Tag Archives: information security

Always Remember the Business, InfoSec Folks

Posted on by
8

I just got out of yet another meeting with a big company partner for whom we act as an information security and threat advisor. In that meeting, I listened to a keyed-up,  hypercaffinated group of good guy security geeks tell their senior executives about the latest set of DLP controls they were putting in place. They spent 45 minutes describing packet-level checking, data flows, architecture diagrams and the technology of their solution set in painful (even for me) detail. Many of the executives were dosing lightly, while the geeks spun their techno-web. That’s when things took a turn for the worse…

The COO asked them one single question, interrupting a slide about email data flows ~ “How will this impact the business of ‘Dan’s’ group and the ‘Singularity’ project we have been working on since 2011? Doesn’t it depend on some of that data?” (**Names changed to protect the innocent and the guilty…)

Then, NOTHING HAPPENED. You could have heard a pin drop. Dead silence for close to two minutes. Finally, the COO repeated the question. Still nothing. He asked the lead geek if he knew who Dan was, and the geek said yes. He asked if Dan had been interviewed by the geeks prior to this. They said, no. The COO erupted in a rage, railing about how Singularity was the largest new line of business launch in the history of the company and how the projected income from the business would change the landscape of the firm. There were a LOT of apologies and some amount of notes taken to immediately consult with Dan. Much geek cred was lost. It will be a while before they get to present to the executives again like that. 

I tell you this story simply to remind all infosec folks about something I see all too often. It’s about the business. We are about the business. We are there to secure the business, nurture it, protect it, empower it to succeed. If that’s not where you or your team are, then you are doing it wrong. Get it right. Talk to the business. Speak their language. Give up on the “beauty of the baud” approach. Your packets and technology stack may be gorgeous to you, but if they don’t align with the business, then they won’t do anyone, including you, any good at all. Keep that in mind at all times. Also, remember to always talk to Dan ~ he’s a nice guy and he appreciates it. He can give you the answers you need and usually, he desperately wants to understand what you can do to make his project a success. Get to know all the Dan’s in your organization. They drive the world, you support them, together you build business and all of you will succeed!

Ask The Experts: Too Much Data

Posted on by
2

Q: “I have massive amounts of log files I have to dig through every day. I have tried a full blown SEIM, but can’t get it to work right or my management to support it with budget. Right now I have Windows logs, firewall logs and AV logs going to a syslog server. That gives me a huge set of text files every day. How can I make sense of all that text? What tools and processes do you suggest? What should I be looking for? HELP!!!!”

 

Adam Hostetler answered with:

 

I would say give OSSEC a try. It’s a free log analyzer/SEIM. It doesn’t

have a GUI with100 different dashboards and graphs, it’s all cli and

e-mail based (though there is a simple web interface for it also). It is

easy to write rules for, and it has default rules for many things,

except for your AV. You can write simple rules for that, especially if

you are just looking for items AV caught. It does take some tuning, as

with all analysis tools, but isn’t difficult after learning how OSSEC

works. If you want to step it up a bit, you can feed OSSEC alerts into

Splunk where you can trend alerts, or create other rules and reports in it.

 

Bill Hagestad added:

 

First things first – don’t be or feel overwhelmed – log files are what they are much disparate data from a variety of resources that need reviewing sooner rather than later.

 

Rather than looking at another new set to tools or the latest software gizmo the trade rags might suggest based on the flair of the month, try a much different and more effective approach to the potential threat surface to your network and enterprise information network.

 

First take a look at what resources need to be protected in order of importance to your business. Once you have prioritized these assets then begin to  determine what is the minimum level of acceptable risk you can assign to each resource you have just prioritized.

 

Next, make two columns on a either a piece of paper or a white board. In one column list your resources in order of protection requirements, i.e.; servers with customer data, servers with intellectual property, so and so forth. In a column to the right of the first assets list plug in your varying assigned levels of risk. Soon you will see what areas/assets within your organization/enterprise you should pay the most attention to in terms of threat mitigation.

