Microsoft, Fortra, and the Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center (Health-ISAC) are collaborating to take down servers hosting cracked copies of Cobalt Strike, a primary hacking tool used by cybercriminals.
The US District Court for the Eastern District of New York has issued a court order allowing Microsoft and Fortra to seize the domain names and take down the IP addresses of servers hosting cracked versions of Cobalt Strike. The takedown operation has already started earlier this week, with the goal of taking the malicious infrastructure offline. Relevant computer emergency readiness teams (CERTs) and internet service providers (ISPs) will assist in the takedown.
Cobalt Strike was released by Fortra over a decade ago as a legitimate commercial penetration testing tool for red teams to scan organizational infrastructure for vulnerabilities.
However, malicious actors have obtained and distributed cracked copies of the software over time, leading to Cobalt Strike becoming one of the most widely used tools in cyberattacks involving data theft and ransomware. Microsoft has detected malicious infrastructure hosting Cobalt Strike across the globe, including in China, the United States, and Russia.
Microsoft has also observed multiple state-backed threat actors and hacking groups using cracked Cobalt Strike versions while acting on behalf of foreign governments.
The ransomware families associated with or deployed by cracked copies of Cobalt Strike have been linked to over 68 ransomware attacks impacting healthcare organizations in more than 19 countries around the world, according to the head of Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit (DCU).
These attacks have cost hospital systems millions of dollars in recovery and repair costs, plus interruptions to critical patient care services. The legal crackdown aims to hinder the monetization of illegal copies of Cobalt Strike and force criminals to re-evaluate and change their tactics.
In November 2022, the Google Cloud Threat Intelligence team open-sourced 165 YARA rules and a collection of indicators of compromise (IOCs) to help network defenders detect Cobalt Strike components in their networks.
The recent legal crackdown by Microsoft and Fortra is a significant move towards combating cybercrime and protecting legitimate uses of security tools.
