Category: Cloud

Cybersecurity Terms and Threats You Need to Know in 2020

Let’s do a show of hands — who loves jargon? Anyone?

I didn’t think so.

Face it, aside from trivia champions, jargon doesn’t make life any easier for us. If you’re attending your first security conference this year, you might feel like you need an interpreter to make sense of the technical terminology and acronyms you’ll find around every corner.

At Cisco Umbrella, we’re fluent in cybersecurity – and we want to help you make sense of the often-confusing security landscape! In this post, we define key cybersecurity terms that everyone should know in 2020 — and beyond.

Part 1: Threats

Backdoor: A backdoor is an access point designed to allow quick and undetected entrance to a program or system, usually for malicious purposes. A backdoor can be installed by an attacker using a known security vulnerability, and then used later to gain unfettered access to a system.

Botnet: A botnet is a portmanteau for “robot network.” It’s a collection of infected machines that can be used for any number of questionable activities, from cryptomining to DDoS attacks to automated spam comments on blogs.

Command-and-control (C2) attacks: Command-and-control attacks are especially dangerous because they are launched from inside your network. Security technologies like firewalls are designed to recognize and stop malicious activity or files from entering your network. However, a command-and-control attack is trickier than a standard threat. A file doesn’t start out showing any malicious behavior, so it is deemed harmless by your firewall and permitted to enter your network. Once inside, the file stays dormant for a set period of time or after being triggered remotely. Then, the file reaches out to a malicious domain and downloads harmful data, infecting your network.

Denial of Service (DoS) Attack: This type of attack consumes all of the resources of a target so that it can no longer be used or reached, effectively taking it down. DoS attacks are designed to take a website or server offline, whether for monetary, political, or other reasons. A DDoS, or Distributed Denial of Service attack, is a subcategory of DoS attack that is carried out using two or more hosts, often via a botnet.

Drive-by download: A drive-by download installs malware invisibly in the background when the user visits a malicious webpage, without the user’s knowledge or consent. Often, drive-by downloads take advantage of browser or browser plug-in vulnerabilities that accept a download under the assumption that it’s a benign activity. Using an up-to-date secure browser can help protect you against this type of attack.

Exploit: An exploit is any attack that takes advantage of a weakness in your system. It can make use of software, bits of data, and even social engineering (like pretending to be someone from your IT team who needs your password to perform a security update). To minimize exploits, it’s important to keep your software up-to-date and to be aware of social engineering techniques (see below).

Malware: Malware is a generic term for any program installed on a system with the intent to corrupt, damage, or disable that system. Razy, TeslaCry, NotPetya, and Emotet are a few recent examples.

  • Cryptomining malware: Cryptomining by itself is not necessarily malicious — many people mine crypto currency on their own systems. Malicious cryptomining, however, is a browser- or software-based threat that enables bad actors to hijack system resources to generate crypto currencies. Cryptomining malware is an easy way for bad actors to generate cash while remaining anonymous and without having to use their own resources. Learn more about the cryptomining malware threat.
  • Ransomware: Ransomware is malware used to encrypt a victim’s data with an encryption key that is known only to the attacker. The data becomes unusable until the victim pays a ransom to decrypt the data (usually in cryptocurrency). Ransomware is a fast-growing and serious threat — learn more in our newly updated guide to ransomware defense.
  • Rootkits: A rootkit is a malicious piece of code that hides itself in your system, prevents detection, and enables bad actors to gain continued access to your system. If attackers gain full access to your system once, they can use rootkits to continue that access over a long period of time.
  • Spyware: Malicious code that gathers information about you and your browsing habits, and then sends that information to a third party.
  • Trojans: A trojan is a seemingly innocuous program that acts as a front for malicious code hiding inside. Trojans can do any number of things, from stealing data to allowing remote system control.  These programs take their name from the famous Grecian “Trojan Horse” that took advantage of a similar vulnerability.
  • Viruses: Often used as a blanket term, a virus is a piece of code that attaches itself to files, such as email attachments or files you download online. Once it infects your system, it can cause all kinds of problems, whether that means deleting system files or corrupting your data. Computer viruses also replicate and spread across networks – just like viruses in the physical world.
  • Worms: A worm is a type of malware that clones itself in order to spread to other computers, performing various damaging actions on whatever system it infects. Unlike a virus, a worm exists as a standalone entity — it isn’t hidden inside something else like an attachment.

MitM or Man-in-the-Middle Attack: A MitM attack is pretty much what it sounds like. An attacker will intercept, relay, and potentially change messages between two parties without their knowledge. MitM can be used to break encryption, compromise account details, or gain access to systems by impersonating a user.

Phishing: Phishing is a technique that mimics a legitimate communication (like an email from your online bank) to steal sensitive information. Like fishermen with a lure, attackers will attempt to take your personal information by using fake emails, forms, and web pages to coax you to provide it to them.

  • Spear phishing is a form of phishing that targets one specific individual by using publicly accessible data about them, like from a business card or social media profile.
  • Whale phishing goes one step further than spear phishing and describes a targeted attack on a high-ranking individual, like a CEO or government official.

