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When a host system or network is compromised, indicators of compromise (IoCs) are used to gather forensic evidence of the intrusion.
What Are Indicators of Compromise?
Information security (InfoSec) experts and system administrators may use these traces to identify infiltration attempts and other possible harmful activities.
IoCs are used by security researchers to better understand the strategies and behaviors of a specific malware strain. IoCs also offer actionable threat data that can be shared across members of the community in order to further strengthen an organization’s incident response and remediation plans and capabilities.
Some of these artifacts may be discovered in the system’s event logs and timestamped entries, as well as in its applications and services, among other places. Information security experts and IT/system administrators use a variety of technologies to monitor IoCs in order to minimize, if not completely prevent, breaches and assaults.
What Are IoCs Used for?
When a malware attack occurs, evidence of the infection’s activities may be found in the system’s log files and other log files.
The IoC, known also as “forensic data,” is gathered from these files and by IT specialists in the event that a security breach is discovered.
If any indicators of compromise are found, it may be determined if a data breach has happened or whether the network was or still is under assault. Identification of IoCs is usually performed by information security specialists who have received specialized training. Typically, these individuals use modern technology to scan and analyze vast amounts of network data in order to identify and isolate questionable activity.
Advanced technical solutions (such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other kinds of intelligent automation) are combined with human resources to improve the detection of anomalous behavior and the speed with which it may be addressed and resolved.
Indicators of Compromise vs. Indicators of Attack
Indicators of attack vary from indicators of compromise in that they are concerned with recognizing the activity related to the attack while the attack is taking place, while indicators of compromise are concerned with investigating what transpired after the attack has taken place.
Threat actors’ intents and the strategies they use to achieve their goals are shown by the indicators of attack (IoAs) they deploy in a cyberattack.
The fundamental distinction between the two is their respective positions on the timetable of a cyberattack. Because IoAs occur prior to a data breach, if incident response mechanisms are implemented in a timely way, the security issue may be intercepted and avoided altogether.
IoAs are dynamic, while IoCs are static.
The digital traces left by cyberattacks remain consistent over time, with all the parts of cybersecurity assault remaining the same: backdoors, command and control connections, IP addresses, event logs, hashes, and so on.
These components all serve to give the required threat information to enable security teams to fight against future assaults, as a result, IoC-based detection approaches are characterized as static detection methods.
IoA data is always changing since cybercriminal movements are constantly changing. An attacker must move through a number of attack phases and switch between a variety of attack strategies before a data breach may take place.
Indicators of Compromise Examples
There are several frequent IoCs that companies should be aware of so that they can recognize and examine them when necessary.
- Unusual outbound network traffic One of the most prevalent symptoms of a security breach is an anomaly in the patterns and amounts of network traffic. Outbound network traffic that is irregular in nature may be identified when an intruder attempts to harvest data from your network or when an infected device transmits information to a command-and-control server.
- Activity from unusual geographical locations Monitoring IP addresses on your network and the locations from which they originate is a simple technique to identify cyber assaults before they have a chance to do significant harm to your firm. Having several connections to your accounts from different places might be a solid indication of a breach.
- Unusual actions taken by Privileged User Accounts Compromise of low-privileged user accounts is a typical strategy used in sophisticated cyberattacks, such as advanced persistent threats, before upgrading their privilege and permission levels or exposing the attack vector to accounts with greater rights. When security operators see strange activity from privileged user accounts, they may suspect that the business’s systems and data have been attacked from inside or outside the organization.
- Significant increase in the number of database reads The vast majority of businesses save their most sensitive and secret information in a database format. Your databases will always be a top target for cybercriminals as a result of this fact, therefore an increase in the number of database reads is a solid indication that an attacker is attempting to penetrate your data.
- A high number of failed authentication attempts At the time of account takeover, hackers employ automation to authenticate using stolen credentials obtained via phishing attacks. The presence of a significant number of authentication attempts may suggest that someone has stolen credentials and is seeking to locate an account that grants access to the network.
- A large number of requests for critical files An attacker who does not have access to a high-privileged account is obliged to investigate alternative resources and identify the appropriate vulnerability in order to get access to files. When attackers detect indications that an exploit may be effective, they will often utilize a variety of permutations to launch the exploit.
- Suspicious changes to the configuration Modifying the configuration of files, servers, and other devices might provide an attacker with a second backdoor into your network. Changes might potentially provide new vulnerabilities that malware could take advantage of.
- Indicators of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) assaults A botnet attack is an attempt to bring down a service by flooding it with traffic and requests from a network of controlled machines, which is what happens when a malicious actor attempts to take it down.
DDoS assaults are commonly employed as smokescreens to conceal the presence of more dangerous attacks. DDoS attacks manifest themselves as delayed network performance, unavailability of websites, firewall failover, and back-end systems operating at maximum capacity for unclear reasons.
- Granular telemetry across endpoints and networks.
- Equipped with built-in hunting and action capabilities.
- Pre-computed risk scores, indicators & detailed attack analysis.
- A single pane of glass for intelligence, hunting, and response.
Wrapping Up…
Threat prevention is essential to your company’s cybersecurity, as it is an effective way to add multiple layers of proactive protection.
As cyber attackers become more cunning, so should the solutions we use to stop them. This is where Heimdal™ comes in.
If you are ready to take your digital defense to the next level, reach out at sales.inquiries@heimdalsecurity.com and book a free consultation with our experts.
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Dora is a digital marketing specialist within Heimdal™ Security. She is a content creator at heart - always curious about technology and passionate about finding out everything there is to know about cybersecurity.
