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Web Attack: WPScan Tool Activity Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects WPScan vulnerability scanner tool activity. Additional Information WPScan is a vulnerability scanner for WordPress sites. The tool is a black box scanner that tests for vulnerable plugins, themes etc on WordPress sites. Affected Various WordPress versions.
Web Attack: WS FTP RCE CVE-2023-40044 Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects attempts to exploit a remote code execution vulnerability in WS_FTP. Additional Information WS_FTP Server versions prior to 8.7.4 and 8.8.2. Affected Various Windows machines. Response
Web Attack: Wso2 Management Console Cross-Site Scripting Vulnerability CVE-2022-29548 Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects the attempt to exploit Cross Site Scripting vulnerability on the affected machine. Additional Information A reflected XSS issue exists in the Management Console of several WSO2 Management Console Products. Affected several WSO2 Management Console Products. Response
WebAttackX360VideoPlayerActiveXBO Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description Remote attackers can exploit this issue to execute arbitrary code in the context of the affected application. Additional Information By setting an overly long value to ConvertFile(), attacker can overrun a .data buffer to bypass ASLR/DEP and finally execute arbitrary code. Affected Various
Web Attack: X7 Chat PHP Remote Code Execution Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects attempts of leveraging a vulnerability in X7 Chat which could lead to arbitrary PHP code execution. Additional Information A post-auth vulnerability found in X7 Chat versions 2.0.0 up to 2.0.5.1. The vulnerable code exists on lib/message.php, which uses preg_replace() function with the /e modifier. This allows a remote authenticated attacker to execute arbitrary PHP code in the remote machine. Affected X7 Chat versions 2.0.0 up to 2.0.5.1
WebAttackX97M.LarouxDownload2 Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature is to detect W97M.Downloader activity. Additional Information W97M.Downloader is a malicious macro that may arrive as a Word document attachment in spam emails. The emails may have different subjects and body messages. For example: Subject: Outstanding invoices - [RANDOM LETTERS] Attachment: In[RANDOM LETTERS].doc Message: Kindly find attached our reminder and copy of the relevant invoices. Looking forward to receive your prompt payment and thank you in advance. Kind regards, [NAME] When the Word document is opened, the macro attempts to download and execute malware from a remote location. Affected Various Windows platforms
WebAttackXiongmaiUCHTTPDBOCVE-2018-10088 Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects attempts to exploit a buffer overflow vulnerability in XiongMai uc-httpd. Additional Information XiongMai uc-httpd 1.0.0 suffers from a buffer overflow vulnerability which when exploited can lead to execution of arbitrary code. Affected XiongMai uc-httpd 1.0.0 Response
Web Attack: XML External Entity Attack Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signatures attempts to exploit a XML External Entity attack. Additional Information XML External Entity or XXE is an attack that occurs while parsing XML inputs. Improperly written XML parser while parsing specially crafted XML data can lead to DOS, Information Disclosure and further more attacks on the machine hosting the code. Affected Various Applications. Response
WebAttackXMLExternalEntityPayloadDownload Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signatures attempts to exploit a XML External Entity attack. Additional Information XML External Entity or XXE is an attack that occurs while parsing XML inputs. Improperly written XML parser while parsing specially crafted XML data can lead to DOS, Information Disclosure and further more attacks on the machine hosting the code. Affected Various Applications. Response
WebAttackXMPlayPlaylistASX Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects an attempt to exploit a buffer overflow vulnerability in XMPlay which may result in remote code execution. Additional Information XMPlay is a media player for Microsoft Windows. XMPlay is prone to a remote buffer-overflow vulnerability because the application fails to properly bounds-check user-supplied data prior to loading malformed playlist files. Specifically, when the application attempts to process malformed M3U playlist files, excessively long filenames or display names may trigger a stack-based buffer overflow. Preseumably, PLS and ASX files may also be attack vectors for this issue. An attacker can exploit this issue to execute arbitrary code within the context of the application or to trigger a denial-of-service condition. Affected XMPlayer XMPlayer 3.3 4 Response Download and install all vendor patches related to this vulnerability.
Web Attack: Xoops Horoscope Module Remote File Include Vulnerability Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects attempts to exploit a file include vulnerability in XOOPS content management system. Additional Information Horoscope is a module for the XOOPS content management system; it is implemented in PHP. The application is prone to a remote file-include vulnerability because it fails to sufficiently sanitize user-supplied input to the 'xoopsConfig[root_path]' parameter of the 'footer.php' script. An attacker can exploit this issue to have malicious PHP code execute in the context of the webserver process. This may allow the attacker to compromise the application and the underlying system; other attacks are also possible. Version 2.0 is vulnerable; other versions may also be affected. Affected Horoscope Horoscope 2.0 Response Ensure that the latest version of XOOPS CMS is installed and all patches and security updates have been applied.
WebAttackXPLToolkitActivity Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects attempts to download exploits from a XPLload toolkit which may compromise a computer through various vendor vulnerabilities. Additional Information This signature detects attempts to download exploits from a Eleonore toolkit which may compromise a computer through various vendor vulnerabilities. Affected various
WebAttackXymonCommandInjectionCVE-2016-2056 Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects the attempt to exploit multiple security vulnerability on the affected machine. Additional Information Xymon is a system for monitoring servers and networks. Xymon is prone to the following security vulnerabilities: 1. A buffer-overflow vulnerability because it fails to perform adequate boundary-checks on user-supplied input. Specifically, this issue occur during handling of 'config' command. [CVE-2016-2054] 2. A information-disclosure vulnerability due to default installation of the application. Specifically, this issue occur because the application fails to protect sensitive information from unprivileged users. [CVE-2016-2055] 3. An command-injection vulnerability. Specifically, this issue affect 'useradm' and 'chpasswd'. [CVE-2016-2056] 4. A insecure file-permissions vulnerability because it sets insecure default permission for IPC queues. This may allow local user on the 'Xymon' master server to inject all types of messages into 'Xymon'. [CVE-2016-2057] 5. An HTML-injection vulnerability because because it fails to sanitize certain unspecified user-supplied input. Specifically, this issue affect 'status-message'. [CVE-2016-2058] 6. An cross-site scripting vulnerability because because it fails to sanitize certain unspecified user-supplied input. Specifically, this issue affect 'acknowledgment messages'. [CVE-2016-2058] Successfully exploiting these issues may allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code, bypass security restrictions, perform unauthorized actions and may allow an attacker to gain access to sensitive information. Failed attacks may cause a denial of service condition. This may aid in launching further attacks. Affected Xymon versions 4.3.x prior to 4.3.25, 4.1.x and 4.2.x are vulnerable. Response Updates are available. Please see the references or vendor advisory for more information.
WebAttackYahoo!MessengerWebcamActiveX Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects attempts to exploit a buffer overflow with a Yahoo ActiveX control which could result in remote code execution. Additional Information Yahoo! Messenger Webcam Upload ActiveX control is prone to a buffer-overflow vulnerability because it fails to perform adequate boundary checks on user-supplied data. This issue occurs when an excessive amount of data is passed to the application. The ActiveX control uses CLSID: DCE2F8B1-A520-11D4-8FD0-00D0B7730277. Successfully exploiting this issue allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code in the context of applications that use the affected control (typically Internet Explorer). Affected Yahoo! Messenger 8.0 2005.1.1.4, 8.0, 8.0.1, 8.1 Yahoo! Webcam ActiveX Control 2.0.1.4 Response Ensure that all vendor supplied patches and security updates have been applied.
Web Attack: Yealink Device Management RCE CVE-2021-27562 Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects attempts to exploit a remote code execution vulnerability in Yealink Device Management. Additional Information A vulnerability exists in Yealink Device Management that can lead to execution of arbitrary code. Affected Yealink DM version 3.6.0.20 and prior. Response
WebAttackYesToolkitRequest Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects the activity of Yes exploit tool kit which result in the download of malicious exploits that may compromise the target computer. Additional Information The YES toolkit is a common set of code being hosted on websites used to compromise the downloading host. Toolkits are known to download additional files and malicious content to further infect the host and collect user information. It is recommended to use cautious when visiting unknown websites as they may contain such infected code. Affected Various / HTTP Browsers Response Update all vendor patches to the latest version.
WebAttackYonYouUfmailFileUploadVulnerability Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects attempts to exploit a file upload vulnerability in YonYou Ufmail. Additional Information A file upload vulnerability exists in YonYou Ufmail that can lead to upload of arbitrary file on the affected machine. Affected YonYou Ufmail. Response
WebAttackZabbixCVE-2020-11800 Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects the attempt to exploit Remote Code Execution vulnerability on the affected machine. Additional Information Zabbix is vulnerable to Remote Code Execution attack. Successfully exploiting these issues will allow attackers to execute arbitrary code within the context of the application. Affected Zabbix Server 2.2.x and 3.0.x before 3.0.31, and 3.2 Response
WebAttackzBlogAuthenticatedPHPCodeExecution Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects the attempt to exploit PHP Code Execution vulnerability on the affected machine. Additional Information zBlog is vulnerable to PHP Code Execution vulnerability attack. Successfully exploiting these issues will allow low privilege users to execute arbitrary code within the context of the application. Affected zBlog 1.5.1.1740 and prior. Response
WebAttackZendFrameworkRCECVE-2021-3007 Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects attempts to exploit a remote code execution vulnerability in Zend Framework. Additional Information A deserialization vulnerability exists in Zend Framework version 3.0.0 that can lead to execution of remote code. Affected Zend Framework version 3.0.0. Response
WebAttackZenworksCnfgMgmtRCE Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects attempt to exploit an remote code execution vulnerability in Zenworks Configuration Management Additional Information Novell ZENworks Configuration Management is an IT management application. ZENworks Configuration Management is prone to an unspecified remote code-execution vulnerability affecting the 'Preboot Service' component. Very few details are currently known. We will update this BID when more information emerges. An attacker can leverage this issue to execute arbitrary code with SYSTEM-level privileges. Failed exploit attempts will result in a denial-of-service condition. Versions prior to ZENworks Configuration Management 10.3 are vulnerable. Affected Novell ZENworks Configuration Management 10.1.2 a Novell ZENworks Configuration Management 10.1.2 Novell ZENworks Configuration Management 10.1 Response Updates are available
Web Attack: ZeroShell Remote Code Execution CVE-2009-0545 Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects the attempt to exploit Remote Code Execution vulnerability in ZeroShell. Additional Information cgi-bin/kerbynet in ZeroShell 1.0beta11 and earlier allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands via shell metacharacters in the type parameter in a NoAuthREQ x509List action. Affected ZeroShell 1.0beta11 and earlier Response
Web Attack: ZeroShell Remote Code Execution CVE-2019-12725 Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects the attempt to exploit Remote Code Execution vulnerability in ZeroShell. Additional Information Zeroshell 3.9.0 is prone to a remote command execution vulnerability. Specifically, this issue occurs because the web application mishandles a few HTTP parameters. An unauthenticated attacker can exploit this issue by injecting OS commands inside the vulnerable parameters. Affected Zeroshell 3.9.0 Response
Web Attack: ZeroShell Router Directory Traversal Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects multiple vulnerabilities targeting ZeroShell routers. Additional Information ZeroShell router is prone to multiple vulnerabilities including but not limited to directory traversal, command injection, Remote Code Execution that can lead to compromise of the device. Affected ZeroShell router. Response
Web Attack: ZeroShell Router OS Command Injection Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects multiple vulnerabilities targeting ZeroShell routers. Additional Information ZeroShell router is prone to multiple vulnerabilities including but not limited to directory traversal, command injection, Remote Code Execution that can lead to compromise of the device. Affected ZeroShell router. Response
Web Attack: ZeroShell Router OS Command Injection 2 Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects multiple vulnerabilities targeting ZeroShell routers. Additional Information ZeroShell router is prone to multiple vulnerabilities including but not limited to directory traversal, command injection, Remote Code Execution that can lead to compromise of the device. Affected ZeroShell router. Response
Web Attack: Zimbra Collaboration XSS CVE-2023-37580 Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects the attempt to exploit Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerability in Zimbra Collaboration (ZCS). Additional Information Zimbra Collaboration (ZCS) 8 before 8.8.15 Patch 41 allows XSS in the Zimbra Classic Web Client. Successful exploitation of the vulnerability may allow an attacker to compromise the confidentiality and integrity of the target system. Affected Zimbra Collaboration (ZCS) 8 before 8.8.15 Patch 41 Response
Web Attack: ZK Framework RCE CVE-2022-36537 Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects attempts to exploit a remote code execution vulnerability in ZK Framework. Additional Information ZK Framework is an open source framework that is used for building enterprise web applications. The framework suffers from an authentication bypass vulnerability that allow attackers to achieve information disclosure and can also lead to remote code execution. Affected ZK Framework versions 9.6.1 9.6.0.1 9.5.1.3 9.0.1.2 8.6.4.1 Response
Web Attack: Zoho ManageEngine ADSelfService Plus RCE CVE-2021-40539 Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects the attempt to exploit vulnerability on the affected machine. Additional Information Zoho ManageEngine ADSelfService Plus version is prone to a vulnerability in REST API authentication that can lead to execution of remote code. Affected Version 6113 and prior is vulnerable Response
WebAttackZohoManageEngineDesktopCentralCVE-2021-44515 Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects attempts to exploit an Authentication Bypass vulnerability in Zoho ManageEngine Desktop Central. Additional Information A vulnerability exists in Zoho ManageEngine Desktop Central that can lead to Authentication Bypass. Affected Various Zoho ManageEngine versions. Response
Web Attack: Zoho Manageengine RCE Vulnerability CVE-2022-47966 Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects attempts to exploit an unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability in Multiple Zoho ManageEngine on-premise products. Additional Information Multiple Zoho ManageEngine on-premise products, such as ServiceDesk Plus through 14003, allow remote code execution due to use of Apache xmlsec (aka XML Security for Java) 1.4.1, because the xmlsec XSLT features, by design in that version, make the application responsible for certain security protections, and the ManageEngine applications did not provide those protections. The vulnerability allows an attacker to gain remote code execution by issuing a HTTP POST request containing a malicious SAML response. This vulnerability is a result of using an outdated version of Apache Santuario for XML signature validation. Affected Multiple Zoho ManageEngine on-premise products. Response
WebAttackZombieToolkitWebsite Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detect attempts to download exploits from a malicious toolkit which may compromise a computer through various vendor vulnerabilities. Additional Information This signature detect attempts to download exploits from a malicious toolkit which may compromise a computer through various vendor vulnerabilities. Affected Various Response The following instructions pertain to all current and recent Symantec antivirus products, including the Symantec AntiVirus and Norton AntiVirus product lines. 1. Disable System Restore (Windows Me/XP). 2. Update the virus definitions. 3. Run a full system scan. 4. Delete any values added to the registry. 5. Extract and restore Windows files.
WebAttackZoomClientSecurityByPassCVE-2019-13450 Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects attempts to exploit a security bypass vulnerability in Zoom client. Additional Information Zoom Client is prone to a remote security vulnerability. Specifically, this issue occurs because it forces a user to join a video call with the video camera active. An attacker can exploit this issue by tricking a user to click on a specially crafted link to the attacker's Zoom meeting ID URL. NOTE: The machine remains vulnerable if the Zoom Client was installed in the past and then uninstalled. An attacker can leverage this issue to bypass security restrictions and perform unauthorized actions. This may aid in further attacks. Affected Zoom Client version 4.4.4 and prior are vulnerable.
WebAttackZWSCompressedAdobeSWFFiles Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects Adobe Flash files which may contain malicious code exploiting a vulnerability. Additional Information Adobe Flash file format used for multimedia, vector graphics and ActionScript. SWF files can contain animations or applets of varying degrees of interactivity and function. Affected Adobe Flash
Web Attack: ZXV10 Router Remote Code Execution Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects attempts to exploit a remote code execution vulnerability in ZXV10 router. Additional Information A remote code execution vulnerability exists in ZXV10 router that can lead to execution of arbitrary code. Affected ZXV10 routers. Response
Web Attack: ZyNOS Information Disclosure Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects attempts to exploit an information disclosure vulnerability in ZyNOS. Additional Information ZyNOS is an operating system used in routers. ZyNOS suffers from an information disclosure vulnerability that may lead to compromise of the device its running on. Affected Various versions of ZyNOS. Response
WebAttackZyxelCloudSecuManagerRemoteCodeExecution Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects attempts to exploit various vulnerabilities in Zyxel routers. Additional Information Zyxel router are prone to various vulnerabilities that can lead to compromise of the device. Affected Various Zyxel routers. Response
Web Attack: Zyxel NAS Command Injection CVE-2020-9054 Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects attempts to exploit a command injection vulnerability in Zyxel NAS products. Additional Information Zyxel NAS is Network Attached Storage device. Multiple Zyxel NAS products are prone to a OS command-injection vulnerability because the program fails to properly sanitize the 'username' parameter. Specifically, this issue exists in the 'weblogin.cgi' program of the affected device. An attacker can exploit this issue by sending a specially crafted HTTP POST or GET request to a affected device. Attackers can exploit this issue to execute arbitrary OS commands in context of the affected device. Failed exploit attempts will result in denial-of-service conditions. Affected NAS326 version 5.21 and prior. NAS520 version 5.21 and prior. NAS540 version 5.21 and prior. NAS542 version 5.21 and prior.
WebAttackZyxelNWA-1100-NHCommandInjectionCVE-2021-4039 Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects the attempt to exploit a command injection vulnerability in affected machines. Additional Information A command injection vulnerability in the web interface of the Zyxel NWA-1100-NH firmware could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary OS commands on the device. Affected Zyxel NWA-1100-NH Response Vendor Patch Exist for affected model NWA1100-NH
Web Attack: Zyxel Router Command Injection Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects attempts to exploit an unauthenticated command injection vulnerability in Zyxel router. Additional Information A vulnerability in Zyxel router that can result in unauthenticated command injection that can compromise the device. Affected ZyXEL P660HN-T, hardware revision v1, TrueOnline firmware version TCLinux Fw $7.3.15.0 v001 / 3.40(ULM.0)b31, Other firmware versions might be affected. Response
Web Attack: Zyxel ZyWALL 2 Plus CVE-2021-46387 Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects the attempt to exploit Cross Site Scripting vulnerability on the affected machine. Additional Information ZyXEL ZyWALL 2 Plus Internet Security Appliance is affected by Cross Site Scripting (XSS). Insecure URI handling leads to bypass security restriction to achieve Cross Site Scripting, which allows an attacker able to execute arbitrary JavaScript codes to perform multiple attacks such as clipboard hijacking and session hijacking. Affected Various ZyWALL 2 Plus Internet Security Appliance Response
WebAttckHTTPCrossSiteScripting(Javascript) Severity:Medium This attack could pose a moderate security threat. It does not require immediate action. Description This signature detects an attempt of cross site scripting against a web server. Additional Information Attackers may create malicious links to a site hosting the vulnerable software which may include hostile HTML and script code, resulting in cross-site scripting attacks. If a user inadvertantly opened a hostile link through a browser or HTML compliant e-mail client, active content such as JavaScript may be executed in their web browser. This will occur in the security context of the site hosting the software. Affected HTTP Servers Response Do not follow links provided by unknown or untrusted sources. - Attempts to exploit this issue may occur via a malicious link. Do not follow links provided by an unfamiliar or suspicious source. Set web browser security to disable the execution of script code or active content. - Disabling execution of JavaScript and Active Content in the web browser will limit exposure to this and similar issues.
WebHancerPostingInformation Severity:Medium This attack could pose a moderate security threat. It does not require immediate action. Description This signature detects the trackware posting information to its controlling server. Additional Information Trackware.Webhancer is a program that monitors Web sites visited and sends this information to a remote server. Trackware Programs that track system activity, gather system information, or track user habits and relay this information to third-party organizations. The information gathered by such programs is neither personally identifiable nor confidential. Trackware programs are installed with the user's consent and may also be packaged as part of other software installed by the user. Affected Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Resource Kit Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Japanese Edition Microsoft Windows 2000 Terminal Services SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Workstation rev.2031, rev.2072, rev.2195, SP1, SP2, SP3 Microsoft Windows 95 Build 490.R6, j, SP1, SR2 Microsoft Windows 98 a, b, j, SP1 Microsoft Windows 98 With Plus! Pack Microsoft Windows 98SE Microsoft Windows CE 2.0, 3.0, 4.2 Microsoft Windows ME Microsoft Windows NT 3.5, 3.5.1, 3.5.1 SP1, 3.5.1 SP2, 3.5.1 SP3, 3.5.1 SP4, 3.5.1 SP5, 3.5.1 SP5 alpha, 4.0, 4.0 alpha, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP1 alpha, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP2 alpha, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP3 alpha, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP4 alpha, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP5 alpha, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6 alpha, 4.0 SP6a, 4.0 SP6a alpha Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack Microsoft Windows NT Enterprise Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Terminal Server 4.0, 4.0 alpha, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition Itanium SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition Itanium SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Web Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Vista beta Microsoft Windows XP Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition SP1 Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition Version 2003 SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Embedded SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Home SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP1, SP2 Response Use any good anti-spyware/anti-adware solution to remove the threat from the host. Also visit the Symantec Security Response Web site for more information and removal instructions.
WebSearchActivity Severity:Medium This attack could pose a moderate security threat. It does not require immediate action. Description This signature detects Websearch actvity. Additional Information Adware.Websearch is an adware component that modifies Internet Explorer's default home page and search settings. It adds a toolbar to Internet Explorer and a number of icons to the system tray. It also sends user information to a predetermined Web site, including keywords from searches. Adware: Programs that facilitate delivery of advertising content to the user through their own window, or by utilizing another program's interface. In some cases, these programs may gather information from the user's computer, including information related to Internet browser usage or other computing habits, and relay this information back to a remote computer or other location in cyberspace. Adware can be downloaded from Web sites (typically in shareware or freeware), email messages, and instant messengers. Additionally, a user may unknowingly receive and/or trigger adware by accepting an End User License Agreement from a software program linked to the adware, or from visiting a Web site that downloads the adware with or without an End User License Agreement. Affected Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Resource Kit Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Japanese Edition Microsoft Windows 2000 Terminal Services SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Workstation rev.2031, rev.2072, rev.2195, SP1, SP2, SP3 Microsoft Windows 95 Build 490.R6, j, SP1, SR2 Microsoft Windows 98 a, b, j, SP1 Microsoft Windows 98 With Plus! Pack Microsoft Windows 98SE Microsoft Windows CE 2.0, 3.0, 4.2 Microsoft Windows ME Microsoft Windows NT 3.5, 3.5.1, 3.5.1 SP1, 3.5.1 SP2, 3.5.1 SP3, 3.5.1 SP4, 3.5.1 SP5, 3.5.1 SP5 alpha, 4.0, 4.0 alpha, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP1 alpha, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP2 alpha, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP3 alpha, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP4 alpha, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP5 alpha, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6 alpha, 4.0 SP6a, 4.0 SP6a alpha Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack Microsoft Windows NT Enterprise Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Terminal Server 4.0, 4.0 alpha, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition Itanium SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition Itanium SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Web Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Vista beta Microsoft Windows XP Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition SP1 Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition Version 2003 SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Embedded SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Home SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP1, SP2 Response Use any good anti-spyware/anti-adware solution to remove the threat from the host. Also visit the Symantec Security Response Web site for more information and removal instructions.
WebsearchConfigurationRequest Severity:Medium This attack could pose a moderate security threat. It does not require immediate action. Description This signature detects Websearch downloading configuration information from its controlling server. Additional Information Adware.Websearch is an adware component that modifies Internet Explorer's default home page and search settings. It adds a toolbar to Internet Explorer and a number of icons to the system tray. It also sends user information to a predetermined Web site, including keywords from searches. Adware: Programs that facilitate delivery of advertising content to the user through their own window, or by utilizing another program's interface. In some cases, these programs may gather information from the user's computer, including information related to Internet browser usage or other computing habits, and relay this information back to a remote computer or other location in cyberspace. Adware can be downloaded from Web sites (typically in shareware or freeware), email messages, and instant messengers. Additionally, a user may unknowingly receive and/or trigger adware by accepting an End User License Agreement from a software program linked to the adware, or from visiting a Web site that downloads the adware with or without an End User License Agreement. Affected Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Resource Kit Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Japanese Edition Microsoft Windows 2000 Terminal Services SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Workstation rev.2031, rev.2072, rev.2195, SP1, SP2, SP3 Microsoft Windows 95 Build 490.R6, j, SP1, SR2 Microsoft Windows 98 a, b, j, SP1 Microsoft Windows 98 With Plus! Pack Microsoft Windows 98SE Microsoft Windows CE 2.0, 3.0, 4.2 Microsoft Windows ME Microsoft Windows NT 3.5, 3.5.1, 3.5.1 SP1, 3.5.1 SP2, 3.5.1 SP3, 3.5.1 SP4, 3.5.1 SP5, 3.5.1 SP5 alpha, 4.0, 4.0 alpha, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP1 alpha, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP2 alpha, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP3 alpha, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP4 alpha, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP5 alpha, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6 alpha, 4.0 SP6a, 4.0 SP6a alpha Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack Microsoft Windows NT Enterprise Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Terminal Server 4.0, 4.0 alpha, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition Itanium SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition Itanium SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Web Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Vista beta Microsoft Windows XP Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition SP1 Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition Version 2003 SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Embedded SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Home SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP1, SP2 Response Use any good anti-spyware/anti-adware solution to remove the threat from the host. Also visit the Symantec Security Response Web site for more information and removal instructions.
