• Latest
  • Trending
  • All
  • News
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Science
  • World
  • Lifestyle
  • Tech
A moment of reckoning: the need for a strong and global cybersecurity response

Microsoft Kills 18 Azure Accounts Tied to Nation-State Attacks

December 22, 2020
Microsoft To Build New Azure Cloud Data Centers In Greece

Yubico Makes Passwordless Authentication Generally Available for Azure AD Users

March 5, 2021
A moment of reckoning: the need for a strong and global cybersecurity response

Microsoft makes passwordless push in Azure Active Directory

March 5, 2021
Microsoft’s CyberX Acquisition Boosts Security of Azure IoT Lineup

Microsoft Power BI Premium Per User pricing is a game changer

March 4, 2021
How to use Microsoft Sysmon, Azure Sentinel to log security events

Microsoft Releases Azure AD My App and New Risk Detections for Identity Protection into GA

March 4, 2021
8×8 makes raft of updates to platform

BitDam ATP+ protects Office 365 users from unknown threats

March 4, 2021
How to use Microsoft Sysmon, Azure Sentinel to log security events

Cloud Network Engineer – Associate – ATL

March 3, 2021
Microsoft Outlines How To Set Up Windows Virtual Desktop

What’s New in Tufin Orchestration Suite 21-1

March 3, 2021
Innovative solutions for IT workers at home

BitDam Offers Complete Security for Office 365 Email, OneDrive and Teams With The Introduction of BitDam ATP+

March 2, 2021
A moment of reckoning: the need for a strong and global cybersecurity response

Microsoft to add new shared channels, encryption for calls, webinar features to Teams

March 2, 2021
Microsoft Declares ‘General Availability’ of Threat Experts Security Service

Mindware Partners with Cibecs to Help Regional Organizations Manage and Protect Distributed Endpoint Devices and Data

March 1, 2021
Microsoft To Build New Azure Cloud Data Centers In Greece

Enterprise Key Management Solution Market 2021 Industry Growth Analysis, Future Predictions, SWOT Analysis, By Top Players- EMC Corporation Townsend security Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Gemalto N.V. Microsoft Azure Google Thales e-security International Business Machines (IBM) Broadcom

March 1, 2021
A moment of reckoning: the need for a strong and global cybersecurity response

Intel Calls Silicon ‘Greatest Weapon Against Security Threats’

March 1, 2021
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Sunday, March 7, 2021
  • Login
Azure Security News
  • Home
    • Home – Layout 1
    • Home – Layout 2
    • Home – Layout 3
    • Home – Layout 4
    • Home – Layout 5
  • News
    • All
    • Business
    • Politics
    • Science
    • World
    Microsoft To Build New Azure Cloud Data Centers In Greece

    Yubico Makes Passwordless Authentication Generally Available for Azure AD Users

    A moment of reckoning: the need for a strong and global cybersecurity response

    Microsoft makes passwordless push in Azure Active Directory

    How to use Microsoft Sysmon, Azure Sentinel to log security events

    Microsoft Releases Azure AD My App and New Risk Detections for Identity Protection into GA

    8×8 makes raft of updates to platform

    BitDam ATP+ protects Office 365 users from unknown threats

    Microsoft Outlines How To Set Up Windows Virtual Desktop

    What’s New in Tufin Orchestration Suite 21-1

    Innovative solutions for IT workers at home

    BitDam Offers Complete Security for Office 365 Email, OneDrive and Teams With The Introduction of BitDam ATP+

    Telecom Provider Migrates Confidently to Microsoft Azure with Fortinet’s Dynamic Cloud Security Solutions

    Cloud Security in Banking Market Next Big Thing | Major Giants- Sophos, Boxcryptor, Microsoft Azure

    How to use Microsoft Sysmon, Azure Sentinel to log security events

    Microsoft Cloud Announces Three New Vertical Cloud Solutions

    Innovative solutions for IT workers at home

    Privacera Announces Partnership with Talend for Rapid Cloud Data Integration and Governance with Automated Privacy and Compliance

    Innovative solutions for IT workers at home

    What is database encryption?

