Are you hacking!? There’s no hacking in baseball!

My Dad called me earlier this week to ask if I heard about the FBI’s investigation of the St. Louis Cardinals. My initial reaction was that the investigation must be related to some sort of steroid scandal or gambling allegations. I was wrong. The Cardinals are being investigated for allegedly hacking into the network of a rival team to steal confidential information. Could the same team that my Grandparents took me to see play as a kid really be responsible for this crime?

After I had time to read a few articles about the alleged hack, I called my Dad back. He immediately asked me if the Astros could have prevented it. From what I have read, this issue could have been prevented (or at least detected) by implementing a few basic information security controls around the Astros’ proprietary application. Unfortunately, it appears the attack was not discovered until confidential information was leaked onto a pastebin site.

The aforementioned controls include but are not limited to:

  1. Change passwords on a regular basis – It has been alleged that Astros system was accessed by using the same password that was used when a similar system was deployed within the St. Louis Cardinals’ network. Passwords should be changed on a regular basis.
  2. Do not share passwords between individuals – Despite the fact that creating separate usernames and passwords for each individual with access to a system can be inconvenient, it reduces a lot of risk associated with deploying an application. For example, if each member of the Astros front office was required to have a separate password to their proprietary application, the Cardinals staff would not have been able to successfully use the legacy password from when the application was deployed in St. Louis. The Astros would also have gained the ability to log and track each individual user’s actions within the application.
  3. Review logs for anomalies on a regular basis – Most likely, the Astros were not reviewing any kind of security logs surrounding this application. If they were, they might have noticed failed login attempts into the application prior to the Cardinals’ alleged successful attempt. They also might have noticed that the application was accessed by an unknown or suspicious IP address.
  4. Leverage the use of honeypot technology – By implementing HoneyPot technology, the Astros could have deployed a fake version of this application. This could have allowed them to detect suspicious activity from within their network prior to the attackers gaining access to their confidential information. This strategy could have included leveraging MSI’s HoneyPoint Security Server to stand up a fake version of their proprietary application along with deploying a variety of fake documents within the Astros’ network. If an attacker accessed the fake application or document, the Astros would have been provided with actionable intelligence which could have allowed them to prevent the breach of one of their critical systems.
  5. Do not expose unnecessary applications or services to the internet – At this point, I do not know whether or not the Astros deployed this system within their internal network or exposed it to the internet. Either way, it’s always important to consider whether or not it is necessary to expose a system or service to the internet. Something as simple as requiring a VPN to access an application can go a long way to securing the confidential data.
  6. Leverage the use of network segmentation or IP address filtering – If the application was deployed from within the Astros internal network, was it necessary that all internal systems had access to the application? It’s always worthwhile to limit network access to a particular system or network segment as much as possible.

Honestly, I hope these allegations aren’t true. I have fond memories of watching the Cardinals win the World Series in 2006 and 2011. I would really hate to see those victories tarnished by the actions of a few individuals. However, it’s important that we all learn a lesson from this..whether it’s your email or favorite team’s playbook…don’t overlook the basic steps when attempting to secure confidential information.

HoneyPoint as a Tool for Device Inventory

Another clever use for HoneyPoint™ Agent, running on a Linux system without SMB components, is to have the system listen on the Windows SMB ports (135-139 & 445). The HoneyPoint will then inventory the Windows machines and other SMB speaking tools that attempt to contact it. Since this traffic is pretty routine, it will serve as an inventory mechanism for these types of systems on the local collision domain, or other “same-as-on-the-LAN” segments.

Running HoneyPoint in this fashion has been very useful to several of our ICS customers and has allowed them a quick, and most importantly, passive way to identify hosts on the same segment. No probes or scans needed! 

Give us a call today at (614) 351-1237 or email us at info@microsolved.com if you want to discuss how HoneyPoint might be used in your environment. We look forward to talking with you, and as always, thanks for reading! 

MSI Launches TigerTrax Network Discovery, Mapping & Analysis Service

We are proud to announce the immediate availability of an entirely new service offering in our security tool kit, made possible by TigerTrax™.

This service offering leverages the power of MSI’s proprietary TigerTrax analytics platform to parse, correlate and visualize the configurations (and packet logs (if desired)) from the routers, switches and firewalls of your network “en masse”. 

Our security and analytics teams then create detailed maps of the network as seen from the eyes of the machines, document the various network segments and their relationships, build a hierarchy of powerful machines and segments, identify hardening techniques that could help your organization better secure your network and provide insights into the gap between your organization’s “common wisdom” versus the real environment.

We can even teach “Close The Gap” sessions to help re-align your team’s “common wisdom” with “machine truth” and to help socialize the new knowledge to other groups.

How it works:

  • The client delivers the configuration and log files as needed for the service. MSI can assist with this step, if needed, at an additional hourly consulting fee.
  • The offering uses TigerTrax to perform automated analysis of the configuration and log files as needed – holistically, systemically and “en masse”. 
  • Various data points are delivered to the analysts and security team who then create the documentation, maps and reports. Visualized data is also generated using the TigerTrax platform where appropriate.
  • Any professional services, such as interviews/questionnaires, gap analysis and training are provided by MSI team members using our proprietary delivery methodologies.
  • Completely passive, offline analysis is perfect for critical networks.
Three different levels of service are available, as is single – one time engagements (perfect for M&A activities, and new IT management) or ongoing subscriptions that allow organizations to track changes and maintain knowledge over time. The highest level of service also includes 30 days worth of packet analytics to identify overtly compromised hosts and to determine “normal operating conditions”, which is often quite useful for incident response activities in the future.
 
Give is a call today at (614) 351-1237 or email us at info@microsolved.com to start a conversation about how we can help you know the truth about your network!