Procedure examples

MuddyWater has controlled POWERSTATS from behind a proxy network to obfuscate the C2 location. MuddyWater has used a series of compromised websites that victims connected to randomly to relay information to command and control (C2). MuddyWater has also used go-socks5 variants to bypass firewalls and Network Address Translation (NAT), to communicate with a hardcoded C2 server, and to exfiltrate data.

APT39 has used various tools to proxy C2 communications.

FIN5 maintains access to victim environments by using FLIPSIDE to create a proxy for a backup RDP tunnel.

APT29 uses compromised residential endpoints as proxies for defense evasion and network access.

APT28 used other victims as proxies to relay command traffic, for instance using a compromised Georgian military email server as a hop point to NATO victims. The group has also used a tool that acts as a proxy to allow C2 even if the victim is behind a router. APT28 has also used a machine to relay and obscure communications between CHOPSTICK and their server.

Tonto Team has routed their traffic through an external server in order to obfuscate their location.

Lazarus Group has used multiple proxies to obfuscate network traffic from victims.

Silence has used ProxyBot, which allows the attacker to redirect traffic from the current node to the backconnect server via Sock4\Socks5.

Volt Typhoon has used multi-hop proxies for command-and-control infrastructure.

Gamaredon Group has used Tor for C2 traffic.

ZIRCONIUM has utilized an ORB (operational relay box) network – consisting compromised devices such as small office and home office (SOHO) routers, IoT devices, and leased virtual private servers (VPS) – to proxy traffic.

Leviathan has used multi-hop proxies to disguise the source of their malicious traffic.

Lotus Blossom has used tools such as the publicly available HTran tool for proxying traffic in victim environments.

A backdoor used by APT29 created a Tor hidden service to forward traffic from the Tor client to local ports 3389 (RDP), 139 (Netbios), and 445 (SMB) enabling full remote access from outside the network and has also used TOR.

Medusa Group has used TOR nodes for communications.

Ember Bear has configured multi-hop proxies via ProxyChains within victim environments.

APT28 has routed traffic over Tor and VPN servers to obfuscate their activities.

FIN4 has used Tor to log in to victims' email accounts.

Inception used chains of compromised routers to proxy C2 communications between them and cloud service providers.

ShinyHunters has used Tor to host their DLS.

APT29 has used the meek domain fronting plugin for Tor to hide the destination of C2 traffic.

Gamaredon Group has replicated to removable media by leveraging the User Assist Reg Key and creating LNKs on all network and removable drives available on the infected host.

FIN7 actors have mailed USB drives to potential victims containing malware that downloads and installs various backdoors, including in some cases for ransomware operations. Additionally, FIN7 has used malicious USBs that acted as virtual keyboards to install malware and txt files that decode to PowerShell commands.

Mustang Panda has used a customized PlugX variant which could spread through USB connections.

Tropic Trooper has attempted to transfer USBferry from an infected USB device by copying an Autorun function to the target machine.

Aoqin Dragon has used a dropper that employs a worm infection strategy using a removable device to breach a secure network environment.

Darkhotel's selective infector modifies executables stored on removable media as a method of spreading across computers.

LuminousMoth has used malicious DLLs to spread malware to connected removable USB drives on infected machines.

APT28 uses a tool to infect connected USB devices and transmit itself to air-gapped computers when the infected USB device is inserted.

APT28 uses a tool that captures information from air-gapped computers via an infected USB and transfers it to network-connected computer when the USB is inserted.

An APT3 downloader establishes SOCKS5 connections for its initial C2.

HAFNIUM has used TCP for C2.

FIN6 has used Metasploit Bind and Reverse TCP stagers.

Gamaredon Group has used SOCKS5 over port 9050 for C2 communication.

Mustang Panda has utilized TCP-based reverse shells using cmd.exe.

UNC3886 has deployed backdoors that communicate over TCP to compromised network devices and over VMCI to ESXi hosts.

BITTER has used TCP for C2 communications.

BackdoorDiplomacy has used EarthWorm for network tunneling with a SOCKS5 server and port transfer functionalities.

Ember Bear uses socket-based tunneling utilities for command and control purposes such as NetCat and Go Simple Tunnel (GOST). These tunnels are used to push interactive command prompts over the created sockets. Ember Bear has also used reverse TCP connections from Meterpreter installations to communicate back with C2 infrastructure.

ToddyCat has used a passive backdoor that receives commands with UDP packets.

Metador has used TCP for C2.

PLATINUM has used the Intel® Active Management Technology (AMT) Serial-over-LAN (SOL) channel for command and control.

HAFNIUM has granted privileges to domain accounts and reset the password for default admin accounts.

Scattered Spider has added accounts to the ESX Admins group to grant them full admin rights in vSphere.

Lazarus Group malware WhiskeyDelta-Two contains a function that attempts to rename the administrator’s account.

VOID MANTICORE has leveraged access to administrative control systems to achieve disruptive effects, consistent with administrative account abuse or privilege escalation within existing access.

TeamPCP has modified settings to publish private Aqua Security repositories to GitHub as public.

Storm-0501 has reset the password of identified administrator accounts that lack MFA and registered their own MFA method.

APT29 has used a compromised global administrator account in Azure AD to backdoor a service principal with `ApplicationImpersonation` rights to start collecting emails from targeted mailboxes; APT29 has also used compromised accounts holding `ApplicationImpersonation` rights in Exchange to collect emails.

APT28 has used a Powershell cmdlet to grant the ApplicationImpersonation role to a compromised account.