Credentials Text Lookup

Quick Explanation

The credentials_text_lookup recipe detects attempts to search for or access sensitive credential information using common shell utilities such as grep, awk, sed, cat, and less. These activities pose critical risks to CI/CD pipelines, staging, and production environments by potentially enabling unauthorized credential harvesting and subsequent security breaches.

More Information

Information

Description: Credentials text lookup Tactic: Credential Access Technique: Unsecured Credentials Sub-Technique: Credentials in Files Importance: Critical

Analysis of the Event

The credentials_text_lookup detection event identifies command-line patterns commonly associated with credential harvesting attempts. Attackers frequently leverage standard text-processing utilities to search through configuration files, environment variables, scripts, and logs to extract sensitive credentials.

According to the MITRE ATT&CK framework, this behavior aligns with the Credential Access tactic, specifically the Unsecured Credentials technique. Historical attack patterns demonstrate that adversaries often exploit these methods to escalate privileges, move laterally within networks, and gain persistent unauthorized access.

Implications

Implications for CI/CD Pipelines

Credential harvesting within CI/CD pipelines can lead to severe consequences, including unauthorized access to deployment credentials, artifact repositories, and cloud service accounts. Attackers may exploit these credentials to compromise the integrity of the build and deployment processes, potentially resulting in supply chain attacks or unauthorized deployments.

Implications for Staging

In staging environments, credential harvesting poses risks such as unauthorized access to test databases, internal services, and sensitive data. Attackers may leverage compromised credentials to establish persistence, pivot to critical systems, or exfiltrate sensitive information prior to production deployment.

Implications for Production

Credential harvesting in production environments significantly increases the risk of long-term persistence, lateral movement, credential theft, data exfiltration, and advanced persistent threats (APT). Compromised credentials can enable attackers to maintain prolonged unauthorized access, escalate privileges, and exfiltrate sensitive organizational data.

Recommended Actions

Actions for CI/CD Pipelines

1. Review and Audit Credential Usage: Immediately audit scripts, configuration files, and environment variables for hardcoded or improperly stored credentials. Utilize version control history to identify recent suspicious modifications.

2. Implement Secret Management Solutions: Adopt dedicated secret management tools to securely store and manage credentials, reducing reliance on plaintext or file-based storage.

3. Restrict Utility Usage: Limit or monitor the use of text-processing utilities within build pipelines to minimize the attack surface.

4. Enhance Monitoring and Logging: Strengthen monitoring and logging mechanisms to detect and alert on suspicious credential access patterns during pipeline execution.

Actions for Staging

1. Conduct Comprehensive Security Testing: Regularly perform security assessments, including penetration testing, to identify and remediate vulnerabilities related to credential storage and access.

2. Implement Tighter Access Controls: Restrict staging environment access to authorized personnel only and enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) to mitigate unauthorized access risks.

3. Use Segmentation and Isolation Techniques: Isolate staging credentials from production environments and ensure minimal privilege assignments.

4. Regularly Update and Patch Systems: Maintain up-to-date systems and applications with the latest security patches to mitigate known vulnerabilities.

Actions for Production

1. Immediate Incident Response: Initiate incident response protocols promptly upon detecting credential harvesting attempts to investigate, contain, and remediate potential compromises.

2. Continuous Security Monitoring: Deploy continuous monitoring solutions capable of detecting and alerting on suspicious credential access and usage patterns.

3. Regular Security Audits and Compliance Checks: Schedule periodic security audits to verify proper credential management practices and adherence to security policies.

4. Enforce Least Privilege Principle: Ensure all service accounts and user credentials have only the minimum necessary permissions to reduce potential damage from credential compromise.