Tales From a Non-Security Professional, An End-User’s View

I’ve been working in the information security business for two years and have been amazed by what I’ve learned during this time. I remember when I thought, “Information security? Sure. A bunch of geeks patrolling their networks.” I had seen the movie Hackers, after all.

But I had no idea of the breadth and depth of information security. Basically, if you’re using technology, your data is at risk. Any piece of technology that you use that has sensitive data stored can be stolen. It is up to an individual to be proactive when it comes to information security instead of assuming “The IT Team” will take care of it.

Case in point: This morning I read an article from Dark Reading about Intel’s workers thwarting a malicious email virus. Pretty cool. Those workers took the initiative. They didn’t say to themselves, “Hmm. this email looks a little dicey, but I’m sure IT has it covered..”

Instead, each worker who recognized the malicious email immediately contacted the IT department. Because of such quick action, the IT department was able to contain the potential risk and take care of it. This type of response doesn’t happen overnight (And hopefully won’t take two years, either.) but was the result of consistent education.

For me, I’ve tightened up my own personal security posture as a result of hearing what happens when you don’t pay attention. Here are a few precautions I’ve taken:

1) Never leave a laptop in the front seat of your car.

      This may seem basic, but many workers who have a company-owned laptop will often put it on the passenger’s side of the car, or on the floor. It is easy to assume that when you stop to get gas and take a quick detour into the convenience store to grab a drink, that no one will bother your car. Don’t bet on it.

According to a CSI/FBI Computer Crime and Security Survey

      , data loss from laptop theft came in third and fourth behind virus attacks and unauthorized access. Make a habit of placing your laptop in your trunk, away from prying eyes. And if you really want to protect it, carry it around with you. I’ve been known to carry my laptop inside a CVS, and restaurants. I usually say to myself, “How inconvenient/annoying/scary would it be if this laptop was stolen?” Yep. It’s going with me.

2) Passwords, smashwords! We all belong to probably way too many websites that require a password to access it. That’s not even counting the passwords we need to remember for our work email, database, or access to the intranet. We’re also told by our friendly IT team that we need to change those passwords on a regular basis. If you have trouble remembering what you had to eat for breakfast yesterday, much less trying to remember a password you created three months ago, I have the solution: a password vault. I can’t tell you how much this has alleviated the stress of remembering and revising passwords. I use KeePassX, an open-source password vault application.

Whenever I change my password, I immediately open the app and update my entry. Whenever I join a new site that requires a password, I’ll add a new entry. It’s simple and quick, and will protect me from some joker trying to hack into my sites. Once you get into a habit of changing your passwords, it becomes easier. Believe me, this is a heckuva lot easier than scratching out various passwords and usernames on a scrap piece of paper, throwing it into your desk drawer and then trying to find it three months later.

3) Delete stupid emails. This goes back to the “Here You Have” virus that the Intel employees avoided opening. They immediately saw the risk and reported it. Don’t open emails from people or groups that you don’t recognize. In fact, I created a spam folder and just move those types of emails into it if the regular spam filter doesn’t catch them. I empty the folder on a regular basis. No matter how enticing an email header is, if you don’t recognize the sender, trash it. For those who are detail-oriented, you really don’t have to open every email you receive. Really. You probably didn’t win that lottery, anyway.

4) Be suspicious. This one is probably the most difficult for me. I’m a friendly person. I like people. I was raised by two very outgoing parents and hence, I have a soft spot for striking up conversations with perfect strangers. I find I’m a magnet for some of them, too. When you’re in your office, this can be used against you by a clever attacker. If you’re an IT staff person, you may get a call from someone who is in some type of a bad spot and needs access to “their” data at work and gosh, could we just skip the authentication process? Because most of us are wired to help others (thank you very much, customer service training), we obviously try to be of assistance. Meanwhile, the attacker is counting on this and will press an employee to give them information without checking their credentials. If anyone calls me and starts asking a bunch of nosy questions, I’ll start asking mine right back: “What company do you represent? What is your name? What is your phone number? Why do you need to know this information?”

Sometimes asking such questions may feel awkward, but remember, we’re protecting our company’s data. We’re on the front line and a little discomfort can go a long way in winning the battle of security.

These are a few things I’ve learned over time. Information security isn’t only the IT department’s job or the CISO/CTO/CIO’s. It’s a job that belongs to everyone. If I could sum it up, I’d say this: Be aware. Be aware of your surroundings, aware of your technology, aware of access points. Keeping your eyes and ears open will not only save you a bunch of headaches (and perhaps your job) but will save your company money. And in today’s economy, that is a very, very good thing.

Research, NIST Speaks

Over the past week some researchers have published new methods and tools for embedded device hacking and ways to improve blind SQL injection. It will be interesting to see the scope of where embedded device hacking goes, as more devices are getting additional capabilities, that may be coming in exchange for security. Also, the NIST says the feds are keeping up on their own penetration testing and will release new guidelines in March required third party testing for federally controlled facilities.

A new version of Nipper has been released. This handy tool performs configuration auditing for various network devices and can make limited security recommendations. When was the last time you went through your firewall rules? This should be happening at some regular occurrence, however dull it may be.

Another worm, Nugache, has recently been covered in an article by Bruce Schneier, where he talks about some interesting stuff. No direct C&C server, encrypted packets all around, and the ability for any node to become the “leader”. Bot development is becoming more sophisticated, and funded. Expect to see some serious Trojans in the coming future.

