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View How Cybercriminals Can Abuse Chat Platform APIs as C&C Infrastructures
Chat platforms such as Discord, Slack, and Telegram have become quite popular as office communication tools, with all three of the aforementioned examples, in particular, enjoying healthy patronage from businesses and organizations all over the world. One big reason for this is that these chat platforms allow their users to integrate their apps onto the platforms themselves through the use of their APIs. This factor, when applied to a work environment, cuts down on the time spent switching from app to app, thus resulting in a streamlined workflow and in increased efficiency. But one thing must be asked, especially with regard to that kind of feature: Can it be abused by cybercriminals? After all, we have seen many instances where legitimate services and applications are used to facilitate malicious cybercriminal efforts in one way or another, with IRC being one of the bigger examples, used by many cybercriminals in the past as command-and-control (C&C) infrastructure for botnets.
Turning Chat Platform APIs Into Command & Control Infrastructure
Our research has focused on analyzing whether these chat platforms APIs can be turned into C&Cs and to see whether there is existing malware that exploits that. Through extensive monitoring, research, and creation of proof-of-concept code, we have been able to demonstrate that each chat platform’s API functionality can successfully be abused – turning the chat platforms into C&C servers that cybercriminals can use to make contact with infected or compromised systems.
API-abusing Malware Samples Found
Our extensive monitoring of the chat platforms has also revealed that cybercriminals are already abusing these chat platforms for malicious purposes. In Discord, we have found many instances of malware being hosted, including file injectors and even bitcoin miners. Telegram, meanwhile, has been found to be abused by certain variants of KillDisk as well as TeleCrypt, a strain of ransomware. As for Slack, we have not yet found any sign of malicious activity in the chat platform itself at the time of this writing.
What makes this particular security issue something for businesses to take note of is that there is currently no way to secure chat platforms from it without killing their functionality. Blocking the APIs of these chat platforms means rendering them useless, while monitoring network traffic for suspicious Discord/Slack/Telegram connections is practically futile as there is no discernible difference between those initiated by malware and those initiated by the user.
With this conundrum in mind, should businesses avoid these chat platforms entirely? The answer lies in businesses’ current state of security. If the network/endpoint security of a business using a chat platform is up to date, and the employees within that business keep to safe usage practices, then perhaps the potential risk may be worth the convenience and efficiency.
Best Practices for Users
Best Practices for Businesses
The complete technical details of our research can be found in our latest paper How Cybercriminals Can Abuse Chat Program APIs as Command-and-Control Infrastructures.
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