How to Prevent Data Exfiltration?

Data Exfiltration is one of the worst ways you can possibly damage your organization's business and reputation. Understand how to prevent data exfiltration, how it happens, and how to deal with it.

Data exfiltration is a type of unauthorized or illegal data transfer. The attacker will steal your data and export it from a computer system or network to a location that is under their direct control.

Data exfiltration can also involve retrieving sensitive data settings from devices and servers, editing, modifying, and transferring them. Your data is stored in your computer system. Data is a treasure trove of information, and data exfiltration can be used to gain physical access to deeper layers of your infrastructure later.

It can be an automated process that’s carried out by programming your network’s malicious state or take the form of a security breach where your data is directly copied from your system. This is what cyber-attacks are supposed to look like.

There are different techniques that attackers use these days to conduct data infiltration. In this guide, we will learn how to prevent data exfiltration attacks, how to find out or analyze their intent, and prevent them from copying and moving information.

Once you can measure how valuable your data is and prevent it from falling into the wrong hands, you can prevent a wide array of damages.

What is Data Exfiltration?

Data exfiltration is basically the transfer, copy, forwarding, or sending of data illegally across different locations.

Data exfiltration can operate in different ways. They can happen over the internet or across corporate networks. Some methods may include anonymizing connections to servers, hypertext transfer protocol secure tunneling, fileless attacks and remote code executions.

Phishing attacks will appear to come from legitimate sources and contain malicious attachments. Cybercriminals may also use outbound emails like calendar systems, databases, and planning documents to steal data from email systems. They might add downloads to insecure devices and unmonitored smartphones or external drives that are not protected by traditional security solutions. Smartphones may also be another lucrative target for data exfiltration and Android devices are especially vulnerable these days. The remote malware can control a phone from far away and download apps without the user’s consent.

Malicious insiders may conduct data exfiltration attacks by uploading to external devices. Then there is also the chance of human error, which may allow bad actors to modify virtual machines. Then there is also the chance of human error, which may allow bad actors to modify virtual machines, deploy and install malicious code, and send malicious requests to cloud services.

The Consequences of Data Exfiltration

Data exfiltration can cause information control gaps and chaos across your organization. It steals data from personal and corporate devices, duplicates them, and transfers them. A common data exfiltration attack can cause serious problems for an organization. It can damage their reputation, cause loss of revenue, and even lead to data leaks.

Data exfiltration can occur as outsider attacks or insider threats. They are major risks and can steal user credentials. Some malware strands that are used in data exfiltration attacks are used to spread across the organization. The others lay dormant and avoid detection, being activated only when the time is ripe.

Data exfiltration collects information over a gradual period of time, which is what makes them so dangerous because the extent or scope of threat reconnaissance and intelligence gathering are unknown.

How Does Data Exfiltration Work?

A hacker will typically launch a data exfiltration attack by relying on easy-to-guess, inventor-set common passwords.

Login pages and web forms may also be victims of data exfiltration attacks. Humans can gain access to target machines via remote applications or installed removable media devices.

If they don’t have physical access to the target machines, they will have to rely on social engineering and other online practices.

Data exfiltration attacks can cause the loss of data. Monitoring tools can be bypassed if users are not careful.

How to Detect Data Exfiltration Attempts?

You can detect a data exfiltration attack by analyzing the different stages of the cyber attack kill chain and mapping out your security processes along with it. Understand the data theft objectives of criminal adversaries and see how data is classified throughout your organization.

Understanding how your security controls work and malicious processes react can also give you insights into the data exfiltration process. It’s a key step in learning how to prevent data exfiltration and can build up to preventing final data losses.

Data exfiltration is not easy to detect because there are multiple events that happen behind legitimate daily processes. However, there are a few ways you can detect them, especially when you apply multidimensional analysis methodologies. Here is how you can detect data exfiltration.

