DDoS threat report for 2023 Q4

09/01/2024
Omer Yoachimik – Jorge Pacheco

Welcome to the sixteenth edition of Cloudflare’s DDoS Threat Report. This edition covers DDoS trends and key findings for the fourth and final quarter of the year 2023, complete with a review of major trends throughout the year.

What are DDoS attacks?

DDoS attacks, or distributed denial-of-service attacks, are a type of cyber attack that aims to disrupt websites and online services for users, making them unavailable by overwhelming them with more traffic than they can handle. They are similar to car gridlocks that jam roads, preventing drivers from getting to their destination.

There are three main types of DDoS attacks that we will cover in this report. The first is an HTTP request intensive DDoS attack that aims to overwhelm HTTP servers with more requests than they can handle to cause a denial of service event. The second is an IP packet intensive DDoS attack that aims to overwhelm in-line appliances such as routers, firewalls, and servers with more packets than they can handle. The third is a bit-intensive attack that aims to saturate and clog the Internet link causing that ‘gridlock’ that we discussed. In this report, we will highlight various techniques and insights on all three types of attacks.

Previous editions of the report can be found here, and are also available on our interactive hub, Cloudflare Radar. Cloudflare Radar showcases global Internet traffic, attacks, and technology trends and insights, with drill-down and filtering capabilities for zooming in on insights of specific countries, industries, and service providers. Cloudflare Radar also offers a free API allowing academics, data sleuths, and other web enthusiasts to investigate Internet usage across the globe.

To learn how we prepare this report, refer to our Methodologies.

Key findings

In Q4, we observed a 117% year-over-year increase in network-layer DDoS attacks, and overall increased DDoS activity targeting retail, shipment and public relations websites during and around Black Friday and the holiday season.
In Q4, DDoS attack traffic targeting Taiwan registered a 3,370% growth, compared to the previous year, amidst the upcoming general election and reported tensions with China. The percentage of DDoS attack traffic targeting Israeli websites grew by 27% quarter-over-quarter, and the percentage of DDoS attack traffic targeting Palestinian websites grew by 1,126% quarter-over-quarter — as the military conflict between Israel and Hamas continues.
In Q4, there was a staggering 61,839% surge in DDoS attack traffic targeting Environmental Services websites compared to the previous year, coinciding with the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 28).

For an in-depth analysis of these key findings and additional insights that could redefine your understanding of current cybersecurity challenges, read on!

Hyper-volumetric HTTP DDoS attacks

2023 was the year of uncharted territories. DDoS attacks reached new heights — in size and sophistication. The wider Internet community, including Cloudflare, faced a persistent and deliberately engineered campaign of thousands of hyper-volumetric DDoS attacks at never before seen rates.

These attacks were highly complex and exploited an HTTP/2 vulnerability. Cloudflare developed purpose-built technology to mitigate the vulnerability’s effect and worked with others in the industry to responsibly disclose it.

As part of this DDoS campaign, in Q3 our systems mitigated the largest attack we’ve ever seen — 201 million requests per second (rps). That’s almost 8 times larger than our previous 2022 record of 26 million rps.

Largest HTTP DDoS attacks as seen by Cloudflare, by year

Growth in network-layer DDoS attacks

After the hyper-volumetric campaign subsided, we saw an unexpected drop in HTTP DDoS attacks. Overall in 2023, our automated defenses mitigated over 5.2 million HTTP DDoS attacks consisting of over 26 trillion requests. That averages at 594 HTTP DDoS attacks and 3 billion mitigated requests every hour.

Despite these astronomical figures, the amount of HTTP DDoS attack requests actually declined by 20% compared to 2022. This decline was not just annual but was also observed in 2023 Q4 where the number of HTTP DDoS attack requests decreased by 7% YoY and 18% QoQ.

On the network-layer, we saw a completely different trend. Our automated defenses mitigated 8.7 million network-layer DDoS attacks in 2023. This represents an 85% increase compared to 2022.

In 2023 Q4, Cloudflare’s automated defenses mitigated over 80 petabytes of network-layer attacks. On average, our systems auto-mitigated 996 network-layer DDoS attacks and 27 terabytes every hour. The number of network-layer DDoS attacks in 2023 Q4 increased by 175% YoY and 25% QoQ.

HTTP and Network-layer DDoS attacks by quarter

DDoS attacks increase during and around COP 28

In the final quarter of 2023, the landscape of cyber threats witnessed a significant shift. While the Cryptocurrency sector was initially leading in terms of the volume of HTTP DDoS attack requests, a new target emerged as a primary victim. The Environmental Services industry experienced an unprecedented surge in HTTP DDoS attacks, with these attacks constituting half of all its HTTP traffic. This marked a staggering 618-fold increase compared to the previous year, highlighting a disturbing trend in the cyber threat landscape.

This surge in cyber attacks coincided with COP 28, which ran from November 30th to December 12th, 2023. The conference was a pivotal event, signaling what many considered the ‘beginning of the end’ for the fossil fuel era. It was observed that in the period leading up to COP 28, there was a noticeable spike in HTTP attacks targeting Environmental Services websites. This pattern wasn’t isolated to this event alone.

Looking back at historical data, particularly during COP 26 and COP 27, as well as other UN environment-related resolutions or announcements, a similar pattern emerges. Each of these events was accompanied by a corresponding increase in cyber attacks aimed at Environmental Services websites.

In February and March 2023, significant environmental events like the UN’s resolution on climate justice and the launch of United Nations Environment Programme’s Freshwater Challenge potentially heightened the profile of environmental websites, possibly correlating with an increase in attacks on these sites.

This recurring pattern underscores the growing intersection between environmental issues and cyber security, a nexus that is increasingly becoming a focal point for attackers in the digital age.

DDoS attacks and Iron Swords

It’s not just UN resolutions that trigger DDoS attacks. Cyber attacks, and particularly DDoS attacks, have long been a tool of war and disruption. We witnessed an increase in DDoS attack activity in the Ukraine-Russia war, and now we’re also witnessing it in the Israel-Hamas war. We first reported the cyber activity in our report Cyber attacks in the Israel-Hamas war, and we continued to monitor the activity throughout Q4.

Operation “Iron Swords” is the military offensive launched by Israel against Hamas following the Hamas-led 7 October attack. During this ongoing armed conflict, we continue to see DDoS attacks targeting both sides.

DDoS attacks targeting Israeli and Palestinian websites, by industry

Relative to each region’s traffic, the Palestinian territories was the second most attacked region by HTTP DDoS attacks in Q4. Over 10% of all HTTP requests towards Palestinian websites were DDoS attacks, a total of 1.3 billion DDoS requests — representing a 1,126% increase in QoQ. 90% of these DDoS attacks targeted Palestinian Banking websites. Another 8% targeted Information Technology and Internet platforms.

Similarly, our systems automatically mitigated over 2.2 billion HTTP DDoS requests targeting Israeli websites. While 2.2 billion represents a decrease compared to the previous quarter and year, it did amount to a larger percentage out of the total Israel-bound traffic. This normalized figure represents a 27% increase QoQ but a 92% decrease YoY. Notwithstanding the larger amount of attack traffic, Israel was the 77th most attacked region relative to its own traffic. It was also the 33rd most attacked by total volume of attacks, whereas the Palestinian territories was 42nd.

Of those Israeli websites attacked, Newspaper & Media were the main target — receiving almost 40% of all Israel-bound HTTP DDoS attacks. The second most attacked industry was the Computer Software industry. The Banking, Financial Institutions, and Insurance (BFSI) industry came in third.

On the network layer, we see the same trend. Palestinian networks were targeted by 470 terabytes of attack traffic — accounting for over 68% of all traffic towards Palestinian networks. Surpassed only by China, this figure placed the Palestinian territories as the second most attacked region in the world, by network-layer DDoS attack, relative to all Palestinian territories-bound traffic. By absolute volume of traffic, it came in third. Those 470 terabytes accounted for approximately 1% of all DDoS traffic that Cloudflare mitigated.

Israeli networks, though, were targeted by only 2.4 terabytes of attack traffic, placing it as the 8th most attacked country by network-layer DDoS attacks (normalized). Those 2.4 terabytes accounted for almost 10% of all traffic towards Israeli networks.

When we turned the picture around, we saw that 3% of all bytes that were ingested in our Israeli-based data centers were network-layer DDoS attacks. In our Palestinian-based data centers, that figure was significantly higher — approximately 17% of all bytes.

On the application layer, we saw that 4% of HTTP requests originating from Palestinian IP addresses were DDoS attacks, and almost 2% of HTTP requests originating from Israeli IP addresses were DDoS attacks as well.

Main sources of DDoS attacks

In the third quarter of 2022, China was the largest source of HTTP DDoS attack traffic. However, since the fourth quarter of 2022, the US took the first place as the largest source of HTTP DDoS attacks and has maintained that undesirable position for five consecutive quarters. Similarly, our data centers in the US are the ones ingesting the most network-layer DDoS attack traffic — over 38% of all attack bytes.

Chart — HTTP DDoS attacks originating from China and the US by quarter

Together, China and the US account for a little over a quarter of all HTTP DDoS attack traffic in the world. Brazil, Germany, Indonesia, and Argentina account for the next twenty-five percent.

These large figures usually correspond to large markets. For this reason, we also normalize the attack traffic originating from each country by comparing their outbound traffic. When we do this, we often get small island nations or smaller market countries that a disproportionate amount of attack traffic originates from. In Q4, 40% of Saint Helena’s outbound traffic were HTTP DDoS attacks — placing it at the top. Following the ‘remote volcanic tropical island’, Libya came in second, Swaziland (also known as Eswatini) in third. Argentina and Egypt follow in fourth and fifth place.

Top source of HTTP DDoS attacks with respect to each country’s traffic

On the network layer, Zimbabwe came in first place. Almost 80% of all traffic we ingested in our Zimbabwe-based data center was malicious. In second place, Paraguay, and Madagascar in third.

Top source of Network-layer DDoS attacks with respect to each country’s traffic

Most attacked industries

By volume of attack traffic, Cryptocurrency was the most attacked industry in Q4. Over 330 billion HTTP requests targeted it. This figure accounts for over 4% of all HTTP DDoS traffic for the quarter. The second most attacked industry was Gaming & Gambling. These industries are known for being coveted targets and attract a lot of traffic and attacks.

Top industries targeted by HTTP DDoS attacks

On the network layer, the Information Technology and Internet industry was the most attacked — over 45% of all network-layer DDoS attack traffic was aimed at it. Following far behind were the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI), Gaming & Gambling, and Telecommunications industries.

Top industries targeted by Network-layer DDoS attacks

To change perspectives, here too, we normalized the attack traffic by the total traffic for a specific industry. When we do that, we get a different picture.

Top attacked industries by HTTP DDoS attacks, by region

We already mentioned in the beginning of this report that the Environmental Services industry was the most attacked relative to its own traffic. In second place was the Packaging and Freight Delivery industry, which is interesting because of its timely correlation with online shopping during Black Friday and the winter holiday season. Purchased gifts and goods need to get to their destination somehow, and it seems as though attackers tried to interfere with that. On a similar note, DDoS attacks on retail companies increased by 16% compared to the previous year.

Top industries targeted by HTTP DDoS attacks with respect to each industry’s traffic

On the network layer, Public Relations and Communications was the most targeted industry — 36% of its traffic was malicious. This too is very interesting given its timing. Public Relations and Communications companies are usually linked to managing public perception and communication. Disrupting their operations can have immediate and widespread reputational impacts which becomes even more critical during the Q4 holiday season. This quarter often sees increased PR and communication activities due to holidays, end-of-year summaries, and preparation for the new year, making it a critical operational period — one that some may want to disrupt.

Top industries targeted by Network-layer DDoS attacks with respect to each industry’s traffic

Most attacked countries and regions

Singapore was the main target of HTTP DDoS attacks in Q4. Over 317 billion HTTP requests, 4% of all global DDoS traffic, were aimed at Singaporean websites. The US followed closely in second and Canada in third. Taiwan came in as the fourth most attacked region — amidst the upcoming general elections and the tensions with China. Taiwan-bound attacks in Q4 traffic increased by 847% compared to the previous year, and 2,858% compared to the previous quarter. This increase is not limited to the absolute values. When normalized, the percentage of HTTP DDoS attack traffic targeting Taiwan relative to all Taiwan-bound traffic also significantly increased. It increased by 624% quarter-over-quarter and 3,370% year-over-year.

Top targeted countries by HTTP DDoS attacks

While China came in as the ninth most attacked country by HTTP DDoS attacks, it’s the number one most attacked country by network-layer attacks. 45% of all network-layer DDoS traffic that Cloudflare mitigated globally was China-bound. The rest of the countries were so far behind that it is almost negligible.

Top targeted countries by Network-layer DDoS attacks

When normalizing the data, Iraq, Palestinian territories, and Morocco take the lead as the most attacked regions with respect to their total inbound traffic. What’s interesting is that Singapore comes up as fourth. So not only did Singapore face the largest amount of HTTP DDoS attack traffic, but that traffic also made up a significant amount of the total Singapore-bound traffic. By contrast, the US was second most attacked by volume (per the application-layer graph above), but came in the fiftieth place with respect to the total US-bound traffic.

Top targeted countries by HTTP DDoS attacks with respect to each country’s traffic

Similar to Singapore, but arguably more dramatic, China is both the number one most attacked country by network-layer DDoS attack traffic, and also with respect to all China-bound traffic. Almost 86% of all China-bound traffic was mitigated by Cloudflare as network-layer DDoS attacks. The Palestinian territories, Brazil, Norway, and again Singapore followed with large percentages of attack traffic.

Top targeted countries by Network-layer DDoS attacks with respect to each country’s traffic

Attack vectors and attributes

The majority of DDoS attacks are short and small relative to Cloudflare’s scale. However, unprotected websites and networks can still suffer disruption from short and small attacks without proper inline automated protection — underscoring the need for organizations to be proactive in adopting a robust security posture.

In 2023 Q4, 91% of attacks ended within 10 minutes, 97% peaked below 500 megabits per second (mbps), and 88% never exceeded 50 thousand packets per second (pps).

Two out of every 100 network-layer DDoS attacks lasted more than an hour, and exceeded 1 gigabit per second (gbps). One out of every 100 attacks exceeded 1 million packets per second. Furthermore, the amount of network-layer DDoS attacks exceeding 100 million packets per second increased by 15% quarter-over-quarter.

One of those large attacks was a Mirai-botnet attack that peaked at 160 million packets per second. The packet per second rate was not the largest we’ve ever seen. The largest we’ve ever seen was 754 million packets per second. That attack occurred in 2020, and we have yet to see anything larger.

This more recent attack, though, was unique in its bits per second rate. This was the largest network-layer DDoS attack we’ve seen in Q4. It peaked at 1.9 terabits per second and originated from a Mirai botnet. It was a multi-vector attack, meaning it combined multiple attack methods. Some of those methods included UDP fragments flood, UDP/Echo flood, SYN Flood, ACK Flood, and TCP malformed flags.

This attack targeted a known European Cloud Provider and originated from over 18 thousand unique IP addresses that are assumed to be spoofed. It was automatically detected and mitigated by Cloudflare’s defenses.

