Spy vs Spy vs Everyone

grarpamp grarpamp at gmail.com
Wed Jul 7 20:19:31 PDT 2021


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNrjKqrAn-I  Secret Agent Man
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-M2hs3sXGo  How Not To Be Seen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4q09ZmeCF8  Spy Gadgets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro7vdOMmMSs  Spy vs Spy
http://www.montypython.50webs.com/scripts/Series_3/58.htm  Old Lady Snoopers





>From the Dept of Ignorably Obvious Dept...

Intel/Actors/TLA's Using Cock.Li and Other Services

https://www.vice.com/en/article/dyv87z/cockli-admin-russian-intelligence-svr-fbi-dhs-cisa-report
https://us-cert.cisa.gov/ncas/alerts/aa21-116a

'Cock.li' Admin Says He’s Not Surprised Russian Intelligence Uses His Site

A joint FBI-DHS-CISA report said that the SVR, the Russian foreign
intelligence service behind the SolarWinds hack, uses Cock.li.

Hacking. Disinformation. Surveillance. CYBER is Motherboard's podcast
and reporting on the dark underbelly of the internet.

On Monday the FBI, DHS, and CISA—the U.S. government agency focused on
defensive cybersecurity—published a report laying out the tools,
techniques, and capabilities of the SVR, the Russian foreign
intelligence service that the U.S. has blamed for the wide-spanning
SolarWinds supply chain hack. That report said that the SVR makes use
of a specific anonymous email service called cock.li.

The administrator of cock.li has now told Motherboard that this is the
first time he has heard of the SVR using his service, but that "it's
hard to surprise me nowadays."

"This is the first time I've heard for sure that Russian intelligence
is using cock.li, but it's not surprising, since the CIA uses it too,"
Vincent Canfield, the administrator of cock.li, said in a Twitter
direct message. Canfield declined to provide evidence that American
intelligence agencies use the service.

Cock.li is an established, albeit obscure, meme email service. In
2015, Motherboard reported how Canfield said that German authorities
had seized a hard drive from one of his servers after someone used the
service to send a hoax bomb threat. Following the threat, all public
schools in Los Angeles closed for a day. Two years later Canfield said
SoundCloud removed audio of a phone call he had with the FBI
concerning a bomb threat made against the Miami FBI office.

The site allows users to also create XMPP accounts, which can be used
for encrypted instant messaging, and lets them sign up while using the
anonymity network Tor or other proxies. Many other email services
block users who sign up using a VPN, for instance. Canfield claimed
the service has over a million users, including with domains that
aren't listed on the site's front page. The tagline of the service is
"Yeah it’s email with cocks."

Under the heading "General Tradecraft Observations," the joint
FBI-DHS-CISA report says that "SVR cyber operators are capable
adversaries."

"FBI investigations have revealed infrastructure used in the
intrusions is frequently obtained using false identities and
cryptocurrencies," it continues. "These false identities are usually
supported by low reputation infrastructure including temporary e-mail
accounts and temporary voice over internet protocol (VoIP) telephone
numbers. While not exclusively used by SVR cyber actors, a number of
SVR cyber personas use e-mail services hosted on cock[.]li or related
domains." Some of cock.li's other domains include
"national.shitposting.agency" and "wants.dicksinmyan.us".

"Anonymous e-mail is a necessary tool enjoyed by people across the
world, including governments. It's a critical building block to a free
Internet and if it's not provided by independent companies like ours
these state actors are likely to operate their own e-mail providers,
Crypto AG style," Canfield continued, referring to a historical case
where the CIA secretly ran an encryption company in Switzerland in
order to intercept others' communications.

"We're proud to have worked with dozens of governments by educating
them on the nature of anonymous e-mail, and while data is never handed
over without legal obligation in our jurisdiction, these reports have
still helped to stop thousands of bad actors and these governments
have thanked us as a result," Canfield said, adding that those who
have information about users violating cock.li's terms of service can
contact an abuse address. Cock.li's terms of service says that users
may be banned for "Conducting any activity that breaks the laws in
which cock.li is governed," and "Encouraging others to break cock.li's
rules or the law using cock.li."

After publication of the joint report, Kyle Ehmke, a researcher with
cybersecurity firm ThreatConnect, tweeted that "it's worth noting that
4400+ domains (current and historic) have been registered using a
cock[.]li address. SVR registration among those almost certainly are a
small percentage."






Alert (AA21-116A)
Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Cyber Operations: Trends
and Best Practices for Network Defenders
Original release date: April 26, 2021

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Homeland
Security (DHS), and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
(CISA) assess Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) cyber
actors—also known as Advanced Persistent Threat 29 (APT 29), the
Dukes, CozyBear, and Yttrium—will continue to seek intelligence from
U.S. and foreign entities through cyber exploitation, using a range of
initial exploitation techniques that vary in sophistication, coupled
with stealthy intrusion tradecraft within compromised networks. The
SVR primarily targets government networks, think tank and policy
analysis organizations, and information technology companies. On April
15, 2021, the White House released a statement on the recent
SolarWinds compromise, attributing the activity to the SVR. For
additional detailed information on identified vulnerabilities and
mitigations, see the National Security Agency (NSA), Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and FBI Cybersecurity Advisory
titled “Russian SVR Targets U.S. and Allied Networks,” released on
April 15, 2021.