WelchiaLocatorServiceBO Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This event indicates an attempt to exploit a buffer overflow vulnerability in the Windows Locator Service by the Welchia B and C worms. Additional Information It has been reported that the Microsoft Windows RPC (Remote Procedure Call) Locator service is affected by a remotely exploitable buffer overflow vulnerability. The Locator service maintains a list of RPC services and servers on a network. The condition is due to a memory copy of RPC arguments received from remote clients into a local buffer. An attacker can exploit this vulnerability by constructing a remote procedure call that invokes Locator service with malformed parameters. Specifically, when the Locator service is invoked with an overly long string for an entry name, it will result in an unsafe call to the wcscpy() function. When the Locator service receives this request, the malicious arguments will trigger the overflow condition and cause sensitive areas of stack memory to be corrupted. This vulnerability may be exploited by remote attackers to execute custom instructions on the target domain controller. It is also possible to crash the service with a malicious request. It should be noted that, to exploit this vulnerability, no authentication is required. Additionally, the Locator service is enabled by default on all Windows 2000 and Windows NT Domain Controllers (DC). Affected Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP1, SP2, SP3 Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server SP1, SP2, SP3 Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP1, SP2, SP3 Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP1, SP2, SP3 Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Japanese Edition Microsoft Windows 2000 Terminal Services SP1, SP2, SP3 Microsoft Windows NT Enterprise Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Terminal Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6 Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Home SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP1 Response Workaround: It is possible to disable the Locator service by setting the RpcLocator service status to 'disabled' in the services control panel. The service can also be stopped by issuing the following command: sc stop RpcLocator To disable the service using the sc.exe tool, use the following command: sc config RpcLocator start= disabled Solution: Note that there are multilingual versions of the fixes. The following fixes are available:
WhenUClockSyncWeatherCastActivity Severity:Medium This attack could pose a moderate security threat. It does not require immediate action. Description This signature indicates that a system may be infected with Adware WhenU published by WhenU.com. Additional Information Once installed on your computer, this application displays a number of offers and services available in separate pop-up windows. Save! is bundled with other applications but is similar to SaveNow. "The software selects which ads and offers to show you based on several factors, including: which Web pages you visit, search terms you use while searching online, content of the Web pages you view, and your local zip code (if you have supplied it). "The software protects your privacy by uploading a database of content in small chunks to your desktop, and then determining on your desktop whether to retrieve information from WhenU or from third-party servers. To protect your privacy, the same database of content is sent to all desktops. Decisions regarding which ads to retrieve to an individual desktop are all processed on the individual user's desktop and isolated from WhenU servers. In this way, WhenU is able to deliver to you relevant coupons, information, and advertisements without sending all of your browsing activity back to WhenU and without establishing any profile about you (even anonymously) on WhenU servers" -whenu.com WhenUSearch Toolbar is described by whenu.com as: "The Toolbar selects which ads and offers to show you based on several factors, including: which Web pages you visit, search terms you use while searching online, your local zip and/or country code, and content of the Web pages you view. The Toolbar displays contextual ads and offers in the form of rotating text links accessible from within the application. "The Toolbar protects your privacy by uploading a database of content in small chunks to your desktop and then determining on your desktop whether to retrieve information from WhenU or third-party servers. To protect your privacy, the same database of content is sent to all desktops. Decisions regarding which advertising and offers to retrieve are processed on your computer desktop. In this way, WhenU is able to deliver to you relevant coupons, information, and advertisements without establishing any profile about you (even anonymously) on WhenU servers. "Because the Toolbar's advanced functionality is designed to display ads whenever contextually-relevant activity is detected, a continuous series of impressions and click-throughs may be transmitted to WhenU.com's servers as you surf the Internet." -whenu.com Save! is also bundled with Clocksync and WeatherCase applications. SideFinder: "The WhenUSearch SideFinder brings relevant information, search results, and coupons directly to your browser. This convenient format displays this information in a vertical explorer bar that is easily accessible and viewed within your browser window. The WhenUSearch SideFinder selects which ads and offers to display to you based on several factors, including: URLs associated with Web pages you visit, search terms that you type into search engines and into the WhenUSearch SideFinder, your local zip and/or country code, and HTML content of the Web pages you view. WhenUSearch SideFinder ads and offers are delivered in a separate, independent window controlled by WhenU.com" -whenu.com Adware: These are programs that facilitate delivery of advertising content to the user through their own window, or by utilizing another program's interface. In some cases, these programs may gather information from the user's computer, including information related to Internet browser usage or other computing habits, and relay this information back to a remote computer or other location in cyber-space. Adware can be downloaded from Web sites (typically in shareware or freeware), email messages, and instant messengers. Additionally, a user may unknowingly receive and/or trigger adware by accepting an End User License Agreement from a software program linked to the adware, or from visiting a Web site that downloads the adware with or without an End User License Agreement. Affected Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Resource Kit Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Japanese Edition Microsoft Windows 2000 Terminal Services SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Workstation rev.2031, rev.2072, rev.2195, SP1, SP2, SP3 Microsoft Windows 95 Build 490.R6, j, SP1, SR2 Microsoft Windows 98 a, b, j, SP1 Microsoft Windows 98 With Plus! Pack Microsoft Windows 98SE Microsoft Windows CE 2.0, 3.0, 4.2 Microsoft Windows ME Microsoft Windows NT 3.5, 3.5.1, 3.5.1 SP1, 3.5.1 SP2, 3.5.1 SP3, 3.5.1 SP4, 3.5.1 SP5, 3.5.1 SP5 alpha, 4.0, 4.0 alpha, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP1 alpha, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP2 alpha, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP3 alpha, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP4 alpha, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP5 alpha, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6 alpha, 4.0 SP6a, 4.0 SP6a alpha Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack Microsoft Windows NT Enterprise Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Terminal Server 4.0, 4.0 alpha, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition Itanium SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition Itanium SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Web Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Vista beta Microsoft Windows XP Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition SP1 Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition Version 2003 SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Embedded SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Home SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP1, SP2 Response For instructions on how to remove this installation from your network, reference Symantec Security Response. See the reference link below.
WhenUInstallationActivity Severity:Medium This attack could pose a moderate security threat. It does not require immediate action. Description This signature indicates that a system may be infected with Adware WhenU published by WhenU.com. Additional Information Once installed on your computer, this application displays a number of offers and services available in separate pop-up windows. Save! is bundled with other applications but is similar to SaveNow. "The software selects which ads and offers to show you based on several factors, including: which Web pages you visit, search terms you use while searching online, content of the Web pages you view, and your local zip code (if you have supplied it). "The software protects your privacy by uploading a database of content in small chunks to your desktop, and then determining on your desktop whether to retrieve information from WhenU or from third-party servers. To protect your privacy, the same database of content is sent to all desktops. Decisions regarding which ads to retrieve to an individual desktop are all processed on the individual user's desktop and isolated from WhenU servers. In this way, WhenU is able to deliver to you relevant coupons, information, and advertisements without sending all of your browsing activity back to WhenU and without establishing any profile about you (even anonymously) on WhenU servers" -whenu.com WhenUSearch Toolbar is described by whenu.com as: "The Toolbar selects which ads and offers to show you based on several factors, including: which Web pages you visit, search terms you use while searching online, your local zip and/or country code, and content of the Web pages you view. The Toolbar displays contextual ads and offers in the form of rotating text links accessible from within the application. "The Toolbar protects your privacy by uploading a database of content in small chunks to your desktop and then determining on your desktop whether to retrieve information from WhenU or third-party servers. To protect your privacy, the same database of content is sent to all desktops. Decisions regarding which advertising and offers to retrieve are processed on your computer desktop. In this way, WhenU is able to deliver to you relevant coupons, information, and advertisements without establishing any profile about you (even anonymously) on WhenU servers. "Because the Toolbar's advanced functionality is designed to display ads whenever contextually-relevant activity is detected, a continuous series of impressions and click-throughs may be transmitted to WhenU.com's servers as you surf the Internet." -whenu.com Save! is also bundled with Clocksync and WeatherCase applications. SideFinder: "The WhenUSearch SideFinder brings relevant information, search results, and coupons directly to your browser. This convenient format displays this information in a vertical explorer bar that is easily accessible and viewed within your browser window. The WhenUSearch SideFinder selects which ads and offers to display to you based on several factors, including: URLs associated with Web pages you visit, search terms that you type into search engines and into the WhenUSearch SideFinder, your local zip and/or country code, and HTML content of the Web pages you view. WhenUSearch SideFinder ads and offers are delivered in a separate, independent window controlled by WhenU.com" -whenu.com Adware: These are programs that facilitate delivery of advertising content to the user through their own window, or by utilizing another program's interface. In some cases, these programs may gather information from the user's computer, including information related to Internet browser usage or other computing habits, and relay this information back to a remote computer or other location in cyber-space. Adware can be downloaded from Web sites (typically in shareware or freeware), email messages, and instant messengers. Additionally, a user may unknowingly receive and/or trigger adware by accepting an End User License Agreement from a software program linked to the adware, or from visiting a Web site that downloads the adware with or without an End User License Agreement. Affected Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Resource Kit Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Japanese Edition Microsoft Windows 2000 Terminal Services SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Workstation rev.2031, rev.2072, rev.2195, SP1, SP2, SP3 Microsoft Windows 95 Build 490.R6, j, SP1, SR2 Microsoft Windows 98 a, b, j, SP1 Microsoft Windows 98 With Plus! Pack Microsoft Windows 98SE Microsoft Windows CE 2.0, 3.0, 4.2 Microsoft Windows ME Microsoft Windows NT 3.5, 3.5.1, 3.5.1 SP1, 3.5.1 SP2, 3.5.1 SP3, 3.5.1 SP4, 3.5.1 SP5, 3.5.1 SP5 alpha, 4.0, 4.0 alpha, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP1 alpha, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP2 alpha, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP3 alpha, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP4 alpha, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP5 alpha, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6 alpha, 4.0 SP6a, 4.0 SP6a alpha Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack Microsoft Windows NT Enterprise Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Terminal Server 4.0, 4.0 alpha, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition Itanium SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition Itanium SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Web Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Vista beta Microsoft Windows XP Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition SP1 Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition Version 2003 SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Embedded SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Home SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP1, SP2 Response For instructions on how to remove this installation from your network, reference Symantec Security Response. See the reference link below.
WhenURequestForOffers Severity:Medium This attack could pose a moderate security threat. It does not require immediate action. Description This signature indicates that a system may be infected with Adware WhenU published by WhenU.com. Additional Information Once installed on your computer, this application displays a number of offers and services available in separate pop-up windows. Save! is bundled with other applications but is similar to SaveNow. "The software selects which ads and offers to show you based on several factors, including: which Web pages you visit, search terms you use while searching online, content of the Web pages you view, and your local zip code (if you have supplied it). "The software protects your privacy by uploading a database of content in small chunks to your desktop, and then determining on your desktop whether to retrieve information from WhenU or from third-party servers. To protect your privacy, the same database of content is sent to all desktops. Decisions regarding which ads to retrieve to an individual desktop are all processed on the individual user's desktop and isolated from WhenU servers. In this way, WhenU is able to deliver to you relevant coupons, information, and advertisements without sending all of your browsing activity back to WhenU and without establishing any profile about you (even anonymously) on WhenU servers" -whenu.com WhenUSearch Toolbar is described by whenu.com as: "The Toolbar selects which ads and offers to show you based on several factors, including: which Web pages you visit, search terms you use while searching online, your local zip and/or country code, and content of the Web pages you view. The Toolbar displays contextual ads and offers in the form of rotating text links accessible from within the application. "The Toolbar protects your privacy by uploading a database of content in small chunks to your desktop and then determining on your desktop whether to retrieve information from WhenU or third-party servers. To protect your privacy, the same database of content is sent to all desktops. Decisions regarding which advertising and offers to retrieve are processed on your computer desktop. In this way, WhenU is able to deliver to you relevant coupons, information, and advertisements without establishing any profile about you (even anonymously) on WhenU servers. "Because the Toolbar's advanced functionality is designed to display ads whenever contextually-relevant activity is detected, a continuous series of impressions and click-throughs may be transmitted to WhenU.com's servers as you surf the Internet." -whenu.com Save! is also bundled with Clocksync and WeatherCase applications. SideFinder: "The WhenUSearch SideFinder brings relevant information, search results, and coupons directly to your browser. This convenient format displays this information in a vertical explorer bar that is easily accessible and viewed within your browser window. The WhenUSearch SideFinder selects which ads and offers to display to you based on several factors, including: URLs associated with Web pages you visit, search terms that you type into search engines and into the WhenUSearch SideFinder, your local zip and/or country code, and HTML content of the Web pages you view. WhenUSearch SideFinder ads and offers are delivered in a separate, independent window controlled by WhenU.com" -whenu.com Adware: These are programs that facilitate delivery of advertising content to the user through their own window, or by utilizing another program's interface. In some cases, these programs may gather information from the user's computer, including information related to Internet browser usage or other computing habits, and relay this information back to a remote computer or other location in cyber-space. Adware can be downloaded from Web sites (typically in shareware or freeware), email messages, and instant messengers. Additionally, a user may unknowingly receive and/or trigger adware by accepting an End User License Agreement from a software program linked to the adware, or from visiting a Web site that downloads the adware with or without an End User License Agreement. Affected Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Resource Kit Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Japanese Edition Microsoft Windows 2000 Terminal Services SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Workstation rev.2031, rev.2072, rev.2195, SP1, SP2, SP3 Microsoft Windows 95 Build 490.R6, j, SP1, SR2 Microsoft Windows 98 a, b, j, SP1 Microsoft Windows 98 With Plus! Pack Microsoft Windows 98SE Microsoft Windows CE 2.0, 3.0, 4.2 Microsoft Windows ME Microsoft Windows NT 3.5, 3.5.1, 3.5.1 SP1, 3.5.1 SP2, 3.5.1 SP3, 3.5.1 SP4, 3.5.1 SP5, 3.5.1 SP5 alpha, 4.0, 4.0 alpha, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP1 alpha, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP2 alpha, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP3 alpha, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP4 alpha, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP5 alpha, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6 alpha, 4.0 SP6a, 4.0 SP6a alpha Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack Microsoft Windows NT Enterprise Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Terminal Server 4.0, 4.0 alpha, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition Itanium SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition Itanium SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Web Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Vista beta Microsoft Windows XP Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition SP1 Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition Version 2003 SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Embedded SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Home SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP1, SP2 Response For instructions on how to remove this installation from your network, reference Symantec Security Response. See the reference link below.
WhenUSearchBarSidefinderActivity Severity:Medium This attack could pose a moderate security threat. It does not require immediate action. Description This signature indicates that a system may be infected with Adware WhenU published by WhenU.com. Additional Information Once installed on your computer, this application displays a number of offers and services available in separate pop-up windows. Save! is bundled with other applications but is similar to SaveNow. "The software selects which ads and offers to show you based on several factors, including: which Web pages you visit, search terms you use while searching online, content of the Web pages you view, and your local zip code (if you have supplied it). "The software protects your privacy by uploading a database of content in small chunks to your desktop, and then determining on your desktop whether to retrieve information from WhenU or from third-party servers. To protect your privacy, the same database of content is sent to all desktops. Decisions regarding which ads to retrieve to an individual desktop are all processed on the individual user's desktop and isolated from WhenU servers. In this way, WhenU is able to deliver to you relevant coupons, information, and advertisements without sending all of your browsing activity back to WhenU and without establishing any profile about you (even anonymously) on WhenU servers" -whenu.com WhenUSearch Toolbar is described by whenu.com as: "The Toolbar selects which ads and offers to show you based on several factors, including: which Web pages you visit, search terms you use while searching online, your local zip and/or country code, and content of the Web pages you view. The Toolbar displays contextual ads and offers in the form of rotating text links accessible from within the application. "The Toolbar protects your privacy by uploading a database of content in small chunks to your desktop and then determining on your desktop whether to retrieve information from WhenU or third-party servers. To protect your privacy, the same database of content is sent to all desktops. Decisions regarding which advertising and offers to retrieve are processed on your computer desktop. In this way, WhenU is able to deliver to you relevant coupons, information, and advertisements without establishing any profile about you (even anonymously) on WhenU servers. "Because the Toolbar's advanced functionality is designed to display ads whenever contextually-relevant activity is detected, a continuous series of impressions and click-throughs may be transmitted to WhenU.com's servers as you surf the Internet." -whenu.com Save! is also bundled with Clocksync and WeatherCase applications. SideFinder: "The WhenUSearch SideFinder brings relevant information, search results, and coupons directly to your browser. This convenient format displays this information in a vertical explorer bar that is easily accessible and viewed within your browser window. The WhenUSearch SideFinder selects which ads and offers to display to you based on several factors, including: URLs associated with Web pages you visit, search terms that you type into search engines and into the WhenUSearch SideFinder, your local zip and/or country code, and HTML content of the Web pages you view. WhenUSearch SideFinder ads and offers are delivered in a separate, independent window controlled by WhenU.com" -whenu.com Adware: These are programs that facilitate delivery of advertising content to the user through their own window, or by utilizing another program's interface. In some cases, these programs may gather information from the user's computer, including information related to Internet browser usage or other computing habits, and relay this information back to a remote computer or other location in cyber-space. Adware can be downloaded from Web sites (typically in shareware or freeware), email messages, and instant messengers. Additionally, a user may unknowingly receive and/or trigger adware by accepting an End User License Agreement from a software program linked to the adware, or from visiting a Web site that downloads the adware with or without an End User License Agreement. Affected Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Resource Kit Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Japanese Edition Microsoft Windows 2000 Terminal Services SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Workstation rev.2031, rev.2072, rev.2195, SP1, SP2, SP3 Microsoft Windows 95 Build 490.R6, j, SP1, SR2 Microsoft Windows 98 a, b, j, SP1 Microsoft Windows 98 With Plus! Pack Microsoft Windows 98SE Microsoft Windows CE 2.0, 3.0, 4.2 Microsoft Windows ME Microsoft Windows NT 3.5, 3.5.1, 3.5.1 SP1, 3.5.1 SP2, 3.5.1 SP3, 3.5.1 SP4, 3.5.1 SP5, 3.5.1 SP5 alpha, 4.0, 4.0 alpha, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP1 alpha, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP2 alpha, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP3 alpha, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP4 alpha, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP5 alpha, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6 alpha, 4.0 SP6a, 4.0 SP6a alpha Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack Microsoft Windows NT Enterprise Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Terminal Server 4.0, 4.0 alpha, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition Itanium SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition Itanium SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Web Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Vista beta Microsoft Windows XP Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition SP1 Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition Version 2003 SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Embedded SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Home SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP1, SP2 Response For instructions on how to remove this installation from your network, reference Symantec Security Response. See the reference link below.
WhenUUpdateEvents Severity:Medium This attack could pose a moderate security threat. It does not require immediate action. Description This signature indicates that a system may be infected with Adware WhenU published by WhenU.com. Additional Information Once installed on your computer, this application displays a number of offers and services available in separate pop-up windows. Save! is bundled with other applications but is similar to SaveNow. "The software selects which ads and offers to show you based on several factors, including: which Web pages you visit, search terms you use while searching online, content of the Web pages you view, and your local zip code (if you have supplied it). "The software protects your privacy by uploading a database of content in small chunks to your desktop, and then determining on your desktop whether to retrieve information from WhenU or from third-party servers. To protect your privacy, the same database of content is sent to all desktops. Decisions regarding which ads to retrieve to an individual desktop are all processed on the individual user's desktop and isolated from WhenU servers. In this way, WhenU is able to deliver to you relevant coupons, information, and advertisements without sending all of your browsing activity back to WhenU and without establishing any profile about you (even anonymously) on WhenU servers" -whenu.com WhenUSearch Toolbar is described by whenu.com as: "The Toolbar selects which ads and offers to show you based on several factors, including: which Web pages you visit, search terms you use while searching online, your local zip and/or country code, and content of the Web pages you view. The Toolbar displays contextual ads and offers in the form of rotating text links accessible from within the application. "The Toolbar protects your privacy by uploading a database of content in small chunks to your desktop and then determining on your desktop whether to retrieve information from WhenU or third-party servers. To protect your privacy, the same database of content is sent to all desktops. Decisions regarding which advertising and offers to retrieve are processed on your computer desktop. In this way, WhenU is able to deliver to you relevant coupons, information, and advertisements without establishing any profile about you (even anonymously) on WhenU servers. "Because the Toolbar's advanced functionality is designed to display ads whenever contextually-relevant activity is detected, a continuous series of impressions and click-throughs may be transmitted to WhenU.com's servers as you surf the Internet." -whenu.com Save! is also bundled with Clocksync and WeatherCase applications. SideFinder: "The WhenUSearch SideFinder brings relevant information, search results, and coupons directly to your browser. This convenient format displays this information in a vertical explorer bar that is easily accessible and viewed within your browser window. The WhenUSearch SideFinder selects which ads and offers to display to you based on several factors, including: URLs associated with Web pages you visit, search terms that you type into search engines and into the WhenUSearch SideFinder, your local zip and/or country code, and HTML content of the Web pages you view. WhenUSearch SideFinder ads and offers are delivered in a separate, independent window controlled by WhenU.com" -whenu.com Adware: These are programs that facilitate delivery of advertising content to the user through their own window, or by utilizing another program's interface. In some cases, these programs may gather information from the user's computer, including information related to Internet browser usage or other computing habits, and relay this information back to a remote computer or other location in cyber-space. Adware can be downloaded from Web sites (typically in shareware or freeware), email messages, and instant messengers. Additionally, a user may unknowingly receive and/or trigger adware by accepting an End User License Agreement from a software program linked to the adware, or from visiting a Web site that downloads the adware with or without an End User License Agreement. Affected Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Resource Kit Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Japanese Edition Microsoft Windows 2000 Terminal Services SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Workstation rev.2031, rev.2072, rev.2195, SP1, SP2, SP3 Microsoft Windows 95 Build 490.R6, j, SP1, SR2 Microsoft Windows 98 a, b, j, SP1 Microsoft Windows 98 With Plus! Pack Microsoft Windows 98SE Microsoft Windows CE 2.0, 3.0, 4.2 Microsoft Windows ME Microsoft Windows NT 3.5, 3.5.1, 3.5.1 SP1, 3.5.1 SP2, 3.5.1 SP3, 3.5.1 SP4, 3.5.1 SP5, 3.5.1 SP5 alpha, 4.0, 4.0 alpha, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP1 alpha, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP2 alpha, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP3 alpha, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP4 alpha, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP5 alpha, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6 alpha, 4.0 SP6a, 4.0 SP6a alpha Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack Microsoft Windows NT Enterprise Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Terminal Server 4.0, 4.0 alpha, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition Itanium SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition Itanium SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Web Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Vista beta Microsoft Windows XP Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition SP1 Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition Version 2003 SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Embedded SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Home SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP1, SP2 Response For instructions on how to remove this installation from your network, reference Symantec Security Response. See the reference link below.
WildMediaWinFetchActivity Severity:Medium This attack could pose a moderate security threat. It does not require immediate action. Description This signature detects the adware requesting files from its controlling/distributing server. Additional Information Adware.WinFetch is an adware component that various advertisers may use. It is distributed by Wild Media LLC. Adware: Programs that facilitate delivery of advertising content to the user through their own window, or by utilizing another program's interface. In some cases, these programs may gather information from the user's computer, including information related to Internet browser usage or other computing habits, and relay this information back to a remote computer or other location in cyberspace. Adware can be downloaded from Web sites (typically in shareware or freeware), email messages, and instant messengers. Additionally, a user may unknowingly receive and/or trigger adware by accepting an End User License Agreement from a software program linked to the adware, or from visiting a Web site that downloads the adware with or without an End User License Agreement. Affected Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Resource Kit Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Japanese Edition Microsoft Windows 2000 Terminal Services SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Workstation rev.2031, rev.2072, rev.2195, SP1, SP2, SP3 Microsoft Windows 95 Build 490.R6, j, SP1, SR2 Microsoft Windows 98 a, b, j, SP1 Microsoft Windows 98 With Plus! Pack Microsoft Windows 98SE Microsoft Windows CE 2.0, 3.0, 4.2 Microsoft Windows ME Microsoft Windows NT 3.5, 3.5.1, 3.5.1 SP1, 3.5.1 SP2, 3.5.1 SP3, 3.5.1 SP4, 3.5.1 SP5, 3.5.1 SP5 alpha, 4.0, 4.0 alpha, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP1 alpha, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP2 alpha, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP3 alpha, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP4 alpha, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP5 alpha, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6 alpha, 4.0 SP6a, 4.0 SP6a alpha Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack Microsoft Windows NT Enterprise Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Terminal Server 4.0, 4.0 alpha, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition Itanium SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition Itanium SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Web Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Vista beta Microsoft Windows XP Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition SP1 Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition Version 2003 SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Embedded SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Home SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP1, SP2 Response Use any good anti-spyware/anti-adware solution to remove the threat from the host. Also visit the Symantec Security Response Web site for more information and removal instructions.
WinMailDirectoryTraversal Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects attempts to exploit a directory traversal vulnerability in the Magic Winmail Server. Additional Information Magic Winmail Server is an email server designed for use on Microsoft Windows operating environments. Magic Winmail Server is reportedly affected by multiple vulnerabilities. The `download.php' script is affected by a directory traversal vulnerability. This issue could permit a malicious user to download arbitrary files from the affected server that the application normally has access to. It is reportedly possible to retrieve the 'userauth.cfg' file, which contains MD5 hashes of user passwords, by exploiting this vulnerability. Magic Winmail Server version 4.0 (Build 1112) is reportedly affected by these issues; earlier versions may also be vulnerable. Affected AMAX Information Technologies Inc. Magic Winmail Server 4.0(Build 1112) Response The vendor has released Magic Winmail Server 4.0 (Build 1318) to address these issues. AMAX Information Technologies Inc. Magic Winmail Server 4.0 (Build 1112): AMAX Information Technologies Inc. Upgrade winmail.exe
WittyWormPropagation Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects the propogation of W32.Witty.Worm Additional Information W32.Witty.Worm utilizes a Vulnerability in ICQ Parsing by ISS Products. The worm sends itself out to multiple IP addresses on source port 4000/UDP and a random destination port. The worm is a memory-only based threat and does not create files on the system. The worm has a payload that overwrites random sectors of a hard disk drive. Affected Internet Security Systems BlackIce Agent 3.1 Internet Security Systems BlackICE Agent for Server 3.6 ebz, 3.6 eca, 3.6 ecb, 3.6 ecc, 3.6 ecd, 3.6 ece, 3.6 ecf Internet Security Systems BlackICE PC Protection 3.6.cbz, 3.6 cca, 3.6 ccb, 3.6 ccc, 3.6 ccd, 3.6 cce, 3.6 ccf Internet Security Systems BlackIce Server Protection 3.6 cbz, 3.6 cca, 3.6 ccb, 3.6 ccc, 3.6 ccd, 3.6 cce, 3.6 ccf Internet Security Systems Proventia A Series XPU 22.1, XPU 22.2, XPU 22.3, XPU 22.4, XPU 22.5, XPU 22.6, XPU 22.7, XPU 22.8, XPU 20.11, XPU 22.10, XPU 22.9 Internet Security Systems Proventia G Series XPU 22.1, XPU 22.10, XPU 22.11, XPU 22.2, XPU 22.3, XPU 22.4, XPU 22.5, XPU 22.6, XPU 22.7, XPU 22.8, XPU 22.9 Internet Security Systems Proventia M Series XPU 1.1, XPU 1.2, XPU 1.3, XPU 1.4, XPU 1.5, XPU 1.6, XPU 1.7, XPU 1.8, XPU 1.9 Internet Security Systems RealSecure Desktop 3.6 ebz, 3.6 eca, 3.6 ecb, 3.6 ecd, 3.6 ece, 3.6 ecf, 7.0 eba, 7.0 ebf, 7.0 ebg, 7.0 ebh, 7.0 ebj, 7.0 ebk, 7.0 ebl Internet Security Systems RealSecure Guard 3.6 ebz, 3.6 eca, 3.6 ecb, 3.6 ecc, 3.6 ece, 3.6 ecf, 3.6 ecd Internet Security Systems RealSecure Network Sensor 7.0, 7.0 XPU 20.11, 7.0 XPU 22.10, 7.0 XPU 22.9, 7.0 XPU 22.4 Internet Security Systems RealSecure Sentry 3.6 ebz, 3.6 eca, 3.6 ecb, 3.6 ecc, 3.6 ece, 3.6 ecf, 3.6 ecd Internet Security Systems RealSecure Server Sensor 5.0 Win, 5.5 Win, 5.5.1 Win, 5.5.2 Win, 6.0 Win, 6.0.1 Win, 6.0.1 Win SR1.1, 6.5 Win, 6.5 Win SR3.1, 6.5 Win SR3.10, 6.5 Win SR3.2, 6.5 Win SR3.3, 6.5 Win SR3.4, 6.5 Win SR3.5, 6.5 Win SR3.6, 6.5 Win SR3.7, 6.5 Win SR3.8, 6.5 Win SR3.9, 7.0 XPU 22.1, 7.0 XPU 22.10, 7.0 XPU 22.11, 7.0 XPU 22.2, 7.0 XPU 22.3, 7.0 XPU 22.4, 7.0 XPU 22.5, 7.0 XPU 22.6, 7.0 XPU 22.7, 7.0 XPU 22.8, 7.0 XPU 22.9 Response Because the worm resides in memory only and is not written to disk, virus definitions do not detect this threat. Symantec Security Response recommends that you follow the steps described below to deal with this threat. 1. Obtain the patch for the vulnerability from http://blackice.iss.net/update_center/index.php. 2. Disconnect the affected system from the network. 3. Reboot the system to remove the threat from memory. 4. Apply the patch. 5. Reconnect to the network.
WorldSpanResManagerMalformedDoS Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects requests that attempt to exploit a denial-of-service vulnerability in WorldSpan Resource Manager. Additional Information Worldspan develops software for use by travel agencies. Res Manager 4.1 is developed for use with Microsoft Windows operating systems. It has been reported that WorldSpan Res Manager 4.1 for Microsoft Windows is vulnerable to a denial-of-service condition. Res Manager systems are connected to Worldspan via private lines or through the Internet. Before accessing Worldspan, clients must first go through a local gateway. Worldspan gateway systems are usually systems running Microsoft Windows 95 or 98. The software accepts connections from Res Manager clients via TCP port 17990. If a malformed packet is sent to this port, the gateway software attempts to process the packet and eventually crashes. An attacker may take advantage of this vulnerability by causing gateway systems to crash and denying service to legitimate users. Affected WorldSpan Res Manager 4.1 Response There are currently no known patches for this issue. It is advised that users upgrade to the latest version.