    Trending Tags

    • Donald Trump
    • Future of News
    • Climate Change
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
    • Flat Earth
  • Tech
    • All
    • Apps
    • Gear
    • Mobile
    • Startup
    Microsoft’s CyberX Acquisition Boosts Security of Azure IoT Lineup

    Microsoft Power BI Premium Per User pricing is a game changer

    How to use Microsoft Sysmon, Azure Sentinel to log security events

    Cloud Network Engineer – Associate – ATL

    A moment of reckoning: the need for a strong and global cybersecurity response

    Microsoft to add new shared channels, encryption for calls, webinar features to Teams

    Microsoft Declares ‘General Availability’ of Threat Experts Security Service

    Mindware Partners with Cibecs to Help Regional Organizations Manage and Protect Distributed Endpoint Devices and Data

    Microsoft To Build New Azure Cloud Data Centers In Greece

    Enterprise Key Management Solution Market 2021 Industry Growth Analysis, Future Predictions, SWOT Analysis, By Top Players- EMC Corporation Townsend security Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Gemalto N.V. Microsoft Azure Google Thales e-security International Business Machines (IBM) Broadcom

    A moment of reckoning: the need for a strong and global cybersecurity response

    Intel Calls Silicon ‘Greatest Weapon Against Security Threats’

    A moment of reckoning: the need for a strong and global cybersecurity response

    Microsoft Releases Azure Firewall Premium in Public Preview

    Telecom Provider Migrates Confidently to Microsoft Azure with Fortinet’s Dynamic Cloud Security Solutions

    Veeam Backup & Replication 11: Enhanced data management for a multi-cloud environment

    8×8 makes raft of updates to platform

    Advancing the Orchestration of Distributed Edge Applications, ZEDEDA Integrates with Microsoft Azure IoT

    How to use Microsoft Sysmon, Azure Sentinel to log security events

    OPS101 – Securing your Hybrid environment – Part 1 – Azure Security Center

    Trending Tags

    • Flat Earth
    • Sillicon Valley
    • Mr. Robot
    • MotoGP 2017
    • Golden Globes
    • Future of News
  • Entertainment
    • All
    • Gaming
    • Movie
    • Music
    • Sports
    Microsoft Flight Simulator Continues to Look Stunning in New Snow Video

    Microsoft Flight Simulator Continues to Look Stunning in New Snow Video

    Meet the woman who’s making consumer boycotts great again

    New campaign wants you to raise funds for abuse victims by ditching the razor

    Twitter tweaks video again, adding view counts for some users

    A beginner’s guide to the legendary Tim Tam biscuit, now available in America

    People are handing out badges at Tube stations to tackle loneliness

    Trump’s H-1B Visa Bill spooks India’s IT companies

    Magical fish basically has the power to conjure its own Patronus

    This Filipino guy channels his inner Miss Universe by strutting in six-inch heels and speedos

    Oil spill off India’s southern coast leaves fisherman stranded, marine life impacted

  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Fashion
    • Food
    • Health
    • Travel
    Microsoft Seriously Beefs Up Security in Windows Server 2019

    Microsoft Offers More ‘Solorigate’ Advice Using Microsoft 365 Defender Tools

    A moment of reckoning: the need for a strong and global cybersecurity response

    Solar Winds, Office 365 & Shipbuilding…

    Aruba ClearPass Policy Manager Integrates with Microsoft

    Imprivata Expands Collaboration with Microsoft on New Digital Identity Innovations

    Microsoft Seriously Beefs Up Security in Windows Server 2019

    Microsoft Canada’s 10 biggest stories of 2020

    FAA issues new proposed Boeing 737 MAX pilot training procedures

    FAA issues new proposed Boeing 737 MAX pilot training procedures

    AMD breaks revenue records for 2019 and 4Q

    AMD breaks revenue records for 2019 and 4Q

    Microsoft and Analog Devices pair on 3D imaging tech

    Microsoft and Analog Devices pair on 3D imaging tech

    Microsoft is killing off insecure Cloud App Security cipher suites

    Microsoft is killing off insecure Cloud App Security cipher suites

    Rap group call out publication for using their image in place of ‘gang’

