Author Archives: Brent Huston

About Brent Huston

I am the CEO of MicroSolved, Inc. and a security evangelist. I have spent the last 20+ years working to make the Internet safer for everyone on a global scale. I believe the Internet has the capability to contribute to the next great leap for mankind, and I want to help make that happen!

Monitoring: an Absolute Necessity (but a Dirty Word Nonetheless)

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There is no easier way to shut down the interest of a network security or IT administrator than to say the word “monitoring”. You can just mention the word and their faces fall as if a rancid odor had suddenly entered the room! And I can’t say that I blame them. Most organizations do not recognize the true necessity of monitoring, and so do not provide proper budgeting and staffing for the function. As a result, already fully tasked (and often times inadequately prepared) IT or security personnel are tasked with the job. This not only leads to resentment, but also virtually guarantees that the job is will not be performed effectively.

And when I say human monitoring is necessary if you want to achieve any type of real information security, I mean it is NECESSARY! You can have network security appliances, third party firewall monitoring, anti-virus packages, email security software, and a host of other network security mechanisms in place and it will all be for naught if real (and properly trained) human beings are not monitoring the output. Why waste all the time, money and effort you have put into your information security program by not going that last step? It’s like building a high and impenetrable wall around a fortress but leaving the last ten percent of it unbuilt because it was just too much trouble! Here are a few tips for effective security monitoring:

  • Properly illustrate the necessity for human monitoring to management, business and IT personnel; make them understand the urgency of the need. Make a logical case for the function. Tell them real-world stories about other organizations that have failed to monitor and the consequences that they suffered as a result. If you can’t accomplish this step, the rest will never fall in line.
  • Ensure that personnel assigned to monitoring tasks of all kinds are properly trained in the function; make sure they know what to look for and how to deal with what they find.
  • Automate the logging and monitoring function as much as possible. The process is difficult enough without having to perform tedious tasks that a machine or application can easily do.
  • Ensure that you have log aggregation in place, and also ensure that other network security tool output is centralized and combined with logging data. Real world cyber-attacks are often very hard to spot. Correlating events from different tools and processes can make these attacks much more apparent. 
  • Ensure that all personnel associated with information security communicate with each other. It’s difficult to effectively detect and stop attacks if the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.
  • Ensure that logging is turned on for everything on the network that is capable of it. Attacks often start on client side machines.
  • Don’t just monitor technical outputs from machines and programs, monitor access rights and the overall security program as well:
  • Monitor access accounts of all kinds on a regular basis (at least every 90 days is recommended). Ensure that user accounts are current and that users are only allocated access rights on the system that they need to perform their jobs. Ensure that you monitor third party access to the system to this same level.
  • Pay special attention to administrative level accounts. Restrict administrative access to as few personnel as possible. Configure the system to notify proper security and IT personnel when a new administrative account is added to the network. This could be a sign that a hack is in progress.
  • Regularly monitor policies and procedures to ensure that they are effective and meet the security goals of the organization. This should be a regular part of business continuity testing and review.
Thanks to John Davis for writing this post.

Twitter Stream About Online Card Fraud & Crypto Currency

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The other day, I was discussing the idea that as the world moves more strongly toward chip and pin credit cards, that the levels of online credit card fraud were likely to skyrocket. Joel, the @SCADAHacker took me to task, and I thought I would share with you our conversation (with his permission, of course.) Here it is:

@lbhuston: Time to Get Moving on Chip and PIN? ow.ly/tvyZa <There are downsides to this too. It will help physical, but up online fraud.

@scadahacker: @lbhuston Please explain your reasoning on this and why it would be any different than current mag-based cards for online purchases. [sic]

@lbhuston: @SCADAhacker The threat won’t be different, but the criminals that now work physical card fraud will migrate their value stream to online.

@lbhuston: @SCADAhacker In other words, the crime rings powered by card fraud will simply compensate for the controls by switching fraud vector.

@lbhuston: @SCADAhacker This has been historically valid, & I think applies here. Most of those rings already have online fraud skills, they extend.

@lbhuston: @SCADAhacker Make sense? Sorry, hard in 120 char bursts. Sorry for the multiples. 🙂

@lbhuston: @SCADAhacker The really sad thing is that it is the best path forward. Chip cards work, for now. Also look for forgery to accelerate. 🙁

@scadahacker: @lbhuston Agree.  Good point my friend!

From there, I went on to discuss another concern that I am focusing on at the moment, crypto currency.

@lbhuston: @SCADAhacker Sadly, another thing I am watching closely is the impacts of crypto currencies on old school political corruption. Few controls

@lbhuston: @SCADAhacker Many law enforcement & govt watchdog groups don’t have digital chops to even understand something like bitcoin. 🙁

@lbhuston: @SCADAhacker Here’s my derby talk from 2 years ago. bit.ly/QQ4Skq <The innovate crime 4 profit is why I follow a lot of this.