WuFTPdFormatStringBO Severity:Medium This attack could pose a moderate security threat. It does not require immediate action. Description This signature detects an attempt to exploit a vulnerability in Wu-FTPd. Additional Information Washington University ftp daemon (wu-ftpd) is a very popular UNIX ftp server shipped with many distributions of Linux and other UNIX operating systems. Wu-ftpd is vulnerable to a very serious remote attack in the SITE EXEC implementation. Because user input goes directly into a format string for a printf function, it is possible to overwrite important data, such as a return address, on the stack. When this is accomplished, the function can jump into shellcode pointed to by the overwritten eip and execute arbitrary commands as root. While exploited in a manner similar to a buffer overflow, it is actually an input validation problem. Anonymous ftp is exploitable, which makes it even more serious as attacks can come anonymously from anywhere on the Internet. Affected Caldera OpenLinux 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 Conectiva Linux 3.0, 4.0, 4.0 es, 4.1, 4.2, 5.0 Debian Linux 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 HP HP-UX 10.0 1, 10.10, 10.16, 10.20, 10.26, 11.0, 11.0 4 HP HP-UX (VVOS) 10.24 RedHat Linux 5.0, 5.1, 5.2 alpha, 5.2 i386, 5.2 sparc, 6.0, 6.0 alpha, 6.0 sparc, 6.1 alpha, 6.1 i386, 6.1 sparc, 6.2 alpha, 6.2 i386, 6.2 sparc Slackware Linux 7.0, 7.1 Turbolinux Turbolinux 3.5 b2, 4.0 Washington University wu-ftpd 2.4.2 academ[BETA-18], 2.4.2 academ[BETA1-15], 2.5.0, 2.6.0 Response Patches for various Linux distributions are listed below. Linux-Mandrake (from the advisory) ================================== Upgrade to: md5 sum: b4340d1007f5128d5d80502007c11a17 6.0/RPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-7mdk.i586.rpm md5 sum: bb37dbaf5f9fc3953c2869592df608c9 src: 6.0/SRPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-7mdk.src.rpm md5 sum: 89467e25e432271892aea433b613b4f7 6.1/RPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-7mdk.i586.rpm md5 sum: bb37dbaf5f9fc3953c2869592df608c9 src: 6.1/SRPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-7mdk.src.rpm md5 sum: 7e240d30b2e8cba1ba0c3dc59908aef7 7.0/RPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-7mdk.i586.rpm md5 sum: bb37dbaf5f9fc3953c2869592df608c9 src: 7.0/SRPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-7mdk.src.rpm md5 sum: 2b83dcb120012f1009e707398b5f4dc4 7.1/RPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-7mdk.i586.rpm md5 sum: bb37dbaf5f9fc3953c2869592df608c9 src: 7.1/SRPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-7mdk.src.rpm To upgrade automatically, use « MandrakeUpdate ». To upgrade manually, download the updated package from one of the FTP server mirrors and upgrade with "rpm -Uvh package_name". All mirrors are listed on http://www.mandrake.com/en/ftp.php3. Updated packages are available in the "updates/" directory. Debian Linux (directly from the advisory) ========================================= Debian GNU/Linux 2.1 alias slink -------------------------------- This version of Debian was released only for Intel ia32, the Motorola 680x0, the Alpha, and the Sun Sparc architecture. Fixes for Intel ia32 and the Sun Sparc architecture are currently available. Fixes for other architectures will be available soon. Source archives: http://security.debian.org/dists/slink/updates/source/wu-ftpd-academ_2.4.2.16-13.1.diff.gz MD5 checksum: a3d26f64852e10d5831f1362e214074b http://security.debian.org/dists/slink/updates/source/wu-ftpd-academ_2.4.2.16-13.1.dsc MD5 checksum: 3c1848cfbdc82eae8008e26f34b63029 http://security.debian.org/dists/slink/updates/source/wu-ftpd-academ_2.4.2.16.orig.tar.gz MD5 checksum: 1b636fbfb3a5417886cc4265cca0fc5f Intel ia32 architecture: http://security.debian.org/dists/slink/updates/binary-i386/wu-ftpd-academ_2.4.2.16-13.1_i386.deb MD5 checksum: 9eace595dcb0ba68bb2ddd60ffbfa12f Sun Sparc architecture: http://security.debian.org/dists/slink/updates/binary-sparc/wu-ftpd-academ_2.4.2.16-13.1_sparc.deb MD5 checksum: 1302d89ae95d8b40eb000472abeb461c Debian 2.2 alias potato ----------------------- This version of Debian has not yet been released. Fixes are currently available for Alpha, ARM, Intel ia32, PowerPC, and the Sun Sparc architecture. Fixes for other architectures will be available soon. Source archives: http://security.debian.org/dists/potato/updates/main/source/wu-ftpd_2.6.0-5.1.diff.gz MD5 checksum: d24ba31633ed0d279653c671f93bf624 http://security.debian.org/dists/potato/updates/main/source/wu-ftpd_2.6.0-5.1.dsc MD5 checksum: bc7138b128d8d32d5810ac19cc4ccf75 http://security.debian.org/dists/potato/updates/main/source/wu-ftpd_2.6.0.orig.tar.gz MD5 checksum: 652cfe4b59e0468eded736e7c281d16f Architecture indendent archives: http://security.debian.org/dists/potato/updates/main/binary-all/wu-ftpd-academ_2.6.0-5.1_all.deb MD5 checksum: fa11e4fb1e3852382e9261a265ab85be Alpha architecture: http://security.debian.org/dists/potato/updates/main/binary-alpha/wu-ftpd_2.6.0-5.1_alpha.deb MD5 checksum: 3907a13fd70063eb8cccc47148d3b316 ARM architecture: http://security.debian.org/dists/potato/updates/main/binary-arm/wu-ftpd_2.6.0-5.1_arm.deb MD5 checksum: 9faeaec3a831510179c4e3a6ea50ff52 Intel ia32 architecture: http://security.debian.org/dists/potato/updates/main/binary-i386/wu-ftpd_2.6.0-5.1_i386.deb MD5 checksum: 8f74c7004d4a06bfef2a5de786993164 PowerPC architecture: http://security.debian.org/dists/potato/updates/main/binary-powerpc/wu-ftpd_2.6.0-5.1_powerpc.deb MD5 checksum: 4af70cff2b3a0396945df86fa8ebc6b8 Sun Sparc architecture: http://security.debian.org/dists/potato/updates/main/binary-sparc/wu-ftpd_2.6.0-5.1_sparc.deb MD5 checksum: 71320a88456af1b92f4e9848bbe76a80 Debian Unstable alias woody --------------------------- A fix will be available in the unstable archive soon. Meanwhile, install the appropriate potato packages listed above. Connectiva Linux (from the advisory) ==================================== Direct download links to updated packages: ftp://ftp.conectiva.com.br/pub/conectiva/atualizacoes/4.0/i386/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-11cl.i386.rpm ftp://ftp.conectiva.com.br/pub/conectiva/atualizacoes/4.0es/i386/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-11cl.i386.rpm ftp://ftp.conectiva.com.br/pub/conectiva/atualizacoes/4.1/i386/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-11cl.i386.rpm ftp://ftp.conectiva.com.br/pub/conectiva/atualizacoes/4.2/i386/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-11cl.i386.rpm ftp://ftp.conectiva.com.br/pub/conectiva/atualizacoes/5.0/i386/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-11cl.i386.rpm ftp://ftp.conectiva.com.br/pub/conectiva/atualizacoes/servidor-1.0/i386/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-11cl.i386.rpm Direct link to the source packages: ftp://ftp.conectiva.com.br/pub/conectiva/atualizacoes/4.0/SRPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-11cl.i386.rpm ftp://ftp.conectiva.com.br/pub/conectiva/atualizacoes/4.0es/SRPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-11cl.i386.rpm ftp://ftp.conectiva.com.br/pub/conectiva/atualizacoes/4.1/SRPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-11cl.i386.rpm ftp://ftp.conectiva.com.br/pub/conectiva/atualizacoes/4.2/SRPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-11cl.i386.rpm ftp://ftp.conectiva.com.br/pub/conectiva/atualizacoes/5.0/SRPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-11cl.i386.rpm ftp://ftp.conectiva.com.br/pub/conectiva/atualizacoes/servidor-1.0/SRPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-11cl.i386.rpm Caldera Linux (from the advisory) ================================= OpenLinux Desktop 2.3 --------------------- Location of fixed packages: The upgrade packages can be found on Caldera's FTP site at ftp://ftp.calderasystems.com/pub/updates/OpenLinux/2.3/current/RPMS/ The corresponding source code package can be found at ftp://ftp.calderasystems.com/pub/updates/OpenLinux/2.3/current/SRPMS Verification: ddc86702f33d6a5edddab258ddd72195 RPMS/wu-ftpd-2.5.0-7.i386.rpm 8090110ecef8d1efd2fe4c279f209e29 SRPMS/wu-ftpd-2.5.0-7.src.rpm OpenLinux eServer 2.3 and OpenLinux eBuilder for ECential 3.0 ------------------------------------------------------------- Location of fixed packages: The upgrade packages can be found on Caldera's FTP site at ftp://ftp.calderasystems.com/pub/updates/eServer/2.3/current/RPMS/ The corresponding source code package can be found at ftp://ftp.calderasystems.com/pub/updates/eServer/2.3/current/SRPMS Verification: f909e8b47ec6780109c2437cdfdc2497 RPMS/wu-ftpd-2.5.0-7.i386.rpm 8354edf2f90e59aa96d8baf1d77e28a0 SRPMS/wu-ftpd-2.5.0-7.src.rpm OpenLinux eDesktop 2.4 ---------------------- Location of fixed packages: The upgrade packages can be found on Caldera's FTP site at ftp://ftp.calderasystems.com/pub/updates/eDesktop/2.4/current/RPMS/ The corresponding source code package can be found at ftp://ftp.calderasystems.com/pub/updates/eDesktop/2.4/current/SRPMS Verification: d2df4fb386d65387039f33538571d907 RPMS/wu-ftpd-2.5.0-7.i386.rpm 13313d25d6d93dd98dd94e62d48c711c SRPMS/wu-ftpd-2.5.0-7.src.rpm RedHat Linux (directly from the advisory) ========================================= RPMs required: RedHat Linux 5.2 (These versions should work with previous RedHat versions): 386: ftp://updates.redhat.com/5.2/i386/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-2.5.x.i386.rpm alpha: ftp://updates.redhat.com/5.2/alpha/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-2.5.x.alpha.rpm sparc: ftp://updates.redhat.com/5.2/sparc/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-2.5.x.sparc.rpm sources: ftp://updates.redhat.com/5.2/SRPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-2.5.x.src.rpm RedHat Linux 6.2 (These updated versions should work with all 6.x versions): i386: ftp://updates.redhat.com/6.2/i386/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-14.6x.i386.rpm alpha: ftp://updates.redhat.com/6.2/alpha/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-14.6x.alpha.rpm sparc: ftp://updates.redhat.com/6.2/sparc/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-14.6x.sparc.rpm sources: ftp://updates.redhat.com/6.2/SRPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-14.6x.src.rpm Verification: MD5 sum Package Name ------- ------------ e1f3b09d8ad0067fa7fd22e7afe77e64 5.2/SRPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-2.5.x.src.rpm 7c2f89b3f8533ec54a36c5dde5995ce6 5.2/alpha/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-2.5.x.alpha.rpm 8dbd0b0f1fa1d0755393942cb4cb141d 5.2/i386/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-2.5.x.i386.rpm 5d9df2512a15e5c8914f398d980b12e7 5.2/sparc/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-2.5.x.sparc.rpm 67349a75b767585628912b840e52806e 6.2/SRPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-14.6x.src.rpm fafe870fc91762dd7e9182df3b4dfee5 6.2/alpha/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-14.6x.alpha.rpm 50c11f333641277ab75e6207bffb13b4 6.2/i386/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-14.6x.i386.rpm 8abba6ffa660d1c221581855630ed40d 6.2/sparc/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-14.6x.sparc.rpm These packages are GPG signed by RedHat, Inc. for security. The key is available at http://www.redhat.com/corp/contact.html To verify each package, use the following command: rpm --checksig <filename> To verify only that each package has not been corrupted or tampered with, examine only the md5sum with the following command: rpm --checksig --nogpg <filename> If you are running a distribution that has not released patches yet, a diff is available to work around or prevent the problem. It is in a message that is linked to in the "reference" part of this vuldb entry, titled "Re: WuFTPD: Providing remote* root since at least1994," posted by Peter Pentchev <[email protected]>. SuSE: It is recommended that you use the audited 2.4er version of wu-ftpd. Update the package from the FTP server. Verify these md5 checksums of the updates before installing: (For SuSE 6.0, please use the 6.1 updates) AXP: 634be5f377d4dfecb8f3456f3746860f ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/6.1/n1/wuftpd-2.6.0-121.alpha.rpm 6adbc81c16569aa53bd48994a290127a ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/6.3/n1/wuftpd-2.6.0-121.alpha.rpm 79e4b044ad8ef19497ce3a21c6f3a187 ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update/6.4/n1/wuftpd-2.6.0-121.alpha.rpm i386: b9f3877a600c770f73ee0478e069af82 ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.1/n1/wuftpd-2.6.0-122.i386.rpm 453da7bf608d24ac87b19ef71c504fff ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.2/n1/wuftpd-2.6.0-121.i386.rpm 1b8add24db4fb897ffdf8aea836f74c2 ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.3/n1/wuftpd-2.6.0-121.i386.rpm 98720fa1385aa22f6ec53b4175a35be5 ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update/6.4/n1/wuftpd-2.6.0-122.i386.rpm PPC: d54e0c3a877a5414eb7b274ef77b9bc6 ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/ppc/update/6.4/n1/wuftpd-2.6.0-121.ppc.rpm Updates: You can find updates on the FTP server: Intel processors ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/update Alpha processors ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/axp/update Or try the following Web pages for a list of mirrors: http://www.suse.de/ftp.html http://www.suse.com/ftp_new.html Web page for patches: http://www.suse.de/patches/index.html Web page for security announcements: http://www.suse.de/security Slackware: The wu-ftpd daemon is part of the tcpip1.tgz package in the N series. A new tcpip1.tgz package is now available in the Slackware -current tree. All users of Slackware 7.0, 7.1, and -current are strongly urged to upgrade to the new tcpip1.tgz package. For users of Slackware 4.0, a wuftpd.tgz patch package is being provided in the /patches tree of Slackware 4.0. ========================================= wu-ftpd 2.6.1 AVAILABLE - (n1/tcpip1.tgz) ========================================= For users of Slackware 7.0, 7.1, and -current --------------------------------------------- The recent vulnerability in wu-ftpd can be fixed by upgrading to the new tcpip1.tgz package. This package upgrades the wu-ftpd server to version 2.6.1. The download is available from the -current branch: ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-current/slakware/n1/tcpip1.tgz All users of Slackware 7.0, 7.1, and -current are strongly urged to upgrade to the tcpip1.tgz package to fix the vulnerability in wu-ftpd. For verification purposes, the following checksums are provided: 16-bit "sum" checksum: 45865 995 128-bit MD5 message digest: 2ffec28ac4b9de34d5899f7cd88cc5c3 n1/tcpip1.tgz Installing the tcpip1.tgz package: If you have downloaded the new tcpip1.tgz package, bring the system into runlevel 1 and run upgradepkg on it: # telinit 1 # upgradepkg tcpip1.tgz # telinit 3 For users of Slackware ---------------------- The recent vulnerability in wu-ftpd can be fixed by installing the wuftpd.tgz patch package. This package upgrades the wu-ftpd server to version 2.6.1. Download it from the Slackware 4.0 branch: ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-4.0/patches/wuftpd.tgz All users of Slackware 4.0 are strongly urged to install the wuftpd.tgz patch package to fix the vulnerability in wu-ftpd. For verification purposes, the following checksums are provided: 16-bit "sum" checksum: 06607 105 128-bit MD5 message digest: 75547b1762d7ff4fad233cd89529ff2c wuftpd.tgz Installing the wuftpd.tgz package: If you have downloaded the wuftpd.tgz patch package, bring the system into runlevel 1 and run installpkg on it: # telinit 1 # installpkg wuftpd.tgz # telinit 3 Note: Back up configuration files before upgrading packages. Slackware Linux Security Team http://www.slackware.com Mandrake: To upgrade automatically, use < MandrakeUpdate >. To upgrade manually, download the updated package from one of the FTP server mirrors and upgrade with "rpm -Uvh package_name". All mirrors are listed on http://www.mandrake.com/en/ftp.php3. Updated packages are available in the "updates/" directory. Upgrade to: md5 sum: b4340d1007f5128d5d80502007c11a17 6.0/RPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-7mdk.i586.rpm md5 sum: bb37dbaf5f9fc3953c2869592df608c9 src: 6.0/SRPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-7mdk.src.rpm md5 sum: 89467e25e432271892aea433b613b4f7 6.1/RPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-7mdk.i586.rpm md5 sum: bb37dbaf5f9fc3953c2869592df608c9 src: 6.1/SRPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-7mdk.src.rpm md5 sum: 7e240d30b2e8cba1ba0c3dc59908aef7 7.0/RPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-7mdk.i586.rpm md5 sum: bb37dbaf5f9fc3953c2869592df608c9 src: 7.0/SRPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-7mdk.src.rpm md5 sum: 2b83dcb120012f1009e707398b5f4dc4 7.1/RPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-7mdk.i586.rpm md5 sum: bb37dbaf5f9fc3953c2869592df608c9 src: 7.1/SRPMS/wu-ftpd-2.6.0-7mdk.src.rpm FreeBSD: Patches are available for FreeBSD 3, 4 and 5 at ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-3-stable/ftp/wu-ftpd-2.6.0.tar.gz ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-4-stable/ftp/wu-ftpd-2.6.0.tar.gz ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/alpha/packages-4-stable/ftp/wu-ftpd-2.6.0.tar.gz ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-5-current/ftp/wu-ftpd-2.6.0.tar.gz ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/alpha/packages-5-current/ftp/wu-ftpd-2.6.0.tar.gz A patch is also available that was posted to Bugtraq by Daniel Jacobowitz <[email protected]> of the Debian GNU/Linux project. It is available here: http://www.securityfocus.com/data/vulnerabilities/patches/wu-ftpd2.6.0.diff HP HP-UX 10.0 1: HP Patch PHNE_22058 HP HP-UX 10.10: HP Patch PHNE_22058 HP HP-UX 10.16: HP Patch PHNE_22703 HP HP-UX 10.20: HP Patch PHNE_22057 HP HP-UX 10.26: HP Patch PHNE_22124 HP HP-UX 11.0: HP Patch PHNE_23949 HP HP-UX 11.0 4: HP Patch PHNE_22060 HP HP-UX (VVOS) 10.24: HP Patch PHNE_22059 TurboLinux Turbo Linux 3.5 b2: TurboLinux RPM wu-ftpd-2.6.1-1.i386.rpm TurboLinux Turbo Linux 4.0: TurboLinux RPM wu-ftpd-2.6.1-1.i386.rpm
WuFTPdRealpathBO Severity:Medium This attack could pose a moderate security threat. It does not require immediate action. Description This signature detects an attempt to over a buffer in WuFTPd Realpath function. Additional Information The realpath() function is a C library procedure to resolve the canonical, absolute pathname of a file from a path that may contain values such as '/', './', '../' or symbolic links. A vulnerability that was reported to affect the implementation of realpath() in WU-FTPD has lead to the announcement that at least one implementation of the C library is also vulnerable. FreeBSD has stated that the off-by-one stack buffer overflow vulnerability is present in their C library. Other systems are also likely vulnerable. As this is a bug in the C library, this vulnerability may affect a large number of applications, both dynamically and statically linked. Any application which uses realpath() may be vulnerable. The vulnerability is an off-by-one buffer overflow that occurs in stack memory. The error occurs when the function calculates the size of the resolved pathname. If the length of the path is exactly 1024 bytes and contains two '/' characters, the string terminating NULL byte will be written over adjacent memory. Depending on factors such as process memory layout, architecture and the compiler, this may result in an exploitable situation. For example, the least significant byte of the frame pointer may be overwritten with '0'. An attacker can cause shellcode to be executed if the numerically adjusted saved base pointer points into attacker-controlled memory. Applications which pass user-supplied data to realpath() such as FTP servers are most at risk. WU-FTPD is confirmed vulnerable. Affected Apple Mac OS X 10.2.6 Apple Mac OS X Server 10.2.6 FreeBSD FreeBSD 4.0, 4.0 alpha, 4.0.x, 4.1, 4.1.1, 4.1.1-RELEASE, 4.1.1-STABLE, 4.2, 4.2-RELEASE, 4.2-STABLE, 4.2-STABLEpre050201, 4.2-STABLEpre122300, 4.3, 4.3-RELEASE, 4.3-RELENG, 4.3-STABLE, 4.4, 4.4-RELENG, 4.4-STABLE, 4.5, 4.5-RELEASE, 4.5-STABLE, 4.5-STABLEpre2002-03-07, 4.6, 4.6-RELEASE, 4.6-STABLE, 4.6.2, 4.7, 4.7-RELEASE, 4.7-STABLE, 4.8, 4.8-PRERELEASE, 5.0, 5.0 alpha HP HP-UX 11.0, 11.11, 11.22 NetBSD NetBSD 1.5, 1.5.1, 1.5.2, 1.5.3, 1.6, 1.6.1 OpenBSD OpenBSD 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8, 2.9, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 RedHat wu-ftpd-2.6.1-16.i386.rpm RedHat wu-ftpd-2.6.1-16.ppc.rpm RedHat wu-ftpd-2.6.1-18.i386.rpm RedHat wu-ftpd-2.6.1-18.ia64.rpm RedHat wu-ftpd-2.6.2-5.i386.rpm RedHat wu-ftpd-2.6.2-8.i386.rpm Sun Solaris 9.0, 9.0_x86 Washington University wu-ftpd 2.5.0, 2.6.0, 2.6.1, 2.6.2
WuFTPdSiteExecBO Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects exploits against an exploit present in versions of Washington University FTP Server. This exploit has the effect of allowing authenticated users to execute programs on the server machine with root privileges. Additional Information Wu-Ftpd is an ftp server based on the BSD ftpd that is maintained by Washington University. In version 2.4.1 of Wu-FTPD it is possible for users to execute programs on the server as root using the SITE EXEC function. This is due to a misconfiguration error. For authenticated users, the bin directory is /bin on the server machine. For anonymous users it is ~ftp/bin, so anonymous users would not be able to take advantage of this vulnerability. The problem lies in the fact that pathnames.h erroneously set _PATH_EXECPATH to /bin - this pathname is relative to ~ftp for anonymous users, but for users with accounts it is relative to / and therefore specifies the real /bin rather than ~ftp/bin. Affected Washington University wu-ftpd 2.4.1 Response Upgrade to a newer version of wuftp or see CERT Advisory "CA-95.16: wu-ftpd Misconfiguration Vulnerability" (Credit) for a workaround
WVTFTPBlksizeLengthRemoteBO Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects attempts to exploit a remote buffer overflow vulnerability in the WvTftp server. Additional Information The WvTftp server is an open source TFTP server released under the lesser GNU public license. It is available for the Linux platform and is also included as part of the Nitix Server operating system. A remote buffer overflow vulnerability affects WvTftp. This issue is due to a failure of the application to do proper sanity checking on string value pairs in TFTP packets. The problem presents itself when a malicious packet containing an option name with an excessively long integer value in ASCII format is sent to the affected server. Apparently, the 'new_connection()' method of the 'WvTFTPServer' server object located in the 'wvtftpserver.cc' file uses the 'atoi()' function, which is used to convert the ASCII represented integer value. The 'atoi()' function will convert the string into an integer until it reaches an ASCII character other than a number, and will return no error if the non-number character is not a NULL byte. The 'atoi()' converted integer is then verified to be between 8 and 65464 bytes. The error occurs in that the NULL terminated value string is then trusted to be no longer than five bytes long and is copied into a finite heap buffer using a 'strcpy()' function call. An attacker may leverage this issue to corrupt process heap memory, facilitating code execution and a compromise of the affected computer. It is also reported that the affected TFTP server runs with superuser privileges by default. Although only WvTftp version 0.9 is reported vulnerable, it is likely that earlier versions are vulnerable as well. Affected Net Integration Technologies Inc. WvTftp 0.9 Response Ensure that all available patches are applied to the WvTftp server.