 

After you have taken the steps to determine your own self- assessment of risk contact MicroSolved for both a vulnerability assessment and penetration test to provide additional objective perspective on threats to your IT infrastructure and commercial enterprise. 

 

Finally, Jim Klun weighed in with: 

 

You are way ahead of the game by just having a central log repository.  You can go to one server and look back in time to the point where you expect a security incident.

 

And what you have – Windows logs, firewall logs, and AV – is fantastic.  Make sure all your apps are logging as well ( logon success, logon failure).

Too often I have seen apps attacked and all I had in syslog was OS events that showed nothing.

 

Adam’s suggestion, OSSEC, is the way to go to keep cost down… but don’t just install and hope for the best.

You will have to tweak the OSSEC rules and come up with what works.

 

Here’s the rub: there is no substitute for knowing your logs – in their raw format, not pre-digested by a commercial SIEM or OSSEC.

 

That can seem overwhelming. And to that, some Unix commands and regular expressions are your friend.

 

So:

 

zcat auth.log | grep ssh | egrep -i ‘failed|accepted’

 

produces:

 

Jul  4 16:32:16 dmz-server01 sshd[8786]: Failed password for user02 from 192.168.105.51 port 38143 ssh2

Jul  4 16:33:53 dmz-server01 sshd[8786]: Accepted password for user01 from 192.168.105.38 port 38143 ssh2

Jul  4 16:36:05 dmz-server01 sshd[9010]: Accepted password for user01 from 192.168.105.38 port 38315 ssh2

Jul  5 01:04:00 dmz-server01 sshd[9308]: Accepted password for user01 from 192.168.105.38 port 60351 ssh2

Jul  5 08:21:58 dmz-server01 sshd[9802]: Accepted password for user01 from 192.168.105.38 port 51436 ssh2

Jul  6 10:21:52 dmz-server01 sshd[21912]: Accepted password for user01 from 192.168.105.38 port 36486 ssh2

Jul  6 13:43:10 dmz-server01 sshd[31701]: Accepted password for user01 from 192.168.105.30 port 34703 ssh2

Jun 26 11:21:02 dmz-server01 sshd[31950]: Accepted password for user01 from 192.168.105.70 port 37209 ssh2

 

 

Instead of miles of gibberish the log gets reduced to passed/fail authentication attempts.

 

You can spend an hour with each log source ( firewall, AV, etc) and quickly pare them down to whats interesting.

 

Then make SURE your OSSEC  rules cover what you want to see.

If that does not work – cron a script to parse the logs of interest using your regular expression expertise and have an email sent to you when something goes awry.

 

Revisist the logs manually periodically – they will change. New stuff will happen.  Only a human can catch that.

 

Take a look at:

http://www.securitywarriorconsulting.com/logtools/

 

The site lists a number of tools that may be useful

 

John Davis added:

 

You voice one of the biggest problems we see in information security programs: monitoring! People tell us that they don’t have the proper tools and, especially, they don’t have the manpower to perform effective logging and monitoring. And what they are saying is true, but unfortunately doesn’t let them out from having to do it. If you have peoples financial data, health data (HIPAA) or credit card information (PCI) you are bound by regulation or mandate to properly monitor your environment – and that means management processes, equipment, vulnerabilities and software as well as logs and tool outputs. The basic problem here is that most organizations don’t have any dedicated information security personnel at all, or the team they have isn’t adequate for the work load. Money is tight and employees are expensive so it is very difficult for senior management to justify the expenditure – paying a third party to monitor firewall logs is cheaper. But for real security there is no substitute for actual humans in the security loop – they simply cannot be replaced by technology. Unfortunately, I feel the only answer to your problem is for government and industry to realize this truth and mandate dedicated security personnel in organizations that process protected data.

 

As always, thanks for reading and if you have a question for the experts, either leave it in the comments, email us or drop us a line on Twitter at (@lbhuston). 

Ask The Experts: Daily Tasks

Posted on by
3

This time around, we get a great question from a reader:

Q: “I’m a one man infosec team at a small financial company, and as such, I stay overtasked. Can you give me a few examples of some key tasks I should make sure I am doing daily/weekly/monthly to make sure I am hitting them all and to help me better structure my schedule?”

