¶ Overview 🌐
As organizations increasingly adopt Multifactor Authentication (MFA), they have encountered a disturbing trend: a rise in account takeover incidents, particularly through sophisticated attacks leveraging tools like EvilProxy. Threat actors now utilize automated methods to identify high-value targets and bypass MFA defenses, leading to significant security concerns. Exium’s SASE solution offers advanced protections against these emerging threats through domain blocking and secure conditional access.
¶ The Challenge: EvilProxy and Account Takeovers 🚨
EvilProxy represents a new breed of Adversary-in-the-Middle (AitM) phishing toolkit that exploits MFA mechanisms by enabling attackers to capture user credentials and session cookies in real-time. The process unfolds as follows:
¶
|
Step 1 |
Step 2 |
Step 3 |
Step 4 |
Step 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Domain Spoofing and Reverse Proxy Configuration 📧 |
User Interaction and MFA Bypass 🔑 |
Request Interception 🔄 |
Response Manipulation and Cookie Capture 🏷️ |
Session Hijacking 🎭 |
| The adversary strategically creates a counterfeit domain and deploys a reverse proxy server to deceive unsuspecting users. A phishing link is then disseminated to the target victim. | Upon clicking the malicious link, the victim is prompted to authenticate their credentials, successfully completing Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) in the process. | The adversary intercepts the authentication requests sent from the victim’s browser and relays them to the legitimate server, effectively masquerading as the victim. | Once the real server processes the request, the adversary captures the server’s response, including session data, and forwards it back to the victim’s client. During this exchange, the valid session cookie is also captured for illicit use. | Leveraging the captured session cookie, the adversary gains unauthorized access to the authentic domain, impersonating the victim and compromising the account without detection rendering traditional security measures ineffective. |
¶ Key Strategies to Combat EvilProxy Attacks
|
Key Strategies to Combat EvilProxy and Account Takeover Attacks |
|
|---|---|
| 1 |
User Awareness Training:
|
| 2 |
Advanced Email Security:
|
| 3 |
Network-Based Web Filter:
|
| 4 |
Conditional Access Policies:
|
Exium’s SASE framework plays a pivotal role in mitigating these threats by focusing on comprehensive network-based web filtering and implementing stringent conditional access policies, thereby offering a layered defense strategy.
¶ Exium's Solution: Preventing EvilProxy Attacks 🛡️
Exium’s SASE solution leverages two critical security controls to thwart EvilProxy attacks and effectively secure users.
|
Blocking Malicious Domains 🚫 |
Conditional Access with Unique, Static Dedicated Egress IP Addresses 🌟 |
|---|---|
| Exium’s CyberMesh SASE platform continuously integrates real-time threat intelligence feeds, ensuring that it remains updated on known malicious domains and URLs. If a victim clicks a phishing link, Exium’s platform automatically blocks the request before it can reach the adversary, effectively preventing access to the attacker's infrastructure. This proactive domain blocking mitigates the initial entry point for EvilProxy attacks. | Exium's CyberMesh radically shifts traffic dynamics by encrypting connections through the Exium Client, masking the corporate egress IP addresses. Instead, only the unique "Egress IP" associated with Exium's Cybernode is presented to cloud and SaaS applications and Identity Provider (IdP) platforms. |
By implementing conditional access policies based on this dedicated egress IP, organizations can restrict access to only those requests originating from the Exium-provided IP. Consequently, even if a threat actor manages to acquire a valid session cookie, they will be unable to access cloud applications. Their incoming traffic will not match the secure, static egress IP as shown in the Figure below, thwarting unauthorized access attempts.
¶ Conclusion 🏁
Exium’s SASE solution offers robust defenses against evolving threats like EvilProxy, combining advanced domain blocking with secure conditional access through dedicated egress IP addresses. By leveraging these capabilities, organizations can confidently protect their assets and mitigate the risk of account takeovers, ensuring that their security posture remains resilient against increasingly sophisticated attacks in the digital landscape.🌍✨
To learn more about implementing SASE, XDR, IAM/ MFA, and GRC for your organization and explore tailored solutions that meet your unique requirements, contact Exium at partners@exium.net for a consultation or demonstration. If you are ready to get started, check out our testing and onboarding process.