Category: Security

Prevent the Theft of Company Data

A news story has hit the wires with the results of a survey that was done with USA and UK workers.  29% of US and 23% of UK employees would steal data from their employers if leaving the job, presumably to use it in a new job.

I’ve talked about the methods to prevent all of this before:

  1. Calculate the value of your data and the loss that will be caused if it leaks or gets into the hands of partners, customers or competitors.  Use that risk value to budget your plans.
  2. Understand that this isn’t something a secretary or IT admin does.  This is something that the information worker does.  It’s more likely to be done by a senior person than a juinor person because they have more access to sensitive data, understand the data more, and have more to gain.
  3. User proxy controls to preven access to webmail and upload services.  That’s only a slow down.  Wifi services and mobile computing pretty much kill this one.
  4. Prevent access to removable media usign Group Policy and/or third party solutions.  This is another slow down, rather than prevention mechanism.
  5. Implement real processes with data owners to authorise access to data and regularly review the granted access permissions.  Prevent the usage of nested permissions because that’s when things do go wrong here.  If the business doesn’t buy into this process (because they are too busy) then IT/security hasn’t a hope; this is business data, not IT data.
  6. Implement AD Rights Management Services to control who can view your data and what they can do with it, no matter where it goes.
  7. Encrypt your PC/laptop disks.  Yes: PC’s too cos they can get stolen.  Critical servers might be included in this as well.  And look at solutions such as BitLocker To Go for removable media (if allowed) to force encryption on users.
  8. Forget Sandra Bullock clicking PI symbols or Keifer Sutherland running around with a perspex box full of circuitry.  Physical security is key.  If I can get to your server then I can get to your data.  How hard is it to slid some disks out?  Not very.  Do you have sensitive data sitting on a server, in a broom closet (or under the reception desk) in a branch office?
  9. Audit, audit, audit.  Use OpsMgr ACS, etc, to gather the logs.  I have seen a case where a sales person was suspected of leaking customer data to his new employers.  The client (a pharmaceutical multinational) did not have any auditing of any kind on their email or web proxy systems and could proove nothing.
  10. Work with local employment law experts with a specialisation in IT.  One corporate right that applies in Canada or the USA, might not apply in the UK, and might get you sued (and lose) in Germany or Italy.
  11. Communicate that you are auditing everything that happens everywhere.  Let people know that you’ll rip their heads off and squish their livlihood like a bug in a court of law if they are caught.  Repeat this message regularly.
  12. Work as a team.  There’s no point in the insecurity officer being all hush-hush when he suspects something.  He has to work with IT to prevent a leak or investigate it because IT understand the systems – they also might be ordered by the person who is being investigated to help with the leak!  I have seen this happen.
  13. Don’t be afraid of setting an example, especially if it is a senior person.  Coverups don’t stay secret and don’t send out the required message of prevention.

That’s 5 minutes of thinking about this.  Give me a bit more time and I’d have an entire data security strategy to keep a lid on things!

Attack on Windows via Siemens Software

I just read about this attack.  It uses Siemens software to install a root kit.  The vulnerability starts with a static password that Siemens inserted. (I once worked in a bank where I am told MSBlaster got in via a Siemens phone engineer using the modem in their systems servers to dial out to the net).  The root kit then uses a stolen private certification key to pretend to be a RealTek driver so that it can install on 64-bit OS’s (Vista and later).  MS and RealTek have figured out a solution (requires your Windows Updates to be working.  Interesting stuff.

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Microsoft Guidance: Anti-Virus Exclusion Lists

This one comes on foot of a thread on the Minasi forum related to how AV screwed up a VM on a Hyper-V host. 

