Threat Detection Packages
SUNBURST Known Malicious DNS Activity
• Splunk
• Elastic Lucene
• Elastic DSL
SUNBURST Suspicious Processes for SolarWinds Orion Software
• Splunk
• Elastic Lucene
• Elastic DSL
SUNBURST Named Pipe Indicator
• Splunk
• Elastic Lucene
• Elastic DSL
Introduction
Last week FireEye shared that they experienced unauthorized access and theft of their offensive security tools used by their red team, by a sophisticated state-sponsored adversary. Although the theft of these sophisticated tools will have an impact on future attacks carried out by the adversary, how they accessed the tools was a much bigger problem. Over the weekend FireEye shared more details of their compromise and broke the news that they fell victim to a supply-chain attack involving the IT services company SolarWinds. FireEye reported the SolarWinds Orion software update had a backdoor injected into its code, which SolarWinds believed to have been included in updates released between March and June 2020. It should be noted, however, that some researchers have reported seeing activity as early as late 2019. The backdoor was dubbed SUNBURST by FireEye.
Due to the nature of the attack, including the supply-chain compromise, the actor’s extreme attention to detail and operational security, as well as the high-profile targets who were successfully compromised as a result of the attack, it is suspected that it was conducted by a nation-state sponsored group. Volexity researchers have attributed this attack to a threat actor under the name of Dark Halo, whom they have been tracking since late 2019.
SUNBURST, the implant delivered via the backdoored SolarWinds Orion update, was found in one of the DLL files contained in the update, specifically “SolarWinds.Orion.Core.BusinessLayer.dll”. According to FireEye, the backdoor has a dormant period of up to two weeks, and then will attempt to resolve a subdomain of avsvmcloud[.]com, which will return a DNS CNAME record pointing to a command and control (C2) domain. We go into detail on the functionality of SUNBURST in our Cyborg Labs Threat Hunt Deep Dive, in which we review the SolarWinds supply-chain compromise, and examine the SUNBURST implant and how it behaves in an environment.
UPDATE: 17 December 2020
We are releasing 3 threat detection packages that will allow organizations to detect SUNBURST activity in their environment.
Threat Detection Packages
SUNBURST Known Malicious DNS Activity
Splunk
(query_type IN (“CNAME”,”A”) AND (query=”*avsvmcloud.com” OR answer=”*avsvmcloud.com”)) OR (query_type=”A” AND query IN (“deftsecurity.com”,”freescanonline.com”, “thedoccloud.com”, “websitetheme.com”, “highdatabase.com”, “incomeupdate.com”, “databasegalore.com”, “panhardware.com”, “zupertech.com”, “freescanonline.com”, “deftsecurity.com”, “thedoccloud.com”))
| stats values(_time) as occurrences count by src, query, query_type, answer
| convert ctime(occurrences)
Elastic Lucene
((dns.question.name:”/.*avsvmcloud\\.com/” or dns.answer.name:”/.*avsvmcloud\\.com/”) and (dns.question.type:”/[Cc][Nn][Aa][Mm][Ee]|[Aa]/” or dns.answer.type:”/[Cc][Nn][Aa][Mm][Ee]|[Aa]/”)) or (dns.question.name:(“deftsecurity.com” or “freescanonline.com” or “thedoccloud.com” or “websitetheme.com” or “highdatabase.com” or “incomeupdate.com” or “databasegalore.com” or “panhardware.com” or “zupertech.com” or “freescanonline.com” or “deftsecurity.com” or “thedoccloud.com”) and (dns.question.type:”/[Aa]/” or dns.answer.type:”/[Aa]/”))((dns.question.name:”/.*avsvmcloud\\.com/” or dns.answer.name:”/.*avsvmcloud\\.com/”) and (dns.question.type:”/[Cc][Nn][Aa][Mm][Ee]|[Aa]/” or dns.answer.type:”/[Cc][Nn][Aa][Mm][Ee]|[Aa]/”)) or (dns.question.name:(“deftsecurity.com” or “freescanonline.com” or “thedoccloud.com” or “websitetheme.com” or “highdatabase.com” or “incomeupdate.com” or “databasegalore.com” or “panhardware.com” or “zupertech.com” or “freescanonline.com” or “deftsecurity.com” or “thedoccloud.com”) and (dns.question.type:”/[Aa]/” or dns.answer.type:”/[Aa]/”))
Elastic DSL
{
"bool": {
"should": [
{
"bool": {
"must": [
{
"query_string": {
"fields": [
"dns.question.type",
"dns.answer.type"
],
"query": "/[Cc][Nn][Aa][Mm][Ee]|[Aa]/"
}
},
{
"query_string": {
"fields": [
"dns.question.name",
"dns.answers.name"
],
"query": "/.*avsvmcloud\\.com/"
}
}
]
}
},
{