This goes to show that even the largest attacks end very quickly. Previous large attacks we’ve seen ended within seconds — underlining the need for an in-line automated defense system. Though still rare, attacks in the terabit range are becoming more and more prominent.

1.9 Terabit per second Mirai DDoS attacks

The use of Mirai-variant botnets is still very common. In Q4, almost 3% of all attacks originate from Mirai. Though, of all attack methods, DNS-based attacks remain the attackers’ favorite. Together, DNS Floods and DNS Amplification attacks account for almost 53% of all attacks in Q4. SYN Flood follows in second and UDP floods in third. We’ll cover the two DNS attack types here, and you can visit the hyperlinks to learn more about UDP and SYN floods in our Learning Center.

DNS floods and amplification attacks

DNS floods and DNS amplification attacks both exploit the Domain Name System (DNS), but they operate differently. DNS is like a phone book for the Internet, translating human-friendly domain names like “www.cloudfare.com” into numerical IP addresses that computers use to identify each other on the network.

Simply put, DNS-based DDoS attacks comprise the method computers and servers used to identify one another to cause an outage or disruption, without actually ‘taking down’ a server. For example, a server may be up and running, but the DNS server is down. So clients won’t be able to connect to it and will experience it as an outage.

A DNS flood attack bombards a DNS server with an overwhelming number of DNS queries. This is usually done using a DDoS botnet. The sheer volume of queries can overwhelm the DNS server, making it difficult or impossible for it to respond to legitimate queries. This can result in the aforementioned service disruptions, delays or even an outage for those trying to access the websites or services that rely on the targeted DNS server.

On the other hand, a DNS amplification attack involves sending a small query with a spoofed IP address (the address of the victim) to a DNS server. The trick here is that the DNS response is significantly larger than the request. The server then sends this large response to the victim’s IP address. By exploiting open DNS resolvers, the attacker can amplify the volume of traffic sent to the victim, leading to a much more significant impact. This type of attack not only disrupts the victim but also can congest entire networks.

In both cases, the attacks exploit the critical role of DNS in network operations. Mitigation strategies typically include securing DNS servers against misuse, implementing rate limiting to manage traffic, and filtering DNS traffic to identify and block malicious requests.

Amongst the emerging threats we track, we recorded a 1,161% increase in ACK-RST Floods as well as a 515% increase in CLDAP floods, and a 243% increase in SPSS floods, in each case as compared to last quarter. Let’s walk through some of these attacks and how they’re meant to cause disruption.

ACK-RST floods

An ACK-RST Flood exploits the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) by sending numerous ACK and RST packets to the victim. This overwhelms the victim’s ability to process and respond to these packets, leading to service disruption. The attack is effective because each ACK or RST packet prompts a response from the victim’s system, consuming its resources. ACK-RST Floods are often difficult to filter since they mimic legitimate traffic, making detection and mitigation challenging.

CLDAP floods

CLDAP (Connectionless Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is a variant of LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol). It’s used for querying and modifying directory services running over IP networks. CLDAP is connectionless, using UDP instead of TCP, making it faster but less reliable. Because it uses UDP, there’s no handshake requirement which allows attackers to spoof the IP address thus allowing attackers to exploit it as a reflection vector. In these attacks, small queries are sent with a spoofed source IP address (the victim’s IP), causing servers to send large responses to the victim, overwhelming it. Mitigation involves filtering and monitoring unusual CLDAP traffic.

SPSS floods

Floods abusing the SPSS (Source Port Service Sweep) protocol is a network attack method that involves sending packets from numerous random or spoofed source ports to various destination ports on a targeted system or network. The aim of this attack is two-fold: first, to overwhelm the victim’s processing capabilities, causing service disruptions or network outages, and second, it can be used to scan for open ports and identify vulnerable services. The flood is achieved by sending a large volume of packets, which can saturate the victim’s network resources and exhaust the capacities of its firewalls and intrusion detection systems. To mitigate such attacks, it’s essential to leverage in-line automated detection capabilities.

Cloudflare is here to help – no matter the attack type, size, or duration

Cloudflare’s mission is to help build a better Internet, and we believe that a better Internet is one that is secure, performant, and available to all. No matter the attack type, the attack size, the attack duration or the motivation behind the attack, Cloudflare’s defenses stand strong. Since we pioneered unmetered DDoS Protection in 2017, we’ve made and kept our commitment to make enterprise-grade DDoS protection free for all organizations alike — and of course, without compromising performance. This is made possible by our unique technology and robust network architecture.

It’s important to remember that security is a process, not a single product or flip of a switch. Atop of our automated DDoS protection systems, we offer comprehensive bundled features such as firewall, bot detection, API protection, and caching to bolster your defenses. Our multi-layered approach optimizes your security posture and minimizes potential impact. We’ve also put together a list of recommendations to help you optimize your defenses against DDoS attacks, and you can follow our step-by-step wizards to secure your applications and prevent DDoS attacks. And, if you’d like to benefit from our easy to use, best-in-class protection against DDoS and other attacks on the Internet, you can sign up — for free! — at cloudflare.com. If you’re under attack, register or call the cyber emergency hotline number shown here for a rapid response.

We protect entire corporate networks, help customers build Internet-scale applications efficiently, accelerate any website or Internet application, ward off DDoS attacks, keep hackers at bay, and can help you on your journey to Zero Trust.

Visit 1.1.1.1 from any device to get started with our free app that makes your Internet faster and safer.

To learn more about our mission to help build a better Internet, start here. If you’re looking for a new career direction, check out our open positions.

Source :
https://blog.cloudflare.com/ddos-threat-report-2023-q4/

How AI and Automation Help E-Commerce Scale

WRITTEN BY THE CLOUDINARY TEAM FEB-07-2023 7 MIN READ

Post-pandemic, consumer reliance on online shopping remains steady, meaning e-commerce businesses need to continue to adopt new technologies to scale their business operations.

Digital Asset Management (DAM) software can make it easier for creators to store, search, and organize their assets. Unfortunately, legacy DAM solutions are no longer sufficient to manage large volumes of product-related content. After all, using ‘old school’ DAM software requires a large staff who can manually optimize media and customize experiences for their audience—a practice that goes against agile methodology.

Staying competitive in today’s e-commerce environment requires brands to harness the power of AI and the efficiency of automation. A business using AI can quickly match audiences to relevant products and edit assets on the fly, creating more convenient and personalized shopping experiences. On the back-end, automation simplifies asset management, saving time and resources while increasing sales efficiency and marketing effectiveness.

Harnessing New Technology to Grow E-commerce

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During the pandemic, the US saw a 50% increase in e-commerce sales. This rapid shift to online shopping forced many businesses to find new asset management solutions. The right tool saves time for creative teams by taking on the labor involved in cropping, tagging, recoloring, background removal, and numerous other tedious tasks. AI tools can also automate higher-level functions, performing object recognition and asset categorization and efficiently organizing even legacy datasets.

Together, these tools free up a marketing team to address more strategic concerns, like finding opportunities to generate interest across new sales channels and touchpoints.

E-commerce activity generates a lot of data that can be used for discovery. However, creators and developers can’t use what they can’t access, and studies show that 73% of data is never used for analytics. This wasted data is more than just lost revenue: Storing and transmitting data is expensive and also poses environmental concerns. To optimize asset delivery and extract the most valuable data from e-commerce activity, businesses must enhance their DAM tools with AI and automation.

AI and Automation for Scaling

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Let’s look at how AI and automation can help an e-commerce business achieve greater customer satisfaction, higher revenue, lower costs, happier employees, and more efficient and agile business operations.

Marketing

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Many websites collect cookies to track their customers’ buying patterns and enable personalized product recommendations. AI can analyze this information, so we can use it to automate outreach and customize customer campaigns and newsletters.

Effective tools can provide extensible APIs to automate DAM and target specific user segments and devices. For example, Cloudinary’s Admin API lets you retrieve and manipulate asset metadata as part of an automated pipeline. In conjunction with Cloudinary’s object detection tools, it’s a powerful tool to modernize legacy databases.

Product

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Most companies offer flexible return policies to stay competitive in a market where customers cannot appraise a product in person before purchase. It’s expensive to provide the customer with this freedom—product returns cost companies millions of dollars annually.

One of the most common reasons customers return products is because they feel they’ve received something different than what they saw before purchase, which could occur if the product page had insufficient photos or poor-quality images. For an e-commerce retailer, saving money by taking fewer photos is a false economy; a loss of revenue and the cost of processing returns can offset any savings.

AI-powered content creation helps ensure customers are happy with their purchases. For example, Cloudinary’s image and video transformation API provides a suite of tools to generate high-quality derivative assets from a small number of product images. For example, suppose you’re selling a sweater in a range of colors. Cloudinary’s image transformation API enables us to recolor a photo of it, so the product team only needs to photograph it once.

AI is also a powerful tool for matching visitors to the products they’re most likely to buy. By combining in-session user behavior patterns with cookies, an AI-based system can recommend appropriately sized clothing that matches the customer’s style.

Then, when a potential buyer is matched to a product, we can use AI-powered tools to generate interest. For example, on Mazda’s purchase page, customers can apply 3D model transformation functions to create a 360-degree view of their vehicle build with all the personalized upgrade options and the color they’ve selected.

AI also enables customers to preview personalized products. If a clothing retailer offers the option to add a custom inscription or design, for example, then an AI-powered displacement map can show what the final product will look like much more clearly than a simple overlay.

We can implement much of this functionality with a tool like Cloudinary’s content-aware object detection add-on. When used alongside the AI-powered background removal tool, we can generate and edit image assets for any context. For instance, consider an automotive manufacturer with a database of automotive add-ons. An AI could analyze image assets and apply smart tags to categorize product options. If the manufacturer offers numerous upgrade options across a range of a dozen or more vehicles, this will save a lot of time and work. The technology can even help with cleaning up legacy databases and regaining control over lost or mislabeled assets.

Customer Service

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A well-organized asset database also creates happier customers. Suppose visitors to our storefront have access to a search field or chatbot for queries. In that case, we can combine this data with user behavior data we collected earlier and compare it against our meticulously and automatically tagged and organized product catalog.

As we integrate AI tools more deeply into our supply chain, we can also expect more efficient fulfillment as we optimize for customer preference, location, and even local weather. For example, we can integrate Cloudinary-managed assets with Next.js Middleware in Netlify to find out where visitors are located and inject shipping information. If customers find the status updates useful, they’re more likely to become repeat buyers.

AI also helps build customer trust. AI-powered tools can automatically synchronize sales across multiple devices, identify high-risk transactions, and offer discounts to loyal customers more intelligently than rule-based implementations would. We can even use virtual assistants to handle administrative tasks that impact the end-user experience.

For example, AI can help a storefront become more responsive by determining which media assets should be cached locally in a Content Delivery Network (CDN) or by identifying the most routine customer queries and offloading them to automated chatbots. An apparel storefront can provide a more bespoke experience by offering AI-powered fit and sizing assistance or even suggestions for complementary wardrobe choices.

When a customer decides to purchase, AI can help us ensure we’ve minimized human error in the inventory handling and fulfillment stages. If our product has a loyal following, we can keep customers engaged by providing AI-optimized, up-to-date stock arrival notifications.

If we allow end users to create their own content, such as photos in product reviews (or if we’re using AI to pull from external content stores), we should use a tool like Cloudinary’s asset moderation. Depending on the type and volume of content, we can configure these add-ons to flag content for manual or automatic review or a combination of both. For instance, we might want to automatically reject some content, such as low-quality images or images that have not been anonymized. Other content might need human approval, such as automatically smart-tagged product images.

Sales

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To be competitive in sales within a digital ecosystem, you often need to analyze trends in external data. AI tools help us stay competitive with comprehensive industry monitoring and analysis. Rather than manually searching for a competitive edge, we can feed raw data into our models and expect better insights—notably, often without needing to perform the tedious process of data normalization.

Another common necessity of e-commerce businesses—namely, complex integrations—can break continuity between upstream and downstream portions of the sales pipeline, especially when integrating legacy applications. This process can create extra work and delays for the sales team, who either have to troubleshoot integrations or rely on support teams or developer teams to make changes. AI-powered automation can solve this issue and create a more extensible and easy-to-use pipeline for the sales team.

Financial Processing

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In an e-commerce business, payroll, accounting, and invoicing are all digital (and often cloud-first) processes. This makes them ideally suited to administrative automation and AI.

Cloudinary’s broad set of integrations enables Cloudinary-managed assets to be deployed through commercial platforms, like Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento) or Salesforce. We get the benefits of the financial tooling of top e-commerce and marketing frameworks while delivering quality, relevant content that’s been automatically curated by asset management technologies.

Ride the E-Commerce Wave

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To grow an e-commerce business in a cloud-first world, you need the help of cutting-edge technologies. In the DAM space, AI can make the difference between a digital storefront that needs constant manual labor to stay effective and an e-commerce business that’s ready to sail the tide of internet commerce. To start integrating AI into your business plan, visit Cloudinary today.

Source :
https://cloudinary.com/blog/how-ai-and-automation-help-e-commerce-scale

Prevent spam user registration in WordPress: 2024 guide

JANUARY 20, 2024 BY PAUL G.

Spam registrations are common on WordPress websites. WordPress is the most popular content management system in the world, with over 60 percent market share. This makes it a prime target for scammers. It’s also, unfortunately, easy to create fake user accounts on the platform, requiring only an account name, email address, and password – all things spammers can simply invent.

Fake registrations can cause extensive issues, such as hogging resources, spreading malware, and creating an unmanageable user base.

WordPress doesn’t have a default functionality to combat spam user registrations, butthe good news is that plugins like Shield Security PRO can fill in the gap. Let’s take a look at some strategies for preventing spam user registrations.

Introduction to spam registrations in WordPress

WordPress spam registrations are when spammers create accounts on sites without any intention of using them for authentic purposes. Typically, spammers use automated programs or bots to create these accounts. Spammers may also use bots and spam accounts for phishing purposes, trying to acquire sensitive information from users and webmasters to compromise their security.

Website owners often underestimate the harm spam registrations can cause. These range from immediate annoyances to long-term security problems and data distortion.

For example, spam registrations can clog your inbox, causing surges of email notifications informing you of fake sign-ups for your website. Processing and deleting these emails and accounts without getting rid of legitimate users is time-consuming and challenging.

Spam registrations can also overload server resources, affecting performance. Spam bots can make frequent login attempts, using up your bandwidth and making your website run slower for legitimate users.

There can also be some considerable long-term consequences. Users may tire of spam comments and stop interacting with your content. You may also struggle to analyse user data, distorting your view of how your site is functioning. This can lead to security vulnerabilities and damage your site’s SEO.

Strategies to prevent WordPress user registration spam

This section covers various strategies and techniques that you can implement to prevent new user registration spam and improve the overall security of your WordPress site.

Install a WordPress security plugin

The first strategy is to install a WordPress security plugin. Choosing the right security plugin not only helps prevent spam registrations on your WordPress site, but it also gives you access to a wide range of security features.