@scadahacker: @lbhuston Thanks bro!

As always, Joel and all of my readers are welcome. Thanks for reading what I have to say and for allowing me to voice my thoughts and concerns. If you don’t already follow Joel, you should, he is world class and in addition to being brilliant, is a heck of a nice guy, too. Reach out and Twitter and let me know what you think. Do you think card fraud is about to turn a corner? How will crypto currency influence the future political process? Am I just being paranoid? Give me a shout at @lbhuston and let me know what is on your mind.

PS – It looks like some of these ideas are being thought about around the world. Here are some other folks thinking along the same lines. Click here, here, here or here.

HoneyPoint IP Protection Methodology

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Here’s another use case scenario for HoneyPoint Security Server. This time, we show the methodology we use to scope a HoneyPoint implementation around protecting a specific set of Intellectual Property (IP). 

If you would like an in-depth discussion of our process or our capability, please feel free to reach out to us and schedule a call with our team. No commitment and no hard sale, guaranteed.

If the graphic below is blurry on your device, you can download a PDF version here.

HP_IPProtection

HoneyPoint Trojans Overview

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Here’s another quick overview graphic of how HoneyPoint Trojans work. We have been using these techniques since around 2008 and they are very powerful. 

We have incorporated them into phishing exercises, piracy studies, incident response, intrusion detection, intelligence gathering, marketing analysis and even privacy research. To hear more about HoneyPoint Trojans, give us a call.

If the graphic below is blurry on your device, you can download a PDF version here.

HPTrojanOverview

HoneyPoint in a Point of Sale Network

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We have been getting a LOT of questions lately about how HoneyPoint Security Server (HPSS) fits into a Point of Sale (POS) network.

To make it pretty easy and as a high level overview, below is a use case diagram we use to discuss the solution. If you would like a walkthrough of our technology, or to discuss how it might fit into your specific use cases, please let us know.

As always, thanks for reading and for partnering with MicroSolved, Inc.

PS – If the graphic below is difficult to read on your device, you can grab a PDF version here.

HP POSNetworks

New Podcast: Threats from the Net – Starring Jim Klun

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You can find the newest podcast for public consumption, MicroSolved’s Threats from the Net online now. The new podcast will be a monthly release and stars Jim Klun as the host. 

Tune in often and check it out. The Kluniac has some elder geek insights to share, and it is ALWAYS informative and entertaining!

You can grab this month’s edition by clicking here. 

Incident Response: Are You Ready?

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All of us suffer from complacency to one extent or another. We know intellectually that bad things can happen to us, but when days, months and years go by with no serious adverse incidents arising, we tend to lose all visceral fear of harm. We may even become contemptuous of danger and resentful of all the resources and worry we expend in aid of problems that never seem to manifest themselves. But this is a dangerous attitude to fall into. When serious problems strike the complacent and unprepared, the result is inevitably shock followed by panic. And hindsight teaches us that decisions made during such agitated states are almost always the wrong ones. This is true on the institutional level as well.

During my years in the information security industry, I have seen a number of organizations founder when struck by their first serious information security incident. I’ve seen them react slowly, I’ve seen them throw money and resources into the wrong solutions, and I’ve seen them suffer regulatory and legal sanctions that they didn’t have to incur. And after the incident has been resolved, I’ve also seen them all put their incident response programs in order; they never want to have it happen again! So why not take a lesson from the stricken and put your program in order before it happens to your organization too? Preparing your organization for an information security incident isn’t really very taxing. It only takes two things: planning and practice.

When undertaking incident response planning, the first thing to do is to examine the threat picture. Join user groups and consult with other similar organizations to see what kinds of information security incidents they have experienced. Take advantage of free resources such as the Verizon Data Breach Reports and US-CERT. The important thing is to limit your serious preparations to the top several most credible incident types you are likely to encounter. This streamlines the process, lessens the amount of resources you need to put into it and makes it more palatable to the personnel that have to implement it. 

Once you have determined which threats are most likely to affect your organization, the next step is to fully document your incident response plan. Now this appears to be a daunting task, but in reality there are many resources available on the Internet that can help guide you through the process. Example incident response plans, procedures and guidance are available from SANS, FFIEC, NIST and many other reputable organizations free of charge. I have found that the best way to proceed is to read through a number of these resources and to adapt the parts that seem to fit your particular organization the best. Remember, your incident response plan is a living document and needs to reflect the needs of your organization as well as possible. It won’t do to simply adopt the first boiler plate you come across and hope that it will work.

Also, be sure that your plan and procedures contain the proper level of detail. You need to spell out things such as who will be on the incident response team, their individual duties during incidents, where the team will meet and where evidence will be stored, who should be contacted and when, how to properly react to different incidents and many other details. 

