If you’re heading out of the office on a well-deserved vacation, are you certain the security controls you have in place will let you rest easy while you’re away? More importantly – do you have the right action plan in place for a seamless return?
Whether you’re on the way out of – or back to – the office, our Security Validation Checklist can help make sure your security posture is in good shape.
1. Check the logs and security events of your key critical systems. Stay up-to-date on recent activities. Check for changes – and attempted changes – and any potential indicators of compromise. Planning to be gone for longer than a week? Designate a team member to perform a weekly review in your absence, reducing the chances of a critical event going undetected.
2. Check for any new security vulnerabilities that were identified on your vacation. Use your preferred scanning tool or check one of the regularly updated databases, such as CVE Details.
3. Investigate failures of critical components and the reasons behind them. If remediation is needed, create an action plan to address the immediate issues and prevent repeated failures in the future.
4. Review whether there were any key changes to your products and their corresponding security controls. While now isn’t the time to implement major changes to your EDR, SIEM system, or other corresponding solutions, do make sure you’re aware of any updates that were made in your absence. Once you’re back – and able to monitor the impact on your overall security posture – you can make larger-scale changes to your controls.
5. Check with HR for any relevant changes. Did any new employees join the company and therefore need access to specific systems? Conversely, did any employees leave and need their credentials revoked? Were there any other incidents or red flags that require your attention?
6. Be aware of new business orientations. Did the organization introduce any new services or products that expanded the potential attack surface? For instance, did a new website or mobile app go live, or was a new version of a software product rolled out? Make sure your team is up to speed on the latest changes.
7.Check your password policies. Password policies shouldn’t be dependent on your vacation status, but as you work through this security checklist, take the opportunity to make sure policies are appropriately protecting the organization. Consider reviewing length, complexity, and special character requirements, as well as expiration and re-use policies.
8.Review firewall configurations . With many security experts recommending a review of firewall configurations every three to six months, now is an opportune time for an audit. Review network traffic filtering rules, configuration parameters, and authorized administrators – among other configurations – to make sure you’re using the appropriate configurations
There are plenty of tools that can help work through this checklist – but do you have all the resources needed to make sure everything will be addressed?
If you need help automating and standardizing your processes – or making sure critical vulnerabilities aren’t slipping through the cracks – Automated Security Validation can help. With real-time visibility, complete attack surface management, and actual exploitation measures – not just simulations – it provides what you need to rest easy while you’re away. And when you get back? Risk-based remediation plans help you create your roadmap for keeping your organization protected.
When you’re back, we’ve got your back. To learn more about protecting your security posture with Automated Security Validation, request a demo of the Pentera platform.
Securing a Microsoft 365 tenant must start with identity.
Protecting identities is a fundamental part of Zero Trust and it’s the first “target” that most attackers look for. We used to say that attackers hack their way in, now we say they log in, using bought, found or stolen/phished credentials. This article will show you why MFA is so important and how to implement advanced security features in Azure AD such as PIM, Password protection, Conditional Access policies (also a strong part of Zero Trust), auditing and more.
Below is the first chapter from our free Microsoft 365 Security Checklist eBook. The Microsoft 365 Security Checklist shows you all the security settings and configurations you need to know for each M365 license to properly secure your environment. Download the full eBook and checklist spreadsheet.
Multi-Factor Authentication
It should be no surprise that we start with identity, it’s the new security perimeter or the new firewall and having a strong identity equals strong security. The first step to take here is implementing Multi Factor Authentication (MFA). It’s free for all Office / Microsoft tenants. If you want to use Conditional Access (CA) to enforce it (rather than just enabling users “in bulk”), you need Azure AD Premium P1+ licensing. A username and a simple password are no longer adequate (it never was, we just never had a simple, affordable, easy to use alternative) to protect your business.
Hand-in-hand with MFA you need user training. If your business is relying on users doing the right thing when they get the prompt on their phone – they MUST also know that if they get a prompt when they’re NOT logging in anywhere, they must click Block / No / Reject.
To enable MFA on a per-user basis, go to aad.portal.azure.com, login as an administrator, click Azure Active Directory – Security – MFA and click on the blue link “Additional cloud-based MFA settings”.
Additional MFA settings
There are two parts (tabs) on this page, “service settings” where you should disable app passwords (a workaround for legacy clients that don’t support MFA, shouldn’t be necessary in 2022), add trusted public IP addresses (so that users aren’t prompted when they’re in the corporate office – we and Microsoft recommend not using this setting), disabling Call and Text message to phone and remember MFA on trusted devices setting (1-365 days), Microsoft recommends either using CA policies to manage Sign-In frequency or setting this to 90 days. Phone call / text message MFA are not strong authentication methods and should not be used unless there’s no other choice.
On the user’s tab you can enable MFA for individual users or click bulk update and upload a CSV file with user accounts.
If you have AAD Premium P1, it’s better to use a CA policy to enforce MFA, it’s more flexible and the MFA settings page will eventually be retired.
Enforcing MFA with a Conditional Access Policy
A few words of caution, enabling MFA for all your administrators is a given today. Seriously, if you aren’t requiring every privileged account to use MFA (or 2FA / passwordless, see below), stop reading and go and do that right now. Yes, it’s an extra step and yes, you’ll get push back but there’s just no excuse – it’s simply unprofessional and you don’t belong in IT if you’re not using it. For what it is worth, I’ve been using Azure MFA for over seven years and require it for administrators at my clients – no exceptions.
Enabling MFA for all users is also incredibly important but takes some planning. You may have some users who refuse to run the Microsoft Authenticator app on their personal phone – ask for it to be put in their hiring contract. You need to train them as to why MFA is being deployed, what to do, both for authentic logins and malicious ones. Furthermore, you need to have a smooth process for enrolling new users and offboarding people who are leaving.
You should also strongly consider creating separate (cloud only) accounts for administrators. They don’t require a license and it separates the day-to-day work of a person who only performs administrative actions in your tenant occasionally (or use PIM, Chapter 10).
MFA protects you against 99.9% of identity-based attacks but it’s not un-phishable. Stronger alternatives include biometrics such as Windows Hello for Business (WHFB) and 2FA hardware keys which bring you closer to the ultimate in identity security: passwordless.
Legacy Authentication
However, it’s not enough to enable MFA for all administrators and users, the bad guys can still get in with no MFA prompt in sight. The reason is that Office 365 still supports legacy protocols that don’t support modern authentication / MFA. You need to disable these; you can’t just turn them off, you need to check if there are legitimate applications / workflows / scripts that use any of them. Go to aad.portal.azure.com, login as a Global Administrator, click Azure Active Directory – Monitoring – Sign-in logs. Change the time to last one month, and click Add filters, then click Client app and then None Selected, in the drop-down pick all 13 checkboxes under Legacy Authentication Clients and click Apply.
Filtering Azure AD Sign-in logs for legacy authentication
This will show you all the logins over the last month that used any of the legacy protocols. If you get a lot of results, add a filter for Status and add Success to filter out password stuffing attacks that failed. Make sure you check the four different tabs for interactive / non-interactive, service principals and managed identity sign-ins.
You’ll now need to investigate the logins. In my experience there will be some users who are using Android / Apple mail on smartphones; point them to the free Outlook app instead (Apple mail can be configured to use modern authentication). There’s also likely to be line-of-business (LOB) applications and printers / scanners that send emails via Office 365, so you’ll need updates for these. Alternatively, you can use another email service for these such as smtp2go.
Once you have eliminated all legitimate legacy authentication protocol usage you can disable it in two ways, it’s best to use both. Start by creating a Conditional Access policy based on the new template to block it, also go to admin.microsoft.com, Settings – Org settings – Services – Modern authentication and turn off basic authentication protocols.
Disable legacy authentication protocols in the M365 Admin Center
Break Glass accounts
Create at least one, preferably two break glass accounts, also known as emergency access accounts. These accounts are exempted from MFA, all CA policies and PIM (see below) and have very long (40 characters+), complex passwords. They’re only used if AAD MFA is down, for example, to gain access to your tenant to temporarily disable MFA or a similar setting, depending on the outage.
A second part to this is that you want to be notified if these accounts are ever used. One way to do this is to send your Azure AD sign-in logs to Azure Monitor (also known as Log Analytics), with instructions here. Another option is to use Microsoft Sentinel (which is built on top of Log Analytics) and create an Analytics rule.
Microsoft Sentinel alert rule when a Break Glass account is used
Security Defaults
If yours is a very small business, with few requirements for flexibility, the easiest way to set up Azure AD with MFA for everyone, plus several other security features enabled, is to turn on Security Defaults. Note that you can’t have break-glass accounts or other service accounts with Security Defaults as there’s no way to configure exceptions. Go to Properties for your Azure AD tenant and scroll to the bottom, and click on Manage Security defaults, here you can enable and disable it.
Privileged Identity Management
It’s worth investing in Azure Active Directory (AAD) Premium P2 for your administrator’s accounts and enabling Privileged Identity Management (PIM). This means their accounts are ordinary user accounts who are eligible to elevate their privileges to whatever administrator type they are assigned (see Chapter 10).
