Cobalt Strike Manual 4.3 November 2020

Cobalt Strike can leverage the HTTP protocol for C2 communication, while hiding the actual data in either an HTTP header, URI parameter, the transaction body, or appending it to the URI. Cobalt Strike has also added Host: ocsp.verisign.com to HTTP headers to mimic Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) traffic.

Cobalt Strike can spawn a job to inject into LSASS memory and dump password hashes.

Mimikatz performs credential dumping to obtain account and password information useful in gaining access to additional systems and enterprise network resources. It contains functionality to acquire information about credentials in many ways, including from DCSync/NetSync.

Cobalt Strike can collect data from a local system.

Cobalt Strike can enumerate services on compromised hosts.

Cobalt Strike can query HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\<Excel Version>\Excel\Security\AccessVBOM\ to determine if the security setting for restricting default programmatic access is enabled.

Cobalt Strike can determine the NetBios name and the IP addresses of targets machines including domain controllers.

Cobalt Strike uses the native Windows Network Enumeration APIs to interrogate and discover targets in a Windows Active Directory network.

Cobalt Strike can SSH to a remote service.

Cobalt Strike can use WinRM to execute a payload on a remote host.

Cobalt Strike can hash functions to obfuscate calls to the Windows API and use a public/private key pair to encrypt Beacon session metadata.

Cobalt Strike includes a capability to modify the Beacon payload to eliminate known signatures or unpacking methods.

Cobalt Strike can perform port scans from an infected host.

Cobalt Strike can use WMI to deliver a payload to a remote host.

Cobalt Strike can inject a variety of payloads into processes dynamically chosen by the adversary.

Cobalt Strike has the ability to load DLLs via reflective injection.

Cobalt Strike can use process hollowing for execution.

Cobalt Strike can track key presses with a keylogger module.

Cobalt Strike's Beacon payload can collect information on process details.

Cobalt Strike can execute a payload on a remote host with PowerShell. This technique does not write any data to disk. Cobalt Strike can also use PowerSploit and other scripting frameworks to perform execution.

Cobalt Strike uses a command-line interface to interact with systems.

Cobalt Strike can use Python to perform execution.

Cobalt Strike can exploit vulnerabilities such as MS14-058.

Cobalt Strike can use net localgroup to list local groups on a system.

Cobalt Strike can identify targets by querying account groups on a domain contoller.

Cobalt Strike can timestomp any files or payloads placed on a target machine to help them blend in.

Cobalt Strike can use a custom command and control protocol that can be encapsulated in HTTP or HTTPS. All protocols use their standard assigned ports.

Cobalt Strike can use a custom command and control protocol that can be encapsulated in DNS. All protocols use their standard assigned ports.

Cobalt Strike can use known credentials to run commands and spawn processes as a domain user account.

Cobalt Strike can explore files on a compromised system.

Cobalt Strike can be configured to have commands relayed over a peer-to-peer network of infected hosts. This can be used to limit the number of egress points, or provide access to a host without direct internet access.

Cobalt Strike has the ability to accept a value for HTTP Host Header to enable domain fronting.

Cobalt Strike can be configured to use TCP, ICMP, and UDP for C2 communications.

Cobalt Strike can deliver additional payloads to victim machines.

Cobalt Strike's Beacon payload is capable of running shell commands without cmd.exe and PowerShell commands without powershell.exe Cobalt Strike can also use `CreateThreadpoolWait`, `SetThreadpoolWait`, and `MessageBoxA` for sandbox evasion and execution of embedded payloads in memory.

Cobalt Strike's Beacon payload is capable of capturing screenshots.

Cobalt Strike can use Base64, URL-safe Base64, or NetBIOS encoding in its C2 traffic.

Cobalt Strike can steal access tokens from exiting processes.

Cobalt Strike can spawn processes with alternate PPIDs.

Cobalt Strike can deobfuscate shellcode using a rolling XOR and decrypt metadata from Beacon sessions. The Cobalt Strike loader component can also decrypt the .bss section of the Beacon binary prior to execution.

Cobalt Strike can perform browser pivoting and inject into a user's browser to inherit cookies, authenticated HTTP sessions, and client SSL certificates.

Cobalt Strike can download a hosted "beacon" payload using BITSAdmin.

Cobalt Strike can exploit Oracle Java vulnerabilities for execution, including CVE-2011-3544, CVE-2013-2465, CVE-2012-4681, and CVE-2013-2460.

Cobalt Strike can use `rundll32.exe` to load DLL from the command line.

The Cobalt Strike System Profiler can discover applications through the browser and identify the version of Java the target has.

Cobalt Strike can use a number of known techniques to bypass Windows UAC.

Cobalt Strike can use sudo to run a command.

Mimikatz's SEKURLSA::Pth module can impersonate a user, with only a password hash, to execute arbitrary commands.

Cobalt Strike can use self signed Java applets to execute signed applet attacks.

Mimikatz performs credential dumping to obtain account and password information useful in gaining access to additional systems and enterprise network resources. It contains functionality to acquire information about credentials in many ways, including from the credential vault and DPAPI.