rules and signatures.
When you implement new rules or signatures, always set them to Report mode first and check the alerts generated. Resolve any issues that arise and then set the rules to Block. This step mitigates against triggering false positives and allows you to refine your configuration.
For more information, see KB87843 - List of and best practices for Endpoint Security Dynamic Application Containment rules.
VirusScan Enterprise - Access Protection Rules:
Prevent creation of new executable files in the Windows folder
Host Intrusion Prevention:
Rule ID: 1020 Windows Agent Shielding - File Access
Rule ID: 6010 Generic Application Hooking Protection
Rule ID: 1148 CMD Tool Access by a Network Aware Application
Rule ID: 6011 Generic Application Invocation Protection
Rule ID: 2806 Attempt to create a hardlink to a file
Rule ID: 6010 Generic Application Hooking Protection
Rule ID: 1148 CMD Tool Access by a Network Aware Application
Rule ID: 6011 Generic Application Invocation Protection
Rule ID: 2806 Attempt to create a hardlink to a file