Bill Hagestad answered with:

Daily Tasks: 

– Keep self and staff educated about latest cyber threats to your business – read the MSI Blog @ State of Securityhttps://stateofsecurity.com/;
– Review what Federal Law Enforcement considers top cyber threats are base on current cases:
– Compromise of account holder credentials leading to legitimate account compromise;
-Via  phasing attack vectors; unauthorized ACH transfers; 
– Compromise of Third Party Payment Processors;
 
Source: FBI Threat To Financial Sector
 
-Insider attacks – perhaps the largest threat to any commercial enterprise – especially given the recent NSA dilemma via a US contractor
 
– Have staff follow all account verification standing operating procedures – covering all types of customer interaction, including but not limited to; phone, Internet, and in-person account interactions;
– Information Security/Assurance infrastructure configuration changes should be reviewed daily and approved/counter-approved internally to eliminate potential administrative abuses;
– Hold weekly Information Security/Assurance infrastructure team meetings – invite MicroSolved to participate as a credible resource for staff to ask questions of and make sound recommendations.
 
Weekly Tasks:
 
– Stay ahead of international financial sector threat intelligence – read the MSI Blog @ State of Securityhttps://stateofsecurity.com/;
– Ensure account access lists are secure and validated both for external customers (most importantly) and also internal employee need to access/right to access customer account information;
  
Monthly Tasks:
 
– Participate in professional cyber/information assurance mailing lists – if not sure who or what these are contact MSI Cyber Threat Intelligence;
– Be certain to review the US Government Hearing Notes: Cybersecurity: Threats to the Financial Sector downloadable @ http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-112hhrg72601/pdf/CHRG-112hhrg72601.pdf
– Review or create a cyber threat identification strategy involving key staff and MicroSolved – install HoneyPoint Security Server to capture knowledge about who truly is probing your network, eliminate the proverbial network noise and focus on specific threat actors – e.g.; Russian Cyber Crimianls, Chinese entities using government cyber espionage tools for crime purposes
 
Adam Hostetler added:
It’s hard to answer exactly what you should be doing on a timely basis
without reviewing your current requirements, tools, processes, and
infrastructure. However, If you go to www.microsolved.com and look at
our 80/20 white paper, you can use that as a guideline to give you some
ideas to help build out your security program.

Examples of some things you could/should be doing.

Daily:
Log reviews. Not necessary for all logs, but if you have
IDS/IPS/Honeypots etc, they should be reviewed and investigated if needed
Spend a bit of time following up on the latest security news/threats.
That includes things like new vulnerabilities or exploits, and then
following up if it would affect you.

Weekly:
Check and verify backups and processes

Monthly:
Update software/OS patches.

 
Finally, Jim Klun weighed in with: 
1. Make sure your subscribed to security news-feeds/alerting services that apply to your environment. Review those daily.

2. Make sure you are reviewing your logs daily.  You should know every day about successful and unsuccessful logins. You should also be paying attention to your firewall logs for inbound activity and outbound activity.

3 If you have a local help desk, talk to them at least monthly. They are often in a position to see things that are in fact security problems.

4. Automate your patching program if that is not true already, then review patch reports monthly.

5. If you have Internet exposures, check them monthly. Make absolutely sure at the end of each month you are absolutely sure of what services your organization offers to the Internet – and why.

As always, thanks for reading and if you have a question for the experts, either leave it in the comments, email us or drop us a line on Twitter at (@lbhuston). 

Ask The Security Experts: Holiday Coverage

Posted on by
3

This time around on Ask The Security Experts, we have a question about holiday coverage for the security team:

Q: “With the upcoming summer holidays and heavy vacation schedules, what are some things I need to pay attention to in order to make sure attackers don’t catch us off guard while we are short on staff?”