Shield Security PRO is the best plugin for improving the overall security of your WordPress site. The plugin’s key features include bad bot detection and blocking, invisible CAPTCHA codes, human and bot spam prevention, traffic rate limiting, and malware scanning.

A screenshot of Shield Security PRO’s feature comparison.

Here’s a rundown of Shield Security PRO’s features and how they can help protect your site:

Detect and block user registrations from spam or fake email accounts via email checking.
Identify contact form spam with ShieldPRO’s built-in AntiBot Detection Engine (ADE).
Automatically block IP addresses of suspicious users after a specified number of offences.
CrowdSec Integration – crowdsourced IP Block lists that contain known IPs of bots & spammers that are instantly blocked access.

Disable WordPress registration

Using a plugin like ShieldPRO is the best choice to ensure the ongoing security of your WordPress site. However, there are also manual methods you can employ to help prevent user registration spam.

Disabling user registration in WordPress is one strategy. This approach eliminates the problem of spam signups entirely. You could try this option if you don’t need to collect user information, run a website with limited resources, or simply want to provide audiences with information for free.

The steps to disable registration on your WordPress site are as follows:

From the WordPress dashboard, go to Settings > General.
Next, go to “Membership” and uncheck the “Anyone can register” box.

It’s worth considering that this technique prevents you from collecting visitor details, which stops you from building email lists or marketing directly to your audience. It also reduces personalisation opportunities and limits community building.

Add CAPTCHA to your user registration form

You can also try adding CAPTCHA to your user registration form. This prevents automated spam registrations by identifying bots before they can create accounts.

Various forms of CAPTCHA plugins for your site exist, including:

reCAPTCHA: Google reCAPTCHA is a free service that combines text and images in a user-friendly interface, designed to weed out bots
hCAPTCHA: hCAPTCHA is a free service that uses images and action-based tests to identify bots. This service is customisable and prioritises user privacy.

ShieldPRO’s AntiBot Detection Engine (ADE) avoids the need to use CAPTCHA at all. Since the plugin automatically detects and blocks bots, there’s no reason to test your visitors for signs of nuts and bolts.

Implement geoblocking

You can also try geoblocking, a security method that limits website access to specific regions. It works by filtering IP addresses by location, only letting specific IPs enter the site.

Geoblocking prevents spam from regions known for high levels of malicious activity. However, it also comes with various drawbacks. For example, it causes false positives, blocking legitimate site users just because they are in the wrong country. Spammers can also bypass it with proxy sites and VPNs.

Fortunately, ShieldPRO’s automated IP blocking technology more accurately and effectively stops spam users by blocking them after a specified number of offences. It detects malicious activity regardless of the traffic’s origin.

Require manual approval for user registration

Manual user approvals can also mitigate spam registrations, offering significant benefits. The approach drastically reduces the chances of bot sign-up while also permitting you to collect legitimate user details.

Drawbacks include the time-intensive nature of this method and the lack of scalability for larger WordPress sites. You may need to hire multiple full-time operatives to manage website administration, which can get pricey, fast.

Turn on email activation for user registration

Email activation for user registration is another popular technique to guard against spam registrations. It works by getting users to click a link in their email account to verify their details.

Screenshot of Shield Security PRO’s email verification settings.

Shield Security PRO features a built-in email-checking feature. This tests to see if the email has a valid structure and is registered to a legitimate domain. It also checks if there are any mail exchange records for the domain, and determines if the email address goes to a disposable domain. These checks help to flag fake and temporary email addresses in user registrations.

Block spam IP addresses

One of the primary ways Shield Security PRO works is by blocking malicious IP addresses once they’ve behaved badly enough to qualify as a bot. There is no one clear action an IP address can do on your site that proves it’s a bot. However, certain patterns of behaviour give bots away clear as day.

“When you look at the activity as a whole” says Paul Goodchild, creator of Shield Security PRO, “a bot’s activity on a site is clearly distinguishable from human users.”

The plugin then uses this clear indication as a signal to block the IP address entirely, stopping malicious activity in its tracks. The plugin also uses CrowdSec technology to minimise the risk of false positives and enable as many legitimate sign-ups as possible.

Secure your WordPress site with ShieldPRO today

The damaging impact of spam user registrations can be substantial. It can cause clogged inboxes, distorted user analytics, and server overload. The long-term consequences are diminished website SEO, reputational damage, and security vulnerabilities due to phishing and malware.

Fortunately, there are various methods to prevent spam user registrations on WordPress websites. The most effective option is to use a plugin like Shield SecurityPRO. This plugin keeps malicious bots off your website. Since most spam user registrations come from bots, this means you can rest a lot easier.

Try ShieldPRO on their WordPress sites today with a 14-day money-back guarantee. Install it to maximise your WordPress security and get some well-earned peace of mind.

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If you’re curious about ShieldPRO and would like to explore the powerful features for protecting your WordPress sites, click here to get started today. (14-day satisfaction guarantee!)

You’ll get all PRO features, including AI Malware Scanning, WP Config File Protection, Plugin and Theme File Guard, import/export, exclusive customer support, and so much more.

TRY SHIELDPRO TODAY →

Source :
https://getshieldsecurity.com/blog/stop-spam-registrations-wordpress/

Black Basta-Affiliated Water Curupira’s Pikabot Spam Campaign

By: Shinji Robert Arasawa, Joshua Aquino, Charles Steven Derion, Juhn Emmanuel Atanque, Francisrey Joshua Castillo, John Carlo Marquez, Henry Salcedo, John Rainier Navato, Arianne Dela Cruz, Raymart Yambot, Ian Kenefick
January 09, 2024
Read time: 8 min (2105 words)

A threat actor we track under the Intrusion set Water Curupira (known to employ the Black Basta ransomware) has been actively using Pikabot. a loader malware with similarities to Qakbot, in spam campaigns throughout 2023.

Pikabot is a type of loader malware that was actively used in spam campaigns by a threat actor we track under the Intrusion set Water Curupira in the first quarter of 2023, followed by a break at the end of June that lasted until the start of September 2023. Other researchers have previously noted its strong similarities to Qakbot, the latter of which was taken down by law enforcement in August 2023. An increase in the number of phishing campaigns related to Pikabot was recorded in the last quarter of 2023, coinciding with the takedown of Qakbot — hinting at the possibility that Pikabot might be a replacement for the latter (with DarkGate being another temporary replacement in the wake of the takedown).

Pikabot’s operators ran phishing campaigns, targeting victims via its two components — a loader and a core module — which enabled unauthorized remote access and allowed the execution of arbitrary commands through an established connection with their command-and-control (C&C) server. Pikabot is a sophisticated piece of multi-stage malware with a loader and core module within the same file, as well as a decrypted shellcode that decrypts another DLL file from its resources (the actual payload).

In general, Water Curupira conducts campaigns for the purpose of dropping backdoors such as Cobalt Strike, leading to Black Basta ransomware attacks (coincidentally, Black Basta also returned to operations in September 2023). The threat actor conducted several DarkGate spam campaigns and a small number of IcedID campaigns in the early weeks of the third quarter of 2023, but has since pivoted exclusively to Pikabot.

Pikabot, which gains initial access to its victim’s machine through spam emails containing an archive or a PDF attachment, exhibits the same behavior and campaign identifiers as Qakbot.

Figure 1. Our observations from the infection chain based on Trend’s investigation

Initial access via email

The malicious actors who send these emails employ thread-hijacking, a technique where malicious actors use existing email threads (possibly stolen from previous victims) and create emails that look like they were meant to be part of the thread to trick recipients into believing that they are legitimate. Using this technique increases the chances that potential victims would select malicious links or attachments. Malicious actors send these emails using addresses (created either through new domains or free email services) with names that can be found in original email threads hijacked by the malicious actor. The email contains most of the content of the original thread, including the email subject, but adds a short message on top directing the recipient to open the email attachment.

This attachment is either a password-protected archive ZIP file containing an IMG file or a PDF file. The malicious actor includes the password in the email message. Note that the name of the file attachment and its password vary for each email.

Figure 2. Sample email with a malicious ZIP attachment

Figure 3. Sample email with a malicious PDF attachment

The emails containing PDF files have a shorter message telling the recipient to check or view the email attachment.

The first stage of the attack

The attached archive contains a heavily obfuscated JavaScript (JS) with a file size amounting to more than 100 KB. Once executed by the victim, the script will attempt to execute a series of commands using conditional execution.

Figure 4. Files extracted to the attached archive (.zip or .img)

The script attempts command execution using cmd.exe. If this initial attempt is unsuccessful, the script proceeds with the following steps: It echoes a designated string to the console and tries to ping a specified target using the same string. In case the ping operation fails, the script employs Curl.exe to download the Pikabot payload from an external server, saving the file in the system’s temporary directory.

Subsequently, the script will retry the ping operation. If the retry is also unsuccessful, it uses rundll32.exe to execute the downloaded Pikabot payload (now identified as a .dll file) with “Crash” as the export parameter. The sequence of commands concludes by exiting the script with the specified exit code, ciCf51U2FbrvK.

We were able to observe another attack chain where the malicious actors implemented a more straightforward attempt to deliver the payload. As before, similar phishing techniques were performed to trick victims into downloading and executing malicious attachments. In this case, password-protected archive attachments were deployed, with the password contained in the body of the email.

However, instead of a malicious script, an IMG file was extracted from the attachment. This file contained two additional files — an LNK file posing as a Word document and a DLL file, which turned out to be the Pikabot payload extracted straight from the email attachment:

Contrary to the JS file observed earlier, this chain maintained its straightforward approach even during the execution of the payload.

Once the victim is lured into executing the LNK file, rundll32.exe will be used to run the Pikabot DLL payload using an export parameter, “Limit”.

The content of the PDF file is disguised to look like a file hosted on Microsoft OneDrive to convince the recipient that the attachment is legitimate. Its primary purpose is to trick victims into accessing the PDF file content, which is a link to download malware.

Figure 7. Malicious PDF file disguised to look like a OneDrive attachment; note the misspelling of the word “Download”

When the user selects the download button, it will attempt to access a malicious URL, then proceed to download a malicious JS file (possibly similar to the previously mentioned JS file).

The delivery of the Pikabot payload via PDF attachment is a more recent development, emerging only in the fourth quarter of 2023.

We discovered an additional variant of the malicious downloader that employed obfuscation methods involving array usage and manipulation:

Figure 8. Elements of array “_0x40ee” containing download URLs and JS methods used for further execution

Nested functions employed array manipulation methods using “push” and “shift,” introducing complexity to the code’s structure and concealing its flow to hinder analysis. The presence of multiple download URLs, the dynamic creation of random directories using the mkdir command, and the use of Curl.exe, as observed in the preceding script, are encapsulated within yet another array.

The JavaScript will run multiple commands in an attempt to retrieve the malicious payload from different external websites using Curl.exe, subsequently storing it in a random directory created using mkdir.

Figure 9. Payload retrieval commands using curl.exe

The rundll32.exe file will continue to serve as the execution mechanism for the payload, incorporating its export parameter.

Figure 10. Payload execution using rundll32.exe

The Pikabot payload

We analyzed the DLL file extracted from the archive shown in Figure 6 and found it to be a sample of a 32-bit DLL file with 1515 exports. Calling its export function “Limit”, the file will decrypt and execute a shellcode that identifies if the process is being debugged by calling the Windows API NtQueryInformationProcess twice with the flag 0x7 (ProcessDebugPort) on the first call and 0x1F ProcessDebugFlags on the second call. This shellcode also decrypts another DLL file that it loads into memory and then eventually executes.

Figure 11. The shellcode calling the entry point of the decrypted DLL file

The decrypted DLL file will execute another anti-analysis routine by loading incorrect libraries and other junk to detect sandboxes. This routine seems to be copied from a certain GitHub article.

Security/Virtual Machine/Sandbox DLL files	Real DLL files	Fake DLL files
cmdvrt.32.dll	kernel32.dll	NetProjW.dll
cmdvrt.64.dll	networkexplorer.dll	Ghofr.dll
cuckoomon.dll	NlsData0000.dll	fg122.dll
pstorec.dll
avghookx.dll
avghooka.dll
snxhk.dll
api_log.dll
dir_watch.dll
wpespy.dll

^{Table 1. The DLL files loaded to detect sandboxes}

After performing the anti-analysis routine, the malware loads a set of PNG images from its resources section which contains an encrypted chunk of the core module and then decrypts them. Once the core payload has been decrypted, the Pikabot injector creates a suspended process (%System%\SearchProtocolHost) and injects the core module into it. The injector uses indirect system calls to hide its injection.

Figure 12. Loading the PNG images to build the core module

Resolving the necessary APIs is among the malware’s initial actions. Using a hash of each API (0xF4ACDD8, 0x03A5AF65E, and 0xB1D50DE4), Pikabot uses two functions to obtain the addresses of the three necessary APIs, GetProcAddress, LoadLibraryA, and HeapFree. This process is done by looking through kernel32.dll exports. The rest of the used APIs are resolved using GetProcAddress with decrypted strings. Other pertinent strings are also decrypted during runtime before they are used.

Figure 13. Harvesting the GetProcAddress and LoadLibrary API

The Pikabot core module checks the system’s languages and stops its execution if the language is any of the following:

Russian (Russia)
Ukrainian (Ukraine)

It will then ensure that only one instance of itself is running by creating a hard-coded mutex, {A77FC435-31B6-4687-902D-24153579C738}.

The next stage of the core module involves obtaining details about the victim’s system and forwarding them to a C&C server. The collected data uses a JSON format, with every data item using the wsprintfW function to fill its position. The stolen data will look like the image in Figure 13 but with the collected information before encryption:

Figure 14. Stolen information in JSON format before encryption

Pikabot seems to have a binary version and a campaign ID. The keys 0fwlm4g and v2HLF5WIO are present in the JSON data, with the latter seemingly being a campaign ID.

The malware creates a named pipe and uses it to temporarily store the additional information gathered by creating the following processes:

whoami.exe /all
ipconfig.exe /all
netstat.exe -aon

Each piece of information returned will be encrypted before the execution of the process.

A list of running processes on the system will also be gathered and encrypted by calling CreateToolHelp32Snapshot and listing processes through Process32First and Process32Next.

Once all the information is gathered, it will be sent to one of the following IP addresses appended with the specific URL, cervicobrachial/oIP7xH86DZ6hb?vermixUnintermixed=beatersVerdigrisy&backoff=9zFPSr:

70[.]34[.]209[.]101:13720
137[.]220[.]55[.]190:2223
139[.]180[.]216[.]25:2967
154[.]61[.]75[.]156:2078
154[.]92[.]19[.]139:2222
158[.]247[.]253[.]155:2225
172[.]233[.]156[.]100:13721

However, as of writing, these sites are inaccessible.

C&C servers and impact

As previously mentioned, Water Curupira conducts campaigns to drop backdoors such as Cobalt Strike, which leads to Black Basta ransomware attacks.It is this potential association with a sophisticated type of ransomware such as Black Basta that makes Pikabot campaigns particularly dangerous.

The threat actor also conducted several DarkGate spam campaigns and a small number of IcedID campaigns during the early weeks of the third quarter of 2023, but has since pivoted exclusively to Pikabot.