If you’re not using PIM, create dedicated admin accounts in AAD only. Don’t sync these accounts from on-premises but enforce MFA and strong passwords. Since they won’t be used for day-to-day work, they won’t require an M365 license.
Password Protection
After MFA, your second most important step is banning bad passwords. You’re probably aware that we’ve trained users to come up with bad passwords over the last few decades with “standard” policies (at least 8 characters, uppercase, lowercase, special character and numbers) which results in P@ssw0rd1 and when they’re forced to change it every 30 days, P@ssw0rd2. Both NIST in the US and GHCQ in the UK now recommends allowing (but not enforcing) the use of upper / lowercase etc., but not mandating frequent password changes and instead of checking the password at the time of creation against a list of known, common bad passwords and blocking those. In Microsoft’s world that’s called Password protection which is enabled for cloud accounts by default. There’s a global list of about 2000 passwords (and their variants) that Microsoft maintains, based on passwords they find in dumps, and you should add (up to 1000) company-specific words (brands, locations, C-suite people’s names, local sports teams, etc.) for your organization.
You find Password protection in the AAD portal – Security – Authentication Methods.
Password protection settings
Remember, you don’t have to add common passwords to the list, they’re already managed by Microsoft, just add company / region specific words that your staff are likely to use.
If you’re syncing accounts from Active Directory on-premises to AAD, you should also extend Password protection to your DCs. It involves the installation of an agent on each DC, a proxy agent, and a reboot of each DC.
Continuous Access Evaluation
This feature has been in preview for quite some time but is now in general availability. Before Continuous Access Evaluation (CAE), when you disabled a user’s account, or they changed location (from the office to a public Wi-Fi for example) it could be up to one hour before their state was re-evaluated and new policies applied, or they were blocked from accessing services. With CAE, this time is much shorter, in most cases in the order of a few minutes. It’s turned on by default for all tenants (unless you were part of the preview and intentionally disabled it). Another benefit of CAE is that tokens are now valid for 28 hours, letting people keep working during a shorter Azure AD outage. You can disable CAE in a CA policy, but it’s not recommended.
Conditional Access policies
We’ve mentioned Conditional Access (CA) policies several times already as it’s a crucial component of strong identity security and Zero Trust. Unlike other recommendations, there isn’t a one size fit all set of CA policies we can give you, however (at a minimum) you should have policies for:
Require MFA for admins (see MFA above)
Require MFA for users (see MFA above)
Require MFA for Azure management
Block legacy authentication (see MFA above)
Require compliant or Hybrid AAD joined device for admins
Require compliant or Hybrid AAD joined device for users
Block access to M365 from outside your country
Require MFA for risky sign-ins (if you have AAD Premium P2)
Require password change for high-risk users (if you have AAD Premium P2)
This is all going to be a lot easier going forward with the new policy templates for identity and devices. Go to Azure AD – Security – Conditional Access – New policy – Create a new policy from templates. Another step to take is to create a system for managing the lifecycle of policies and there’s an API for backing up and updating policies, that you can access in several ways, including PowerShell. There’s even a tutorial to set up a backup system using a Logic App.
Conditional Access policy templates for identity
A common question is if there’s a priority when policies are evaluated and there isn’t, they’re all processed together for a particular sign-in, from a specific device and location to an individual application. If there are multiple policies with different controls (MFA + compliant device), all controls must be fulfilled for access. And if there are conflicting policies with different access (block vs grant), block access will win.
To get you started, here are the step-by-step instructions for a policy blocking access to M365 from outside your country, appropriate for most small and medium businesses that only operate in one or a few countries. Keep in mind that travelling staff may be caught out by this so make sure you align with business objectives and be aware that this won’t stop every attack as a VPN or TOR exit node can make it appear as if the attacker is in your country, but it’s one extra step they must take. Remember, you don’t have to run faster than the Fancy Bear, just faster than other companies around you.
Start by going to Azure AD – Security – Conditional Access – Named locations and click +Countries location and call the location Blocked countries. Leave Determine location by IP address, a new feature is using GPS location from the Microsoft Authenticator app which will be more accurate once all your users are using Azure AD MFA (and therefore can be located via GPS). Click the box next to Name to select all countries, then find the one(s) that you need to allow login from and click Create.
Creating a Named Location for a Conditional Access Policy
Go to Azure AD – Security – Conditional Access – New policy – Create new policy and name your policy with a name that clearly defines what the policy does and adheres to your naming standard. Click on All Users… and Include All users and Exclude your Break Glass accounts.
Click on No cloud apps… and select All cloud apps. Select 0 conditions… and click Not configured under Locations. Pick Selected locations under Include and select your newly created location. Finally, under Access controls – Grant, click 0 controls selected and then Block access.
CA policies can be either in Report-only mode where you can look at reports of what they would have blocked and control they would have enforced, or they can be turned on / off. Report-only can be handy to make sure you don’t get fired for accidentally locking everyone out but turn this policy on as soon as possible.
Conditional Access policy to block logins from outside Australia
A common question is, how can I control how often users are prompted for MFA or signing in again? While it might be counterintuitive, the default in Azure AD is a rolling windows of 90 days. Remember, if you change a user’s password, block non-compliant devices, or disable an account (plus any number of other CA policies you have in place that might affect the security posture of the session), it’ll automatically require new authentications. Don’t prompt the users for authentication when nothing has changed because if you do it too frequently, they’re more likely to approve a malicious login.
Branding Log-on Pages
While in the Azure AD portal, click on Company branding and add a company-specific Sign-in page background image (1920x1080px) and a Banner logo (280x60px). Note that these files have to be small (300 KB and 10 KB respectively) so you may have to do some fancy compression. This isn’t just a way to make users feel at home when they see a login page, in most cases when attackers send phishing emails to harvest credentials, they’ll send users to a fake login page that looks like the generic Office 365 one, not your custom one which is another clue that should alert your users to the danger. Also – Windows Autopilot doesn’t work unless you have customized AAD branding.
Edit Azure AD Company Branding images
Self Service Password Reset
The benefit of Self Service Password Reset (SSPR) is to lower the load on your help desk to manage password resets for users. Once enabled, users must register various ways of being identified when they’re resetting their password, mobile app notification/code, email (non-Office 365), mobile/office phone call, security questions (not available to administrators, plus you can create custom questions). If you are synchronizing user accounts from AD to Azure AD, take care in setting up SSPR as the passwords must be written back to AD from the cloud once changed.
Configuring Self Service Password Reset in Azure AD
Unified Auditing
Not restricted to security but nevertheless, a fundamental building block is auditing across Microsoft 365. Go to the Microsoft 365 Defender portal and find Audit in the left-hand menu (it’s almost at the end). If for some reason unified auditing isn’t enabled in your tenant a yellow banner will give you a button to turn it on (it’s on by default for new tenants). Once enabled, click the Audit retention policies tab, and create a policy for your tenant. You want to ensure that you have logs to investigate if there’s a breach and you want them kept for as long as possible.
With Business Premium you get a maximum of 90 days of retention and Microsoft 365 E5 gives you one year, but you want to make sure to create a policy to set this, rather than rely on the default policy (which you can’t see). Give the policy a name, a description and add all the record types, one by one. This policy will now apply to all users (including new ones that are created) for all activities. Only use the Users option when you want to have a specific policy for a particular user. Give the policy a priority, 1 is the highest and 10,000 is the lowest.
Create an audit retention policy for maximum retention
Integrating applications into Azure AD
One of the most powerful but often overlooked features (at least in SMBs) is the ability to use Azure AD to publish applications to your users. Users can go to myapps.microsoft.com (or office.com) and see tiles for all applications they have access to. But there’s more to that story. Say, for example, you have a shared, corporate Twitter account that a few executives and marketing staff should have access to. Instead of sharing a password amongst them all and having to remember to reset it if someone leaves the organization, you can create a security group in AAD, add the relevant users, link Twitter to the group and they’ll automatically have access – without knowing the password to the account. There are a lot more actions you can take here to simplify access and secure management of applications, here’s more information.
Azure AD Connect
If you’re synchronizing accounts from Active Directory to Azure Active Directory (AAD), check the configuration of AAD Connect and make sure you’re not replicating an entire domain or forest to AAD. There’s no reason that service accounts etc. should be exposed in both directories, start the AAD Connect wizard on the server where it’s installed and double-check that only relevant OUs are synchronized. One other thing to note here is the fact that any machine running Azure AD Connect should be treated with the same care (in terms of security) as a domain controller. This is because AAD Connect requires the same level of access as AD itself and has the ability to read password hashes. Making sure security best practices for access, patching, etc. are followed to the letter for the system running AAD connect is critically important.
The M365 Identity Checklist
Work through the Identity checklist.
