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    Rewterz Threat Alert – GandCrab or .CRAB Ransomware – Active IOCs
    Severity Medium Analysis Summary GandCrab – a ransomware-as-a-service variant – was discovered in early 2018. At least five versions of GandCrab have been created since its […]
    March 25, 2023
    March 25, 2023
    Rewterz Threat Alert – NJRAT – Active IOCs
    Severity Medium Analysis Summary NjRat is a Remote Access Trojan, which is found leveraging Pastebin to deliver a second-stage payload after initial infection. There are multiple […]
    March 24, 2023
    March 24, 2023
    Rewterz Threat Advisory – CVE-2023-20113 – Cisco SD-WAN vManage Software Vulnerability
    Severity Medium Analysis Summary CVE-2023-20113  Cisco SD-WAN vManage Software is vulnerable to cross-site request forgery, caused by improper validation of user-supplied input. By persuading an authenticated […]

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    Self-concealing Digital Steganography is on the rise

    Managed Security Services

    • Managed Security Monitoring
    • Remote SOC
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    Managed Penetration Testing

    Rewterz penetration testing services help organizations determine if a cyber attacker can gain access to their critical assets while giving them detailed insights of the overall business impact of a cyber attack.

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    March 25, 2023
    March 25, 2023
    Rewterz Threat Alert – GandCrab or .CRAB Ransomware – Active IOCs
    Severity Medium Analysis Summary GandCrab – a ransomware-as-a-service variant – was discovered in early 2018. At least five versions of GandCrab have been created since its […]
    March 25, 2023
    March 25, 2023
    Rewterz Threat Alert – NJRAT – Active IOCs
    Severity Medium Analysis Summary NjRat is a Remote Access Trojan, which is found leveraging Pastebin to deliver a second-stage payload after initial infection. There are multiple […]
    March 24, 2023
    March 24, 2023
    Rewterz Threat Advisory – CVE-2023-20113 – Cisco SD-WAN vManage Software Vulnerability
    Severity Medium Analysis Summary CVE-2023-20113  Cisco SD-WAN vManage Software is vulnerable to cross-site request forgery, caused by improper validation of user-supplied input. By persuading an authenticated […]

    Threat Insights

    16
    pdf-file (1)
    Annual Threat Intelligence Report 2022
    • Threat Advisories
    • Monthly Threat Insights
    • Threat Intelligence Reports
  • Why Rewterz?

    About Us

    Before Rewterz got its start, the market was in dire need of a specialized and dedicated information security company. It was nearly impossible for businesses to find a trustworthy provider that could truly cover all of their bases. We wanted to meet this need, giving companies across the globe a chance to get ahead while knowing that their data is in good hands.

    Read More

    play_btn_Smallplay_btn_hover_Small
    leadership

    Our Leadership

    Our leadership team brings together years of knowledge and experience in cybersecurity to drive our company's mission and vision. Our team is passionate about delivering high-quality products and services, leading by example and assisting our clients in securing their organization’s environment.
    help

    CSR

    At Rewterz, we believe that businesses have a responsibility to impact positively and contribute to the well-being of our communities as well as the planet. That's why we are committed to operating in a socially responsible and sustainable way.

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Rewterz Threat Advisory – Vidar and GrandCrab Stealer and Ransomware emerging in the Wild as a pair
January 8, 2019
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Rewterz Threat Advisory – Microsoft Windows Server 2012 / Windows RT 8.1 / 8.1 Multiple Vulnerabilities
January 10, 2019

Self-concealing Digital Steganography is on the rise

January 9, 2019

Conventional Steganography is the old Greek craft of concealing one art in another art so well that its presence isn’t detectable by unsuspecting eye. Digital Steganography works on the same principles and hides one form of information within another kind of information. To make it easier, consider an image that will look like an image, but it may be embedded with loads of secret data which isn’t traceable.

 

 

 

 

Why are digital masterminds moving towards Steganography?

 

 

Cryptography has had its fair share of attention, being used in both good and bad ways. The slight problem with cryptography is that, it attracts too much attention. Steganography on the other hand hides the traces that some secret message is involved, therefore does not attract attention to itself as something to be scrutinized.