Lastly, we have observed distinct clusters of Cobalt Strike beacons with over 70 C&C domains leading to Black Basta, and which have been dropped via campaigns conducted by this threat actor.

Security recommendations

To avoid falling victim to various online threats such as phishing, malware, and scams, users should stay vigilant when it comes to emails they receive. The following are some best practices in user email security:

Always hover over embedded links with the pointer to learn where the link leads.
Check the sender’s identity. Unfamiliar email addresses, mismatched email and sender names, and spoofed company emails are signs that the sender has malicious intent.
If the email claims to come from a legitimate company, verify both the sender and the email content before downloading attachments or selecting embedded links.
Keep operating systems and all pieces of software updated with the latest patches.
Regularly back up important data to an external and secure location. This ensures that even if you fall victim to a phishing attack, you can restore your information.

A multilayered approach can help organizations guard possible entry points into their system (endpoint, email, web, and network). Security solutions can detect malicious components and suspicious behavior, which can help protect enterprises.

Trend Vision One™ provides multilayered protection and behavior detection, which helps block questionable behavior and tools before ransomware can do any damage.
Trend Cloud One™ – Workload Security protects systems against both known and unknown threats that exploit vulnerabilities. This protection is made possible through techniques such as virtual patching and machine learning. 
Trend Micro™ Deep Discovery™ Email Inspector employs custom sandboxing and advanced analysis techniques to effectively block malicious emails, including phishing emails that can serve as entry points for ransomware.
Trend Micro Apex One™ offers next-level automated threat detection and response against advanced concerns such as fileless threats and ransomware, ensuring the protection of endpoints.

Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)

The indicators of compromise for this blog entry can be found here.

Source :
https://www.trendmicro.com/it_it/research/24/a/a-look-into-pikabot-spam-wave-campaign.html

Trend Micro Defends FIFA World Cup from Cyber Threats

By: Jon Clay
January 11, 2024
Read time: 4 min (970 words)

Trend Micro collaborates with INTERPOL to defend FIFA World Cup by preventing attacks & mitigating risks to fight against the rising threat of cybercrime.

The prominent sporting event, FIFA World Cup, concluded in December 2022, and it generated a lot of online engagements from millions of fans around the world. The remarkable penalty-shootout in the finals was hailed the champion of the event and it was a trending topic in social media and headline news. Before and during this event, the online users were rejoicing and betting their favorite teams at the same time cybercriminals were taking advantage of the event to deploy spam and scams. With this, law enforcement, and in particular, INTERPOL, had to step up and tapped its gateway partners to be on the lookout and report to them the cyberthreats surrounding the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Trend Micro helped by proactively monitoring our global threat intelligence that revealed many malicious websites and scams before and during the event. For example, we saw websites disguised as ticketing systems of the 2022 FIFA World Cup and many survey scams. We shared this information to INTERPOL, helping in their goal of preventing attacks and mitigating the risk posed by the fraudsters of this event. Furthermore, through our global threat intelligence, we monitored the detections of malicious websites and files from the country of Qatar as INTERPOL worked closely with them to prevent cybercriminals and malicious actors in disrupting the sporting event.

Let’s look a bit deeper into the different cyber threats we discovered and shared with INTERPOL, besides blocking them for our customers.

Malicious Websites found throughout 2022

figure-1 — Figure 1: Trend Micro detections of malicious sites bearing keywords of “FIFA” and “World Cup”

figure-2 — Figure 2: Top affected countries of malicious sites related to FIFA World Cup

figure-3 — Figure 3: Timeline of FIFA World Cup Cyberthreats

Fake Ticketing System

It is no wonder due to the millions of potential victims that cybercriminals created dubious sites for selling tickets to the 2022 FIFA World Cup and trick users into inputting their personal information and credit card details in phishing attempts. We observed a few sites such as fifa-ticketssales[.]com and prime-ticketssales[.]com, both imitating the FIFA World Cup ticketing page and one showing an unbelievable number of sold tickets and remaining number of seats. We also identified contact details of scammers such as phone numbers and email addresses, some of these phone numbers were linked to other scam sites which is typical for scammers to reuse phone numbers.

figure-4 — Figure 4: Fake selling tickets of FIFA World Cup

figure-5 — Figure 5: Questionable number of tickets sold and used as lure to users

Fake Live Streaming

Cybercriminals created several fake streaming sites to lure victims to click on it. We identified around 40 unique domains that hosted fake streaming of FIFA World Cup. Example sites are watchvsportstv[.]com/2022-FIFA-WORLD-CUP-FINAL, sportshdlivetv[.]com/FIFA-WORLD-CUP-FINAL and istream2watch[.]stream/video/fifa-world-cup. From our analysis of these fake live streaming pages, the user will be redirected to websites with subscription forms or premium access requests and lure these users to subscribe and pay. Among the top countries detected were Brazil, Philippines, and Malaysia.

Survey Scams

Survey scams are relentless and scammers have been using them for a long time now. One we reported for example was https://www.theregister.com/2012/03/23/pinterest_attracts_scammers/. While the FIFA World Cup 2022 was ongoing, especially as we approached the semi-finals and final game, we observed malicious sites hosting survey scams that offered free 50GB mobile data. We identified more than 40 IP addresses or servers hosting the scam sites. Mostly were registered by Chinese names and hosted under Google LLC. Survey scams aim to trick users into obtaining free mobile data 50GB for a faster streaming of video or a free mobile network. It tricks users into inputting phone number and personal information thus in the end it will incur charges to the victims not knowing that it is a scam and may use their personal information for future spam or scams. Additionally, mostly it will redirect to fake dating sites and would require and harvest email address which can allow spammers to include them in their next wave of spam.

figure-6 — Figure 6: FIFA World Cup Survey scam that offers free mobile data

figure-7 — Figure 7: It requests for phone number which may lead to unwanted charges.

figure-8 — Figure 8: Displays the offer is successful, however, it requires the user to share it in WhatsApp, thus propagating this survey scam

figure-9 — Figure 9: Survey scam common web page title

Crypto scamming and malicious app

Based on external reports there were crypto scammers that leveraged the sporting event. We observed some scam sites such as cristiano-binance[.]xyz, binance[.]supply, football-blnance[.]com, football-binance[.]com, birance[.]online and birance[.]site that lure users to click on the button “Connect wallet” and will compromise the account. We also observed malicious app or Android RAT which was reported from https://twitter.com/ESETresearch/status/1596222440996311040 https://blog.cyble.com/2022/12/09/threat-actors-targeting-fans-amid-fifa-world-cup-fever/ and it was called “ Kora 442” with malicious site kora442[.]com. It lured users to download the app “kora442.apk” and promised live and exclusive broadcasts of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Example of hashes are 2299d4e4ba3e9c2643ee876bb45d6a976362ce3c, c66564b7f66f22ac9dd2e7a874c6874a5bb43a26, 9c904c821edaff095e833ee342aedfcaac337e04 and 60b1da6905857073c4c46e7e964699d9c7a74ec7. The package name is com.app.projectappkora and we detect it as AndroidOS_DummyColl.HRX. It steals information from the infected device and sends it to the Command &Control (C&C) server.

figure-10 — Figure 10: Fraudulent site potential hijacking of Crypto account

figure-11 — Figure 11: Malicious mobile app site with download request

Trend Micro’s mission has always been making the world safe for exchanging digital information and our support of INTERPOL and the 2022 FIFA World Cup gave us an opportunity to do exactly this. We’re proud of our continued support of INTERPOL, whether it is helping them with investigations of cybercriminals, or helping with a major worldwide sporting event. Our 34 years of experience in proactively identifying new threats and attacks and protecting users against them will continue in the future and we look forward to more engagements with law enforcement and organizations managing these events.

Source :
https://www.trendmicro.com/it_it/research/24/a/trend-micro-defends-fifa-world-cup-from-cyber-threats.html

Forward Momentum: Key Learnings From Trend Micro’s Security Predictions for 2024

By: Trend Micro
December 06, 2023
Read time: 4 min (971 words)

In this blog entry, we discuss predictions from Trend Micro’s team of security experts about the drivers of change that will figure prominently in 2024.

Digital transformations in the year ahead will be led by organizations pursuing a pioneering edge from the integration of emergent technologies. Advances in cloud technology, artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), and Web3 are poised to reshape the threat landscape, giving it new frontiers outside the purview of traditional defenses. However, these technological developments are only as efficient as the IT structures that support them. In 2024, business leaders will have to take measures to ensure that their organization’s systems and processes are equipped to stay in step with these modern solutions — not to mention the newfound security challenges that come with implementing and securing them.

As the new year draws closer, decision-makers will need to stay on top of key trends and priority areas in enterprise cybersecurity if they are to make room for growth and fend off any upcoming threats along their innovation journey. In this blog entry, we discuss predictions from Trend Micro’s team of security experts about the drivers of change that will figure prominently next year.

Misconfigurations will allow cybercriminals to scale up their attacks using cloud-native worms

Enterprises should come into 2024 prepared to ensure that their cloud resources can’t be turned against them in “living-off-the-cloud” attacks. Security teams need to closely monitor cloud environments in anticipation of cyberattacks that, tailored with worming capabilities, can also abuse cloud misconfigurations to gain a foothold in their targets and use rootkits for persistence. Cloud technologies like containerized applications are especially at risk as once infected, these can serve as a launchpad from which attackers can spread malicious payloads to other accounts and services. Given their ability to infect multiple containers at once, leverage vulnerabilities at scale, and automate various tasks like reconnaissance, exploitation, and achieving persistence, worms will endure as a prominent tactic among cybercriminals next year.

AI-generated media will give rise to more sophisticated social engineering scams

The gamut of use cases for generative AI will be a boon not only for enterprises but also for fraudsters seeking new ways of profiteering in 2024. Though they’re often behind the curve when it comes to new technologies, expect cybercriminals — swayed by the potential of lucrative pay — to incorporate AI-generated lures as part of their upgraded social engineering attacks. Notably, despite the shutdown of malicious large language model (LLM) tool WormGPT, similar tools could still emerge from the dark web. In the interim, cybercriminals will also continue to find other ways to circumvent the limitations of legitimate AI tools available online. In addition to their use of digital impostors that combine various AI-powered tools in emerging threats like virtual kidnapping, we predict that malicious actors will resort specifically to voice cloning in more targeted attacks.

The rising tide of data poisoning will be a scourge on ML models under training

Integrating machine-learning (ML) models into their operations promises to be a real game changer for businesses that are banking on the potential of these models to supercharge innovation and productivity. As we step into 2024, attempts to corrupt the training data of these models will start gaining ground. Threat actors will likely carry out these attacks by taking advantage of a model’s data-collection phase or by compromising its data storage or data pipeline infrastructure. Specialized models using focused datasets will also be more vulnerable to data poisoning than LLMs and generative AI models trained on extensive datasets, which will prompt security practitioners to pay closer attention to the risks associated with tapping into external resources for ML training data.

Attackers will take aim at software supply chains through their CI/CD pipelines

Software supply chains will have a target on their back in 2024, as cybercriminals will aim to infiltrate them through their continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) systems. For example, despite their use in expediting software development, components and code sourced from third-party libraries and containers are not without security risks, such as lacking thorough security audits, containing malicious or outdated components, or harboring overlooked vulnerabilities that could open the door to code-injection attacks. The call for developers to be wary of anything sourced from third parties will therefore remain relevant next year. Similarly, to safeguard the resilience of critical software development pipelines and weed out bugs in the coming year, DevOps practitioners should exercise caution and conduct routine scans of any external code they plan to use.

New extortion schemes and criminal gangs will be built around the blockchain

Whereas public blockchains are hardened by continuous cyberattacks, the same can’t be said of their permissioned counterparts because of the latter’s centralized nature. This lack of hard-won resilience will drive malicious actors to develop new extortion business models specific to private blockchains next year. In such extortion operations, criminals could use stolen keys to insert malicious data or modify existing records on the blockchain and then demand a payoff to stay mum on the attack. Threat actors can also strong-arm their victims into paying the ransom by wresting control of enough nodes to encrypt an entire private blockchain. As for criminal groups, we predict that 2024 will see the debut of the first criminal organizations running entirely on blockchains with smart contract or decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).

Countering future cyberthreats

Truly transformative technologies inevitably cross the threshold into standard business operations. But as they make that transition from novel to industry norm, newly adopted tools and solutions require additional layers of protection if they are to contribute to an enterprise’s expansion. So long as their security stance is anchored on preparedness and due diligence, organizations stand to reap the benefits from a growing IT stack without exposing themselves to unnecessary risks. To learn more about the key security considerations and challenges that lie ahead for organizations and end users, read our report, “Critical Scalability: Trend Micro Security Predictions for 2024.”

Source :
https://www.trendmicro.com/it_it/research/23/l/forward-momentum–key-learnings-from-trend-micro-s-security-pred.html

The Ultimate Guide to Password Best Practices: Guarding Your Digital Identity

Dirk Schrader
Published: November 14, 2023
Updated: November 24, 2023

In the wake of escalating cyber-attacks and data breaches, the ubiquitous advice of “don’t share your password” is no longer enough. Passwords remain the primary keys to our most important digital assets, so following password security best practices is more critical than ever. Whether you’re securing email, networks, or individual user accounts, following password best practices can help protect your sensitive information from cyber threats.

Read this guide to explore password best practices that should be implemented in every organization — and learn how to protect vulnerable information while adhering to better security strategies.

The Secrets of Strong Passwords

A strong password is your first line of defense when it comes to protecting your accounts and networks. Implement these standard password creation best practices when thinking about a new password:

Complexity: Ensure your passwords contain a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters. It should be noted that composition rules, such as lowercase, symbols, etc. are no longer recommended by NIST — so use at your own discretion.
Length: Longer passwords are generally stronger — and usually, length trumps complexity. Aim for at least 6-8 characters.
Unpredictability: Avoid using common phrases or patterns. Avoid using easily guessable information like birthdays or names. Instead, create unique strings that are difficult for hackers to guess.

Handpicked related content:

Combining these factors makes passwords harder to guess. For instance, if a password is 8 characters long and includes uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers and special characters, the total possible combinations would be (26 + 26 + 10 + 30)^8. This astronomical number of possibilities makes it exceedingly difficult for an attacker to guess the password.

Of course, given NIST’s updated guidance on passwords, the best approach to effective password security is using a password manager — this solution will not only help create and store your passwords, but it will automatically reject common, easy-to-guess passwords (those included in password dumps). Password managers greatly increase security against the following attack types.

Password-Guessing Attacks

Understanding the techniques that adversaries use to guess user passwords is essential for password security. Here are some of the key attacks to know about:

Brute-Force Attack

In a brute-force attack, an attacker systematically tries every possible combination of characters until the correct password is found. This method is time-consuming but can be effective if the password is weak.

Strong passwords help thwart brute force attacks because they increase the number of possible combinations an attacker must try, making it unlikely they can guess the password within a reasonable timeframe.

Dictionary Attack

A dictionary attack is a type of brute-force attack in which an adversary uses a list of common words, phrases and commonly used passwords to try to gain access.