Enable MFA for administrators
Enable MFA for users
Create cloud-only administrator accounts for privileged users / occasional administrators
Disable app passwords
(Configure trusted IPs)
Disable text message MFA
Disable phone call MFA
Remember MFA trusted devices 90 days
Train staff in using MFA correctly
Use Windows Hello where possible
Use FIDO2 / 2FA keys where possible
Investigate legacy authentication protocol usage in AAD Sign-in logs
Block legacy authentication with CA Policy
Block legacy authentication in M365 Admin Center
Create two Break glass accounts and exempt from MFA, CA Policies etc.
Configure alerting if a Break glass account is used
Enable Security Defaults in AAD (consider the limitations)
Enable PIM (AAD Premium P2) for all admin users
Add organization-specific words to Password protection
Deploy Password protection in AD on-premises
CA Policy Require MFA for admins
CA Policy Require MFA for users
CA Policy Require MFA for Azure management
CA Policy Block legacy authentication
CA Policy Require compliant or Hybrid AAD joined device for admins
CA Policy Require compliant or Hybrid AAD joined device for users
CA Policy Block access to M365 from outside your country
Require MFA for risky sign-ins [Only for E5)
Require password change for high-risk users [Only for E5)
Create custom branding logos and text in Azure AD
Enable and configure Self Service Password Reset, including password writeback
Go Further than Identity to Protect your M365 Tenant
There you have it, all the most important steps to take to make sure your users’ identities are kept secure, and therefore your tenant and its data also safeguarded. Keen to learn and do more?
The Microsoft 365 Security Checklist has another nine chapters of security recommendations each with its own checklist for:
Exactly how vulnerable is VMware infrastructure to Ransomware?
Historically and like most malware, ransomware has been targeting Windows operating systems primarily. However, cases of Linux and MacOS being infected are being seen as well. Attackers are being more proficient and keep evolving in their attacks by targeting critical infrastructure components leading to ransomware attacks on VMware ESXi. In this article, you’ll learn how Ransomware targets VMware infrastructure and what you can do to protect yourself.
What is Ransomware?
Ransomware are malicious programs that work by taking the user’s data hostage in exchange for a hefty ransom.
There are essentially 2 types of Ransomware (arguably 3):
Crypto Ransomware: Encrypts files so that the user cannot access them. This is the one we are dealing with in this blog.
Locker Ransomware: Lock the user out of his computer by encrypting system files.
Scareware: Arguably a third type of ransomware that is actually a fake as it only locks the screen by displaying the ransom page. Scanning the system with an Antivirus LiveCD will get rid of it quite easily.
A user computer on the corporate network is usually infected through infected USB drives or social engineering techniques such as phishing emails and shady websites. Another occurrence includes attacking a remote access server publicly exposed through brute-force attacks.
The malware then uses a public key to encrypt the victim’s data, which can span to mapped network drives as well. After which the victim is asked to make a payment to the attacker using bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency in exchange for the private key to unlock the data, hence the term Ransomware. If the victim doesn’t pay in time, the data will be lost forever.
As you can imagine, authorities advise against paying the ransom as there is no guaranty the bad actor will deliver on his end of the deal so you may end up paying the big bucks and not recover your data at all.
Can Ransomware affect VMware?
While infecting a Windows computer may yield a reward if the attacker gets lucky, chances are the OS will simply be reinstalled, no ransom is paid and the company will start tightening security measures. Game over for the bad guys.
Rather than burning bridges by locking a user’s workstation, they now try to make a lateral move from the infected workstation and target critical infrastructure components such as VMware ESXi. That way they hit a whole group of servers at once.
“VMware ESXi ransomware impact all the VMs running on the hypervisor”
From the standpoint of an attacker, infesting a vSphere host, or any hypervisor for that matter, is an “N birds, 1 stone” type of gig. Instead of impacting one workstation or one server, all the virtual machines running on the host become unavailable. Such an attack will wreak havoc in any enterprise environment!
How does a Ransomware Attack Work?
In the case of targeted attacks, the bad actor works to gain remote access to a box in the local network (LAN), usually a user computer, and then make a lateral move to access the management subnet and hit critical infrastructure components such as VMware ESXi.
There are several ways a ransomware attack on VMware ESXi can happen but reports have described the following process.
“The ransomware attack on VMware ESXi described in this blog is broken down into 5 stages”
Stage 1: Access local network
Gaining access to the LAN usually goes either of 2 ways:
A malware is downloaded in a phishing email or from a website. It can also come from an infected USB stick.
The attacker performs a Brute force attack against a remote access server exposed to the internet. This seems more unusual as it involves more resources and knowledge of the target. Brute force attacks are also often caught by DDoS protection mechanisms.
“Ransomware spread through malicious email attachments, websites, USB sticks”
Stage 2: Escalate privileges
Once the attacker has remote access to a machine on the local network, be it a workstation or a remote desktop server, he will try to escalate privileges to open doors for himself.
Several reports mentioned attackers leveraging CVE-2020-1472 which is a vulnerability in how the Netlogon secure channel connections are done. The attacker would use the Netlogon Remote Protocol (MS-NRPC) to connect to a domain controller and gain domain administrator access.
Stage 3: Access management network
Once the bad actors have domain administrator privileges, they can already deal a large amount of damage to the company. In the case of a ransomware attack on VMware ESXi, they will use it to gain access to machines on the management network, in which the vCenter servers and vSphere ESXi servers live.
Note that they might even skip this step if the company made the mistake to give user workstations access to the management network.
Stage 4: VMware ESXi vulnerabilities
When the attackers are in the management network, you can only hope that all the components in your infrastructure have the latest security patches installed and strong password policies. At this point, they are the last line of defense, unless a zero-day vulnerability is being leveraged in which case there isn’t much you can do about it.
Several remote code execution vulnerabilities have been exploited over the last year or so against VMware ESXi servers and vCenter servers.
The two critical vulnerabilities that give attackers access to vSphere hosts relate to the Service Location Protocol (SLP) used by vSphere to discover devices on the same network. By sending malicious SLP commands, the attacker can execute remote code on the host.
CVE-2019-5544: Heap overwrite issue in the OpenSLP protocol in VMware ESXi.
CVE-2020-3992: Use-after-free issue in the OpenSLP protocol in VMware ESXi.
CVE-2021-21985: Although no attack mentions it, we can assume the vCenter Plug-in vulnerability discovered in early 2021 can be a vector of attack as well. Accessing vSphere hosts is fairly easy once the vCenter is compromised.
They can then enable SSH to obtain interactive access and sometimes even change the root password or SSH keys of the hosts.
Note that the attacker may not even need to go through all that trouble if he manages to somehow recover valid vCenter of vSphere credentials. For instance, if they are stored in the web browser or retrieved from the memory of the infected workstation.
Stage 5: Encrypt datastore and request ransom
Now that the attacker has access to the VMware ESXi server, he will go through the following steps to lock your environment for good.
Uninstall Fault Domain Manager or fdm (HA agent) used to reboot VMs in case of failure.
Shut down all the virtual machines.
Encrypt all virtual machine files using an ELF executable, derived from an encrypting script that targets Linux machines. This file is usually named svc-new and stored in /tmp.
Write a ransom file to the datastore for the administrator to find.
Note that there are variations of the ransomware attack on VMware ESXi, which themselves are ever-evolving. Meaning the steps described above represent one way things can happen but your mileage may very well vary.
How to protect yourself from ransomware attacks on VMware ESXi
If you look online for testimonies, you will find that the breach never comes from a hooded IT mastermind in an ill-lit room that goes through your firewalls by frantically typing on his keyboard like in the movies.
The reality is nowhere near as exciting. 9 times out of 10, it will be an infected attachment in a phishing email or a file downloaded on a shady website. This is most often the doing of a distracted user that didn’t check the link and executed the payload without thinking twice.
Ensure at least the following general guidelines are being enforced in your environment to establish a first solid line of defense:
VMware environment-related recommendations
If you need to open internet access on your vCenter, enforce strong edge firewall rules and proxy access to specific domains. Do not expose vCenter on the internet!!! (Yes, it’s been done).
Set VMware ESXi shell and SSH to manual start and stop.
Don’t use the same password on all the hosts and out-of-band cards.
Some recommend not to add Active Directory as an Identity Source in vCenter Server. While this certainly removes a vector of attack, configuring Multi-Factor Authentication also mitigates this risk.
Industry standards
Educate your users and administrators through educational campaigns.
Ensure the latest security patches are installed as soon as possible on all infrastructure components as well as backups servers, workstations…
Segregate the management subnets from other subnets.
Connect to the management network through a jump server. It is critical that the jump server must:
Be secured and up to date
Accessible only through Multifactor authentication (MFA)
Must only allow a specific IP range.
Restrict network access to critical resources only to trained administrators.
Ensure AD is secured and users/admins are educated on phishing attacks.
Apply least privilege policy.
Use dedicated and named accounts.
Enforce strong password policies.
Segregate Admin and Domain admin accounts on AD.
Log out users on inactivity on Remote Desktop Servers.
Don’t save your infrastructure password in the browser.