X11MultipleVendorXFontServerBO Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description An attacker will be able to execute arbitrary code on the vulnerable host. Additional Information By default multiple vendors include an implementation of the XFS font server, fs.auto. This service allows X Windows systems to share font information across a network. A remotely exploitable buffer overrun condition has been reported in fs.auto. The overrun is reportedly due to inadequate bounds checking on client-supplied data prior to a sensitive memory copy operation. This occurs during the 'Dispatch()' routine. Malicious remote clients may exploit this condition to execute instructions on the target host by issuing a malicious XFS request. The instructions will execute with user 'nobody' privileges and may result in the attacker gaining local access to the host. This vulnerability has been reported fixed in XFree86 3.3.6 and later. Affected HP HP-UX 10.10, 10.20, 10.24, 11.0, 11.0 4, 11.11, 11.22 IBM AIX 4.3.1, 4.3.2, 4.3.3, 5.1, 5.2 SGI IRIX 6.5, 6.5.1, 6.5.2, 6.5.3, 6.5.4, 6.5.5, 6.5.6, 6.5.7, 6.5.8, 6.5.9, 6.5.10, 6.5.11, 6.5.12, 6.5.13 Sun Solaris 2.5.1, 2.5.1_ppc, 2.5.1_x86, 2.6, 2.6_x86, 7.0, 7.0_x86, 8.0, 8.0_x86, 9.0, 9.0_x86 Update 2 XFree86 X11R6 3.3, 3.3.2, 3.3.3, 3.3.4, 3.3.5 Response Workaround: A workaround is to disable the fs.auto service. This may be accomplished by commenting out its entry in the inetd configuration file, and then restarting inetd. The entry should appear as: #fs stream tcp wait nobody /usr/openwin/lib/fs.auto fs The inetd service should then be stopped and restarted. Sending a HUP signal to its process will cause it to re-read /etc/inetd.conf. Solution: The initial temporary fixes released by HP enabled the SHLIB_PATH, which may expose systems to additional vulnerabilities. HP has released an updated advisory instructing users that have applied the first set of fixes to either download revised fixes, or perform the following task on vulnerable fixes: chatr +s disable xfs.1020 chatr +s disable xfs.1100 chatr +s disable xfs.1111 HP has released an advisory that contains patches. The following manual fix information was also included: HP-UX 10.24 users should extract xfs from the 10.20 patch HP-UX 11.04 users should extract xfs from the 11.00 patch. HP-UX 10.10 users should contact the vendor for fix information. Further details are available in the referenced HP Advisory. SGI has released a security advisory. Users are advised to upgrade to IRIX v6.5.14 or later. Further details can be obtained from the referenced advisory. Sun has released a preliminary advisory addressing this issue. Sun has advised users to disable the vulnerable server until fixes are available. See the referenced advisory for more details. Fixes available: HP HP-UX 10.20: HP Patch PHSS_28468 HP HP-UX 11.0: HP Patch PHSS_28469 HP HP-UX 11.11: HP Patch PHSS_28470 HP HP-UX 11.22: HP Patch PHSS_28471 Sun Solaris 2.6: Sun Patch 108129-05 Sun Solaris 2.6 _x86: Sun Patch 108130-05 Sun Solaris 7.0: Sun Patch 108117-06 Sun Solaris 7.0 _x86: Sun Patch 108118-06 Sun Solaris 8.0: Sun Patch 109862-03 Sun Solaris 8.0 _x86: Sun Patch 109863-03 Sun Solaris 9.0: Sun Patch 113923-02 XFree86 X11R6 3.3: XFree86 Upgrade X11R6 4.2.0 installation script XFree86 X11R6 3.3.2: XFree86 Upgrade X11R6 4.2.0 installation script XFree86 X11R6 3.3.3: XFree86 Upgrade X11R6 4.2.0 installation script XFree86 X11R6 3.3.4: XFree86 Upgrade X11R6 4.2.0 installation script XFree86 X11R6 3.3.5: XFree86 Upgrade X11R6 4.2.0 installation script
XDesignSIPDFormatStringExec Severity:Medium This attack could pose a moderate security threat. It does not require immediate action. Description This signature detects a format string vulnerability in the XDesign SIPD server, which is exploited by sending a maliciously crafted SIP Register packet to the server. Additional Information sipd is a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) proxy and location server. sipd has been reported prone to a format string vulnerability that may be triggered remotely. It has been reported that sip URI arguments passed to the affected server as REGISTER data, are not sufficiently handled. An attacker may place format specifiers in the URI, and they will be handled literally, potentially allowing the attacker to read from and write to arbitrary memory. Although unconfirmed, it has been conjectured that a remote attacker may exploit this condition to execute arbitrary instructions in the context of the affected sip daemon. It should be noted that this issue has been reported to affect sipd versions 0.1.4 and prior. Affected SX Design sipd 0.1.2, 0.1.4 Response The vendor has released an upgrade to address this issue: SX Design sipd 0.1.2: SX Design Upgrade sipd-0.1.5.tar.bz2 SX Design sipd 0.1.4: SX Design Upgrade sipd-0.1.5.tar.bz2
YahaWormPropagation Severity:High This attack could pose a serious security threat. You should take immediate action to stop any damage or prevent further damage from happening. Description This signature detects email propagation of W32.Yaha.F@mm. Additional Information W32.Yaha.F@mm is a mass-mailing worm that sends itself to all email addresses that exist in the Microsoft Windows Address Book, the MSN Messenger List, the Yahoo Pager list, the ICQ list, and files that have extensions that contain the letters ht. W32.Yaha.F@mm randomly chooses the subject and body of the email message. The attachment will have a .bat, .pif or .scr file extension. Depending upon the name of the Recycled folder, W32.Yaha.F@mm either copies itself to that folder or to the Windows folder. The name of the file that the worm creates consists of four randomly generated characters between c and y. It also attempts to terminate antivirus and firewall processes. Affected Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Resource Kit Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Japanese Edition Microsoft Windows 2000 Terminal Services SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Workstation rev.2031, rev.2072, rev.2195, SP1, SP2, SP3 Microsoft Windows 95 Build 490.R6, j, SP1, SR2 Microsoft Windows 98 a, b, j, SP1 Microsoft Windows 98 With Plus! Pack Microsoft Windows 98SE Microsoft Windows CE 2.0, 3.0, 4.2 Microsoft Windows ME Microsoft Windows NT 3.5, 3.5.1, 3.5.1 SP1, 3.5.1 SP2, 3.5.1 SP3, 3.5.1 SP4, 3.5.1 SP5, 3.5.1 SP5 alpha, 4.0, 4.0 alpha, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP1 alpha, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP2 alpha, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP3 alpha, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP4 alpha, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP5 alpha, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6 alpha, 4.0 SP6a, 4.0 SP6a alpha Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack Microsoft Windows NT Enterprise Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Terminal Server 4.0, 4.0 alpha, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition Itanium SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition Itanium SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Web Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Vista beta Microsoft Windows XP Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition SP1 Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition Version 2003 SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Embedded SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Home SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP1, SP2 Response Please refer to the following website for more information regarding this threat. Symantec Write-up for w32.Yaha.F@mm
Z-BLOG_'CMD.ASP'_XSS Severity:Medium This attack could pose a moderate security threat. It does not require immediate action. Description Z-BLOG is prone to a cross-site scripting vulnerability . Additional Information Z-BLOG is prone to a cross-site scripting weakness. This blog templet is prone to an XSS vulnerability because it fails to sufficiently sanitize user-supplied data to the 'id' parameter of the 'cmd.asp' script for the action of 'gettburl. A successful exploit may allow an attacker to steal administrator's cookie, add administrators or even directly get shell. Z-blog 1.8 Walle Build 100427 is vulnerable; other versions may also be affected. Affected Z-blog 1.8 Walle Build 100427
ZangoSearchCLSIDReg.SubkeyInstall Severity:Medium This attack could pose a moderate security threat. It does not require immediate action. Description This signature detects the ZangoSearch registry subkey. This key uniquely identifies the adware. Additional Information Adware.ZangoSearch is an adware program that monitors the contents of Internet browser windows. It opens the Web pages of partner sites when certain keywords are detected in Internet search or shopping browser windows. This program also installs files related to Adware.180Solutions. Adware: Programs that facilitate delivery of advertising content to the user through their own window, or by utilizing another program's interface. In some cases, these programs may gather information from the user's computer, including information related to Internet browser usage or other computing habits, and relay this information back to a remote computer or other location in cyberspace. Adware can be downloaded from Web sites (typically in shareware or freeware), email messages, and instant messengers. Additionally, a user may unknowingly receive and/or trigger adware by accepting an End User License Agreement from a software program linked to the adware, or from visiting a Web site that downloads the adware with or without an End User License Agreement. Affected Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Resource Kit Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Japanese Edition Microsoft Windows 2000 Terminal Services SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Microsoft Windows 2000 Workstation rev.2031, rev.2072, rev.2195, SP1, SP2, SP3 Microsoft Windows 95 Build 490.R6, j, SP1, SR2 Microsoft Windows 98 a, b, j, SP1 Microsoft Windows 98 With Plus! Pack Microsoft Windows 98SE Microsoft Windows CE 2.0, 3.0, 4.2 Microsoft Windows ME Microsoft Windows NT 3.5, 3.5.1, 3.5.1 SP1, 3.5.1 SP2, 3.5.1 SP3, 3.5.1 SP4, 3.5.1 SP5, 3.5.1 SP5 alpha, 4.0, 4.0 alpha, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP1 alpha, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP2 alpha, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP3 alpha, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP4 alpha, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP5 alpha, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6 alpha, 4.0 SP6a, 4.0 SP6a alpha Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack Microsoft Windows NT Enterprise Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Terminal Server 4.0, 4.0 alpha, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0, 4.0 SP1, 4.0 SP2, 4.0 SP3, 4.0 SP4, 4.0 SP5, 4.0 SP6, 4.0 SP6a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition Itanium SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition Itanium SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Web Edition SP1, SP1 Beta 1 Microsoft Windows Vista beta Microsoft Windows XP Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition SP1 Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition Version 2003 SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Embedded SP1 Microsoft Windows XP Home SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP1, SP2 Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP1, SP2 Response Use any good anti-spyware/anti-adware solution to remove the threat from the host. Also visit the Symantec Security Response Web site for more information and removal instructions.
#PrintNightmare – Symantec Data Center Security Zero-Day Protection What you should know now (We will update this blog as more information becomes available) Microsoft released an emergency out of band patch on July 7th for a critical remote code execution vulnerability, CVE-2021-34527 aka PrintNightmare in the Windows Print Spooler service. As of July 15th, yet another zero-day vulnerability has been announced in the Print Spooler service that allows local escalation of privilege, CVE-2021-34481. There is no patch available yet and Microsoft suggests that exploitation of the latest vulnerability by malicious actors is more likely. The third of a series of vulnerabilities within 6 weeks this year for Print Spooler, along with the vulnerabilities from 2020, CVE-2020-1048, CVE-2020-1337 referred to as PrintDemon, highlight the ongoing security risks associated with the Spooler service. Print Spooler service is enabled by default on all Windows client and server operating systems, resulting in a large population of vulnerable Windows systems regardless of whether these systems print or function as print servers. As of July 15th, yet another zero-day vulnerability has been announced in the Print Spooler service that allows local escalation of privilege, CVE-2021-34481. It started with CVE-2021-1675, released on June 8th, originally tagged as an escalation of privilege vulnerability. Subsequently, it was revised and bumped up in its severity to also include remote code execution. When IT admins were in the process of applying the June patch to their Windows systems, there was confusion about its efficacy as there were reports that the original June patch released for CVE-2021-1675 was not addressing the vulnerability on certain versions of Windows, in particular Windows Domain Controllers. POC exploit code got released accidentally that was used by researchers to demonstrate the impact on a fully patched Windows Domain Controller. A successful exploit allows an authenticated Windows standard user to upload a rogue DLL and remotely execute code on the Domain Controller with ‘SYSTEM’ privileges in the context of the Spooler service. An attacker could then install programs, modify data and create new accounts. Microsoft confirmed public exploitation of the zero day vulnerability via CVE-2021-34527 on July 6th and subsequently released a patch on July 7th. Due to the high CVSS score, the recommendation is to apply the July emergency patch or the monthly update immediately. There are still some potential system configurations under which the vulnerabilities could be exploited for a local privilege escalation on a fully patched system, as confirmed by researchers using poc exploits and also documented in a CERT advisory. Microsoft has suggested additional workarounds for a true lockdown of the Spooler service. CVE-2021-34481 is still unpatched as of July 16th and has a potential for zero-day exploitation. Symantec Data Center Security default hardening (IPS) policy provides zero-day protection for #PrintNightmare The default lockdown offered by Symantec Data Center Security Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) for Windows systems prevents exploitation of the Print Spooler service vulnerabilities. Our coverage for various Symantec technologies is documented in our Protection bulletin. For the last 15 years, the hardened IPS policies of Symantec Critical System Protection and Data Center Security (DCS) have provided granular sandboxing controls for the Print Spooler and other Windows services. Its software install restriction prevents unauthorized and arbitrary modification of code. The figure below shows some of the sandboxing controls that hardens the Spooler service. Fig 1: DCS Sandboxing and Hardening controls for Print Spooler In our test of the exploit POC, DCS prevents the Spooler service from writing unauthorized DLLs to the filesystem and therefore, the compromised domain account is unable to achieve remote code execution on the DCS protected Domain Controller. Additionally, the behavior blocking policy for the Spooler service blocks suspicious processes from launching dual use tools such as cmd.exe, net.exe, rundll32.exe for malicious purposes. The application level network controls allow configuring the Print Spooler to accept inbound requests only from trusted networks. DCS Monitoring customers can use Host Intrusion Detection System (IDS) to monitor and trigger alerts for any indicator of compromise. Attacks targeting CVE-2021-1675 and CVE-2021-34527 vulnerabilities will result in malicious DLLs being written to the Spooler directories %systemroot%\system32\spool\drivers\x64 and modification of the Spooler registry keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows x64\Drivers. Below is an example to create custom DCS IDS Filewatch rule to monitor real time changes to %systemroot%\system32\spool\drivers\x64\.dll and DCS IDS Registry watch rule to monitor HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows x64\Drivers\ DCS Email Alerts triggered by prevention and detection events, can be configured to send notifications directly to your inbox, providing full visibility into possible acts of intrusion. Fig 2: Custom DCS Filewatch Detection rule for PrintNightmare Fig 3: DCS Filewatch Detection real time event for PrintNightmare Fig 4: Custom DCS Registry Watch Detection rule for PrintNightmare Fig 5: DCS Registry Watch Detection event for PrintNightmare Patching is a painful and costly multi-step process for enterprises, with unexpected downtime of mission critical servers leading to lost productivity and business impact. While timely patching is important for effective vulnerability management, the default hardening posture offered by Symantec Data Center Security provides confidence to administrators that their systems and applications are well protected on day 0 from threats until patches are available and are ready to apply.
10 Ground Rules for Red Teams An effective Red Team offers huge value to your defensive strategy, but you have to be prepared to face up to some hard truths Imagine a team in your organization that could simulate your enemies and improve your resilience to their tactics and techniques. For Symantec, that’s us. We’re the Red Team, a small but highly-skilled team of offensive security professionals. We apply real-world attacker techniques to test and continuously improve Symantec’s internal environment and the products we sell. Red Teams are highly attractive to CSOs, not least because our work goes to the heart of the question that keeps them up at night: “Are we protected?”. It’s a powerful resource to have but given the sensitivity of what we do, many CSOs wonder what measures to put in place to ensure they and other senior executives feel comfortable. Here’s what I’ve learned from setting up Red Teams at several organizations. 10 Ground Rules for Red Teams Clear Purpose The organization needs to start from a common understanding of what the Red Team’s mission and purpose is. Our job is not to “find all the vulnerabilities”, but to determine, via adversary emulation, which attack behaviors would allow legitimate attackers to achieve specific objectives via cyber, physical and human means. A common mistake companies make is to become overly system-specific with their Red Team (there are other teams for this), and to neglect the organization’s crown jewels and the controls protecting them. An objective-based adversary simulation approach ensures your Red Team maintains focus. Red Teaming is ultimately about two things - determining how vulnerable we are by uncovering vulnerabilities such as misconfigurations, bugs and exploitable conditions, and identifying blind spots in our ability and our readiness to react. Align to the Organization’s Appetite Before you start, it’s vital to gauge your organization’s appetite for the sort of campaigns and activities you will run. This isn’t a question of cost or resources, but of the company being prepared to face potentially hard truths about its security posture and being willing to address weaknesses and gaps when they are identified. It’s useful to discuss ahead of time with your executives and key stakeholders what red teaming activities will entail, and equally what it doesn’t entail (e.g. testing specific systems). Don’t Operate in a Bubble Red Team activities are, by definition, somewhat secretive. Our job is to behave like real-world attackers to test the true security posture and response of our organization. At Symantec, our leaders have given us the autonomy and freedom we need to run our campaigns in a realistic fashion (i.e. without tipping off defenders) and report what we find. At the same time, Red Teams can’t afford to operate in a bubble. We’re helped by strong relationships and support from other teams like our Blue Teams, legal, physical security, risk and various lines of our business. For instance, we engage legal during planning phases to ensure operations won’t introduce undesired legal or regulatory risk. We give our physical security teams advance notice of any activity that could result in escalations to law enforcement. We exist to be the sparring partner of our opposite number Blue Teams. We work closely with them to help them achieve their goals in defending the organization. Be Strategic The skills of a Red Team can be misdirected to ad-hoc requests by business units. Or worse, they can be used as a political weapon to quash certain projects. These are less-optimal uses of a team’s skills and abilities. Comprehensive annual planning, with strategic inputs from our partner teams working in threat intelligence and cyber simulations, helps our Red Team align activities to the bigger picture and what’s important to Symantec. Plan Operations Meticulously Given the sensitivity of what we do, we’re meticulous about the planning and approach for each operation. Clear rules of engagement and objectives are defined for each operation up front, including processes for out-of-band reporting of any critical findings. Think carefully about participants in your operations – limiting “insiders” is key to maintaining realism. Never Negatively Impact Security Posture Our Red Team enforces a set of guiding principles when planning and executing operations. Abiding by this code is vital to maintaining the confidence and comfort of our executives. These principles include “proving appropriately” – doing no more or no less than the scope and objectives of each campaign – and taking appropriate security precautions during operations, such as protecting and encrypting data. Most importantly, we never negatively impact security posture. For example, we avoid making actual configuration changes on production systems that could open them up to legitimate attacks. We prove the potential for such an attack, rather than actually disabling a key control. Peer Monitoring Acknowledge that people can and do make mistakes. A second or third set of eyes on a key phase of an operation helps catch mistakes before they happen. Peer monitoring also helps ensure Red Teamers stay within the rules of the operation and provides staff that can act as witnesses in the event there are concerns about what occurred during an operation. Formalize Reporting and Track your Risks While the fun might be in executing out the campaigns, Red Teams must also be thoughtful about reporting – this is where the organization sees the value of your efforts. We progressively brief key teams in the organization – legal, security leadership, business leadership, risk and audit teams and control owners – via a formal structured “outbrief” process. Using standardized risk definitions and formally tracking our findings in our risk registers is vital for illustrating larger trends and patterns within the organization and for driving actual change from the work of Red Teams. Hire for Diversity If we want to effectively and accurately simulate the cyber-attacks of today and tomorrow, we need a team that boasts the depth, breadth and diversity of offensive security skills. I strive to ensure my team reflects a diversity of backgrounds in security and technology, for example, people with experiences across blue team, architecture, software development and other disciplines. At the same time, a good red teamer is more than the sum of their specific set of skills and expertise. When I’m assessing prospective talent, integrity, passion and chemistry usually come first. Given the access to data we obtain during operations, in addition to thorough vetting I also recruit primarily from circles that I trust. Be Humble We strive to be humble in our reports and remember to highlight the positives. This includes a determination to give back. The Red Team community is filled with people who are passionate about advance the tradecraft, and our team has benefited from this community in countless ways. As a program, we seek to contribute back to red team community by sharing lessons and best practices. This aligns to the Symantec security team’s vision to be standard bearers for security practice.
10 Reasons Why Developers are Frustrated with Security and How to Fix it RSA Conference examines how developers can master security and privacy principles when they’ve had no particular training in it The RSA Conference 2021 Virtual Experience is happening May 17-20 and Symantec, as a division of Broadcom, will be providing a summary of some of the leading stories from the conference to help you stay informed. A DevSecOps team requires smooth teamwork between security experts and software engineers to meet ambitious release cycles. But keeping these teams aligned is easier said than done. One of the security industry’s leading trainers contends that security pros often rub developers the wrong way and recommends that they build empathy to strengthen their bond. In his RSA Conference 2021 session called “Developers Dislike Security: Ten Frustrations and Resolutions,” Christopher Romeo, CEO of Security Journey, which offers application security training programs, sought to raise awareness of the at times tense relationship between developers and security experts. One sticking point is that security pros often fail to understand coding and don’t appreciate “the real struggles with implementing security and still pushing features and bug fixes into production.” Romeo not only catalogued the frustrations that many developers feel about security and their security counterparts, he’s also identified potential resolutions that he offers as recommendations to security team leadership. Romeo says his most controversial idea is that security professionals should learn to code, or at least read it, because “it is frustrating for developers to be coached, governed or managed by folks who don’t know how to code.” 10 Frustrations and Resolutions Security doesn’t understand what I do and doesn’t know how to code. Resolution: Become a developer and learn how to code. As a security person you’ve got to understand how the code works, says Romeo. This effort would indicate to developers that you care about their plight. Nobody ever showed me how to “security.” Resolution: Build a security coaching practice and education program. How can developers be expected to master security and privacy principles when they’ve had no particular training in it? Listen to developers, ask what help they need, and build solutions to teach and coach, recommends Romeo. I don’t know why we put so much effort and time into security. Resolution: Start with why and security ROI. When security pros take the time to explain why things matter, they can get developers on board with their mission. Sell this to developers by explaining “the less rework we can do, the more cool new features we can add as developers,” says Romeo. The security process is difficult or undefined. Resolution: Use the SDL (Security Development Lifecycle) as guardrails. Give developers clear instructions and predictability, especially when it is difficult for them to gauge how much time they will need on an assignment. Security changes their minds all the time. Resolution: Gain understanding and offer a second opinion. “We don’t change our minds, we reinterpret the data,” security pros may counter. According to Romeo, security needs to admit when they’re wrong and move on. Not enough time to do security. Resolution: Raise awareness about security resource needs. As developers start to receive necessary management support, the more productive they become with security, says Romeo. Security is a silo and acts as a gatekeeper. Resolution: Partnership, not gatekeeping. If you treat developers as true partners, they will seek opportunities to reciprocate, says Romeo. Security busy work. Resolution: Optimize the process and no busy work! No one likes to perform “busy work” tasks. Developers prefer work with meaning and value, explains Romeo. The sky is always falling — we never celebrate success. Resolution: Celebrate security wins. Recognize security achievements because people want to work where their efforts are valued, says Romeo. Security tools are loud, obnoxious, and inaccurate. Resolution: Tune the tools. Properly tuned tools provide security and privacy value for developers. And if they can’t be tuned, replace them, recommends Romeo. Confused about what to do first? Assess how your organization is performing against this list of frustrations, suggests Romeo. If the complaints ring true, try job shadowing. Security pros should hang out with a developer for at least a week and practice empathy with them. Romeo believes your developers will thank you and your DevSecOps team productivity and camaraderie will improve.
2018 Cyber Security Predictions As 2017 draws to a close, here is what you can expect over the course of the upcoming year This past year, cyber criminals caused major service disruptions around the world, using their increasing technical proficiency to break through cyber defenses. In 2018, we expect the trend to become more pronounced as these attackers will use machine learning and artificial intelligence to launch even more potent attacks. Gear up for a busy year ahead. Incidents like the WannaCry attack, which impacted more than 200,000 computers worldwide in May, are just the warmup to a new year of more virulent malware and DDoS attacks. Meanwhile, cyber criminals are poised to step up their attacks on the millions of devices now connected to the Internet of Things both in offices and homes. As 2017 draws to a close, here is what you can expect over the course of the upcoming year: Blockchain Will Find Uses Outside Of Cryptocurrencies, But Cyber criminals Will Focus On Coins and Exchanges Blockchain is finally finding applications outside of crypto-currencies, expanding to inter-bank settlements, fuelled by increasing traction in IoT. However, these use cases are still in their infancy and are not the focus for most cyber criminals today. Instead of attacking Blockchain technology itself, cyber criminals will focus on compromising coin-exchanges and users’ coin-wallets since these are the easiest targets, and provide high returns. Victims will also be tricked into installing coin-miners on their computers and mobile devices, handing their CPU and electricity over to cyber criminals. Cyber Criminals Will Use Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Machine Learning (ML) To Conduct Attacks No cyber security conversation today is complete without a discussion about AI and ML. So far, these conversations have been focused on using these technologies as protection and detection mechanisms. However, this will change in the next year with AI and ML being used by cyber criminals to conduct attacks. It is the first year where we will see AI versus AI in a cyber security context. Cyber criminals will use AI to attack and explore victims’ networks, which is typically the most labour-intensive part of compromise after an incursion. Supply Chain Attacks Will Become Mainstream Supply chain attacks have been a mainstay of classical espionage and signals-intelligence operators, compromising upstream contractors, systems, companies and suppliers. They are highly effective, with nation-state actors using human intelligence to compromise the weakest links in the chain, as well as malware implants at the manufacture or distribution stage through compromise or coercion. These attacks are now moving into the mainstream of cyber crime. With publicly available information on technology, suppliers, contractors, partnerships and key personnel, cyber criminals can find and attack weak links in the supply chain. With a number of high-profile, successful attacks in 2016 and 2017, cyber criminals will focus on this method in 2018. This past year, cyber criminals caused major service disruptions around the world, using their increasing technical proficiency to break through cyber defenses. In 2018, we expect the trend to become more pronounced as these attackers will use machine learning and artificial intelligence to launch even more potent attacks. File-less and File-light Malware Will Explode 2016 and 2017 have seen consistent growth in the amount of file-less and file-light malware, with attackers exploiting organizations that lack in preparation against such threats. With fewer Indicators of Compromise (IoC), use of the victims’ own tools, and complex disjointed behaviours, these threats have been harder to stop, track and defend against in many scenarios. Like the early days of ransomware, where early success by a few cyber criminals triggered a gold-rush like mentality, more cyber criminals are now rushing to use these same techniques. Although file-less and file-light malware will still be smaller by orders-of-magnitude compared to traditional-style malware, they will pose a significant threat and lead to an explosion in 2018. Organisations Will Still Struggle With Security-as-a-Service (SaaS) Security Adoption of SaaS continues to grow at an exponential rate as organizations embark on digital transformation projects to drive business agility. This rate of change and adoption present many security challenges as access control, data control, user behaviour and data encryption vary significantly between SaaS apps. While this is not new and many of the security problems are well understood, organizations will continue to struggle with all these in 2018. Combined with new privacy and data protections laws going into effect globally, these will pose major implications in terms of penalties, and more importantly, reputational damage. Organisations Will Still Struggle With Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Security – More Breaches Due to Error, Compromise & Design IaaS has completely changed the way organisations run their operations, offering massive benefits in agility, scalability, innovation and security. It also introduces significant risks, with simple errors that can expose massive amount of data and take down entire systems. While security controls above the IaaS layer are a customer’s responsibility, traditional controls do not map well to these new cloud-based environments – leading to confusion, errors and design issues with ineffective or inappropriate controls being applied, while new controls are ignored. This will lead to more breaches throughout 2018 as organizations struggle to shift their security programs to be IaaS effective. Financial Trojans Will Still Account For More Losses Than Ransomware Financial Trojans were some of the first pieces of malware to be monetised by cyber criminals. From simple beginnings as credential-harvesting tools, they have since evolved to advanced attack frameworks that target multiple banks, and banking systems, sending shadow transactions and hide their tracks. They have proven to be highly profitable for cyber criminals. The move to mobile, application-based banking has curtailed some of the effectiveness, but cyber criminals are quickly moving their attacks to these platforms. Cyber criminals’ profits from Financial Trojans is expected to grow, giving them higher gains as compared to Ransomware attacks. Expensive Home Devices Will Be Held To Ransom Ransomware has become a major problem and is one of the scourges of the modern Internet, allowing cyber criminals to reap huge profits by locking up users’ files and systems. The gold-rush mentality has not only pushed more and more cyber criminals to distribute ransomware, but also contributed to the rise of Ransomware-As-A-Service and other specializations in the cyber criminal underworld. These specialists are now looking to expand their attack reach by exploiting the massive increase in expensive connected home devices. Users are generally not aware of the threats to Smart TVs, smart toys and other smart appliances, making them an attractive target for cyber criminals. IoT Devices Will Be Hijacked and Used in DDoS Attacks In 2017, we have seen massive DDoS attacks using hundreds of thousands of compromised IoT devices in people’s homes and workplaces to generate traffic. This is not expected to change with cyber criminals looking to exploit the poor security settings and lax personal management of home IoT devices. Furthermore, the inputs and sensors of these devices will also be hijacked, with attackers feeding audio, video or other faked inputs to make these devices do what they want rather than what users expect them to do. IoT Devices Will Provide Persistent Access to Home Networks Beyond DDoS attacks and ransomware, home IoT devices will be compromised by cyber criminals to provide persistent access to a victim’s network. Home users generally do not consider the cyber security implications of their home IoT devices, leaving default settings and not vigilantly updating them like they do with their computers. Persistent access means that no matter how many times a victim cleans their machine or protects their computer, the attacker will always have a backdoor into victims’ network and the systems that they connect to. Attackers Exploit The Move To DevOps The agile, DevOps and DevSecOps movements are transforming IT and cyber security operations in every organisation. With improved speed, greater efficiencies and more responsive delivery of IT services, this is quickly becoming the new normal. While all this works to the greater good, like any disruptive change, it offers opportunities not only for errors, but also for attackers to exploit. Much like the issues facing the move to SaaS and IaaS, organizations are struggling to apply security controls in these new models of CI/CD and automation. As environments change constantly, anomaly detection gets harder, with many existing systems creating far too many false positives to be effectively dealt with. In the next year, we’ll see a greater number of attackers taking advantage of this to cover their activities inside a victim’s environment. Cryptowars Redux Enters Its Second Phase The cryptowars were fought and won in the 1990s, or so everyone thought. Over the last two years, however, the struggle has re-emerged with governments, policy makers, law enforcement, technology companies, telcos, advertisers, content providers, privacy bodies, human rights organisations and pretty much everyone expressing different opinions on how encryption should be used, broken, circumvented or applied. The war will continue to be fought on a mostly privacy versus government surveillance basis, particularly for device and communications (email and messaging) encryption. Beyond that, though, expect to see content providers, telcos and advertisers influencing much of the adoption of transport layer encryption, as it’s often viewed as being at odds with their business models.
