Microsoft Sentinel SOC 101: How to Detect and Mitigate Cryptojacking Attacks with Microsoft Sentinel
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Cryptojacking is a type of cyberattack that involves unauthorized use of cloud computing resources to mine cryptocurrencies. Cryptojackers typically compromise cloud accounts or services, deploy malicious code or containers, and consume excessive amounts of CPU, memory, disk, or network bandwidth. This can result in increased costs, degraded performance, reduced availability, and potential compliance violations for the affected cloud customers.
In this blog post, we will summarize some of the key findings and recommendations from their research and show how Microsoft Sentinel can help you detect and respond to cryptojacking threats in your cloud environment.
Common cryptojacking techniques and indicators
Cryptojackers use various techniques to gain access to cloud resources, such as phishing, credential theft, brute-force attacks, exploiting vulnerabilities, or abusing misconfigurations. Once they have access, they deploy their mining code or containers using different methods, such as:
Modifying existing cloud services or resources to run mining code
Creating new cloud services or resources to run mining code
Injecting mining code into legitimate cloud applications or processes
Using legitimate cloud services or tools to run mining code
Some of the common indicators of cryptojacking activity include:
High CPU or memory utilization by unknown or suspicious processes or containers
Unusual network traffic patterns or connections to known mining pools or domains
Unexpected changes in cloud configuration or resource usage
Anomalous user or service account behavior or login attempts
Presence of malicious code or files related to mining software
How Microsoft Sentinel can help you detect and mitigate cryptojacking attacks
Microsoft Sentinel is a cloud-native SIEM and XDR solution that provides comprehensive visibility, detection, investigation, and response capabilities across your hybrid environment. Microsoft Sentinel can help you detect and mitigate cryptojacking attacks by:
Collecting and analyzing data from various sources, such as Azure Activity logs, Azure Monitor logs, Azure Defender alerts, Microsoft 365 Defender alerts, Azure AD sign-in logs, network device logs, and custom logs
Applying advanced analytics and machine learning to identify suspicious or malicious activity related to cryptojacking
Providing rich dashboards and workbooks to visualize and monitor cryptojacking indicators and trends
Enabling fast and effective investigation and response using built-in playbooks, notebooks, hunting queries, and automation rules
To help you get started with cryptojacking detection and response using Microsoft Sentinel, here are a few ready-made Hunting queries:
Additionally, by connecting Defender for Cloud and Defender for Endpoint to Microsoft Sentinel a wealth of additional capability and alerts is available right away.
See:
Connect Microsoft Defender for Cloud alerts to Microsoft Sentinel
Connect data from Microsoft 365 Defender to Microsoft Sentinel
Summary
Cryptojacking is a serious threat that can cause significant damage to your cloud environment and business. By using Microsoft Sentinel, you can gain comprehensive visibility and protection against cryptojacking attacks across your hybrid environment. You can also leverage the Solution for Cryptojacking - Cloud Compute Resource Abuse to quickly deploy detection and response capabilities for cryptojacking scenarios.
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