Use Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) where possible, at least on admin accounts.
Forward infrastructure logs to a Syslog server for trail auditing.
Ensure all the workstations and servers have a solid antivirus with regularly updated definitions.
Where do backups fit in all this?
While there are decryption tools out there, they will not always work. In fact, they almost never will.
Restoring from backup is essentially the only way known to date that you can use to recover from a ransomware attack on VMware ESXi. You can use Altaro VM Backup to ensure your environment is protected.
Because attackers know this well, they will try to take down the backup infrastructure and erase all the files so your only option left is to pay the ransom. Which, as mentioned previously, is no guaranty that you get your files back.
Because of it, it is paramount to ensure your backup infrastructure is protected and secure by following best practices:
Avoid Active Directory Domain integration or use multi-factor authentication (MFA).
Do not use the same credentials for access to the VMware and Backup infrastructures.
NIST controls for data integrity (National Institute of Standards and Technology)
VMware documents solutions for combatting ransomware by incorporating the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) controls specific to data integrity. You can find VMware’s recommendations and implementation of the NIST in this dedicated document:
“National Institute of Standards and Technology logo”
The NIST framework is broken down into 5 functions:
In the VMware document linked above, you will find Detect, Protect and Respond recommendations that apply to various environments such as private cloud, hybrid cloud or end-user endpoints.
So How Worried Should I be?
Ransomware have always been one of the scary malware as they can deal a great amount of damage to a company, up to the point of causing some of them to go into bankruptcy. However, let us not get overwhelmed by these thoughts as you are not powerless against them. It is always best to act than to react.
In fact, there is no reason for your organization to get hit by a ransomware as long as you follow all the security best practices and you don’t cut corners. It might be tempting at some point to add an ALLOW ALL/ALL firewall rule to test something, give a user or service account full admin rights, patch a server into an extra VLAN or whatever action you know for a fact would increase your security officer’s blood pressure. In such a case, even if there is a 99.9% chance things are fine, think of the consequences it could have on the company as a whole should you hit that 0.1% lurking in the back.
If you are reading this and you have any doubts regarding the security of your infrastructure, run a full audit of what is currently in place and draw a plan to bring it into compliance with the current industry best practices as soon as possible. In any case, patch your systems as soon as possible, especially if you are behind!
The Internet of Things (IoT) is here, and we’re using it for everything from getting instant answers to random trivia questions to screening visitors at the door. According to Gartner, we were expected to use more than 25 billion internet-connected devices by the end of 2021. But as our digital lives have become more convenient, we might not yet have considered the risks involved with using IoT devices.
How can you keep yourself secure in today’s IoT world, where hackers aim to outsmart your smart home? First we’ll look at how hackers infiltrate the IoT, and then we’ll look at what you can do right now to make sure the IoT is working for you – not against you.
How hackers are infiltrating the Internet of Things
While we’ve become comfortable asking voice assistants to give us the weather forecast while we prep our dinners, hackers have been figuring out how to commandeer our IoT devices for cyber attacks. Here are just a few examples of how cyber criminals are already infiltrating the IoT.
Gaining access to and control of your camera
Have you ever seen someone with a sticker covering the camera on their laptop or smartphone? There’s a reason for that. Hackers have been known to gain access to these cameras and spy on people. This has become an even more serious problem in recent years, as people have been relying on videoconferencing to safely connect with friends and family, participate in virtual learning, and attend telehealth appointments during the pandemic. Cameras now often come with an indicator light that lets you know whether they’re being used. It’s a helpful protective measure, but not a failsafe one.
Using voice assistants to obtain sensitive information
According to Statista, 132 million Americans used a digital voice assistant once a month in 2021. Like any IoT gadget, however, they can be vulnerable to attack. According to Ars Technica, academic researchers have discovered that the Amazon Echo can be forced to take commands from itself, which opens the door to major mischief in a smart home. Once an attacker has compromised an Echo, they can use it to unlock doors, make phone calls and unauthorized purchases, and control any smart home appliances that the Echo manages.
Many bad actors prefer the quiet approach, however, slipping in undetected and stealing information. They can piggyback on a voice assistant’s privileged access to a victim’s online accounts or other IoT gadgets and make off with any sensitive information they desire. With the victim being none the wiser, the attackers can use that information to commit identity fraud or stage even more ambitious cyber crimes.
Hacking your network and launching a ransomware attack
Any device that is connected to the internet, whether it’s a smart security system or even a smart fridge, can be used in a cyber attack. Bad actors know that most people aren’t keeping their IoT gadgets’ software up to date in the same way they do their computers and smartphones, so they take advantage of that false sense of security. Once cyber criminals have gained access to an IoT device, they can go after other devices on the same network. (This is because most home networks are designed to trust devices that are already connected to them.) When these malicious actors are ready, they can launch a ransomware attack that brings your entire digital life to a halt – unless you agree to fork over a hefty sum in bitcoin, that is.
Using bots to launch a DDOS attack
Although most people never notice it, hackers can and do infect IoT devices with malware en masse, gaining control over them in the process. Having turned these zombie IoT devices into bots, the hackers then collectively use them to stage what’s called a botnet attack on their target of choice. This form of assault is especially popular for launching distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks, in which all the bots in a botnet collectively flood a target with network requests until it buckles and goes offline.
How you can keep your Internet of Things gadgets safe from hackers
So how can you protect your IoT devices from these determined hackers? Fortunately, you can take back control by becoming just a little more cyber smart. Here are a few ways to keep your IoT gadgets safe from hackers:
Never use the default settings on your IoT devices. Although IoT devices are designed to be plug-and-play so you can start enjoying them right away, their default settings are often not nearly as secure as they should be. With that in mind, set up a unique username and strong password combination before you start using any new IoT technology. While you’re at it, see if there’s an option to encrypt the traffic to and from your IoT device. If there is, turn it on.
Keep your IoT software up to date. Chances are, you regularly install the latest software updates on your computer and phone. Hackers are counting on you to leave your IoT gadgets unpatched, running outdated software with vulnerabilities they can exploit, so be sure to keep the software on your IoT devices up to date as well.
Practice good password hygiene. We all slip into bad password habits from time to time – it’s only human – but they put our IoT security at risk. With this in mind, avoid re-using passwords and be sure to set unique, strong passwords on each of your IoT devices. Update those passwords from time to time, too. Don’t store your passwords in a browser, and don’t share them via email. A password manager can help you securely store and share your passwords, so hackers never have a chance to snatch them.
Use secure, password-protected WiFi. Cyber criminals are notorious for sneaking onto open, insecure WiFi networks. Once they’re connected, they can spy on any internet activity that happens over those networks, steal login credentials, and launch cyber attacks if they feel like it. For this reason, make sure that you and your IoT devices only use secure, password-protected WiFi.
Use multi-factor authentication as an extra layer of protection. Multi-factor authentication (MFA), gives you extra security on top of all the other measures we mentioned above. It asks you to provide one more credential, or factor, in addition to a password to confirm you are who you say you are. If you have MFA enabled and a hacker tries to log in as you, you’ll get a notification that a login attempt is in progress. Whenever you have the option to enable MFA on any account or technology, take advantage of it.
Protect your Internet of Things devices with smart password security
The IoT is making our lives incredibly convenient, but that convenience can be a little too seductive at times. It’s easy to forget that smart home devices, harmless-looking and helpful as they are, can be targeted in cyber attacks just like our computers and phones. Hackers are counting on you to leave your IoT gadgets unprotected so they can use them to launch damaging attacks. By following these smart IoT security tips, you can have the best of both worlds, enjoying your smart life and better peace of mind at the same time.
Learn how LastPass Premium helps you strengthen your password security.
QR codes link the offline to the online. What started as a way to streamline manufacturing in the automotive industry is now a widespread technology helping connect the physical world to digital content. And as the world embraced remote, no-touch solutions during the Covid pandemic, QR codes became especially popular. QR codes offer convenience and immediacy for businesses and consumers, but cybercriminals also take advantage of them. Here’s what you need to know about QR codes and how to stay safe when using them.
Why QR codes?
Due to their size and structure, the two-dimensional black and white barcodes we call QR codes are very versatile. And since most people carry a smartphone everywhere, they can quickly scan QR codes with their phone’s camera. Moreover, since QR codes are relatively easy to program and accessible for most smartphone users, they can be an effective communication tool.
They also have many uses. For example, QR codes may link to a webpage, start an app or file download, share contact information, initiate a payment, and more. Covid forced businesses to be creative with touchless experiences, and QR codes provide a convenient way to transform a physical touchpoint into a digital interaction. During Covid, QR codes became a popular way to look at restaurant menus, communicate Covid policies, check in for an appointment, and view marketing promotions, among other scenarios.
As a communication tool, QR codes can transmit a lot of information from one person to another, making it easy for someone to take action online and interact further with digital content.