Unique passwords are essential to thwarting dictionary attacks because attackers rely on common words and phrases. Using a password that isn’t a dictionary word or a known pattern significantly reduces the likelihood of being guessed. For example, the string “Xc78dW34aa12!” is not in the dictionary or on the list of commonly used passwords, making it much more secure than something generic like “password.”

Dictionary Attack with Character Variations

In some dictionary attacks, adversaries also use standard words but also try common character substitutions, such as replacing ‘a’ with ‘@’ or ‘e’ with ‘3’. For example, in addition to trying to log on using the word “password”, they might also try the variant “p@ssw0rd”.

Choosing complex and unpredictable passwords is necessary to thwart these attacks. By using unique combinations and avoiding easily guessable patterns, you make it challenging for attackers to guess your password.

How Password Managers Enhance Security

Password managers are indispensable for securely storing and organizing your passwords. These tools offer several key benefits:

Security: Password managers store passwords and enter them for you, eliminating the need for users to remember them all. All users need to remember is the master password for their password manager tool. Therefore, users can use long, complex passwords as recommended by best practices without worrying about forgetting their passwords or resorting to insecure practices like writing passwords down or reusing the same password for multiple sites or applications.
Password generation: Password managers can generate a strong and unique password for user accounts, eliminating the need for individuals to come up with them.
Encryption: Password managers encrypt password vaults, ensuring the safety of data — even if it is compromised.
Convenience: Password managers enable users to easily access passwords across multiple devices.

When selecting a password manager, it’s important to consider your organization’s specific needs, such as support for the platforms you use, price, ease of use and vendor breach history. Conduct research and read reviews to identify the one that best aligns with your organization’s requirements. Some noteworthy options include Netwrix Password Secure, LastPass, Dashlane, 1Password and Bitwarden.

How Multifactor Authentication (MFA) Adds an Extra Layer of Security

Multifactor authentication strengthens security by requiring two or more forms of verification before granting access. Specifically, you need to provide at least two of the following authentication factors:

Something you know: The classic example is your password.
Something you have: Usually this is a physical device like a smartphone or security token.
Something you are: This is biometric data like a fingerprint or facial recognition.

MFA renders a stolen password worthless, so implement it wherever possible.

Password Expiration Management

Password expiration policies play a crucial role in maintaining strong password security. Using a password manager that creates strong passwords also has an influence on password expiration. If you do not use a password manager yet, implement a strategy to check all passwords within your organization; with a rise in data breaches, password lists (like the known rockyou.txt and its variations) used in brute-force attacks are constantly growing. The website haveibeenpawned.com offers a service to check whether a certain password has been exposed. Here’s what users should know about password security best practices related to password expiration:

Follow policy guidelines: Adhere to your organization’s password expiration policy. This includes changing your password when prompted and selecting a new, strong password that meets the policy’s requirements.
Set reminders: If your organization doesn’t enforce password expiration via notifications, set your own reminders to change your password when it’s due. Regularly check your email or system notifications for prompts.
Avoid obvious patterns: When changing your password, refrain from using variations of the previous one or predictable patterns like “Password1,” “Password2” and so on.
Report suspicious activity: If you notice any suspicious account activity or unauthorized password change requests, report them immediately to your organization’s IT support service or helpdesk.
Be cautious with password reset emails: Best practice for good password security means being aware of scams. If you receive an unexpected email prompting you to reset your password, verify its authenticity. Phishing emails often impersonate legitimate organizations to steal your login credentials.

Password Security and Compliance

Compliance standards require password security and password management best practices as a means to safeguard data, maintain privacy and prevent unauthorized access. Here are a few of the laws that require password security:

HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act): HIPAA mandates that healthcare organizations implement safeguards to protect electronic protected health information (ePHI), which includes secure password practices.
PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard): PCI DSS requires organizations that handle payment card data on their website to implement strong access controls, including password security, to protect cardholder data.
GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation): GDPR requires organizations that store or process the data of EU residents to implement appropriate security measures to protect personal data. Password security is a fundamental aspect of data protection under GDPR.
FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act): FERPA governs the privacy of student education records. It includes requirements for securing access to these records, which involves password security.

Organizations subject to these compliance standards need to implement robust password policies and password security best practices. Failure to do so can result in steep fines and other penalties.

There are also voluntary frameworks that help organizations establish strong password policies. Two of the most well known are the following:

NIST Cybersecurity Framework: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) provides guidelines and recommendations, including password best practices, to enhance cybersecurity.
ISO 27001: ISO 27001 is an international standard for information security management systems (ISMSs). It includes requirements related to password management as part of its broader security framework.

Password Best Practices in Action

Now, let’s put these password security best practices into action with an example:

Suppose your name is John Doe and your birthday is December 10, 1985. Instead of using “JohnDoe121085” as your password (which is easily guessable), follow these good password practices:

Create a long, unique (and unguessable) password, such as: “M3an85DJ121!”
Store it in a trusted password manager.
Enable multi-factor authentication whenever available.

10 Password Best Practices

If you are looking to strengthen your security, follow these password best practices:

Remove hints or knowledge-based authentication: NIST recommends not using knowledge-based authentication (KBA), such as questions like “What town were you born in?” but instead, using something more secure, like two-factor authentication.
Encrypt passwords: Protect passwords with encryption both when they are stored and when they are transmitted over networks. This makes them useless to any hacker who manages to steal them.
Avoid clear text and reversible forms: Users and applications should never store passwords in clear text or any form that could easily be transformed into clear text. Ensure your password management routine does not use clear text (like in an XLS file).
Choose unique passwords for different accounts: Don’t use the same, or even variations, of the same passwords for different accounts. Try to come up with unique passwords for different accounts.
Use a password management: This can help select new passwords that meet security requirements, send reminders of upcoming password expiration, and help update passwords through a user-friendly interface.
Enforce strong password policies: Implement and enforce strong password policies that include minimum length and complexity requirements, along with a password history rule to prevent the reuse of previous passwords.
Update passwords when needed: You should be checking and – if the results indicate so – updating your passwords to minimize the risk of unauthorized access, especially after data breaches.
Monitor for suspicious activity: Continuously monitor your accounts for suspicious activity, including multiple failed login attempts, and implement account lockouts and alerts to mitigate threats.
Educate users: Conduct or partake in regular security awareness training to learn about password best practices, phishing threats, and the importance of maintaining strong, unique passwords for each account.
Implement password expiration policies: Enforce password expiration policies that require password changes at defined circumstances to enhance security.

How Netwrix Can Help

Adhering to password best practices is vital to safeguarding sensitive information and preventing unauthorized access.

Netwrix Password Secure provides advanced capabilities for monitoring password policies, detecting and responding to suspicious activity and ensuring compliance with industry regulations. With features such as real-time alerts, comprehensive reporting and a user-friendly interface, it empowers organizations to proactively identify and address password-related risks, enforce strong password policies, and maintain strong security across their IT environment.

Conclusion

In a world where cyber threats are constantly evolving, adhering to password management best practices is essential to safeguard your digital presence. First and foremost, create a strong and unique password for each system or application — remember that using a password manager makes it much easier to adhere to this critical best practice. In addition, implement multifactor authentication whenever possible to thwart any attacker who manages to steal your password. By following the guidelines, you can enjoy a safer online experience and protect your valuable digital assets.

Dirk Schrader

Dirk Schrader is a Resident CISO (EMEA) and VP of Security Research at Netwrix. A 25-year veteran in IT security with certifications as CISSP (ISC²) and CISM (ISACA), he works to advance cyber resilience as a modern approach to tackling cyber threats. Dirk has worked on cybersecurity projects around the globe, starting in technical and support roles at the beginning of his career and then moving into sales, marketing and product management positions at both large multinational corporations and small startups. He has published numerous articles about the need to address change and vulnerability management to achieve cyber resilience.

Source :
https://blog.netwrix.com/2023/11/15/password-best-practices/

The Best Network Monitoring Tools & Software

Marc Wilson UPDATED: October 20, 2023

The realm of Network Monitoring Tools, Software, and Vendors is Huge, to say the least. New software, tools, and utilities are being launched almost every year to compete in an ever-changing marketplace of IT monitoring, server monitoring, and system monitoring software.

I’ve test-driven, played with and implemented dozens during my career and this guide rounds up the best ones in an easy-to-read format and highlighted their main strengths and why I think they are in the top class of tools to use in your IT infrastructure and business.

Some of the features I am looking for are device discovery, uptime/downtime indicators, along with robust and thorough alerting systems (via email/SMS), NetFlow and SNMP Integration as well as considerations that are important with any software purchase such as ease of use and value for money.

The features from above were all major points of interest when evaluating software suites for this article and I’ll try to keep this article as updated as possible with new feature sets and improvements as they are released.

Here is our list of the top network monitoring tools:

Auvik – EDITOR’S CHOICE This cloud platform provides modules for LAN monitoring, Wi-Fi monitoring, and SaaS system monitoring. The network monitoring package discovers all devices, maps the network, and then implements automated performance tracking. Get a 14-day free trial.
Paessler PRTG Network Monitor – FREE TRIAL A collection of monitoring tools and many of those are network monitors. Runs on Windows Server. Start a 30-day free trial.
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor – FREE TRIAL The leading network monitoring system that uses SNMP to check on network device statuses. This monitoring tool includes autodiscovery that compiles an asset inventory and automatically draws up a network topology map. Runs on Windows Server. Start 30-day free trial.
Checkmk – FREE TRIAL This hybrid IT infrastructure monitoring package includes a comprehensive network monitor that provides device status tracking and traffic analysis functions via the integration with ntop. Available as a Linux install package, Docker package, appliance and cloud application available in cloud marketplaces. Get a 30-day free trial.
Datadog Network Monitoring – FREE TRIAL Provides good visibility over each of the components of your network and the connections between them – be it cloud, on-premises or hybrid environment. Troubleshoot infrastructure, apps and DNS issues effortlessly.
ManageEngine OpManager – FREE TRIAL An SNMP-based network monitor that has great network topology layout options, all based on an autodiscovery process. Installs on Windows Server and Linux.
NinjaOne RMM – FREE TRIAL This cloud-based system provides remote monitoring and management for managed service providers covering the systems of their clients.
Site24x7 Network Monitoring – FREE TRIAL A cloud-based monitoring system for networks, servers, and applications. This tool monitors both physical and virtual resources.
Atera – FREE TRIAL A cloud-based package of remote monitoring and management tools that include automated network monitoring and a network mapping utility.
ManageEngine RMM Central – FREE TRIAL A powerful asset and network management that includes patching, remote access, and automated remediation.

The Top Network Monitoring Tools and Software

Below you’ll find an updated list of the Latest Tools & Software to ensure your network is continuously tracked and monitored at all times of the day to ensure the highest up-times possible. Most of them have free Downloads or Trials to get you started for 15 to 30 days to ensure it meets your requirements.

What should you look for in network monitoring tools?

We reviewed the market for network monitoring software and analyzed the tools based on the following criteria:

An automated service that can perform network monitoring unattended
A device discovery routine that automatically creates an asset inventory
A network mapping service that shows live statuses of all devices
Alerts for when problems arise
The ability to communicate with network devices through SNMP
A free trial or a demo for a no-cost assessment
Value for money in a package that provides monitoring for all network devices at a reasonable price

With these selection criteria in mind, we have defined a shortlist of suitable network monitoring tools for all operating systems.

1. Auvik – FREE TRIAL

Auvik is a SaaS platform that offers a network discovery and mapping system that automates enrolment and then continues to operate in order to spot changes in network infrastructure. This system is able to centralize and unify the monitoring of multiple sites.

Key Features:

A SaaS package that includes processing power and storage space for system logs as well as the monitoring software
Centralizes the monitoring of networks on multiple sites
Watches over network device statuses
Offers two plans: Essential and Performance
Network traffic analysis included in the higher plan
Monitors virtual LANs as well as physical networks
Autodiscovery service
Network mapping
Alerts for automated monitoring
Integrations with third-party complimentary systems

Why do we recommend it?

Auvik is a cloud-based network monitoring system. It reaches into your network, identifies all connected devices, and then creates a map. While SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor also performs those tasks, Auvik is a much lighter tool that you don’t have to host yourself and you don’t need deep technical knowledge to watch over a network with this automated system.

Auvik’s network monitoring system is automated, thanks to its system of thresholds. The service includes out-of-the-box thresholds that are placed on most of the metrics that the network monitor tracks. It is also possible to create custom thresholds.

Once the monitoring service is operating, if any of the thresholds are crossed, the system raises an alert. This mechanism allows technicians to get on with other tasks, knowing that the thresholds give them time to avert system performance problems that would be noticeable to users.

Network management tools that are included in the Auvik package include configuration management to standardize the settings of network devices and prevent unauthorized changes.

The processing power for Auvik is provided by the service’s cloud servers. However, the system requires collectors to be installed on each monitored site. This software runs on Windows Server and Ubuntu Linux. It is also possible to run the collector on a VM. Wherever the collector is located, the system manager still accesses the service’s console, which is based on the Auvik server, through any standard Web browser.

Who is it recommended for?

Smaller businesses that don’t have a team to support IT would benefit from Auvik. It needs no software maintenance and the system provides automated alerts when issues arise, so your few IT staff can get on with supporting other resources while Auvik looks after the network.

PROS:

A specialized network monitoring tool
Additional network management utilities
Configuration management included
A cloud-based service that is accessible from anywhere through any standard Web browser
Data collectors for Windows Server and Ubuntu Linux

CONS:

The system isn’t expandable with any other Auvik modules

Auvik doesn’t publish its prices by you can access a 14-day free trial.

EDITOR’S CHOICE

Auvik is our top pick for a network monitoring tool because it is a hosted SaaS package that provides all of your network monitoring needs without you needing to maintain the software. The Auvik platform installs an agent on your site and then sets itself up by scanning the network and identifying all devices. The inventory that this system generates gives you details of all of your equipment and provides a basis for network topology maps. Repeated checks on the network gather performance statistics and if any metric crosses a threshold, the tool will generate an alert. You can centralize the monitoring of multiple sites with this service.

Download: Get a 14-day FREE Trial

Official Site: https://www.auvik.com/#trial

OS: Cloud-based

2. PRTG Network Monitor from Paessler – FREE TRIAL

PRTG Network Monitor software is commonly known for its advanced infrastructure management capabilities. All devices, systems, traffic, and applications in your network can be easily displayed in a hierarchical view that summarizes performance and alerts. PRTG monitors the entire IT infrastructure using technology such as SNMP, WMI, SSH, Flows/Packet Sniffing, HTTP requests, REST APIs, Pings, SQL, and a lot more.

Key Features:

Autodiscovery that creates and maintains a device inventory
Live network topology maps are available in a range of formats
Monitoring for wireless networks as well as LANs
Multi-site monitoring capabilities
SNMP sensors to gather device health information
Ping to check on device availability
Optional extra sensors to monitor servers and applications
System-wide status overviews and drill-down paths for individual device details
A protocol analyzer to identify high-traffic applications
A packet sniffer to collect packet headers for analysis
Color-coded graphs of live data in the system dashboard
Capacity planning support
Alerts on device problems, resource shortages, and performance issues
Notifications generated from alerts that can be sent out by email or SMS
Available for installation on Windows Server or as a hosted cloud service

Why do we recommend it?

