SASE Week 2023 On-Demand! Explore sessions.

  • Security Service Edge Products

    Protect against advanced and cloud-enabled threats and safeguard data across all vectors.

  • Borderless SD-WAN

    Confidently provide secure, high-performance access to every remote user, device, site, and cloud.

The platform of the future is Netskope

Intelligent Security Service Edge (SSE), Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), Cloud Firewall, Next Generation Secure Web Gateway (SWG), and Private Access for ZTNA built natively into a single solution to help every business on its journey to Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architecture.

Go to Products Overview
Netskope video
Next Gen SASE Branch is hybrid — connected, secured, and automated

Netskope Next Gen SASE Branch converges Context-Aware SASE Fabric, Zero-Trust Hybrid Security, and SkopeAI-powered Cloud Orchestrator into a unified cloud offering, ushering in a fully modernized branch experience for the borderless enterprise.

Learn about Next Gen SASE Branch
People at the open space office
  • NewEdge

    NewEdge is the world’s largest, highest-performing security private cloud.

  • Cloud Security Platform

    Unrivaled visibility and real-time data and threat protection on the world's largest security private cloud.

  • Technology Partners & Integrations

    Netskope partners with the strongest companies in enterprise technology.

Embrace a Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architecture

Netskope NewEdge is the world’s largest, highest-performing security private cloud and provides customers with unparalleled service coverage, performance and resilience.

Learn about NewEdge
NewEdge
Your Network of Tomorrow

Plan your path toward a faster, more secure, and more resilient network designed for the applications and users that you support.

Get the white paper
Your Network of Tomorrow
Netskope Cloud Exchange

The Netskope Cloud Exchange (CE) provides customers with powerful integration tools to leverage investments across their security posture.

Learn about Cloud Exchange
Netskope video
Make the move to market-leading cloud security services with minimal latency and high reliability.

Learn about NewEdge
Lighted highway through mountainside switchbacks
Safely enable the use of generative AI applications with application access control, real-time user coaching, and best-in-class data protection.

Learn how we secure generative AI use
Safely Enable ChatGPT and Generative AI
Zero trust solutions for SSE and SASE deployments

Learn about Zero Trust
Boat driving through open sea
Netskope enables a safe, cloud-smart, and fast journey to adopt cloud services, apps, and public cloud infrastructure.

Learn about Industry Solutions
Wind turbines along cliffside
  • Resources

    Learn more about how Netskope can help you secure your journey to the cloud.

  • Blog

    Learn how Netskope enables security and networking transformation through security service edge (SSE).

  • Events & Workshops

    Stay ahead of the latest security trends and connect with your peers.

  • Security Defined

    Everything you need to know in our cybersecurity encyclopedia.

Security Visionaries Podcast

2024 Predictions
Host Emily Wearmouth sits down for a conversation with Sherron Burgess, Senior VP and CISO for BCD Travel, and Shamla Naidoo, Head of Cloud Strategy and Innovation at Netskope, to talk about the hot topics they’re seeing for the year to come.

Play the podcast
2024 Predictions
Latest Blogs

How Netskope can enable the Zero Trust and SASE journey through security service edge (SSE) capabilities.

Read the blog
Sunrise and cloudy sky
SASE Week 2023: Your SASE journey starts now!

Replay sessions from the fourth annual SASE Week.

Explore sessions
SASE Week 2023
What is Security Service Edge?

Explore the security side of SASE, the future of network and protection in the cloud.

Learn about Security Service Edge
Four-way roundabout
  • Our Customers

    Netskope serves more than 2,000 customers worldwide including more than 25 of the Fortune 100

  • Customer Solutions

    We are here for you and with you every step of the way, ensuring your success with Netskope.

  • Netskope Community

    Learn from other network, data, and security professionals.

  • Training and Certification

    Netskope training will help you become a cloud security expert.

We help our customers to be Ready for Anything

See our Customers
Woman smiling with glasses looking out window
Netskope’s talented and experienced Professional Services team provides a prescriptive approach to your successful implementation.