Social engineering: A general term for any activity in which an attacker is trying to manipulate you into revealing information, whether over email, phone, web forms, or social media platforms. Passwords, account credentials, social security numbers — we often don’t think twice about giving this information away to someone we can trust, but who’s really on the other end of the line? Protect yourself, and think twice before sharing. It’s always OK to verify the request for information in another way, like calling an official customer support number.

Zero-day (0day): A zero day attack is when a bad actor exploits a new, previously unknown software vulnerability for which there is no patch. It’s a constant struggle to stay ahead of attackers, but you don’t have to do it alone — you can get help from the security experts at Cisco Talos.

Part 2: Solutions

Anti-malware: Anti-malware software is a broad category of software designed to block, root out, and destroy viruses, worms, and other nasty things that are described in this list. These products need to be updated regularly to ensure that they remain effective against new threats. They can be deployed at various points in the network chain (email, endpoint, data center, cloud) and either on-premises or delivered from the cloud.

Cloud access security broker (CASB): This is software that provides the ability to detect and report on the cloud applications that are in use across your environment. It provides visibility into cloud apps in use as well as their risk profiles, and the ability to block/allow specific apps. Read more about securing cloud apps here.

Cloud security: this is a subcategory of information security and network security. It is a broad term that can include security policies, technologies, applications, and controls that are used to protect sensitive company and user data wherever it is exposed in a public, private, or hybrid cloud environment.

DNS-layer security: This is the first line of defense against threats because DNS resolution is the first step in establishing a connection to the internet. It blocks requests to malicious and unwanted destinations before a connection is even established — stopping threats over any port or protocol before they reach your network or endpoints. Learn more about DNS-layer security here.

Email security: This refers to the technologies, policies, and practices used to secure the access and content of email messages within an organization. Many attacks are launched via email messages, whether through targeted attacks (see note on phishing above) or malicious attachments or links. A robust email security solution protects you from attacks whether email is in transit across your network or when it is on a user’s device.

Encryption: This is the process of scrambling messages so that they cannot be read until they are decrypted by the intended recipient. There are several types of encryption, and it’s an important component of a robust security strategy.

Endpoint security: if DNS-layer security is the first line of defense against threats, then you might think of endpoint security as the last line of defense! Endpoints can include desktop computers, laptop computers, tablets, mobile phones, desk phones, and even wearable devices — anything with a network address is a potential attack path. Endpoint security software can be deployed on an endpoint to protect against file-based, fileless, and other types of malware with threat detection, prevention, and remediation capabilities.

Firewall: Imagine all the nasty, malicious stuff on the Internet without anything to stop it. A firewall stands between your trusted entities and whatever lies beyond, controlling access based on security rules. A firewall can be hardware or software, a standalone security appliance or a cloud-delivered solution.

Next-generation firewall (NGFW): This is the industry’s new solution for an evolved firewall.  It is typically fully integrated with the rest of the security stack, threat-focused, and delivers comprehensive, unified policy management of firewall functions, application control, threat prevention, and advanced malware protection from the network to the endpoint.

Security information and event management (SIEM): This is a broad term for products that deal with security information management (SIM) and security event management (SEM). These systems allow for aggregation of information and events into a single “pane of glass” for security teams to use.

Secure web gateway (SWG): This is a proxy that can log and inspect all of your web traffic for greater transparency, control, and protection. It allows for real-time inspection of inbound files for malware, sandboxing, full or selective SSL decryption, content filtering, and the ability to block specific user activities in select apps.

Secure internet gateway (SIG): This is a cloud-delivered solution that unifies a variety of connectivity, content control, and access technologies to provide users with safe access to the internet, both on and off the network. By operating from the cloud, a SIG protects user access anywhere and everywhere, with traffic routing to the gateway for inspection and policy enforcement regardless of what users are connecting to, or where they’re connecting from. Because a SIG extends security beyond the edge of the traditional network — and without the need for additional hardware or software — thousands of enterprises have adopted it as a modern catch-all for ensuring that users, devices, endpoints, and data have robust protection from threats.

Secure access service edge (SASE): Gartner introduced an entirely new enterprise networking and security category called “secure access service edge.” SASE brings together networking and security services into one unified solution designed to deliver strong security from edge to edge — in the data center, at remote offices, with roaming users, and beyond. By consolidating a variety of powerful point solutions into one solution that can be deployed anywhere from the cloud, SASE can provide better protection and faster network performance, while reducing the cost and work it takes to secure the network.

Cybersecurity is always evolving, and it can be hard to keep up with the rapid pace of changes. Be sure to bookmark this blog post – we’ll keep it up to date as new threats and technologies emerge. To learn more, check out our recent blog posts about cybersecurity research, or come chat with our security experts in person in Barcelona at Cisco Live EMEA this month. Don’t be shy!

 

Source :
https://umbrella.cisco.com/blog/2020/01/14/cybersecurity-terms-and-threats-you-need-to-know-in-2020/

How DNS-Layer Security Can Improve Cloud Workloads

More organizations are adopting the public cloud for their enterprise workloads. Gartner has forecasted1 that by 2020, less than 5% of enterprise workloads will be running in true on-premises private clouds. As workloads move to public clouds, it is crucial that security architectures evolve to protect those workloads, wherever they are.