Paessler PRTG Network Monitor is a very flexible package. Not only does it monitor networks, but it can also monitor endpoints and applications. The PRTG system will discover and map your network, creating a network inventory, which is the basis for automated monitoring. You put together your ideal monitoring system by choosing which sensors to turn on. You pay for an allowance of sensors.

It is one of the best choices for organizations with low experience in network monitoring software. The user interface is really powerful and very easy to use.

A very particular feature of PRTG is its ability to monitor devices in the data center with a mobile app. A QR code that corresponds to the sensor is printed out and attached to the physical hardware. The mobile app is used to scan the code and a summary of the device is displayed on the mobile screen.

In summary, Paessler PRTG is a flexible package of sensors that you can tailor to your own needs by deciding which monitors to activate. The SNMP-based network performance monitoring routines include an autodiscovery system that generates a network asset inventory and topology maps. You can also activate traffic monitoring features that can communicate with switches through NetFlow, sFlow, J-Flow, and IPFIX. QoS and NBAR features enable you to keep your time-sensitive applications working properly.

Who is it recommended for?

PRTG is available in a Free edition, which is limited to 100 sensors. This is probably enough to support a small network. Mid-sized and large organizations should be interested in paying for larger allowances of sensors. The tool can even monitor multiple sites from one location.

PROS:

Uses a combination of packet sniffing, WMI, and SNMP to report network performance data
Fully customizable dashboard is great for both lone administrators as well as NOC teams
Drag and drop editor makes it easy to build custom views and reports
Supports a wide range of alert mediums such as SMS, email, and third-party integrations into platforms like Slack
Each sensor is specifically designed to monitor each application, for example, there are prebuilt sensors whose specific purpose is to capture and monitor VoIP activity
Supports a freeware version

CONS:

Is a very comprehensive platform with many features and moving parts that require time to learn

PRTG has a very flexible pricing plan, to get an idea visit their official pricing webpage below. It is free to use for up to 50 sensors. Beyond that you get a 30-day free trial to figure out your network requirements.

Paessler PRTGDownload a 30-day FREE Trial

3. SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor – FREE TRIAL

SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor with Free Trial

SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor is easy to setup and can be ready in no time. The tool automatically discovers network devices and deploys within an hour. Its simple approach to oversee an entire network makes it one of the easiest to use and most intuitive user interfaces.

Key Features:

Automatically Network Discovery and Scanning for Wired and Wifi Computers and Devices
Support for Wide Array of OEM Vendors
Forecast and Capacity Planning
Quickly Pinpoint Issues with Network Performance with NetPath™ Critical Path visualization feature
Easy to Use Performance Dashboard to Analyze Critical Data points and paths across your network
Robust Alerting System with options for Simple/Complex Triggers
Monitor CISCO ASA networks with their New Network Insight™ for CISCO ASA
Monitor ACL‘s, VPN, Interface and Monitor on your Cisco ASA
Monitor Firewall rules through Firewall Rules Browser
Hop by Hop Analysis of Critical Network Paths and Components
Automatically Discover Networks and Map them along with Topology Views
Manage, Monitor and Analyze Wifi Networks within the Dashboard
Create HeatMaps of Wifi Networks to pin-point Wifi Dead Spots
Monitor Hardware Health of all Servers, Firewalls, Routers, Switches, Desktops, laptops and more
Real-Time Network and Netflow Monitoring for Critical Network Components and Devices

Why do we recommend it?

SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor is the leading network monitoring tool in the world and this is the system that the other monitor providers are chasing. Like many other network monitors, this system uses the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to gather reports on network devices. The strength of SolarWinds lies in the deep technical knowledge of its support advisors, which many other providers lack.

The product is highly customizable and the interface is easy to manage and change very quickly. You can customize the web-based performance dashboards, charts, and views. You can design a tailored topology for your entire network infrastructure. You can also create customized dependency-aware intelligent alerts and much more.

The software is sold by separate modules based on what you use. SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor Price starts from $1,995 and is a one-time license including 1st-year maintenance.

SolarWinds NPM has an Extensive Feature list that make it One of the Best Choices for Network Monitoring Solutions

SolarWinds NPM is able to track the performance of networks autonomously through the use of SNMP procedures, producing alerts when problems arise. Alerts are generated if performance dips and also in response to emergency notifications sent out by device agents. This system means that technicians don’t have to watch the monitoring screen all the time because they know that they will be drawn back to fix problems by an email or SMS notification.

SolarWinds NPM - NetPath Screenshot — NetPath Screenshot

Who is it recommended for?

SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor is an extensive network monitoring system and it is probably over-engineered for use by a small business. Mid-sized and large companies would benefit from using this tool.

PROS:

Supports auto-discovery that builds network topology maps and inventory lists in real-time based on devices that enter the network
Has some of the best alerting features that balance effectiveness with ease of use
Supports both SNMP monitoring as well as packet analysis, giving you more control over monitoring than similar tools
Uses drag and drop widgets to customize the look and feel of the dashboard
Tons of pre-configured templates, reports, and dashboard views

CONS:

This is a feature-rich enterprise tool designed for sysadmin, non-technical users may some features overwhelming

You can start with a 30-day free trial.

SolarWinds NPMDownload a 30-day FREE Trial!

4. Checkmk – FREE TRIAL

Checkmk is an IT asset monitoring package that has the ability to watch over networks, servers, services, and applications. The network monitoring facilities in this package provide both network device status tracking and network traffic monitoring.

Features of this package include:

Device discovery that cycles continuously, spotting new devices and removing retired equipment
Creation of a network inventory
Registration of switches, routers, firewalls, and other network devices
Creation of a network topology map
Continuous device status monitoring with SNMP
SNMP feature report focus for small businesses
Performance thresholds with alerts
Wireless network monitoring
Protocol analysis
Traffic throughput statistics per link
Switch port monitoring
Gateway transmission speed tracking
Network traffic data extracted with ntop
Can monitor a multi-vendor environment

Why do we recommend it?

The Checkmk combination of network device monitoring and traffic monitoring in one tool is rare. Most network monitoring service creators split those two functions so that you have to buy two separate packages. The Checkmk system also gives you application and server monitoring along with the network monitoring service.

The Checkmk system is easy to set up, thanks to its autodiscovery mechanism. This is based on SNMP. The program will act as an SNMP Manager, send out a broadcast requesting reports from device agents, and then compile the results into an inventory. The agent is the Checkmk package itself if you choose to install the Linux version or it is embedded on a device if you go for the hardware option. If you choose the Checkmk Cloud SaaS option, that platform will install an agent on one of your computers.

The SNMP Manager constantly re-polls for device reports and the values in these appear in the Checkmk device monitoring screen. The platform also updates its network inventory according to the data sent back by device agents in each request/response round. The dashboard also generates a network topology map from information in the inventory. So, that map updates whenever the inventory changes.

While gathering information through SNMP, the tool also scans the headings of passing packets on the network to compile traffic statistics. Basically, the tool provides a packet count which enables it to quickly calculate a traffic throughput rate. Data can also be segmented per protocol, according to the TCP port number in each header.

Who is it recommended for?

Checkmk has a very wide appeal because of its three editions. Checkmk Raw is free and will appeal to small businesses. This is an adaptation of Nagios Core. The paid version of the system is called Checkmk Enterprise and that is designed for mid-sized and large businesses. Checkmk Cloud is a SaaS option.

PROS:

Provides both network device monitoring and traffic tracking
Automatically discovers devices and creates a network inventory
Free version available
Options for on-premises or SaaS delivery
Monitors wireless networks as well as LANs
Available for installation on Linux or as an appliance

CONS:

Provides a lot of screens to look through

Start a 30-day free trial.

CheckmkStart 30-day FREE Trial

5. Datadog Network Monitoring – FREE TRIAL

Datadog Network Monitoring supervises the performance of network devices. The service is a cloud-based system that is able to explore a network and detect all connected devices. With the information from this research, the network monitor will create an asset inventory and draw up a network topology map. This procedure means that the system performs its own setup routines.

Features of this package include:

Monitors networks anywhere, including remote sites
Joins together on-premises and cloud-based resource monitoring
Integrates with other Datadog modules, such as log management
Offers an overview of all network performance and drill-down details of each device
Facilitates troubleshooting by identifying performance dependencies
Includes DNS server monitoring
Gathers SNMP device reports
Blends performance data from many information sources
Includes data flow monitoring
Offers tag-based packet analysis utilities in the dashboard
Integrates protocol analyzers
Performance threshold baselining based on machine learning
Alerts for warnings over evolving performance issues
Packages offer network performance monitoring tools (traffic analysis) or network device monitoring
Subscription charges with no startup costs

Why do we recommend it?

Datadog Network Monitoring services are split into two modules that are part of a cloud platform of many system monitoring and management tools. These two packages are called Network Performance Monitoring and Network Device Monitoring, which are both subscription services. While the device monitoring package works through SNMP, the performance monitor measures network traffic levels.

The autodiscovery process is ongoing, so it spots any changes you make to your network and instantly updates the inventory and the topology map. The service can also identify virtual systems and extend monitoring of links out to cloud resources.

Datadog Network Monitoring provides end-to-end visibility of all connections, which are also correlated with performance issues highlighted in log messages. The dashboard for the system is resident in the cloud and accessed through any standard browser. This centralizes network performance data from many sources and covers the entire network, link by link and end to end.

You can create custom graphs, metrics, and alerts in an instant, and the software can adjust them dynamically based on different conditions. Datadog prices start from free (up to five hosts), Pro $15/per host, per month and Enterprise $23 /per host, per month.

Who is it recommended for?

The two Datadog network monitoring packages are very easy to sign up for. They work well together to get a complete view of network activities. The pair will discover all of the devices on your network and map them, then startup automated monitoring. These are very easy-to-use systems that are suitable for use by any size of business.

PROS:

Has one of the most intuitive interfaces among other network monitoring tools
Cloud-based SaaS product allows monitoring with no server deployments or onboarding costs
Can monitor both internally and externally giving network admins a holistic view of network performance and accessibility
Supports auto-discovery that builds network topology maps on the fly
Changes made to the network are reflected in near real-time
Allows businesses to scale their monitoring efforts reliably through flexible pricing options

CONS:

Would like to see a longer trial period for testing

Start a 14-day free trial.

DatadogStart a 14-day FREE Trial

6. ManageEngine OpManager – FREE TRIAL

ManageEngine OpManager Linux Network Monitoring

At its core, ManageEngine OpManager is infrastructure management, network monitoring, and application performance management “APM” (with APM plug-in) software.

Key Features:

Includes server monitoring as well as network monitoring
Autodiscovery function for automatic network inventory assembly
Constant checks on device availability
A range of network topology map options
Automated network mapping
Performs an SNMP manager role, constantly polling for device health statuses
Receives SNMP Traps and generates alerts when device problems arise
Implements performance thresholds and identifies system problems
Watches over resource availability
Customizable dashboard with color-coded dials and graphs of live data
Forwards alerts to individuals by email or SMS
Available for Windows Server and Linux
Can be enhanced by an application performance monitor to create a full stack supervisory system
Free version available
Distributed version to supervise multiple sites from one central location

Why do we recommend it?

ManageEngine OpManager is probably the biggest threat to SolarWind’s leading position. This package monitors servers as well as networks. This makes it a great system for monitoring virtualizations.

When it comes to network management tools, this product is well balanced when it comes to monitoring and analysis features.

The solution can manage your network, servers, network configuration, and fault & performance; It can also analyze your network traffic. To run Manage Engine OpManager, it must be installed on-premises.

A highlight of this product is that it comes with pre-configured network monitor device templates. These contain pre-defined monitoring parameters and intervals for specific device types.
The essential edition product can be purchased for $595 which allows up to 25 devices.

Who is it recommended for?

A nice feature of OpManager is that it is available for Linux as well as Windows Server for on-premises installation and it can also be used as a service on AWS or Azure for businesses that don’t want to run their own servers. The pricing for this package is very accessible for mid-sized and large businesses. Small enterprises with simple networks should use the Free edition, which is limited to covering a network with three connected devices.

PROS:

Designed to work right away, features over 200 customizable widgets to build unique dashboards and reports
Leverages autodiscovery to find, inventory, and map new devices
Uses intelligent alerting to reduce false positives and eliminate alert fatigue across larger networks
Supports email, SMS, and webhook for numerous alerting channels
Integrates well in the ManageEngine ecosystem with their other products

CONS:

Is a feature-rich tool that will require a time investment to properly learn

Start 30-day free trial.

ManageEngine OpManagerDownload a 30-day FREE Trial

7. NinjaOne RMM – FREE TRIAL

NinjaOne is a remote monitoring and management (RMM) package for managed service providers (MSPs). The system reaches out to each remote network through the installation of an agent on one of its endpoints. The agent acts as an SNMP Manager.

Key Features:

Based on the Simple Network Management Protocol
SNMP v1, 2, and 3
Device discovery and inventory creation
Continuous status polling for network devices and endpoints
Live traffic data with NetFlow, IPFIX, J-Flow, and sFlow
Traffic throughput graphs
Customizable detail display
Performance graphs
Switch port mapper
Device availability checks
Syslog processing for device status reports
Customizable alerts
Notifications by SMS or email
Related endpoint monitoring and management

Why do we recommend it?

NinjaOne RMM enables each technician to support multiple networks simultaneously. The alerting mechanism in the network monitoring service means that you can assume that everything is working fine on a client’s system unless you receive a notification otherwise. The network tracking service sets itself up automatically with a discovery routine.

The full NinjaOne RMM package provides a full suite of tools for administering a client’s system. The network monitoring service is part of that bundle along with endpoint monitoring and patch management.

The Ninja One system onboards a new client site automatically through a discovery service that creates both hardware and software inventories. The data for each client is kept separate in a subaccount. Technicians that need access to that client’s system for investigation need to be set up with credentials.

The network monitoring system provides both device status tracking and network traffic analysis. The service provides notifications if a dive goes offline or throughput drops.

Who is it recommended for?

This service is built with a multi-tenant architecture for use by managed service providers. However, IT departments can also use the system to manage their own networks and endpoints. The service is particularly suitable for simultaneously monitoring multiple sites. The console for the RMM is based in the cloud and accessed through any standard Web browser.

PROS:

A cloud-based package that onboards sites through the installation of an agent
Auto discovery for network devices and endpoints
Network device status monitoring
Network traffic analysis
Syslog message scanning

CONS:

No price list

NinjaOne doesn’t publish a price list so you start your buyer’s journey by accessing a 14-day free trial.

NinjaOneStart a 14-day FREE Trial

8. Site24x7 Network Monitoring – FREE TRIAL

Site24x7 is a monitoring service that covers networks, servers, and applications. The network monitoring service in this package starts off by exploring the network for connected devices. IT logs its findings in a network inventory and draws up a network topology map.