The next, and possibly the most important step in effective incident response is to practice the plan. You can have the most elegantly written security incident response plan in the world, and it is still doomed to fail during an actual incident if the plan is not practiced regularly. In all my years of helping organizations conduct their table top incident response practice sessions, I have never failed to see the process reveal holes in the plan and provide valuable lessons for the team members who participate. The important thing here is to pick real-world incident scenarios and to conduct the practice as close to the way it would actually occur as possible. We like to only inform a minimum number of response personnel in advance, and surprise the bulk of responders with the event just as it would happen if it were real. Of course there is much more to proper incident response planning and practice than I have included here. But this should start your organization along the right path. For more complete information and help with the process, don’t hesitate to contact your MSI representative. 

Thanks to John Davis for writing this post.

Digital Images and Recordings: How Can We Deal with the Loss of Trust?

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For many decades now the human race has benefitted from the evidentiary value of surveillance videos and audio recordings. Human beings cannot be relied on to give accurate accounts of events that they have witnessed. It is a frustrating fact that eye witness testimony is highly inaccurate. More often than not, people are mistaken in their recollections or they simply fail to tell the truth. But, with some reservations, we have learned to trust our surveillance recordings. Sure, analog videos and audio recordings can be tampered with. But almost universally, analysis of such tampered material exposes the fraud. Not so anymore!

Virtually every camera, video recorder and audio recorder on the planet is now digital. And it is theoretically possible to manipulate or totally forge digital recordings perfectly. Every year now, computer generated images and sounds used in movies are becoming more seamless and convincing. I see no reason at all why we couldn’t make totally realistic-appearing movies that contain not a single human actor or location shot. Just think of it: Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne, in their primes, with their own voices, starring in a brand new western of epic proportions! Awesome! And if Hollywood can do it, you can bet that a lot of other less reputable individuals can do it as well.

So what are we going to do about surveillance recordings (everything from ATMs and convenience store videos to recordings made by the FBI)? We won’t be able to trust that they are real or accurate anymore. Are we going to return to the old days of relying on eye witness testimony and the perceptiveness of juries? Are we going to let even more lying, larcenous and violent offenders off scot free than we are today? I don’t think we as a society will be able to tolerate that. After all, many crimes don’t produce any significant forensic evidence such as finger prints and DNA. Often, video and audio recordings are our only means of identifying the bad guys and what they do.

This means that we are going to have to find ways and means to certify that the digital recordings we make remain unaltered. (Do you see a new service industry in the offing)? The only thing I can think of to solve the problem is a service similar in many ways to the certificate authorities and token providers we use today. Trusted third parties that employ cryptographic techniques and other means to ensure that their equipment and recordings remain pristine.

But that still leaves the problem of the recordings of events that individuals make with their smart phones and camcorders. Can we in all good faith trust that these recordings are any more real than the surveillance recordings we are making today? These, too, are digital recordings and can theoretically be perfectly manipulated. But I can’t see the average Joe going through the hassle and spending the money necessary to certify their private recordings. I can’t see a way out of this part of the problem. Perhaps you can come up with some ideas that would work?

Thanks to John Davis for writing this post.


Business Impact Analysis: A Good Way to Jumpstart an Information Security Program

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Is your organization’s information security program stuck in the era of perimeter firewalls and anti-virus software? Are you a Chief Information Security Officer or IT Manager stuck with the unenviable task of bringing your information security program into the 21st Century? Why not start the ball rolling with a business impact analysis (BIA)? It will provide you with a wealth of useful information, and it takes some of the weight from your shoulders by involving every business department in the organization.

BIA is traditionally seen as part of the business continuity process. It helps organizations recognize and prioritize which information, hardware and personnel assets are crucial to the business so that proper planning for contingency situations can be undertaken. This is very useful in and of itself, and is indeed crucial for proper business continuity and disaster recovery planning. But what other information security tasks can it help you with?

When MSI does a BIA, the first thing we do in issue a questionnaire to every business department and management function in the organization. These questionnaires are completed by the “power users” of the organization who are typically the most experienced and knowledgeable personnel in the business. This means that not only do you get the most reliable information possible, but that one person or one small group is not burdened with doing all of the information gathering. Typical responses include (but are not limited to):

  • A list of every business function each department undertakes
  • All of the hardware assets needed to perform each business function
  • All of the software assets needed to perform each business function
  • Inputs needed to perform each business function and where they come from
  • Outputs of each business function and where they are sent
  • Personnel needed to perform each business function
  • Knowledge and skills needed to perform each business function

So how does this knowledge help jumpstart your information security program as a whole? First, in order to properly protect information assets, you must know what you have and how it moves. In the Top 20 Critical Controls for Effective Cyber Defense, the first control is an inventory of devices and the second control is an inventory of software. The BIA lists all of the hardware and software assets needed to perform each business function. So in effect you have your starting inventories. This not only tells you what you need, but is useful in exposing assets wasting time and effort on your network that are not necessary; if it’s not on the critical lists, you probably don’t need it. 

