Introducing the Hunt.io C2 Feed

It’s been a while since we announced a new feature, and with 2024 already in full swing, it is time to highlight what’s new and exciting in the world of Hunt.io!

To give you an idea of what our research team has been up to, we've been tirelessly exploring the malicious infrastructure landscape to bring you even more targeted solutions and insights. More precisely, this commitment to innovation has recently led to the development of C2 Feed, our latest effort in the near real-time identification of command and control (C2) frameworks. Designed to elevate your threat-hunting experience, C2 Feed centers on reliability and adoption speed to foster adequate visibility and efficient workflows.

Read on as we continue to pave the way for streamlined, cutting-edge detection opportunities and other innovative approaches to the problem of effectively incorporating context-aware indicators, thereby enabling more proactive and concerted responses to malicious activity across the enterprise.

What exactly are C2 feeds? We’re glad you asked.

In general, C2 feeds enable early threat detection by revealing communication patterns associated with malicious entities. Analyzing this behavioral data also helps understand the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) employed by cyber adversaries, allowing for more effective mitigation practices.

Many organizations use C2 feeds tailored to their industry, sector, or technology stack. These customized threat feeds enhance the clarity and relevance of threat intelligence, allowing organizations to focus on the TTPs most pertinent to their environment.

Then, there is the question of efficiency; in this spirit, the contextual insights derived from C2 feeds enhance threat detection accuracy and streamline incident response workflows, empowering cybersecurity teams to navigate the complex threat landscape with agility and effectiveness.

How’s our C2 Feed created?

Understanding the intricate process behind creating C2 Feed sheds light on its robustness and responsiveness to emerging threats, showcasing our commitment to delivering accurate and timely intelligence.

In short, our feature set entails:

• High-Confidence Malicious Infrastructure Identification: C2 Feed delivers reliable data on malicious infrastructure through a new line JSON feed.
• Comprehensive Internet Scanning: Utilizes extensive scanning of the entire internet to detect malware-related protocols, SSL certificates, and similar artifacts, including JARM/JA4 hashes.
• Focused Monitoring of High-Risk Areas: Increases scanning frequency and thoroughness in internet hotspots known for previous malware activity or bulletproof hosting.
• Rigorous Validation Process: Employs deep validation techniques to ensure the identified infrastructure is genuinely malicious, minimizing false positives.
• Continuous Signature Updates by In-House Team: An in-house research team updates malware signatures weekly.
• Diverse Threat Intelligence: As mentioned, the feed includes data on threats like C2 frameworks and reconnaissance tools.
• Real-Time Data Generation: Offers real-time feed generation, encompassing data from the past seven days at the moment of request.

Choosing JSON in C2 Feed not only allows for the rapid dissemination of crucial threat intelligence but also ensures that it can be readily used by a diverse array of security solutions, significantly boosting cyber defense capabilities.

Summing up

Threat-hunting methodologies vary widely among organizations and depend on specific network environments, threat landscapes, and available resources—this refers to the well-known, quintessential “no one-size-fits-all” paradigm. However, the seamless integration capabilities and ample actionable intelligence that only tools like C2 Feed can deliver will help you prevail over malicious actors, allowing for more focused investigations and effective defensive strategies.

With features like C2 Feed, barriers to becoming an intelligence-driven, proactive security outfit are a thing of the past. Give it a try today and see how much you can improve your hunting game!