Detect and Prevent Data Exfiltration Webinar with Infoblox

Please join SANS Institute Instructor and LEO Cyber Security Co-Founder & CTO Andrew Hay and Infoblox Security Product Marketing’s Sam Kumarsamy on Thursday, August 17th, 2017 at 1:00 PM EDT (17:00:00 UTC) as they present a SANS Institute webinar entitled Detect & Prevent Data Exfiltration: A Unique Approach.

Overview

Data is the new currency in the modern digital enterprise and protecting data is a strategic imperative for every organization. Enterprises must protect data whether it resides in a data center, an individual’s laptop that is used on premise or off premise and across the global distributed enterprise. Effective data exfiltration prevention requires protecting DNS, the most commonly used channels to steal data and combining reputation, signatures and behavioral analytics. The detection and prevention of loss of data requires analysis of vast amounts of network data and require a solution that can scale to examine this data. In this webinar you will also learn about the Infoblox’s unique approach to detecting and preventing data exfiltration.

To register for the webinar, please visit: https://www.sans.org/webcasts/detect-prevent-data-exfiltration-unique-approach-infoblox-104985

You can now also attend the webcast using your mobile device!

 

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Petya Ransomware: What You Need to Know and Do

By: Andrew Hay

Unless you’ve been away from the Internet earlier this week, you’ve no doubt heard by now about the global ransomware outbreak that started in Ukraine and subsequently spread West across Western Europe, North America, and Australia yesterday. With similarities reminiscent to its predecessor WannaCry, this ransomware attack shut down organizations ranging from the Danish shipping conglomerate Maersk Line to a Tasmanian-based Cadbury chocolate factory.

I was asked throughout the course of yesterday and today to help clarify exactly what transpired. The biggest challenge with any surprise malware outbreak is the flurry of hearsay, conjecture, speculation, and just plain guessing by researchers, analysts, and the media.

At a very high level, here is what we know thus far:

  • The spread of this campaign appears to have originated in Ukraine but has migrated west to impact a number of other countries, including the United States where pharmaceutical giant Merck and global law firm DLA Piper were hit
  • The initial infection appears to involve a software supply-chain threat involving the Ukrainian company M.E.Doc, which develops tax accounting software, MeDoc
  • This appears to be a piece of malware utilizing the EternalBlue exploit disclosed by the Shadow Brokers back in April 2017 when the group released several hacking tools obtained from the NSA
  • Microsoft released a patch in March 2017 to mitigate the discovered remote code execution vulnerabilities that existed in the way that the Microsoft Server Message Block 1.0 (SMBv1) server handled certain requests
  • The malware implements several lateral movement techniques:
    • Stealing credentials or re-using existing active sessions
    • Using file-shares to transfer the malicious file across machines on the same network
    • Using existing legitimate functionalities to execute the payload or abusing SMB vulnerabilities for unpatched machines
  • Experts continue to debate whether or not this is a known malware variant called Petya but several researchers and firms claim that this is a never before seen variant that they are calling GoldenEye, NotPetya, Petna, or some other random name such as Nyetya
  • The jury is still out on whether or not the malware is new or simply a known variant

 

Who is responsible?

The million dollar question on everyone’s mind is “was this a nation-state backed campaign designed to specifically target Ukraine”? We at LEO believe that to be highly unlikely for a number of reasons. The likelihood that this is an opportunistic ransomware campaign with some initial software package targets is far more likely scenario than a state-sponsored actor looking to destabilize a country.

Always remember the old adage from Dr. Theodore Woodward: When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses not zebras.

If you immediately start looking for Russian, Chinese, or North Korean state-sponsored actors around every corner, you’ll inevitably construct some attribution and analysis bias. Look for the facts, not the speculation.

What does LEO recommend you do?

We recommend customers that have not yet installed security update MS17-010 to do so as soon as possible. Until you can apply the patch, LEO also recommends the following steps to help reduce the attack surface:

  • Disable SMBv1 with the steps documented at Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 2696547
  • Block incoming SMB traffic from the public Internet on port 445 and 139, adding a rule on your border routers, perimeter firewalls, and any intersecting traffic points between a higher security network zone to a lower security network zone
  • Disable remote WMI and file sharing, where possible, in favor of more secure file sharing protocols
  • Ensure that your logging is properly configured for all network-connected systems including workstations, servers, virtualized guests, and network infrastructure such as routers, switches, and firewalls
  • Ensure that your antimalware signatures are up-to-date on all systems (not just the critical ones)
  • Review your patch management program to ensure that emergency patches to mitigate critical vulnerabilities and easily weaponized attacks can be applied in an expedited fashion
  • Finally, consider stockpiling some cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin, to reduce any possible transaction downtime should you find that your organization is forced to pay the ransom. Attempting to acquire Bitcoin during an incident may be time-prohibitive

 

Should your organization need help or clarification on any of the above recommendations, please don’t hesitate to reach out to LEO Cyber Security for immediate assistance.