Like with on-premises applications, a layered security approach works better than point solutions for cloud workloads. But the security challenges in the cloud are different. Without a physical data center in which you build your security stack to protect your data, it’s difficult to know if you’re fully protected everywhere your enterprise data is exposed.

That’s where DNS-layer security comes in. Since DNS is built into the foundation of the Internet, security at the DNS-layer can be simple to deploy and highly effective, whether your enterprise uses on-premises architecture or the public cloud. Cisco Umbrella provides DNS-based security that blocks requests to malware, phishing, and botnets before a connection is even established. It can prevent cloud workloads from being leveraged for malicious cryptomining by blocking requests to suspicious domains. Content category blocking can also be configured to prevent cloud workloads from being used by employees to circumvent on-premises content filtering rules.

One of the simplest approaches to enable DNS-based security for cloud-native workloads is to point the DNS server used by these workloads to Cisco Umbrella. This enables DNS-level blocking of malicious domains and provides an added layer of security. However, since most cloud workloads tend to access the Internet through an ephemeral public IP address, it is difficult to define policy or to view reporting of DNS activity in the public cloud.

Another approach is to deploy the Cisco Umbrella Virtual Appliance in a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) in the public cloud. Workloads in that VPC can use the Virtual Appliance as their DNS server. The Virtual Appliance forwards DNS requests for external domains to Umbrella and includes the source IP of the requesting workload in the DNS metadata. Virtual Appliances include a customer identifier in each outgoing DNS request, which enables them to be used for environments with ephemeral public IP addresses. With the Virtual Appliance approach, subnet-based content filtering policies can be defined for cloud workloads. Umbrella can also provide visibility into the source of malicious domain requests, allowing administrators to quickly remediate these workloads.

The Cisco Umbrella Virtual Appliance now supports deployment in the three major public cloud platforms: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). With many organizations now adopting a multi-cloud strategy2, deploying Umbrella Virtual Appliances in the respective public cloud VPCs can provide a highly effective added layer of security for workloads deployed in any of these platforms, as well as improved visibility into activity.

What are you waiting for? Sign up for a free trial of Cisco Umbrella, and start leveraging the power of DNS-layer security to protect your cloud workloads.

  1. Modernize IT infrastructure in a hybrid world, Gartner, Mar 2019. Retrieved from https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/modernize-it-infrastructure-in-a-hybrid-world/
  2. Why organizations choose a Multicloud strategy, Gartner, May 2019. Retrieved from https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/why-organizations-choose-a-multicloud-strategy/

Source :
https://umbrella.cisco.com/blog/2020/01/23/how-dns-layer-security-can-improve-cloud-workloads/

What is DNSSEC and Why Is It Important?

If you’re like most companies, you probably leave your DNS resolution up to your ISP. But as employees bypass the VPN, and even more organizations adopt direct internet access, it’s more than likely that you have a DNS blind spot. So what steps can you take to ensure your visibility remains free and clear?

One simple and easy thing you can start doing right away is to mine your DNS data. Each time a browser contacts a domain name, it has to contact the DNS server first. Since DNS requests precede the IP connection, DNS resolvers log requested domains regardless of the connection’s protocol or port. That’s an information gold mine! Just by monitoring DNS requests and subsequent IP connections you will eliminate the blind spot and easily gain better accuracy and detection of compromised systems and improve your security visibility and network protection.

But what about those pesky cache poisoning attacks, also known as DNS spoofing?

DNS cache poisoning attacks locate and then exploit vulnerabilities that exist in the DNS, in order to draw organic traffic away from a legitimate server toward a fake one.This type of attack is dangerous because the client an be redirected, and since the attack is on the DNS server, it will impact a very large number of users.

Back in the early nineties, the era of the world-wide-web, Sony Discmans and beepers (we’ve come a long way kids!), the Internet Engineering Task Force, or  IETF started thinking about ways to make DNS more secure. The task force proposed ways to harden DNS and in 2005, Domain Name System Security Extensions, aka DNSSEC, was formally introduced.

DNS Security Extensions, better known as DNSSEC, is a technology that was developed to, among other things, protect against [cache poisoning] attacks by digitally ‘signing’ data so you can be assured [the DNS answer] is valid. DNSSEC uses cryptographic signatures similar to using GPG to sign an email; it proves both the validity of the answer and the identity of the signer. Special records are published in the DNS allowing recursive resolvers or clients to validate signatures. There is no central certificate authority, instead parent zones provide certificate hash information in the delegation allowing for proof of validity.

Cisco Umbrella now supports DNSSEC by performing validation on queries sent from Umbrella resolvers to upstream authorities. Customers can have the confidence that Cisco Umbrella is protecting their organization from cache poisoning attacks, without having to perform validation locally.

Cisco Umbrella supports DNSSEC

Cisco Umbrella delivers the best, most reliable, and fastest internet experience to every single one of our more than 100 million users. We are the leading provider of network security and DNS services, enabling the world to connect to the internet with confidence on any device.