"bool": {
"filter": [
{
"terms": {
"dns.question.name": [
"deftsecurity.com",
"freescanonline.com",
"thedoccloud.com",
"websitetheme.com",
"highdatabase.com",
"incomeupdate.com",
"databasegalore.com",
"panhardware.com",
"zupertech.com",
"freescanonline.com",
"deftsecurity.com",
"thedoccloud.com"
]
}
}
],
"must": [
{
"query_string": {
"fields": [
"dns.answer.type",
"dns.question.type"
],
"query": "/[Aa]/"
}
}
]
}
}
]
}
}
SUNBURST Suspicious Processes for SolarWinds Orion Software
Splunk
index=sysmon sourcetype=”sysmon:xml” ParentImage = “SolarWinds.BusinessLayerHost.exe” AND NOT Image IN (“*\\SolarWinds\\Orion\\APM\\APMServiceControl.exe”, “*\\SolarWinds\\Orion\\ExportToPDFCmd.Exe”,”*\\SolarWinds.Credentials\\SolarWinds.Credentials.Orion.WebApi.exe”, “*\\SolarWinds\\Orion\\Topology\\SolarWinds.Orion.Topology.Calculator.exe”, “*\\SolarWinds\\Orion\\Database-Maint.exe”, “*\\SolarWinds.Orion.ApiPoller.Service\\SolarWinds.Orion.ApiPoller.Service.exe”, “*\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\WerFault.exe”)
| stats values(_time) as occurrences, values(Image) as ChildProcesses, values(CommandLine) as CommandLines count by host, ParentImage
| convert ctime(occurrences)
Elastic Lucene
parent.process.executable:”/.*[Ss][Oo][Ll][Aa][Rr][Ww][Ii][Nn][Dd][Ss]\\.[Bb][Uu][Ss][Ii][Nn][Ee][Ss]+[Ll][Aa][Yy][Ee][Rr][Hh][Oo][Ss][Tt]\\.[Ee][Xx][Ee]/” and not (process.executable:”/.*\\\\Windows\\\\SysWOW64\\\\WerFault\\.exe/” OR process.executable:”/.*\\\\SolarWinds\\.Orion\\.ApiPoller\\.Service\\\\SolarWinds\\.Orion\\.ApiPoller\\.Service\\.exe/” or process.executable:”/.*\\\\SolarWinds\\\\Orion\\\\Database-Maint\\.exe/” or process.executable:”/.*\\\\SolarWinds\\\\Orion\\\\Topology\\\\SolarWinds\\.Orion\\.Topology\\.Calculator\\.exe/” or process.executable:”/.*\\\\SolarWinds\\\\Orion\\\\ExportToPDFCmd\\.exe/” or process.executable:”/.*\\\\SolarWinds\\\\Orion\\\\APM\\\\APMServiceControl\\.exe/” or process.executable:”/.*\\\\SolarWinds.Credentials\\\\SolarWinds\\.Credentials\\.Orion\\.WebApi\\.exe/”)
Elastic DSL
{
"bool": {
"must": [
{
"query_string": {
"query": "/.*[Ss][Oo][Ll][Aa][Rr][Ww][Ii][Nn][Dd][Ss]\\.[Bb][Uu][Ss][Ii][Nn][Ee][Ss]+[Ll][Aa][Yy][Ee][Rr][Hh][Oo][Ss][Tt]\\.[Ee][Xx][Ee]/",
"fields": [
"process.parent.executable"
]
}
}
],
"must_not": [
{
"query_string": {
"query": "/.*\\\\SolarWinds\\\\Orion\\\\APM\\\\APMServiceControl\\.exe/",
"fields": [
"process.executable"
]
}
},
{
"query_string": {
"query": "/.*\\\\SolarWinds\\\\Orion\\\\ExportToPDFCmd\\.exe/",
"fields": [
"process.executable"
]
}
},
{
"query_string": {
"query": "/.*\\\\SolarWinds\\\\Orion\\\\Topology\\\\SolarWinds\\.Orion\\.Topology\\.Calculator\\.exe/",
"fields": [
"process.executable"
]
}
},
{
"query_string": {
"query": "/.*\\\\SolarWinds\\\\Orion\\\\Database-Maint\\.exe/",
"fields": [
"process.executable"
]
}
},
{
"query_string": {
"query": "/.*\\\\SolarWinds\\.Orion\\.ApiPoller\\.Service\\\\SolarWinds.Orion\\.ApiPoller\\.Service\\.exe/",
"fields": [
"process.executable"
]
}
},
{
"query_string": {
"query": "/.*\\\\Windows\\\\SysWOW64\\\\WerFault\\.exe/",
"fields": [
"process.executable"
]
}
},
{
"query_string": {
"query": "/.*\\\\SolarWinds.Credentials\\\\SolarWinds\\.Credentials\\.Orion\\.WebApi\\.exe/",
"fields": [
"process.executable"
]
}
}
]
}
}
SUNBURST Named Pipe Indicator
Splunk
index=sysmon sourcetype=sysmon:xml (EventID=17 OR EventID=18) PipeName=”583da945-62af-10e8-4902-a8f205c72b2e”
| stats values(_time) as occurrences, values(EventID) as eventID, values(PipeName) as pipeName count by host
| convert ctime(occurrences)
Elastic Lucene
event.code:(“17” or “18”) and file.name:”583da945-62af-10e8-4902-a8f205c72b2e”
Elastic DSL
{
"bool": {
"must": [
{
"query_string": {
"query": "17",
"fields": [
"event.code"
]
}
},
{
"query_string": {
"query": "18",
"fields": [
"event.code"
]
}
},
{
"query_string": {
"query": "583da945-62af-10e8-4902-a8f205c72b2e",
"fields": [
"file.name"
]
}
}
]
}
}
Cyborg Security’s research and development team has built dozens of threat detection packages for the SUNBURST implant and additional malicious behaviours described by FireEye. These packages come tailored to your unique environment and can be immediately downloaded and deployed.
You can find these detections, in addition to all known indicators of compromise (IOC), on the HUNTER platform.
