With this channel open, a hacker can carry out additional actions, such as: Move Laterally Through a Victim’s Organization This means that malware introduced through a different channel – say a phishing email or compromised website – can often establish a channel of communication in the outbound direction that would otherwise be impossible. However, outbound communication is often not as heavily monitored or restricted. Most organizations have fairly effective perimeter defenses that make it difficult for an adversary to initiate a connection from the outside world into the organization’s network without being detected. What Can Hackers Accomplish with a Command and Control Infrastructure? To avoid detection, some types of malware beacon at random intervals, or may lie dormant for a period of time before phoning home. What is Beaconing?īeaconing refers to the process of an infected device phoning home to an attacker’s C2 infrastructure to check for instructions or additional payloads, often at regular intervals. It’s also common for hackers to sell access to botnets to other criminals in a type of “attack as a service”. Botnets are usually united around a common C2 infrastructure.
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This could be anything from mining cryptocurrency to knocking a website offline through a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. What is a Botnet?Ī botnet is a collection of zombie machines that are enlisted for a common illicit purpose. These “zombie” machines can then be hijacked to perform any number of tasks, from relaying spam e-mail to taking part in large-scale Distributed Denial of Service Attacks (DDoS).
While some viruses, trojans, and other unwanted programs perform specific actions after infecting a device, many types of malware exist primarily to open up a pathway to the attacker’s C2 infrastructure. There are a number of terms you may also hear alongside C2 or C&C: What is a Zombie?Ī Zombie is a computer or other type of connected device that’s been infected with some form of malware and can be remotely controlled by a malicious party without the real owner’s knowledge or consent. Popular platforms used by criminals and penetration testers alike include Cobalt Strike, Covenant, Powershell Empire, and Armitage. Attackers may take other actions to disguise their C&C callbacks, such as using encryption or unusual types of data encoding.Ĭommand and control platforms may be fully customized solutions or off-the-shelf products. A common strategy is to blend in with other types of legitimate traffic that may be in use at the target organization, such as HTTP/HTTPS or DNS. At the time of writing, the MITRE ATT&CK framework lists 16 different command and control techniques, each with a number of sub-techniques that have been observed in past cyberattacks.
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These communication channels are used to issue instructions to the compromised devices, download additional malicious payloads, and pipe stolen data back to the adversary.Ĭ2 comes in many different forms.
The specific mechanisms vary greatly between attacks, but C2 generally consists of one or more covert communication channels between devices in a victim organization and a platform that the attacker controls. What is C2?Ĭommand and Control Infrastructure, also known as C2 or C&C, is the set of tools and techniques that attackers use to maintain communication with compromised devices following initial exploitation.
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We’ll also look at how to spot and defend against C2-based attacks. What is C2? In this post, we’ll answer that question and look at how adversaries use these covert channels of communication channels to carry out highly sophisticated attacks. The key to accomplishing all these tasks is a robust Command and Control Infrastructure or “C2”. To be of any real benefit, the attacker needs to maintain persistence within the target environment, communicate with infected or compromised devices inside the network, and potentially exfiltrate sensitive data. A successful cyberattack is about more than just getting your foot into the door of an unsuspecting organization.
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