Learn about Professional Services
Netskope Professional Services
The Netskope Community can help you and your team get more value out of products and practices.

Go to the Netskope Community
The Netskope Community
Secure your digital transformation journey and make the most of your cloud, web, and private applications with Netskope training.

Learn about Training and Certifications
Group of young professionals working
  • Company

    We help you stay ahead of cloud, data, and network security challenges.

  • Why Netskope

    Cloud transformation and work from anywhere have changed how security needs to work.

  • Leadership

    Our leadership team is fiercely committed to doing everything it takes to make our customers successful.

  • Partners

    We partner with security leaders to help you secure your journey to the cloud.

Supporting sustainability through data security

Netskope is proud to participate in Vision 2045: an initiative aimed to raise awareness on private industry’s role in sustainability.

Find out more
Supporting Sustainability Through Data Security
Highest in Execution. Furthest in Vision.

Netskope recognized as a Leader in the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Security Service Edge.

Get the report
Netskope recognized as a Leader in the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Security Service Edge.
Thinkers, builders, dreamers, innovators. Together, we deliver cutting-edge cloud security solutions to help our customers protect their data and people.

Meet our team
Group of hikers scaling a snowy mountain
Netskope’s partner-centric go-to-market strategy enables our partners to maximize their growth and profitability while transforming enterprise security.

Learn about Netskope Partners
Group of diverse young professionals smiling

Pardot CRM Attack

Aug 08 2019

On 5 August 2019, Netskope Threat Research Labs discovered an attack campaign propagated through Pardot, a cloud-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) by Salesforce. The attack kill chain begins with the delivery of a zip file, containing a lnk file that downloads the next stage of the attack, a Trickbot payload from Google docs. 

This attack is noteworthy for the following reasons

  • Malicious files residing inside cloud CRM services are typically viewed as internal files
  • Users of cloud CRM platforms have a high level of trust in the software because they view the data and associated “links” as internal (even though they are in the cloud)

In this blog, we will provide an analysis of the attack kill chain and how these types of attacks can be prevented with threat protection policies that offer app-level granularity.

Netskope Detection

Netskope Advanced Threat Protection detects the malware associated with these attacks as Gen.Malware.Detect.By.TI.

Disclosure

Netskope reported the associated Pardot sites hosting malware to the Salesforce security team on 5 August 2019. Additionally, the google docs hosting malware was reported to Google on 6 August 2019.

CRM as an attack vector

A large number of enterprises provide their vendors and partners access to their CRM for uploading documents such as invoices, purchase orders, etc. (and often these happen as automated workflows). The enterprise has no control over the vendor or partner device and, more importantly, over the files being uploaded from them. In many cases, vendor- or partner-uploaded files carry with them a high level of implicit trust.

This is a critical compromise, since some of the users may be operating on a device that they view as relatively hardened against malware. This makes them less likely to scrutinize the attachment. That said, other users involved in the customer relationship process may be accessing the CRM from a compromised endpoint. As per our analysis, and to the best of our knowledge, we have discovered the first attack of this nature from Pardot CRM.  This means that users are also likely to be less suspicious of this particular app because they are unaware that it could be compromised.

Attack Kill chain

The attack begins with the ZIP archive containing a lnk file downloaded from Pardot storage. On execution, the lnk file downloads the next stage executable payload masqueraded as PDF file from Google docs. The depiction of the attack kill chain is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Attack kill chain 

Technical Analysis

The malware we first identified was a zip file delivered via pardot link, https://storage.pardot[.]com/120642/87655/Readme_Print.zip. The ZIP file contained a lnk file, Readme_Print.doc.lnk with an argument to load a script file in the %temp% with an argument as shown in Figure 2 .

Figure 2: Command line argument used by the link file

The malware authors used a clever tactic in appending the malicious code after the argument function to evade traditional security scanners. On a similar note, this tactic even evades the tools like lnk-parser, which normally doesn’t display this data.