Jim Klun weighed in with:

1. Make sure all staff have been reminded of the reality of phishing attacks and what they need to watch out for.
   Use real-world examples like this one: http://labs.ft.com/2013/05/a-sobering-day/ ( courtesy of Adam Hostetler )
   Its important that staff understand the potential severity of a successful phishing attack.
   Such attacks are more likely over holiday periods when attackers can rely on short-staffing.

2. Make sure all systems( both network/OS/application ) are logging and that you are reviewing those logs for anomalies
   Make it a particular point to review those logs after the holidays.
   Log review can be automated but should not be reduced to a formality.  Staff with familiarity with what is normal should be reviewing daily log reports and periodically
   examining the raw logs themselves.

3. Consider internal alerting systems such as Microsolved’s “Honeypoint” solution.  They can act as tripwires in your network, alerting you to the presence of an intruder.
   See: http://www.microsolved.com/honeypoint

Bill Hagestad added:

To prevent surprise cyber attacks the number one focus should be proactive cyber threat intelligence specifically related to your company based upon the following Essential Elements of Information (EEI):

– What are your priorities for intelligence?
– Competitor’s needs/focuses?
– External vendors interests on behalf of competitor?
– Foreign economic interests
– Commercial cyber espionage
– Foreign cyber espionage?
– Potential insider threats?

Once you have prioritized what you consider the information security threats are to your organization MicroSolved can help develop a information a security/assurance strategy.
First step determine a quick list of cyber intelligence targeting baed upon the EEI above;
Second – from the priorities determine your internal High Value Targets that the prioritized list of adversaries might focus on;
Third – install or fine tune your HoneyPoint Security Server to capture attacker and threat vector information; and,
Fourth – focus holiday staffing levels and efforts to mitigate list of potential cyber threats based upon both the EEI and steps 1 -3 above.

John Davis stated:

One of the things to pay particular attention to during vacation season is the security of returning portable devices. Employees will probably be traveling all over the place on their vacations, include foreign countries. And while traveling, people like to let their hair down and take it easy. They also like to keep abreast of their emails or surf the Internet looking for restaurants and places of interest.
Hotel networks and public hot spots are usually open networks and liable to sniffing by enterprising cyber criminals. Because of this, it is relatively easy for these attackers to implant Malware on laptops or other portable devices used by traveling employees. And, as we know, lots of enterprises these days have bring your own device policies in place or tolerate the casual use of company laptops for non-business purposes. To protect the network from this scenario, run anti-virus and other Malware detecting software on these devices, and/or boot them up in a stand alone test environment and look for problems before allowing them onto the production network.

There’s a LOT of good advice here. Hopefully, some of it helps you. Until next time, thanks for reading and have a safe holiday!

June’s Touchdown Task: EVA Coverage Check

Posted on by
3

The touchdown task for June is to perform a quick and dirty check of your ongoing external vulnerability assessment. By now, you should have your Internet facing systems assessed each month, with weekly or daily checks applied to critical systems. If you aren’t having your systems assessed for vulnerabilities in an ongoing manner, get that process started. MSI can assist you with this, of course. 

But, the task for June is to check and make sure that ALL of your public Internet facing systems, interfaces and devices are being assessed. Sometimes new systems might get added to the public IP space without making it into your assessment plan. Take an hour and check to make sure all the devices you know of are covered by the assessment. Do some quick ping/port scanning to make sure you are getting coverage and nothing has snuck in that is being missed. Give your assessment process a quick review and make sure that it is running on the proper IP spaces or lists and that the reports are as you expect.

Until next month, stay safe out there! 

Guest Blog Post: Less Pwn, More Help!

Posted on by
5

By: Mick Douglas (@bettersafetynet)

The client looked at us from across the table, grimacing as they gulped the foul coffee (sure it’s awful, but hey it’s a free perk!).  They leaned in and said conspiratorially “So can you… umm… sort of… help us get the inside scoop on how we can pass this pentest?” 