3 Affordable Ways SMBs Can Defend Against Cyber Threats Small business owners can better protect themselves from internal and external threats without breaking the bank. Here’s how! Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) often don’t have more than a few hundred dollars to spend each year on cyber security and may think they need to pay a premium for advanced security protection. Time to revisit that assumption. It’s not always easy for small businesses to understand what they need to protect their assets from a cyber attack. So, if you’re running a business with 1 to 100 employees, here’s what you ought to consider as you pull together the elements of a cyber defense plan. Improve Identity and Password Protection Employees regularly use the same passwords to access both their business and personal apps and data. That’s a mistake, especially given how criminals have become smarter at cracking them. In an age when a Fortune 500 firm gave up the personal information of 145 million people, and large city governments are being held hostage for cyber ransom, SMBs clearly need better ways to properly check identities before anyone can gain access to their precious emails, files and other sensitive data. There are effective - and secure - ways to validate identities without breaking the bank. As the business owner, you should require two-factor authentication (2FA), which essentially sends a message to your cell phone asking, “Is this you trying to access this computer or file?” This adds a significantly stronger layer of security than relying on only a password. After you enter the password, 2FA will assess your location, behavior and other analytics, before allowing access. It’s one type of biometric security that many organizations are adopting. SMBs ought to follow their lead as 2FA provides an inexpensive, enterprise grade layer of protection. Protect the Endpoint That iPhone and laptop you carry around are essentially what cyber security professionals refer to as “endpoints.” These are arguably the last line of defense preventing criminals from accessing your data by compromising the devices used by you and your employees - including mobile and desktop devices. If cyber criminals get past your service provider's network, or that unprotected router attached to the Wifi, then you need software that shields your laptop, smartphone, Windows server and PC from attack. And I am not talking about the free stuff that comes loaded or advertised when you buy a new device. For a few bucks per month, you can add significant and secure device protection by downloading a public app that attaches to a threat intelligence network to keep your data safe. Keep Employees in Check What if an employee started forwarding a bunch of business emails to their personal Gmail or Yahoo account? Wouldn’t you want to know about it? If they got a phishing email that contained a malicious link to a fake Office 365 page, wouldn’t you want to prevent them clicking on it? Technologies that inform the business owner of a potential breach and takes the measures to prevent it, do exist. Some say they are only for bigger enterprises, but after interviewing SMBs about what these types of attacks would cost them, I believe that it easily justifies making the investment. No matter how much security training an employee receives, the risk is too great for them to make a mistake (whether deliberate or not) by clicking once, entering their username and password, then giving access to someone who wants to hold your business for ransom or expose information that only you should see. The good news is that protecting your business is simpler than you might think. It’s a matter of how much of your cyber risk you want to mitigate. In fact, Symantec is working closely with telecom service providers (e.g. Comcast, AT&T, British Telecom), and cable operators to make the cyber process easier and cost-effective. With our support, you can consider them a resource to discuss the protection you and your business need to operate safely. For more information, visit your service provider's website or send me an email: [email protected] If you found this information useful, you may also enjoy: Why SMBs are Easy Targets for the Bad Guys A Top 10 Cyber Security Cheat Sheet for SMBs in 2018
3AM: New Ransomware Family Used As Fallback in Failed LockBit Attack Attackers resorted to new ransomware after deployment of LockBit was blocked on targeted network. A new ransomware family calling itself 3AM has emerged. To date, the ransomware has only been used in a limited fashion. Symantec’s Threat Hunter Team, part of Broadcom, has seen it used in a single attack by a ransomware affiliate that attempted to deploy LockBit on a target’s network and then switched to 3AM when LockBit was blocked. 3AM is written in Rust and appears to be a completely new malware family. The ransomware attempts to stop multiple services on the infected computer before it begins encrypting files. Once encryption is complete, it attempts to delete Volume Shadow (VSS) copies. It is still unclear whether its authors have any links to known cybercrime organizations. Attack Preparation The first suspicious activity from the threat actor involved the use of the gpresult command to dump the policy settings enforced on the computer for a specified user. The attacker also executed various Cobalt Strike components and tried to escalate privileges on the computer using PsExec. The attackers then ran reconnaissance commands such as whoami, netstat, quser, and net share, and tried to enumerate other servers for lateral movement with the quser and net view commands. They also added a new user for persistence and used the Wput tool to exfiltrate the victims’ files to their own FTP server. The attackers first attempted to use the LockBit ransomware but when that was blocked, they resorted to 3AM instead. The use of 3AM was only partially successful. The attackers only managed to deploy it to three machines on the organization's network and it was blocked on two of those three computers. 3AM Analysis 3AM is so-called because it appends encrypted files with the extension .threeamtime. The ransom note also makes reference to 3AM: Hello. "3 am" The time of mysticism, isn't it? All your files are mysteriously encrypted, and the systems "show no signs of life", the backups disappeared. But we can correct this very quickly and return all your files and operation of the systems to original state. All your attempts to restore data by himself will definitely lead to their damage and the impossibility of recovery. We are not recommended to you to do it on our own!!! (or do at your own peril and risk). There is another important point: we stole a fairly large amount of sensitive data from your local network: financial documents; personal information of your employees, customers, partners; work documentation, postal correspondence and much more. We prefer to keep it secret, we have no goal to destroy your business. Therefore can be no leakage on our part. We propose to reach an agreement and conclude a deal. Otherwise, your data will be sold to DarkNet/DarkWeb. One can only guess how they will be used. Please contact us as soon as possible, using Tor-browser: http://threeam7[REDACTED].onion/recovery Access key: [32 CHARS SPECIFIED BY -k COMMAND LINE PARAMETER] The ransomware is a 64-bit executable written in Rust and it recognises the following command-line parameters: "-k" – 32 Base64 characters, referred to as "Access key" in the ransom note "-p" – Unknown "-h" – Unknown "-m" – Method, where the code checks one of two values before running encryption logic: "local" "net" "-s" – determines offsets within files for encryption to control encryption speed. This is expressed in the form of decimal digits. The command-line parameters "-m" and "-h" are mutually exclusive. The usage of the “-h” and “-m” parameters and its values “local” and “net” are very similar to arguments used by Conti. When the malware is executed, it attempts to run the following commands, most of which attempt to stop various security and backup related software: "netsh.exe" advfirewall firewall set rule "group=”Network Discovery”" new enable=Yes "wbadmin.exe" delete systemstatebackup -keepVersions:0 -quiet "wbadmin.exe" DELETE SYSTEMSTATEBACKUP "wbadmin.exe" DELETE SYSTEMSTATEBACKUP -deleteOldest "bcdedit.exe" /set {default} recoveryenabled No "bcdedit.exe" /set {default} bootstatuspolicy ignoreallfailures "wmic.exe" SHADOWCOPY DELETE /nointeractive "cmd.exe" /c wevtutil cl security "cmd.exe" /c wevtutil cl system "cmd.exe" /c wevtutil cl application "net" stop /y vmcomp "net" stop /y vmwp "net" stop /y veeam "net" stop /y Back "net" stop /y xchange "net" stop /y backup "net" stop /y Backup "net" stop /y acronis "net" stop /y AcronisAgent "net" stop /y AcrSch2Svc "net" stop /y sql "net" stop /y Enterprise "net" stop /y Veeam "net" stop /y VeeamTransportSvc "net" stop /y VeeamNFSSvc "net" stop /y AcrSch "net" stop /y bedbg "net" stop /y DCAgent "net" stop /y EPSecurity "net" stop /y EPUpdate "net" stop /y Eraser "net" stop /y EsgShKernel "net" stop /y FA_Scheduler "net" stop /y IISAdmin "net" stop /y IMAP4 "net" stop /y MBAM "net" stop /y Endpoint "net" stop /y Afee "net" stop /y McShield "net" stop /y task "net" stop /y mfemms "net" stop /y mfevtp "net" stop /y mms "net" stop /y MsDts "net" stop /y Exchange "net" stop /y ntrt "net" stop /y PDVF "net" stop /y POP3 "net" stop /y Report "net" stop /y RESvc "net" stop /y Monitor "net" stop /y Smcinst "net" stop /y SmcService "net" stop /y SMTP "net" stop /y SNAC "net" stop /y swi_ "net" stop /y CCSF "net" stop /y ccEvtMgr "net" stop /y ccSetMgr "net" stop /y TrueKey "net" stop /y tmlisten "net" stop /y UIODetect "net" stop /y W3S "net" stop /y WRSVC "net" stop /y NetMsmq "net" stop /y ekrn "net" stop /y EhttpSrv "net" stop /y ESHASRV "net" stop /y AVP "net" stop /y klnagent "net" stop /y wbengine "net" stop /y KAVF "net" stop /y mfefire "net" stop /y svc$ "net" stop /y memtas "net" stop /y mepocs "net" stop /y GxVss "net" stop /y GxCVD "net" stop /y GxBlr "net" stop /y GxFWD "net" stop /y GxCIMgr "net" stop /y BackupExecVSSProvider "net" stop /y BackupExecManagementService "net" stop /y BackupExecJobEngine "net" stop /y BackupExecDiveciMediaService "net" stop /y BackupExecAgentBrowser "net" stop /y BackupExecAgentAccelerator "net" stop /y vss "net" stop /y BacupExecRPCService "net" stop /y CASAD2WebSvc "net" stop /y CAARCUpdateSvc "net" stop /y YooBackup "net" stop /y YooIT The ransomware will then scan the disk and any files matching predefined criteria are encrypted and the original files are deleted. The malware will then create the file "RECOVER-FILES.txt" in each scanned folder. This file contains the ransom note. The encrypted files contain a marker string "0x666" followed by the data appended by the ransomware. After encryption, the malware attempts to run the following command to delete volume shadow backup copies: vssadmin.exe delete shadows /all /quiet Figure 1. 3AM’s Tor “Support” portal where attackers negotiate ransom demands with victims. Warning Signs Ransomware affiliates have become increasingly independent from ransomware operators and this is not the first time Symantec has seen an attacker attempt to deploy two different kinds of ransomware in a single attack. New ransomware families appear frequently and most disappear just as quickly or never manage to gain significant traction. However, the fact that 3AM was used as a fallback by a LockBit affiliate suggests that it may be of interest to attackers and could be seen again in the future. Protection/Mitigation For the latest protection updates, please visit the Symantec Protection Bulletin. Indicators of Compromise If an IOC is malicious and the file available to us, Symantec Endpoint products will detect and block that file. SHA256 file hashes: 079b99f6601f0f6258f4220438de4e175eb4853649c2d34ada72cce6b1702e22 – LockBit 307a1217aac33c4b7a9cd923162439c19483e952c2ceb15aa82a98b46ff8942e – 3AM 680677e14e50f526cced739890ed02fc01da275f9db59482d96b96fbc092d2f4 – Cobalt Strike 991ee9548b55e5c815cc877af970542312cff79b3ba01a04a469b645c5d880af – Cobalt Strike ecbdb9cb442a2c712c6fb8aee0ae68758bc79fa064251bab53b62f9e7156febc – Cobalt Strike Network indicators: 185.202.0[.]111 212.18.104[.]6 85.159.229[.]62
3CX: Supply Chain Attack Affects Thousands of Users Worldwide North Korean-sponsored actors believed to be linked to attack that Trojanized several versions of 3CX DesktopApp UPDATE March 31 2023 14:26 UTC: Our blog has been updated with a Yara rule to detect the final infostealer payload. UPDATE March 30 2023 17:39 UTC: Our blog has been updated with technical analysis of the macOS versions. UPDATE March 30 2023 14:17 UTC: Our blog has been updated with additional IOCs UPDATE March 30 2023 12:47 UTC: Our blog has been updated with additional IOCs and protection information. UPDATE March 30 2023 9:07 UTC: Our blog has been updated with technical analysis of the malware used. Attackers believed to be linked to North Korea have Trojanized 3CX's DesktopApp, a widely-used voice and video calling desktop client. In an attack reminiscent of SolarWinds, installers for several recent Windows and Mac versions of the software were compromised and modified by the attackers in order to deliver additional information stealing malware to the user’s computer. The information gathered by this malware presumably allowed the attackers to gauge if the victim was a candidate for further compromise. Attack chain The attackers compromised installer files for at least two Windows versions (18.12.407 and 18.12.416) and two Mac versions (8.11.1213 and latest) of 3CX DesktopApp. The installers contained clean versions of the app along with malicious DLLs. The app was used to sideload the malicious DLLs, which then installed information-stealing malware on the computer. In two variants analyzed by Symantec (SHA256: aa124a4b4df12b34e74ee7f6c683b2ebec4ce9a8edcf9be345823b4fdcf5d868 and 59e1edf4d82fae4978e97512b0331b7eb21dd4b838b850ba46794d9c7a2c0983), the clean executable was used to load a malicious DLL named ffmpeg.dll (SHA256: 7986bbaee8940da11ce089383521ab420c443ab7b15ed42aed91fd31ce833896) This DLL contains code that will load and execute a payload from a second DLL named d3dcompiler_47.dll. (SHA256: 11be1803e2e307b647a8a7e02d128335c448ff741bf06bf52b332e0bbf423b03) D3dcompiler_47.dll contains an encrypted blob appended to the file, suggesting that it is possibly a Trojanized version of a legitimate file. The blob starts with the hex value “FEEDFACE” which the loader uses to find the blob. The decrypted blob contains shellcode and a third DLL (SHA256: aa4e398b3bd8645016d8090ffc77d15f926a8e69258642191deb4e68688ff973). The shellcode loads and executes this third DLL, export DLLGetClassObject with parameters: 1200 2400 "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) 3CXDesktopApp/18.11.1197 Chrome/102.0.5005.167 Electron/19.1.9 Safari/537.36” It will then attempt to download an ICO file from the following GitHub repository: https://raw.githubusercontent[].com/IconStorages/images/main/icon%d.ico Mac versions At last two macOS versions of the affected software were compromised in a similar fashion. In this case a dynamic library named libffmpeg.dylib was Trojanized. There are at least two variants of this file (SHA256: a64fa9f1c76457ecc58402142a8728ce34ccba378c17318b3340083eeb7acc67 and fee4f9dabc094df24d83ec1a8c4e4ff573e5d9973caa676f58086c99561382d7) and they seem to relate to different versions of the software. The malicious code is in the InitFunc_0 function of libffmpeg.dylib, it calls _run_avcodec which starts a thread, in this thread it decodes some shellcode with XOR key 0x7A and then will make a http request. It attempts to download a payload from: URL: https://msstorageazure[.]com/analysis User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/108.0.5359.128 Safari/537.36 The following URLs were embedded in analyzed variants: officestoragebox[.]com/api/biosync visualstudiofactory[.]com/groupcore azuredeploystore[.]com/cloud/images msstorageboxes[.]com/xbox officeaddons[.]com/quality sourceslabs[.]com/status zacharryblogs[.]com/xmlquery pbxcloudeservices[.]com/network pbxphonenetwork[.]com/phone akamaitechcloudservices[.]com/v2/fileapi azureonlinestorage[.]com/google/storage msedgepackageinfo[.]com/ms-webview glcloudservice[.]com/v1/status pbxsources[.]com/queue Mitigation 3CX is aware of the compromise and is advising users to immediately uninstall the app. It said that it is working on an update to the software that will be released within hours. It advised users to consider using its PWA client as an alternative until a clean version of DesktopApp is released. Protection File-based Infostealer Trojan Horse Trojan.Dropper Trojan.Malfilter WS.Malware.2 OSX.Samsis Trojan.Samsis Machine Learning-based Heur.AdvML.A Heur.AdvML.B Network-based Malicious Site: Malicious Domains Request Malicious Site: Malicious Domain Request 59 Web Attack: WebPulse Bad Reputation Domain Request For the latest protection updates, please visit the Symantec Protection Bulletin. Yara Rule to detect final infostealer payload rule icon_3cx_stealer { meta: copyright = "Symantec" description = "Infostealer component used in 3CX supply chain attack" strings: $a1 = "****************************** %s ***************************" wide fullword $a2 = "\\3CXDesktopApp\\config.json" wide fullword $a3 = { 7B 00 22 00 48 00 6F 00 73 00 74 00 4E 00 61 00 6D 00 65 00 22 00 3A 00 20 00 22 00 25 00 73 00 22 00 2C 00 20 00 22 00 44 00 6F 00 6D 00 61 00 69 00 6E 00 4E 00 61 00 6D 00 65 00 22 00 3A 00 20 00 22 00 25 00 73 00 22 00 2C 00 20 00 22 00 4F 00 73 00 56 00 65 00 72 00 73 00 69 00 6F 00 6E 00 22 00 3A 00 20 00 22 00 25 00 64 00 2E 00 25 00 64 00 2E 00 25 00 64 00 22 00 7D } $b1 = "HostName: %s" wide fullword $b2 = "DomainName: %s" wide fullword $b3 = "OsVersion: %d.%d.%d" wide fullword $b4 = "%s.old" wide fullword condition: 3 of ($a) and 2 of ($b*) } For more information on scanning SEP client computers using custom Yara rules, read this knowledge base article. Indicators of Compromise dde03348075512796241389dfea5560c20a3d2a2eac95c894e7bbed5e85a0acc – Windows app aa124a4b4df12b34e74ee7f6c683b2ebec4ce9a8edcf9be345823b4fdcf5d868 – Windows installer fad482ded2e25ce9e1dd3d3ecc3227af714bdfbbde04347dbc1b21d6a3670405 – Windows app 59e1edf4d82fae4978e97512b0331b7eb21dd4b838b850ba46794d9c7a2c0983 – Windows installer 92005051ae314d61074ed94a52e76b1c3e21e7f0e8c1d1fdd497a006ce45fa61 – macOS app 5407cda7d3a75e7b1e030b1f33337a56f293578ffa8b3ae19c671051ed314290 – macOS installer b86c695822013483fa4e2dfdf712c5ee777d7b99cbad8c2fa2274b133481eadb – macOS app e6bbc33815b9f20b0cf832d7401dd893fbc467c800728b5891336706da0dbcec – macOS installer 11be1803e2e307b647a8a7e02d128335c448ff741bf06bf52b332e0bbf423b03 – Infostealer (d3dcompiler_47.dll) 7986bbaee8940da11ce089383521ab420c443ab7b15ed42aed91fd31ce833896 - Infostealer (ffmpeg.dll ) aa4e398b3bd8645016d8090ffc77d15f926a8e69258642191deb4e68688ff973 - Infostealer c485674ee63ec8d4e8fde9800788175a8b02d3f9416d0e763360fff7f8eb4e02 - Infostealer (ffmpeg.dll) fee4f9dabc094df24d83ec1a8c4e4ff573e5d9973caa676f58086c99561382d7 - Malicious macOS library (libffmpeg.dylib) a64fa9f1c76457ecc58402142a8728ce34ccba378c17318b3340083eeb7acc67 - Malicious macOS library (libffmpeg.dylib) 210c9882eba94198274ebc787fe8c88311af24932832a7fe1f1ca0261f815c3d – Malicious ICO file (icon0.ico) a541e5fc421c358e0a2b07bf4771e897fb5a617998aa4876e0e1baa5fbb8e25c – Malicious ICO file (icon1.ico) d459aa0a63140ccc647e9026bfd1fccd4c310c262a88896c57bbe3b6456bd090 – Malicious ICO file (icon10.ico) d459aa0a63140ccc647e9026bfd1fccd4c310c262a88896c57bbe3b6456bd090 – Malicious ICO file (icon11.ico) d51a790d187439ce030cf763237e992e9196e9aa41797a94956681b6279d1b9a – Malicious ICO file (icon12.ico) 4e08e4ffc699e0a1de4a5225a0b4920933fbb9cf123cde33e1674fde6d61444f – Malicious ICO file (icon13.ico) 8c0b7d90f14c55d4f1d0f17e0242efd78fd4ed0c344ac6469611ec72defa6b2d – Malicious ICO file (icon14.ico) f47c883f59a4802514c57680de3f41f690871e26f250c6e890651ba71027e4d3 – Malicious ICO file (icon15.ico) 2c9957ea04d033d68b769f333a48e228c32bcf26bd98e51310efd48e80c1789f – Malicious ICO file (icon2.ico) 268d4e399dbbb42ee1cd64d0da72c57214ac987efbb509c46cc57ea6b214beca – Malicious ICO file (icon3.ico) c62dce8a77d777774e059cf1720d77c47b97d97c3b0cf43ade5d96bf724639bd – Malicious ICO file (icon4.ico) c13d49ed325dec9551906bafb6de9ec947e5ff936e7e40877feb2ba4bb176396 – Malicious ICO file (icon5.ico) f1bf4078141d7ccb4f82e3f4f1c3571ee6dd79b5335eb0e0464f877e6e6e3182 – Malicious ICO file (icon6.ico) 2487b4e3c950d56fb15316245b3c51fbd70717838f6f82f32db2efcc4d9da6de – Malicious ICO file (icon7.ico) e059c8c8b01d6f3af32257fc2b6fe188d5f4359c308b3684b1e0db2071c3425c – Malicious ICO file (icon8.ico) d0f1984b4fe896d0024533510ce22d71e05b20bad74d53fae158dc752a65782e – Malicious ICO file (icon9.ico) akamaicontainer[.]com akamaitechcloudservices[.]com azuredeploystore[.]com azureonlinecloud[.]com azureonlinestorage[.]com dunamistrd[.]com glcloudservice[.]com journalide[.]org msedgepackageinfo[.]com msstorageazure[.]com msstorageboxes[.]com officeaddons[.]com officestoragebox[.]com pbxcloudeservices[.]com pbxphonenetwork[.]com pbxsources[.]com qwepoi123098[.]com sbmsa[.]wiki sourceslabs[.]com visualstudiofactory[.]com zacharryblogs[.]com raw.githubusercontent[.]com/IconStorages/images/main/
3 Questions Boards Want Answered About Cyber Security As they deal with their oversight duties, board members need to ask a related question: Are they themselves sufficiently in the know? When it comes to cyber security, boards of directors fear nothing as much as the unknown. Some 82% of board members are secure in their management’s ability to address known risks, but only 19% have the same confidence about atypical, disruptive risks, according to the 2019 Governance Outlook from the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD). As they deal with their oversight duties, board members need to ask a related question: Are they themselves sufficiently in the know? Board members need to ask three questions to ensure they’re receiving the right information to perform their governance duties. Are risk briefings aligned with strategic goals? The NACD report concluded boards should “challenge” managers to provide them with timely information. During risk briefings, the CIO might tell the board how many vulnerabilities were patched. Such metrics, while useful, are simply proxies for risk. The real question is whether the discussion of risk is tied to the firm’s strategic goals. “A software-as-a-service company, which is focused on high growth, might inherently have a higher degree of risk,” says David Ross, the cyber security practice leader for Baker Tilly, an accountant firm that partnered on the NACD report. “An established manufacturer might be able to circle the wagons and minimize their risk.” Ross says boards need to avoid disconnects where they are focused on risk, and the technology people are talking about bits and bytes. As boards engage management in cyber security risk discussions, directors should expect management to produce reports on the effectiveness of the organization’s cyber security-risk management program. “The board needs to ask things like, ‘Your cyber controls look good on paper, but how do you know it actually works?’” Ross says. “Sometimes the board needs to get a third party to perform a cyber security audit or do a penetration test. Sometimes the board needs to push management to run a practice exercise, such as restore from backup.” Are we focusing on the newest risks instead of the most important risks? Some 70% of directors believe their boards need to strengthen their understanding of the risks and opportunities affecting company performance, according to the NACD. New types of risks constantly appear – from ransomware (hijacking computer systems for ransom) to business email compromise (posing as a trusted party to swindle the company) to cryptojacking (malware that secretly taps into digital currency). Board members need to be apprised of the latest threat trends. At the same time, they must focus on whether the company is protecting against the costliest threats to their organization. “Whether you should be reactive or proactive around risks will vary from company to company,” Ross said. “For some companies, it will be fine to 95% reactive.” Board members need to be apprised of the latest threat trends. At the same time, they must focus on whether the company is protecting against the costliest threats to their organization. For example, the board of a large hospital was concerned about ransomware, where a hacker blocks access to computer systems until a sum of money is paid. After Ross probed them, the board members realized a ransomware attack wouldn’t compromise the hospital’s mission. It might prevent the hospital from billing for treatment, but it wouldn’t hinder ER doctors from treating a gunshot wound. The board determined a ransomware attack could shut down the main hospital systems for six days before the situation became dire. The board then discovered a disaster-recovery plan for dealing with a hurricane in which the entire IT system could be restored in six days. That discovery changed their view of how much attention to devote to ransomware. However, this process focused board may have overlooked a risk. Hackers could potentially infiltrate the hospital’s blood bank, turn up the temperature to ruin the blood supply, and prevent the hospital from functioning. “The odds of that happening were much smaller than a ransomware attack, but the risk was much greater,” Ross said. Do investors adequately understand the board’s role in overseeing risks? In the past year, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) urged public companies to inform shareholders of important cyber security risks. The NACD report counseled boards “to stay vigilant and ensure that there are adequate policies and mechanisms in place to keep directors informed of these regulatory developments, and they will need to understand how management intends to address them.” Directors need managers to inform them about three key issues: Does the company’s cyber security plan include consideration of timely disclosure of cyber-related issues? How timely and in what manner are cyber security incidents communicated to the board? Is there appropriate disclosure of the board’s role in the oversight of cyber security risk? The extent of regulatory change is staggering, so keeping abreast of evolving issues is critical. “The new Nevada privacy law went from draft to law to deployment in five months,” Ross said. “Regulations don’t move that fast typically.” In cyber security, though, fast is the new normal, and boards need to remain diligent and in the know to keep up with their governance role.
3 Ways Symantec Customers Are Using AppNeta Solutions to Safeguard User Experience How AppNeta and Symantec technologies are fueling cloud transformation To address competitive and business imperatives, teams in a broad range of organizations are looking to transition a growing number of business and technical services to cloud-based models. As part of this overall trend, teams are increasingly leveraging cloud-based security solutions, such as Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) offerings. With Symantec Web Protection, teams can navigate this transition with maximum flexibility. Through a single license, teams can leverage a number of solutions, and they can run them in on-premises environments, in the cloud, or in a hybrid fashion. Symantec Web Protection offers comprehensive security, consolidating all of the capabilities of Cloud and Edge Secure Web Gateway (SWG), Global Threat Intelligence, deep file inspection with sandboxing, High-risk Isolation, and so much more. The Escalating Challenges Posed by Complex Modern Networks As teams grow increasingly reliant on the cloud for more critical services, such as security, ensuring availability and service levels are optimized is top priority. However, while the demand for effective service level monitoring and optimization grows more critical, it keeps getting more challenging as well. The digital services employees and customers use constantly are now reliant upon on-premises data centers as well as a growing, dynamic, and complex mix of networks run by cloud providers, SaaS providers, communication providers, and other third parties. Relying on traditional tools, many IT teams are only able to track and manage the networks over which they have direct control. These visibility gaps can create urgent risk. Without a way to address these gaps, teams will be in the position of having to choose between pausing their cloud journey, or living with a lack of visibility that leaves users and the business exposed to poor service levels. The Solution: AppNeta for Dynamic Network Security Visibility To maximize service levels and security, teams need to complement their Symantec solutions with advanced digital experience monitoring solutions. These monitoring solutions must offer support for modern, multi-vendor networks and a range of security technologies, including SASE products, Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASBs), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solutions, and more. Today, AppNeta’s technology uniquely addresses these demands. This solution enables teams to do active synthetic network and application testing and gain packet visibility. With the solution, teams can proactively identify performance issues across all the different networks their critical business services rely upon. Given the deployment flexibility described earlier, Web Protection offers teams maximum options in whether, when, and how they navigate to the cloud. Teams may elect to transition all services to the cloud, they can gradually transition specific services over time, and they can continue to run on-premises indefinitely as well. Regardless of the scenario, AppNeta offers the vital monitoring intelligence teams need to maximize availability and service level quality. In the following sections, we offer a look at some of the different ways Symantec customers are employing AppNeta technology. #1. Where to Start: Monitoring On-Premises Symantec Edge Secure Web Gateway Deployments The Challenges Today, many organizations are running Symantec Edge SWG in their existing data centers, along with a number of additional devices, such as load balancers, firewalls, firewall-based traffic inspection tools, and so on. In these environments, where users are often accessing cloud resources and apps, when issues arise, it can be very difficult to identify the location and cause. That’s because many teams are relying on traditional network monitoring tools, which are largely focused on networks within the organization’s traditional perimeter. The Solution With AppNeta technology, teams can establish continuous monitoring and visibility of web traffic, including safely monitoring traffic as it passes through the Edge SWG. It requires minimal resources and is easy to deploy, configure, and start working with. As a result, teams can quickly get started with an on-premises deployment, even if they’ll ultimately migrate to a cloud-based implementation. #2. Onboarding Cloud Services: Monitoring Cloud SWG From Fixed Locations to Cloud Service Ingress The Challenges As teams move to employing SWG in the cloud, it becomes essential to effectively track the connections between on-premises devices and the cloud-based service. Understanding the experience of end users accessing these cloud environments is growing more challenging, however. Relying solely on traditional network monitoring tools, teams don’t have visibility into the performance of networks that they don’t own and operate. The Solution With AppNeta technology, teams can gain complete visibility of users’ experiences from fixed locations. Teams can establish continuous visibility, so they can knowledgeably baseline network performance, track key metrics, and ensure SLAs for Symantec Cloud SWG are consistently met. AppNeta enables teams to measure end user experience throughout the cloud security stack, from the user through to the ingress to the cloud service. With these capabilities, teams can view how web user experience is trending for each step in the ecosystem. In addition, the solution offers continuous monitoring from representative roaming devices, delivering visibility into host-level metrics and the experience of network end users. #3. User Experience Matters: End-to-End Digital Experience Monitoring Through Cloud SWG The Challenges What is the user experience, and how is it affected by cloud migrations? Being able to measure end-user experience is critical to keeping users happy and productive, before, during, and after cloud migrations. Once teams adopt the Cloud SWG solution, it is vital that they are able to understand the end-user experience. This means tracking performance from end to end, including through the entire cloud security stack. The Solution With AppNeta, teams can generate synthetic requests that progress through the Symantec cloud service. This enables teams to see exactly how much time is spent on the network, as well as in servers and browsers. This enables teams to measure end-user experience throughout the cloud security stack, so they can view how the web-user experience is trending for each step in the ecosystem. Conclusion Enterprises’ cloud migrations have provided a wealth of benefits, however they also create some significant challenges. By leveraging Symantec Web Protection and AppNeta technology, teams can fully capitalize on the cloud’s advantages, and ensure optimized experiences for users. To learn more, read the AppNeta for Symantec Network Security solution brief and watch the webinar, Three Ways to Secure and Safeguard User Experiences When Moving to the Cloud.
