For Top Cyber Threats, Look in the Mirror

October 31, 2016 / G C Network / Comments Off

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Robert Duffner Interviews Chris Kemp, NASA, and Kevin Jackson, NJVC, on GovCloud

By G C Network | November 7, 2010

Recently, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Mr. Robert Duffner, director of Product Management for Windows Azure, as part of his “Thought Leaders in the Cloud” series. In this interview,…

NJVC, Invertix Announce Cloud Computing Demonstration at GEOINT 2010

By G C Network | November 2, 2010

VIENNA, Va. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — NJVC®, one of the largest providers of information technology (IT) solutions to the U.S. Department of Defense, and Invertix Corporation, a proven technology company…

On The Frontlines: Cloud Computing in Government

By G C Network | October 27, 2010

Today, Trezza Media Group released the latest installment of it’s “On The Frontlines” series of government technology reports. The “On The Frontlines” Publications are dedicated to showcasing the positive progress…

GSA Awards Eleven US Federal IaaS Contracts

By G C Network | October 20, 2010

According to Federal News Radio, GSA awarded eleven vendor spots in the first Federal cloud infrastructure-as-a-service award. The winners were: * Apptis Inc. partnered with Amazon Web Services* AT&T* Autonomic…

NIST To Hold 2nd Cloud Computing Forum & Workshop

By G C Network | October 15, 2010

On November 4-5, 2010, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will hold their second Cloud Computing Forum & Workshop. During this event, NIST will report on the status of federal…

“On The Frontlines” Interview

By G C Network | October 5, 2010

Look out for “On The Frontlines: The Government Cloud” scheduled for release in November 2010! Trezza Media Group provides high-quality thought leadership media and marketing services to help companies connect…

Yongsan Army Garrison Does Cloud Computing!!

By G C Network | September 24, 2010

First Signal is ready for the cloud ! Even with the time constraints of the Chusok holiday and the onslaught of a 100-year flood, the class soldiered on with five…

Army Cloud Computing in Korea!

By G C Network | September 19, 2010

After a long uneventful flight, I’ve arrived at Yongsan Army Garrison in Soeul Korea. After enjoying the economy accomodation on a Boeing 777 for over 14 hours, my room and…

The Taiwan GovCloud

By G C Network | September 11, 2010

Last week, Henry Kenyon of Federal Computer Week reported that the Taiwanese government is planning to spend $744M to develop cloud computing technology. Premier Den-yih Wu sees this as a…

Geospatial Cloud Computing In Support Of National Policy

By G C Network | August 29, 2010

A few weeks ago I once again had the pleasure of participating in a private discussion on cloud computing with Mr. Vivek Kundra. What struck me in this most recent meeting was his views…

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A recent report by Praetorian, a cybersecurity company headquartered in Austin, TX, focused on threats that resulted in data compromise or access to sensitive information. Based on a review of 100 separate internal penetration test engagements the study identified the five most prevalent threats to corporate data. The amazing thing about these weaknesses is that the top four are all based on utilizing stolen credentials and the last one helps an attacker be more effective in using those stolen credentials. In other words, the enemy is right there in the mirror! The study spanned 75 unique organizations and only focused on security weaknesses that were used to obtain a full network compromise.

Where are your pain points?

The most prevalent threat is something we’ve all heard of before – Weak Domain User Passwords. Since most corporate environments use Microsoft’s Active Directory to manage employee accounts and access, it needs some improvements in order to fully address complex passwords. Since Active Directory only requires passwords to be a specific length and contain specific character sets so addressing this weakness will require the use of third-party software.

The next most common corporate threat is Broadcast Name Resolution Poisoning. Using this vector, an attacker responds to broadcast requests (i.e. LLMNR, NetBIOS, MDNS, etc) by providing its own IP. When this is done, the credentials of a user accessing network resources can be instead transmitted to the attacker’s system.

The next big no-no is when system administrators all use the same Local Admin password. If an attacker is able to compromise the LM/NT hash representation of the password, then the attacker can use the hash to authenticate and execute commands on other systems that have the same password. Using the hash, an attacker doesn’t need the actual password at all!

Microsoft Windows operating systems have another embedded password weakness. Believe it or not, the operating system stores domain credentials in cleartext within memory of the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) process. Although this weakness requires an attacker to have Local Admin or SYSTEM-level access, it ranks high on the threat list.

This last threat enhances all of the other – Insufficient Network Access Controls. Many organizations don’t restrict network access based on business requirements. This will enable unfettered attacker mobility after only a single system on the internal network has been compromised.

These threat vectors, last updated by Praetorian in June 2016, were evaluated as part of a complete corporate network compromise kill chain. They also highlight the importance of understanding the cybersecurity threat. Although the mirror is a good place to start improving on network security, you must also work to identify all your organization’s security pain points. With that knowledge you can more effectively enhance your team’s defenses and eventually evolve towards a better understanding of your security threat environment.

If you are serious about protecting your data, download the full report and read about the effective strategies your company can use to protect itself. If you are a CISO or corporate executives, IBM also provides some excellent information on how to secure the C-suite. They also provide an interactive toolthat can help better analyze your threats, protect your users and save your data from these and many other security challenges.