What hackers do with QR codes
QR codes are inherently secure, and no personally identifiable information (PII) is transmitted while you’re scanning them. However, the tricky part about QR codes is that you don’t know what information they contain until you scan them. So just looking at the QR code won’t tell you if it’s entirely trustworthy or not.
For example, cybercriminals may try to replace or sticker over a QR code in a high-traffic, public place. Doing so can trick people into scanning a malicious QR code. Or, hackers might send malicious QR codes digitally by email, text, or social media. The QR code scam might target a specific individual, or cybercriminals may design it to attract as many scans as possible from a large number of people.
Once scanned, a malicious QR code may take you to a phishing website, lead you to install malware on your device, redirect a payment to the wrong account, or otherwise compromise the security of your private information.
In the same way that cybercriminals try to get victims to click phishing links in email or social media, they lure people into scanning a QR code. These bad actors may be after account credentials, financial information, PII, or even company information. With that information, they can steal your identity or money or even break into your employer’s network for more valuable information (in other words, causing a data breach).
Pay attention to context. Where is the code available? What does the code claim to do (e.g., will it send you to a landing page)? Is there someone you can ask to confirm the purpose of the QR code? Did someone send it unprompted? Is it from a business or individual you’ve never heard of? Just like with phishing links, throw it out when in doubt.
Look closely at the code. Some codes may have specific colors or branding to indicate the code’s purpose and destination. Many codes are generic black and white designs, but sometimes there are clues about who made the code.
Check the link before you click. If you scan the QR code and a link appears, double-check it before clicking. Is it a website URL you were expecting? Is it a shortened link that masks the full URL? Is the webpage secure (HTTPS)? Do you see signs of a phishing attack (branding is slightly off, strange URL, misspelled words, etc.)? If it autogenerates an email or text message, who is the recipient and what information is it sending them? If it’s a payment form, who is receiving the payment? Read carefully before taking action.
Practice password security. Passwords and account logins remain one of the top targets of cyber attacks. Stolen credentials give cybercriminals access to valuable personal and financial information. Generate every password for every account with a random password generator, ideally built into a password manager for secure storage and autofill. Following password best practices ensures one stolen password results in minimal damage.
Layer with MFA. Adding multi-factor authentication to logins further protects against phishing attacks that steal passwords. With MFA in place, a hacker still can’t access an account after using a stolen password. By requiring additional login data, MFA can prevent cybercriminals from gaining access to personal or business accounts.
QR codes remain a popular marketing and communication tool. They’re convenient and accessible, so you can expect to encounter them occasionally. Though cyber attacks via QR codes are less common, you should still stay vigilant for signs of phishing and social engineering via QR codes. To prevent and mitigate attacks via QR codes, start by building a solid foundation of digital security with a trusted password manager.
“Luck favors the prepared,” as the saying goes. The maxim is true in cyber security, too. We all know about data breaches. We know they’re alarmingly common; more common than ever, if you can believe it. We know they can be costly, time-consuming, and disruptive. And yet, what do we know of mentally and emotionally preparing for an attack to happen to us?
A cyber attack can have a tremendous negative psychological impact, the effects of which victims can feel for weeks and months. Understanding the emotions you might feel during and after an attack can help you better prepare for and handle a cyber attack if/when it happens to you. Here’s what you need to know about the potential psychological impact of cyber attacks and what to do in advance so you can deal with one calmly and rationally.
During a cyber attack
Cyber attacks can happen suddenly. For example, you might get a random text or email about new account activity or a changed password. A service might inform you of a money transfer you didn’t approve, a purchase you didn’t make, or an account change you weren’t expecting. Or the next time you try to log in to an account, you find yourself locked out. Or your data is suddenly gone and held hostage by a cyber-criminal demanding a ransom. Or you just hung up the phone with someone who claimed to be tech support, and now you’re watching someone else control your computer without your consent.
No matter how it happens, panic often sets in once you find yourself suffering a cyber attack. It’s common to feel intense fear; fear for what will happen to your money and your personal information and the unknown impact the attack will have on your life. You might panic about what to do, how to regain control, and how to get help. You might feel violated, like someone has invaded your personal space and upended your sense of safety. In some ways, a cyber attack can feel like the digital equivalent of being robbed, with a corresponding wave of anxiety and dread.
Anxiety, panic, fear, and frustration – even intense anger – are common emotional responses when experiencing a cyber attack. While expected, these emotions can paralyze you and prolong or worsen a cyber attack. The combination of not knowing what to do and being paralyzed with fear can keep you from taking quick, effective action against a cyber attack. Preparing in advance can help you move through these intense emotions and respond productively.
During an attack, your focus should be on regaining control of the situation. Do you still have access to the account/device under attack? Immediately change passwords, remove unauthorized locations, notify customer service, check all security settings and do everything you can to lock out access to any third parties while beefing up security (including enabling two-factor authentication). On a trusted device (e.g., not a compromised device), change passwords for other high-value accounts like email, banking/financial, and social media. A password manager can help you change passwords quickly to new, random ones. You need to act fast while staying focused on the actions most likely to stop or at least slow down an attack.
Immediately after an attack
At some point, the attack will be over. Either you shut down the attack or the attackers “win,” and you find yourself dealing with the aftermath. Regardless, the emotional and mental impact may continue. A cyber attack can leave you with tough questions despite the initial relief when the immediate threat is over.
Self-pity and rumination are typical responses in the immediate wake of an attack. Why me? Did I draw their attention? Did I make a mistake? Why was my data/money/account/device worth stealing? Could I have done something different to prevent it? What if I had done x or y? Are they going to strike again? And on and on. You might find yourself overthinking and overanalyzing everything leading up to the attack. You might obsess over your actions during the attack and criticize yourself excessively for what you did or didn’t do.
Again, all of the above are understandable responses to a cyber attack. But these negative emotions can drag you down. If you’re mentally stuck, you’ll struggle to clean up after the attack and prepare for future incidents.
After an attack, your focus should be on analyzing how the attack happened and closing those “gaps” in your cyber security. Scan your devices for malware and change passwords. Turn on two-factor authentication, remove unknown and unused apps/browser extensions/software/files, and review the security settings for important accounts like email and financials. If the cybercriminals stole money, you’d need to follow any options for recourse against theft. You might also need to cancel a card, close an account, or freeze your credit to prevent further abuse. In sum, your goal immediately after an attack is over should be to identify weaknesses in your online security and eliminate or minimize them to prevent further problems.
Long-term impact
Unfortunately, negative emotions can persist weeks and months after a cyber attack, especially when the attack results in the theft of data, money, or other personal property. You’ll likely feel embarrassed about what happened, maybe even ashamed. You may worry about what others think if they find out the details. Sometimes, workplace security mistakes can lead to loss of employment, which can devastate one’s mental and physical wellbeing.
Avoidance is common, too; if you feel uncomfortable thinking about the cyber attack, you might use your discomfort as an excuse to avoid improving your cyber security. Ignoring your feelings, though, can keep you from processing what happened and doing what you must to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
Will it happen again? Apprehension is understandable in the wake of a cyber attack. You’ve been through a roller coaster of emotions, and the attack has forever shattered your sense of digital safety. Anxiety and worry about future attacks are normal but use those feelings as motivation to improve your cyber security strategy. There is never a “done” when it comes to cyber security. Hackers are constantly evolving their methods, and your cyber security strategy needs to keep up.
How to minimize psychological distress
Whether or not you’ve been the victim of a cyber attack, there are things you can do to stop or minimize future attacks. Building a solid foundation of cyber security requires doing the basics well. It’s not hard, but it takes a little time and commitment to improving your digital practices. The good news is that once you make these changes, you’ll find they can improve your online experience and help you feel better prepared for cyber attacks.
Prioritize good password hygiene. Weak, reused, guessable passwords contribute to account takeovers and online theft. Replace passwords with generated ones that are genuinely random and strong enough to withstand cracking. Enable two-factor authentication wherever it’s available; some two-factor apps make it easier to log in to an account.
Safeguard accounts with a password manager. A password manager stores credentials for your online accounts, enters your info when you need to log in, and ensures every password is unique and random. It simplifies strong password security and takes the hassle out of logging in.
Keep a clean machine. Don’t click random links. Don’t download strange attachments. Don’t install unverified apps and extensions. Don’t give strangers your login information, SSN, or other data. Don’t answer the phone for “tech support” – no tech support or police department or bank will ever call you to deal with a “security issue” or “software problem.”
Stay cyber aware. Watch for suspicious online account activity and take action at the first sign of something strange. Turn on account alerts to your phone or email. Enable dark web monitoring and follow up immediately on publicized data breaches. Know the signs of phishing and social engineering attacks, and scrutinize every text/email/phone call/social media message for signs of fraud.
Seek support and professional advice. You don’t have to suffer alone. Like other traumatic life events, a therapist or other qualified mental health professional can help you process after you’re the victim of cybercrime. When necessary, digital forensics and information security professionals can also help investigate and resolve a digital crime. Don’t hesitate to seek personal and professional support when needed.