My recommendation is to not put antivirus on a Hyper-V host.  Unfortunately there are times when the techies get overruled on that one.  If you have to install AV on a Hyper-V host then you must read every word of this page.  It deals with how to avoid the dreaded 0x800704C8, 0x80070037 or 0x800703E3 errors when you start up virtual machines.  Do not skim over the page, do not make any assumptions about knowing where VM files are, do not undervalue the “shortcuts” you might see, and be aware the hidden folder that is referred to.  Long-time readers might remember my first W2008 RC Hyper-V lab host and how a bunch of VM’s disappeared on me.  This was caused by AV scanning the VM files (including those “shortcuts”) after a host reboot.  The VM’s disappeared from the Hyper-V console, even though all the files were still there.

In a more general AV & Windows conversion, you should also pay attention to Microsoft’s doctrine on AV exclusions for enterprise deployments of Windows.  A long time ago, I had a Sysvol issue on a few DC’s in branch offices.  We ended up believing that our AV caused the issue.  Check out that site when you are putting in AV or configuring scan exclusions.

MuckAfee Update Breaks PC’s

Thanks to Tim Bolton for making me aware of this.  It appears that MuckAfee (aka McAfee) distributed a bad AV update that breaks PC’s.  The malware definition file quarantined a critical XP system file.  They admit that “The problem occurs with the 5958 virus definition file (DAT) that was released on April 21 at 2:00 P.M. GMT+1 (6:00 A.M. Pacific).”

You know what?  I really don’t get why people still use MuckAfee or Sin-Mantec software.  Both have had these issues in the past.  This sort of failure makes me wonder about a complete lack of quality control in the release process.  People have been burned and they continue to hand over money for this trash.  Would you really go to a doctor who amputates your leg instead of extracting your appendix and then return to him again with an ingrown toe nail?  Seriously?  Get real and buy some decent software. 

You do have options!  Trend Micro’s up front cost may seem expensive but it is per user based.  AVG’s business product is fine – and very cheap.  Microsoft’s corporate and home solutions are easy to manage and lightweight on the machine. 

But I guess I’m wasting wear and tear on my keyboard.  Those same people who’ve just seen their XP PC’s die will renew their support contracts because they just don’t want to know better.  So be it.

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EDIT:
Microsoft blogged a method to make a published fix that can run as a ConfigMgr task sequence.  Now didn’t I say ConfigMgr was powerful?!?!?

MS10-015 Blue Screen: Microsoft Confirms It Was Malware

As was first reported by people on SANS and the Microsoft Answers forum, the cause of the MS10-015 blue screens of death was actually malware called Alureon or TDSS, i.e. a root kit that was already on the machine and had damaged it.  The update legitimately updated the system and the root kit failed, causing a blue screen.

This highlights a few things:

  • Get your anti-malware installed and keep it up to date.  AVG has a free product.  Avast has a free product.  Best of all, Microsoft Security Essentials is also free.  Microsoft’s free anti virus would have protected those people who were impacted.  Their business product would have protected those business users.
  • 64-bit computers have a built in process that defends system files.  They were not affected.  Walk into a PC store and have a look at the Windows 7 PC’s.  I bet you all (not the netbooks maybe) are running a 64-bit edition of Windows 7.
  • This situation was a great story for Microsoft Answers, the forum aimed at supporting the consumer.  This was where consumers raised awareness of the problem, Microsoft responded with a workaround, and they could gather information to identify the cause.
  • Make sure your patches are kept up to date.  Configure Windows Updates on home/small office PC’s and use WSUS/ConfigMgr to manage updates in the business/enterprise.  Quite often, these malware attacks leverage vulnerabilities that MS would have released patches for quite some time before. 

By the way, Microsoft Windows lets you know of issues in the System Notification area (bottom right) with a red shield.  That allows you to quickly get at a tool to view your security setup where any update or configuration problems will be highlighted.

Microsoft have explained the issue in depth.  The long and short of this one was that people did not defend their PC’s adequately.  Free tools that were marketed and advertised would have protected those people.  Take the time now to check your PC and your security settings.

Microsoft’s Initial Response To MS10-015 / KB977165 Blue Screen of Death

Microsoft’s security operation have issued an initial response to the issue with machines blue screening and failing to reboot correctly after installing MS10-015.