The FBI and DHS are providing information on the SVR’s cyber tools,
targets, techniques, and capabilities to aid organizations in
conducting their own investigations and securing their networks.

Threat Overview

SVR cyber operations have posed a longstanding threat to the United
States. Prior to 2018, several private cyber security companies
published reports about APT 29 operations to obtain access to victim
networks and steal information, highlighting the use of customized
tools to maximize stealth inside victim networks and APT 29 actors’
ability to move within victim environments undetected.

Beginning in 2018, the FBI observed the SVR shift from using malware
on victim networks to targeting cloud resources, particularly e-mail,
to obtain information. The exploitation of Microsoft Office 365
environments following network access gained through use of modified
SolarWinds software reflects this continuing trend. Targeting cloud
resources probably reduces the likelihood of detection by using
compromised accounts or system misconfigurations to blend in with
normal or unmonitored traffic in an environment not well defended,
monitored, or understood by victim organizations.

Technical Details

SVR Cyber Operations Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures

Password Spraying

In one 2018 compromise of a large network, SVR cyber actors used
password spraying to identify a weak password associated with an
administrative account. The actors conducted the password spraying
activity in a “low and slow” manner, attempting a small number of
passwords at infrequent intervals, possibly to avoid detection. The
password spraying used a large number of IP addresses all located in
the same country as the victim, including those associated with
residential, commercial, mobile, and The Onion Router (TOR) addresses.

The organization unintentionally exempted the compromised
administrator’s account from multi-factor authentication requirements.
With access to the administrative account, the actors modified
permissions of specific e-mail accounts on the network, allowing any
authenticated network user to read those accounts.

The actors also used the misconfiguration for compromised
non-administrative accounts. That misconfiguration enabled logins
using legacy single-factor authentication on devices which did not
support multi-factor authentication. The FBI suspects this was
achieved by spoofing user agent strings to appear to be older versions
of mail clients, including Apple’s mail client and old versions of
Microsoft Outlook. After logging in as a non-administrative user, the
actors used the permission changes applied by the compromised
administrative user to access specific mailboxes of interest within
the victim organization.

While the password sprays were conducted from many different IP
addresses, once the actors obtained access to an account, that
compromised account was generally only accessed from a single IP
address corresponding to a leased virtual private server (VPS). The
FBI observed minimal overlap between the VPSs used for different
compromised accounts, and each leased server used to conduct follow-on
actions was in the same country as the victim organization.

During the period of their access, the actors consistently logged into
the administrative account to modify account permissions, including
removing their access to accounts presumed to no longer be of
interest, or adding permissions to additional accounts.

Recommendations

To defend from this technique, the FBI and DHS recommend network
operators to follow best practices for configuring access to cloud
computing environments, including:

    Mandatory use of an approved multi-factor authentication solution
for all users from both on premises and remote locations.
    Prohibit remote access to administrative functions and resources
from IP addresses and systems not owned by the organization.
    Regular audits of mailbox settings, account permissions, and mail
forwarding rules for evidence of unauthorized changes.
    Where possible, enforce the use of strong passwords and prevent
the use of easily guessed or commonly used passwords through technical
means, especially for administrative accounts.
    Regularly review the organization’s password management program.
    Ensure the organization’s information technology (IT) support team
has well-documented standard operating procedures for password resets
of user account lockouts.
    Maintain a regular cadence of security awareness training for all
company employees.

Leveraging Zero-Day Vulnerability

In a separate incident, SVR actors used CVE-2019-19781, a zero-day
exploit at the time, against a virtual private network (VPN) appliance
to obtain network access. Following exploitation of the device in a
way that exposed user credentials, the actors identified and
authenticated to systems on the network using the exposed credentials.

The actors worked to establish a foothold on several different systems
that were not configured to require multi-factor authentication and
attempted to access web-based resources in specific areas of the
network in line with information of interest to a foreign intelligence
service.

Following initial discovery, the victim attempted to evict the actors.
However, the victim had not identified the initial point of access,
and the actors used the same VPN appliance vulnerability to regain
access. Eventually, the initial access point was identified, removed
from the network, and the actors were evicted. As in the previous
case, the actors used dedicated VPSs located in the same country as
the victim, probably to make it appear that the network traffic was
not anomalous with normal activity.