I pause and close my eyes for a second.  I’ve heard pleas like this throughout my career.  If you’re a veteran pentester, no doubt you have too.  And what I always think… no matter how large or small the client…  Nobody passes pentests!   It’s their turn to suffer under our boot as we hijack the network and have shells fall down on us like rain.  Nobody… nobody passes a pentest.  There’s always a way in.  Once we’re in, we make their worst nightmares come alive right under their own nose!  No, pentests aren’t for passing.  They’re to be endured.
 
Strong though the predatory instinct is, I must push it aside.  The “pop ’em all” approach — while immensely fun — is not the way of the true pentester.  All too often InfoSec practitioners focus on the technical aspect of the pentest.  If you’re reading this site, chances are good you’re a techie… not a suit.  So unless fate has given you a tour of duty on the other side of the table, you have no idea what hell you’re about to bring to someone who’d rather be doing anything else than deal with you — the pentester.  Things are about to get ugly, and your shell count has nothing to do with it.  You are about to turn their world upside down in ways you cannot begin to fathom.
 
It doesn’t matter if you’re internal, external, a consultant… whatever… you are the enemy.. and not in the way you think.  Sure, you’re the “enemy” as The Almighty Red Team here to cause mayhem and pop boxes.  However, what you might not realize is that the havoc is just getting started once you leave the engagement.  Next to nobody will remember the pivots, the recon, or the OSINT you did.  None of that really matters… What they will remember is that “Jake the InfoSec Guy” failed at his job — miserably. But wait there’s more!  Not only did he fail, but someone — who doesn’t know our systems — was able to use freely available tools from the internet to compromise our entire network!! To make matters worse, it was done in under a week!! It’s a safe bet that soon the client will look at the budget spent on firewalls, AV, IDS, even the salaries — everything — and think “All this spending… for what? They brushed aside our best efforts as if they were nothing more than cobwebs!”
 
If all your client gets out of your pentest is that they’ve got a crappy infosec program, then know what? You’re a crappy pentester.  

You may hate to hear this, but you *owe* your client.  
 
You need to give them a complete assessment which checks for multiple paths to the victory conditions.
 
You need to give them reports which are understandable, actionable, and brief.
 
You need to teach them what you did so they can re-test for themselves.
 
You have to show what’s wrong, but also give them multiple options on how to fix, remediate, or compensate for the findings.
 
You need to offer “quick win” fixes so the infosec program can start rebuilding their credibility after you clipped their wings.
 
You need to give them suggestions on how to alter business operations to better avoid risks altogether.
 
You need to give them a road map on how to get better tomorrow… and the next day after.
 
You need to give and give.
 
Most of all, you need to give them hope.
 

About the Author:

Mick Douglas (twitter.com/bettersafetynet) does R&D, PenTesting, and profesional services for Diebold Inc.  When he’s not doing tech stuff, he’s off in the woods somewhere hiking or trying — mostly in vain — to improve his photography chops.

Thanks to Mick for contributing. I think he’s right on with what we need to do as penetration testers. — Brent Huston

InfoSec, The World & YOU Episode 2

Posted on by
Reply

Once again, Victoria Lowengart (@gisobiz) and I team up to discuss events in the real world and how they impact cyber threats. This time around we talk North Korea, Anonymous and touch on Industrial Control Systems. We also give a quick preview of Op Petrol. Check it out here:

Grab the MP3.

Thanks for listening and until next time, stay safe out there! 

What YOU Can Do About International Threats

Posted on by
4

Binary eye

With the addition of RedDragon Rising (@RedDragon1949) to the blog, we are now pushing forth a new stream of threat data and insights about the growing problem of international threats. Since we added that content to the site, many of you have written in or asked me on Twitter, what is it that YOU can do about these threats? I wanted to take a few minutes and expand on my responses.

First of all, you can remain aware and vigilant. Much of the information we post here isn’t directly actionable. It isn’t designed to be a roadmap of actions for you to take. It’s designed to be a continual source of data that slowly helps you see a clearer picture of the threat, the actors and their capability. It’s designed to keep you AWAKE. It’s custom made to help you understand your adversary. Knowledge is power and insight is key. We make this content to give you both!