• Install SIEM – A security information and event management system (SIEMs) can monitor your network traffic in real-time. It can correlate telemetry data, analyze security logs, and communicate with command and control servers.
• Monitor all open port traffic – This is to detect suspicious traffic volumes and aim for more targeted analysis. You should also look for foreign IP address connections to scan for signs of data exfiltration. Security teams should keep an eye out for up-to-date and approved IP addresses and compare new connections with their updated lists.
• Add a Next Generation Web Application Firewall – A Next Generation Web Application Firewall can monitor your outbound connections and traffic. It can apply the right traffic protocols and filters, which are known to integrate signature-based malware detection from antiviruses. Your antivirus solutions will need to be kept up to date in order to increase its effectiveness. Don’t miss any updates or delay them because they are very crucial.
• Implement DLP (Data Loss Prevention) Solutions – DLP technology can check for sensitive information and how it’s spread out. Data leaks go often overlooked and DLP can also help with data leak detection. It can shut down any sources that are causing leaks and prevent the injection of data exfiltration malware. You can also prevent third-party data leaks with it if it’s advanced enough.

Best Practices to Prevent Data Exfiltration

You can prevent data exfiltration attacks by teaching your employees how to recognize signs of social engineering and their various techniques.

You can prevent your users from downloading unknown or suspicious applications by installing web firewalls and implementing strict security management policies. Restrict the access of all your apps to only authorized requirements.

One of the best practices you can possibly do to prevent data exfiltration is to use endpoint protection and security monitoring solutions. Data is often exfiltrated across endpoints, and malware communicates externally with command and control servers to receive custom instructions.

If you can detect and block these unauthorized communications, then it’s a great way to prevent these data exfiltration attempts.

Build a zero-trust security architecture that will require strict user verification before any data transfers take place. It can improve your endpoint security performance and prevent threat actors from compromising different terminals. Shut down all suspicious sessions by disabling active directory account IDs for users. Disconnect users’ VPN sessions and audit all cloud accounts.

It’s important to review access controls and privileges granted to all these accounts. This will prevent threat actors from taking advantage of inactive or dormant accounts, especially when employees leave the organization. Implement data loss prevention solutions to map out data transfers and maintain a log of all pre-existing data management policies.

Remediate all software vulnerabilities across attack surfaces throughout your infrastructure. It will help you rapidly solve all internal vulnerabilities before they have a chance to get exploited by cyber criminals. You can mitigate data breaches in the supply chain and help security teams deal with accidental exposures as well.

Real-World Examples of Data Exfiltration Incidents

Here are some real-world examples of data exfiltration incidents:

1. AWS SNS was recently exploited by hackers in a data exfiltration attempt. Threat actors had leveraged the service’s features to launch malicious phishing campaigns. It became susceptible to misconfigurations and couldn’t monitor API actions well. Gaps were found in logging mechanisms and threat actors exploited permissive IAM policies.
2. Businesses should know how Apple was accused of hiring former employees who had stolen gigabytes of confidential system-on-chip data before leaving the organization. The employees used encrypted messaging platforms to exfiltrate data and avoid detection.
3. Pfizer also reported a huge insider breach that involved unauthorized data transfer. This was related to their confidential COVID-19 vaccine-related documents. The threat actor was accused of transferring over 12,000 sensitive files to her personal devices and she didn’t have the necessary authorizations during her term of employment. These files included regulatory submissions, internal presentations, business strategies, and clinical trial results. Pfizer discovered the data breach when she handed over her resignation and tried to join a competitor.
4. In October 2024, an unknown company had hired a North Korean IT remote contractor. The worker was a legitimate one and provided software development and IT services. However, he was involved in North Korea state-sponsored hacking activities and aimed to generate revenue through organized cybercrime. The worker had exfiltrated sensitive corporate data like internal communication logs, customer information, and proprietary project files during his hiring tenure. After he was dismissed from his job position, he demanded a six-figure ransom in cryptocurrency and threatened to release the stolen data publicly or sell it to competitors.