Key Features:

A hosted cloud-based service that includes CPU time and performance data storage space
Can unify the monitoring of networks on site all over the world
Uses SNMP to check on device health statuses
Gives alerts on resource shortages, performance issues, and device problems
Generates notifications to forward alerts by email or SMS
Root cause analysis features
Autodiscovery for a constantly updated network device inventory
Automatic network topology mapping
Includes internet performance monitoring for utilities such as VPNs
Specialized monitoring routines for storage clusters
Monitors boundary and edge services, such as load balancers
Offers overview and detail screens showing the performance of the entire network and also individual devices
Includes network traffic flow monitoring
Facilities for capacity planning and bottleneck identification
Integrates with application monitoring services to create a full stack service

Why do we recommend it?

Site24x7 Network Monitoring is part of a platform that is very similar to Datadog. A difference lies in the number of modules that Site24x7 offers – it has far fewer than Datadog. Site24x7 bundles its modules into packages with almost all plans providing monitoring for networks, servers, services, applications, and websites. Site24x7 was originally developed to be a SaaS plan for ManageEngine but then was split out into a separate brand, so there is very solid expertise behind this platform.

The Network Monitor uses procedures from the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to poll devices every minute for status reports. Any changes in the network infrastructure that are revealed by these responses update the inventory and topology map.

The results of the device responses are interpreted into live data in the dashboard of the monitor. The dashboard is accessed through any standard browser and its screens can be customized by the user.

The SNMP system empowers device agents to send out a warning without waiting for a request if it detects a problem with the device that it is monitoring. Site24x7 Infrastructure catches these messages, which are called Traps, and generates an alert. This alert can be forwarded to technicians by SMS, email, voice call, or instant messaging post.

The Network Monitor also has a traffic analysis function. This extracts throughput figures from switches and routers and displays data flow information in the system dashboard. This data can also be used for capacity planning.

Who is it recommended for?

The plans for Site24x7 are very reasonably priced, which makes them accessible to businesses of all sizes. Setup for the system is automated and much of the ongoing monitoring processes are carried out without any manual intervention.

PROS:

One of the most holistic monitoring tools available, supporting networks, infrastructure, and real user monitoring in a single platform
Uses real-time data to discover devices and build charts, network maps, and inventory reports
Is one of the most user-friendly network monitoring tools available
User monitoring can help bridge the gap between technical issues, user behavior, and business metrics
Supports a freeware version for testing

CONS:

Is a very detailed platform that will require time to fully learn all of its features and options

Site24x7 costs $9 per month when paid annually. It is available for a free trial.

Site24x7Get the FREE Trial

9. Atera – FREE TRIAL

Atera is a package software that was built for managed service providers. It is a SaaS platform and it includes professional service automation (PSA) and remote monitoring and management (RMM) systems.

Why do we recommend it?

Atera is a package of tools for managed service providers (MSPs). Alongside remote network monitoring capabilities, this package provides automated monitoring services for all IT operations. The package also includes some system management tools, such as a patch manager. Finally, the Atera platform offers Professional Services Automation (PSA) tools to help the managers of MSPs to run their businesses.

The network monitoring system operates remotely through an agent that installs on Windows Server. The agent enables the service to scour the network and identify all of the network devices that run it. This is performed using SNMP, with the agent acting as the SNMP Manager.

The SNMP system enables the agent to spot Traps, which warn of device problems. These are sent to the Atera network monitoring dashboard, where they appear as alerts. Atera offers an automated topology mapping service, but this is an add-on to the main subscription packages.

Who is it recommended for?

Atera charges for its platform per technician, so it is very affordable for MSPs of all sizes. This extends to sole technicians operating on a contract basis and possibly fielding many small business clients.

PROS:

Remote automated network discovery
Network performance monitoring with SNMP
Alerts for notified device problems
Also includes remote system management tools
Scalable pricing with three plan levels
30-day free trial

CONS:

Network mapping costs extra

You can start a 30-day free trial.

AteraStart 30-day Free Trial

10. ManageEngine RMM Central – FREE TRIAL

ManageEngine RMM Central provides sysadmins with everything they need to support their network. Automated asset discovery makes deployment simple, allowing you to collect all devices on your network by the end of the day.

Key Features

Automated network monitoring and asset discovery
Built-in remote access with various troubleshooting tools
Flexible alert integrations

With network and asset metrics collected, administrators can quickly see critical insights automatically generated by the platform. With over 100 automated reports it’s easy to see exactly where your bottlenecks are and what endpoints are having trouble.

Administrators can configure their own SLAs with various automated alert options and even pair those alerts with other automation that integrate into their helpdesk workflow.

PROS:

Uses a combination of packet sniffing, WMI, and SNMP to report network performance data
Fully customizable dashboard is great for both lone administrators as well as NOC teams
Drag and drop editor makes it easy to build custom views and reports
Supports a wide range of alert mediums such as SMS, email, and third-party integrations into platforms like Slack

CONS:

Is a very comprehensive platform with many features and moving parts that require time to learn

Start a 30-day free trial.

source :
https://www.pcwdld.com/network-monitoring-tools-software/

Know Your Malware Part Two – Hacky Obfuscation Techniques

Ram Gall
November 1, 2023

In the first post in this series, we covered common PHP encoding techniques and how they’re used by malware to hide from security analysts and scanners. In today’s post, we’re going to dive a little bit deeper into other obfuscation techniques that make use of other features available in PHP.

Obfuscation Redux

In the first post in this series, we defined Obfuscation as the process of concealing the purpose or functionality of code or data so that it evades detection and is more difficult for a human or security software to analyze, but still fulfills its intended purpose. One of the main contributing factors to the popularity of PHP is its ease of use, but the same functionality that makes it easy to use also makes it easy to abuse, often in ways that were never intended.

The techniques covered in this post are often simpler and “hackier” than the ones listed in the previous article, and most of them are less reliable as indicators of malicious activity individually, as several of them typically need to be combined in order to achieve sufficient obfuscation. These techniques are also often easier for a human analyst to spot, but they are also more difficult to detect using scanning tools due to the wide variety of permutations available. Such simpler obfuscation methods can also be creatively combined with encoding techniques, granting malware authors a formidable array of tactics to avoid detection.

While it is not practical to cover every possible technique in active use, this article will detail the more commonly found methods, and help illustrate the wide range of possibilities when decoding obfuscated malware. Several of the methods we will cover today, such as comment abuse, can be combined into almost infinite variations with minute changes, thus rendering them completely undetectable to traditional hash-based malware scanning and even partially slowing down regular expression-based scanning of the type used by Wordfence.

Fortunately, while these methods do make analysis more difficult, and can slow down scanning, their presence in certain combinations is a strong signal of malicious activity, and the malware detection signatures used by the Wordfence plugin and Wordfence CLI are tuned to detect these combinations with astoundingly few false positives. Wordfence CLI in particular is useful in these cases, as it is highly performant and can run multithreaded jobs, compensating for any speed penalties imposed by these techniques.

Comment Abuse

PHP has several methods of adding code comments that you may already be familiar with. Well-commented code is considered a best practice, as it makes it much easier to maintain software and pay off technical debt, but comments can also be used for illicit purposes.

PHP uses three styles of comments:

//, denoting a single line comment that ends on the next line.

#, likewise a single line comment that ends on the next line, though this is less common than ‘//’.

/*, the beginning of a multiline comment, which can only closed with */.

Multiline comments are particularly useful to malware authors because they are ignored by PHP, and do not have to extend over multiple lines. This means that an attacker can “break up” their code to evade scanners using comments. For instance, the following code block prints “Hello, World!”:

1234	`<?phpecho/blah/"Hello, World!"/blah/;`

While this is a very basic example, more complicated examples can be found in real malware, such as the following snippet, which makes use of several additional obfuscation techniques, including octal escape sequences and invisible null bytes:

12 ,<?php function/*ti*/ed_ixpn(){ echo/* o_lpl*/20508; }$disdcrxh_/* ohgvr*/= 'disdcrxh_'/* _jnsm */^ '';$zggkgqda= "\146". "\151". $disdcrxh_(361-253) ./* qts */"e"."_".$disdcrxh_(564-452)/* rxw*/. $disdcrxh_(1006-889) . "t".$disdcrxh_(952-857) ./* w */"c".$disdcrxh_(111) ./*fcup */"n".$disdcrxh_(162-46)/* djtrl */./* pwdn */"e".$disdcrxh_(407-297) . $disdcrxh_(854-738) . $disdcrxh_(115);

While we’re not going to fully analyze this malware today, it already presents problems for many scanners. For instance, a scanner searching for the very first line of code, function ed_ixpn() would fail to find it because of the comments. While detection using regular expressions, such as the ones used by the Wordfence Plugin scanner and Wordfence CLI are capable of detecting malware of this type, it still imposes a performance penalty on detection due to the enormous number of possible variations.

Concatenation Catastrophe

PHP makes string concatenation very simple via the dot . operator. This allows programmers to join two separate strings with minimal hassle. For instance, the following code outputs “Hello, World!”:

1	`<?php` `echo“He”.”llo,”.”wor”.”ld”;`

There are a large number of legitimate use cases for string concatenation, so it’s generally only an indicator of malicious activity when combined with several other obfuscation techniques. The malware sample we shared earlier provides a good example of this, with octal encoding concatenated with the return values of various functions, which we’ll get to in a later section.

Index Fun

PHP, like most languages, stores text strings as arrays of characters, each with a defined position or index. This makes it possible to assemble arbitrary commands and data from a string containing the required characters, using the array index of each character and the concatenation operator. For instance, the following code prints “Hello, World!”:

1234	`<?php$string="Wow, what a cool Helpful research device!";echo$string[17].$string[18].$string[19].$string[19].$string[1].$string[3].$string[4].$string[0].$string[1].$string[25].$string[15].$string[34].$string[40];`

PHP arrays start with an index of 0, meaning that $string[0] in the example above would be “W”, the first letter of “Wow, what a cool Helpful research device!”. By concatenating letters from different parts of that text string, it’s possible to assemble an entirely different text string.

This method can be very helpful for hiding the underlying text being assembled from human researchers and security scan tools alike, and though it does have the occasional legitimate use in selecting chunks of text, when used extensively it is a strong indicator of malicious activity, though it typically needs to be combined with additional techniques such as evaluating the resulting string or passing it to a function.

Math, Not Even Once

PHP allows mathematical operations within other functionality. One of the interesting features in the malware snippet – $disdcrxh_(564-452) – demonstrates this, with it turning out as $disdcrxh_112 due to the subtraction of 564 and 452 in the parenthesis. This functionality can likewise be combined with the string index technique mentioned above. For example, the following code prints out “Hello, World!”:

123	`<?php$string="Wow, what a cool Helpful research device!";echo$string[(15+2)].$string[(20-2)].$string[(10+9)].$string[(29-10)].$string[(5-4)].$string[(1+2)].$string[(2+2)].$string[(5-5)].$string[(12-11)].$string[(55)].$string[(53)].$string[34].$string[(160/4)];`

This adds an additional obfuscation layer that can make it even more difficult to determine the code’s functionality without executing it. However, it is incredibly rare for this type of code to be used legitimately, so the presence of this technique is typically an indicator of malicious activity.

String Reversals

One of the most basic functions in PHP’s text string manipulation libraries is strrev, which is used to reverse strings of text. For instance, the following code snippet prints out “Hello, World!”:

1	`<?php` `echostrrev("!dlroW ,olleH");`

While not particularly effective at obfuscation on its own, it can be combined with the techniques in this article as well as nearly all of the techniques in our previous article on encoding to make it even more difficult to decode malicious functionality. While it has a number of legitimate use cases, the presence of strrev alongside two or more additional encoding or obfuscation techniques is often a reliable indicator of compromise.

Variable, Dynamic, and Anonymous Functions

PHP has the ability to use variables to store function names as variables and then invoke those functions using the variable. This is widely used by legitimate software, but can also be combined with several other techniques, such as string concatenation, in which case it is often an indicator of malicious activity. For instance, the following code snippet prints out “Hello, World!”:

123	`<?php` `$hello='pri'.'ntf';$string='Hello, World!';$hello($string);`

This can also be combined with dynamic function invocation using methods such as call_user_func, which accepts a function for its first parameter and any arguments to be passed to that function in subsequent parameters. As with variable function names, this is widely used in legitimate code, but it can still make analysis more difficult, especially for automated tools looking primarily for more basic function call syntax. For example, the following code snippet prints out “Hello, World!”:

1234	`<?php` `$hello='pri'.'ntf';$string='Hello, World!';$call='call_user_func';$call($hello,` `$string);`

Finally, PHP also allows for anonymous functions, which are exactly what they sound like – functions without a name. These can be combined with variable assignment as shown:

12345 <?php$hello= function() { printf("Hello, World!");};$hello();

While anonymous functions are widely used in legitimate code, it is possible to use them in combination with other features to make it more difficult for automated scanning tools or human analysts to keep track of code flow and as such are useful for obfuscation.

We’ve begun to combine obfuscation layers in our examples to provide a better picture of the type of obfuscation often found in the wild, and there’s still more to come.

GOTO Labels

One of the oldest and most basic code functions is the goto statement. While some legitimate software still uses GOTO statements, the functionality is considered poor coding practice and is not widely used, though it reflects how the code operates at a fundamental level far more accurately than more modern syntax. Its primary use in obfuscation is similar to comment abuse in that it breaks up the code so that it is more difficult to determine the control flow.

For example, the following code snippet prints out “Hello, World!” if and only if $_GET['input'] is present and set to ‘hello’, otherwise it prints “Sorry”:

123456789101112131415 <?php $hello='pri'.'ntf';$string='Hello, World!';if(isset($_GET['input']) && $_GET['input']=='hello'){gotoprintyes;}elsegotoprintno;printyes:echo"Hello, World!";gotoend;printno:echo"Sorry";end:?>

Include/Require of non-PHP files

PHP uses the include and require functions to include and execute code located in a separate file. This is almost universally used, and occasionally the .inc extension is used instead of PHP for files to be included. However, one particular feature that is ripe for abuse is that PHP will include files with any extension and execute them as code. This allows attackers to upload the bulk of their malicious code as a file with an allowed extension, often an image extension such as .ico or .png, and then simply include that file from a loader file with a PHP extension. Inclusion of files without a .php or .inc extension is thus almost always an indicator of malicious activity.

For instance, take the following set of files:

loader.php:

1	`<?php` `include('hello.ico');`

hello.ico:

1	`<?php` `echo"Hello, World!";`

This will print out “Hello, World” when loader.php is executed, even though hello.ico does not have a PHP extension and would not run as PHP if accessed directly.

Putting it All Together

Here’s an example that makes use of everything we’ve learned today apart from including files:

1234567891011121314151617181920 <?php$string=/*blah*/"Wow, what a cool Helpful research device!"/*blah*/;$mashed=$string[(160/4)]./*blah*/$string[34]./*blah*/$string[(5*3)]/*blah*/.$string[(5*5)]/*blah*/.$string[(12-11)]./*blah*/$string[(5-5)]./*blah*//*blah*/$string[(2+2)]./*blah*/$string[(1+2)]./*blah*/$string[(5-4)]/*blah*/.$string[(29-10)]./*blah*/$string[(10+9)]./*blah*/$string[(20-2)]/*blah*/.$string[(15+2)];function/*blah*/echostring(/*blah*/$str/*blah*/){ echo/*blah*/$str; return/*blah*/;}$rev/*blah*/=/*blah*/function($str){ return/*blah*/strrev($str);};goto/*blah*/dostuff;echo/*blah*/"That didn't work!";dostuff/*blah*/: call_user_func(/*blah*/'echostring',/*blah*/$rev(/*blah*/$mashed));

It begins with comments breaking up the code as well as the concatenation and string indexing techniques we covered earlier, which assigns “Hello, World!” in reverse, or “!dlroW ,olleH” to the $mashed variable.

