Cisco Talos analyzed the highest 14 ransomware teams between 2023 and 2024 to show their assault chain and spotlight attention-grabbing Techniques,Strategies and Protocols. The safety firm additionally uncovered essentially the most leveraged vulnerabilities being triggered by ransomware actors.
Ransomware assault chain: What Cisco Talos researchers realized
Ransomware actors almost all use the identical assault chain.
The 1st step for ransomware actors
Step one for the risk actor consists of having access to the focused entity. To realize that aim, ransomware actors use completely different methods — one of the vital frequent methods is to social engineer their targets by sending emails containing malicious information or hyperlinks that can run malware on the focused system. The malware will then permit the attacker to deploy extra instruments and malware to succeed in their objectives. Multifactor authentication is likely to be bypassed at the moment utilizing varied methods, both due to poor MFA implementation or due to proudly owning legitimate credentials already.
Talos additionally reported that an growing variety of ransomware associates scan internet-facing methods for vulnerabilities or misconfigurations that might permit them to compromise the system. Unpatched or legacy software program is a very excessive danger.
Step two for ransomware actors
The second step is to achieve persistence in case the preliminary vector of compromise will get found; that persistence on methods is usually achieved by modifying Home windows registry keys or enabling autostart execution of the malicious code upon system boot. Native, area and/or cloud accounts may also be created for persistence.
Step three for ransomware actors
Within the third step, the risk actor scans the community setting to get a greater understanding of the interior components of the infrastructure. Knowledge of worth that can be utilized for ransom is recognized at this step. To efficiently entry all components of the community, attackers usually use instruments to raise their privileges to administrator degree, along with utilizing instruments that permit community scanning. Fashionable instruments for these duties are Residing Off the Land binaries AKA LOLbins, as a result of they’re executable information native to the working system and fewer susceptible to boost alerts.
Step 4 for ransomware actors
The attacker is able to acquire and steal delicate information, which they usually compress with utilities (reminiscent of 7-Zip or WinRAR) earlier than exfiltrating the information to attacker-controlled servers through the use of Distant Monitoring and Administration instruments or extra customized ones, reminiscent of StealBit or Exabyte for instance, created by LockBit and BlackByte ransomware teams.
Attainable step 5 for ransomware actors
If the aim is information theft or extortion, the operation is over. If the aim is to encrypt information, the attacker wants to check the ransomware within the setting — that’s, checking the supply mechanisms and the communications between the ransomware and the C2 server — earlier than launching it to encrypt the community and notify the sufferer they’ve been breached and must pay the ransom.
Three most abused vulnerabilities
Cisco Talos reported that three vulnerabilities on public-facing purposes are generally exploited by ransomware risk actors.
- CVE-2020-1472 AKA Zerologon exploits a flaw within the Netlogon Distant Protocol that permits attackers to bypass authentication and alter laptop passwords inside a website controller’s Lively Listing. This exploit is extensively utilized by ransomware actors as a result of it permits them to achieve entry to a community with out authentication.
- CVE-2018-13379, a Fortinet FortiOS SSL VPN vulnerability, permits path traversal that permits an attacker to entry system information by sending specifically crafted HTTP packets. VPN session tokens is likely to be accessed this fashion, which can be utilized to achieve unauthenticated entry to the community.
- CVE-2023-0669, a GoAnywhere MFT vulnerability, permits attackers to execute arbitrary code on a focused server that makes use of the GoAnywhere Managed File Switch software program. That is the newest vulnerability listed by Cisco Talos in its report.
All these vulnerabilities permit ransomware actors to get preliminary entry and manipulate methods to run extra malicious payloads, set up persistence or facilitate lateral actions inside compromised networks.
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Notable TTPs of 14 ransomware teams
Cisco Talos noticed the TTPs utilized by 14 of essentially the most prevalent ransomware teams primarily based on their quantity of assault, affect to clients and atypical habits.
One of many key findings concerning the TTPs signifies lots of the most outstanding teams prioritize establishing preliminary compromise and evading defenses of their assault chains.
Ransomware risk actors usually obfuscate their malicious code by packing and compressing it and modify the methods registry to disable safety alerts on the endpoint or server. They could additionally block sure restoration choices for the customers.
The Cisco Talos researchers highlighted that essentially the most prevalent credential entry method is the dumping of the LSASS reminiscence contents to extract plaintext passwords, hashed passwords or authentication tokens saved in reminiscence.
One other development in C2 actions is the usage of commercially obtainable instruments reminiscent of RMM purposes. These purposes are typically trusted by the setting and permit the attacker to mix in with the company community site visitors.
How you can mitigate the ransomware risk
For starters, it’s necessary to use patches and updates to all methods and software program; this fixed upkeep is important to scale back the danger of being compromised by an exploit.
Strict password insurance policies and MFA have to be applied. Advanced and distinctive passwords have to be set for each consumer and MFA enforced, so an attacker possessing legitimate credentials continues to be not capable of entry the focused community.
Greatest practices to harden all methods and environments should be utilized. Pointless companies and options ought to be disabled to scale back the assault floor. Additionally, publicity to the web have to be lowered by limiting the variety of public-facing companies as a lot as attainable.
Networks ought to be segmented utilizing VLANs or comparable applied sciences. Delicate information and methods have to be remoted from different networks to forestall lateral actions from an attacker.
Endpoints have to be monitored by a Safety Info and Occasion Administration system, and Endpoint Detection and Response or Prolonged Detection and Response instruments should be deployed.
Disclosure: I work for Pattern Micro, however the views expressed on this article are mine.