Mitigate Data Exfiltration with SentinelOne

SentinelOne can detect data flows across your organization, analyze user activity, endpoints, and check security logs to detect and prevent data exfiltration attempts. It can fight against zero days, ransomware, malware, phishing, shadow IT attacks, insider threats. SentinelOne can spot signs of social engineering practices and prevent spear phishing campaigns. Its unique Offensive Security Engine™ with Verified Exploit Paths™ can conduct attack simulations across your infrastructure and scope for various vulnerabilities.

With SentinelOne’s one-click remediation, you can instantly resolve all your critical vulnerabilities. The platform can help you apply the latest security updates and patches. SentinelOne also improves cloud compliance by helping your organization adhere to the best regulatory frameworks like SOC 2, PCI-DSS, NIST, HIPAA, and others.

SentinelOne’s agentless CNAPP provides various security features that can minimize attack surface expansion. It offers capabilities like Kubernetes security posture management (KSPM), cloud security posture management (CSPM), infrastructure as code (IaC) scanning, secrets detection, Snyk integration, CI/CD pipeline security, hyper automation workflows, cloud workload protection platform (CWPP), cloud detection and response (CDR), and external attack surface and management (EASM). It can also take care of your SaaS security posture management.

SentinelOne has a solution for protecting identity-based attack surfaces. It can prevent cloud credentials leakages and secure multi-cloud and hybrid ecosystems. SentinelOne is also capable of performing both internal and external audits and can do agent-based and agentless vulnerability scanning.

Conclusion

Learning how to prevent data exfiltration takes a multifaceted approach to building your security. It’s a holistic strategy and you can’t just focus on one element. You will have to look at security as a whole, consider your users and see what tools and workflows you are working with.

Review privilege access rights, audit accounts, and enforce zero trust security. Work on the basics.

It’s important to start from the ground up and create a solid foundation so that you don’t leave any gaps or blind spots in your infrastructure. If you need help in crafting a strong security strategy, get in touch with SentinelOne today.

FAQs

What is data exfiltration in cybersecurity?

Data exfiltration refers to a person who steals private information from a computer system or network without approval. They might copy or transfer important files, including customer details or research results, to a different system. It can take place through deceitful methods such as phishing mail or hidden codes. It places personal or corporate data at risk and can generate serious issues if the theft isn’t detected before time.

What is the difference between data exfiltration and data leakage?

Exfiltration is removing data from an organization with conscious intent, normally through stealth hacking or insider mechanisms. Leakage generally occurs by mistake, for instance, when one fails to secure a shared file or loses a storage device.

Exfiltration is an intentional attack, while leakage is mostly an accident. Both are undesirable to trust and can spill out personal information, but exfiltration tends to be associated with an undercover attack plan.

What are the Types of Data Exfiltration Attacks?

There are numerous ways in which criminals obtain information. Some are internal by abusing access to confidential documents. Others employ phishing messages or infected software that circumvents security filters.

Physical theft of USB drives or laptops is another choice. Some hackers establish covert channels for exporting files from the network. All these are dangerous, and any business can fall victim.

What are the Common Techniques Used in Data Exfiltration?

Attackers typically depend on stealthy techniques to delete information. They may embed malicious code within trusted applications, employ stolen credentials to bypass security, or trick employees into opening malicious links.

Some techniques involve infiltrating cloud accounts and transferring data away from the premises. Others insert infected devices and transfer data directly. By combining a few tactics, hackers can quietly evade defenses and transfer sensitive information into their possession.

How Organizations Should Respond to Data Exfiltration Incidents?

When there is a breach, organizations must move fast. They can shut down suspicious user accounts, lock down the networks, and alert all who may be in danger. It is reasonable to call in the experts who can analyze the break-in and determine the scope of the damage. Then, once they know the security vulnerabilities, they can repair them and hardener their defenses. Preparing ahead of time keeps things in hand and maintains trust.