Cybersecurity enthusiasts, brace yourselves—there’s a new villain in town, and it’s playing a high-stakes game against some of the world’s top cloud providers. Recently, cybersecurity researchers at Silent Push unveiled "Infrastructure Laundering," a mind-boggling new technique allowing cybercriminals to camouflage their dirty work through legitimate cloud platforms like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. Central to this scheme is the shadowy FUNNULL CDN (Content Delivery Network), which has been at the epicenter of global cybercrime activities like phishing scams, financial fraud, and even money laundering. Let’s break this down and see how it's reshaping the battlefield of cybersecurity.
Unlike traditional “bulletproof hosting” services (you know, those shady setups operating in countries with loose tech regulations), infrastructure laundering is all about exploiting mainstream and reputable platforms like AWS and Azure. Criminals use fraudulent or stolen credentials to rent IP addresses from these cloud services, link them to their malicious activities, and voilà! They operate under the guise of large, legitimate infrastructure. This makes blocking them particularly tricky; defenders can’t just shut them down without unintentionally interrupting legitimate users.
This trend isn’t isolated either. Other major gambling platforms have reported similar impersonation scams, giving FUNNULL near-monopolistic control of a highly illegal market. You might be thinking, "How does a CDN even manage this?" The answer? Infrastructure laundering allows seamless scaling for criminal activities—this goes way beyond your average phishing email.
To illustrate:
For businesses, the implications are clear: don’t trust blindly. Enhance your own filters, conduct due diligence on website origins, and pay closer attention to domain registrations. Whether you’re a tech geek, a concerned business owner, or just a cybersecurity enthusiast, there’s no denying that FUNNULL proves the stakes are higher than ever.
Let’s hear from you. What do you think the cybersecurity world should do to curb infrastructure laundering? Are AWS and Microsoft doing enough? Join the conversation on WindowsForum.com!
Source: Hackread https://hackread.com/funnull-aws-azure-abused-global-cybercrime-operations/
What is Infrastructure Laundering?
In case you’re scratching your head over this term, “Infrastructure Laundering” is a novel tactic in the cybercrime ecosystem. Imagine blending illicit activities into the day-to-day humdrum of lawful web traffic to avoid detection. Sounds crafty? It’s exactly what cybercriminals are doing.Unlike traditional “bulletproof hosting” services (you know, those shady setups operating in countries with loose tech regulations), infrastructure laundering is all about exploiting mainstream and reputable platforms like AWS and Azure. Criminals use fraudulent or stolen credentials to rent IP addresses from these cloud services, link them to their malicious activities, and voilà! They operate under the guise of large, legitimate infrastructure. This makes blocking them particularly tricky; defenders can’t just shut them down without unintentionally interrupting legitimate users.
The FUNNULL Factor: A Beast of its Own
This isn’t your run-of-the-mill cyber operation. FUNNULL is exploiting infrastructure laundering to an alarming degree, renting out thousands of IP addresses (1200+ from AWS and nearly 200 from Microsoft so far). Silent Push observed that these IPs are routinely cycled to stay one step ahead of detection—a bit like a digital game of whack-a-mole, but with significantly higher stakes. Anything taken down is swiftly replaced, much to the frustration of cybersecurity teams.Here’s how FUNNULL operates:
- IP Rentals on Steroids: Using fraudulent account details, FUNNULL rents IPs from AWS and Azure in bulk, cycling through them faster than you can blink. This ensures constant aliasing of their malicious web domains.
- Domain Name Trickery: Leveraging Domain Generation Algorithms (DGAs), they’ve spawned over 200,000 unique hostnames. Silent Push estimates that about 95% of these domains serve illegal activities—yikes!
- Diversified Hosting: FUNNULL’s operation leans on both Western (US-based) and Asian hosting providers, making tracing its roots a cybersecurity nightmare.
Why AWS and Azure?
If you’re wondering why attackers focus on AWS and Azure, the answer is simple: their sheer size and trustworthiness.- Credibility: Organizations organically trust services hosted on AWS and Azure, so traffic from their IP ranges often goes under the radar.
- Scalability: Rent an IP, spin up, execute some dirty deeds, then shut it all down. The pay-as-you-go model essentially feeds into the criminal playbook.
- Obfuscation via Scale: These platforms host millions of operations worldwide. Good luck spotting a disguised cybercriminal when they’re one fish in a massive ocean.
The Money-Laundering Connection
FUNNULL doesn’t just traffic in phishing and scams—it’s knee-deep in money laundering. Using stolen or false identities, their illicit cash finds its way into shell websites and gambling domains that abuse recognizable brands like “Bwin.” Silent Push detected fake Bwin websites on Azure infrastructure, and the real Bwin's parent company, Entain, has confirmed these sites as fraudulent.This trend isn’t isolated either. Other major gambling platforms have reported similar impersonation scams, giving FUNNULL near-monopolistic control of a highly illegal market. You might be thinking, "How does a CDN even manage this?" The answer? Infrastructure laundering allows seamless scaling for criminal activities—this goes way beyond your average phishing email.
The Broader Security Implications
This story might seem like yet another dramatic headline, but FUNNULL’s tactics actually foreshadow a larger cybersecurity challenge. With mainstream cloud providers being weaponized, this isn’t just a private sector problem; it’s global.To illustrate:
- Major operations like FUNNULL could inadvertently destabilize trust in cloud provider ecosystems.
- The constant cycling and impersonation of IPs only worsen what cybersecurity professionals call “alert fatigue”—when teams are overwhelmed by false positives and minor incidents while serious threats slip through.
How Do We Fight Back?
Silent Push’s research offers some insight into mitigating this menace. For one:- Providers like AWS and Azure must actively track the DNS CNAME records used by FUNNULL. These records show where a hostname ultimately points, and monitoring them could help trace changes linked to malicious behavior.
- Newly rented IPs mapped to suspect hostnames must be flagged almost instantly.
Final Thoughts: Criminals Love Loopholes
The FUNNULL exposé is yet another reminder that cybercriminals thrive on exploiting loopholes – even in systems designed by some of the smartest minds in the tech world. AWS and Azure’s massive scale and flexibility make them inviting targets for abuse, but they’ve also responded with visible commitments to stamping out fraud. However, the tug-of-war is far from over.For businesses, the implications are clear: don’t trust blindly. Enhance your own filters, conduct due diligence on website origins, and pay closer attention to domain registrations. Whether you’re a tech geek, a concerned business owner, or just a cybersecurity enthusiast, there’s no denying that FUNNULL proves the stakes are higher than ever.
Let’s hear from you. What do you think the cybersecurity world should do to curb infrastructure laundering? Are AWS and Microsoft doing enough? Join the conversation on WindowsForum.com!
Source: Hackread https://hackread.com/funnull-aws-azure-abused-global-cybercrime-operations/
