Unlocking Real-World Security: Defending against Crypto mining attacks

Cross-domain attacks remain a critical challenge for most security teams. As attackers combine threat vectors to gain a foothold in your organization, visibility into critical assets becomes critical. With advanced attacks like cryptojacking and IaaS resource theft becoming more prevalent, it’s clear that attacks are crossing boundaries into cloud and hybrid workloads. Natively integrating XDR with cloud security insights becomes critical to defending against these attacks.

from We integrated Microsoft Defender for Cloud, the industry-leading CNAPP solution, provides cloud workload alerts, signals, and asset intelligence., We have seen its transformational impact in real-world scenarios as we integrate it with Microsoft Defender XDR. This integration is a hybrid and multi-Cloud environment. To illustrate this, let’s look at a real-world scenario that demonstrates the power of this integration.

Case Study: Dealing with Cryptocurrency Mining Attacks, from Phishing to Cloud Exploitation

In this attack, we look at a cryptocurrency mining attack that occurred in July of last year. It starts with a phishing email, escalates to privilege abuse, and ends with the exploitation of cloud resources. This scenario shows how Defender for Cloud works with other Microsoft Security solutions to enable a comprehensive and effective defense strategy.

Step 1: Reconnaissance

The attack begins with the threat actor performing reconnaissance via account enumeration to identify valid users. This activity was detected by Sentinel.

Step 2: Initial Access via Password Spray

After reconnaissance, the attacker uses password spraying to try to guess the passwords of multiple users within the organization, resulting in successful logins from suspicious browsers at new locations. Entra Identity Protection and Defender for Cloud detect this behavior and flag unauthorized access for immediate investigation.

Step 3: Persistence

The threat actor abused valid credentials and forced the user to accept the authentication challenge by using MFA fatigue. After logging in, the threat actor enrolled a new device to establish persistence. This activity was detected by Sentinel analytics rules and Defender XDR.

Step 4: Discovery and Elevation of Privileges

After gaining an initial foothold, the attackers used Azure Resource Management to conduct cloud discovery activities and modify several cloud settings, including virtual machine quota limits. Defender for Cloud and Defender XDR detected suspicious activity, such as unusual use of management tools and irregular access patterns. These alerts correlate with earlier alerts from Sentinel, Entra Identity Protection, and Defender XDR, highlighting the progress of the attack.

Step 5: Mining Cryptocurrency on Cloud Resources And confusion

At this stage, the attacker deploys multiple machine learning clusters to mine cryptocurrency. Defender XDR and Defender for Cloud detect this unusual use of computing resources and trigger automatic attack stoppage.

this XDR-level features It combines signals from cloud workloads, identities, SaaS apps, email, collaboration tools, and Sentinel to form a single high-confidence incident. Defender XDR then automatically isolates the affected endpoints and disables the compromised accounts, effectively stopping the mining operation and preventing further lateral movement. In this specific case study, the attack was stopped by disabling the user account to stop mining activity.

Step 6: Cryptocurrency mining on cloud resources (prevented)

In a similar incident where there was no resumption of the attack, the threat actor would have downloaded a cryptominer tool and connected it to a cryptocurrency mining pool. In some cases, a threat actor with sufficient privileges could have transferred the subscription to a tenant controlled by the attacker. All of these steps were prevented and the resumption of the attack prevented the cryptominer from running, disabling the compromised users and significantly limiting the potential impact.

conclusion

This case study demonstrates the real-world security value of integrating Defender for Cloud with Defender XDR. Integrating cloud workloads enhances the baseline signal breadth of Defender XDR, enabling organizations to effectively defend against complex, multi-stage attacks across their entire attack surface, including cloud infrastructure. Seamless correlation of alerts and powerful automated response mechanisms ensures rapid and effective threat mitigation.

In summary, Defender for Cloud integration into Defender XDR represents a significant advancement in cybersecurity. In a world where critical assets are in the cloud, so are attackers. Integrating cloud workload security signals is essential to capturing the full attack story, so you can understand and block sophisticated threats before they cause damage.

Experience it for yourself Learn how this powerful integration strengthens security and keeps your IT and cloud environments resilient against evolving threats.