Get the details on how Cisco Umbrella supports DNSSEC.

 

Source :
https://umbrella.cisco.com/blog/2020/01/28/what-is-dnssec-and-why-is-it-important/

Emotet Malware Now Hacks Nearby Wi-Fi Networks to Infect New Victims

Emotet, the notorious trojan behind a number of botnet-driven spam campaigns and ransomware attacks, has found a new attack vector: using already infected devices to identify new victims that are connected to nearby Wi-Fi networks.

According to researchers at Binary Defense, the newly discovered Emotet sample leverages a "Wi-Fi spreader" module to scan Wi-Fi networks, and then attempts to infect devices that are connected to them.

The cybersecurity firm said the Wi-Fi spreader has a timestamp of April 16, 2018, indicating the spreading behavior has been running "unnoticed" for close to two years until it was detected for the first time last month.

The development marks an escalation of Emotet's capabilities, as networks in close physical proximity to the original victim are now susceptible to infection.

How Does Emotet's Wi-Fi Spreader Module Work?

The updated version of the malware works by leveraging an already compromised host to list all the nearby Wi-Fi networks. To do so, it makes use of the wlanAPI interface to extract the SSID, signal strength, the authentication method (WPA, WPA2, or WEP), and mode of encryption used to secure passwords.

On obtaining the information for each network this way, the worm attempts to connect to the networks by performing a brute-force attack using passwords obtained from one of two internal password lists. Provided the connection fails, it moves to the next password in the list. It's not immediately clear how this list of passwords was put together.

Emotet malware cybersecurity

But if the operation succeeds, the malware connects the compromised system on the newly-accessed network and begins enumerating all non-hidden shares. It then carries out a second round of brute-force attack to guess the usernames and passwords of all users connected to the network resource.

After having successfully brute-forced users and their passwords, the worm moves to the next phase by installing malicious payloads — called "service.exe" — on the newly infected remote systems. To cloak its behavior, the payload is installed as a Windows Defender System Service (WinDefService).

In addition to communicating with a command-and-control (C2) server, the service acts as a dropper and executes the Emotet binary on the infected host.

The fact that Emotet can jump from one Wi-Fi network to the other puts onus on companies to secure their networks with strong passwords to prevent unauthorized access. The malware can also be detected by actively monitoring processes running from temporary folders and user profile application data folders.

Emotet: From Banking Trojan to Malware Loader

Emotet, which was first identified in 2014, has morphed from its original roots as a banking Trojan to a "Swiss Army knife" that can serve as a downloader, information stealer, and spambot depending on how it's deployed.

Over the years, it has also been an effective delivery mechanism for ransomware. Lake City's IT network was crippled last June after an employee inadvertently opened a suspicious email that downloaded the Emotet Trojan, which in turn downloaded TrickBot trojan and Ryuk ransomware.

Although Emotet-driven campaigns largely disappeared throughout the summer of 2019, it made a comeback in September via "geographically-targeted emails with local-language lures and brands, often financial in theme, and using malicious document attachments or links to similar documents, which, when users enabled macros, installed Emotet."

"With this newly discovered loader-type used by Emotet, a new threat vector is introduced to Emotet's capabilities," Binary Defense researchers concluded. "Emotet can use this loader-type to spread through nearby wireless networks if the networks use insecure passwords."

Coronavirus Affecting Business as Remote Workforces Expand Beyond Expected Capacity

The novel coronavirus epidemic is a major global health concern. To help prevent the spread of the new virus, organizations, businesses and enterprises are protecting their workforce and allowing employees to work remotely. This practice helps limit individual contact with large groups or crowds (e.g., restaurants, offices, transit) where viruses can easily spread.

As such, ‘stay at home’ is a common phrase in many health-conscious regions this week. According to the BBC, the city of Suzhou said businesses would remain closed until Feb 8, if not longer. As of 2018, Suzhou had a population of more than 10.7 million people.

On Jan. 30, the World Health Organization labeled the outbreak as a global health emergency. In response, the U.S. Department of issued a Level 4 travel advisory to China (do not travel).

Precautions like these are causing unexpected increases in mobile workers; many organizations don’t have enough virtual private network (VPN) licenses to accommodate the increase of users. This is a serious risk as employees will either not have access to business resources or, worse, they will do so via non-secure connections.

Organizations and enterprises in affected areas should review their business continuity plans. The National Law Review published a useful primer for employers and organizations managing workforces susceptible to coronavirus outbreaks. In addition, leverage SonicWall’s ‘5 Core Practices to Ensure Business Continuity.”

What is the coronavirus?

Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) is a respiratory illness first identified in Wuhan, China, but cases have since been reported in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Germany, France, Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong, and nine other countries. In an effort to contain the virus, the Chinese authorities have suspended air and rail travel in the area around Wuhan.

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), early patients in the outbreak in China “reportedly had some link to a large seafood and animal market, suggesting animal-to-person spread. However, a growing number of patients reportedly have not had exposure to animal markets, indicating person-to-person spread is occurring. At this time, it’s unclear how easily or sustainably this virus is spreading between people.”

