Initial Access Broker Targeting

Initial Access Broker (IAB) Targeting is a proactive, highly focused cybersecurity discipline that identifies, monitors, and neutralizes the threats posed by Initial Access Brokers (IABs) before they can successfully sell access to an organization's compromised network.

It moves beyond general threat detection to focus on the attacker segment specializing in initial footholds, recognizing IABs as the "middlemen" or "enablers" of the modern cybercrime economy, particularly the Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) model.

1. The Role of the IAB

IABs are financially motivated cybercriminals whose sole business model is to gain unauthorized, persistent, and verifiable access to corporate networks, which they then advertise and sell to other threat actors, most notably ransomware groups. By performing the difficult work of initial breach, they accelerate the attack timeline for their buyers, who can immediately pivot to privilege escalation, lateral movement, and payload deployment.

2. The Focus of IAB Targeting

IAB Targeting shifts defense to the most likely entry vectors IABs rely on to gain access and establish value:

• Exposed Remote Services: IABs routinely scan the public internet for exposed Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), Virtual Private Network (VPN) portals, Citrix, and other remote access services. Targeting focuses on identifying and hardening these internet-facing systems against brute-force attacks and known vulnerabilities.

• Vulnerability Exploitation: IABs prioritize exploiting vulnerabilities in public-facing applications and edge devices (e.g., firewalls and email gateways) that have known exploits (e.g., those on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities list) or are easily weaponized.

• Stolen Credentials (Valid Accounts): A primary IAB tactic is acquiring, validating, and using credentials from data breaches, infostealer malware logs, and phishing campaigns. Targeting focuses on monitoring the dark web and underground forums for compromised employee and privileged accounts.

• Persistence Mechanisms: Once inside, IABs establish mechanisms to maintain access for the eventual buyer, such as deploying webshells, creating hidden or secondary user accounts, or installing legitimate-use Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) tools. Targeting includes hunting for these early persistence indicators.

3. Key Defensive Strategies

Effective IAB Targeting involves a multi-layered, intelligence-driven approach:

• External Attack Surface Monitoring: Gaining an outside-in, unauthenticated view of the organization's digital footprint to see and prioritize the same exposed assets (e.g., exposed ports, unpatched web servers) that an IAB is actively inventorying for sale.

• Dark Web Intelligence: Proactively monitoring cybercriminal marketplaces and communication channels to detect listings advertising access to the organization's network, domain, or specific credentials.

• Vulnerability Prioritization: Using intelligence feeds (like the Exploit Prediction Scoring System or KEV data) to rank external-facing vulnerabilities based on their actual likelihood and history of being used by threat actors for initial access.

• Identity Hardening: Enforcing strong measures like Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) on all remote and privileged access points to nullify the value of stolen credentials, which IABs frequently sell as their product.

ThreatNG is a comprehensive solution that helps organizations with Initial Access Broker (IAB) Targeting by delivering External Attack Surface Management and Digital Risk Protection from the perspective of an attacker. This proactive approach identifies and prioritizes the exact vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and leaked credentials that an IAB would use to gain their initial network foothold and sell access to ransomware gangs or other advanced threat actors.

External Discovery and External Assessment

ThreatNG's core strength is its ability to perform purely external unauthenticated discovery. This creates an External Adversary View that aligns the security posture with external threats by identifying vulnerabilities and exposures as an attacker would. This view maps directly to the MITRE ATT&CK Initial Access Tactic (TA0001).

ThreatNG's External Assessment capabilities specifically pinpoint high-risk initial access vectors:

• Subdomain Takeover Susceptibility: ThreatNG checks for this by first performing external discovery to identify all subdomains , and then using DNS enumeration to find CNAME records pointing to third-party services, such as AWS/S3, Heroku, or Vercel. If a specific validation check determines the CNAME points to an inactive or unclaimed resource on that vendor's platform, the high-priority "dangling DNS" risk is confirmed. This is a prime initial access vector for IABs.

  • Detailed Example: ThreatNG discovers the subdomain staging.mycompany.com has a CNAME record pointing to an unclaimed Heroku PaaS service. An IAB could register that service, take over the subdomain, and use it to host a phishing page or a malicious file, creating the initial access point.

• Breach & Ransomware Susceptibility: This score is derived from initial access indicators such as exposed sensitive ports (e.g., RDP or MySQL), exposed private IPs, and compromised credentials on the dark web. IABs actively seek these exposed services to gain and sell access.

