avatarTeri Radichel

Summary

The provided content discusses various AWS data breaches in 2023, detailing the causes and instances of security incidents affecting AWS environments.

Abstract

The web content provides an overview of the causes behind data breaches on Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2023, including misconfigurations, compromised third-party access, and malware attacks. It highlights specific cases such as the use of a honeypot to catch nation-state actors, ransomware attacks on AWS buckets, and the exploitation of software vulnerabilities leading to data leaks. The content also references the exposure of sensitive data due to misconfigured S3 buckets, the abuse of AWS services for cryptojacking, and the discovery of malware targeting AWS Lambda environments. Additionally, it mentions the importance of proper permission scoping to mitigate attacks, as demonstrated by an incident where limited permissions prevented a significant data breach. The author, Teri Radichel, offers insights into AWS security, drawing from her expertise and recognition in the cybersecurity field, and provides resources for further engagement with her work.

Opinions

  • The author emphasizes the importance of AWS's internal threat intelligence decoy system, MadPot, in disrupting nation-state-backed APTs and botnets.
  • There is a concern about the frequency and impact of data breaches due to misconfigured AWS services, such as S3 buckets and AWS servers.
  • The author suggests that AWS environments are targeted by sophisticated malware, such as the Legion malware, which has evolved to exploit SSH servers and AWS credentials.
  • The content implies that misconfigurations in web applications remain a primary attack vector for threat actors to retrieve AWS credentials.
  • The author points out that despite the severity of some breaches, proper limitation of permissions can significantly reduce the impact of a security incident.
  • There is an opinion that the cybersecurity community should be aware of and prepared for the evolving tactics of threat actors, as evidenced by the first malware discovered running on AWS Lambda environments.
  • The author's inclusion of various external links and resources indicates a belief in the value of sharing knowledge and staying informed about the latest security threats and mitigation strategies.

AWS Data Breaches

What’s causing data breaches on AWS?

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I periodically review the new to see what’s causing data breaches and how organizations can stop them. Here I’m taking a look at AWS breaches so far in 2023 mainly. See my related post on Microsoft Azure Data Breaches.

This is a pretty cool story on how AWS is stopping data breaches and detecting botnets and malware. For example:

In the case of Sandworm, AWS said the honeypot caught the actor attempting to exploit a security vulnerability affecting WatchGuard network security appliances. “With close investigation of the payload, we identified not only IP addresses but also other unique attributes associated with the Sandworm threat that were involved in an attempted compromise of an AWS customer,” it added.

Ransomware on AWS bucket

Compromise of a third-party with AWS credentials.

Malware on employee laptop via software vulnerability.

“suspicious activity within the company’s Amazon Web Services (“AWS”) environment”

S3 bucket.

“Misconfigured AWS Server”…According to Kofman, the server was integrated with the company’s Slack platform…The server was misconfigured to allow access to the reports on the server without proper authentication.

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/cybersecurity-attack-against-amazons-online-pharmacy-pillpack-exposed-user-health-data

https://cybernews.com/security/wbsc-data-leak-passports/

Or a C2 server…

Found scanning containers in Dockerhub

Zenbleed — found and fixed.

Based on the above statement 62% sounds a bit high. Also this page isn’t working at the moment.

“Misconfigurations in web applications are still the primary method used by Legion to retrieve credentials,” Muir said.

A very interesting read on the Capital One breach.

The attack started with a threat actor exploiting a Kubernetes cluster, using an internal service to gain temporary credentials, and then used those credentials to enumerate other Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) services that had been deployed in the targeted company’s infrastructure. In the end, the company — which was not named in the incident report published today — had properly limited the scope of permissions for the stolen identity, which blunted the attack.

IT giant Infosys accidentally published a file to PyPi containing AWS keys to an S3 bucket potentially containing patient data from Johns Hopkins University, publicly accessible for more than a year. (From 2022 but kind of a big deal.)

Miscreants are using expired Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3 buckets to place malicious code into a legitimate package in the npm repository without having to tinker with any code.

Ideally a source of Python libraries that developers can include in their projects to save time, PyPI has again been caught hosting packages with live Amazon Web Services (AWS) keys and data-stealing malware.

Lambda malware — 2022 but interesting.

Follow for updates.

Teri Radichel | © 2nd Sight Lab 2023

About Teri Radichel:
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⭐️ Author: Cybersecurity Books
⭐️ Presentations: Presentations by Teri Radichel
⭐️ Recognition: SANS Award, AWS Security Hero, IANS Faculty
⭐️ Certifications: SANS ~ GSE 240
⭐️ Education: BA Business, Master of Software Engineering, Master of Infosec
⭐️ Company: Penetration Tests, Assessments, Phone Consulting ~ 2nd Sight Lab
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