RedWarden

RedWarden is a Cobalt Strike Command and Control (C2) reverse proxy that helps penetration testers and red teams evade detection by intrusion response systems, antivirus software, endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions, and network scanners. By analyzing and correlating packet inspection with malleable C2 profiles RedWarden ensures only legitimate beacon requests reach the team server and misdirects unauthorized or suspicious traffic.

Key Insights

RedWarden parses the supplied malleable C2 profile sections http-stager, http-get, http-post and their corresponding URIs, headers and user-agent strings. It validates inbound HTTP/S requests strictly according to the malleable profile’s contract and only forwards legitimate traffic to the team server. Any requests that don’t match the expected patterns are misdirected or dropped, making red team operations more stealthy and secure.

Detection Evasion

By mimicking Apache2’s behavior as a simple HTTP(S) reverse proxy RedWarden blends into normal network traffic making it hard for security tools to detect it. Its ability to unfilter or repair unexpected and unwanted HTTP headers added by intermediate systems (proxies and caches) helps to maintain the malleable C2 profile’s contract and reduce the chance of detection.

Deployment

RedWarden is written in Python and is available on GitHub as an open-source project. It’s lightweight and flexible, perfect for red teams to use during engagements.

Known Variants

No known variants of RedWarden. The tool is open-source and while forks or modifications may exist, none are documented.

Mitigation Strategies

Monitor the network for proxy activity.
Keep security tools up to date with the latest evasion techniques.
Test security to find and fix C2 communication channel weaknesses.
Train security teams on RedWarden to improve detection.

Targeted Industries or Sectors

RedWarden is a tool used by security professionals and is not industry or sector specific. However the techniques it uses could be used against any industry during red teaming or by malicious actors using similar methods.

Associated Threat Actors

No known threat actors have been identified as using RedWarden. As an open-source tool for legitimate security testing, use by unauthorized parties would be unauthorized and illegal.