JOINT REPORT:

Information Warfare Monitor Shadowserver FoundationApril 6, 2010

SHADOWS IN THE CLOUD:

Investigating Cyber Espionage 2.0

INFOWARMONITOR

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WEB VERSION. Also found here:

http://shadows-in-the-cloud.net

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Shadows in the Cloud

FOREWORD

Foreword

Crime and espionage orm a dark underworld o cyberspace. Whereas crime is usually the rst to seek out newopportunities and methods, espionage usually ollows in its wake, borrowing techniques and tradecrat. The

Shadows in the Cloud

report illustrates the increasingly dangerous ecosystem o crime and espionage and itsembeddedness in the abric o global cyberspace.This ecosystem is the product o numerous actors. Attackers employ complex, adaptive attack techniques thatdemonstrate high-level ingenuity and opportunism. They take advantage o the cracks and ssures that open upin the ast-paced transormations o our technological world. Every new sotware program, social networkingsite, cloud computing, or cheap hosting service that is launched into our everyday digital lives creates anopportunity or this ecosystem to morph, adapt, and exploit.It has also emerged because o poor security practices o users, rom individuals to large organizations. Wetake or granted that the inormation and communications revolution is a relatively new phenomenon, stillvery much in the midst o unceasing epochal change. Public institutions have adopted these new technologiesaster than procedures and rules have been created to deal with the radical transparency and accompanyingvulnerabilities they introduce.Today, data is transerred rom laptops to USB sticks, over wireless networks at caé hot spots, and stored acrosscloud computing services whose servers are located in ar-o political jurisdictions. These new modalities o communicating de-concentrate and disperse the targets o exploitation, multiplying the points o exposureand potential compromise. Paradoxically, documents and data are probably saer in a le cabinet, behind thebureaucrat’s careul watch, than they are on the PC today.The ecosystem o crime and espionage is also emerging because o opportunism on the part o actors. Cyberespionage is the great equalizer. Countries no longer have to spend billions o dollars to build globe-spanningsatellites to pursue high-level intelligence gathering, when they can do so via the web. We have no evidence inthis report o the involvement o the People’s Republic o China (PRC) or any other government in the

Shadow

network. But an important question to be entertained is whether the PRC will take action to shut the

Shadow

network down. Doing so will help to address long-standing concerns that malware ecosystems are activelycultivated, or at the very least tolerated, by governments like the PRC who stand to benet rom their exploitsthough the black and grey markets or inormation and data.Finally, the ecosystem is emerging because o a propitious policy environment — or rather the absence o one — at a global level. Governments around the world are engaged in a rapid race to militarize cyber space,to develop tools and methods to ght and win wars in this domain. This arms race creates an opportunitystructure ripe or crime and espionage to fourish. In the absence o norms, principles and rules o mutualrestraint at a global level, a vacuum exists or subterranean exploits to ll.There is a real risk o a perect storm in cyberspace erupting out o this vacuum that threatens to subvertcyberspace itsel, either through over-reaction, a spiraling arms race, the imposition o heavy-handed controls,or through gradual irrelevance as people disconnect out o ear o insecurity.

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Shadows in the Cloud

FOREWORD

There is, thereore, an urgent need or a global convention on cyberspace that builds robust mechanisms o inormation sharing across borders and institutions, denes appropriate rules o the road or engagement in thecyber domain, puts the onus on states to not tolerate or encourage mischievous networks whose activitiesoperate rom within their jurisdictions, and protects and preserves this valuable global commons.Until such a normative and policy shit occurs, the shadows in the cloud may grow into a dark, threatening storm.

Ron Deibert

Director, the Citizen Lab, Munk School o Global AairsUniversity o Toronto

Rafal Rohozinski

CEO, The SecDev Group (Ottawa)

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Shadows in the Cloud

PART 1: BACKGROUND & CONTEXT

military sectors. They exchange inormation as a matter o routine, across social networking and cloud comput-ing platorms, using fash drives and other portable devices, and thus become co-dependent on each others’inormation and computer and network security practices. The vulnerabilities o one actor can quickly andunintentionally compromise unwitting third parties, which in turn can become the basis or actionable intel-ligence against those third parties. We hypothesize that there is a high probability or collateral compromisein any malware network because o this mutual dependence. A key consideration, o course, is how to discernintended rom unintended victims, a problem that is dicult to solve.

Actionable Intelligence around Exfltrated Data

Related to collateral compromise is the issue o the strategic value o exltrated data. Access to this data canoer important clues about the motivation and attribution o the attackers. It can also provide insight aboutthe strategic value o the type o data that can be accessed through malware networks. In the course o ourinvestigation, we assumed that we would get, at best, only a partial picture o the exltrated data, but even thatpartial picture would provide some potentially meaningul inormation or those who acquire it. While each in-dividual data point may be o little value, when combined with other data acquired through other means (e.g.,open source searching) a very detailed operational picture can be assembled. We try to assess and evaluate theexltrated data we were able to access with these issues in mind.

