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Steal Web Session Cookie

An adversary may steal web application or service session cookies and use them to gain access to web applications or Internet services as an authenticated user without needing credentials. Web applications and services often use session cookies as an authentication token after a user has authenticated to a website.

Cookies are often valid for an extended period of time, even if the web application is not actively used. Cookies can be found on disk, in the process memory of the browser, and in network traffic to remote systems. Additionally, other applications on the targets machine might store sensitive authentication cookies in memory (e.g. apps which authenticate to cloud services). Session cookies can be used to bypasses some multi-factor authentication protocols.[1]

There are several examples of malware targeting cookies from web browsers on the local system.[2][3] There are also open source frameworks such as Evilginx 2 and Muraena that can gather session cookies through a malicious proxy (ex: Adversary-in-the-Middle) that can be set up by an adversary and used in phishing campaigns.[4][5]

After an adversary acquires a valid cookie, they can then perform a Web Session Cookie technique to login to the corresponding web application.

ID: T1539
Sub-techniques:  No sub-techniques
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Tactic: Credential Access
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Platforms: Google Workspace, Linux, Office 365, SaaS, Windows, macOS
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Permissions Required: User
Contributors: Johann Rehberger; Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC)
Version: 1.2
Created: 08 October 2019
Last Modified: 28 July 2021

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
G0016 APT29

APT29 has stolen Chrome browser cookies by copying the Chrome profile directories of targeted users.[6]
S0657 BLUELIGHT

BLUELIGHT can harvest cookies from Internet Explorer, Edge, Chrome, and Naver Whale browsers.[7]
S0631 Chaes

Chaes has used a script that extracts the web session cookie and sends it to the C2 server.[8]

S0492 CookieMiner

CookieMiner can steal Google Chrome and Apple Safari browser cookies from the victim’s machine. [9]
S0568 EVILNUM

EVILNUM can harvest cookies and upload them to the C2 server.[10]
G0120 Evilnum

Evilnum can steal cookies and session information from browsers.[11]
S0531 Grandoreiro

Grandoreiro can steal the victim's cookies to use for duplicating the active session from another device.[12]
S0650 QakBot

QakBot has the ability to capture web session cookies.[13][14]
S0467 TajMahal

TajMahal has the ability to steal web session cookies from Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, FireFox and RealNetworks applications.[2]
S0658 XCSSET

XCSSET uses scp to access the ~/Library/Cookies/Cookies.binarycookies file.[15]

Mitigations

ID Mitigation Description
M1032 Multi-factor Authentication

A physical second factor key that uses the target login domain as part of the negotiation protocol will prevent session cookie theft through proxy methods.[16]
M1054 Software Configuration

Configure browsers or tasks to regularly delete persistent cookies.
M1017 User Training

Train users to identify aspects of phishing attempts where they're asked to enter credentials into a site that has the incorrect domain for the application they are logging into.

Detection

ID Data Source Data Component
DS0022 File File Access
DS0009 Process Process Access

Monitor for attempts to access files and repositories on a local system that are used to store browser session cookies. Monitor for attempts by programs to inject into or dump browser process memory.

References

  1. Rehberger, J. (2018, December). Pivot to the Cloud using Pass the Cookie. Retrieved April 5, 2019.
  2. GReAT. (2019, April 10). Project TajMahal – a sophisticated new APT framework. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
  3. Chen, Y., Hu, W., Xu, Z., et. al. (2019, January 31). Mac Malware Steals Cryptocurrency Exchanges’ Cookies. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
  4. Gretzky, Kuba. (2019, April 10). Retrieved October 8, 2019.
  5. Orrù, M., Trotta, G.. (2019, September 11). Muraena. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
  6. CrowdStrike. (2022, January 27). Early Bird Catches the Wormhole: Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign. Retrieved February 7, 2022.
  7. Cash, D., Grunzweig, J., Meltzer, M., Adair, S., Lancaster, T. (2021, August 17). North Korean APT InkySquid Infects Victims Using Browser Exploits. Retrieved September 30, 2021.
  8. Salem, E. (2020, November 17). CHAES: Novel Malware Targeting Latin American E-Commerce. Retrieved June 30, 2021.
  1. Chen, y., et al. (2019, January 31). Mac Malware Steals Cryptocurrency Exchanges’ Cookies. Retrieved July 22, 2020.
  2. Adamitis, D. (2020, May 6). Phantom in the Command Shell. Retrieved December 22, 2021.
  3. Porolli, M. (2020, July 9). More evil: A deep look at Evilnum and its toolset. Retrieved January 22, 2021.
  4. Abramov, D. (2020, April 13). Grandoreiro Malware Now Targeting Banks in Spain. Retrieved November 12, 2020.
  5. Sette, N. et al. (2020, June 4). Qakbot Malware Now Exfiltrating Emails for Sophisticated Thread Hijacking Attacks. Retrieved September 27, 2021.
  6. Kuzmenko, A. et al. (2021, September 2). QakBot technical analysis. Retrieved September 27, 2021.
  7. Mac Threat Response, Mobile Research Team. (2020, August 13). The XCSSET Malware: Inserts Malicious Code Into Xcode Projects, Performs UXSS Backdoor Planting in Safari, and Leverages Two Zero-day Exploits. Retrieved October 5, 2021.
  8. Gretzky, K.. (2018, July 26). Evilginx 2 - Next Generation of Phishing 2FA Tokens. Retrieved October 14, 2019.