Security-X

Forum Security-X => News => Discussion démarrée par: igor51 le janvier 10, 2019, 06:00:22

Titre: [FireEye]Global DNS Hijacking Campaign: DNS Record Manipulation at Scale
Posté par: igor51 le janvier 10, 2019, 06:00:22
Global DNS Hijacking Campaign: DNS Record Manipulation at Scale

Introduction


 

FireEye’s Mandiant Incident Response and Intelligence teams have
  identified a wave of DNS hijacking that has affected dozens of domains
  belonging to government, telecommunications and internet
  infrastructure entities across the Middle East and North Africa,
  Europe and North America. While we do not currently link this activity
  to any tracked group, initial research suggests the actor or actors
  responsible have a nexus to Iran. This campaign has targeted victims
  across the globe on an almost unprecedented scale, with a high degree
  of success. We have been tracking this activity for several months,
  mapping and understanding the innovative tactics, techniques and
  procedures (TTPs) deployed by the attacker. We have also worked
  closely with victims, security organizations, and law enforcement
  agencies where possible to reduce the impact of the attacks and/or
  prevent further compromises.


 

While this campaign employs some traditional tactics, it is
  differentiated from other Iranian activity we have seen by leveraging
  DNS hijacking at scale. The attacker uses this technique for their
  initial foothold, which can then be exploited in a variety of ways. In
  this blog post, we detail the three different ways we have seen DNS
  records be manipulated to enable victim compromises.


 

Initial Research Suggests Iranian Sponsorship


 

Attribution analysis for this activity is ongoing. While the DNS
  record manipulations described in this post are noteworthy and
  sophisticated, they may not be exclusive to a single threat actor as
  the activity spans disparate timeframes, infrastructure, and service providers.


 
 

Preliminary technical evidence allows us to assess with moderate
  confidence that this activity is conducted by persons based in Iran
  and that the activity aligns with Iranian government interests.


 
 

Details


 


  The following examples use victim[.]com to stand in for the victim
    domain, and private IP addresses to stand in for the actor
    controlled IP addresses.


 
Technique 1 – DNS A Records

 

The first method exploited by the attacker is altering DNS A
  Records, as seen in Figure 1.


 


 
 
 Figure 1: DNS A Record


 
  1. The attacker logs into
          PXY1, a Proxy box used to conduct
        non-attributed browsing and as a jumpbox to other
      infrastructure.
  2. The attacker logs into the DNS provider’s
        administration panel, utilising previously compromised
      credentials.
  3. The A record (e.g.     class="code">mail[.]victim[.]com) is currently pointing to
          192.168.100.100.
  4. The attacker
        changes the A record and points it to 10.20.30.40
      (OP1)
    .
  5. The attacker logs in from     class="code">PXY1 to OP1.
    • A
              proxy is implemented to listen on all open ports, mirroring
                mail[.]victim[.]com.
    • A load
              balancer points to 192.168.100.100
              [mail[.]victim[.]com]
      to pass through user traffic.

    •    
  6. certbot is used to create a Let’s Encrypt
        Certificate for mail[.]victim[.]com
       
    • We have observed multiple Domain Control Validation
              providers being utilised as part of this campaign.

     
  7. A user now visits     class="code">mail[.]victim[.]com and is directed to OP1.
        The Let’s Encrypt Certificate allows the browsers to establish a
        connection without any certificate errors as       class="code">Let's Encrypt Authority X3 is trusted. The
        connection is forwarded to the load balancer which establishes the
        connection with the real     class="code">mail[.]victim[.]com. The user is not aware of
        any changes and may only notice a slight delay.
  8. The
        username, password and domain credentials are harvested and
      stored.

 
Technique 2 – DNS NS Records

 

The second method exploited by the attacker involved altering DNS NS
  Records, as seen in Figure 2.