The latest situation summary updates are available via the CDC: 2019 Novel Coronavirus, Wuhan, China.

source :
https://blog.sonicwall.com/en-us/2020/02/coronavirus-affecting-business-as-remote-workforces-expand/

Inside Cybercriminal Inc.: SonicWall Exposes New Cyberattack Data, Threat Actor Behaviors in Latest Report

For cybercriminals and threat actors, the digital frontier is a lawless panorama of targets and opportunity. Despite the best intentions of government agencies, law enforcement and oversight groups, the modern cyber threat landscape is more agile and evasive than ever before.

For this reason, SonicWall Capture Labs threat researchers work tirelessly to arm organizations, enterprises, governments and businesses with actionable threat intelligence to stay ahead in the global cyber arms race.

And part of that dedication starts with the 2020 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report, which provides critical threat intelligence to help you better understand how cybercriminals think — and be fully prepared for what they’ll do next.

Global Malware Dips, But More Targeted

For the last five years, cybercriminals overwhelmed organizations with sheer volume. But as cyber defenses evolved, more volume was not resulting in higher paydays. A change was in order.

In 2018, cybercriminals began to leverage more evasive and pointed attacks against “softer” targets. In 2019, global malware volume dipped, but attacks were more targeted with higher degrees of success, particularly against the healthcare industry, and state, provincial and local governments.

All told, SonicWall Capture Labs threat researchers recorded 9.9 billion malware attacks* in 2019 — a slight 6% year-over-year decrease.

Ransomware targets state, provincial and local governments

‘Spray and pray’ is over. Cybercriminals are using ransomware to surgically target victims that are more likely to pay given the sensitive data they possess or funds at their disposal (or both). Now it’s all about ‘big-game hunting.’

The report outlines the most egregious ransomware attacks of 2019, while also painting a picture of the evolution of ransomware families and signatures, including Cerber, GandCrab, HiddenTear and more.

Fileless malware spikes in Q3

Fileless malware is a type of malicious software that exists exclusively as a memory-based artifact (i.e., RAM). It does not write any part of its activity to the computer’s hard drive, making it very resistant to existing computer forensic strategies.

The use of fileless malware ebbed and flowed in 2019. But exclusive SonicWall data shows a massive mid-year spike for this savvy technique.

Encrypted threats growing consistently

Another year, another jump in the use of encrypted threats. Until more organizations proactively and responsibly inspect TLS/SSL traffic, this attack vector will only expand.

IoT malware volume rising

From hacked doorbell cameras to rogue nanny cams, 2019 was an alarming year for the security and privacy of IoT devices. Trending data suggests more IoT-based attacks are on the horizon.

Cryptojacking crumbles

In early 2019, the price of bitcoin and complementary cryptocurrencies created an untenable situation between Coinhive-based cryptojacking malware and the legitimate Coinhive mining service. The shuttering of the latter led to the virtual disappearance of one the year’s hottest malware.

 

Source :
https://blog.sonicwall.com/en-us/2020/02/sonicwall-exposes-new-cyberattack-data-threat-actor-behaviors-in-latest-report/

HSTS Strict-Transport-Security

Testing your website:
https://hstspreload.org/

 

The HTTP Strict-Transport-Security response header (often abbreviated as HSTS) lets a web site tell browsers that it should only be accessed using HTTPS, instead of using HTTP.

Header typeResponse header
Forbidden header nameno

Syntax

Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=<expire-time>
Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=<expire-time>; includeSubDomains
Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=<expire-time>; preload

Directives

max-age=<expire-time>
The time, in seconds, that the browser should remember that a site is only to be accessed using HTTPS.
includeSubDomains Optional
If this optional parameter is specified, this rule applies to all of the site's subdomains as well.
preload Optional
See Preloading Strict Transport Security for details. Not part of the specification.

Description

If a website accepts a connection through HTTP and redirects to HTTPS, visitors may initially communicate with the non-encrypted version of the site before being redirected, if, for example, the visitor types http://www.foo.com/ or even just foo.com. This creates an opportunity for a man-in-the-middle attack. The redirect could be exploited to direct visitors to a malicious site instead of the secure version of the original site.

The HTTP Strict Transport Security header informs the browser that it should never load a site using HTTP and should automatically convert all attempts to access the site using HTTP to HTTPS requests instead.

Note: The Strict-Transport-Security header is ignored by the browser when your site is accessed using HTTP; this is because an attacker may intercept HTTP connections and inject the header or remove it. When your site is accessed over HTTPS with no certificate errors, the browser knows your site is HTTPS capable and will honor the Strict-Transport-Security header.

An example scenario

You log into a free WiFi access point at an airport and start surfing the web, visiting your online banking service to check your balance and pay a couple of bills. Unfortunately, the access point you're using is actually a hacker's laptop, and they're intercepting your original HTTP request and redirecting you to a clone of your bank's site instead of the real thing. Now your private data is exposed to the hacker.

Strict Transport Security resolves this problem; as long as you've accessed your bank's web site once using HTTPS, and the bank's web site uses Strict Transport Security, your browser will know to automatically use only HTTPS, which prevents hackers from performing this sort of man-in-the-middle attack.