Second, you can communicate the threat and knowledge to your management. This helps them remain aware. It also presents to them that you are monitoring the threats and keeping your eye on the rising tides, even as you help them steer the ship through safe waters. You can use this information to build rapport with them, to give them new insights into your decisions when you explain to them various risks and to help them understand the changing nature of the interconnected world.

You can use the information here as an impetus to get the basics of information security right. While there aren’t any panaceas to fight off the threat and there isn’t a single thing you can buy to make it better ~ we do know that focusing on the basics of infosec and getting them done efficiently, effectively and well is the best defense against a variety of threats. That said, consider doing a quick and dirty review of your security initiatives against our 80/20 Rule for Information Security. This is a set of simple projects that represent the basics of information security and map easily to other standards and baselines. Simply judging your maturity in these areas and following the roadmap to improvement will go a long way to getting the basics done right in your organization. 

Invest in detection and response. If your organization is doing the basics of prevention, that is you have hardening in place and are performing ongoing assessment and mitigation of your attack surfaces, then the next thing to do is invest in detection and response capabilities. Today, one of the largest advantages that attackers enjoy is the lack of visibility and effective response capabilities in our organizations. You should have some visibility into every segment and at every layer of your environment. You should be able to identify compromises in a timely manner and move to isolate, investigate and recover from any breaches LONG BEFORE they have become widespread and heavily leveraged against you. If you can’t do that today, make it your next major infosec goal. Need help?Ask us about it.

Lastly, share information with your peers. The bad guys are good at information sharing. They have excellent metrics. They openly share their experiences, successes, failures and new techniques. Much of crime and espionage (not all, but MUCH) is “open source” in nature. The cells of attackers free float in conglomerations of opportunity.  They barter with experience, tools, data and money. They share. The more we begin to share and emulate their “open source” approaches, the better off we can be at defending. If knowledge is power, more brains with more knowledge and experience equals MORE POWER. Be a part of the solution.

That’s it for now. Just remain calm, get better at the basics, improve your visibility and stay vigilant. As always, thanks  for reading State of Security and for choosing MicroSolved as your information security partner. We are striving to dig deeper, to think differently and to give you truly actionable intelligence and threat data that is personalized, relevant to your organization and meaningful. If you’d like to hear more about our approach and what it can mean for your organization, get in touch via Twitter (@lbhuston), email (info(at)microsolved/dot/com) or phone (614-351-1237 ext 250). 

May’s Touchdown Task: Egress Audit

Posted on by
4

The touchdown task for May is a quick and dirty egress filtering audit. Take a look at your firewalls and make sure they are performing egress filtering (you do this, right? If not, make it happen now ~ it’s the single most effective defense against bot-nets). Once you know egress is in place, give a once over to the firewall rules that enforce it. Make sure they are effective at blocking arbitrary ports, outbound SSH, outbound VPN connections, etc. Verify that any exposed egress ports are to specific IPs or ranges. If you find any short comings, fix them.

Also take a look and make sure that violations of the firewall rules are being alerted on, so your team can investigate those alerts as potential infection sites. 

Lastly, check to make sure that you have egress controls for outbound web traffic. You should be using an egress proxy for all HTTP and HTTPS traffic. Yes, you should be terminating SSL and watching that traffic for signs of infection or exfiltration of sensitive data. Take a few moments and make sure you have visibility into the web traffic of your users. If not, take that as an immediate project. 

That’s it. This review should take a couple of hours or so to complete. But, the insights and security enhancements it can bring are HUGE. 

Until next month, thanks for reading and run for the goal line!

March Touchdown Task: Check the Firewall Logs

Posted on by
4

This month’s Touchdown Task is to help you with detection and response. For March, we suggest you do a quick controls review on your firewall logs. Here’s some questions to begin with:

  • Are you tracking the proper amount of data?
  • Are the logs archived properly?
  • Do you have IP addresses instead of DNS names in the logs?
  • Are the time and date settings on the logs correct?
  • Is everything working as expected?

Undertaking a different quick and dirty Touchdown Task each month helps increase vigilance without huge amounts of impact on schedules and resources. Thanks for reading!