Research Report

Breaking Down the SolarWinds Breach: an Inside Look at the Methods Used

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Multiple communication channels, phases, and tools were used to establish interactive, hands-on-keyboard control. Each phase was designed to minimize the chance of detection, with techniques that defeat IDS tool signatures, EDR, manual threat hunting, and even common approaches to ML-based detection.
  • The DGA used in this attack was different: a single, unique subdomain was generated for each victim, compromised of a globally unique ID calculated from local attributes and an encoding of the victim hostname.
  • Vectra’s AI will see through the evasion tactics applied and detect the tunnels as soon as they go active.
  • Vectra uniquely protects the entire network of hybrid, on-premise, and cloud connectivity with learning behavioral models that understand both hosts and identities—tracking and stopping attackers earlier in the kill chain.

Breaking Down the SolarWinds Breach: an Inside Look at the Methods Used
Breaking Down the SolarWinds Breach: an Inside Look at the Methods Used
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Breaking Down the SolarWinds Breach: an Inside Look at the Methods Used

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