4 Emerging Threats to Healthcare Providers Threat actors are stepping up their efforts to steal health-related data, posing myriad new security threats scrambling to defend against the onslaught Symantec’s 2018 Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR), which highlights an array of new and emerging threats across all sectors, takes on even greater urgency for organizations in the healthcare industry. The rapid adoption of digital systems—everything from electronic health records and tablet computers to interconnected medical devices and industrial control systems (ICS)—has created a broad attack surface with countless opportunities for adversaries. At the same time, health-related data—which includes not just patient data but also financial data, clinical research and intellectual property—is an appealing target for malicious actors. Unfortunately, the growing complexity of the health IT environment dovetails with the growing sophistication of today’s cyber threats. For this reason, we have leveraged Symantec’s 2018 ISTR and other third-party data to develop a document that highlights four threat trends that will put healthcare organizations at increasing risk in the year ahead, including: Software Supply Chain Attacks A supply chain attack exploits the network of an organization’s suppliers. With its high degree of reliance on business associates and partners, this is especially concerning to healthcare providers. Rather than going after a provider directly, a hacker looks for a backdoor—a vulnerability in the systems of a partner that is either connected with or supplies software to that organization. These attacks work by exploiting the assumption of trust on which supply chains are built, with little defense provided against threats emitting from organizations working within the chain. For example, in January 2018, Hancock Health, in Greenfield, Ind., was hit by the SamSam ransomware. The attacker used compromised credentials of a backup system hardware vendor, infiltrating the backup site first, then penetrating the hospital’s main data center. In other cases, a hacker implants a piece of malware into an otherwise legitimate software package at its usual distribution location—an effective method for distributing malware into an otherwise well-guarded network. Supply chain attacks are not new in healthcare. In 2012, the web server of a medical device maker was infected with dozens of viruses, which healthcare providers would download along with device software updates. But these attacks are now happening with increasing frequency, with the 2018 ISTR reporting a 200 percent increase across all sectors for the calendar year 2017. Internet of Things (IoT) and ICS Attacks Recent years have brought a convergence of IT and physical environments, with a growing range of non-traditional endpoint devices being connected to the network. Those endpoints—whether medical devices or HVAC systems—often lack mature security measures, leaving them vulnerable to attacks. These vulnerabilities are of concern to hospitals, where service disruptions can have a direct impact on patients. While losing water service might be an inconvenience in many work environments, it can be deadly in a hospital. Likewise, network connectivity is essential to various devices used to manage and deliver patient care. Protecting medical devices is especially challenging, given the wide-range of technology involved, from bedside monitors and wearable devices to portable or even room-filling diagnostic equipment, as well as homecare systems. The response to an incident involving medical devices—especially those used at the point of care—must be carefully orchestrated out of concerns for patient care, and that gives any malware more time to proliferate. As convergence continues to accelerate, these systems and devices are becoming attractive targets for hackers and cyber adversaries. We saw a 600 percent increase in attacks on IoT and a 29 percent in ICS attacks. And in June 2018, the FBI issued a private industry notification about recently attempted cyber attacks on networked ICS/supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems. Ransomware Attacks Ransomware was a major issue in 2017 across the public and private sectors, with several high-profile, high-impact attacks involving WannaCry and Petya/NotPetya. Hospitals take different paths on how they’ve responded to these attacks. For example, Hancock Health was hit by SamSam, and ended up meeting the ransom demand, which was approximately $55,000. While Erie County Medical Center (Buffalo, N.Y.), which was hit by SamSam in April 2017, decided not to meet the demand. It would take 12 days to restore limited system access and six weeks to restore full access. In general, the news was not all bad. Excluding WannaCry and Petya/NotPetya, ransomware detections remained consistent with the previous year at 1,242 a day. And while WannaCry managed to create great havoc, it was not unstoppable: Symantec blocked more than 5.4 billion WannaCry attacks globally…proof that with appropriate processes and technologies in place even new attack vectors can be prevented. While the average ransomware cost has been dropping due to an overcrowded market, the dynamics might be a little different in healthcare. The life-and-death nature of hospital operations keep ransoms higher than in other sectors, according to the Center for Internet Security. Not only that, but hospitals might find themselves targeted specifically by ransomware attacks, rather than just caught up in the more scattershot attacks seen in other industries, as the attacker may want to benefit from a hospital’s need to restore care delivery as soon as possible. Crypto-Mining and Crypto-Jacking Malware Crypto-mining and crypto-jacking attacks are an emerging threat that saw a surge late last year and that bears watching. The threat is more subtle than with other forms of malware, but no less real—especially for healthcare providers. Rather than seeking to disrupt or destroy systems, as other malicious actors might do, so-called “miners” simply want to hijack an organization’s processing power to support the computing effort required to verify transactions of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. Practically speaking, however, mining activity can create a drag on performance on systems or networks or may even lead to system failure. As noted earlier, medical systems and devices require high availability. For example, in the case of a medical device or other devices with low security maturity, a momentary glitch in performance could disrupt transmission of vital data or disrupt a critical device function. Privacy concerns around patient data add another layer of complexity to the risk posed by miners. Late last year, Decatur County General Hospital discovered that a miner was using its electronic health record system. Because the adversary gained access to a system that managed patient health data, the hospital had to notify 24,000 current and former patients of the breach. While still a nascent field, crypto-mining and crypto-jacking are growing rapidly and seem to be overtaking ransomware as the favored money-making scheme of cyber criminals. These four threats, analyzed in greater depth in the 2018 ISTR, represent just a few of the challenges facing the healthcare industry. Given the complexity of today’s healthcare environment, and the increasing sophistication of our cyber adversaries, we are likely to see new, even more insidious threats emerge in the coming months and years. We are planning to focus on these areas during a three-part blog series geared towards the healthcare market. If this is of interest to you, check back often. If you found this information useful, you may also enjoy: Cyber Security and Healthcare: An Evolving Understanding of Risk Internet Security Threat Report 2018 Healthcare Cyber Security: Is That Light at the End of the Tunnel?
4 Numbers That Explain Network Protection at the Endpoint Understanding What Intrusion Protection System Does For You You may not know it, but the Intrusion Protection System (IPS) technology in our Endpoint Protection product is doing a lot for you. First introduced in 2003, as part of Network Protection, it was the first major technology addition to anti-virus in our endpoint protection product. We thought it was going to be so important that we changed the name of the product to reflect its introduction. We changed the name of the product a few times since then, so we may not have gotten that right in 2003. But we got IPS right. 5% To truly understand IPS you need to start with a small number. IPS can identify malware going out onto the network to talk to a command and control (C&C) server. When malware attempts to talk to a C&C, IPS can block that traffic and notify that a machine is infected. That’s 5% of all detections IPS makes. A small part of what IPS does. The other 95% is detections. Threats it blocks that never get on the endpoint. 8.4 billion attacks last year were stopped pre-infection by IPS. Threats were stopped at the network layer, so they never even made it onto the machine. That includes 1.12 billion attacks targeted at servers. These attacked failed to breach a machine. No threats needed to be removed or cleaned up. No alerts were sent to occupy the Admin or SOC. Prevention eliminates the work involved in detection and response. 6 Billion IPS was created to protect against the exploitation of network vulnerabilities. It looks for the signature of the exploit, not the malware the exploit is trying to deliver. It doesn’t care what the malware is, the attack will not get far enough to even try to download it. It’s true proactive detection and prevention. IPS does pretty well with the job it was built for. I can say this because in 2022 it blocked 6 billion of these types of attacks >1 But IPS is not a one trick pony. It’s also protecting against other types of attacks. Just a few of the other types blocked in 2022: 3.6 billion blocks of web attacks like formjacking, malicious redirects and exploits kits 243.9 million blocks of cryptojacking and coin miners 35 million blocked technical support scams But wait … there’s more. IPS can also identify malware being pushed at you via the network by other means. That may be malware hosted on a website, adware trying to pop-up in your browser or a potentially unwanted application (PUA) being downloaded. 626 million blocks of malware, adware and PUAs 50 million malicious redirect attempts were blocked by IPS Chrome Web Extension 93% With a total of almost 11.32 billion attacks blocked by Symantec IPS last year, it is responsible for 93% of all detections made in protecting endpoints. IPS is one of the critical technologies that separate Symantec from the pack. If you are a SEP, SES Enterprise, or SES Complete customer you have IPS working to protect you. These stats make it clear that that’s what IPS does for you.
4 Numbers That Will Lead to Better Protection in 2022 Symantec helps you solve your toughest challenges The past is prologue and the protection numbers from 2021 tell us a lot about what we should be doing in 2022. With that in mind I looked at some of the protection numbers from 2021 and found 4 that shine a bright light on things that can be done to better protect you in 2022. At Symantec, as part of Broadcom Software, we are driving innovation to help you solve your toughest challenges 93%. Of all the threats blocked by our STAR protection technologies in 2021, 90% of them were blocked by Symantec’s IPS technology. Vulnerability exploits, web attacks, tech support scams, coin miners, crypto-jacking and malware downloads all blocked at the network layer. IPS can also detect C&C traffic, identify the infected client and remove the threat. But 93% of those blocked were pre-infection. Pre-infection prevention means the threat never got on the machine. 20. The top twenty vulnerabilities being exploited by attackers in 2021 were all server vulnerabilities. Log4j lead the way. It was the number one exploited vulnerability in 2021 despite not being public till December. That demonstrates how quickly attackers jump, with both feet, on any new vulnerability. But the real takeaway from this number is that servers need to be protected. They need to be locked down and prioritized in patching schemes. Symantec has a solution for locking down servers called DCS. It’s a good way to lock your servers. Getting IPS turned on for servers running SES should also be done. While it’s understandable that there may be performance concerns, IPS has features to mitigate this issue. Go here for more details. Of all the threats blocked by our STAR protection technologies in 2021, 90% of them were blocked by Symantec’s IPS technology. 6 million. You’re right, MacOS does not see as much malware as Windows. But Symantec did block 6 million MacOS threats in 2021. Not a lot compared to the number of Windows based threats. But if have Macs it’s enough to take notice. We boosted the protection for Mac clients this year by added behavior blocking to the file based inspection and IPS technology already protecting those clients. If you’re not protecting your Macs, it’s time to do so. 21 billion. Audit signatures were first created as a way to put a signature in the field to monitor it for potential false positives. These were log-only signatures. We called them silent. Soon customers begin to look for detections based on these signatures in the log file to discover potential issues in their network. Symantec leaned into this and turned audit signatures into a feature, to detect but not block or remove behavior in the network. For instance, these signatures can be used to monitor red team tool usage, discover disallowed software being used or even be notified of suspicious usage of remote desktop applications. Because they could be being used legitimately in the network you don’t want to automatically block them. But you do want to know about them. And if you decide that traffic should be blocked, you can do that too. We saw 21 billion detections in 2021 by these signatures. There is a wealth of knowledge available via these signatures – learn more about them here. Symantec has been meeting the complex security needs of customers of all sizes, across all industries for decades. To learn more Symantec solutions go here. And to learn more about how to Optimize and Protect with Broadcom Software, see the video below.
4 Things You May Be Doing Wrong with Threat Intelligence It’s one of the biggest buzzwords in cyber security and it’s also likely the most misunderstood. Failure to effectively implement threat intelligence as part of a comprehensive cyber defense and risk management programs is common among organizations of all sizes. Yet, all too often, their efforts come up short, impeding their ability to defend against malware, ransomware, hackers and other unforeseen threats. Let’s take a closer look at four common mistakes organizations are making — along with advice on how to get back on track. Mistake No. 1: Improperly Defining Threat Intelligence Threat intelligence has become one of the biggest buzzwords in cyber security. It’s also probably the most misunderstood. Plenty of organizations say, “I want threat intelligence,” without understanding what it is and how they should use it. The problem is that many enterprises don’t understand the distinctions between data, information and threat intelligence. If I give you an IP address, that’s data. If I give you an IP address with details about a threat attached to it based on research, that’s information. But if I give you an IP address that puts associated threats in context, including adversaries associated with it and their motivations, that’s threat intelligence. Understanding threats at that level of detail, when those reported activities are not within their own networks, helps decision-makers move from a reactive posture to a proactive one as they address threats that haven’t yet hit them. Threat intelligence needs to be aligned to an organization’s unique security needs. For example, due to the need for high availability and strong control of patient data – and HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) compliance concerns– healthcare organizations must prioritize ransomware attacks. Financial organizations are primarily concerned with cyber criminals stealing money, while manufacturing companies’ primary fear is the theft of trade secrets. Recognizing areas of highest organizational risk and matching them to relevant threat intelligence is the first step in creating a threat intelligence program that ensures the best use of resources. Mistake No. 2: Hiring the Wrong People The next mistake organizations make is hiring people with the wrong backgrounds to run their threat intelligence organizations. Companies must recognize that different security professionals are suited for different security tasks, and hire accordingly. There’s a big difference between the skills needed to be in charge of incident response and those required to run threat intelligence. Someone trained in incident response often works in a hair-on-fire environment where the primary focus is “Put it out now, now, now!” That’s great when you’re under attack, but it doesn’t work as well for the measured approach required to create threat intelligence. The two jobs require different methodologies for approaching problems. Think of it as the difference between an emergency room doctor and a general practitioner. Working in incident response is like working in an emergency room where you’re dealing with immediate, life-threatening problems, while someone working in threat intelligence is like a general practitioner who takes the time to research specific problems to keep her patients healthy, and to figure out longer-term solutions to them. Hiring someone with a background in intelligence, particularly cyber intelligence, to head up a threat intelligence programs will help to ensure that, from day one, the organization will have a leader who understands traditional intelligence standards and practices, as well as how to interpret intelligence and apply that knowledge effectively to improve defenses and reduce organizational risk. There’s a big difference between the skills needed to be in charge of incident response and those required to run threat intelligence. Mistake No. 3: Failing to Identify Target Audiences Too often, threat intelligence organizations don’t fully identify internal stakeholder’s who could make more informed decisions or operate more effectively with the benefit of threat intelligence deliverables. There are three primary levels of intelligence that could benefit a wide range of internal stakeholders: strategic, operational and tactical. Each of these audiences require different messaging and delivery methods. Strategic intelligence is often most valuable to C-suite executives, including CEOs and Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs). These deliverables provide high-level information about business risks as it relates to a given threat, but not nitty-gritty details about every single threat. They need to know about long-term security trends that might require significant changes to their organizations, such as how they are structured, funded and insured. The operational audience in the Security Operations Center (SOC) need intelligence about persistent and emerging threats and trends, such as how malware is evolving, and what new threats are on the horizon. Overall, they’re looking for information to help them most effectively apply resources and manpower to keep the organization safe, now and in the future. The tactical users, members of the SOC staff, need specific indicators of compromise (IOCs), such as virus signatures, IP addresses and the URLs and domain names of botnet control servers so they can apply them to defensive systems to keep the organization safe, and respond to attacks quickly. It is vital to identify both internal and external customers for the threat intelligence team, and develop a suite of reports designed to meet the needs of each level. Mistake No.4: Not Investing Enough in a Threat Intelligence Program Quite simply, building and sustaining a robust threat intelligence capability requires a substantial investment. For most organizations, it is not a problem where “we have a guy that does that” should instill great confidence. Compounding the challenge, securing funding for a robust threat intelligence capability using traditional IT metrics proves nearly impossible. Thinking about the return on investment for threat intelligence requires a mental shift away from traditional security appliances. Instead of commending a security device on the number of detections that it generates, threat intelligence is more appropriately measured against the tremendous amount of time, money, and embarrassment that may be saved by having the right intelligence about threats. Threat intelligence bolsters your ability to understand and dodge threat actors before an attack occurs or by quickly identifying and containing threats by knowing the threat actor’s likely next move. Liked this blog? Watch this webcast “Operationalizing Threat Intelligence” or download this white paper “5 Threat Intelligence Traps to Avoid”
4 Ways to Ensure You Do Incident Triage Right How you respond in a security emergency to a cyber-attack can be a make-or-break moment for your organization All too often, when IT professionals and enterprise administrators confront data system glitches and error messages indicating a security incident, they’re reluctant to seek outside help. Whether paralyzed by fear or blinded by pride or simply overwhelmed by the crisis, they delay in triggering the alarm—a common but sometimes disastrous decision. Not long ago, for example, Symantec’s Incident Response team received a call from a manufacturing company that had spent the previous four days trying to recover from a ransomware attack on their own. The lead IT person had just resigned, and senior management directed bringing Symantec in for triage. After more than two weeks onsite, we identified the ransomware and verified that it had been sitting dormant on the company’s network for two months before it detonated. Unfortunately, these revelations hardly mattered: Everything had been encrypted, including the spreadsheet containing authorization credentials for accessing the company’s backups. In large part because the company lacked an endpoint security system (a final line of defense against ransomware), the incident brought down the entire business. In incident triage, every minute and hour counts. Contrast that tragic story with another recent incident we handled for one of Symantec’s Incident Response retainer clients, an e-commerce platform company with multiple web properties. Their IT team called us immediately after noticing a handful of dropped transactions on a critical, distributed system. They were frantic that customers’ personally identifiable information (PII) had been hacked. In this case, two of our team’s triage experts ran the dragnet, working hand-in-hand with the in-house team. We had sorted it out in the space of six hours: The failed transactions had been a kind of self-inflicted injury; the result of internal system changes that had unanticipated, unintended impacts. All the facts supported that no customer data had been compromised. Nothing had happened, which in incident response is always the best possible conclusion. In decades of experience with incident triage, we’ve seen countless other examples of how a rapid response has been the key to companies’ survival. In incident triage, every minute and hour counts. While a swift response can be critical in containing an incident, we also advise creating security baselines for every system on a network, through tools like Symantec’s Enterprise Security Manager. In addition, we propose the following four strategies to increase your odds of survival: Partner with an incident response provider. Even if you believe your in-house security team represents the best and the brightest, when it comes to incident triage, bringing in experts who have different insights and viewpoints can help tremendously. Having an IR provider on retainer will also increase your credibility. Because the IT team at this company had proactively partnered with Symantec, when it came time to disclose the incident to management, no one questioned their conclusions. Be prepared and stay true to the process. We hammer on this point constantly, but we can’t emphasize enough the importance of having a well-documented and well-rehearsed incident response plan. While it might be tempting to improvise a gun-slinger solution, resist any urge to deviate from the plan. If you’ve retained an IR provider, contacting them should be one of your first steps. Map out your network and know what systems you’re running. We receive an alarming volume of calls from people who are panicked that their network is crashing but are clueless about how to navigate it. Unless your organization has an accurate (and up to date) map of its network and people who are fluent in describing your data and security systems, you will lose valuable time. Designate an IT or security professional (and a backup) to answer fundamental questions about which assets you possess, which assets might be affected, the applications you’re running, and the security products you have in place. Adopt and enforce data security policies that reflect the current, hostile reality. Hardly a week goes by that we don’t hear about how an employee’s email carelessness has enabled unauthorized third-parties to access sensitive company data. Such breaches put your entire enterprise at risk. Require multi factor authentication across all email platforms Update and test all backups regularly. Ransomware attacks can encrypt your backups, which are in place so your operations don’t grind to a halt. So, you should arrange for offsite storage of at least four weeks of weekly full and daily incremental backups. Also, make sure you have backups that are not connected to the network to prevent them from being encrypted by ransomware. Lastly, ensure restore capabilities support the need of the business. Finally (and again), don’t hesitate to engage an emergency response team. Whether it’s a false alarm or an actual attack or something in between, the earlier you call for help, the better off you’re going to be.
5 Key Integrations for a Successful CASB 2.0 Deployment No one wants an island of security that’s hanging out there disconnected from the rest of your security. Here’s how to think about putting the pieces together It’s a free-for-all out there. Employees and organizations are adopting cloud apps and services at a furious pace due to the productivity, collaboration, and convenience they offer. And why wouldn’t they? If you have a problem, there’s probably a cloud app that can solve it. Plus, on a company-wide level moving away from traditional licensed software to cloud platforms like Office 365, G Suite, Salesforce, etc. delivers the additional benefit of moving from a capex to an opex financial model for your software costs. But it’s not all cupcakes and roses. There are risks too. Last year organizations on average found their employees were using 1,232 different cloud services and most of those apps were not business ready. For those sanctioned cloud apps that are monitored, 20% of files in the cloud were at risk of exposure due to risky sharing behavior and many of these files contained compliance related data such as PII, PCI, and PHI. 47% of organizations identified high risk user behavior and 71% of that behavior indicated attempts to exfiltrate data. Enter Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASBs), the fastest growing security category ever, according to Gartner. CASBs are specifically designed to discover and monitor use of cloud apps, provide Data Loss Protection (DLP) for cloud apps, and protect organizations against threats using cloud apps. A fully featured CASB is a good idea but Gartner recommends companies go beyond a standalone CASB deployment. They suggest that organizations plan to integrate their CASB with their existing security infrastructure and SOC processes. Great idea. No one wants an island of security that’s hanging out there disconnected from the rest of your security. But where do you start putting the pieces together? There are five integration use cases that could drastically increase the effectiveness of a CASB while at the same time decrease the complexity of managing the risks associated with the use of cloud apps and services. We call this integrated approach to cloud security, CASB 2.0. Use Case 1 Integrate your CASB with your Secure Web Gateway: In this scenario, your CASB cloud app risk intelligence would dynamically feed to your secure web gateway so you can automate control over shadow IT use of any cloud apps. If this intelligence feed provides intel on granular risk attributes associated with specific cloud apps you can create policy controls directly in your SWG to monitor, redirect, or block use of cloud apps based on a risk attribute rather than trying to track individual app details yourself. Plus, if you connect your SWG and CASB you can automate the feed of your SWG logs to your CASB to ensure continual monitoring and risk analysis of what apps employees are choosing to use. Finally, an integration like this should be easy to manage with administrative backend details streamlined with benefits such as unified user authentication and traffic management. Use Case 2 Integrate your CASB with your enterprise DLP in the cloud. Inspect your data in cloud apps in the cloud based on the same DLP policies that you use for all the other places where you track your data. With this approach, your CASB is the connection to all your cloud apps and cloud transaction and your CASB uses a DLP inspection engine that is in the cloud but your centralized enterprise DLP management is where you control the DLP policies and response actions for data in the cloud. This way your data never leaves the cloud AND you can apply the same DLP policies and response actions to your data in the cloud that you already use for data at the endpoint, datacenter, or network. Your alternative is to manage two separate DLP systems or to try to manage a wildly complicated ICAP approach…seriously, just don’t go there unless you have a lot of extra time on your hands. Use Case 3 Integrate your CASB with User Authentication. Control access to cloud apps by integrating your CASB with Single Sign On and multifactor user authentication. At a basic level integration with SSO and MFA helps your CASB enforce better access security for your cloud apps. With typical integration models this works to control the onset of a user’s cloud app session and that’s it. However, if you have a deeper integration between CASB and MFA where the CASB can send commands to your MFA and receive responses even after a cloud session has been initiated, your security gets better at blocking malicious cloud activity without blocking legitimate cloud activity. In this scenario, imagine you have a use who’s already authenticated into Office 365 but suddenly they start uploading or downloading lots of strange files, maybe they are in a strange geography. What can your CASB do? Alone it can either block this abnormal activity or allow it to happen but with an integrated MFA it can require an additional round of authentication mid-session to make sure this is really the authorized end user trying to take these actions. If the user completes authentication the action can be allowed, if they don’t the action is blocked. This way legitimate actions are enabled while actions triggered by malware or a hacker are denied. Use Case 4 Integrate your CASB with encryption, DLP, and user authentication. Secure data and manage digital rights to view data in cloud apps as part of a solution that secures your data wherever it goes. Consider a solution where your confidential data is automatically encrypted based on an automatic DLP classification at the point when a user sends the data to a cloud account. Later, any user who wants to view or download that file must pass a user authentication check to verify that they have permission to see that data. And this encryption and authentication requirement stays with the file even after it has been downloaded from a cloud account and sent on to another user (colleague, partner, vendor, customer, etc). Finally, your solution keeps track of who has access to that file wherever it goes and provides the ability to revoke that access at any future point in time. Use Case 5 Integrate your CASB with advanced threat protection. Keep advanced malware attacks from leveraging your cloud accounts by integrating CASB with enterprise-class threat protection. Protect your cloud accounts with the same level of protection you currently use on your endpoints to detect and mitigate advanced malware infections. Put advanced threat protection with cloud sandboxing in place to detect advanced threats that might try to spread via cloud app uploads, downloads, account synchronizations and shares. Not all CASBs today offer all these integration options and not all enterprise security solutions can support this level of CASB integration. Symantec solutions are designed to provide an integrated cyber defense for those organizations who want to take advantage of integrated solutions. Here are a few links to help you learn more: Secure Web Gateway (SWG) for the Cloud Generation CloudSOC Security for Cloud Apps – Securlets \| Symantec Symantec Shadow Data Report
5 Must-Have Elements to Include in Your Security Awareness Program When your aim is to change the culture of an organization, awareness isn’t enough Nearly every security incident can be traced back to human error. Data breaches, for example, often begin with a person being tricked into providing their access credentials to an attacker, from ‘fat-finger’ emails to the wrong recipient or from misconfigurations by system administrators. Analyst group Gartner posits the potential of security awareness programs to yield more ROI than any other InfoSec investment. User behavior impacts security outcomes more than any technology, policy or process, it notes. Nearly every security incident can be traced back to human error. But as losses from incidents caused by human error grow unabated, are current approaches to awareness successfully making humans a harder target? In 2019, cyber attacks are mainstream news, awareness is heightened, but there is little evidence that behaviors are changing. The typical learning experience, delivered over a point-and-click video presentation, isn’t doing the job. Over the past 12 months, Symantec has developed or commissioned several learning experiences that aim to progress from the cognitive aspects of learning (the acquisition of knowledge) to the behavioral (how and when that knowledge should be used) and procedural (putting the application of knowledge into habitual practice). We’re confident these activities are driving a measurable reduction in risk. Each learning experience was developed according to the principles outlined below: Empowering Most awareness programs – ours included – are developed with a threat-based view of the world, trying to cover off all the human behaviors that attackers prey upon. We must take care however to ensure our education programs both raise and relieve anxiety about threats. Academics have demonstrated learners are more willing to embrace security policies and safer behaviours when made confident in their use of technology. So, our program follows two key principles: For any given threat, the learning experience must instill confidence in how attainment of knowledge, skills or adherence to policy will help mitigate it. Every security event is a learning opportunity. There is insufficient evidence that deterrence, sanctions or coercion in isolation will drive policy compliance or safer habits. A user that makes an error or fails an assessment needs our help, not our scorn. Actionable Learners retain security-related information when advice is accompanied by a clear, practical action they can take to mitigate a given threat. The most effective learning experiences embrace a ‘Tell, Show, Do, Apply’ approach. Take, for example, our approach to teaching password security to non-technical staff. Engaging Multiple empirical studies suggest an individual’s attitude and normative beliefs have a significant positive effect on intention to comply with security policies. People come to work with existing attitudes that play a ‘mediating’ role in whether they get value from an education program. They will only embrace learning they expect will be beneficial to them. We’ve invested in promoting a ‘culture of security’ at Symantec. We enrolled our respected senior leaders in a highly visible campaign that set a new minimum standard for behaviours we expect from staff and suppliers. We stressed what’s at stake for us and our company. Beyond this security advocacy, we ensure the mediums we use for training are enjoyable to interact with and relevant to the skills of the enrolled learners. Learning experiences must be engaging, easy to consume and concise. We’ve invested in promoting a ‘culture of security’ at Symantec. At Symantec we use gamification to drive engagement. Learners often ‘compete’ – either individually or in teams – to outrank peers or attain a higher status. A learning experience in which skill, creativity or application of knowledge is outwardly celebrated tends to trigger the pleasant sensation of peer validation. We love being seen to have won almost as much as we love winning. My team publishes leaderboards for just about everything. We celebrate the teams that report the most phishing emails and the teams that outperform their peers at secure code tournaments. We celebrate the in-house researchers that compete to find and disclose the most security bugs in our products. We open up opportunities and forums for champions to spread their knowledge further inside and out of the organization. Experiential Learners are provably more likely to retain and apply advice if it is provided in the context of their daily work, and where opportunities are provided for strong, positive habits to form. We ideally want to apply just-in-time training whenever a user’s interaction with a system introduces heightened risk. Consider the following examples, which relate to use of email. Threat Threat Context Learning Experience Credential phishing When a user opens an email from a new sender o Phishing Readiness (simulations) o Tools that provide indicators of trustworthiness (Symantec’s ‘Phishing Tacklebox’) An email containing sensitive data is mistakenly sent to the wrong recipient As a user is about to send an email o Warning flags when an email recipient is outside the organization’s directory o Tools that force users to classify documents and emails before they are sent (Symantec’s Information-Centric Tagging) There are many opportunities for providing short, teachable moments as a user engages with a given security technology. When a Symantec user is compromised by one of our monthly phishing assessments, for example, they are offered a short lesson on what ‘tells’ our team included in the lure that should have been identified, and a ‘just-in-time’ quiz to reinforce the learning outcome. Role and Skill Relevant Learning experiences must cater for levels of security expertise, which today sit across a large continuum. Humans have a ‘psychological need’ to feel a sense of autonomy. Staff who perceive their behaviour as self-determined, to such a degree that they internalize policies, are more likely to comply with them. At Symantec, software engineers and system administrators are provided additional training opportunities. Even when we train all staff in order to achieve a baseline of compliance, we offer multiple learning paths based on role and skill. Dynamic and Responsive Off-the-shelf security awareness learning experiences can struggle to keep pace with new threats and compliance requirements. Any learning experience that requires significant investment to update is not ideal. At Symantec we chose to acquire learning platforms that enable us to build and edit bespoke learning experiences at speed. Where appropriate, we build web-based learning experiences from the ground up. We recently built and deployed a learning experience to several hundred engineers in response to a minor security incident in under a day. Results-Driven Our awareness program is focused on measurable outcomes. While completion rates on training are an important metric, completion doesn’t guarantee a change in behaviours. So, we work with a variety of internal teams to measure our real-world impact on incidents, how and when they are reported, even the configuration choices and working habits of staff. We measure rates of recidivism among at-risk staff identified and trained under our phishing assessment program. We measure whether software engineers are getting sharper at identifying problematic classes of vulnerabilities. We’re seeing strong signs of improvement. Consecutive HR surveys of Symantec staff agree. In May 2019, 97% of surveyed staff expressed confidence in knowledge of their security responsibilities, 95% said they were provided the right advice to help protect their online interactions and 92% felt their team and immediate managers prioritize security appropriately. In future blog posts, my team and I will detail the learning experiences we’ve rolled out and describe how each meet the above criteria. If you’d like to hear more about Symantec’s Security Awareness Program, Brett Winterford will be speaking at the Gartner Security and Risk Management Conference in Sydney on Monday 19 August at 12:45pm.
