How stolen identities, trusted tools, and compressed attack timelines are reshaping cyber defense

With EDR (Extended Detection and Response) becoming more necessary and common, it begs the question of what tactics and techniques are evading these protections. ProCircular recently conducted a penetration test involving evasion methods that did just that by successfully bypassing EDR protections by leveraging lay-of-the-land tools and incident response techniques. Our objective was to achieve full domain compromise within the targeted network, demonstrating the vulnerabilities and potential weaknesses that need to be addressed for robust cybersecurity. A walkthrough of the attack can be examined below.

As businesses evolve to achieve higher security maturity, threat actors and penetration testers must also rise to the challenge. Modern third-party security applications such as Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), Extended Detection and Response (XDR), Windows Defender products, and application allowlists have made offensive tools obsolete. Gone are the days when all a penetration tester needed was a remote shell or desktop connection to extract user data and credentials from local machines and domain controllers. Instead of fighting against signature-based and obfuscation methods, attackers are turning to digital forensics incident response (DFIR) tools, like KAPE, to get the dirty work done for them. After all, you never have to sneak into the party if the bouncer thinks you’re already on the list.