Advisory Overview
FireEye, a major cybersecurity organization, has reported a compromise that resulted in the theft of their suite of Red Team tools. While these tools do not contain any zero-day vulnerabilities, only widely known and documented methods, the theft of them still poses a risk to organizations of all sizes. FireEye is coordinating with the security community at large to protect against any threats posed by this theft of their software and ensure that at this time their usage has not been witnessed in the wild.
Technical detail and additional information
What is the threat?
One of the biggest organizations in cybersecurity, FireEye, has reported that a highly sophisticated and F.B.I.-confirmed state-sponsored threat actor has stolen their Red Team tools. A “Red Team” is a group in cybersecurity that is meant to improve the security posture of an environment by exposing weaknesses and demonstrating attack vectors and potential impact to the “Blue Team” (the “defenders”). FireEye reported that the threat actors have stolen the suite of scripts, tools, scanners, and techniques that they have amassed over their years of Red Team operations, and these tools may be used maliciously in the future. It is important to note that FireEye stated these tools “…did not contain zero-day exploits”, only apply widely known and documented methods that are applied by many similar Red Teams around the world.
Why is this noteworthy?
FireEye is one of if not the biggest name in cybersecurity and the theft of the suite of tools they use for Red Team operations could have grave consequences for organizations of all sizes around the world. While it has been stated these tools do not contain any vulnerabilities that were not already known to the public, they have been curated over many years of Red Team operations and their theft presents a notable security concern. Access to these Red Team tools, while not new, can only make it easier for threat actors to launch real malicious attacks against their targets.
What is the exposure or risk?
Taken at face value, there should be no new vulnerabilities that arise due to this compromise of FireEye. However, this theft could put more and better tools in the hands of threat actors who may use them to launch attacks at a higher volume and greater sophistication than they may previously have been able to. Another possibility is that an attacker could use FireEye’s suite of tools instead of their own for an attack that may be deemed “too risky” to potentially compromise their proprietary tool suite. At this time, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has not received any reports of these tools being used maliciously in the wild.
What are the recommendations?
To address whatever fallout there may be from these tools being stolen, FireEye has implemented numerous countermeasures to both detect and block usage of their stolen Red Team tools. These implementations have been both included in their own security products and disseminated to the security community at large to strengthen security posture worldwide. They have also detailed their countermeasures publicly in posts that can be found at the links below.
In addition, SKOUT has added the indicators of compromise (IOCs) associated with this breach to our threat intelligence and the security operations center is actively monitoring for them.
- https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2020/12/unauthorized-access-of-fireeye-red-team-tools.html
- https://github.com/fireeye/red_team_tool_countermeasures/blob/master/all-yara.yar
References:
For more in-depth information about the recommendations, please visit the following links:
- https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2020/12/unauthorized-access-of-fireeye-red-team-tools.html
- https://www.fireeye.com/blog/products-and-services/2020/12/fireeye-shares-details-of-recent-cyber-attack-actions-to-protect-community.html
- https://us-cert.cisa.gov/ncas/current-activity/2020/12/08/theft-fireeye-red-team-tools
- https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/08/technology/fireeye-hacked-russians.html
- https://github.com/fireeye/red_team_tool_countermeasures/blob/master/all-yara.yar
If you have any questions, please contact our Security Operations Center.