Cybercriminals like to go after easy targets. Building a solid foundation with cyber security basics can prevent cyber attacks by making it too difficult or costly for criminals to go after your accounts. It can also buy you time to react immediately when an attack starts.
Cyber attacks can cause intense, paralyzing emotions. The more you educate yourself and prepare in advance, the more likely you are to work around those emotions during and after an attack. Don’t just assume you’ll deal with it and figure everything out in the moment. Do the work now to prepare so you’re not overwhelmed mentally by a cyber attack. Getting started with a password manager will help you build stronger, more effective online security habits. When you feel confident handling a cybersecurity incident, you’ll minimize the psychological impact of these scary events and more effectively navigate the challenges they can bring.
Password-protected ZIP archives are common means of compressing and sharing sets of files—from sensitive documents to malware samples to even malicious files (i.e. phishing “invoices” in emails).
But, did you know it is possible for an encrypted ZIP file to have two correct passwords, with both producing the same outcome when the ZIP is extracted?
A ZIP file with two passwords
Arseniy Sharoglazov, a cybersecurity researcher at Positive Technologies shared over the weekend a simple experiment where he produced a password-protected ZIP file called x.zip.
The password Sharoglazov picked for encrypting his ZIP was a pun on the 1987 hit that’s become a popular tech meme:
But the researcher demonstrated that when extracting x.zip using a completely different password, he received no error messages.
In fact, using the different password resulted in successful extraction of the ZIP, with original contents intact:
pkH8a0AqNbHcdw8GrmSp
Two different passwords for same ZIP file result in successful extraction (Sharoglazov)
BleepingComputer was able to successfully reproduce the experiment using different ZIP programs. We used both p7zip (7-Zip equivalent for macOS) and another ZIP utility called Keka.
Like the researcher’s ZIP archive, ours was created with the aforementioned longer password, and with AES-256 encryption mode enabled.
While the ZIP was encrypted with the longer password, using either password extracted the archive successfully.
How’s this possible?
Responding to Sharoglazov’s demo, a curious reader, Rafaraised an important question, “How????”
Twitter user Unblvr seems to have figured out the mystery:
When producing password-protected ZIP archives with AES-256 mode enabled, the ZIP format uses the PBKDF2 algorithm and hashes the password provided by the user, if the password is too long. By too long, we mean longer than 64 bytes (characters), explains the researcher.
Instead of the user’s chosen password (in this case “Nev1r-G0nna-G2ve-…”) this newly calculated hash becomes the actual password to the file.
When the user attempts to extract the file, and enters a password that is longer than 64 bytes (“Nev1r-G0nna-G2ve-… “), the user’s input will once again be hashed by the ZIP application and compared against the correct password (which is now itself a hash). A match would lead to a successful file extraction.
The alternative password used in this example (“pkH8a0AqNbHcdw8GrmSp“) is in fact ASCII representation of the longer password’s SHA-1 hash.
SHA-1 checksum of “Nev1r-G0nna-G2ve-…” = 706b4838613041714e62486364773847726d5370.
This checksum when converted to ASCII produces: pkH8a0AqNbHcdw8GrmSp
Note, however, that when encrypting or decrypting a file, the hashing process only occurs if the length of the password is greater than 64 characters.
In other words, shorter passwords will not be hashed at either stage of compressing or decompressing the ZIP.
This is why when picking the long “Nev1r-G0nna-G2ve-… ” string as the password at the encryption stage, the actual password being set by the ZIP program is effectively the (SHA1) hash of this string.
At the decryption stage, if you were to enter “Nev1r-G0nna-G2ve-…,” it will be hashed and compared against the previously stored password (which is the SHA1 hash). However, entering the shorter “pkH8a0AqNbHcdw8GrmSp” password at the decryption stage will have the application directly compare this value to the stored password (which is, again the SHA1 hash).
The HMAC collisions subsection of PBKDF2 on Wikipedia provides some more technical insight to interested readers.
“PBKDF2 has an interesting property when using HMAC as its pseudo-random function. It is possible to trivially construct any number of different password pairs with collisions within each pair,” notes the entry.
“If a supplied password is longer than the block size of the underlying HMAC hash function, the password is first pre-hashed into a digest, and that digest is instead used as the password.”
But, the fact that there are now two possible passwords to the same ZIP does not represent a security vulnerability, “as one still must know the original password in order to generate the hash of the password,” the entry further explains.
Arriving at a perfect password
An interesting key aspect to note here is, ASCII representations of every SHA-1 hash need not be alphanumeric.
In other words, let’s assume we had chosen the following password for our ZIP file during this experiment. The password is longer than 64 bytes:
It’s SHA-1 checksum comes out to be: bd0b8c7ab2bf5934574474fb403e3c0a7e789b61
And the ASCII representation of this checksum looks like a gibberish set of bytes—not nearly elegant as the alternative password generated by the researcher for his experiment:
ASCII representation of SHA-1 hash of Bl33pingC0mputer… password
BleepingComputer asked Sharoglazov how was he able to pick a password whose SHA-1 checksum would be such that its ASCII representation yields a clean, alphanumeric string.
“That’s why hashcat was used,” the researcher tells BleepingComputer.
By using a slightly modified version of the open source password recovery tool, hashcat, the researcher generated variations of the “Never Gonna Give You Up…” string using alphanumeric characters until he arrived at a perfect password.
“I tested Nev0r, Nev1r, Nev2r and so on… And I found the password I need.”
And, that’s how Sharoglazov arrived at a password that roughly reads like “Never Gonna Give You Up…,” but the ASCII representation of its SHA-1 checksum is one neat alphanumeric string.
For most users, creating a password-protected ZIP file with a choice of their password should be sufficient and that is all they would need to know.
But should you decide to get adventurous, this experiment provides a peek into one of the many mysteries surrounding encrypted ZIPs, like having two passwords to your guarded secret.
Before COVID-19, most corporate employees worked in offices, using computers connected to the internal network. Once users connected to these internal networks, they typically had access to all the data and applications without many restrictions. Network architects designed flat internal networks where the devices in the network connected with each other directly or through a router or a switch.
But while flat networks are fast to implement and have fewer bottlenecks, they’re extremely vulnerable — once compromised, attackers are free to move laterally across the internal network.
Designing flat networks at a time when all the trusted users were on the internal networks might have been simpler and more efficient. But times have changed: Today, 55% of those surveyed say they work more hours remotely than at the physical office. Due to the rapid evolution of the way we work, corporations must now contend with:
Multiple network perimeters at headquarters, in remote offices and in the cloud
Applications and data scattered across different cloud platforms and data centers
Users who expect the same level of access to internal networks while working remotely
While this is a complex set of issues, there is a solution. Network segmentation, when implemented properly, can unflatten the network, allowing security admins to compartmentalize internal networks and provide granular user access.
What is network segmentation?
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) offers the following definition for network segmentation: “Splitting a network into sub-networks; for example, by creating separate areas on the network which are protected by firewalls configured to reject unnecessary traffic. Network segmentation minimizes the harm of malware and other threats by isolating it to a limited part of the network.”
The main principle of segmentation is making sure that each segment is protected from the other, so that if a breach does occur, it is limited to only a portion of the network. Segmentation should be applied to all entities in the IT environment, including users, workloads, physical servers, virtual machines, containers, network devices and endpoints.
Connections between these entities should be allowed only after their identities have been verified and proper access rights have been established. The approach of segmenting with granular and dynamic access is also known as Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA).
As shown in Figure 1, instead of a network with a single perimeter, inside which entities across the network are freely accessible, a segmented network environment features smaller network zones with firewalls separating them.
Achieving network segmentation
Implementing segmentation may seem complex, and figuring out the right place to start might seem intimidating. But by following these steps, it can be achieved rather painlessly.
1. Understand and Visualize
Network admins need to map all the subnets and virtual local area networks (VLANs) on the corporate networks. Visualizing the current environment provides a lot of value right away in understanding both how to and what to segment.
At this step, network and security teams also need to work together to see where security devices such as firewalls, IPS and network access controls are deployed in the corporate network. An accurate map of the network and a complete inventory of security systems will help tremendously in creating efficient segments.
2. Segment and Create Policies
The next step in the process is to create the segments themselves: Large subnets or zones should be segmented, monitored and protected with granular access policies. Segments can be configured based on a variety of categories, including geo-location, corporate departments, server farms, data centers and cloud platforms.
After defining segments, create security policies and access-control rules between those segments. These polices can be created and managed using firewalls, VLANs or secure mobile access devices. In most cases, security admins can simply use existing firewalls or secure mobile access solutions to segment and create granular policies. It’s best for administrators to ensure that segments and policies are aligned with business processes.
3. Monitor and Enforce Policies
After creating segments and policies, take some time to monitor the traffic patterns between those segments. The first time the security policies are enforced, it may cause disruption to regular business functions. So it’s best to apply policies in non-blocking or alert mode and monitor for false positives or other network errors.