How the browser handles it

The first time your site is accessed using HTTPS and it returns the Strict-Transport-Security header, the browser records this information, so that future attempts to load the site using HTTP will automatically use HTTPS instead.

When the expiration time specified by the Strict-Transport-Security header elapses, the next attempt to load the site via HTTP will proceed as normal instead of automatically using HTTPS.

Whenever the Strict-Transport-Security header is delivered to the browser, it will update the expiration time for that site, so sites can refresh this information and prevent the timeout from expiring. Should it be necessary to disable Strict Transport Security, setting the max-age to 0 (over a https connection) will immediately expire the Strict-Transport-Security header, allowing access via http.

Preloading Strict Transport Security

Google maintains an HSTS preload service. By following the guidelines and successfully submitting your domain, browsers will never connect to your domain using an insecure connection. While the service is hosted by Google, all browsers have stated an intent to use (or actually started using) the preload list. However, it is not part of the HSTS specification and should not be treated as official.

Examples

All present and future subdomains will be HTTPS for a max-age of 1 year. This blocks access to pages or sub domains that can only be served over HTTP.

Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains

In the following example, max-age is set to 2 years, raised from what was a former limit max-age of 1 year. Note that 1 year is acceptable for a domain to be included in browsers' HSTS preload lists. 2 years is, however, the recommended goal as a website's final HSTS configuration as explained on https://hstspreload.org. It also suffixed with preload which is necessary for inclusion in most major web browsers' HSTS preload lists, e.g. Chromium, Edge, & Firefox.

Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=63072000; includeSubDomains; preload

Specifications

SpecificationStatusComment
HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS)IETF RFCInitial definition

 

Source :
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Strict-Transport-Security

Introducing Google Cloud’s Secret Manager

Many applications require credentials to connect to a database, API keys to invoke a service, or certificates for authentication. Managing and securing access to these secrets is often complicated by secret sprawl, poor visibility, or lack of integrations.

Secret Manager is a new Google Cloud service that provides a secure and convenient method for storing API keys, passwords, certificates, and other sensitive data. Secret Manager provides a central place and single source of truth to manage, access, and audit secrets across Google Cloud.

Secret Manager offers many important features:

  • Global names and replication: Secrets are project-global resources. You can choose between automatic and user-managed replication policies, so you control where your secret data is stored.
  • First-class versioning: Secret data is immutable and most operations take place on secret versions. With Secret Manager, you can pin a secret to specific versions like 42 or floating aliases like latest.
  • Principles of least privilege: Only project owners have permissions to access secrets. Other roles must explicitly be granted permissions through Cloud IAM.
  • Audit logging: With Cloud Audit Logging enabled, every interaction with Secret Manager generates an audit entry. You can ingest these logs into anomaly detection systems to spot abnormal access patterns and alert on possible security breaches.
  • Strong encryption guarantees: Data is encrypted in transit with TLS and at rest with AES-256-bit encryption keys. Support for customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK) is coming soon.
  • VPC Service Controls: Enable context-aware access to Secret Manager from hybrid environments with VPC Service Controls.

The Secret Manager beta is available to all Google Cloud customers today. To get started, check out the Secret Manager Quickstarts. Let's take a deeper dive into some of Secret Manager’s functionality.

Global names and replication

Early customer feedback identified that regionalization is often a pain point in existing secrets management tools, even though credentials like API keys or certificates rarely differ across cloud regions. For this reason, secret names are global within their project.

While secret names are global, the secret data is regional. Some enterprises want full control over the regions in which their secrets are stored, while others do not have a preference. Secret Manager addresses both of these customer requirements and preferences with replication policies.

  • Automatic replication: The simplest replication policy is to let Google choose the regions where Secret Manager secrets should be replicated.
  • User-managed replication: If given a user-managed replication policy, Secret Manager replicates secret data into all the user-supplied locations. You don’t need to install any additional software or run additional services—Google handles data replication to your specified regions. Customers who want more control over the regions where their secret data is stored should choose this replication strategy.

First-class versioning

Versioning is a core tenet of reliable systems to support gradual rollout, emergency rollback, and auditing. Secret Manager automatically versions secret data using secret versions, and most operations—like access, destroy, disable, and enable—take place on a secret version.

Production deployments should always be pinned to a specific secret version. Updating a secret should be treated in the same way as deploying a new version of the application. Rapid iteration environments like development and staging, on the other hand, can use Secret Manager's latest alias, which always returns the most recent version of the secret.

Integrations

In addition to the Secret Manager API and client libraries, you can also use the Cloud SDK to create secrets:

$ gcloud beta secrets create "my-secret" \
    --replication-policy "automatic" \
    --data-file "/tmp/my-secret.txt"

and to access secret versions:

$ gcloud beta secrets versions access "latest" \
    --secret "my-secret"

Discovering secrets

As mentioned above, Secret Manager can store a variety of secrets. You can use Cloud DLP to help find secrets using infoType detectors for credentials and secrets. The following command will search all files in a source directory and produce a report of possible secrets to migrate to Secret Manager:

$ find . -type f | xargs -n1 gcloud alpha dlp text inspect \
    --info-types="AUTH_TOKEN,ENCRYPTION_KEY,GCP_CREDENTIALS,PASSWORD" \
    --content-file

If you currently store secrets in a Cloud Storage bucket, you can configure a DLP job to scan your bucket in the Cloud Console.

