Microsoft Exchange Vulnerability
Incident Response Timeline TIME From Detection
to Escalation: 20 MINUTES
Join us for our latest real-world attack example which will walk through an attack on a customer in the construction industry with the attacker leveraging the Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities that were released in early 2021. We’ll show you step by step how the Arctic Wolf team was able to help this customer both stop the immediate attack as well as build a long term fix for these vulnerabilities.
ATTACKER'S 5-MONTH WINDOW
-
2021 March
Microsoft releases out-of-band patch to address multiple critical vulnerabilities within Microsoft Exchange
-
2021 April
Microsoft releases security updates for a second set of RCE vulnerabilities within Microsoft Exchange
-
2021 May - July
These collections of vulnerabilities are dubbed ProxyShell. Bad actors leverage three separate vulnerabilities as part of a single attack to bypass authentication and execute code
-
2nd August 2021
Customer completes onboarding with Arctic Wolf
On Tuesday, 2 March 2021, one week ahead of its typical Patch Tuesday release, Microsoft released an out-of-band patch to address
These
vulnerabilities allowed attackers to take full control of a Microsoft Exchange Server exposed to the public internet. Microsoft reported that these vulnerabilities were being actively exploited by HAFNIUM, a threat group they describe as state-sponsored and operating out of China, with attacks dating back to at least 6 January 2021.
Vulnerabilities include: CVE-2021-26855, CVE-2021-26857, CVE-2021-26858, and CVE-2021-27065.
View Detailed Attack Timeline
with our concierge security team
Although many Managed Detection and Response services would end once the threat was remediated, the
With a complete understanding of your unique IT environment, the Arctic Wolf® Concierge Security® Team (CST) provides your team with coverage, security operations expertise, and strategically tailored security recommendations to continuously improve your overall posture.
Arctic Wolf Concierge Security Team is focused on using this attack to improve the security posture of the customer.
With a complete understanding of your unique IT environment, the Arctic Wolf® Concierge Security® Team (CST) provides your team with coverage, security operations expertise, and strategically tailored security recommendations to continuously improve your overall posture.
Arctic Wolf CST initiates vulnerability scan on [Exchange Server]. The scan identifies missing critical patches dating back 6+ months, including zero-days.
[Customer] confirms their 3rd party patching tool is malfunctioning.
Arctic Wolf CST delivers script to identify Exchange breaches prior to Arctic Wolf onboarding, and the script identifies Backdoor:ASP/Buonpower.A!dha.
Pre-existing webshell is removed.
MFA for VPN and Office 365 enabled.
GPO to prevent enumeration created.
REAL-WORLD EXAMPLES:
Microsoft Exchange Vulnerabilities and Patch Guidance
In the example above, an attacker leveraged the Microsoft Exchange Vulnerabilities released in early 2021 on a customer in the construction industry.
Detailed guidance and links to available patches have been provided by Microsoft here.
Note: Please pay careful attention to the patch instructions as there are known issues when applying the patch manually documented by Microsoft on the page.
Arctic Wolf Helps Customers Manage Vulnerabilities
At Arctic Wolf, we help our customers develop workflows to ensure that critical risks are assigned to the right individuals within the department to identify, prioritize, and patch as quickly as possible. We keep track of known vulnerabilities you have been unable to patch and, with Arctic Wolf® Managed Detection and Response, monitor those systems for IOCs. Our Concierge Security Team works proactively to improve security posture overall within our customer, so that if a major vulnerability does hit the damage is better contained.