Next, it’s the time to enforce policies. Once the individual policies are pushed, each segment is protected from cyber attackers’ lateral movements and from internal users trying to reach resources they are not authorized to use. It’s a good idea to continuously monitor and apply new policies as needed whenever there are changes to networks, applications or user roles.
Policy-based segmentation: A way forward for distributed networks
What today’s enterprises require is a way to deliver granular policy enforcement to multiple segments within the network. Through segmentation, companies can protect critical digital assets against any lateral attacks and provide secure access to remote workforces.
The good news is that, with the power and flexibility of a next-generation firewall (NGFW) and with other technologies such as secure mobile access and ZTNA solutions, enterprises can safeguard today’s distributed networks by enforcing policy-based segmentation.
SonicWall’s award-winning hardware and advanced technologies include NGFWs, Secure Mobile Access and Cloud Edge Secure Access. These solutions are designed to allow any network— from small businesses to large enterprises, from the datacenter to the cloud — to segment and achieve greater protection with SonicWall.
The oil and gas industry is no stranger to major cybersecurity attacks, attempting to disrupt operations and services. Most of the best understood attacks against the oil industry are initial attempts to break into the corporate networks of oil companies.
Geopolitical tensions can cause major changes not only in physical space, but also in cyberspace. In March 2022, our researchers observed several alleged cyberattacks perpetrated by different groups. It has now become important more than ever to identify potential threats that may disrupt oil and gas companies, especially in these times when tensions are high.
Our survey also found that oil and gas companies have experienced disruptions with their supply due to cyberattacks. On average, the disruption lasted six days. The the financial damage amounts to approximately $3.3 million. Due to long disruption, the oil and gas industry has a much larger damage, too.
It is important to have an in-depth at cyberattacks than can disrupt oil and gas companies because they affect operations and profit in a major way. By looking closer at the infrastructure of an oil and gas company and identifying threats that can disrupt operation, a company can seal off loopholes and improve their cybersecurity framework.
The Infrastructure of a Typical Oil and Gas Company
An oil and gas company’s product chain usually has three parts—upstream, midstream, and downstream. Processes related to oil exploration and production is called an upstream, while the midstream refers to the transportation and storage of crude oil through pipelines, trains, ships, or trucks. Lastly, the downstream the production of end products. Cyber risks are present in all three categories, but for midstream and upstream, there are few publicly documented incidents.
Generally, an oil company has production sites where crude oil is extracted from wells, tank farms, where oil is stored temporarily, and a transportation system to bring the crude oil to a refinery. Transportation may include pipelines, trains, and ships. After processing in the refinery, different end products like diesel fuel, gasoline, and jet fuel are transported to tank farms and the products are later shipped to customers.
A gas company also typically has production sites and a transportation system such as railroads, ships, and pipelines. However, it needs compressor stations where the natural gas is compressed before transport. The natural gas is then transported to another plant that separates different hydrocarbon components, from natural gas, like LPG and cooking gas.
The intricate process of oil and gas companies mean they require constant monitoring to ensure the optimal performance measurement, performance improvement, quality control and safety.
Monitoring metrics include temperature, pressure, chemical composition, and detection of leaks. Some oil and gas production sites are in very remote locations where the weather can be extreme. For these sites, communication of the monitored metrics over the air, fixed (optic or copper) lines, or satellite is important. The systems of an oil and gas company is typically controlled by software and can be compromised by an attacker.
Threats
There are several threats that oil and gas companies should be aware of. The biggest threat to the industry is those that have a direct negative impact on the production of their end products. In addition, espionage is something that such companies need to defend themselves against, too.
In our in-depth research, the expert team at Trend Micro identified the following threats that can compromise oil and gas companies:
Sabotage In the context of the oil and gas industry, sabotage can be done by changing the behavior of software, deleting or wiping specific content to disrupt company activity or deleting or wiping as much content as possible on every accessible machine.
Some examples of these kinds of sabotage operations have been reported broadly, the most famous being the Stuxnet case. Stuxnet was a piece of self-replicating malware that contained a very targeted and specific payload. Most infections of the worm were in Iran and analysis revealed that it was designed to exclusively target the centrifuge in the uranium enrichment facility of the Natanz Nuclear Plant in the country.
Insider threat In most cases, an insider is a disgruntled employee seeking revenge or wanting to make easy money by selling valuable data to competitors. This person can sabotage operations. They can alter data to create problems, delete or destroy data from corporate servers or shared project folders, steal intellectual property, and leak sensitive documents to third parties.
Defense against insider threats is very complex since insiders generally have access to a lot of data. An insider also does not need months to know the internal network of the company — the insider probably already knows the inner workings of the organization.
Espionage and data theft Data theft and espionage can be the starting point of a larger destructive attack. Attackers often need specific information before attempting further action. Obtaining sensitive data like well drilling techniques, data on suspected oil and gas reserves, and special recipes for premium products can also translate to monetary gain for attackers.
DNS hijacking DNS hijacking is a form of data theft used by advanced attackers. The objective is to gain access to the corporate VPN network or corporate emails of governments and companies. We have seen several oil companies being targeted by advanced attackers who probably have certain geopolitical goals in mind.
In DNS hijacking, the DNS settings of a domain name are modified by an unauthorized third party. The third-party can, for instance, add an entry to the zone file of a domain or alter the resolution of one or more of the existing hostnames. The simplest things the attacker can do are committing vandalism(defacement), leaving a message on the hijacked website, and making the website unavailable. This will usually be noticed quickly and the result may just be reputational damage.
Attacks on Webmail and Corporate VPN Servers While webmail and file-sharing services have become a vital tool for accessing emails and important documents on the go, these services can increase the possibility of a cyberattack on the surface.
For instance, a webmail hostname might get DNS-hijacked or hacked because of the vulnerability in the webmail software. Webmail and file-sharing and collaboration platforms can be compromised in credential-phishing attacks.
A well-prepared credential-phishing attack can be quite convincing, as when an actor registers a domain name can be quite convincing, as when an actor registers a domain name that resembles the legitimate webmail hostname, or when an actor creates a valid SSL certificate and chooses the targets within an organization carefully. The risk of webmail and third-party file-sharing services can be greatly reduced by requiring two factor authentication (preferably with a physical key) and corporate VPN access to these services.
Data leaks Data leaks have always been problematic. But the oil and gas industry is more susceptible to these threats because leaked information can be quite beneficial to a competitor. Data leaks can also cause substantial damage to a company’s reputation.
During our research, we easily found dozens of sensitive documents related to the oil industry online. One way of finding these documents is by using specially crafted Google queries, called Google Dorks.
Another way to find such content is to hunt for data on public services like Pastebin, an online service that allows anyone to copy and paste any text-based content and store it there, privately, or publicly. Another source of data is public sandboxes meant for analysis of suspicious files. Users can mistakenly send legitimate documents to these sandboxes for analysis. Once uploaded, these documents can be parsed or downloaded by third parties.
External emails In general, emails are well-protected inside companies. However, external emails cannot be controlled the same way. Employees regularly send emails to external addresses, hence some sensitive internal content ends up outside the company’s purview. Even worse, sensitive information can be copied to unsecured backup systems or stored locally on personal computers without standard corporate security protocols, which makes it easier for attackers to get hold of the information. Once a computer is compromised, an attacker can get the emails and use them in different ways to harm a company. For example, an actor could leak them on public servers or services like Pastebin.
In part two of our series, we look at additional threats that can compromise oil and gas companies, such as ransomware, malware, DNS tunneling, and zero-day exploits.
As we continue to monitor the cyber situation in Ukraine, the data we are seeing shows some interesting trends. Not only has the volume of attacks continued rising throughout the conflict in Ukraine, the types of attacks have been varied. A common tactic of cyber criminals is to run automated exploit attempts, hitting as many possible targets as they can to see what gets a result. The data we have analyzed shows that this tactic is being used against Ukrainian websites. This is in contrast to a targeted approach where threat actors go after specific individuals or organizations, using gathered intelligence to make at least an educated guess at the type of vulnerabilities that may be exploitable.
Data Shows a Variety of Attack Types
In the past 30 days, we have seen 16 attack types that triggered more than 85 different firewall rules across protected websites with .ua top-level domains. These rules blocked more than 9.8 million attack attempts on these websites, with the top five attack types accounting for more than 9.7 million of those attempts.
In order to demonstrate the top five attack types, we are going to follow a single threat actor who has been observed attempting each of these attack types throughout the last 30 days. Combining the originating IP addresses associated with the attack attempts with the user-agent that was used and other commonalities, we can say with a high degree of certainty that the demonstrated attack attempts were work of the same threat actor.
Known Malicious IP Addresses
The largest category of blocked attack attempts were due to use of a known malicious IP address. These IP addresses are maintained by the Wordfence blocklist, with new addresses added when they become maliciously engaged, and removed when they are no longer being used maliciously. When we see activity from an IP address on the blocklist, it is immediately blocked, however we do track the request that was received from the attacking server.