Over time, native Secret Manager integrations will become available in other Google Cloud products and services.

What about Berglas?

Berglas is an open source project for managing secrets on Google Cloud. You can continue to use Berglas as-is and, beginning with v0.5.0, you can use it to create and access secrets directly from Secret Manager using the sm:// prefix.

$ berglas access sm://my-project/api-key

If you want to move your secrets from Berglas into Secret Manager, the berglas migrate command provides a one-time automated migration.

Accelerating security

Security is central to modern software development, and we’re excited to help you make your environment more secure by adding secrets management to our existing Google Cloud security product portfolio. With Secret Manager, you can easily manage, audit, and access secrets like API keys and credentials across Google Cloud.

To learn more, check out the Secret Manager documentation and Secret Manager pricing pages.

Source :
https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/identity-security/introducing-google-clouds-secret-manager

Spear-Phishing Attacks Targeting Office 365 Users, SaaS Applications

Over the course of the last 15 years, cyber threats have gone from urban myths and corporate ghost stories to as mainstream as carjackings and burglaries. There isn’t a business owner of a small restaurant chain or a CEO of a Fortune 500 company who doesn’t think about the fallout of being breached.

I’m not here to tell you how the threats are getting more sophisticated, or how state-sponsored hacker groups are getting more and more funding; you already know that. But what I do want to share with you is something that I’m seeing daily. Targeted threats that you may have already witnessed and, unfortunately, been personally a victim of or know someone who has: Spear-phishing.

Are you an Office 365 user? Do you have customers who are Office 365 users? Are you a managed security service provider (MSSP) that administrators Office 365 for your clients? You probably need a solution that applies effective Office 365 security capabilities and controls.

With close to 200 million global users, Office 365 is a target — a big target. And spear-phishing attempts are good. Really good. Recently, Forbes ran a summary of the threat. Alarmingly, today’s most advanced spear-phishing attempts look like they come from your CFO, boss or trusted vendor. They provide credibility to the target and, many times, users take the bait. Money gets wired. Access to accounts are provided. Confidential information is exposed.

Traditional email security isn’t enough protection. Out-of-the-box, cloud-native security services aren’t enough protection. A lean, effective and modern Office 365 security or SaaS security solution is required.

How to stop spear-phishing attacks, advanced cyber threats

SonicWall Cloud App Security (CAS) combines advanced security for Office 365, G Suite and other top SaaS applications to protect users and data within cloud applications, including email, messaging, file sharing and file storage. This approach delivers advanced threat protection against targeted email threats like phishing attacks, business email compromise, zero-day threats, data loss and account takeovers.

CAS also seamlessly integrates with sanctioned SaaS applications using native APIs. This helps organizations deploy email security and CASB functionalities that are critical to protecting the SaaS landscape and ensure consistent policies across cloud applications being used.

Explore the five key reasons CAS may be able to protect your organization from spear-phishing and other advanced attacks.

  • CAS delivers next-gen security for Office 365, protecting email, data and user credentials from advanced threats (including advanced phishing) while ensuring compliance in the cloud
  • Monitor SaaS accounts for IOCs, such data leakage, account takeover, business email compromise (BEC) and fraud attempts
  • Block malware propagation in malicious email attachments and files, whether they are at-rest or traversing a SaaS environment, internally or cloud-to-cloud
  • Prevent data breaches using machine learning and/or AI-based user profiling and behavior analytics for incident detections and automated responses
  • Leverage Shadow IT to monitor cloud usage in real time, and set policies to block unsanctioned applications

In my over 10 years of observing various attacks and sitting in rooms with customers (not mine, fortunately) who have been breached, I can tell you that you don’t want it ever to be you or your customers. This threat is having more success than any I’ve seen — and they are very recent.

For more information, contact a SonicWall cybersecurity expert or explore the CAS solution in detail.

 

Source :
https://blog.sonicwall.com/en-us/2020/01/spear-phishing-attacks-targeting-office-365-users-saas-applications/

BlueCat’s DNS Edge Is Cisco Umbrella’s Newest Integration

 

Cisco Umbrella is widely recognized as one of the strongest products on the market for a secure and fast connection to the internet. And we are always looking for ways to deepen visibility and control for our customers. This is why we are teaming up with BlueCat, a leading provider of DNS, DHCP, and IPAM (DDI) management solutions.

Studies show that 91% of malware uses DNS to establish command and control callbacks, navigate through network pathways, and exfiltrate data. Cisco Umbrella fills this traditional gap in network security by blocking the outbound requests made to the malicious domains. When Umbrella customers point their network traffic to our resolvers they get visibility into the egress (external) IP address of their network. By leveraging capabilities such as the Umbrella roaming client, Umbrella virtual appliance or AnyConnect integration, customers can get additional attribution such as Active Directory user names, internal IP addresses and hostname of computers.

