When APTs Knock on Your Wi-Fi: Real-World Lessons for Better Security
Background: Recently, I came across a notification about a highly targeted attack against a U.S. company, where the attacker exploited a neighboring network to perform lateral movement into the targeted organization. Based on this, I tried to understand the most effective techniques a threat actor could use to gain initial access to a "patient zero" network and subsequently infiltrate the targeted company's environment. Here are the possible techniques and methods that could be abused in such a scenario .
Methods: 1. Abuse public available services 2. Abuse network scanning services for cybersecurity purposes
Abuse public available services
It is no secret that today’s mobile ecosystems host numerous applications that allow users to share Wi-Fi locations and even passwords. As a result, anyone using these applications can physically be within range of a shared Wi-Fi network's geolocation and exploit that access to attack neighboring networks. Some of these services also include information about MAC addresses, which, if combined with other data sources, could enable threat actors to correlate the exact locations of specific devices.
Abuse network scanning services for cybersecurity purposes In this scenario, an attacker could launch a heartbeat attack via email. If the user navigates to the provided URL, the attacker could capture the organization's IP address. If the organization uses predefined static IP ranges, the attacker could scan the network using various tools. Additionally, modern tools make it possible to profile IP ranges and associate them with specific organization names, further aiding the attacker in their reconnaissance efforts.
Conclusion:
- Always harden your network using industry best practices.
- Regularly scan your organization's digital fingerprint across publicly available services.
- Always deploy and maintain IDS (Intrusion Detection Systems) within your organization.
Stay Safe ! Joke3r !