The obfuscated script is present after the NetBIOS name field in the lnk file as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Obfuscated VBcode in the lnk file

The script used character obfuscation to mask the code. The deobfuscated script can be easily obtained by changing the “execute” into “wscript.echo”. An excerpt of the obfuscated script is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Deobfuscated VBcode

As mentioned in the above image, this script downloads the next stage payload from Google docs. A masqueraded executable (PE) file named “3829_93_93.pdf” is downloaded to the %temp% location from Google docs and renamed to NaFhI.exe and detonated. 

The second stage payload is a Visual basic executable belonging to the malware family named Trickbot, that performs code injection and contains many infostealer modules that steal banking related data. This malware family has also been reported in a Salesforce Knowledge base article.

The events captured by our Netskope Advanced Heuristic analysis engine, Netskope AI powered by Cylance and Netskope Cloud Sandbox is shown in Figure 5, Figure 6 and Figure 7.

Figure 5: Events from Netskope Advanced Heuristics

Figure 6: Events from Netskope AI

Figure 7: Events from Netskope Cloud Sandbox

The behavioral execution flow captured by the Netskope Cloud Sandbox is shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8: Execution flow in Netskope Cloud Sandbox.

The malware also posts data to the C2 172.238.117[.]187 as shown in Figure 9.

Figure 9: C2 connection to 172.238.117.187

VirusTotal records show similar post request URLs reported from this IP from late June 2019.

Attack campaign Threat Intel

Based on the attack pattern, passive DNS results and our own threat intelligence framework, we identified 12 similar URLs delivering malware from Pardot Storage. Additionally, we identified 16 lnk files attributed to the NetBIOS name “win-jbf0q9el659”. Based on the timeline and events, we expect the threat actors will continue to scale these attacks across potential targets.

Conclusion

This post details the discovery of a malware hosted and propagated through Pardot CRM. Cloud CRM services store an organization’s most critical customer data, and deliver those data to corporate users via the web. Malicious files residing in popular cloud CRM services can be shared/collaborated on within an organization’s cloud CRM service to make their way into cloud CRM services, thereby creating a new malware attack and propagation vector. 

While Netskope Threat Research Labs has reached out to SalesForce to take down the attack elements, we will continue to monitor the delivery mechanism and developments of this campaign. 

Indicators of Compromise

Hashes → ZIP files

7df177b164c352ceccdab988a7ee255d

12f6fd9f27681bf86e99cce8160b33bf

b2e936d3b529486ccb27382bd0c8d174

3b682290a0a9c09a213c11d1e83f87c3

34bbe2d74ae0c941f796c4f4243c465d

2c13e04f08d5f0042645420babd7b721

126d011a71acb1206d545df7ecbb4de3

9eecbb8c232ac55e663b20ddc86ef83d

466828341e2fe5358c145827618157ae

3593c4ce813c5faf1b5cdd4cd1f781e8

1153b0f48b78da341f0dbd85a7b15d71

Hashes → lnk files

95d70dee15417cc1872eb813fc23c3a1

ee4e5b2df114a4f76238a0a8b012f46c

c17cd9e49cecd49cf957bc9eb5f851c8

12544f796e57cbddbda1dcb8993ee914

9f306aca85874e9202a2c50d21876065

eec8649922819af1fab6000ea8dee1ed

4a1e42387c11beee2f6ed714e1cc0d28

795d6f1601eca20f31ae83b602ee328e

9bae6843b4d82444f80727fecec59c09

35d7a9f5549bf968b02b1971b57801a5

acfb9f89c421d4b52dd9a8ef86967cd2

Hashes →  Second stage Downloader

f4c2cb6270631260d5b8d9ff00fbfddf

4abb6f6cbd18258b9ef05083c2a817ca

7df9534d3c477feda474bf3de036d4d9

c444894cc5d28eaf1daad16d5d8832fa

author image
Ashwin Vamshi
Ashwin Vamshi is a Security Researcher with innate interest in targeted attacks and malwares using cloud services. He is primarily focusing in identifying new attack vectors and malwares, campaigns and threat actors using ‘cloud as an attack vector.’

Stay informed!

Subscribe for the latest from the Netskope Blog