Incident Response Assessment
The Micro Attack Simulation Toolkit offers an innovative approach to enhance your organization’s security posture by simulating sophisticated cyber attacks without the risks associated with real threats. Tailor the intensity and complexity of your simulations to assess and strengthen your detection capabilities, ensuring your team is prepared to handle emerging threats effectively.
As part of a tailored simulation exercise, the Micro Attack Simulation Toolkit is deployed on selected internal machines ranging from endpoints to servers and across operating systems from Linux to Windows to macOS. By following an individually defined storyline, these simulations are strategically triggered, effectively mimicking real-world incidents along with their signatures and traces, thereby presenting a realistic challenge to the Blue Team.
The overall exercise is designed to test whether your incident response playbooks are robust and effective in real-world scenarios, or whether they only work well on paper.
Core Features
Below are some of the key features of the Micro Attack Simulation Toolkit, with customization options available upon request to meet your organization’s specific needs.
Remote Access Trojan (RAT) Modules
- Multi-Platform: RAT modules are available for Windows, macOS, and Linux, enabling cross-platform infection from endpoints to servers.
- SOCKS Reverse Tunnel: Reverse tunnel, in the form of a full SOCKS proxy, opening your internal network to the simulated attacker’s external machines (by tunneling SSH over WebSocket and via other ways).
- Remote Shell: Execute commands across compromised machines via the tunnel.
- Live Screenshots: Covertly capture real-time desktop images through the tunnel for realistic infection simulations of endpoints as first compromise.
- File & Folder Manipulation: Assess the capability of your File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) solutions to identify unauthorized alterations.
- Data Exfiltration: Test your network’s response to data breaches, including the exfiltration of large volumes of encrypted outbound traffic via the tunnel.
- Internal Scanning: Conduct internal port scanning via the tunnel and lateral movement to evaluate internal defenses.
- Web-based Management Console: Control and monitor simulations through an attacker’s hidden web-based management console, challenging your forensic analysis team to detect its existence and obtain access credentials.
Command & Control (C2) Capabilities
- Stealthy Operations: Sleeping C2 out-of-band (OOB) recovery side channel with exponential backoff to stay OPSEC-wise under the radar and challenge detection of its presence when it comes to live after the more detectable tunnel connection has been terminated by your incident response team.
- Out-of-Band Data Exfiltration: Mimic the theft of low-volume, high-value data via side channels to test Data Loss Prevention (DLP) and response protocols.
Real Malware Behavior
- Network Patterns: Simulate malware-like tunneling, scanning, and OOB DNS requests using a dictionary-based Domain Generation Algorithm (DGA) that mimics real-world malware to remain active even after C2 server takedowns.
- Encrypted Communications: For better OPSEC during the simulation, relevant communications are encrypted.
- Behavioral Characteristics: Verify that your AV/EDR/EPP/XDR or NIDS detection mechanisms can identify the behavior of the simulated malware, and that your incident response team is handling the alerts professionally.
- Obfuscated Binaries: Challenge your digital forensics and reverse engineering skills with obfuscated executables or implants as Indicators of Compromise (IoC).
Flexibility
Each network and target environment is unique, and each simulation is different. Therefore, the toolkit is designed to be highly flexible and adaptable to your specific needs.
Customization & Documentation:
- Flexibility: The toolkit is designed to adapt to your specific network environment with customizable modules and attack vectors. Custom modules can be developed for your simulations upon request.
- Comprehensive Guides: Detailed documentation supports safe and effective simulation execution.
- Source Code Inspection: Full source code transparency allows for in-depth security auditing and confidence building. You can rebuild and obfuscate the binaries yourself, if you wish, using the included build scripts.
Ethical & Controlled Simulations:
- Risk-Free: Simulations provide the insights of an attack without the danger, focusing on enhancing your Blue Team’s responsiveness.
- Tailored Intensity: While the toolkit is not designed to emulate a nation-state attack or extremely professional APTs with zero-days, it still provides a significant level of advanced tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to prepare your team for realistic threats. It is intentionally not too perfect to ensure that your Blue Team has a chance to detect and handle the simulated incident, but not easily.
- Ethical Use Only: To prevent unethical use, the toolkit (as part of a simulation) is offered only to companies with legitimate background checks (not individuals) and requires a signed agreement to ensure responsible use.
Enhanced Realism with Live Communications
As an optional addition to a live Micro Attack Simulation run, we can conduct real-time, professionally crafted communications such as sophisticated blackmailing attempts, tailored to match the current simulation progress. This integration adds a layer of realism by providing live indicators of breach, further testing the resilience of your incident response teams by forcing them to engage with realistic threat actor tactics.
This approach is designed to put your security incident management under stress, challenging your team’s communication strategies and the effectiveness of their escalation procedures in a dynamic, real-world context. This setup critically assesses their ability to handle high-pressure situations and navigate complex, adversarial interactions effectively.
Comparison with Traditional Red Team Exercises
Micro Attack Simulations offer a streamlined and cost-effective alternative to traditional Red Team exercises. They are less costly and easier to implement, requiring fewer resources and minimal disruption to daily operations. These simulations can be precisely tailored and conducted in a controlled environment, allowing for targeted testing of specific vulnerabilities or systems.
This ensures that testing does not impact the actual network, making it possible to conduct regular security assessments without the extensive planning or potential risks associated with broader Red Team operations.
Simulate the Unsimulatable
Additionally, Micro Attack Simulations can simulate attack vectors that are not easily executed by traditional Red Teams, such as supply chain attacks or backdoors in CI/CD pipeline components, providing a unique opportunity to test and fortify defenses against these sophisticated and often overlooked threats.
Post-mortem Analysis
Following the Micro Attack Simulation, it is still essential to conduct a post-mortem analysis to discuss the results and the lessons learned. This Purple-Teaming-like critical review helps to pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of your incident response capabilities, identify areas for improvement, and refine your overall security posture.
By correlating the simulation log with AV/EDR/EPP/XDR or NIDS logs and other data sources, we can analyze the effectiveness of your detection and response mechanisms. This comprehensive assessment provides valuable insights that can help improve your future security strategies.
Let’s Discuss Your Needs
Ready to evaluate your cybersecurity resilience and preparedness? Explore how the Micro Attack Simulation Toolkit can be a crucial part in assessing your defensive strategies. Let’s discuss your organization’s specific needs.