While we work to address this issue, customers who choose not to install the update can implement the workaround outlined in the bulletin. CVE-2010-0232 was publicly disclosed and we previously issued Security Advisory 979682 in response. Customers can disable the NTVDM subsystem as a workaround and we have provided an automated method of doing that with a Microsoft Fix It that you can find here.

Customers who are experiencing issues after installing any of our security updates can get help resolving the issues by either going to this site or by calling 1-866-PCSafety (1-866-727-2338). International customers can find local support contact numbers here.

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MS10-015 / KB977165 Causing BSOD For Some – How To Deal With The Issue

I came home tonight to see reports of blue screens of death and failed boot up/reboots for XP machines that had installed the MS10-015 security patch or hotfix.  There is a long thread on Microsoft Answers.

After installing the patch you have to reboot.  You are then greeted with:

PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

Technical Information:
STOP: 0x00000050 (0x80097004, 0x00000001, 0x80515103, 0x00000000).

The posted fix by Microsoft in the thread is:

  1. Boot from your Windows XP CD or DVD and start the recovery console (see this Microsoft article for help with this step).  Once you are in the Repair Screen..
  2. Type this command: CHDIR $NtUninstallKB977165$spuninst       
  3. Type this command: BATCH spuninst.txt
  4. When complete, type this command: exit

There is what appears to be some misinformation or hysteria about this.  For example:

  • Some news articles are claiming that Windows 2003 and Vista are reported in this thread as being affected.  I saw no mention of those operating systems.
  • I saw one article (a random find) that tried to make it look like that this affected Hyper-V.  Pah!  It does not from everything I have read.  There are no reports of issues with Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2.  Put the Kool-Aid down and step away from the cup.

I cannot claim there are not problems there but they are not in that thread.

EDIT: Overnight after this blog post was originally written, some people did post about Vista and W2003 suffering issues with blue screens caused by the update.

It is bad that a patch has affected many.  I’m sure MS will be making someone feel very uncomfortable overnight about this.  It’s bad that it happened at all.  But let’s face it.  Not everyone is affected.  There is some combination in factors that is contributing to the blue screen.  There is some scenario that MS didn’t test or couldn’t predict.  These things happen.  It could be some niche piece of software or driver that reacts badly to the patch.

EDIT: I’ve read on one site that some people are finding an issue with the ATAPI.SYS file not looking like the genuine file supplied by MS.  They suspect an old malware issue causes an incompatibility with the fix!!!

This situation (whatever the actual cause of the blue screens) is why I think people like Steve Reilly who preach that we should all push out security updates immediately and without question are wrong for me (maybe not wrong for you).  How many zero day exploits have there ever been?  Not many.  Think of the big bad attacks … Nimda, SQL Slammer, MS Blaster, Conficker.  They all attacked vulnerabilities that were fixed with patches long before hand.  What’s a couple of weeks?  It’s because of the rare occasion when a patch goes wrong that I run a 3 phase process for patches.

I have three groups in WSUS.  I configure my Windows Update agents either via group policy (AD members) or registry edits (.REG files for workgroup members) to be members of 1 of 3 groups:

  1. Testing – contains VM’s with various blends of OS and application
  2. Management – Our production AD, management systems, and online applications
  3. Hosting– Hosted customer servers

We’re a hosting company.  WSUS has an automatic approval policy for the Testing group.  The machines in that group are VM’s on my Hyper-V lab server.  They patch in the late morning/early afternoon (around lunch) so we can see how they reacted.

Ideally that group would contain samples of the various bits of hardware you have on the network to include drivers in the mix.  I was lucky enough to be able to do that with one employed in the past – but we did push out updates in less than a week from release.  However, I need to be cost conscious and that is not an option now.

