Unsecured Credentials: Chat Messages

Adversaries may directly collect unsecured credentials stored or passed through user communication services. Credentials may be sent and stored in user chat communication applications such as email, chat services like Slack or Teams, collaboration tools like Jira or Trello, and any other services that support user communication. Users may share various forms of credentials (such as usernames and passwords, API keys, or authentication tokens) on private or public corporate internal communications channels.

Rather than accessing the stored chat logs (i.e., Credentials In Files), adversaries may directly access credentials within these services on the user endpoint, through servers hosting the services, or through administrator portals for cloud hosted services. Adversaries may also compromise integration tools like Slack Workflows to automatically search through messages to extract user credentials. These credentials may then be abused to perform follow-on activities such as lateral movement or privilege escalation [1].

ID: T1552.008
Sub-technique of:  T1552
Platforms: Google Workspace, Office 365, SaaS
Contributors: Douglas Weir
Version: 1.0
Created: 14 March 2023
Last Modified: 11 April 2023

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
G1004 LAPSUS$

LAPSUS$ has targeted various collaboration tools like Slack, Teams, JIRA, Confluence, and others to hunt for exposed credentials to support privilege escalation and lateral movement.[2]

Mitigations

ID Mitigation Description
M1047 Audit

Preemptively search through communication services to find shared unsecured credentials. Searching for common patterns like "password is ", "password=" and take actions to reduce exposure when found.

M1017 User Training

Ensure that developers and system administrators are aware of the risk associated with sharing unsecured passwords across communication services.

Detection

ID Data Source Data Component Detects
DS0015 Application Log Application Log Content

Monitor application logs for activity that may highlight malicious attempts to access application data, especially abnormal search activity targeting passwords and other artifacts related to credentials.[3]

References