For Top Cyber Threats, Look in the Mirror

October 31, 2016 / G C Network / Comments Off

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OMG Cloud Standards Summit

By G C Network | July 2, 2009

July 13-15, 2009, in Arlington, VA, the Object Management Group, is holding a Standards in Government & NGO’s Workshop. During the first day, the Cloud Computing Standards Summit will focus…

NDU IRM Cloud Computing Event “Sold Out”!!!

By G C Network | July 2, 2009

Hope you’ve already registered for the “The Cloud Computing Symposium” , Wednesday, July 15, 2009 at the National Defense University in Washington, DC! This promises to be the premier government…

SSA’s Jim Borland on Healthcare Information Technology

By G C Network | June 25, 2009

Today, on this week’s Federal News Radio Federal Executive Forum webcast, Mr. Jim Borland, Special Advisor for Health IT, Office of the Commissioner, Social Security Administration(SSA), will discuss the value…

Dr. Leslie Lenert of CDC Speaks on Healthcare IT

By G C Network | June 24, 2009

During this week’s Federal News Radio Federal Executive Forum pre-recording, Dr. Leslie Lenert, Director, National Center for Public Health Informatics (NCPHI) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),…

Linda Fischetti on VHA Healthcare

By G C Network | June 23, 2009

This week pre-recording of Federal News Radio Federal Executive Forum featured Linda Fischetti , Health Informatics Architect at the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). During a panel discussion, her comments on…

Vish Sankaran, HHS, Speaks on Healthcare IT

By G C Network | June 22, 2009

During the pre-recording of this weeks Federal News Radio Federal Executive Forum, Vish Sankaran, Program Director of Federal Health Architecture, discussed the role of information technology in improving the country’s…

Iranian Protests Showcase Twitter, Facebook, YouTube (and Cloud Computing) !

By G C Network | June 21, 2009

In covering unfolding events in Iran, the world’s most powerful news outlets have been entirely dependent on the Twitter-provided flow of text, images, and video. While this has definitely showcased…

Two Days with AWS Federal

By G C Network | June 18, 2009

Today, I start two days of training with Amazon Web Services (AWS) Federal. If that’s the first time you’ve ever heard about an AWS Federal division, your not alone. Held…

Maneuver Warfare in IT: A Cheerleading Pundit

By G C Network | June 15, 2009

The Twitter conversation between Christofer Hoff and I went like this: Christofer – I haven’t formally blogged a resp. (yet) to @Kevin_Jackson on his ‘maneuver warfare in IT’ Not just a cultural shift but a…

Expanding Maneuver Warfare in IT

By G C Network | June 12, 2009

Earlier this week I published “Cloud Computing: The Dawn of Maneuver Warfare in IT Security” via Ulitzer. In publishing the article my intent was to explore the more dynamic approach…

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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.