• Cyber Risk Exposure: This score factors in sensitive ports and vulnerabilities identified via Domain Intelligence, along with compromised credentials on the dark web. This directly measures the exposure an IAB can leverage for a successful attack.

Investigation Modules for Deep IAI

The Investigation Modules provide the granular IAI needed to understand an IAB's reconnaissance and attack planning:

• Domain Intelligence (Domain Name Permutations): This identifies typo-squatted domains created through manipulations such as bit squatting, homoglyphs, and TLD swaps. IABs often register these to launch highly convincing spear-phishing campaigns.

  • Detailed Example: ThreatNG detects the domain rnycompany.com (a homoglyph of mycompany.com) is available or taken. This BEC & Phishing Susceptibility finding alerts the security team to a likely future initial access attempt using that domain.

• Sensitive Code Exposure: The Code Repository Exposure module identifies public code repositories and assesses them for sensitive data.

  • Detailed Example: The module finds a legacy public GitHub repository that exposes an AWS Access Key ID or a Stripe API Key. These keys are immediate, high-value initial access tokens that an IAB can use to bypass authentication and gain initial access to cloud environments.

• Dark Web Presence: This module tracks explicit mentions of the organization, associated compromised credentials , ransomware events, and gang activity. This is the intelligence that validates IAB activity against the organization.

• NHI Email Exposure: This feature provides a focused view of high-risk email addresses (Admin, Security, DevOps, VPN, SSH), which are primary targets for IAB social engineering and phishing attempts to acquire credentials for initial access.

Intelligence Repositories (DarCache)

The Intelligence Repositories (DarCache) provide critical context to prioritize initial access threats based on real-world exploitation:

• Vulnerabilities (DarCache Vulnerability): This proactively manages external risks by understanding a vulnerability's real-world exploitability and likelihood of exploitation.

  • KEV (DarCache KEV): Flags vulnerabilities that are actively being exploited in the wild, providing the most critical context for prioritizing remediation on immediate and proven initial access threats.

  • EPSS (DarCache EPSS): Provides a probabilistic estimate of a vulnerability's likelihood of being weaponized in the near future, enabling a forward-looking IAI approach.

Continuous Monitoring and Reporting

Continuous Monitoring of the entire external attack surface, digital risk, and security ratings ensures that new initial access vectors are identified immediately.

The Reporting capabilities translate these IAI findings into an actionable security strategy:

• Prioritized Reporting: Threats are categorized into High, Medium, Low, and Informational risk levels to help organizations prioritize their security efforts and allocate resources to the most critical initial access risks.

• MITRE ATT&CK Mapping: ThreatNG automatically translates raw findings—like leaked credentials or open ports—into a strategic narrative of adversary behavior by correlating them with specific MITRE ATT&CK techniques. This allows security leaders to justify investments by prioritizing threats based on their likelihood of exploitation (e.g., initial access and persistence).

ThreatNG and Complementary Solutions

ThreatNG's IAI is made even more powerful when used in cooperation with complementary security solutions:

• Complementary Solutions receive ThreatNG's Compromised Credentials (DarCache Rupture) intelligence. For example, if ThreatNG discovers an executive's credentials on the dark web, this IAI is fed to the Identity and Access Management (IAM) Solution. The IAM solution then uses this high-confidence information to force an immediate password reset or disable the account, preventing an IAB from using the stolen credentials for initial access (Valid Accounts Tactic).

• Complementary Solutions benefit from ThreatNG's Vulnerability Intelligence (DarCache KEV/EPSS). If ThreatNG identifies a vulnerability in a public-facing web server that is both actively exploited and has a high Exploit Readiness Score, this IAI is used by a Vulnerability and Risk Management (VRM) Platform to elevate the finding to an immediate, critical priority, thus speeding up the patching process and closing the initial access window.

• Complementary Solutions gain strategic context from ThreatNG's MITRE ATT&CK Mapping. When ThreatNG reports an exposed RDP port that maps to the Initial Access Tactic, this intelligence is delivered to a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Platform. The SIEM then uses the specific IAI to tune its detection rules, focusing on any connection attempts to that RDP port from suspicious geographies or IPs, making early detection of an IAB's activity much more reliable.