Further reading

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Diving into the Issues: Observations from SOURCE and AtlSecCon

Last week I had the pleasure of presenting three times, at two conferences, in two different countries: SOURCE in Boston, MA and at the Atlantic Security Conference (AtlSecCon) in Halifax, NS, Canada.

The first event of my week was SOURCE Boston. This year marked the tenth anniversary of SOURCE Conference and it continues to pride itself on being one of the only venues that brings business, technology and security professionals together under one roof to focus on real-world, practical security solutions for some of todays toughest security issues. Though I was only there for the first day, I was able to catch up with friends, play some Hacker Movie Trivia with Paul Asadoorian (@securityweekly), and chat with attendees on some of the biggest challenges we face around detecting and mitigating ransomware attacks.

After my presentation, I rushed off to Logan Airport to sit in, on what I now choose to call, the “Air Canada Ghetto” – a small three gate departure area segregated from the rest of the airport and its amenities. A minor four hour delay later, I was on my way to Halifax for AtlSecCon.

Between meetings and casual conversations I was enlightened by several presentations. Raf Los (@Wh1t3Rabbit), managing director of solutions research & development at Optiv, discussing Getting Off the Back Foot – Employing Active Defence which talked about an outcome-oriented and capabilities-driven model for more effective enterprise security.

After his talk, Aunshul Rege (@prof_rege), an assistant professor with the Criminal Justice department at Temple University, gave a very interesting talk entitled Measuring Adversarial Behavior in Cyberattacks. With a background in criminology, Aunshul presented her research from observations and interviews conducted at the Industrial Control Systems Computer Emergency Response Team’s (ICS-CERT) Red/Blue cybersecurity training exercise held at Idaho National Laboratory. Specifically, she covered how adversaries might engage in research and planning, offer team support, manage conflict between group members, structure attack paths (intrusion chains), navigate disruptions to their attack paths, and how limited knowledge bases and self-induced mistakes can possibly impact adversaries.

The last presentation was Mark Nunnikhoven’s (@marknca) highlighting Is Your Security Team Set up To Fail? Mark, the VP of cloud research at Trend Micro and a personal friend, examined the current state of IT security programs and teams…delving into the structure, goals, and skills prioritized by the industry.

The second day of the conference was filled with meetings for me but I was able to sit through Michael Joyce’s talk entitled A Cocktail Recipe for Improving Canadian Cybersecurity.  Joyce described the goals and objectives of The Smart Cybersecurity Network (SERENE-RISC) – a federally funded, not-for-profit knowledge mobilization network created to improve the general public’s awareness of cybersecurity risks and to empower all to mitigate them through knowledge. He was an excellent presenter and served as a call to action for those looking to help communicate the need for cybersecurity to all Canadians.

At both conferences I presented my latest talk entitled The Not-So-Improbable Future of Ransomware which explored how thousands of years of human kidnap and ransom doctrine have served as a playbook for ransomware campaign operators to follow. It was well received by both audiences and sparked follow-up conversations and discussions throughout the week. The SOURCE version can be found here and the AtlSecCon version here.

The conversation was received some early praise on the SOURCE session in addition to written pieces by Bill Brenner (@billbrenner70) from Sophos:


And Taylor Armerding (@tarmerding2) from CSO:


At AtlSecCon I joined a panel entitled Security Modelling Fundamentals: Should Security Teams Model a SOC Around Threats or Just Build Layers? Chaired by Tom Bain (@tmbainjr1), VP of marketing at CounterTack, the session served as a potpourri of security threats and trends ranging from ransomware, to regulation, to attack mitigation. It was quite fun and a great way to end the day.

Though it was a long series of flights home to the Bay Area I thoroughly enjoyed both conferences. I would highly recommend attending and/or speaking at both next year if you are provided with the opportunity.

Next up, (ISC)² CyberSecureGov 2017 in Washington, D.C. and the Rocky Mountain Information Security Conference (RMISC) in Denver, CO. Perhaps I’ll see some of our readers there!

The post Diving into the Issues: Observations from SOURCE and AtlSecCon appeared first on LEO Cyber Security.

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