tl:dr Incremental Learning is an extremely useful machine learning paradigm for deriving insight into cyber security datasets. This post provides a simple example involving JA3 hashes showing how some of the foundational algorithms that enable incremental learning techniques can be applied to novelty detection (the first time something has happened) and outlier detection (rare events) … Continue reading Incremental Machine Learning by Example: Detecting Suspicious Activity with Zeek Data Streams, River, and JA3 Hashes
Category: Managed Detection & Response
Detecting Rclone – An Effective Tool for Exfiltration
NCC Group CIRT has responded to a large number of ransomware cases where frequently the open source tool Rclone being used for data exfiltration. We provide some techniques for detection.
Deception Engineering: exploring the use of Windows Installer Packages against first stage payloads
We prototyped a Windows Installer Package Canary to help detect certain first stage trade craft. The ultimate goal being to alert for those threat actors targeting security products through uninstallation.
Deception Engineering: exploring the use of Windows Service Canaries against ransomware
We prototyped a Windows Service Canary to help detect and respond to certain pre-ransomware trade craft. The ultimate goal being to alert and minimize the impact of ransomware deployments.
RIFT: Analysing a Lazarus Shellcode Execution Method
NCC Group's Research and Intelligence Fusion Team analyze a recent shellcode execution method used by Lazarus Group
Abusing cloud services to fly under the radar
tl;dr NCC Group and Fox-IT have been tracking a threat group with a wide set of interests, from intellectual property (IP) from victims in the semiconductors industry through to data from the airline industry. In their intrusions they regularly abuse cloud services from Google and Microsoft to achieve their goals. NCC Group and Fox-IT observed … Continue reading Abusing cloud services to fly under the radar
Building an RDP Credential Catcher for Threat Intelligence
We wanted to build a mechanism to capture all the passwords used (successful or not) against RDP to ascertain potential sources of credential theft and if they are organisation specific. This post provides the background on an approach and the steps to build such a system.
Using AWS and Azure for Cost Effective Log Ingestion with Data Processing Pipelines for SIEMs
Liam Stevenson, Associate Director of Technical Services within NCC Group's Managed Detection & Response division, shows how to derive significant cost efficiencies in SIEM platform consumption with smart log ingestion utilizing pre-processing data pipelines and modern cloud services. Doing so significantly reduces data volumes to the SIEM without loosing the residual value and accessibility of the underlying data.
TA505: A Brief History Of Their Time
Threat Intel Analyst: Antonis Terefos (@Tera0017)Data Scientist: Anne Postma (@A_Postma) 1. Introduction TA505 is a sophisticated and innovative threat actor, with plenty of cybercrime experience, that engages in targeted attacks across multiple sectors and geographies for financial gain. Over time, TA505 evolved from a lesser partner to a mature, self-subsisting and versatile crime operation with … Continue reading TA505: A Brief History Of Their Time
Tool – Windows Executable Memory Page Delta Reporter
One true constant (until someone schools me) is that threat actors need executable memory of some kind to operate from for their endpoint implant even if fleeting. Given this we've released an open source Microsoft Windows Service that aims to facilitate detection of anomalous executable memory