    Meet the woman who’s making consumer boycotts great again

    Trending Tags

    • Golden Globes
    • Mr. Robot
    • MotoGP 2017
    • Climate Change
    • Flat Earth
No Result
View All Result
Azure Security News
No Result
View All Result
Home News

Microsoft Kills 18 Azure Accounts Tied to Nation-State Attacks

by AZURE SECURITY NEWS EDITOR
December 22, 2020
in News
0
A moment of reckoning: the need for a strong and global cybersecurity response
492
SHARES
1.4k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

An APT group has started heavily relying on cloud services like Azure Active Directory and OneDrive, as well as open-source tools, to obfuscate its attacks.

Microsoft has suspended 18 Azure Active Directory applications that were being leveraged for command-and-control (C2) infrastructure by what it says is a Chinese nation-state actor.

While Microsoft services like Azure Active Directory (AD) – its cloud-based identity and access management service – are popular among enterprises, cybercriminals are also swooping in on these services to enhance the weaponization of their malware payload, attempt to gain command and control all the way to the server, and obfuscate detection. One such threat group recently spotted leveraging these cloud services and open source tools is what Microsoft calls Gadolinium, a Chinese nation-state activity group that has been compromising targets for nearly a decade.

After compromising victim devices, Gadolinium was setting up AD accounts to receive commands from and send stolen data to its C2 server. But beyond that, the threat group has also stored stolen data in Microsoft’s file hosting service and synchronization service, OneDrive; launched attacks using the open source PowershellEmpire toolkit and used GitHub to host commands.

Gadolinium has been experimenting with using cloud services to deliver their attacks to increase both operation speed and scale for years,” said Ben Koehl and Joe Hannon, with Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence Center, in a report posted Thursday.

Evolved Attacks

Gadolinium is also known as APT40, which researchers like FireEye have assessed with “moderate confidence” is a state sponsored espionage actor attributed to China. While previously Gadolinium has targeted worldwide maritime and health industries, Microsoft said recently it has observed newly expanded targeting for the threat group to include the Asia Pacific region and other targets in higher education and regional government organizations.

In mid-April 2020 the threat actors were detected sending spear-phishing emails with malicious attachments, with lures relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. When opened, the attached PowerPoint file (20200423-sitrep-92-covid-19.ppt), would drop a file, doc1.dotm, which then has two payloads that run in succession.

These include a payload that turns off a type check (DisableActivitySurrogateSelectorTypeCheck), while the second loads an embedded .Net binary that downloads a .Png image file.

“The .png is actually PowerShell which downloads and uploads fake png files using the Microsoft Graph API to https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/drive/root:/onlinework/contact/$($ID)_1.png:/content where $ID is the ID of the malware,” said researchers.

Behind the scenes, these attacks relied on a bundle of Microsoft services and open source tooling – which Microsoft said has been a steady trend in recent years for several nation-state activity groups migrating to open source tooling.

Gadolinium Leveraging Cloud Services

Researchers said that historically Gadolinium has leveraged custom-crafted malware families – but analysts have been able to identify these and defend against them.

In response, the threat actor has started experimenting with cloud applications to help it sidestep detection of its attacks, starting in 2018, when the threat group chose to use GitHub to host commands. Many cloud services frequently offer a free trial or one-time payment account offering (via PayGo), and malicious actors have found ways to take advantage of these legitimate business offerings, said researchers.

Gadolinium’s attack vectors. Credit: Microsoft

“By establishing free or PayGo accounts, they can use cloud-based technology to create a malicious infrastructure that can be established quickly then taken down before detection or given up at little cost,” said researchers.

This past year, Gadolinium has also started modifying portions of its attack vector, instead using open-source toolkits to obfuscate its activity and make it more difficult for analysts to track.

