Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Course 6 - Network Traffic Analysis for Incident Response | Episode 4: Mapping, Decoding, and Decrypting Network Traffic Intelligence
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Course 6 - Network Traffic Analysis for Incident Response | Episode 4: Mapping, Decoding, and Decrypting Network Traffic Intelligence
In this lesson, you’ll learn about: Intelligence Collection from Network Traffic Captures — focusing on anomalies, attacker behavior, and extracting actionable intelligence. 1. Network Mapping & Visualization
Goal → recover the original content, often a payload or second-stage executable. XOR Encoding
You can listen and download our episodes for free on more than 10 different platforms:
https://linktr.ee/cybercode_academy
- Humans struggle with long lists → visualizing traffic helps you feel the environment.
- Tools like pcap viz generate maps at different OSI layers:
- Shows which machines talk to each other.
- Helps detect unusual communication paths.
- Shows communication between applications.
- Unusual ports (e.g., 900) may indicate custom or C2 protocols.
Goal → recover the original content, often a payload or second-stage executable. XOR Encoding
- Common in malware traffic.
- Repeated patterns in streams (especially when encoding zeros) reveal the key.
- Example: fixed-length 4-byte key like MLVR.
- Seen in C2 frameworks like Onion Duke.
- Recognizable by:
- A–Z, a–z, 0–9, “+”, “/”
- Ends with “=” padding
- Easy to decode using built-in libraries or online tools.
- Send usernames/passwords in clear text.
- Easy to extract directly from the TCP stream.
- Encodes credentials in Base64 → trivial to decode.
- Python or online decoders reveal username + password.
- Reinforces the need for TLS encryption.
- If the RSA private key is available, Wireshark can decrypt sessions directly.
- Cannot be decrypted using the server’s private key.
- Must capture the session keys using a pre-master secret log file:
- Often done by setting an SSL key log file environment variable in browsers.
- Without that log, the sessions are not recoverable.
- A corporate proxy (e.g., Burp Suite) intercepts connections:
- Breaks the client → server TLS session.
- Decrypts → inspects → re-encrypts all traffic.
- Clients must install the proxy’s self-signed root certificate.
- Needed to bypass controls like HSTS.
- Proxy becomes a single high-value target for attackers.
- Raises privacy concerns, especially when employees do personal browsing (banking, etc.).
You can listen and download our episodes for free on more than 10 different platforms:
https://linktr.ee/cybercode_academy
View all episodes
By CyberCode AcademyIn this lesson, you’ll learn about: Intelligence Collection from Network Traffic Captures — focusing on anomalies, attacker behavior, and extracting actionable intelligence. 1. Network Mapping & Visualization
Goal → recover the original content, often a payload or second-stage executable. XOR Encoding
You can listen and download our episodes for free on more than 10 different platforms:
https://linktr.ee/cybercode_academy
- Humans struggle with long lists → visualizing traffic helps you feel the environment.
- Tools like pcap viz generate maps at different OSI layers:
- Shows which machines talk to each other.
- Helps detect unusual communication paths.
- Shows communication between applications.
- Unusual ports (e.g., 900) may indicate custom or C2 protocols.
Goal → recover the original content, often a payload or second-stage executable. XOR Encoding
- Common in malware traffic.
- Repeated patterns in streams (especially when encoding zeros) reveal the key.
- Example: fixed-length 4-byte key like MLVR.
- Seen in C2 frameworks like Onion Duke.
- Recognizable by:
- A–Z, a–z, 0–9, “+”, “/”
- Ends with “=” padding
- Easy to decode using built-in libraries or online tools.
- Send usernames/passwords in clear text.
- Easy to extract directly from the TCP stream.
- Encodes credentials in Base64 → trivial to decode.
- Python or online decoders reveal username + password.
- Reinforces the need for TLS encryption.
- If the RSA private key is available, Wireshark can decrypt sessions directly.
- Cannot be decrypted using the server’s private key.
- Must capture the session keys using a pre-master secret log file:
- Often done by setting an SSL key log file environment variable in browsers.
- Without that log, the sessions are not recoverable.
- A corporate proxy (e.g., Burp Suite) intercepts connections:
- Breaks the client → server TLS session.
- Decrypts → inspects → re-encrypts all traffic.
- Clients must install the proxy’s self-signed root certificate.
- Needed to bypass controls like HSTS.
- Proxy becomes a single high-value target for attackers.
- Raises privacy concerns, especially when employees do personal browsing (banking, etc.).
You can listen and download our episodes for free on more than 10 different platforms:
https://linktr.ee/cybercode_academy