How ACBackdoor Cloud Attack Works
ACBackdoor Cloud Attack leverages compromised credentials, misconfigurations, or unpatched vulnerabilities to infiltrate cloud environments. It establishes persistence by creating rogue IAM roles or embedding malicious scripts in serverless functions. The attackers escalate privileges to access sensitive resources and move laterally across accounts or regions. Data is exfiltrated using encrypted channels, while logging mechanisms are disabled or altered to evade detection. This attack highlights the risks of poor cloud security practices and insufficient monitoring.
ACBackdoor Cloud Attack refers to a hypothetical or emerging cloud-centric threat leveraging backdoor techniques to gain unauthorized access, maintain persistence, and exfiltrate data from cloud environments.
Key Points About ACBackdoor Cloud Attack:
- Exploits vulnerabilities in cloud APIs, applications, or publicly exposed services for initial access.
- Uses stolen or brute-forced credentials to compromise cloud administrator accounts.
- Creates persistent backdoors by adding new IAM users, roles, or tokens with elevated privileges.
- Abuses serverless functions (e.g., AWS Lambda, Azure Functions) to implant malicious payloads.
- Performs privilege escalation by modifying IAM policies, roles, or exploiting vulnerable cloud-native services.
- Moves laterally within cloud environments by leveraging cross-account roles or shared storage.
- Establishes communication with external command and control (C2) servers using encrypted channels like HTTPS or DNS tunneling.
- Exfiltrates large volumes of sensitive data from storage services (e.g., AWS S3, Azure Blob, GCP Storage).
- Disables or modifies cloud logging services to evade detection and hinder forensic investigations.
- Targets multi-cloud environments, exploiting misconfigurations and insufficient security controls across AWS, GCP, and Azure.
Overview of ACBackdoor Cloud Attack
- Objective: ACBackdoor targets cloud infrastructure to infiltrate systems, steal sensitive data, and establish long-term control while evading detection.
- Scope: This attack can impact multi-cloud environments such as AWS, GCP, and Azure, exploiting misconfigurations, weak credentials, or vulnerabilities in applications.
- Attack Vectors:
- Spear-phishing emails to compromise cloud management accounts.
- Exploitation of publicly exposed APIs or unpatched vulnerabilities in cloud-hosted applications.
- Abuse of misconfigured IAM roles and permissions to escalate privileges.
Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) used by ACBackdoor
How to do threat hunting for ACBackdoor through logs
| TTP | Description | Cloud Log Sources Required | MITRE ATT&CK Mapping | What to Check in Cloud Logs (Attribute Details) |
| Initial Access | Exploitation of public services or stolen credentials to gain unauthorized access. | Cloud Audit Logs (AWS CloudTrail, GCP Audit Logs, Azure Activity Logs) | T1078 (Valid Accounts) | – Unusual API calls: Detect API usage patterns inconsistent with historical behavior. – Failed logins: Multiple failed authentication attempts from unknown IPs or regions. – New access keys: Monitor for the creation of new IAM credentials or API tokens. |
| Persistence | Establishing backdoors to maintain unauthorized access. | IAM Logs, Cloud Configuration Logs | T1098 (Account Manipulation) | – Creation of new users/roles: Look for unexpected IAM role creations. – Policy changes: Monitor updates to IAM or service policies granting elevated permissions. – Long-lived credentials: Identify unusually long expiry periods for tokens. |
| Privilege Escalation | Gaining elevated privileges to perform unauthorized actions. | IAM Logs, Cloud Audit Logs | T1068 (Privilege Escalation) | – Policy modifications: Check for policy edits granting administrator access. – Assignment of high privileges: Detect assignment of sensitive roles to low-privileged users. – Lambda or Function role abuse: Look for unexpected privilege escalations. |
| Defense Evasion | Avoiding detection by altering or disabling security configurations. | Cloud Security Logs, Cloud Config Logs | T1070 (Indicator Removal) | – Disabling logging: Look for attempts to stop logging services (e.g., CloudTrail, Stackdriver, Azure Monitor). – Log deletion: Detect deleted or tampered logs. – Firewall changes: Monitor unexpected security group or firewall rule changes. |
