BR +55 11 3069 3925 | USA +1 469 620 7643

  • HELP ME
  • BLOG
  • Português
  • BR +55 11 3069 3925 | USA +1 469 620 7643
  • Português
logo senhasegura
  • SOLUTIONS
  • PRODUCTS
  • SERVICES AND SUPPORT
  • PARTNERS
  • COMPANY
  • CONTACT
  • DEMO

Compliance

and Audit

Audit

PCI DSS

SOX

ISO 27001

HIPAA

NIST

GDPR

ISA 62443 |

Industry 4.0

Security and

Risk Management

Privilege Abuse

Third Party Access

Privileged Access Recording

Insider Threat

Data Theft Prevention

Hardcoded Passwords

Password Reset

Solutions

By Industry

Energy and Utilities

Financial

Government

Health Care

Legal

Telecoms

Retail

senhasegura

Testimonials

See Testimonials

360º Privilege Platform

Account and

Session

PAM Core

Domum

Remote Access

PAM SaaS

GO Endpoint

Manager

GO Endpoint

Manager Windows

GO Endpoint

Manager Linux

DevOps Secret

Manager

DevOps Secret

Manager

Multi

Cloud

Cloud IAM

Certificate

Manager

Certificate

Manager

Privileged

Infrastructure

PAM Crypto Appliance

PAM Virtual Crypto Appliance

PAM Load Balancer

Delivery : On Cloud (SaaS) | On-premises | Hybrid

Services

and Support

Documentation

Solution Center

Suggestions

Training and Certification

Deployment and Consulting

PAMaturity

PAM 360º

Support Policy

senhasegura

Resources

Rich Materials

Customer Cases

Webinars Calendar

senhasegura Stickers

 BLOG

CONTENT

Is your company really prepared for a cyber attack?

The Pillars of Information Security

7 signs that your company needs to improve the security of sensitive data

See more articles about cybersecurity

Technical

Information

How it works

Product Archicture

Integration

Security

High availability and contingency

Privileged Auditing (Configuration)

Privileged Change Audit

Features and

Functionalities

ITSM Integration

Behavior Analysis

Threat Analysis

Privileged Information Protection

Scan Discovery

Task Management

Session Management (PSM)

Application Identity (AAPM)

SSH Key Management

Affinity Partner

Program

About the Program

Become a Partner

MSSP Affinity Partner Program

Security Alliance Program

Academy | E-learning for Certification

Affinity

Portal

Portal dedicated only for Partners to find commercial, marketing supporting materials and certification program of senhasegura.

Access Partner Portal

Opportunity

Booking

For our Commercial Team to support your sale more effectively, request your opportunity booking here.

Opportunity Booking Request

Find a

Partner

We work together to offer a better solution for your company.

Check all senhasegura partners

About

Company

About us

Why senhasegura

Press

Events

Career

Presence in the World

Terms of Use

End User License Agreement (EULA)

Privacy and Cookie Policy

Certification at senhasegura

senhasegura

Testimonials

See Testimonials

Latest

Reports

Gartner PAM Magic Quadrant 2021 Report

KuppingerCole Leadership Compass: PAM 2021

GigaOm Radar Report 2021

Gartner PAM Magic Quadrant 2020

Gartner Critical Capabilities for PAM 2020

Information Services Group, Inc. (ISG)

KuppingerCole Leadership Compass: PAM 2020

Contact our team

Request a Demonstration

Cyber ​​Attack on Twitter

by senhasegura Blog Team | Jul 23, 2020 | BLOG

Last Saturday (18), the digital world was shocked by another episode of data leaks, and the protagonist this time was Twitter. That’s right, hackers were able to steal data from users of the microblogging platform. And it was not ordinary users, but celebrities, public people and even organizations with millions of followers who had their data exposed, including the use of bitcoin wallets in the scheme. Although it is still under investigation, it is already clear that this episode exposed a major vulnerability of Twitter.

But what were the dynamics of this attack? Also, in times of elections, can we trust the process of choosing future leaders?

By targeting the accounts of world leaders and celebrities on Twitter, hackers managed to orchestrate an attack based on social engineering, and thus promote a scheme involving cryptocurrencies through administration tools of the social network itself. According to the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report 2020, 22% of the nearly 4,000 incidents and security attacks surveyed involved social engineering. Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Barack Obama, Warren Buffet, and even US presidential candidate Jon Biden were some of the hacked profiles. Not to mention the Apple and Uber accounts.

But how did these hackers manage to perform this well-orchestrated attack?

The answer comes in the form of two words: SIM Swapping. SIM Swapping is a technique used by malicious agents that aim to transfer the number and data of the victim’s SIM chip to another one in their possession. In this case, through social engineering attacks, the hacker convinces a telephone line’s user that a problem has occurred with their chip and needs to transfer the number to another. This type of attack requires that some information, such as the number, name, and other data, is already in the attacker’s hands. Depending on the situation, it is not that difficult to obtain this information if it has already been leaked, for example. Similarly, agents can also persuade operators to perform this transfer, since they have access to all data required for the swap.