With the BlueCat DNS Edge integration, customers get greater visibility into the attribution of the external DNS query (ie. the source IP), as well as additional control with the use cases outlined below. This integration expands the use cases for DNS security into investigations of internal network traffic, restricting lateral movement, and decreasing forensic response times. The integration enables customers to get full visibility and protection for DNS traffic leaving your environment for users on and off network.

How It Works
DNS Edge deploys as a virtual machine at the “first hop” of any DNS query. This gives DNS Edge the ability to tie every request on the network to a specific device without the need for an agent. With the integration, BlueCat Edge sends additional attribution information (ie. internal client IP) for each external DNS query to Umbrella. This allows viewing of device-level data directly in Cisco Umbrella, providing more granular information into the source of network threats.

Expand network visibility and control with the Cisco Umbrella and BlueCat integration

Use Cases
Investigate internal, “east-west” traffic: BlueCat’s “first hop” position on the network provides visibility into internal, “east-west” traffic – that’s 60% of all network queries – which mostly go unmonitored today. You can investigate internal traffic within DNS Edge, or send it to a SIEM and correlate it with other threat indicators. Using DNS Edge to apply security policies to this internal traffic means that security teams can contain lateral movement associated with advanced persistent threats and malicious insiders.

BlueCat's Integration with Cisco Umbrella is now available

This screenshot shows how internal traffic appears in DNS Edge. Searching by source IP, you can see all internal and external domains queried by that device, and refine the search further by subdomains or any other factor you choose. In this example, you can see how a query to a known bad domain then results in lateral movement to other internal resources. This expands your visibility beyond the external domain that is shown in Umbrella.

Investigate lateral movement from IoT devices without agents: The threats to Internet of Things (IoT) devices are well known but difficult to properly control at an enterprise level. Since many IoT devices lack the capacity for security agents or any external software, blocking DNS queries as they leave the device is both a more elegant and more operationally feasible way to control a fleet of sensors at the enterprise level.

BlueCat's Integration with Cisco Umbrella is Now Available

Here’s an example of how a rogue IoT device would look in DNS Edge. This is a security camera which should only ever be hitting a single internal domain. When it unexpectedly connects to an external domain (in this case, easyridegolfcars.com), this is the first indicator of a compromise. Looking at the subsequent queries, you can see both lateral movement to internal domains as well as potential data exfiltration attempts to the same external site.

Improve forensic response time: With all of this new data at their disposal, security teams are cutting their response time significantly – from days to minutes. Forensic investigators and threat hunters no longer have to compile DNS logs from recursive servers to find a source device – the data is available right in Cisco Umbrella or can be exported directly to a SIEM for further analysis. The rich context available from internal DNS data adds a new dimension to that analysis as well, uncovering additional connections to malicious activity.

Improve network performance: Device-level DNS data is a critical source of intelligence on how networks are performing. With visibility into the source, type, and result of every DNS query across the network, operators can quickly spot DNS misconfigurations, architectural shortcomings, misbehaving clients, and a host of other issues that may be impacting network performance and client reliability.

Getting Started
With a few simple steps, you can connect Cisco Umbrella to DNS Edge and start applying security policies. This integration leverages the network device API integration available in Umbrella. This allows for additional attribution information to be sent from the BlueCat Edge device to Umbrella. This allows the investigating user to see the internal IP of the requesting client instead of just the egress IP that Umbrella would see in a traditional network deployment.

Follow the steps below to take advantage of this integration.

Start off by creating an API key in Cisco Umbrella – you’ll want to choose the “Umbrella Network Devices” option.
Add that API key into DNS Edge. To do this, go to the Cisco Umbrella Integration tab on the main menu of DNS Edge. Paste in the API key and the secret.
BlueCat's Integration with Cisco Umbrella is Now Available

Once the API key is inserted, DNS Edge will appear as a network device within Cisco Umbrella. Initially, it will appear as “offline”, but will automatically switch to “active” once the data starts flowing.

BlueCat's Integration with Cisco Umbrella is Now Available

3. Create a policy within Cisco Umbrella to handle external-facing traffic which comes from the DNS Edge service point (network device), just as you would do for any other network device.

BlueCat's Integration with Cisco Umbrella is Now Available

When looking at the DNS queries in Umbrella you will now see additional attribution. For example, in the screenshot below we can see which Edge device the query came from, alongside the internal IP of who made that request.

BlueCat's Integration with Cisco Umbrella is Now Available

WANT TO LEARN MORE?
Cisco and BlueCat recently presented this new integration at a Tech Field Day event. You can check out the session recording, as well as the Cisco Umbrella BlueCat integration data sheet to learn more.

This new integration with BlueCat adds one of the largest providers of DDI services to Umbrella’s integration arsenal, expanding on our existing integration with EfficientIP. If you’re heading to Cisco Live Barcelona next month be sure to stop by the BlueCat booth or La Taberna where Cisco Umbrella will be serving coffee and beer throughout the day. We would love to see you at the show!

Source :
https://umbrella.cisco.com/blog/2020/01/09/bluecats-dns-edge-is-cisco-umbrellas-newest-integration/