Attribution

Examining attribution is an arduous but important component o any cyber security investigation and hasbecome a major political issue at the highest levels around several recent cyber attacks. In order to characterisethe attackers, a variety o technical indicators as well as behavioural indicators need to be analysed (Parker etal. 2004; Parker et al. 2003). These characteristics are interpreted in the context o the nature o the targets andthe objective o the attack. The nature and timing o the attack, the exploit, the malware, and the command andcontrol inrastructure, are just some o the components that go into determining attribution. Knowing the meth-ods and behaviour o the attackers as well as the character o the tools the attackers use once inside the target’snetwork, the data that the attackers exltrate and where that data goes, are also crucial parts o the overall as-sessment (Bejtlich 2010; Cloppert 2009; Mandiant 2010).Moreover, historical inormation and ongoing intelligence collection are crucial when trying to understand thescope o the threat (Deloitte & Touche LLP, 2010). It is dicult to assess attribution when examining an isolatedattack; it is the broader patterns, connections and contextual inormation that inorm the process. However, it isuncommon to have a complete data set covering all aspects o the attackers’ operations. Some may have accessto data regarding the attackers’ activities once inside a particular network. Others may have extensive collec-tions o malware samples and historical data on command and control inrastructure. Others may have inorma-tion on how the attackers use various exploits, or crat targeted

spear phishing

emails and other methods ocusedon compromising particular targets. Others may have data retrieved rom the attackers that indicate the identityo those who have been compromised. And nally still others may have the necessary geopolitical knowledge tointerpret the attacks within a broader context.Oten, investigations do not have the luxury o such a ull data set and must rely on incomplete inormation andpartial observations. Further complicating matters is that any o this inormation is oten dependent on mistakesmade by the attackers, which typically lead to slices o an overall network instead o a comprehensive view.Any questions concerning attribution must thereore always be set against a context o a complete considerationo alternative explanations and qualied observations.

PART 2:Methodology andInvestigative Techniques

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Shadows in the Cloud

PART 2: METHODOLOGY & INVESTIGATIVE TECHNIQUES

2.1

Methodology

The core o the methodology employed in the

Shadows in the Cloud

investigation rests at the nexus o technicalinterrogation, eld investigation, data analysis, and geopolitical, contextual research (See Box 2, page 3). No onemethod alone is capable o providing a comprehensive understanding o malware networks; it is through theircombination that a complete picture is derived. For example, a technical analysis o exploits and malware usedby attackers alone can provide a great deal o insight into capabilities and targets. The command and controlservers used by the malware can be enumerated, and can sometimes reveal additional inormation that can beused to identiy those who have been compromised and data that may have been exltrated rom these targets.However, the technical analysis o exploits and malware samples alone only provides one crucial data set.Field research is a critical, although sometimes neglected, component o malware research. While much o theemphasis in existing malware research is ocused on technical analysis o malware samples, this purely techni-cal approach is unlikely to yield a complete picture. For example, through eld research we have ound com-promised computers checking in with command and control servers that we have not seen in malware samplesdistributed by the attackers. There is some evidence to suggest that attackers may migrate compromised hoststo new command and control servers and/or command compromised computers to install new malware that isnot publicly disseminated through

spear phishing

and other targeted malware attacks. The eld research com-ponent can thus provide an equally important insight into the attackers’ capabilities once the target’s networkis compromised, as well as updated command and control locations. Moreover, it allows or the investigationo the context surrounding the the target and why the victims may have been targeted in the rst place. Finally,the wider geopolitical considerations, derived rom both eld investigations and contextual research, place thecollection o inormation in a broader context that supplies details around issues such as the timing o the at-tacks, the nature o the exploitation, including the use o any social engineering techniques, and potentially theidentity and motivation o the attackers.We present our methodology in the ollowing sequence – eld investigation rst, ollowed by technical investi-gations. However, in practice the two are iterative processes. In some circumstances, eld investigations beginrst, ollowed by technical investigations, while in other cases the opposite is true. In this case, a technical-based investigative technique (sinkhole analysis) is probably the closest to an actual starting point, althougheven that method was inormed by prior knowledge derived rom eld and contextual research reaching backto the

Tracking GhostNet

report. In almost all circumstances, geopolitical and contextual research inorms boththe technical and eld research components. In practice, thereore, usion methodology is a holistic, non-linearapproach, but one that takes place in a very structured and ocused ashion.

2.2

Field Investigation

Our objective is to ultimately understand the capabilities and motivations o those engaged in targeted malwareattacks. Field research provides critical insight into the methods and operations o the attackers. By analyzingcomputers at locations that are routinely targeted by (similar) attackers, we aim to identiy portions o com-mand and control inrastructure that the attackers use or particular targets as well as document the type o data that the attackers exltrate rom the targets. However, our research aims to be more than just extractinginormation rom those who have been compromised.

SHADOWS IN THE CLOUD: Investigating Cyber Espionage 2.0

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Shadows in the Cloud documents a complex ecosystem of cyber espionage that systematically compromised government, business, academic, and other co... (More)