We are at the end of the second decade of the 21^st century now, and we are still suffering from poor application coding security practices of all sorts. This is costing us big-time in dollars, intellectual property, privacy, security, apprehension and consternation!

As individual consumers, we tend to think of things like identity theft, invasion of privacy and loss of services when we consider the problem of poorly secured applications. But the problem is much broader and deeper than that. Holes in application coding security can also be used to attack communications systems, utility and industrial control systems, supply chains and transportation systems, and military command and control and weapons systems. These kinds of failures can lead to wide-scale confusion, outages, disasters and the deaths of innocents; possibly lots of innocents.

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On May 14, 2019 Microsoft announced a vulnerability in RDP – Remote Desktop Services…formerly known as Terminal Services. The vulnerability is significant enough that Microsoft has chosen to publish a patch for Windows XP and Windows 2003 on May 15th – operating systems that have been out of support for a few years now.

Why is this important? The vulnerability is similar to the one that WannaCry leveraged, and allows an attacker to “worm” through the network. Reports say that there is a proof-of-concept exploit; as of this writing on May 19th, the MSI lab hasn’t laid hands on one to test and our research is ongoing.

To quote Microsoft:

“This vulnerability is pre-authentication and requires no user interaction. In other words, the vulnerability is ‘wormable’, meaning that any future malware that exploits this vulnerability could propagate from vulnerable computer to vulnerable computer in a similar way as the WannaCry malware spread across the globe in 2017.”

So what? So…early this morning, a search on shodan.io for “rdp” showed 1058 exposures indexed. A few HOURS later, that number increased to 1062. Externally facing RDP is a very bad idea, and attackers considered it to be low hanging fruit before this vulnerability came to light…now, the stakes are higher.

“My patching is automated” – we’re all good, right? Well…I contacted a friend in a small office yesterday, and suggested that they check. When she inventoried the 4 computers that were set to update automatically…3 of them had not received this update. Due diligence is your friend here, don’t assume.

Patch. Patch now. Share with your friends and colleagues, particularly those who are less than technically savvy. Friends don’t let friends have RDP as an externally facing service!

(Let’s not leave Adobe out of the mix. Adobe’s Patch Tuesday covers 82 CVE’s. EIGHTY TWO? People, we have to do better…)

And remember…is it really paranoia if they ARE out to get you?

Questions? Comments? Are you patched? I’d love to hear from you – lwallace@microsolved.com, or @TheTokenFemale on Twitter!

If you would like to know more about MicroSolved or its services please send an e-mail to info@microsolved.com or visit microsolved.com.

In several recent engagements, we came across some IoT (Internet of Things) devices within client networks. There’s a growing presence of these ubiquitous devices within corporate environments. They measure, they detect, they capture, they sense. Then they send the info to some app on your phone.

These devices make life easier. Safer. More convenient. Many times, just simply accessible when it was not possible before.

But there can be risks. I’ve always held the belief that security has an inverse relationship with accessibility. The more doors you have to enter a building, the more accessible it is to get inside. But with this accessibility to authorized persons with keys to the doors, likewise, the risk for a burglar to pick the locks to break in increases.
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For more than 20 years now, hackers and cyber-criminals have been breaking into computer systems and networks. And for just as long a period of time, manufacturers, networking folk and cyber-security personnel have been developing devices, controls and processes to prevent these people from getting in and raising havoc. The “bad guys” come up with new ways to compromise system security, and then the “good guys” come up with new ways to protect it. Back and forth, forth and back, back and forth… it never seems to stop!

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Several months ago, MSI was called for an incident response. The business was under a denial of service attack (DoS). They had no internet connectivity. They had no phone service. They were under attack.

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Over the past couple years we’ve encountered increasing numbers of customers using various print management vendors. Many that we have encountered are using the same application suite to manage the printers, and by default it has a blank admin password. In most of the instances we’ve observed this parameter has not been changed, or a strong password set. Likewise most of the managed printers also are not configured to use authentication or are using the default credentials.

When we encounter this one of the “benefits” this application affords us, due to the fact that it keeps a fairly detailed inventory with model number, is that it allows us to pinpoint areas of attack and compromise. Printers that we know have issues, or printers with functionality such as saving to network shares, SNMP etc. can be leveraged without doing activities that would be easily detectible on the network.

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Have you ever heard of the New York State Department of Financial Services regulation requiring financial services companies to adopt cybersecurity measures that “match relevant risks and keep pace with technological advancements” (23 NYCRR 500)? If you haven’t, you should take a look, even if you don’t do business in the State of New York. This regulation is having a snowball effect that is affecting financial institutions across the nation.

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Office 365 and G Suite MFA bypass

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) has been shown to be a critical control to prevent business email compromise (BEC) as well as compromise of other critical systems. Recently, some information came to light about attacks on Office 365 and G Suite applications that bypass the protection of MFA.

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