Daisy Chains of Silence: Exploiting Vulnerabilities to Stifle Democracy in Egypt
Jeffrey Hanson
Data Center, Cybersecurity, AI Consultant @ Unify Consulting | HITRUST, SAFe?
My North Star: Focus on Exploit Chains
Exploit chains are far more than just a hacker's toolkit; they're a Pandora's box with the potential to wreak havoc on unprepared systems. This series of Threat-Informed Defense on ‘Exploit Chains’ aims to illuminate the darkness surrounding exploit chains, breaking down the technical jargon into actionable insights. Future articles will showcase cross-platform exploit chains and attempt to draw technical parallels. The ultimate goal is to establish exploit chain probability to feed into vulnerability management prioritization.
The Fabric of Threat-Informed Defense
Threat-Informed Defense is not a stand-alone strategy but an evolving dialogue. It involves understanding the fluid threat landscape and employing frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK for actionable insights. Most crucially, it requires radical collaboration across the cybersecurity community. In the realm of TID, shared knowledge equates to collective resilience. My thanks to Citizen Lab, Google Threat Analysis Group, and Apple for the work on this exploit chain.
A Deep Dive into Digital Espionage
In this week’s article, we dive into a recent spyware attack of a prominent person involving the daisy chaining of three zero-days. A ‘zero-day vulnerability’ is a security flaw in software that hackers discover and exploit before the software company knows about it. Because the company is unaware of the flaw, they haven't issued a fix or ‘patch,’ leaving users vulnerable until a solution is released and applied—this action of applying the fix is known as ‘remediation.’ It’s known that zero-days are hoarded and offered for sale, catching millions of dollars each, a fact that has energized bug bounty hunting! This daisy-chained zero-day exploit includes a ‘medium’ rated vulnerability (CVE-2023-41991, CVSS=5.5, EPSS 0.02018), making it clear that not all zero-days are critical.
TL;DR
iOS Zero-Day Exploit Chain and Its Timeline
The Ahmed Tantawy Episode
Ahmed Tantawy, a left-leaning former Member of the Egyptian Parliament, has declared his plans to run for the presidency in the 2024 elections. His platform offers a democratic counterpoint to the current administration, focusing on a variety of issues including political, economic, and legislative reforms. Tantawy also emphasizes human rights and public freedoms, while taking a stance on national security and national interests. His positions on hot-button topics, such as advocating for wealth redistribution, supporting tax hikes, and maintaining interactions with the International Monetary Fund, are gaining traction among a youthful demographic and opposition members.
Shortly after his announcement, Tantawy became the target of a meticulously crafted cyber-attack. The weapon of choice? Predator spyware, developed by the company Cytrox. The timing and the tool suggest this was no ordinary hack but an orchestrated effort to compromise a political figure.
Two investigative bodies, University of Toronto-based Citizen Lab and Google’s Threat Analysis Group revealed the use of a zero-day exploit chain for iOS devices to install the Predator spyware. Apple has since issued patches to fix the vulnerabilities. The investigation attributes the attack to the Egyptian government and identifies additional countries that may be at risk. The report concludes with urgent recommendations for users to update their devices and activate security features to protect against similar threats.
The Multi-Pronged Attack Vector
The attackers employed multi-faceted techniques to ensnare Tantawy. He received misleading SMS and WhatsApp messages, encouraging him to click on malicious links. These links served as the delivery mechanism for the Predator spyware. But the sophistication didn’t end there; his mobile service provider, Vodafone Egypt, was also exploited. The network was manipulated to redirect Tantawy to malicious websites whenever he accessed certain unencrypted sites, an attack method known as "network injection."
The Anatomy of the Zero-Day Chain
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The researchers identified two websites, sec-flare[.]com and verifyurl[.]me, linked to Cytrox’s Predator spyware. They used internet scanning to match a large number of IPs to these sites. Domains suggested focus on regions like the Arabian Gulf, Southeast Asia, Angola, Egypt, Greece, etc. Not all these governments are confirmed customers.
Tantawy was redirected to a malicious site via network injection while using his Vodafone Egypt mobile data connection. The injection was triggered based on the website specified in the HTTP Host header, as well as the value of the User-Agent header. The destination website contained two iframes, one with benign content and another with a Predator infection link.
Note that this investigation is ongoing and NVD has marked these CVEs as “UNDERGOING REANALYSIS.”
Attribution and Impact
The Egyptian government has been identified with high confidence as the orchestrator of this attack, given their prior record and known usage of Cytrox’s Predator spyware. This is not merely a case of digital espionage but a direct assault on the democratic process and individual freedoms. It reveals how state actors can exploit technology to stifle opposition and suppress voices calling for democratic change.
Sandvine: The Invisible Hand
The unsettling role of Sandvine's PacketLogic device in manipulating Tantawy's network traffic cannot be ignored. This technology is crucial for executing network injection attacks. While Sandvine's devices are typically used for benign purposes like network management and traffic optimization, their potential for more nefarious activities like surveillance and network injection is often undisclosed. This lack of transparency raises questions about its widespread use by ISPs, telecom operators, and governmental organizations in over 100 countries.
Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), the technology behind PacketLogic, is a sophisticated method for scrutinizing network traffic down to the payload level. This allows for real-time decisions on data packets, going beyond the basic header information usually examined by packet-filtering techniques. In essence, DPI serves as an advanced security checkpoint, capable of opening and inspecting each "box" of data that passes through a network.
In the case of Tantawy, this DPI technology was used to facilitate targeted network injections, enabling the delivery of malicious payloads like Predator spyware. This versatile technology has dual-use implications; it can either enhance network security or be weaponized for intrusive surveillance and targeted attacks.
The veil surrounding the use of such potent technology underscores the urgent need for transparency. As digital communication becomes more integral to our daily lives, understanding the entities that control our data flow becomes imperative. Especially concerning are the non-disclosed, sensitive applications of Sandvine's technology, which have already been implicated in dubious activities like delivering spyware.
Given the technology's power and reach, the call for accountability and transparency is not just warranted—it's essential. In a world increasingly dependent on digital communication, the failure to illuminate the darker corners of network intelligence technology could put our privacy and freedoms at risk.
?? An Urgent Call to Decode the Chain Reaction
The insidious role of dual-use technologies in this incident underlines the grave implications of leaving exploit chains unexamined. As we edge closer to a future where digital interactions become the norm, understanding and predicting exploit chains isn't just intellectual exercise—it's a public safety imperative.
Governments, corporations, and individuals need to recognize that the realm of cybersecurity is now irrevocably tied to the arena of human rights and personal freedoms. While dual-use technologies present their own ethical quandaries, the immediate concern is to integrate a chaining probability methodology into our vulnerability management systems. This would allow us to better anticipate, rather than simply react to, complex cyber-attacks.
But make no mistake—this is not a journey one can or should make alone. The stakes are too high, and the landscape too perilous, to go it solo. I extend an open invitation for you to join me in this essential endeavor. Together, we can not only chart this treacherous terrain but make it safer for everyone who ventures into it. The key to our digital future lies in decoding the chain reactions before they erupt, turning potential chaos into managed risk.
I am Praying Hard for Peace. #IsraelPalestineWar