When we’re happy we sit and watch the news.  If all is well, change control happens, and then we approve the updates for the management network.  Stealing a line from Microsoft, we eat our own dog food.  Over the 3 nights of the following weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday), machines are patched and reboot automatically.  Some services are clustered/replicated and we do them on different nights or time slots.  We have scheduled scripts on the OpsMgr RMS to put machines into maintenance mode.

Now we watch how that went and continue to watch the news wires.  If there’s no more problems then we approve the updates for the hosting customers after another change control process.  Patches then deploy according to their pre-agreed time windows.

The end result is that within 2-3 weeks all security updates are deployed.  You could compress this down to a week.  We are totally minimizing the risk of being stung by a “bad” update.  Like I said earlier, MS probably did test the update as far as is realistically possible.  There is always the chance that something bad happens.

Steve Reilly’s argument was that if you get a bad update then you call easily rollback your server farm because it’s probably 90% virtual.  In my opinion you shouldn’t really use snapshots in production on Hyper-V.  They’re supported but they suck the life from your VM’s.  DPM or 3rd party solutions that are using the Hyper-V VSS writer are cool for this.  But really, do you want to risk your production network going down for hours while you recover (starting at 3am when your patch failed) because of the rush to deploy an update that will likely not have an attack vector for quite some time?

Weigh the various risks and make an informed decision for yourself.  Maybe Steve Reilly’s approach to push out updates without testing is right for you.  Maybe my phased and cautious approach is.   Maybe there is a middle ground that you prefer.  Do the research and be sure you know why you make your decision and that it is based on fact.

EDIT:

There is strong suspicion that the BSOD’s are actually happening on machines that were already infected by a rootkit called TDSS.  It attacks ATAPI.SYS and replacing that file appears to fix the BSOD issue as well.  Microsoft Security Essentials appears to be able to detect it.

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Microsoft – Cloud Computing Security Considerations

One or two people out there are talking about something called Cloud Computing.  I doubt it’s important 😉

Microsoft published a document on cloud computing security:

“A high-level discussion of the fundamental challenges and benefits of cloud computing security, plus some of the questions that cloud service providers and organisations using cloud services need to consider when evaluating a new move, or expansion of existing services, to the cloud. This document presumes that the reader is familiar with the core concepts of cloud computing and basic principles of cloud security. It is not the goal of this paper to provide all the answers to the questions of security in the cloud or to provide an exhaustive framework for cloud security“.

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The BitLocker “Crack”

Microsoft releases a new operating system and everyone wants to make a headline.  It happened 2 years ago and it’s happening again.

This time some people are claiming they’ve broken BitLocker.  Their attack vectors work two ways:

  1. Attack the machine while it’s running and a user is logged in.  That way they can scan the RAM for cached BitLocker keys.  If you have the machine while it’s logged in then you have access to the data.  Pointless.
  2. Gain access to the machine to attack the hardware.  Install something to capture the PIN as the machine boots up.  Then steal the machine or gain access to it again and use the captured data to access the hard disk data.

That last one would be a threat, admittedly.  It’s a far fetched one for laptops but it feasible.  I’m guessing that BitLocker with a Smart Card would beat that one assuming the smart card is not kept with the laptop.  We know how lazy people can be so – eek.  And potentially the latter approach is one to attack on-premises physical servers. 

I guess we’ll see.

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WSUS: The Update Could Not Be Found

I was re-installing the WSUS role on our security server (W2008 R2) today and hit this error as soon as the installation started:

“The update could not be found”.

It’s a bit of a weird one for a role installation.  I hadn’t the foggiest so I did a quick search and found the solution:

  • Delete the “WindowsUpdate” key from the registry at HKLMSoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftWindows.  I’d recommend you export this to a .reg file to be safe.
  • Restart the Windows Update service.

Now you can go ahead and install WSUS.

The problem and fix applies to previous versions of Windows.  The issue is that the installer is checking Windows Updates but it has found a circular reference.  You’ve uninstalled WSUS from the server and it is configured to update from itself.  How can it?  Make sure you do the install before GPO applies those settings again during an automatic refresh.

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