Through Social Engineering techniques, malicious attackers deceive their victims to gain improper access to credentials and administrative tools. By obtaining this access, hackers changed their victims’ email addresses on the microblogging network. Then, the attackers disabled the two-factor authentication. This makes it possible to prevent any account modification alerts from being received by its legitimate user. With absolute control of the accounts, hackers start promoting the cryptocurrency-based scam scheme.

Typically, the logic of a cyberattack like this involves several phases:

  1. Recognition: In this first phase, malicious attackers try to identify IT routines, as well as security measures and data traffic flow. Also, hackers scan the entire environment to get a clear view of network resources, as well as privileged credentials and services. Domain controllers, Active Directory, and servers are the attackers’ first targets to find other privileged credentials and complete the cyberattack. In many cases, this prior knowledge may exist due to some previous link between the attacker and the victim organization. 
  2. Invasion: based on what was discovered in the Recognition phase, hackers are able to enter the environment normally through malware or exploitation of vulnerabilities.
  3. Exploitation: This phase involves the act of exploiting vulnerabilities to compromise the environment.
  4. Escalation of Privilege: attackers usually need more privileges on systems to gain more access and privileges. This is usually done by escalating administrator privileges.
  5. Lateral Movement: Once in the infected environment, attackers can move laterally to other devices and credentials, in order to obtain more data and more access.
  6. Obfuscation: For a cyberattack to be successful, attackers need to erase all tracks left in the environment. At this point, it is even possible to change log data and confuse the incident investigation team.
  7. Denial of Service: disruption of the normal access by users and systems to prevent the actions of the attack from being monitored or blocked.
  8. Extraction: when the malicious user is able to improperly extract the data.

A unanimity among cybersecurity professionals is that this attack on Twitter involved privileged or administrative credentials. According to the Data Breach Investigations Report, the use of privileged credentials occurs in 20% of the attacks. This type of credential, also called “keys to the kingdom”, allows access to add, remove, and modify settings in accounts, applications, and systems. In this specific case, the hacker was able to compromise a credential from the Twitter administration tools. By gaining access, the attacker was able to move around the environment, compromising other privileged accounts. 

According to confirmation by Twitter itself, the nature of the attack was an insider threat. When it comes to data breaches, employees themselves can be one of the biggest risks to the organization. According to Verizon, these threats can be: accidental, when personnel is only poorly trained; negligent, when employees try to bypass the implemented policies; or malicious – the most dangerous – when an employee is motivated by financial gains, espionage, or revenge. An important fact, according to Verizon, is that 30% of cyberattacks performed in 2019 involved insider threats.

But how to prevent this type of attack?

It is complicated to deal with an attack coming from someone inside the organization. This is mainly because this insider threat knows (very) well the organizational environment, the mechanisms, and tools installed. So, it is easy for these attackers to deceive these control mechanisms. In this case, using Zero Trust-based controls can be a good way to mitigate the risks associated with a cyberattack. In terms of credential protection, the implementation of this strategy must not only be focused on identity only, such as access and permissions, but also on the aspect of user behavior. So much so that, in this specific case, the compromised credentials had protection mechanisms, as two-factor authentication. Finally, Zero Trust-based policies recommend the implementation of policies to allow people to take only the necessary actions, based on the concept of Least Privilege.


← Pass-the-hash - What it is and how to protect yourself? Digital Certificate Management for Protection of Machine Identities →

Building Digital Manufacturing Through PAM

With the evolution of technology, manufacturing sectors are increasingly digitalized through solutions that optimize the processes carried out in these environments, reducing costs, eliminating human failures, and generating more productivity.  Among the technologies...
Read More

Just-In-Time Privileged Access: Understand this Subject

In this article, we present the concept of just-in-time privileged access, its benefits, and mode of operation, among other extremely important information on the subject. To facilitate your reading, we divided our text into topics. They are: What Is Just-In-Time...
Read More

What Can I Do to Decrease Cyber Insurance Amounts?

When it comes to information security, the risks to organizations are increasing by several factors. As an example, we can mention the increase in the number of cyberattacks, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic, which accelerated the mass adoption of remote work,...
Read More

What are the actions performed during a privileged access

Nowadays, cyber-attacks have become increasingly common and hit more and more companies, of all verticals and sizes. According to the SonicWall 2022 Cyber ​​Threat report, the number of cyberattacks involving data encryption increased by 167% in 2021, reaching 10.4...
Read More

Achieving Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Compliance Using Cybersecurity Controls

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) is primarily associated with business transparency and the use of accounting and financial controls to protect investors from fraudulent financial reporting. However, it is always important to remember the ever-increasing pivotal role...
Read More

Share This!

Copyright 2022 senhasegura | All Rights Reserved | Powered by MT4 Group
By continuing to use this website, you consent to our use of cookies. For more information, please read our cookie policy.AcceptRead Our Privacy and Cookie Statement
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
CookieDurationDescription
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
SAVE & ACCEPT
Copy link
CopyCopied
Powered by Social Snap