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It's not just the initial compromise that's getting "sophisticated hack" headlines in this case -- it's the extraordinary care that the attackers took to evade
by rst 6y ago
It's not just the initial compromise that's getting "sophisticated hack" headlines in this case -- it's the extraordinary care that the attackers took to evade detection afterwards. Among other things: delaying communication to home base for a couple of weeks after the backdoor was initially installed; use of steganography to make that look like ordinary network traffic afterwards; use of entirely new exploits, not in any common database, to avoid detection triggered by a match.
The FireEye report describes all of this in more detail: https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2020/12/evasive-attacker-leverages-solarwinds-supply-chain-compromises-with-sunburst-backdoor.html https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2020/12/evasive...
- jjk166 6y agoWhile the specific implementations in this case were unique and clever, these tactics aren't particularly uncommon. If you have direct access to SolarWinds' signing credentials and download server, the rest is just a matter of how much time and effort the attacker is willing to put into it.