How to use Cyber Kill Chain effectively?
With the evolving threat landscape, placing defence techniques in place can be the most effective way to reduce cyber security risk. A tiered security approach can help to mitigate the risks. But how can you be guaranteed that your protection system is secure enough to survive potential attacks on your organization? This is the place where you can adapt the Cyber Kill Chain to play a major role.
The cyber kill chain is a step-by-step process, which can be used to trace steps of a cyber-attack from identifying phase to the data exfiltration phase. This Cyber Kill Chain was developed by Lockheed Martin in 2011 and is based on the military’s kill chain concept, which was created to discover, prepare to attack, engage, and destroy the target. The goal of the cyber kill chain is to protect against advanced persistent threats (APTs), ransomware, insider threats, and social engineering. Adversaries spend a large amount of time surveilling and preparing an attempt in these types of attacks. As a result, the cyber kill chain supports security experts in stopping an attack at any point across the chain.
There are seven phases to the cyber kill chain. They are Reconnaissance, Weaponization, Delivery, Exploitation, Installation, Command and Control and Actions on Objective.
1. Reconnaissance — As the first stage of the cyber kill chain, attackers try to gather information about the targeted system. In this phase, they will collect data about vulnerabilities and weak points of the system and the tactics for their attack. Attackers use automated scanners to scan firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, etc to gather this information and try to get a loophole to enter the system.
2. Weaponization — The attacker builds an attack vector such as malware, ransomware, adware, etc. during this step to gain entry. During this phase, the attacker may also set back doors to allow them to access the system even though their initial route of intrusion is discovered and completely closed by network operators.
3. Delivery — In this stage attackers might be delivered attack vectors by phishing emails, compromised websites, and removable disks. The security team can attempt to stop the attack at this stage.
4. Exploitation — This is the stage that the malicious code is executed within the targeted system.
5. Installation — In this stage attackers attempt to install the attack vectors within the targeted system. This stage is also important for security professionals because they can stop the attack by using systems such as Host-based Intrusion Prevention Systems.
6. Command and Control — After gaining control of the system, attackers attempt to expand their rights to get access to privileged accounts and alter privileges to take over control.
7. Actions on Objective — As the final stage of the cyber kill chain, the attacker takes efforts to accomplish their objectives, which may involve data theft, destruction, encryption, or exfiltration.
The adoption of the kill chain model may provide cyber attackers with some insight into how organizations structure their defences, which may mistakenly assist them in avoiding capture at key points of the attack lifecycle.
As security professionals, we can use Cyber Kill Chain to reduce the amount of time and opportunity for organizations to detect and mitigate risks early in the lifecycle. By using a cyber-kill chain security professionals can simulate cyber-attacks across all systems in the organization. To detect vulnerabilities and threats, real-world cyber security attacks can be simulated in all directions. This involves using email gateways, web gateways, web application firewalls, and other similar tools to simulate cyber-attacks. And also they can use this to inspect the Controls to check for security loopholes and Fix those loopholes in Cyber security. Cyber security professionals can identify the risk areas and get an idea about the risk score. Then they can adopt a cyber-kill chain to fix those vulnerabilities by conducting necessary solutions.
As mentioned above, security professionals have to monitor their organizations’ systems in real-time. To do that effectively you can use Security Information and Event Management solutions. That SIEM solution will help you to identify threats such as phishing attempts, suspicious network scanning attempts, brute force attempts, and other potential cyber-attacks to your system in the reconnaissance stage. And also activities in the early stages such as attackers trying to find loopholes in your system and trying to deliver the attacks, exploit the attacks, or attempting to install the attack vectors can be identified with the help of a SIEM solution.
Only identifying threats is not enough. As an organization, you have to detect and respond to those threats to protect your organization. So, an Endpoint Detection and Response solution can help you with the detection and response part. EDR solutions will detect attacks in the early stages of the cyber kill chain and this solution will help you to respond quickly without being infected by your organizations’ system. Because some powerful EDR solutions can stop the attacks from the first phase of the cyber kill chain.
Now you know the importance of the cyber kill chain for security professionals. So, be aware of that and adapt it to your organization to get better protection.