A quick glance at the code might lead you to believe that it outputs “That didn’t work!” but thanks to the goto statement that line of code is skipped – such misleading uses are par for the course with malware that uses goto statements.

In the dostuff section, we use call_user_func to call the echostring function, which really just does the same thing as echo but serves as an additional layer of obfuscation to untangle, especially if the function were to be given a less friendly name. The echostring function is fed the output of the anonymous function assigned to the $rev variable, which again simply performs a str_rev on the input. The result is that $mashed is reversed and echoed out as “Hello, World!”. While we have kept the function and variable names relatively relevant for this example, there’s nothing preventing a malware author from naming these functions whatever they want, and indeed, misleading or nonsensical function names are more common than meaningful or useful function names in PHP malware.

Conclusion

In today’s post, we covered a number of the more creative, or “hacky” malware obfuscation techniques in widespread use, and showed examples of how they can be combined to make it difficult to analyze code functionality. All of these techniques can also be combined with the techniques in our previous post on malware obfuscation to make life even more difficult for analysts and security scanners. These two posts cover the most popular obfuscation methods used by PHP malware, but there are even more advanced and sophisticated techniques, including genuine encryption, which we will cover in our next article, alongside less commonly-used functionality.

PHP malware is constantly evolving, and our malware analysts release dozens of detection signatures every month, which can be used by the Wordfence scanner as well as by Wordfence CLI. While the vast majority of new signatures will only be made available to Wordfence Premium, Wordfence Care, Wordfence Response, and the Paid Wordfence CLI Tiers, the free version of Wordfence and Wordfence CLI still offer excellent detection capabilities, and include our broadest signature set, which in our testing detects at least one indicator of compromise on more than 90% of infected sites. We also plan to periodically update our free signature set with signatures that detect the most widespread malware from our full signature set.

Once again, we encourage readers who want to learn more about this to experiment with the various code snippets we have presented. As always, be sure to be careful with any actual malware samples you find and only execute them in a hardened virtual environment, as even PHP malware can be used for local privilege escalation on vulnerable machines.

For security researchers looking to disclose vulnerabilities responsibly and obtain a CVE ID, you can submit your findings to Wordfence Intelligence and potentially earn a spot on our leaderboard.

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Source :
https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2023/11/know-your-malware-part-two-hacky-obfuscation-techniques/

Several Critical Vulnerabilities Patched in AI ChatBot Plugin for WordPress

Marco Wotschka
October 25, 2023

On September 28, 2023, the Wordfence Threat Intelligence team initiated the responsible disclosure process for multiple vulnerabilities in AI ChatBot, a WordPress plugin with over 4,000 active installations.

After making our initial contact attempt on September 28th, 2023, we received a response on September 29, 2023 and sent over our full disclosure details. Receipt of the disclosure by the vendor was acknowledged the same day and a fully patched version of the plugin was released on October 19, 2023.

We issued a firewall rule to protect Wordfence Premium, Wordfence Care, and Wordfence Response customers on September 29, 2023. Sites still running the free version of Wordfence will receive the same protection on October 29, 2023.

Please note that these vulnerabilities were originally fixed in 4.9.1 (released October 10, 2023). However, some of them were reintroduced in 4.9.2 and then subsequently patched again in 4.9.3. We recommend that all Wordfence users update to version 4.9.3 or higher immediately.

A complete list of the vulnerabilities we reported is below. Links to Wordfence Intelligence are included where you can find full details:

Unauthenticated SQL Injection (CVSS Score 9.8 – CVE-2023-5204)
Authenticated (Subscriber+) Directory Traversal to Arbitrary File Write via qcld_openai_upload_pagetraining_file (CVSS Score 9.6 – CVE-2023-5241)
Authenticated (Subscriber+) Arbitrary File Deletion via qcld_openai_delete_training_file (CVSS Score 9.6 – CVE-2023-5212)
Unauthenticated Sensitive Information Exposure via qcld_wb_chatbot_check_user (CVSS Score 5.3 – CVE-2023-5254)
Missing Authorization on AJAX actions (CVSS Score 5.3 – CVE-2023-5533)
Cross-Site Request Forgery on AJAX actions (CVSS Score 4.3 – CVE-2023-5534)

In this post we will focus on the most impactful vulnerabilities.

Vulnerability Details and Technical Analysis

The AI ChatBot plugin provides website owners with a plug and play chat solution that can be expanded upon with customizable FAQs and custom text responses. It provides website users with an interface that allows them to look up order information, leave contact information for later callbacks and can be integrated with OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s DialogFlow.

A lot of the interactions with the chatbot happen via AJAX actions. Many of these actions were made available to unauthenticated users in order to allow them to interact with the chatbot. Other actions required at least subscriber-level access.

Unauthenticated SQL Injection – CVE-2023-5204

Description: Unauthenticated SQL Injection via qc_wpbo_search_response
Affected Plugin: AI ChatBot
Plugin slug: chatbot
Vendor: QuantumCloud
Affected versions: <= 4.8.9
CVE ID: CVE-2023-5204
CVSS score: 9.8 (Critical)
CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Researcher: Marco Wotschka
Fully Patched Version: 4.9.1

One of the many vulnerabilities we discovered was an unauthenticated SQL Injection. The following two AJAX actions are used for searches during interactions with the chatbot:

add_action( 'wp_ajax_nopriv_wpbo_search_response', 'qc_wpbo_search_response' );

add_action( 'wp_ajax_wpbo_search_response', 'qc_wpbo_search_response' );

The wp_ajax_nopriv_wpbo_search_response AJAX action can be used by users who are not authenticated to WordPress due to the hook utilizing ‘nopriv’. On the other hand, the standard wp_ajax_wpbo_search_response AJAX action can only be used by authenticated users due to the inherent functionality of AJAX actions.

function qc_wpbo_search_response (shortened for brevity)

The qc_wpbo_search_response function hooked by the aforementioned AJAX actions is used to search within the database for responses containing certain keywords. If the $_POST[‘strid’] parameter is set, a record is retrieved from the wpbot_response table by ID. The $strid variable supplied by the POST parameter can be leveraged for SQL Injection, despite being sanitized using the sanitize_text_field function.

According to the WordPress Developer Resources, the sanitize_text_field function checks for invalid UTF-8; converts single < characters to entities; strips all tags; removes line breaks, tabs, and extra whitespace; strips percent-encoded characters. This does not provide sufficient protection against SQL Injection attempts, and is only intended for Cross-Site Scripting protection. Furthermore, the get_results function used in the above function call does not perform any preparation, nor is there any escaping of the user supplied input passed to the SQL Query. We always recommend the use of the prepare function on SQL queries as it provides adequate escaping on the user-supplied values, which prevents SQL injection from being successful. In addition, ensuring that the $strid is an integer would help prevent a SQL Injection attack from being successful.

The lack of a UNION operation in the above SQL query makes exploiting this vulnerability more difficult, but a time-based blind injection approach using the SLEEP() function and CASE statements can still be used to extract information from the database by observing the duration of individual queries. While tedious, this technique can be used to extract sensitive information from the database. This includes hashed passwords.

Arbitrary File Deletion – CVE-2023-5212

Description: Authenticated (Subscriber+) Arbitrary File Deletion via qcld_openai_delete_training_file
Affected Plugin: AI ChatBot
Plugin slug: chatbot
Vendor: QuantumCloud
Affected versions: <= 4.8.9
CVE ID: CVE-2023-5212
CVSS score: 9.6 (Critical)
CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Researcher: Marco Wotschka
Fully Patched Version: 4.9.1

The plugin offers the ability to upload training files to OpenAI. An arbitrary file deletion vulnerability existed in the qcld_openai_delete_training_file function invoked via the following AJAX action:

add_action('wp_ajax_qcld_openai_delete_training_file',[$this,'qcld_openai_delete_training_file']);

function qcld_openai_delete_training_file

This vulnerable function accepts a file path via the $_POST[‘file’] parameter and checks whether the file exists. If it does, the function adjusts permissions on the file in such a way that it can be removed and proceeds to delete it. This function misses a capability check to ensure that the user performing the action has proper privileges, as well as a nonce check to ensure that the action is performed intentionally. and is thus vulnerable to Missing Authorization and Cross-Site Request Forgery.

Furthermore, no check is performed ensuring that the file is an OpenAI training file and that it resides in a location or directory where training files are expected to be located. This could allow an authenticated attacker with subscriber-level privileges or higher to remove the wp-config.php file of an affected site, which would invoke the WordPress installation script on the next site visit and could lead to a complete site takeover.

The file path passed via the $_POST[‘file’] parameter could also point to a file outside of the affected website, thus enabling the deletion of wp-config.php files of other sites in shared hosting environments. Deleting wp-config.php forces the site into a setup state, at which point an attacker can take over the site by pointing it to a database under their control. Of course, attackers are not limited to deleting PHP files either as long as the web server can change file permissions and delete the file.

Version 4.9.1 removed this function as well as the corresponding AJAX action. Version 4.9.2 reintroduced the vulnerable function and action hook, which were both again removed in version 4.9.3.

Directory Traversal to Arbitrary File Write – CVE-2023-5241

Description: Authenticated (Subscriber+) Directory Traversal to Arbitrary File Write via qcld_openai_upload_pagetraining_file
Affected Plugin: AI ChatBot
Plugin slug: chatbot
Vendor: QuantumCloud
Affected versions: <= 4.8.9
CVE ID: CVE-2023-5241
CVSS score: 9.6 (Critical)
CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:H/A:H
Researcher: Marco Wotschka
Fully Patched Version: 4.9.1

We also discovered an arbitrary file write vulnerability which exists in the qcld_openai_upload_pagetraining_file function. The entire function is rather long which is why we won’t display it here in its entirety.

function qcld_openai_upload_pagetraining_file (shortened for brevity)

The function expects a filename to be passed as a $_POST[‘filename’] parameter, which is sanitized using the sanitize_text_field function. The $file variable is used to determine the location of a file in the wp-content/uploads/qcldopenai_site_training/ directory. If the file exists, the function proceeds to declare a variable called $split_file, creates a file handle $qcld_openai_json_file and opens the file in append mode. This means that the file is not overwritten but anything written to the file is instead appended.

It is not immediately clear what the purpose of this part of the function is since it simply appends the contents that are already in the file to the end of the file until the length of the content that is added exceeds $this->wpaicg_max_file_size or the entire file has been duplicated.

The corresponding if-statement that determines when to terminate writing to the file looks as follows:

if(mb_strlen($qcld_openai_content, '8bit') >$this->wpaicg_max_file_size)

In a default installation $this->wpaicg_max_file_size is not defined and therefore NULL. Hence, in such scenarios the function adds the first line of the file specified by the user to the end of the file. Since NULL is interpreted as zero in a comparison statement like this, any positive file size will suffice to break out of this part of the function.

Unfortunately, this code is vulnerable to Directory Traversal via the filename parameter. If the filename that is passed is a relative path to wp-config.php, the file handle will ultimately point to the site’s wp-config.php file. An authenticated attacker with subscriber-privileges or higher could utilize this fact to append the first line of its content to the file wp-config.php, which would be <?php.

While an attacker does not have any influence on the data that is written, in most cases a <?php could be written to the end of a targeted PHP file, which can lead to catastrophic consequences as the added PHP tag may result in an error such as

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected token "<", expecting end of file

This prevents the site from loading properly and can be used to append to any PHP file (or other files) including those in shared hosting environments leading to Denial of Service (DoS). One way to prevent Directory Traversal is to use the sanitize_file_name function, which removes special characters including slashes and leading dots from the file name.

Version 4.9.1 removed this function as well as the corresponding AJAX action. Version 4.9.2 reintroduced the vulnerable function and action hook, which were both again removed in version 4.9.3.

Numerous Other Missing Authorization and Cross-Site Request Forgery Vulnerabilities

In addition to the vulnerabilities outlined above, we discovered several AJAX actions without proper capability checks, which made it possible for authenticated attackers with minimal access, such as subscribers, to invoke those actions. Several of the functions were also missing nonce verification, which would make it possible for attackers to forge requests on behalf of a site administrator, or any other authenticated user considering capability checks were also missing.

However, these vulnerabilities had minimal impact and led to the exposure of information such as user order details and user names, the download and extraction of a zip used by the plugin (not arbitrary zip files), cache deletion, as well as starting and stopping of search indexing jobs to name a few. The severity of those actions is lower than the ones we detailed above.

Timeline

September 25-28, 2023 – The Wordfence Threat Intelligence team discovers several vulnerabilities in the AI ChatBot plugin.
September 28, 2023 – We initiate contact with the plugin developer.
September 29, 2023 – We release a firewall rule to protect Wordfence Premium, Wordfence Care, and Wordfence Response customers and send the full disclosure to the plugin developer. Receipt of the disclosure is acknowledged.
October 10, 2023 – A fixed version (4.9.1) of the plugin that patches all reported vulnerabilities is released.
October 18, 2023 – Several of the vulnerabilities are reintroduced in version 4.9.2. We inform the vendor about this.
October 19, 2023 – Version 4.9.3 patches the vulnerabilities again.
October 29, 2023 – The firewall rule becomes available to free Wordfence users

Conclusion

In this blog post we covered an Unauthenticated SQL Injection vulnerability (affecting versions <= 4.8.9), as well as an Arbitrary File Write vulnerability and an Arbitrary File Deletion vulnerability (affecting versions <= 4.8.9 and 4.9.2). The SQL Injection vulnerability allows unauthenticated attackers to extract sensitive information from the database using a time-based blind injection approach, which could ultimately lead to exposure of admin credentials and site takeover.

The Arbitrary File Write vulnerability can be utilized by authenticated attackers to append opening PHP tags (in default configurations) to any file including the wp-config.php file, which can lead to Denial of Service (DoS). The Arbitrary File Deletion vulnerability can be used by authenticated attackers to delete any file on the web server offering the possibility of complete site takeovers.

All Wordfence running Wordfence Premium, Wordfence Care, and Wordfence Response, have been protected against these vulnerabilities as of September 29, 2023. Users still using the free version of Wordfence will receive the same protection on October 29, 2023.

If you know someone who uses this plugin on their site, we recommend sharing this advisory with them to ensure their site remains secure, as these vulnerabilities pose a significant risk.

For security researchers looking to disclose vulnerabilities responsibly and obtain a CVE ID, you can submit your findings to Wordfence Intelligence and potentially earn a spot on our leaderboard.

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Source :
https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2023/10/several-critical-vulnerabilities-patched-in-ai-chatbot-plugin-for-wordpress/