Security systems and methods for detecting malleable command and control

Abstract

Presented is a network security system (NSS) that reliably detects malleable C2 traffic. The NSS intercepts outgoing transactions from user devices associated with user accounts. The NSS filters out transactions to known benign servers and analyzes remaining transactions for indicators of malleable command and control (C2) including heuristic, anomalous, and pattern-based detections. The NSS lowers the user confidence score associated with the user account or the user device based on the severity and number of detected indicators for each impacted outgoing transaction. When the user confidence score decreases below a threshold, the NSS implements a restricted security protocol for future outgoing transactions. Based on the detected indications, the NSS can identify malleable C2 attacker servers and add them to a blacklist of destination servers to further identify infected user accounts and devices.