For Top Cyber Threats, Look in the Mirror

October 31, 2016 / G C Network / Comments Off

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Operation Golden Phoenix

By G C Network | July 22, 2008

This week, Dataline is participating in Operation Golden Phoenix. Operation Golden Phoenix is a four-day multi-agency collaborative training event designed to assist federal, state and local agencies with large and…

DISA Reaches out to Industry on Cloud Computing

By G C Network | July 21, 2008

In an interview with Computerworld , published in the New York Times, John Garing expanded on his goals for the DISA cloud computing initiative. Garing said that, “… he and…

Cloud Computing is $160B Market

By G C Network | July 18, 2008

According to the Financial Post, a Merrill Lynch Note estimates that cloud computing could be a $160B market by 2011. The companies that they see in the marketplace are shown…

SOA-R Educational Series: What is Cloud Computing

By G C Network | July 18, 2008

On July 16th, SOA-R held it’s first of six educational sessions on cloud computing for national security missions. Presenters during this first event were: Steven L Armentrout, PhDPresident & CEOParabon…

Gartner: Cloud Computing Fraught with Security Risks

By G C Network | July 17, 2008

Cloud computing is fraught with security risks, according to analyst firm Gartner. Smart customers will ask tough questions, and consider getting a security assessment from a neutral third party before…

The Definition of “Net-centric”

By G C Network | July 16, 2008

Last week, the Google Cloud Computing Group debated the definition of net-centric. The key thought was that net-centric was nothing more than internet-centric or basically “online” and therefore it really…

Cloud Computing Journal Launched

By G C Network | July 15, 2008

“The world’s first journal devoted to the delivery of massively scalable IT resources as a service using Internet technologies has been launched by SYS-CON Media. The all-new “Cloud Computing Journal”…

SOA-R First Session Presentations Announced

By G C Network | July 14, 2008

The presentations for the first session of the SOA-R Educational Series sesion have just been announced: Steven L Armentrout, PhDPresident & CEOParabon Grids, Clouds and Computation: Getting to Ground Truth…

Cloud Storage as a Service

By G C Network | July 14, 2008

In SAN vs cloud storage – a gray or silver lining? , Joseph Hunkins review last December’s observations of cloud storage by Chris Mellor of Techworld: “Google does not use…

Google: Model for the Systems Architecture of the Future

By G C Network | July 14, 2008

In December of 2005, Prof. Paul A. Strassmann of George Mason University, provided an excellent outline for cloud computing success in a netcentric environment: Network-Centric Requirements (2010)• Downtime ( 1…

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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.