Storm Worm Goes Active Again and Odd Port 56893/TCP Probes

Two fairly interesting items tonight:

1) SANS is getting reports that the Storm worm is active again. This time sending messages attempting to draw victims to the “merry christmasdude.com” <take out the space> domain. As of 10:30 PM Eastern tonight, the domain is being flooded with traffic, but appears to be functional. SANS is suggesting applying domain blocks to the domain, and it would probably be good to add mail and other content filtering rules as well, if you are still using the blacklist approach. Here is the whois for the domain:

Domain name: MERRYCHRISTMASDUDE.COM
Creation Date: 2007.11.27
Updated Date: 2007.12.17
Expiration Date: 2008.11.27
Status: DELEGATED
Registrant ID: P4DHBN0-RU
Registrant Name: John A Cortas
Registrant Organization: John A Cortas
Registrant Street1: Green st 322, fl.10
Registrant City: Toronto
Registrant Postal Code: 12345
Registrant Country: CA
Administrative, Technical Contact
Contact ID: P4DHBN0-RU
Contact Name: John A Cortas
Contact Organization: John A Cortas
Contact Street1: Green st 322, fl.10
Contact City: Toronto
Contact Postal Code: 12345
Contact Country: CA
Contact Phone: +1 435 2312633
Contact E-mail: cortas2008@yahoo.com
Registrar: ANO Regional Network Information Center dba RU-CENTER
Last updated on 2007.12.24 06:17:35 MSK/MSD

2) Also, on a secondary note, we are getting a rapid increase in probes to TCP 56893. This port has been a known port for an SSH trojan and botnet deployment in the past. This may be related to the Storm worm activity or may be another bot group gearing up for activity.

It looks like the holiday is likely to bring a high level of increase in bot activity and as always, attackers will be looking for new machines received as gifts that will suddenly appear online and may be missing a patch or two. Make sure you give some advice to new techies and computer owners this holiday – patch early, patch often and make sure you build layers of defense against today’s emerging threats!

A Plethora of New Issues for Today

It’s been a busy morning for vulnerabilities so far. We are tracking new vulnerabilities in the following applications:

Squid Proxy – a DoS problem has been identified in the ICAP implementation that could allow attackers to spike the CPU of the server, a patch is available and should be applied on your next maintenance process

Samba – A buffer overflow in Samba version 3.0.27a allows remote execution of code if the “domain logons” option is enabled, patches are available on the Samba site for the problem.

WordPress – A SQL injection has been found in the charset implementation. Dumping the database is possible and when combined with other exploits already available can allow remote compromise of the WordPress Admin password. There is a workaround, but it is very specific to each WordPress deployment, so check the WordPress site carefully for info on this issue.

We are also tracking a few new tools of interest, that might increase some of the scan and probe traffic over the next few weeks while attackers play with their new toys. They are:

HttpRecon – a tool for advanced web server fingerprinting, likely to increase web server probes as the tool is examined and included into other tools

BurpSuite – a new revision of this tool for testing websites for things like SQL injection and XSS is now available, likely to cause scans for web application problems

EchoVNC – a firewall, proxy and network access control avoidance enabled version of the VNC server has been released, this is likely to be a useful tool for attackers and bot-masters as they compromise networks

Lastly, Microsoft is releasing a large load of patches today. Amongst them are 3 remotely exploitable “critical” patches. Look for exploits and such to follow very quickly if they are not already available. Wide scale exploit distribution and inclusion into bot-net clients is likely to follow in the next few days. As always, patches should be tested and applied as soon as possible.

OpenBSD Ouchie, Apple QuickTime and Solaris 10 Vulns

In a pretty rare occurrence, a remote buffer overflow in OpenBSD has been identified. The vulnerability exists in “dhcpd”, the DHCP daemon, and allows denial of service and arbitrary code execution on 4.0 – 4.2. This issue was originally published in May, but new developments have been made in refining the exploits and in details about the issue. Patches are available, and should be installed as soon as possible.

Apple updated QuickTime to fix several identified issues, including some security problems. The updates are now available, and if you use the Apple update service, you should get them applied automatically. The big problem repaired in this release is a heap overflow that can be used to seize control of machines. We mention this update because QuickTime is one of those pesky applications that seem to turn up everywhere, in many organizations. It would likely be wise to check not only workstations, but also any servers that are used in training, multi-media or presentations. QuickTime seems to be a common tool for these mechanisms.

Lastly, Solaris 10 systems have proven to be vulnerable to a new buffer overflow in the monitoring package “srsexec”. This is installed in many Solaris systems, especially those leveraging the centralized console management and administrative console applications. Attackers with local access to the Solaris system can exploit this issue to execute arbitrary code as “root”, since the binary is suid by default. Patches are already available and should be applied as soon as practical.

WatchDog Content Moving to StateOfSecurity.com

If you are a regular WatchDog product user, then you may already know this, but on November 1, 2007 MSI will move all WatchDog content to this blog and begin to phase out the WatchDog client program.

This is being done to simplify the use and access to the information and to enable users to easily leverage our threat intelligence offerings via RSS and other popular mechanisms without using our locked-in client.

The same information that WatchDog has brought to you for years will continue, but hosted here instead of through the WatchDog client. It will also be stored in the emerging threats category – thus making it easy to subscribe or filter on.

We hope you continue to benefit from our work and insights, and please, let us know how you like the WatchDog content and if we can do something better or more helpful with the data.