In MSI’s own 80/20 Rule of Information Security, the first requirement is not only producing inventories of software and hardware assets, but mapping of data flows and trust relationships. The inputs and outputs listed by each business department include these data flows and trust relationships. All you have to do is compile them and put them into a graphical map. And I can tell you from experience; this is a great savings in time and effort. If you have ever tried to map data flows and trust relationships as a stand-alone task, you know what I mean!

Another security control a BIA can help you implement is network segmentation and enclaving. The MSI 80/20 Rule has network enclaving as their #6 control and the Top 20 controls include secure network engineering as their #19 control. The information from a good BIA makes it easy to see how assets are naturally grouped, and therefore the best places to segment the network.

How about egress filtering? Egress filtering is widely recognized as one of the most effect security controls in preventing large scale data loss, and the most effective type of egress filtering employs white listing. White listing is typically much harder to tune and implement than black listing, but is very much more effective. With the information a BIA provides you, it is much easier to construct a useful white list; you have what each department needs to perform each business function at your fingertips.

Then there is skill and security training. The BIA tells you what information users need to know to perform their jobs, so that helps you make sure that personnel are trained correctly and in enough depth to deal with contingency situations. Also, knowing where all your critical assets lie and how they move helps you make sure you provide the right people with the right kind of security training.

And there are other crucial information security mechanisms that a BIA can help you with. What about access control? Wouldn’t knowing the relative importance of assets and their nexus points help you structure AD more effectively? And there is physical security. Knowing where the most crucial information lies and what departments process it would help you set up internal secure areas, wouldn’t it? What other information useful to setting up an effective information security program can you think of that is included in a proper BIA?

Thanks to John Davis for writing this post.

The First Five Quick Wins

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The Top 20 Critical Controls for Effective Cyber Defense have been around for half a decade now, and are constantly gaining more praise and acceptance among information security groups and government organizations across the globe. One of the main reasons for this is that all of these controls have been shown to stop or mitigate known, real-world attacks. Another reason for their success is that they are constantly being updated and adjusted to fit the changing threat picture as it emerges. 

One of these recent updates is the delineation of the “First Five” from the other “Quick Wins” category of sub-controls included in the guidance (Quick Wins security controls are those that provide solid risk reduction without major procedural, architectural or technical changes to an environment, or that provide substantial and immediate risk reduction against very common attacks – in other words, these are the controls that give you the most bang for the buck). The First Five Quick Wins controls are those that have been shown to be the most effective means yet to stop the targeted intrusions that are doing the greatest damage to many organizations. They include:

  1. Application white listing: Application white listing technology only allows systems to run software applications that are included in the white list. This control prevents both external and internal attackers from implementing malicious and unwanted applications on the system. One caveat that should be kept in mind is that the organization must strictly control access to and modifications of the white list itself. New software applications should be approved by a change control committee and access/changes to the white list should be strictly monitored.
  2. Secure standard images: Organizations should employ secure standard images for configuring their systems. These standard images should utilize hardened versions of underlying operating systems and applications. It is important to keep in mind that these standard images need to be updated and validated on a regular basis in order to meet the changing threat picture.
  3. Automated patching tools and processes: Automated patching tools, along with appropriate policies and procedures, allow organizations to close vulnerabilities in their systems in a timely manner. The standard for this control is patching of both application and operating system software within 48 hours of release.
  4. Removal or replacement of outdated software applications: Many computer networks we test have outdated or legacy software applications present on the system. Dated software applications may have both known and previously undiscovered vulnerabilities associated with them, and are consequently very useful to cyber attackers. Organizations should have mechanisms in place to identify then remove or replace such vulnerable applications in a timely manner just as is done with the patching process above.
  5. Control of administrative privileges and accounts: One of the most useful mechanisms employed by cyber attackers is elevation of privileges. Attackers can turn simple compromise of one client machine to full domain compromise by this means, simply because administrative access is not well controlled. To thwart this, administrative access should be given to as few users as possible, and administrative privileged functions should be monitored for anomalous behavior. MSI also recommends that administrators use separate credentials for simple network access and administrative access to the system. In addition, multi-part authentication for administrative access should be considered. Attackers can’t do that much damage if they are limited to isolated client machines!

Certainly, the controls detailed above are not the only security controls that organizations should implement to protect their information assets. However, these are the controls that are currently being implemented first by the most security-aware and skilled organizations out there. Perhaps your organization can also benefit from the lessons they have learned.

Thanks to John Davis for writing this post.