5 Reasons to Adopt Information-Centric Security – Now, Not Later Data security strategies which worked in the past are no longer able to keep up with the massive amounts of information security organizations now must track After years of data breaches, exploitable vulnerabilities, denial-of-service attacks and threats coming from every direction, most enterprises are finally approaching cyber risk as a top business risk, versus a technical problem. As a result, stakeholders at all levels of the organization, from the C-suite to the security team are more “in-the-know” about top challenges pertaining to cyber risk – to the point where they can boil them down to a common set of five: Cyber security budgets are overtaxed, manpower is hard to find, and hiring new staff is difficult due to the skills shortage, and lack of budget. Meanwhile, there’s more data to protect than ever before, and threat alerts are pouring into Security Operations Centers with a limited number of analysts to look through them. As a result, security investigators receive alerts that end up being false positives or present minimal risk, while the more significant ones slip through the cracks. Cloud migration is a phenomenon that’s revolutionizing information technology. However, as companies move their applications and systems to the cloud, they are losing visibility into activity around that infrastructure. For example, it’s more difficult to make sure sensitive data isn’t going into cloud repositories unencrypted, or that moving a new application into the cloud isn’t violating GDPR requirements. The Microsoft Office 365 migration presents its own challenge. While Office 365 significantly improves operational efficiencies, it is not a push-button project that can be accomplished overnight. The migration presents a new set of concerns around security and compliance due to less visibility into activity around the application. The digital transformation is here and not going anywhere. As stated in a 2018 Forrester report, “You'll spend 80% to 90% of your budget building a technology stack to deliver digital experiences that will multiply rapidly.” As organizations become more technology-driven, they lose control and visibility over all the technologies touching sensitive data. For example, if a company’s internet-connected heating system in a warehouse accesses a server containing sensitive financial data in the middle of the night, that is most likely evidence of a compromised system. Unless the company has tools monitoring the behavior of the system, it would not know that unusual activity took place. Identity management has become more complicated. Employees and third-party vendors have access to a greater number of systems, which are also more complex being that many are cloud-based and constantly being updated, making it more difficult to understand who is accessing what, and whether they should be accessing that system. People interact with data in so many ways, and data is being shared across so many different places. Not to mention, one of the biggest challenges, which is disabling access once a user no longer needs it. Symantec offers technologies such as data loss prevention (DLP) and CASB that have helped countless organizations overcome some of these challenges, however, there has been one piece missing – until now. Symantec Information Centric Analytics (ICA) is a user and entity behavior analytics platform that integrates with Symantec’s numerous solutions to make them even more efficient and effective at tackling all five challenges. Here’s how: By integrating with DLP, ICA helps security analysts and investigators focus their time, budget and limited resources on only the threats that matter most. ICA analyzes the mountain of threat alerts within minutes and prioritizes and presents the most critical ones to investigators. As a result, investigators receive a smaller set of truly critical alerts. With machine learning capabilities, ICA continuously learns which types of events elevate risk and automatically whitelists business-as-usual, minimal risk events so that analysts and investigators do not see them again. On the other side, employees who are performing those activities can continue to do their jobs uninterrupted. ICA integrates with CASB and DLP in the cloud, centralizing data analysis and visibility into cloud activity. ICA enables organizations to see how users are interacting with cloud applications and systems, detect and prioritize high risk activity, as well as detect if a migration violates compliance regulations such as the GDPR. ICA enables security leaders to maintain visibility into and control of Microsoft Office 365. The platform provides behavior and user-based finely grained data, detecting unusual Office 365 interactions that may indicate a compromise and prioritizing 365 users posing the most risk to the organization. Going back to the warehouse example mentioned above, ICA can not only detect the internet-connected heating system accessing the company’s financial server in the middle of the night, but also prioritize the behavior as a highly critical alert so that investigators can mitigate it before sensitive data is stolen. The more companies use internet-connected technologies and applications, and leverage SaaS platforms, the more visibility they need into the behaviors surrounding those entities. ICA provides that deep level of visibility. ICA integrates with Symantec’s identity access management (IAM) solution giving security leaders more visibility and control of how users are accessing data. With ICA, analysts will know if an employee is handling data that he no longer needs or shouldn’t be handling. If a user’s account was compromised, ICA would detect the user behaving in a way that’s unusual for himself, peers and overall business unit, indicating a bad actor has taken over his account. ICA can identify a situation where overly permissive access shows data is being compromised. If you found this information useful, you may also enjoy: Symantec’s Information Centric Security Suite Forrester: Digital Transformation: Your First 100 Days
5 Reasons to Install IPS Everywhere Symantec Endpoint IPS technology stopped 4.3 billion attacks in 2023 Most endpoint security vendors do not offer network-based protection on the client, or the server. So, is it an important technology? Can it really offer significant additional protection for our customers? When we compiled our protection statistics for 2023 on the threats we blocked, the evidence of the power of our network-based protection (IPS) is overwhelming. The answer is yes, IPS is important. Symantec has two decades of investment in IPS technology for desktops, laptops, and servers. Over the years, we’ve created a stable and high-performance IPS technology for our endpoint solutions that protects against a wide array of threats. In fact, the IPS protection data from 2023 make five powerful arguments as to why IPS is the key component of Symantec Endpoint Protection and should be run everywhere. IPS stops attacks before they reach your client or server. With IPS, attacks are not detected on your machines, they are stopped before they get onto your machines. This means IPS users were protected from threats without alerts to the SOC – and without a need to clean up. This happened 4.3 billion times in 2023. IPS Protects Servers. It's not just desktops and laptops; IPS protects all the systems in your entire network ecosystem. 668 million attacks against servers were stopped by IPS in 2023. IPS Provides Proactive Defense. IPS prevents the exploitation of vulnerabilities by attackers. Threats are stopped even before the malware is identified. 4 billion such attempts were shut down in 2023. IPS Provides Browser Protection. Threats come in all forms, and IPS extends its shield to your browsing experience. Its browser extensions blocked 160 million web attacks, including malicious redirects, cryptojacking, and scams. Think of it as an invisible safety net for your end users browsing. IPS Is Irreplaceable. IPS is responsible for 96% of all threat detections made by SEP. If you’re not running Symantec Endpoint Protection you’re missing out on the single best protection technology available for endpoints today. If you are running SEP, make sure you're taking advantage of everything IPS has to offer. This includes: Browser protection: Let IPS protect the browsing experience of your end users. IPS for desktops and servers: No device should be without this great technology. Audit Logs: Discover potential threats and turn audit signatures into blocking ones for enhanced protection. IPS is not just a technology; it's a silent promise of security. Embrace its power and watch your endpoint protection reach new heights of resilience. With IPS, the future of your network is one of quiet confidence, knowing you're protected from the shadows.
5 SASE Trends to Watch in 2022 Symantec can help you prepare for the new year Security Access Service Edge (SASE) has been called the “security trend of the decade”. As we enter the second year of the decade, the nuances, payoffs, and strategies around SASE are becoming clearer. SASE is not simply a critical security mechanism. It is emerging as a force in addressing long-standing IT and Security organizational issues and providing the security/productivity balance that companies and users want. Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) recently published a wide-ranging SASE survey of 613 IT professionals, and the results show that SASE has evolved greatly from a seemingly aspirational concept a few years ago to a market reality today. Several of the results were not only surprising, they shed a light on what we can expect to see in 2022. In a recent webinar with ESG’s Sr. Analyst John Grady and members of the Symantec SASE team, identified particularly interesting findings from the research and shared a rich discussion on potential future-looking implications. From this discussion Symantec, as part of Broadcom Software, has identified 5 key SASE trends that emerged in 2021 and may influence how others view SASE in the year ahead. #1. The evolution of SASE could help pull Network and Security teams out of their silos. According to the survey, the top SASE challenge that companies experienced or anticipated, was getting cross-functional agreement on a SASE strategy. Another top challenge was getting cross-functional agreement on SASE vendors. These findings suggest that many IT teams aren’t set up to support broader, cross-domain initiatives. KPIs, goals, and workflows are different among key stakeholders, creating a natural friction. As IT organizations look to be more agile, SASE could become a forcing function that allows teams to work together better, even if they don’t fully merge. #2. Data Context is a growing part of the SASE conversation. The ESG research showed that nearly half (48%) of IT professionals said they will begin with the security aspect of SASE in order to better secure remote and hybrid users, support zero trust initiatives, and reduce the attack surface. In contrast, 31% have a network-as-a-service centric approach to improve operational efficiency, and 21% take a fully-converged approach. For “Security First” SASE adopters, Data Loss Prevention (DLP) was the #2 starting point for SASE after Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA). At first glance, this might seem surprising. Not long ago, some people did not even include DLP in the SASE conversation. The reason for the change is clear: enterprises need data context, as they look for ways to reduce the risk of sensitive data leaking outside their organization. The Zero Trust model puts the data at the center. Without context about the data, enterprises can only control user and device access at the resource level. DLP balances security and productivity by providing a critical context for enforcing security policies around sensitive and non-sensitive data. The data context also allows security analysts to prioritize incidents to investigate. #3. ZTNA is the top SASE need for digital leaders. Companies are looking to the critical SASE capability of Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) to address specific use cases, such as supporting third-party access or reducing the pain and time of merging IT applications following an M&A. And while those use cases remain important, they are being supplanted in importance by VPN replacement. The ESG study also found that 62% of IT professionals use ZTNA for specific uses but are actively expanding their usage or planning to expand their usage to move away from VPN. VPNs have created opportunities for both insider and external malicious actors to exploit. Companies are eager to fund technologies that reduce the attack surface as opposed to detecting more threats. The reasons for VPN replacement can have subtle differences. Enterprises that are well underway in their digital transformation and leveraging public cloud providers and SaaS for their critical workloads tend to continue with the use-case based approach for SASE while they wind down their on-premises legacy infrastructure. In contrast, companies that are still heavily reliant on on-premises infrastructure for their Line of Business applications would actually prefer to completely transition their DMZ to the cloud, which is the primary rationale for SASE. These companies opt for a VPN replacement approach to solve their operational challenges first, and then evolve into the Zero Trust approach. #4. Companies want to preserve existing capabilities when adopting SASE -- without sacrificing efficiency. The top attribute that companies want from a SASE solution is having hybrid options to connect on-premises and cloud solutions together, helping the transition to full cloud over time. While hybrid is not a sexy topic, it reflects the reality that organizations don’t adopt a full Zero Trust and/or SASE strategy overnight. With the exception of ZTNA and Remote Browser Isolation (RBI), most organizations have existing capabilities in place, so they seek a path that allows them to move forward with SASE without starting from scratch. At the same time, they are unwilling to sacrifice efficiency. This attitude corresponds to our findings in other areas. For example, companies are interested in consolidating platforms, but not at the expense of security. #5. Customers want to move to multiple SASE vendors, but not for CASB and ZTNA. The ESG study also shows that while 60% of companies plan to use one or two vendors for SASE initially, only 38% believe this will be the case when their initiative is complete. To get started on the path to SASE, choosing a limited number of vendors makes sense. However, customers eventually want to select a best-in-breed approach for various critical capabilities. The exception to this is CASB and ZTNA. It’s hard to envision separating the two at any time down the road. Each solution has requirements for unified traffic steering, whether on managed or unmanaged devices. Uniform DLP policies and threat protection capabilities are also a requirement. As SASE solutions mature and integration capabilities expand, Symantec anticipates a great number of organizations may begin to demand more. Vendors should focus on their relative strengths. It’s why Broadcom Software partners with Google to deliver the optimal network user experience for Symantec SASE. It allows us to focus on our innovative security solutions. Customers who ultimately want to pursue a broader best-in-breed approach should consider starting with a vendor that’s not only broad in SASE capabilities today, but also has the core components that shouldn’t be separated in the future. Have questions? Contact us here and let’s talk!
5 Tips for Getting the Most Out of DevSecOps If you’re just dipping your toes in the water or want to get even more out of your current DevSecOps use, here’s what you need to know Over the last ten years, DevOps has revolutionized the way software is written and deployed, introducing agile techniques that cut down on development cycles, which has led to faster and more stable releases and more closely aligned applications with business objectives. Increasingly, similar techniques are being used by a new method of software development, DevSecOps, to build security into every phase of the development process, ensuring the highest degree of security while encouraging innovation and rapid software delivery. DevSecOps is new enough that plenty of companies might not know how to get started with it. And even companies that have already begun can use help. If you’re just dipping your toes in the water or want to get even more out of your current DevSecOps use, check out these five tips, learned on the front lines of leading development teams – and avoid some missteps! Tip #1: Understand DevSecOps Basics Let’s start with a brief look at how DevSecOps changes the way software is written. Traditionally, a development team writes applications without a focus on security. They deliver the application to the business operations team, which updates the software and make sure it fits into the company’s security business model. This can mean lots of patches, lots of rewrites, lots of delays — and possibly, insecure software. DevSecOps originated by needing to merge development with the operations team and is built around the concept that security is a shared responsibility. DevSecOps streamlines the process and eliminates the handoffs, aligning teams around shared goals. The development team collaborates with business operations and builds the security model into software from the very beginning. That way, the operations team doesn’t have to apply and reapply patches with every new build. Security is baked right into applications from the beginning. That means more secure applications, more agility and faster updates. Tip #2: Use a Soft Sell to Get Buy-In DevSecOps requires buy-in throughout an organization. Before you can put it into effect, you’ll need to convince departments and executives to participate. You don’t need to use a hard sell. Start the conversation from a risk-based perspective. Ask people, “What happens if we don’t do this? What are the consequences?” Explain that not moving to DevSecOps can hold up the delivery of software because you’re being forced to address security flaws too late in the development process. And, of course, you can point out the dangers to the business if a flaw makes its way into your company’s software and is exploited. It is very important that initiatives such as this are supported at every level. Tip #3: Get Everyone to Truly Commit to DevSecOps Getting buy-in is one thing, but getting people and teams to truly commit to a new culture and new way of doing things is another one. So, don’t accept passive buy-in. Make sure that everyone, up through senior management, is committed to embedding security controls and processes into the software workflow. You’ll need to get teams and the entire business itself to commit to a culture of continuous security monitoring, automation and detection. A side benefit: this helps enable a culture of continuous learning as well! Tip #4: Start with a Targeted Rollout Don’t expect DevSecOps to be adopted overnight, and don’t bite off more than you can chew. Start with an overall assessment of the risks you need to address. Then, fix the most important risk by inserting automated security tools into the development pipeline to address it. After you’ve done that, ask the team which risk should be addressed next. That kind of collaboration helps get the entire team on board. Keep working incrementally through all your security risks this way. Incremental improvements are a known benefit of any agile organization, and this is no different. You’re not going to succeed if you try to boil the ocean in one day. Tip #5 Measure Your Progress To be successful with DevSecOps, you need to constantly measure your progress towards three goals, not making the goals competing but understanding how these goals impact the entire delivery. The entire team needs to be measured against the goals of speed of delivery, uptime and stability, and the overall organizational risk. The success of these goals impacts the ability of the team to continue to deliver software. How you measure this will depend on your organization and the tools you have available. But you most likely will want to include unit tests, code style tests, a vulnerability test and static code analyzers. They should be integrated into your DevSecOps pipeline. Generate reports using them. Make sure the reports are carefully read, reviewed and the insights gained by them are used to advise teams on what they need to do to improve. Remember, reports which are not reviewed and used toward continuous improvement are probably not much use at all. Follow these five tips, and your company will get the most out of DevSecOps. You’ll cut the chances of mistakes, misadministration and misconfiguration. You’ll also reduce the need for security architects to run through manual configuration of security consoles, and free up the team to build applications that are innovative, secure and delivered quickly. If you found this information useful, you may also enjoy: Navigating the Risky Terrain of Cyber Defense VPNFilter: New Router Malware with Destructive Capabilities
6 Skills That Will Turn You into a Great Threat Intel Analyst If you’re thinking about pursuing a career in cyber threat intelligence, the stars are in alignment. Threat intelligence has never been more in demand. But what distinguishes the good candidates from the great ones? With companies struggling to hire candidates with the right skills and experience, talented analysts are more in demand than ever before. But what skills will you need to make the cut? While there’s no single, best answer – and few people possess the full combination of technical skills and intelligence analysis experience an organization might want in their “dream candidate” - don’t let that leave you discouraged. While the imbalance between supply and demand is especially acute, anyone can acquire the necessary skills over time by dint of perseverance and hard work. If any of you are aspiring analysts, we’ve compiled a checklist to help you navigate that journey. Formal Degree in a Related Field Some of the best intel analysts have taken unconventional paths to their current work, but all eventually either acquired a degree in a field like computer science or information assurance; several IT certifications; or both. This formal education gives a threat analyst the foundational knowledge, and skills necessary to perform their job in the field of information technology and cyber security. What if you would like to become a threat intelligence analyst, but already have an undergraduate degree in another field? An alternative, which has worked for many individuals similarly situated, is to complete an online master’s degree program in information assurance. More than 50 U.S. universities offer such programs, which can be found in sources like Best College Review and U.S. News & World Report IT Certifications First item on your agenda: Make sure you have an IT certification. That’s going to be particularly important if you don’t have an undergraduate degree in computer science, computer engineering, or an IT-related field. It’s also key if you lack experience and background in intelligence analysis and have no prior technical experience. Certifications provide some technical skills and fundamentals. What’s more, they signal to prospective employers that you take the initiative and are willing to learn. Which certifications you need will depend on your technical background and the specialty career path you choose to pursue. Try not to obtain more than four to six certifications. Two reasons for that. Each certification requires a certain number of continuing education units (CEU) to keep them current and renewed. Continuing education is both time-consuming and costly to attend. Also, the sundry conferences, meeting, and training sessions that go along with each certificate may be far from where you live. Too many IT certifications on your résumé may raise a red flag for employers. Some may conclude that while you may be qualified on paper, you don’t have the real-world experience to perform the job. Visual Link Analysis Tools Visual link analysis tools allow analysts to see multilevel links among different threat actors, entities, and IT infrastructure. Link analysis tools assist the analyst in visualizing and contextualizing the connections between different elements involved. Several link analysis tools are available for use for data visualization, such as i2 Analyst’s Notebook, Maltego, Sentinel Visualizer, and others. Every such tool has a distinct learning curve, but they have enough similarities that you may find it easy to learn another after having learned one. If you haven’t used a visual link analysis tool before, we suggest learning one of the free open source platforms, Social Network Visualizer or Gephi. Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) You must be familiar with Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) and stay abreast of the latest developments and trends. Open Source Intelligence consists of an array of information found in the public domain, including social media, social networks, online forums, websites, blogs, videos, and news sources. Communication Skills Learn to communicate in simple, declarative English. A successful threat intelligence analyst must be able share their ideas and findings in well-written reports. Most organizations will have at least one editor on staff to assist in the production of report. But you can help speed the editorial process along by writing clear, concise prose. There are many resources available to improve your writing skills, but we recommend The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr., and E.B. White. This guide to great writing was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 best and most influential books written in English since 1923. And for good reason. Public speaking skills are also vital as you will need to communicate with colleagues and management, and give presentations to prospective and current customers. A good way to improve your skills is to join a Toastmasters Club, a global nonprofit educational organization that helps members improve their communications, public speaking, and leadership skills. Subject Matter Expert (SME) and Foreign Language Skills Your journey toward becoming a first-class threat analyst will almost certainly require you to become a subject matter expert (SME) in a specific geographic region of the world. The expertise which comes with being a regional SME will improve the quality of your threat reports. At a minimum, you must stay current on geopolitical issues pertaining to your region of expertise. The ability to read a foreign language relevant to your area of expertise (e.g., Russian, Standard Chinese, Korean, Arabic, or Farsi) will help you understand publications in their original language. Foreign language expertise provides you with a deeper insight into regional attitudes about geopolitical issues, to complement Western news sources. If you found this information useful, you may also like: “Project Desert Host” report DeepSight Adversary Intelligence Great Threat Intelligence: Do’s and Don’ts
6 Things You Need to Know About the General Data Protection Regulation With 90 Days to go to the GDPR deadline your company needs to prepare for major regulatory changes for processing and protecting personal data. Start with this handy checklist. Register for 90 Days to GDPR Webinar Here The deadline for the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) enforcement begins May 25, 2018. The GDPR is a step forward from the last directive enacted in the EU over twenty years ago. The directive left a great deal open to interpretation by each member state, and did not reach beyond the borders of the EU. The ability to monitor and regulate the former directive across member states, which followed starkly varying laws, was determined too difficult and below the standard of data protection the EU deserves. Additionally, the EU has come to understand that safeguarding its citizens means enacting regulations that extend beyond its borders. The GDPR deadline establishes more uniform protection of personal information across the whole of the EU. It holds each organization involved in the processing of personal data of individuals residing in the European Union up to the same standards with the same consequences – regardless whether the organization resides in a member state of the EU or not, or if the processing activity takes place in the EU. The key repercussions: fines up to twenty million Euros or four percent of annual worldwide turnover (whichever is higher), a detrimental impact to reputation and brand, and a potential suspension of data processing in the EU. “Much talk on GDPR centers on the fines, which are indeed substantial and affect a business’ risk profile,” says Duncan Brown, Associate Vice President at IDC and lead of the firm’s GDPR practice. “But fines are just the start: companies are also exposed to mandatory breach notification, class-action lawsuits, and potential suspension of data processing, which effectively stops a firm from trading. The increase in risk from processing personal data means that GDPR is a board-level issue.” When preparing for the GDPR deadline, the following checklist is a helpful guide for each participant that processes personal data from the EU. Assess whether the method for obtaining customer consent is compliant This is especially necessary if your organization relies on consent to legitimize data processing activities. First, the consent language must be clear and plain. “Legalese” language that is only understood by attorneys who can argue many sides is no longer acceptable. Second, a person must act to give consent. Pre-ticked boxes and silence are no longer considered a valid form of consent and are outside the rules of the EU GDPR. Check that you have mechanisms in place to honor data subject rights, including the right for data to be erased A person can request that personal data be erased then, subject to certain exemptions, personal data relating to that individual should be deleted. This includes links to and copies of data – which means a system of notification to partner organizations and data processors is necessary. Be ready to deliver personal data to individuals In certain circumstances individuals can request that a complete download of their personal data be delivered in a format that is easily compiled and transferable. They also have the right to request that information be transferred to a similar company or partner company. Examine data breach notification measures The GDPR outlines a mandatory data breach notification regime. If a data breach puts the rights and freedoms of individuals at risk then a notification must be issued without undue delay and no later than 72 hours after an organization became aware of the breach. Obtain parental consent for information services offered to a child New to the EU data protection laws is the inclusion of children in the GDPR. Explicit parental consent for children under sixteen must be obtained for all information services involving children. It should be noted that some member states may adjust the age to children under thirteen, but the GDPR will require consent for all children. Transparency is key The aims of the GDPR are to remove any veils covering personal data, put greater power into the hands of individuals, and enforce higher consequences when personal data is put at risk. Losing customer trust and loyalty aren’t the only consequences for companies when it comes to poor data protection. Being negligent with data puts an organization at risk of heavy fines, a loss of loss of reputation and brand, and a suspension of data processing in the EU. If you found this information useful on GDPR, you may also enjoy: IDC GDPR Readiness Assessment 90 Days to the GDPR Deadline General Data Protection Regulation final text. Countdown to GDPR Register for 90 Days to GDPR Webinar Here
7 Items You Must Add to Any Incident Response Plan How to create one today It’s a bad day when you’ve got a severe security incident to respond to. But the difference between a bad day and a disastrous one can be the quality of the response plan you’ve built. You did build a plan, didn’t you? Here are some key points you may have overlooked. 1. Have a Workable Plan Surely, most large organizations have a well-thought out incident response plan in place, right? You’d think so, but the Ponemon Institute surveyed 623 companies in 2015, two-thirds of which had headcounts of more than 1,000 people. Of those organizations, 60% say they either have no incident response plan or an “ad hoc” plan; only 17 percent said they had a well-laid-out plan across their entire enterprise. That’s a heck of a thing, and downright scary when you think about it. “Sort of having an idea” of how your organization will respond to a serious incident is simply not enough. If your organization doesn’t currently have a solid, formalized plan for how to respond to critical incidents, the first step is to put a good one together. 2. Define an “Incident” As strange as it may sound, the first step in building an effective incident response plan is recognizing what actually constitutes an “incident”, then categorizing incidents by type and severity. For instance, you might have random scanning against your firewalls for open ports. Or you might have someone actively attempting to get into your network. Or maybe they've managed to get access to a system, and now they're attempting to access a repository of PII. Or perhaps you wake up to find ransomware has taken key data hostage. Just as each situation here is different, each requires a different level of response. As part of your response plan, you need to define and categorize incident types. These definitions directly affect what your planned response will be. What is the severity and type of incident you are looking at? Once you’ve put some definition around what it is you’re dealing with, you can then determine the appropriate level of response. That's stuff that should be inside an incident response plan so that whenever people are using the plan, your organization has guidance as to how to appropriately escalate incidents, and at what point you need to activate the incident response team. 3. Keep the Plan (and Supporting Documentation) Up to Date Whenever an organization hasn't really run through their plan in a while, they'll often find basic items like the phone lists are out of date, as people have left, or moved, or been promoted. Without regular updates, you may think you've got all that information at your fingertips, but when it comes time to activate your plan, you may find an absolutely outdated mess. And it’s not true about just people. Some organizations are a disaster at asset management, documenting their networks, and standardizing policy among different units. That's especially common with M&A activity. Whenever you see new units come in through mergers and acquisitions, usually it takes a good long while (sometimes years!) for the network and the network security policies of the parent organization to get aligned with those of the company they’ve bought. Regular updates to your network documentation and incident response plan can go a long way to minimizing confusion when it’s time to use it. 4. Don’t Just Have a Plan. Test it Of the organizations that did have an incident response plan, over a third don't actually do anything with the plan after they have it; it's basically done as a “check-the-box” exercise to meet a requirement, then sits and gathers dust. As a result, you end up with a plan that really hasn't been tested, and that’s never adapted to operational realities and organizational changes. In some ways, that’s more dangerous than having no plan at all. If you have no plan at all, at least you know you have no plan. But if you have a plan that hasn't been tested, and isn't reiterated and refined, you may have a false sense of security thinking you’ve got a good working plan, when the truth is you probably don't. One way to know if your plan is any good is to actually experience a breach, which is a fantastic way to learn, but a really costly, painful way to do so. A much less painful way to do it is to do tabletop exercises. What's great about tabletop exercises is they let you test how your organization responds to a major incident, and how well the various components in the organization are working together, all without the costs and associated panic of an actual breach. 5. Have the Right People Testing the Plan When you’re doing your drills, you want your core information security team members as part of it, of course, but it needs to be much larger than that. There is a role for senior leadership, and public relations or corporate communications play a massive role. Legal should be also represented. Additionally, the information technology folks (distinct from the information security types) definitely have a role in those tabletop exercises. So, do any third parties or any partners that are going to be important to an actual incident or an actual breach scenario. Sometimes, some folks will work in law enforcement contacts. If these are people you're going to engage if you have an actual significant event, then it's probably good to have them as part of the tabletop exercise in order to test those lines of communication. There's also value in just getting to know some of the people that you would be dealing with in a crisis that you may not deal with on a daily basis. For instance, information security generally doesn’t have daily touchpoints with legal or corporate communications. When something does hit and you're dealing with relative strangers, it’s harder to work together quickly. It's one thing if I have to go find a point of contact with Legal in an emergency, as opposed to picking up the phone and calling the exact person I worked with on a drill six months ago. I know who that person is, and she knows me. It makes for swifter communications and a better working relationship. 6. Test Often, but Keep it in Perspective You should be running a drill at least annually, and probably more often in large organizations. That’s a big commitment, but there are ways to make it less painful. The way we do them is typically two consecutive days of tabletop exercises, but only for four-hour blocks each day. Any longer, and people just get burned out, and attention spans are strained. It's also much easier to get a block of time on someone's calendar than it is to get full days of their time, especially with executives and leadership. By doing this, you make it possible for people to actually be able to take the time to participate and to be fully engaged. In a scenario, you may need a few decisions made at the executive level, and you can have a designated point person who's going to handle that decision-making for the purposes of the exercise. That actually gives people practice in briefing up the chain and succinctly explaining to leadership what they need to know so they can get the ball rolling.