The top IP addresses we have blocked using known malicious IP addresses were often seen attempting to upload spam content to websites, however it was also common to see file upload and information disclosure attempts as well. Here we see a simple POST request that uses URL encoding along with base64 encoding to obfuscate a command to be run.
The decoded payload will simply display XO_Sp3ctra to alert the malicious actor that the affected system will allow commands to be run by them.
When we look at the top known malicious IP addresses blocked worldwide, the top 15 are IP addresses within Russia. This does not match what we are seeing in the Ukraine, where the top attacking IP addresses vary in location across North America, Europe, and Asia, with only three in Russia. However, there is a similarity. The IP address in 15th position worldwide for most initiated exploit attempts is in 4th position for blocked attacks against .ua domains. The IP address, 152.89.196.102, is part of an ASN belonging to Chang Way Technologies Co. Limited. The IP itself is located in Russia, but assigned to a company named Starcrecium Limited, which is based in Cyprus and has been used to conduct attacks of this type in the past. This IP has been blocked 78,438 times on .ua websites, with a total of 3,803,734 blocked attack attempts worldwide.
When you consider the fact that we logged malicious activity from almost 2.1 million individual IP addresses in this time, and the 15th worldwide ranked IP was ranked 4th against an area as small as Ukraine, the number of blocked attacks becomes very significant. Additionally, there were three IP addresses that ranked higher in Ukraine, but did not even make the top 20 worldwide, showing that while there are threat actors who are not focusing heavily on Ukraine, others are very focused on Ukrainian websites. What we are seeing from the IP addresses targeting Ukrainian websites more heavily is similar to what we see here, with information gathering and uploading spam content being the two main goals of the attack attempts.
One thing to keep in mind here is the fact that all .ua sites get our real-time threat intelligence, which is typically reserved for Wordfence Premium, Care, and Response customers, so it is not possible to get a true comparison between the websites in Ukraine and the rest of the world. IP addresses are added to the blocklist for many reasons, including the attack types we outlined above. Often these addresses are blocked for simple malicious behavior, such as searching for the existence of specific files on a website. More complex behavior like searching for the ability to run commands on the server will also lead to an IP being added to the blocklist.
Known Malicious User-Agents
One way that we block attacks is by tracking known malicious user-agents. This was the second-largest category our firewall blocked on .ua domains. When we see a user-agent string that is consistently being used in malicious events, like the user-agent below, we add it to a firewall rule.
User-agent strings can be set to an arbitrary value, so blocking user-agents is not sufficient to maintain security on its own. Nonetheless, tracking and blocking consistently malicious user-agents still allows us to block millions of additional attacks a day and provides us with a great degree of visibility into attacks that are less targeted at specific vulnerabilities. Many threat actors consistently use a given user-agent string, so this also allows us to block a large number of credential stuffing attacks on the first attempt, rather than after a certain threshold of failed logins.
There are many reasons a user-agent will be blocked by the Wordfence firewall, but always for consistent malicious activity. For instance, the user-agent here has been tracked in numerous types of attack attempts without consistent legitimate activity or false positives being detected. It is frequently found looking for configuration files, such as the aws.yml file in this example. Keep in mind that the fact that the actor is searching for this file does not automatically mean it exists on the server. However, if the file does exist and can be read by a would-be attacker, the data contained in the file would tell them a lot about the Amazon Web Services server configuration being used. This could lead to the discovery of vulnerabilities or other details that could help a malicious actor damage a website or server.
Similarly, information about the server could be discovered no matter who the server provider is if a file that returns configuration information, such as a info.php or server_info.php file can be discovered and accessed. Knowing the web server version, PHP version, and other critical details can add up to a vulnerability discovery that makes it easy for a malicious actor to access a website.
In addition to searching for configuration files, and other malicious activities, we also see an attacker using this specific user-agent attempting to upload malicious files to the servers they are trying to compromise. The following shows an attacker using the same known malicious user-agent attempting to upload a zip file, which, if successful, unzips to install a file named sp3ctra_XO.php on the server. When we said there were clues that these attack attempts were being perpetrated by the same threat actor, you can see here what one of those clues are with the sp3ctra_XO.php filename variation of the XO_Sp3ctra output seen earlier.
Over the past 30 days, we have observed this user-agent string used in more than 1.3 million attack attempts against Ukrainian websites. This makes it the largest attacking user-agent that is not immediately recognizable as an unusual user-agent. The only user-agent string that had more tracked attack attempts is wp_is_mobile. These user-agent strings are among the dozens that have been observed over time to be consistently associated only with malicious activity.
The user-agent we are following here was logged in 1,115,824,706 attack attempts worldwide in the same time frame, making this a very common malicious user-agent string. With this being a prolific user-agent in attacks around the world, it is no surprise that it is being seen in regular attack attempts on Ukrainian websites. Whether specifically targeted, or just a victim of circumstance, Ukrainian websites are seeing an increase in attacks. This is likely due to heightened activity from threat actors globally.
Directory Traversal
The next largest category of attack attempts we have been blocking targeting .ua domains was directory traversal. This relies on a malicious actor getting into the site files wherever they can, often through a plugin or theme vulnerability, and trying to access files outside of the original file’s directory structure. We are primarily seeing this used in much the same way as the information disclosure attacks, as a way to access the wp-config.php file that potentially provides database credentials. Other uses for this type of attack can also include the ability to get a list of system users, or access other sensitive data stored on the server.
In this example, the malicious actor attempted to download the site’s wp-config.php file by accessing the file structure through a download.php file in the twentyeleven theme folder, and moving up the directory structure to the WordPress root, where the wp-config.php file is located. This is seen in the request by adding ?file=..%2F..%2F..%2Fwp-config.php. This tells the server to look for a wp-config. php file that is three directories higher than the current directory.
This type of attack is often a guessing game for the malicious actor, as the path they are attempting to traverse may not even exist, but when it does, it can result in stolen data or damage to a website or system. The fact that the twentyeleven theme was used here does not necessarily indicate that the theme was vulnerable, or even installed on the site, only that the malicious actor was attempting to use it as a jumping off point while trying to find a vulnerable download.php file that could be used for directory traversal.
Information Disclosure
Information disclosure attacks are the fourth-largest attack type we blocked against .ua domains. The primary way we have observed threat actors attempting to exploit this type of vulnerability is through GET requests to a website, using common backup filenames, as seen in the example below. Unfortunately, due to the insecure practice of system administrators appending filenames with .bak as a method of making a backup of a file prior to modifying the contents, threat actors are likely to successfully access sensitive files by simply attempting to request critical files in known locations, with the .bak extension added. When successful, the contents of the file will be returned to the threat actor.
This is a fairly straightforward attack type, where the request simply returns the contents of the requested file. If a malicious actor can obtain the contents of a site’s wp-config.php file, even an outdated version of the file, they may be able to obtain the site’s database credentials. With access to a site’s database credentials, an attacker could gain full database access granted they have access to the database to log in with the stolen credentials. This would then give the attacker the ability to add malicious users, change a site’s content, and even collect useful information to be used in future attacks against the site or its users.
File Upload
File upload rounds out the top five categories of attack attempts we have been blocking targeting .ua domains. In these attempts, malicious actors try to get their own files uploaded to the server the website is hosted on. This serves a number of purposes, from defacing a website, to creating backdoors, and even distributing malware.
The example here is only one of the many types of upload attacks we have blocked. A malicious actor can use this POST request to upload a file to a vulnerable website that allows them to upload any file of their choosing. This can ultimately lead to remote code execution and full server compromise.
The POST request in this case includes the contents of a common PHP file uploader named bala.php. This code provides a simple script to select and upload any file the malicious actor chooses. If the upload is successful they will see a message stating eXploiting Done but if it fails they message will read Failed to Upload. The script also returns some general information about the system that is being accessed, including the name of the system and the operating system being used.
Another important thing to note about this request is that it attempts to utilize the Ioptimization plugin as an entry point. Ioptimization is a known malicious plugin that offers backdoor functionality, but was not actually installed in the site in question. This indicates that the threat actor was trying to find and take over sites that had been previously compromised by a different attacker.
The fact that file uploads are the most common blocked attack type is not at all surprising. File uploads can be used to distribute malware payloads, store spam content to be displayed in other locations, and install shells on the infected system, among a number of other malicious activities. If a malicious actor can upload an executable file to a site, it generally gives them full control of the infected site and a foothold to taking over the server hosting that site. It can also help them remain anonymous by allowing them to send out further attacks from the newly infected site.
Conclusion
In this post, we continued our analysis of the cyber attacks targeting Ukrainian websites. While there has been an increase in the number of attacks being blocked since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the attacks do not appear to be focused. Known malicious IP addresses were the most common reason we blocked attacks in the last 30 days, however, information stealing and spam were the most common end goals for the observed attack attempts.
If you believe your site has been compromised as a result of a vulnerability, we offer Incident Response services via Wordfence Care. If you need your site cleaned immediately, Wordfence Response offers the same service with 24/7/365 availability and a 1-hour response time. Both of these products include hands-on support in case you need further assistance.
