How to Spot Attackers in the Early Stages of the Cyber Kill Chain

Modern cyber warfare requires a deep understanding of attacker tactics and agile responses to protect organizations from evolving threats. By doing so, thecyber-kill chainprovides a powerful framework to understand and combat these threats, dividing the attack cycle into different phases.

The core of the chain is the reconnaissance phase, where the attacker thoroughly searches for information about the target. This phase, although initial, is critical because it provides the attacker with basic insights into the infrastructure and vulnerabilities of the system in question.

This paper explores this step as well ascyber securityHow professionals can detect and stop suspicious activity before it evolves into a more serious threat. For example, by using OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) technology and network traffic monitoring, organizations can stay one step ahead of attackers and protect their networks and sensitive data from devastating cyberattacks.

What is a cyber kill chain?

First, before we dive in, we need to understand what a cyber kill chain is.

It is like a chain of disruption, a concept taken from military strategy and developed by Lockheed Martin (a manufacturer of aerospace products founded in 1995. one of the world's largest producers of military products) was developed and adapted into thenetwork security modelAn attack consists of seven stages. Once the phases of an attack have been identified, security operators can intervene, thus helping to break the chain of attacks.

The goal is to predict the behavior of attackers and reduce the impact of attacks, identifying threats while they are still in their early stages.

In this post, we'll focus on the first phase, scouting.

It is worth noting that, as in traditional warfare, successful cyberattacks usually begin with very effective information gathering, and reconnaissance is the first step in the cyberkill chain.

In this way, a large amount of data and relevant information about the target can be obtained in order to move to the next execution step in the chain.

Both security professionals and attackers can employ similar techniques to identify threats during the reconnaissance phase, especially through the use of OSINT (Open Source Intelligence)

For a better understanding, let us first conceptualize the practice:

OSINT, or Open Source Intelligence, collects and analyzes information from public sources, such as social media, online forums, public databases, government records, and news sites.

In addition to open source intelligence, they can also proactively search for potential threats, such as threat hunting, which consists of a cybersecurity methodology designed to identify malicious activity inside or outside an organization's environment.

When used correctly and in combination, these two techniques can be powerful tools for identifying elements of the reconnaissance phase of the cyber kill chain.

We will discuss two instances where attackers are at the initial stage of the chain and how cyber defense professionals can detect their behavior and respond quickly to prevent progression to the second stage (weaponization).

In the first case, we assume that there is an attacker, which we will refer to as theMr. XHe chose a banking institution as the target of his planned attack. Using OSINT technology, he began extensive research on the bank's social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with the aim of finding information about the company's employees. It even searched for employees with specific positions, such as system administrators or senior managers, to identify potential targets for spear phishing attacks. He then begins searching public records, such as domain and property records, with the goal of obtaining data about the company's owners, physical addresses, and legal history. Finally, Mr. X analyzed the bank's website to examine lists of possible employees, partners, and customers, as well as details about products and services offered.

However, Mr. X is unaware of the presence of John, an attentive and persistent threat hunter from the aforementioned banking institution, who is constantly taking action on the other side of the fence and has already implemented a number of detection techniques through which he has noticed a number of noteworthy movements. More careful analysis. John uses social media monitoring tools to track mentions of companies, employees and executives, and online search activity analysis tools to search for keywords that might be relevant to the company he works for. Interestingly, these are resources used for marketing purposes, but they can provide important data. He also actively searched for mentions of the company's name in groups of suspicious messaging apps (e.g., Telegram) and found that the multiple allusions to the organization were consistent with the same period of increased interest in the company observed by the marketing tool.

In the second hypothetical scenario, Mr. X uses a tool such as Nmap to identify which ports are open on the company's systems. Keep in mind that such tools send packets to various ports and analyze the responses to determine if they are open, thereby checking for any vulnerabilities that could be exploited in subsequent steps in the evolution of the cyberkill chain.

Example of a port scan performed by nmap.

It uses network traffic monitoring tools such as wireshark to identify patterns that indicate port or service scanning.

The tool works on packets. This is one of the ways to monitor the network, even the most detailed. In addition to the content and protocols used, the tool discovers source and destination addresses and various other information.

John also uses a bandwidth analysis methodology that focuses on the amount of data being transmitted through the network in order to detect, for example, traffic spikes that consume more bandwidth.

Traffic is also important because in this form of monitoring, the idea is to use aggregated information about the traffic, collecting aggregated data rather than individual packets. This includes records of: data volume, source and destination IP addresses, and communication ports.

In this way, John noticed, for example, that a large number of requests for multiple consecutive or sequential ports triggered the scanning signal.

As a result, he immediately initiated procedures to isolate the suspicious traffic: implementing new firewall rules or blocking traffic from the IP addresses involved in the port scanning in the intrusion detection and defense system to prevent the attackers from continuing and developing their malicious activities.

Case Examples

Suppose a company (which we'll call " CompanyX ") operates in a highly competitive industry and provides a large amount of information, including financial data, intellectual property, and personal customer information. Realizing the importance of protecting this data from cyber threats, CompanyX's cybersecurity team implemented a data breach detection system.

The system operates continuously while monitoring a variety of Internet channels, including the dark web, underground forums, file-sharing sites and social networks, for signs of suspicious activity that may indicate a data breach. It uses advanced algorithms to identify patterns of behavior associated with the illegal sale or sharing of relevant information.

One day, CompanyX's data breach detection system detected a post on an underground forum that caught the attention of the cybersecurity team. The post indicated that the person nicknamed " DarkHacker123 "Users of CompanyX are selling large amounts of confidential data belonging to CompanyX. This data includes employee e-mail addresses, financial information, and customer contact information.

Faced with this discovery, CompanyX's cybersecurity team took immediate action. They began a detailed investigation to verify the authenticity of the compromised data and determine how the attackers gained access to it. This could involve analyzing the compromised data to identify patterns of behavior, examining network security logs to identify potentially compromised entry points, and communicating with the appropriate authorities to report the incident.

Meanwhile, the cybersecurity team takes immediate steps to mitigate the damage caused by the data breach. This may include changing access credentials, performingData Securitystrategy, contacting affected customers to alert them of the incident, and coordinating with business partners to ensure additional security measures are implemented in their operations.

How do events relate to the reconnaissance phase of the kill chain?

As previously stated in the Cyber Kill Chain, the reconnaissance phase is the first stage in which an attacker seeks to gain information about a target before executing an actual attack. In this phase, the attacker seeks to understand the company's infrastructure, identify its vulnerabilities and develop an effective plan of attack.

In the example provided, an attacker named "DarkHacker123" is conducting reconnaissance activities while attempting to gather sensitive information about CompanyX. This information gathering is critical so that the attacker can more effectively plan and execute targeted cyberattacks.

So, coincidentally, as soon as the aforementioned attackers acquired the data, they started making it available on secret forums, before they even progressed to the next stage of the cyber-kill chain.

in conclusion

Early detection of reconnaissance activities in the early stages of the cyber kill chain is critical to strengthening an organization's cyber defenses. By combining open source intelligence techniques with network traffic monitoring, cybersecurity professionals can identify suspicious patterns of behavior and act quickly to stop attack attempts.

Through real-world examples, such as the use of social media monitoring tools to identify attacker profiles and in-depth analysis of network traffic to detect port scans, we illustrate how security professionals can stay one step ahead of attackers.

In an increasingly complex and threatening landscape, organizations must invest in proactive cyber defense strategies and be prepared to face the challenges of an evolving digital environment. By taking a comprehensive approach to cybersecurity, we can protect our systems and data from the growing number of cyber threats and ensure the resilience of business operations in the digital world.