Microsoft said that the 18 Azure Active Directory applications that were suspended were part of Gadolinium’s PowerShell Empire infrastructure, which is a modified version of the open source PowershellEmpire toolkit. This is a toolkit that allows attackers to load additional modules to infected computers via Microsoft Graph API calls. It provides a command and control module that uses the attacker’s Microsoft OneDrive account to execute commands and retrieve results between attacker and victim systems.

“The attacker uses an Azure Active Directory application to configure a victim endpoint with the permissions needed to exfiltrate data to the attacker’s own Microsoft OneDrive storage,” said researchers. “From an endpoint or network monitoring perspective the activity initially appears to be related to trusted applications using trusted cloud service APIs and, in this scenario, no OAuth permissions consent prompts occur.”

Reference:https://threatpost.com/microsoft-azure-chinese-hackers/159551/

Share197Tweet123Share49
AZURE SECURITY NEWS EDITOR

AZURE SECURITY NEWS EDITOR

Related Posts

Microsoft To Build New Azure Cloud Data Centers In Greece

Yubico Makes Passwordless Authentication Generally Available for Azure AD Users

by AZURE SECURITY NEWS EDITOR
March 5, 2021
0

Microsoft Azure Active Directory (AD) users can use YubiKeys to log into various applications now that Yubico has announced that its passwordless...

A moment of reckoning: the need for a strong and global cybersecurity response

Microsoft makes passwordless push in Azure Active Directory

by AZURE SECURITY NEWS EDITOR
March 5, 2021
0

During a Microsoft Ignite 2021 session Wednesday titled, "Azure Active Directory: our identity vision and roadmap for strengthening Zero Trust defenses in...

How to use Microsoft Sysmon, Azure Sentinel to log security events

Microsoft Releases Azure AD My App and New Risk Detections for Identity Protection into GA

by AZURE SECURITY NEWS EDITOR
March 4, 2021
0

Microsoft recently released a few new Azure Active Directory (AD) features, namely My Apps "collections" and new "risk detections" capabilities, into general availability (GA)....

8×8 makes raft of updates to platform

BitDam ATP+ protects Office 365 users from unknown threats

by AZURE SECURITY NEWS EDITOR
March 4, 2021
0

BitDam announced the availability of BitDam ATP+, its upgraded Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) solution, offering comprehensive defense against malware, phishing, business...

  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest
Microsoft’s CyberX Acquisition Boosts Security of Azure IoT Lineup

AZURE DEFAULT RESOURCE GROUP AND DEFAULT WORKSPACE: WHAT ARE THEY?

December 14, 2020
Microsoft Seriously Beefs Up Security in Windows Server 2019

TCS Launches Cloud Exponence on Microsoft Azure

January 21, 2021
Microsoft Launches Host of Security Products in Time for RSA

Microsoft to add two new Microsoft 365 security, compliance bundles to its line-up

November 26, 2020

Lady Gaga Pulled Off One of the Best Halftime Shows Ever

0

Barack Obama’s Now Mainly Focusing on Wearing This Casual Backwards Hat

0

Watch Justin Timberlake’s ‘Cry Me a River’ Come to Life in Mesmerizing Dance

0
Microsoft To Build New Azure Cloud Data Centers In Greece

Yubico Makes Passwordless Authentication Generally Available for Azure AD Users

March 5, 2021
A moment of reckoning: the need for a strong and global cybersecurity response

Microsoft makes passwordless push in Azure Active Directory

March 5, 2021
Microsoft’s CyberX Acquisition Boosts Security of Azure IoT Lineup

Microsoft Power BI Premium Per User pricing is a game changer

March 4, 2021
Azure Security News

Copyright © 2020 - Azure Security

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • Politics
    • Business
    • World
    • Science
  • Entertainment
    • Gaming
    • Music
    • Movie
    • Sports
  • Tech
    • Apps
    • Gear
    • Mobile
    • Startup
  • Lifestyle
    • Food
    • Fashion
    • Health
    • Travel

Copyright © 2020 - Azure Security

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In