| Credential Access | Harvesting credentials for lateral movement or data exfiltration. | Secret Manager Logs, Cloud Audit Logs | T1003 (Credential Dumping) | – Unauthorized access to secrets: Monitor for unusual access to Secrets Manager, Parameter Store, or Key Vault. – Key exports: Detect export or download of sensitive credentials. – IAM credential usage: Track usage of exposed credentials. |
| Command and Control | Establishing communication with external servers for remote control. | Network Traffic Logs, DNS Logs | T1071 (Application Layer Protocol) | – Outbound connections to C2: Monitor for traffic to known C2 domains or IPs. – DNS anomalies: Look for DNS queries to malicious domains. – Unusual ports/protocols: Detect usage of uncommon communication ports or protocols. |
| Lateral Movement | Moving laterally across accounts or services to expand access. | Cloud Audit Logs, Network Traffic Logs | T1021 (Remote Services) | – Cross-region activity: Detect access to regions not typically used by the organization. – Cross-account roles: Monitor usage of AssumeRole in AWS or service accounts in GCP and Azure. – Internal traffic patterns: Check for unusual lateral connections. |
| Exfiltration | Extracting sensitive data to unauthorized destinations. | Storage Logs, Data Access Logs | T1041 (Exfiltration Over C2) | – Bulk data downloads: Monitor large-scale reads or downloads from storage services (e.g., S3, Blob, Cloud Storage). – External transfers: Detect transfers to external or unfamiliar destinations. – Data sharing: Check for unauthorized sharing of files. |
| Execution | Running malicious scripts or binaries within cloud environments. | Function Logs, Cloud Audit Logs | T1059 (Command and Scripting Interpreter) | – Suspicious Lambda/Functions execution: Detect unexpected or abnormal invocations of serverless functions. – Unauthorized script execution: Monitor commands executed through management tools like Systems Manager or Cloud Shell. – Malware execution: Identify unusual binaries or scripts. |
Detection Recommendations
📌 Cloud Application Logs: Monitor for the execution of unauthorized remote access tools and changes to system configurations that may indicate persistence mechanisms.
📌 Network Traffic Logs: Analyze for unusual outbound connections, especially to known C2 servers, and internal traffic patterns that may suggest lateral movement or exploitation attempts.
📌 Identity and Access Management (IAM) Logs: Review for unauthorized access attempts, privilege escalations, and anomalies in authentication patterns.
📌 Data Access Logs: Track access to sensitive information and monitor for large-scale data exfiltration activities.
📌 Endpoint Detection Logs: Detect attempts to disable security tools, clear logs, or employ obfuscation techniques.
Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)
📌 Creation of unexpected IAM users, roles, or API keys.
📌 Sudden policy changes granting admin privileges.
📌 Bulk data transfers or large-scale reads from cloud storage.
📌 Outbound traffic to suspicious IPs or domains.
📌 Disabled logging services or altered configurations.
📌 Execution of unusual serverless functions or scripts.
IP
💡176.113.115.153
💡176.113.115.123
💡87.237.52.145
💡193.142.59.113
💡193.106.191.162
💡2.57.122.201
💡103.249.200.40
💡78.142.18.112
💡78.142.18.110
💡193.142.59.150
💡176.113.115.156
💡78.39.233.217
💡193.142.59.134
💡193.29.15.177
💡193.29.15.225
💡193.29.15.252
☢️ Key Log Attributes to Monitor Across Providers
- User Activity:
- Login events, IP addresses, geolocations, and timestamps.
- User agents and device fingerprints.
- API Calls:
- Types of API calls made (e.g., IAM, Storage, Compute).
- Frequency and patterns of API usage.
- Network Traffic:
- Source and destination IPs, protocols, and ports.
- DNS query patterns and external connections.
- Resource Access:
- Access to storage, secrets, and configuration files.
- Role or policy changes to cloud resources.
- Service Configurations:
- Modifications to logging, firewall rules, and security groups.
- Addition or deletion of users, roles, and permissions.
☢️ Recommendations
- Enable Logging: Ensure all cloud providers’ logging services (e.g., AWS CloudTrail, GCP Logging, Azure Monitor) are enabled and retained for analysis.
- Alert Configuration: Set up real-time alerts for unusual activities such as privilege escalations, access from unknown IPs, and large data transfers.
- Threat Intelligence Integration: Use threat intelligence feeds to match log events with known indicators of compromise (IOCs).
- Correlate Logs: Aggregate logs in a SIEM platform for cross-platform analysis and detection.