 

While plain cryptography involves visible coded messages that arouse curiosity, Steganography is used to safely transfer confidential data without arousing suspicion by concealing a file, message, image, or video within another file, message, image, or video. In countries where coding is prohibited, this digital art can be very handy for circulating secret messages.

 

 

How does Steganography work?

 

 

Media files are the usual vector used for steganographic transmission of data.

For example, a plain image file can be altered in a way that the color of every 50th pixel is changed to correspond to a letter in the alphabet. The minor change will not alter the display of the image file and an unsuspecting eyeball isn’t likely to catch the steganography involved. Can you tell the difference between these two images?

 

 

 

 

A Canadian firm called Discrete Integration has a researcher who is developing advanced steganographic tools. Called Dominic Schaub, the guy says:

“[It’s] a self-concealing, perfectly deniable encryption/Steganography suite…fast, stable and functional”

 

 

Practical Applications of Steganography

 

 

Digital Steganography isn’t taking birth at the moment. It’s simply on the rise.
• Earlier in the decade, an online espionage campaign with an attack code called MiniDuke used steganography to extract command-and-control instructions from a specified Twitter account, in 2013.

• Another attack campaign sent remote control instructions for Berbomthum-infected PCs via a meme crafted from the 1999 science fiction film “The Matrix”.

• The most recent application of steganography is that of malware controlled through command-containing memes posted on twitter.

• Lurk uses digital steganography to hide its URL download address and ultimately hijack infected computers to commit click fraud.

 

 

Why is it scary?

 

 

The digital art of steganography can be used for safe transfer of confidential information by intelligence agencies. But why is it scary?
As mentioned above, the technique can be used to launch more sophisticated cyber-attacks. Imagine getting your whole system compromised just because you clicked on a meme. The stegano-graphed information may also remain hidden in an encrypted partition on a disk, with no traceable digital forensics. The self-concealing trait challenges cyber-crime investigators and agencies on a whole new level, making it extremely hard for them to gather digital evidence.
Describing his fool-proof masterpiece, Dominic Schaub adds:

 

 

“In this new paradigm, steganographic tools hide themselves in a self-recursive manner that renders them forensically invisible,” he says. “Moreover, upon cryptographic activation by an authorized user, these hidden tools can bootstrap themselves into existence without generating any incriminating forensic evidence. Provided that requisite cryptographic conditions are met, such steganography can be considered ‘perfectly deniable.'”

His toolkit is capable of hiding 30,000 lines of code.

 

 

Detection Evasion

 

 

Reports claim that about 90% of cyber-attacks are initiated by a spam email. Since malware can be detected by anti-malware programs, steganography can be used as another method to evade detection. Attackers may modify files and an algorithm can be developed to instruct the malware dropper to locate the modified pixels, read their machine code, and then convert that code into a URL address, using another algorithm. Once the URL address is decoded, a connection is formed and files are downloaded.

 

 

 

 

The biggest advantage/disadvantage of steganography is that, modified file wouldn’t look any different from the original.

 

 

How does Steganography deal with loopholes?

 

 

Even though a steganographed file looks like an exact copy of the original, embedded information can significantly increase the size of the file. People who can lay their hands on the original file are capable of distinguishing an original file from the one containing hidden data.
To keep the data undetectable, people are replacing bits of the original file instead of adding more size to the file.
For example: The 8 bits of each byte aren’t essential to determine color of a pixel of an image. Hence, the least important bit can be replaced with one bit of code without increasing file size. Similarly, the insignificant noise in audio streams can be replaced with bits of secret data, without getting noticed.
From common man perspective, cryptography looks like a giant lock hiding a treasure, daring robbers and thieves to try it. On the other hand, steganography looks like a plain wall that hides the same treasure without demanding attention and without raising a suspecting eyebrow. Which method would you think is safer for your treasure?

 

 

 

 

Steganography seems to have endless possibilities which are currently being experimented with. Hence, it is very likely that steganography will be the new talk of the digital town, very soon.

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