 


 
 
 Figure 2: DNS NS Record


 
  1. The attacker again logs
        into PXY1.
  2. This time, however,
        the attacker exploits a previously compromised registrar or
      ccTLD.
  3. The nameserver record     class="code">ns1[.]victim[.]com is currently set to     class="code">192.168.100.200. The attacker changes the NS
        record and points it to ns1[.]baddomain[.]com
        [10.1.2.3]
    . That nameserver will respond with the IP       class="code">10.20.30.40 (OP1) when     class="code">mail[.]victim[.]com is requested, but with the
        original IP 192.168.100.100 if it is
      www[.]victim[.]com.
  4. The attacker logs in from     class="code">PXY1 to OP1.
    • A
              proxy is implemented to listen on all open ports, mirroring
                mail[.]victim[.]com.
    • A load
              balancer points to 192.168.100.100
              [mail[.]victim[.]com]
      to pass through user traffic.

    •    
  5. certbot is used to create a Let’s Encrypt
        Certificate for mail[.]victim[.]com.

             
    • We have observed multiple Domain Control Validation
              providers being utilised during this campaign.

  6.    
  7. A user visits mail[.]victim[.]com and
        is directed to OP1. The Let’s Encrypt
        Certificate allows browsers to establish a connection without any
        certificate errors as Let's Encrypt Authority
        X3
    is trusted. The connection is forwarded to the load
        balancer which establishes the connection with the real     class="code">mail[.]victim[.]com. The user is not aware of
        any changes and may only notice a slight delay.
  8. The
        username, password and domain credentials are harvested and
      stored.

 
Technique 3 – DNS Redirector

 

The attacker has also been observed using a third technique in
  conjunction with either Figure 1 or Figure 2 above. This involves a
  DNS Redirector, as seen in Figure 3.


 


 
 
 Figure 3: DNS Operational box


 

The DNS Redirector is an attacker operations box which responds to
  DNS requests.


 
  1. A DNS request for     class="code">mail[.]victim[.]com is sent to     class="code">OP2 (based on previously altered A Record or NS
      Record).
  2. If the domain is part of victim[.]com zone,     class="code">OP2 responds with an attacker-controlled IP
        address, and the user is re-directed to the attacker-controlled
      infrastructure.
  3. If the domain is not part of the victim.com
        zone (e.g. google[.]com), OP2 makes a DNS
        request to a legitimate DNS to get the IP address and the legitimate
        IP address is returned to the user.

 

Targets


 

A large number of organizations have been affected by this pattern
  of DNS record manipulation and fraudulent SSL certificates. They
  include telecoms and ISP providers, internet infrastructure providers,
  government and sensitive commercial entities.


 

Root Cause Still Under Investigation


 

It is difficult to identify a single intrusion vector for each
  record change, and it is possible that the actor, or actors are using
  multiple techniques to gain an initial foothold into each of the
  targets described above. FireEye intelligence customers have received
  previous reports describing sophisticated phishing attacks used by one
  actor that also conducts DNS record manipulation. Additionally, while
  the precise mechanism by which the DNS records were changed is
  unknown, we believe that at least some records were changed by
  compromising a victim’s domain registrar account.


 

Prevention Tactics


 

This type of attack is difficult to defend against, because valuable
  information can be stolen, even if an attacker is never able to get
  direct access to your organization’s network. Some steps to harden
  your organization include:


 
  1. Implement multi-factor
        authentication on your domain’s administration portal.

  2.    
  3. Validate A and NS record changes.
  4. Search for SSL
        certificates related to your domain and revoke any malicious
      certificates.
  5. Validate the source IPs in OWA/Exchange
      logs.
  6. Conduct an internal investigation to assess if
        attackers gained access to your environment.

 

Conclusion


 

This DNS hijacking, and the scale at which it has been exploited,
  showcases the continuing evolution in tactics from Iran-based actors.
  This is an overview of one set of TTPs that we recently observed
  affecting multiple entities. We are highlighting it now so that
  potential targets can take appropriate defensive action.


Source: Global DNS Hijacking Campaign: DNS Record Manipulation at Scale (http://)