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RMM tools are a staple in enterprise environments, enabling organizations to efficiently oversee and maintain their IT infrastructure. These tools have many features to monitor assets’ performance and provide remote access to managed client machines—features that attract threat actors who are attempting to maintain access to a compromised network. RMM tools are being exploited in several ways: Threat actors are using the tools’ legitimately signed certificates to help bypass security mechanisms, employing network encryption and legitimate network relays to proxy connection to a victim, and securing remote desktop-like access to client machines, among other actions.
Between 2022 and 2024, more than one third of the intrusions ReliaQuest responded to involved RMM tools. All were perpetrated by cybercriminals either deploying ransomware, or likely intending to; affected organizations spanned multiple sectors and locations around the world. Given cybercriminals’ indiscriminate targeting, we have drawn upon our response and detection experience to present cybersecurity defenders with insights to mitigate the threat to any organization.
The following list of reasons for RMM tools’ popularity among cybercriminals is based on a 2023 US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) advisory.
For some threat actors, RMM tools have become favorite choices for maintaining persistent access and have replaced custom backdoors and post-exploitation tools like Cobalt Strike and Metasploit. For other threat actors, RMM tools are appealing as a backup channel for when their primary channel gets blocked, or when they prefer a remote desktop-like session on a target host.
We have seen threat actors affiliated with Qbot use RMM tools such as Atera and Splashtop, in addition to Cobalt Strike, as an alternative channel for persistent access. Other threat actors, such as the “Scattered Spider” group, forego using traditional tools for access (e.g., Cobalt Strike), instead relying primarily on RMM tools. Other intrusions that ReliaQuest has responded to have involved cybercriminals affiliated with “ALHPV,” “Black Basta,” and “Conti.”
Of the many RMM tools available to threat actors, ReliaQuest has seen abuse of the following tools most often:
Host Artifacts:
Network Artifacts
Capabilities:
Network Artifacts:
To prevent outbound traffic to the domains listed above, create firewall and forward proxy rules for software that is not authorized in your environment. Some forward proxies categorize those domains as “remote access,” which can be set to deny the traffic by default, with added exceptions for destination required by authorized software. Additionally, implement GPOs for Software Restriction Policies (SRP) in Active Directory to only allow your preferred remote management software.
We predict, with high confidence, that abuse of RMM software, and commercial tools in general, will not decrease in the long term. The ease of use and success these tools have provided will likely foster continued uptake, and lead to increased adoption by additional threat actors. Organizations should take the time to baseline software used in their environments, to understand what is being used, establish policies that allow and disallow specific software, and apply security controls and detection rules that prevent unauthorized use or raise alerts of it.
To identify unauthorized use of RMM software, ReliaQuest offers specific detection rules. Implementing these rules will allow defenders to identify tool abuse and unauthorized software that violates policy obligations. These rules will need to be calibrated to each organization’s environment, to attain a higher level of fidelity and reduce false positives.
The ReliaQuest Threat Research Team offers the following inexhaustive list of recommendations and best practices to establish a secure foundation against the general threats and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) mentioned in this report.
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