Trusted Relationship
Adversaries may breach or otherwise leverage organizations who have access to intended victims. Access through trusted third party relationship abuses an existing connection that may not be protected or receives less scrutiny than standard mechanisms of gaining access to a network. Organizations often grant elevated access to second or third-party external providers in order to allow them to manage internal systems as well as cloud-based environments. Some examples of these relationships include IT services contractors, managed security providers, infrastructure contractors (e.g. HVAC, elevators, physical security). The third-party provider's access may be intended to be limited to the infrastructure being maintained, but may exist on the same network as the rest of the enterprise. As such, Valid Accounts used by the other party for access to internal network systems may be compromised and used.(Citation: CISA IT Service Providers) In Office 365 environments, organizations may grant Microsoft partners or resellers delegated administrator permissions. By compromising a partner or reseller account, an adversary may be able to leverage existing delegated administrator relationships or send new delegated administrator offers to clients in order to gain administrative control over the victim tenant.(Citation: Office 365 Delegated Administration)
Procedure Examples |
|
Name | Description |
---|---|
GOLD SOUTHFIELD |
GOLD SOUTHFIELD has breached Managed Service Providers (MSP's) to deliver malware to MSP customers.(Citation: Secureworks REvil September 2019) |
APT28 |
Once APT28 gained access to the DCCC network, the group then proceeded to use that access to compromise the DNC network.(Citation: DOJ GRU Indictment Jul 2018) |
Threat Group-3390 |
Threat Group-3390 has compromised third party service providers to gain access to victim's environments.(Citation: Profero APT27 December 2020) |
Sandworm Team |
Sandworm Team has used dedicated network connections from one victim organization to gain unauthorized access to a separate organization.(Citation: US District Court Indictment GRU Unit 74455 October 2020) Additionally, Sandworm Team has accessed Internet service providers and telecommunication entities that provide mobile connectivity.(Citation: mandiant_apt44_unearthing_sandworm) |
menuPass |
menuPass has used legitimate access granted to Managed Service Providers in order to access victims of interest.(Citation: PWC Cloud Hopper Technical Annex April 2017)(Citation: FireEye APT10 April 2017)(Citation: Symantec Cicada November 2020)(Citation: DOJ APT10 Dec 2018)(Citation: District Court of NY APT10 Indictment December 2018) |
During the SolarWinds Compromise, APT29 gained access through compromised accounts at cloud solution partners, and used compromised certificates issued by Mimecast to authenticate to Mimecast customer systems.(Citation: Cybersecurity Advisory SVR TTP May 2021)(Citation: CrowdStrike StellarParticle January 2022) |
|
RedCurl |
RedCurl has gained access to a contractor to pivot to the victim’s infrastructure.(Citation: therecord_redcurl) |
APT29 |
APT29 has compromised IT, cloud services, and managed services providers to gain broad access to multiple customers for subsequent operations.(Citation: MSTIC Nobelium Oct 2021) |
POLONIUM |
POLONIUM has used compromised credentials from an IT company to target downstream customers including a law firm and aviation company.(Citation: Microsoft POLONIUM June 2022) |
LAPSUS$ |
LAPSUS$ has accessed internet-facing identity providers such as Azure Active Directory and Okta to target specific organizations.(Citation: MSTIC DEV-0537 Mar 2022) |
Mitigations |
|
Mitigation | Description |
---|---|
Multi-factor Authentication |
Use two or more pieces of evidence to authenticate to a system; such as username and password in addition to a token from a physical smart card or token generator. |
Trusted Relationship Mitigation |
Network segmentation can be used to isolate infrastructure components that do not require broad network access. Properly manage accounts and permissions used by parties in trusted relationships to minimize potential abuse by the party and if the party is compromised by an adversary. Vet the security policies and procedures of organizations that are contracted for work that require privileged access to network resources. |
User Account Management |
Manage the creation, modification, use, and permissions associated to user accounts. |
Network Segmentation |
Architect sections of the network to isolate critical systems, functions, or resources. Use physical and logical segmentation to prevent access to potentially sensitive systems and information. Use a DMZ to contain any internet-facing services that should not be exposed from the internal network. Configure separate virtual private cloud (VPC) instances to isolate critical cloud systems. |
Detection
Establish monitoring for activity conducted by second and third party providers and other trusted entities that may be leveraged as a means to gain access to the network. Depending on the type of relationship, an adversary may have access to significant amounts of information about the target before conducting an operation, especially if the trusted relationship is based on IT services. Adversaries may be able to act quickly towards an objective, so proper monitoring for behavior related to Credential Access, Lateral Movement, and Collection will be important to detect the intrusion.
References
- Microsoft. (n.d.). Partners: Offer delegated administration. Retrieved May 27, 2022.
- CISA. (n.d.). APTs Targeting IT Service Provider Customers. Retrieved November 16, 2020.
- Counter Threat Unit Research Team. (2019, September 24). REvil/Sodinokibi Ransomware. Retrieved August 4, 2020.
- Mueller, R. (2018, July 13). Indictment - United States of America vs. VIKTOR BORISOVICH NETYKSHO, et al. Retrieved September 13, 2018.
- Global Threat Center, Intelligence Team. (2020, December). APT27 Turns to Ransomware. Retrieved November 12, 2021.
- Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center. (2021, October 25). NOBELIUM targeting delegated administrative privileges to facilitate broader attacks. Retrieved January 31, 2022.
- Scott W. Brady. (2020, October 15). United States vs. Yuriy Sergeyevich Andrienko et al.. Retrieved November 25, 2020.
- Roncone, G. et al. (n.d.). APT44: Unearthing Sandworm. Retrieved July 11, 2024.
- US District Court Southern District of New York. (2018, December 17). United States v. Zhu Hua Indictment. Retrieved December 17, 2020.
- United States District Court Southern District of New York (USDC SDNY) . (2018, December 17). United States of America v. Zhu Hua and Zhang Shilong. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
- Symantec. (2020, November 17). Japan-Linked Organizations Targeted in Long-Running and Sophisticated Attack Campaign. Retrieved December 17, 2020.
- PwC and BAE Systems. (2017, April). Operation Cloud Hopper: Technical Annex. Retrieved April 13, 2017.
- FireEye iSIGHT Intelligence. (2017, April 6). APT10 (MenuPass Group): New Tools, Global Campaign Latest Manifestation of Longstanding Threat. Retrieved June 29, 2017.
- NCSC, CISA, FBI, NSA. (2021, May 7). Further TTPs associated with SVR cyber actors. Retrieved July 29, 2021.
- CrowdStrike. (2022, January 27). Early Bird Catches the Wormhole: Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign. Retrieved February 7, 2022.
- Microsoft. (2022, March 4). Manage partner relationships. Retrieved May 27, 2022.
- Antoniuk, D. (2023, July 17). RedCurl hackers return to spy on 'major Russian bank,' Australian company. Retrieved August 9, 2024.
- Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center. (2021, October 25). NOBELIUM targeting delegated administrative privileges to facilitate broader attacks. Retrieved March 25, 2022.
- Microsoft. (2022, June 2). Exposing POLONIUM activity and infrastructure targeting Israeli organizations. Retrieved July 1, 2022.
- MSTIC, DART, M365 Defender. (2022, March 24). DEV-0537 Criminal Actor Targeting Organizations for Data Exfiltration and Destruction. Retrieved May 17, 2022.
Связанные риски
Риск | Связи | |
---|---|---|
Несанкционированное подключение к локальной сети
из-за
наличия доверительного (неконтролируемого) доступа в ИТ инфраструктуру
у контрагента
Конфиденциальность
Повышение привилегий
НСД
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Каталоги
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