Recommendations

To defend from this technique, the FBI and DHS recommend network
defenders ensure endpoint monitoring solutions are configured to
identify evidence of lateral movement within the network and:

    Monitor the network for evidence of encoded PowerShell commands
and execution of network scanning tools, such as NMAP.
    Ensure host based anti-virus/endpoint monitoring solutions are
enabled and set to alert if monitoring or reporting is disabled, or if
communication is lost with a host agent for more than a reasonable
amount of time.
    Require use of multi-factor authentication to access internal systems.
    Immediately configure newly-added systems to the network,
including those used for testing or development work, to follow the
organization’s security baseline and incorporate into enterprise
monitoring tools.

WELLMESS Malware

In 2020, the governments of the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United
States attributed intrusions perpetrated using malware known as
WELLMESS to APT 29. WELLMESS was written in the Go programming
language, and the previously-identified activity appeared to focus on
targeting COVID-19 vaccine development. The FBI’s investigation
revealed that following initial compromise of a network—normally
through an unpatched, publicly-known vulnerability—the actors deployed
WELLMESS. Once on the network, the actors targeted each organization’s
vaccine research repository and Active Directory servers. These
intrusions, which mostly relied on targeting on-premises network
resources, were a departure from historic tradecraft, and likely
indicate new ways the actors are evolving in the virtual environment.
More information about the specifics of the malware used in this
intrusion have been previously released and are referenced in the
‘Resources’ section of this document.

Tradecraft Similarities of SolarWinds-enabled Intrusions

During the spring and summer of 2020, using modified SolarWinds
network monitoring software as an initial intrusion vector, SVR cyber
operators began to expand their access to numerous networks. The SVR’s
modification and use of trusted SolarWinds products as an intrusion
vector is also a notable departure from the SVR’s historic tradecraft.

The FBI’s initial findings indicate similar post-infection tradecraft
with other SVR-sponsored intrusions, including how the actors
purchased and managed infrastructure used in the intrusions. After
obtaining access to victim networks, SVR cyber actors moved through
the networks to obtain access to e-mail accounts. Targeted accounts at
multiple victim organizations included accounts associated with IT
staff. The FBI suspects the actors monitored IT staff to collect
useful information about the victim networks, determine if victims had
detected the intrusions, and evade eviction actions.
Recommendations

Although defending a network from a compromise of trusted software is
difficult, some organizations successfully detected and prevented
follow-on exploitation activity from the initial malicious SolarWinds
software. This was achieved using a variety of monitoring techniques
including:

    Auditing log files to identify attempts to access privileged
certificates and creation of fake identify providers.
    Deploying software to identify suspicious behavior on systems,
including the execution of encoded PowerShell.
    Deploying endpoint protection systems with the ability to monitor
for behavioral indicators of compromise.
    Using available public resources to identify credential abuse
within cloud environments.
    Configuring authentication mechanisms to confirm certain user
activities on systems, including registering new devices.

While few victim organizations were able to identify the initial
access vector as SolarWinds software, some were able to correlate
different alerts to identify unauthorized activity. The FBI and DHS
believe those indicators, coupled with stronger network segmentation
(particularly “zero trust” architectures or limited trust between
identity providers) and log correlation, can enable network defenders
to identify suspicious activity requiring additional investigation.
General Tradecraft Observations

SVR cyber operators are capable adversaries. In addition to the
techniques described above, FBI investigations have revealed
infrastructure used in the intrusions is frequently obtained using
false identities and cryptocurrencies. VPS infrastructure is often
procured from a network of VPS resellers. These false identities are
usually supported by low reputation infrastructure including temporary
e-mail accounts and temporary voice over internet protocol (VoIP)
telephone numbers. While not exclusively used by SVR cyber actors, a
number of SVR cyber personas use e-mail services hosted on cock[.]li
or related domains.

The FBI also notes SVR cyber operators have used open source or
commercially available tools continuously, including Mimikatz—an open
source credential-dumping too—and Cobalt Strike—a commercially
available exploitation tool.
Mitigations

The FBI and DHS recommend service providers strengthen their user
validation and verification systems to prohibit misuse of their
services.
Resources

    NSA, CISA, FBI Joint Cybersecurity Advisory: Russian SVR Targets
U.S. and Allied Networks
    CISA: Remediating Networks Affected by the SolarWinds and Active
Directory/M365 Compromise
    CISA Alert AA21-008A: Detecting Post-Compromise Threat Activity in
Microsoft Cloud Environments
    FBI, CISA, ODNI, NSA Joint Statement: Joint Statement by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure
Security Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence
(ODNI), and the National Security Agency
    CISA Alert AA20-352A: Advanced Persistent Threat Compromise of
Government Agencies, Critical Infrastructure, and Private Sector
Organizations
    CISA Insights: What Every Leader Needs to Know about the Ongoing
APT Cyber Activity
    FBI, CISA Joint Cybersecurity Advisory: Advanced Persistent Threat
Actors Targeting U.S. Think Tanks
    CISA: Malicious Activity Targeting COVID-19 Research, Vaccine Development
    NCSC, CSE, NSA, CISA Advisory: APT 29 targets COVID-19 vaccine development

Revisions
April 26, 2021: Initial Version


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