7 Types of Insider Attacks Symantec Information Centric Analytics Detects Threats continue to evolve. Organizations have more data to protect than ever before. And, users are accessing that data from all over the world, using an ever-growing variety of technologies. Insider threats are the unwelcomed gift that keeps on giving. A recent Forrester report revealed that insiders are responsible for more than half of companies’ data breaches. A Gartner study revealed what malicious insiders intended to do with their companies’ data, with 62 percent looking to establish a second stream of income, 29 percent stealing information on the way out the door to help future endeavors, and 9 percent seeking to sabotage. Whether it’s malicious insiders trying to cause harm, non-malicious insiders who click on a dangerous link, repeat offenders who keep clicking on bad links, or compromised users whose login credentials were stolen by external bad actors, organizations struggle to detect these threats before it’s too late. Enter User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA). While UEBA is relatively new to cyber security, companies in other industries have used behavior analytics for decades to make sense of and leverage the avalanche of data being collected in their environment. For example, eCommerce companies applied behavior analytics to make better product recommendations to their customers. They collected data on which webpages customers visited and put products in front of those buyers based on their behavior patterns. The cyber industry took note of this success, and applied behavior analytics (with analyst firm Gartner coining the term “UEBA”) to achieve a different goal – to detect user and entity behavior that’s normal, abnormal but okay, and abnormal and dangerous. Symantec’s new Information Centric Analytics (ICA) solution, powered by Bay Dynamics, integrates UEBA with Symantec solutions such as data loss prevention, to prioritize the most imminent threats facing enterprises and government agencies. ICA enables organizations to make the most of their limited resources by paring down the avalanche of alerts into a prioritized list of which users need investigating each day. Symantec has published a new infographic that details seven types of insider threat attacks Symantec ICA detects. The types include the following: Slow and Low: Many organizations already have traditional cyber security tools in place to detect for example, an employee emailing a batch of customer credit card numbers to their private email account a certain number of times. Traditional tools work on basic thresholds meaning if an insider does the same thing more than “X” amount of times, it will raise a red flag.Malicious insiders know this and act in a way to fly under the radar. Using the credit card example, they send small pieces of credit card numbers once a day to their private email account over an extended period. UEBA can detect that reoccurring behavioral pattern. Collusion: Let’s say a group of employees is planning on leaving a company to start a competing one. To get off the ground running, they plan to steal their current employer’s customer list. To stay under the radar, each employee sends a small batch of customer names and contact information to their personal email account. UEBA can flag each employee’s abnormal behavior and point out that several are doing the same thing which may be collusion. Hiding in the Noise: In mortgage banking, for example, a group of employees is assigned to print mortgages, which contain sensitive customer information such as social security numbers. Big banks particularly hire thousands of employees handling sensitive mortgage documents with personally identifiable information on them. A malicious insider may use those thousands of employees to their advantage. Aiming to steal troves of social security numbers, they print mortgages alongside the mortgage banking unit, hoping their actions are buried in the business-as-usual activities. UEBA can catch that one person who normally does not print mortgages and alert investigators. “Door Jigglers”: The typical workplace consists of cubicles in the middle and office doors along the perimeter. If you are sitting in your cubicle and see someone walking along the perimeter jiggling doorknobs, you would most likely call human resources. After all, jiggling doorknobs is not a normal behavior for most employees.In the digital world, no one sees door jigglers, who are often non-malicious insiders. They are the employees who try visiting a website, only to get blocked because it’s against policy, but then try visiting another website that’s also against policy. These are the insiders who repeatedly click on suspicious links that launch ransomware attacks. UEBA combined with targeted security awareness training detects and mitigates these behaviors. Persistent Exfiltration Attempts: These kinds of insider attacks are like door jigglers however they are typically executed by malicious insiders. For example, an outside criminal steals an employee’s login credentials and breaks into a company, pretending to be the employee. The criminal is looking for intellectual property, such as the company’s new product plans. They steal the designs and are now trying to send them to their partner on the outside.First, they try emailing the data, but they’re blocked. They then try uploading the data to cloud storage on their personal site but again are blocked. They try to save the data on a USB stick, but again are blocked. UEBA can piece these abnormal behaviors together, verify the employee is actually a bad actor, and stop them at the door. Checking Out: When employees quit, it elevates the risk of insider threats – malicious and non-malicious. In some cases, an employee may try to take corporate data to start their own competing business. In other cases, employees may mentally check out prior to physically leaving, not thinking or caring about best security practices. UEBA identifies behavior changes that are consistent with others who are/were preparing to leave the company before sensitive data slips out the door. Prospectors: Employees who are burned out or disgruntled, may start sniffing around looking for whatever “gold” they can find. They try logging into various applications and databases, seeing which data they can get their hands on. UEBA can detect these insiders by identifying their behavior is abnormal compared to themselves, their peers and their overall business unit. Threats continue to evolve. Organizations have more data to protect than ever before. And, users are accessing that data from all over the world, using an ever-growing variety of technologies. Building cyber programs to protect data residing inside the four walls is no longer effective. Using Symantec ICA, no matter where their data resides, who is accessing it and from which device, organizations can quickly identify, prioritize and mitigate the most critical threats, those that if successful, would impact the mission the most. To learn more about Symantec ICA and the value it’s providing to public and private sector organizations, watch these videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqxETYOH5i8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeIzi_sHg5Q&t=1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTDxXVKIZxQ&t=6s
9 Ways to Avoid an Incident Response Disaster “Evidence Mangling” where critical information gets inadvertently destroyed, has become an all-too-often problem. Here’s what you need to know Police departments sometimes have an unusual term for EMTs who rush to an accident scene to help a crime victim – “evidence mangling teams.” No one disputes the need for EMTs to do their critical, life-saving duties. At the same time, they can trample over evidence that could help investigators solve a case. Even an EMT leaving behind a rubber glove can delay investigators, who can never be sure if it was there before the incident. The same thing can happen in cyber incident response. IT personnel looking to “stop the bleeding” of a cyber attack can destroy critical information that might otherwise help find the intruder or reduce the damage. The way to minimize this problem is to prepare for evidence collection well in advance of an incident. Here are nine steps that companies should take before, during and after a malware attack or other incident. Develop a Playbook. When companies suffer an intrusion, people shouldn’t have to run to someone in the IT department to ask what to do. The procedures and policies for handling an intrusion should clearly lay out the steps that everyone needs to take, so there is no delay or confusion. The plan should be checked at least once a quarter, and preferably once a month. These should be considered living documents and updated regularly to maintain relevance to current practices. Technology changes quickly, and new iterations of technology could require revisions to a response plan. Find a Trusted Partner. Before an attack, you should develop a relationship with a trusted Incident Response partner, who can be ready to help your IT and security personnel deal with an intrusion. Make sure your Trusted Partner is approved under your cyber insurance policy. Some are like health insurance policies that will only reimburse if you go to an approved doctor. Run Mock Exercises. Your Incident Response partner can run you through cyber attack exercises to prepare your team to handle the real thing. In one case, I presented mock exercises of a ransomware attack for a company, even though they insisted “it could never happen” to them. Five minutes into the exercise, one of the IT people received a phone call that told him the company was suffering a ransomware attack at that very moment. Remember: anything can happen to anyone at any time. When it comes to incident response, practice really does make perfect … or at least better. Capture All the Right Information. When an intrusion occurs, it’s essential to immediately access web logs, proxy logs, authentication logs, and other information that can determine the cause and consequences of the attack. First make sure you are capturing all the information you need. For example, some IT systems have a default setting to collect failed log-ons but not successful log-ons. This can lose vital information if a hacker logs in using the stolen credentials of an actual employee. Centralize Logging. Ideally, all the log information you might need during an incident response should be sent to a central location. Time is of the essence during an incident. You don’t want to search in eight different places where 10 critical pieces of information are stored. Keep Information Accessible. Capturing log information is of little comfort if you can’t access it. Consider a healthcare company that stored its logs at a vendor’s facility. When the company was attacked during the holidays, everyone at the external facility was on vacation. The logs were unavailable for a week. That’s an eternity – a costly eternity -- in incident response. Make sure that you can always access your own logs through a console. Document Your Response Steps. As your IT and security team deal with the intrusion, they should document every step they take and whatever changes they make to company systems. At the same time, while dealing with the intrusion, they should be careful not to cause more harm. For example, a lot of important information is kept in volatile memory, computing storage like RAM that only maintains its data when the device is powered on. Something as simple as turning a computer off and back on can destroy valuable data. It’s the IT version of the “evidence mangling team.” This is where having established policies and running the mock exercises pays off by keeping everyone on the same page. Preserve the Chain of Custody. You never know if an intrusion will result in legal action, so evidence needs to be safeguarded. If you pull an infected server offline, store it in a locked cabinet so you can affirm no one has touched it. In addition, utilize a Chain of Custody document to capture key information such as a detailed description of the evidence, location and time/date of Seizure, along with relevant custody transfer information between individuals since time of seizure. In criminal proceedings, the forensic process itself is rarely questioned. However, attorneys will often try to punch holes in the “chain of custody”, which can get the entire case thrown out of court. Track Your Lessons Learned. After you’ve handled an incident, the temptation might be to relax. After all, this is a tense and draining experience. Instead, you should immediately document what you did right and wrong while everything is still fresh in your mind. That way, the inevitable next incident can be less tense and handled even more effectively. Stopping Threats Our Competitors Let In
A 5-Step Plan to Bolster Healthcare Cyber Security A sound risk management strategy starts by adopting the provisions set out by the NIST framework. It may sound daunting – but it’s not. Here’s why. At first glance, the National Institute of Standards and Technology Cyber Security Framework (NIST CSF) may seem daunting. With 98 subcategory outcomes spread across five core Functions, each designed to target a specific cyber security risk category, the thought of implementing this framework into an established healthcare system could serve as a deterrent. But, it’s not as difficult a task as one might perceive and the benefits far outweigh the repercussions of not having a formal security baseline in place. Throughout this past year, Symantec has hosted a webinar series that attempted to demystify the NIST CSF for the healthcare community. The framework, as embodied by these subcategory outcomes, not only serves as the backbone of a sound risk management strategy, but works to unify the different parts of a healthcare organization to improve overall security. The goal of the webinar series was to identify the key elements of the framework and offer clear recommendations on how to easily, and effectively, integrate it to drive the most impactful outcomes. As you know, healthcare organizations have not always made cyber security a top priority. That is understandable with the wide-range of tasks they must manage. A lack of attention, though, has had an adverse effect. The healthcare industry has fallen toward the bottom of the pack when compared to other industries in terms of protecting data. Adopting the NIST CSF can help improve this by enabling healthcare organizations to see where they are at the most risk. The framework focuses on five core functions: Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond and Recover. All of these are crucial parts of a cyber security ecosystem, but they all follow the same basic premises: organizations can only protect what they know they have. Offering a way for organizations to improve visibility into their networks and identify potential blind spots, the NIST CSF serves as a basis to build out a robust cyber security system. The webinar series has touched on each part of the NIST CSF with Symantec experts highlighting the different key components of the framework’s core functions. More than anything, though, the series showed how cyber security is truly an organization-wide responsibility. While information technology departments serve as the stewards of cyber security, it takes everyone in an organization – from the CXO to management to all employees – working together and being responsible to keep systems secure. The NIST CSF is not simply a checklist of things to do but a comprehensive way for healthcare organizations to understand, and ultimately, minimize the cyber security risk they face. While approximately 100 subcategory outcomes organizations will prioritize the controls they address in alignment with their business/mission priorities, regulatory requirements, budget, and risk appetite. In the final webinar of the series, Symantec shared some key tips for healthcare organizations looking to take that first step, providing the following recommendations: Create a security controls policy, which provides a high-level description of objectives along with the framework for those impacted. Document roles and responsibilities so each team or department knows who is responsible for what aspect of implementation. Document standard operating procedures that explain how the different controls should be implemented. They need to be filtered by team and department and document how they should be done, as well as when and what artifacts will be kept once completed. Document detailed task lists for each team and department, including who is responsible for each task and when it needs to be done. Assign tasks. Standard operating procedures and scripts can be adjusted following the original implementation for future use to improve the process. There are multiple paths an organization can take when leveraging the NIST CSF, but each is designed to help improve their cyber security posture based on their needs and requirements. Too often organizations do not take the time to step back and view cyber security from an enterprise level and look at cyber risks from the larger business perspective. As threats become more complex and the number of attacks against healthcare organizations continue to grow, it is important to understand the risks an organization faces and create a plan to address them. The NIST CSF has already proven to be an effective tool for government agencies, educational institutions and private sector companies. As healthcare organizations continue to be a prime target of hackers, it is critical that they leverage the NIST CSF to improve cyber security and ensure that their data, especially PHI, remains protected, but also that they maintain the ability to serve their community and deliver care. If you found this information helpful, you may also enjoy: Adopting the NIST CSF in Healthcare Symantec Webcast Series: NIST Cyber Security Framework for Healthcare
Accelerating VMware’s Growth Broadcom focuses on innovation and R&D Innovation comes in many forms. In Broadcom’s case, it has been through a combination of organic growth and growth through acquisition, which has created Broadcom today – a company built from a heritage of American technology pioneers such as AT&T Bell Labs and Hewlett Packard, among others. Broadcom has grown by building on the innovations of businesses with critical products, a strong track record, and significant long-term growth potential. And this is our shared goal and vision together with VMware. VMware has an amazing opportunity to further grow and scale its pioneering virtualization technology, and Broadcom is committed to innovation and building VMware’s professional services capabilities. That’s why we plan to invest an incremental $2 billion a year to better unlock customer value – with half focused on R&D and the other half focused on helping to accelerate the deployment of VMware solutions through VMware and partner professional services. Investing in VMware’s R&D With the right combination of compute, storage, and network virtualization technology, enterprises can build next-generation software-defined data centers of their own, on their premises (on-prem) or in private clouds, instead of being largely or exclusively dependent on a mixed cloud environment, as we see today. Virtualization of all these functions gives enterprises the ability to manage parts of the data center more easily in on-prem, private cloud environments similar to the productivity, efficiency, ease of use, resiliency and elasticity that enterprises enjoy with public clouds. The core technology to do this already exists at VMware. Broadcom will make additional investments to help this technology work together seamlessly and much easier to use; and resources to help more customers adopt and deploy this great technology. These new investments are part of our plan to significantly increase R&D investment in VMware products. If companies can run VMware as a private cloud on-prem, they should be able to take their same application workloads to the public cloud without needing to re-engineer that application or worry about being locked into the public cloud providers that they choose. By extending our multi-cloud strategy, we will invest in extending VMware’s software stack to run and manage workloads across private and public clouds, which means any enterprise can run application workloads easily, securely, and seamlessly on-prem, or in any cloud platform they prefer. Our goal will be to achieve this multi-cloud strategy in a way that is cost neutral to customers, while allowing them to choose where they want to run applications or workloads. That’s what this is all about – ensuring customer choice and flexibility in managing their data and workloads. Investing to revitalize and grow VMware and partner professional services capabilities In addition to more investment in R&D, we plan to build capabilities for enterprises to deploy private clouds through a significant investment in professional services. This means an investment in professional services support and in external partners. As a part of Broadcom, VMware will have more resources and scale to support the number of customers that want its technology and services, and help customers deploy it more than it was able to as a standalone company. Together with Broadcom, VMware will be able to partner with global system integrators and double the investment in professional services at VMware to help customers configure, use, and benefit from this technology, unlocking even more value. We expect that investment as well as deploying private and multi-cloud solutions in a scaled manner to many enterprises will take some time. VMware needs more partners to grow, and we will help it succeed in doing so. Unlocking VMware’s potential Broadcom’s business model and its decades of focus on R&D combined with VMware’s core technology and superb talent will be the catalysts that will enable VMware to capture the growth opportunity in front of it. Broadcom has 22 independently run product divisions, and strong technology that is critical for customers around the world. My philosophy is that if you do what you do well and keep focusing on doing these things better – as a market leader, a product leader, or a technology leader – you will become the best in your space. Broadcom’s business model is based on the thesis that the technology we develop is a roadmap, is evolutionary, and gets better with time. The wider technology industry, as well as customers, will only stand to benefit from Broadcom unlocking VMware’s potential by helping it build on its strengths and ambitions. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This communication relates to a proposed business combination transaction between Broadcom Inc. (“Broadcom”) and VMware, Inc. (“VMware”). This communication includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and Section 27A of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended. These forward-looking statements include but are not limited to statements that relate to the expected future business and financial performance, the anticipated benefits of the proposed transaction, the anticipated impact of the proposed transaction on the combined business, the expected amount and timing of the synergies from the proposed transaction, and the anticipated closing date of the proposed transaction. These forward-looking statements are identified by words such as “will,” “expect,” “believe,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “should,” “intend,” “plan,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “aim,” and similar words or phrases. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and beliefs of Broadcom management and current market trends and conditions. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that are outside Broadcom’s control and may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, including but not limited to: the effect of the proposed transaction on our ability to maintain relationships with customers, suppliers and other business partners or operating results and business; the ability to implement plans, achieve forecasts and meet other expectations with respect to the business after the completion of the proposed transaction and realize expected synergies; business disruption following the proposed transaction; difficulties in retaining and hiring key personnel and employees due to the proposed transaction and business combination; the diversion of management time on transaction-related issues; the satisfaction of the conditions precedent to completion of the proposed transaction, including the ability to secure regulatory approvals on the terms expected, at all or in a timely manner; significant indebtedness, including indebtedness incurred in connection with the proposed transaction, and the need to generate sufficient cash flows to service and repay such debt; the disruption of current plans and operations; the outcome of legal proceedings related to the transaction; the ability to complete the proposed transaction on a timely basis or at all; the ability to successfully integrate VMware’s operations; cyber-attacks, information security and data privacy; global political and economic conditions, including cyclicality in the semiconductor industry and in Broadcom’s other target markets, rising interest rates, the impact of inflation and challenges in manufacturing and the global supply chain; the impact of public health crises, such as pandemics (including COVID-19) and epidemics and any related company or government policies and actions to protect the health and safety of individuals or government policies or actions to maintain the functioning of national or global economies and markets; and events and trends on a national, regional and global scale, including those of a political, economic, business, competitive and regulatory nature. These risks, as well as other risks related to the proposed transaction, are included in the registration statement on Form S-4 and proxy statement/prospectus that has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) in connection with the proposed transaction. While the list of factors presented here is, and the list of factors presented in the registration statement on Form S-4 are, considered representative, no such list should be considered to be a complete statement of all potential risks and uncertainties. For additional information about other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements, please refer to Broadcom’s and VMware’s respective periodic reports and other filings with the SEC, including the risk factors identified in Broadcom’s and VMware’s most recent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Annual Reports on Form 10-K. The forward-looking statements included in this communication are made only as of the date hereof. Neither Broadcom nor VMware undertakes any obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances, except as required by law. No Offer or Solicitation This communication is not intended to and shall not constitute an offer to buy or sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy or sell any securities, or a solicitation of any vote or approval, nor shall there be any sale of securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. No offering of securities shall be made, except by means of a prospectus meeting the requirements of Section 10 of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Additional Information about the Transaction and Where to Find It In connection with the proposed transaction, Broadcom has filed with the SEC a registration statement on Form S-4 that includes a proxy statement of VMware and that also constitutes a prospectus of Broadcom. Each of Broadcom and VMware may also file other relevant documents with the SEC regarding the proposed transaction. The registration statement was declared effective by the SEC on October 3, 2022 and the definitive proxy statement/prospectus has been mailed to VMware shareholders. This document is not a substitute for the proxy statement/prospectus or registration statement or any other document that Broadcom or VMware may file with the SEC. INVESTORS AND SECURITY HOLDERS ARE URGED TO READ THE REGISTRATION STATEMENT, PROXY STATEMENT/PROSPECTUS AND ANY OTHER RELEVANT DOCUMENTS THAT MAY BE FILED WITH THE SEC, AS WELL AS ANY AMENDMENTS OR SUPPLEMENTS TO THESE DOCUMENTS, CAREFULLY AND IN THEIR ENTIRETY IF AND WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE BECAUSE THEY CONTAIN OR WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROPOSED TRANSACTION. Investors and security holders may obtain free copies of the registration statement and proxy statement/prospectus and other documents containing important information about Broadcom, VMware and the proposed transaction once such documents are filed with the SEC through the website maintained by the SEC at http://www.sec.gov. Copies of the documents filed with the SEC by Broadcom may be obtained free of charge on Broadcom’s website at https://investors.broadcom.com. Copies of the documents filed with the SEC by VMware may be obtained free of charge on VMware’s website at ir.vmware.com.
Actionable Intelligence and Optimized Security From Symantec Visibility is where security battles are won or lost As security teams labor to stay ahead of fast-changing threats, the task of collecting and interpreting the updates flowing across their screens has become increasingly fraught. What data should they pay attention to? How much information should they gather? What’s the best way to go about correlating all that information to make sense of it all? This is where security battles get won or lost. An organization may have accumulated massive amounts of data but if it cannot connect that vast reservoir of information in a meaningful way for the customer, then it’s basically useless. Simply put, without the ability to gather events, behaviors, and threat data and mine all that intelligence, enterprises are doomed to always remain a step behind existing and future attackers. At Symantec, as part of Broadcom Software, we have over 20-plus years of domain expertise and countless interactions with customers, gathering use-cases and perfecting workflows. That’s why the need for greater “visibility” has never been more critical. Visibility is an umbrella term that applies to various aspects of cyber security solutions from gathering telemetry to threat discovery and response, threat landscape to attack-chain buildout, detection enrichment to effective remediation, and workflow integrations to metrics and reports. The question ultimately boils down to a matter of whether you can trust a particular security vendor to satisfy the myriad needs of enterprise admins, SOC analysts and CISOs. Ultimately, customers need to enhance their security posture to be able to respond quickly to threats and prevent future incidents. At Symantec, as part of Broadcom Software, we have over 20-plus years of domain expertise and countless interactions with customers, gathering use-cases and perfecting workflows. We have also developed the world’s best global intelligence network (GIN), allowing us to share insights with our customers to tackle adversaries together. Customers have visibility only into what comes into their environment. In contrast, Symantec has a huge endpoint footprint thanks to its global customer reach. We also enrich our data with 3rd party feeds from other security vendors and security consortiums. Data analytics run on top of all that to correlate everything together. The upshot: we can map the whole attack chain for specific threats and show exactly the artifacts that are being used each step of the way - as well as provide actionable protection, prevention and detection to improve the security posture. Let’s take a closer look at how all this unfolds in practice. Threat Discovery and Communication Whether a solution is designed for detection, protection, or prevention, it requires a great deal of calibrated understanding of how attackers attempt to infiltrate and understand their likely next move. At Symantec, we have dedicated groups of security experts whose mission is to investigate targeted attacks, strategize a response, and then share analysis with customers as soon as possible. Our Global Intelligence Network (GIN) is a unique asset: one of the largest civilian security threat intelligence networks in the world with a vast network of security intelligence exchange and threat repository. We have built tools and APIs that you can leverage to get real-time threat intelligence data and additional services to provide flexibility and options to your web filters, policies, and security management. Workflow integrations and tap into GIN At Symantec, we understand customers may want integration with their security team's workflow to know everything about a threat vector, detonate files to gather attributes and disposition, submit samples for further investigation, or perform deep search on threat families and attack vectors. No matter if you are using on-prem or cloud solutions, you have access to browser plugin-ins to tap into GIN and endpoint APIs that can be hooked into your workflows to know the latest and greatest threat intelligence and significantly reduce your operational overhead. Data Enrichment and MITRE mapping It is one thing to have access to data, it’s quite another to have meaningful aggregated enriched correlated datasets available for easier user consumption. Everything must fall in place so that security teams can act quickly. This is where Symantec’s heritage pays dividends. Our telemetry is not only enriched with MITRE mapping techniques but an independent third party evaluation of endpoint protection solutions that awarded Symantec with the highest scores of competitors tested in visibility. Symantec’s EDR solution is equipped with features that make it easy to tackle blind spots in enterprise infrastructure, while Symantec Endpoint Security Complete (SES Complete) offers an integrated modular tool set designed to tackle security adversaries. To tie it all together - better visibility leads to better security and intelligence. It is about visibility and translating that visibility into intelligence and actionable prevention, detection and protection for our customers. Symantec can help with that as we maximize your visibility to effectively protect your digital infrastructure from multifaceted threats. Contact us here to learn more. You can also visit Symantec’s global protection by the numbers webpage to get a glance at the scale at which we operate, allowing us to deliver protection to our customers.
Advice for CISOs: Want More Resources? Think Beyond Pure Tech It sounds like a tough sell but there’s an increasingly convincing case to be made for bigger security budgets -here’s how The late-November news that a large hotel chain had suffered a massive hack, with data on as many as 500 million guests stolen, was an undeniable shock. But within the information-security industry, it was hardly a surprise. Despite consistent increases in security spending – a nearly 25% increase between 2017 and 2019’s projected worldwide totals, according to Gartner researchers – IT security professionals have routinely said they regard hacks and data breaches as virtually inevitable. For the last two years, more than 90% of respondents in career surveys by the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA), a trade group for IT-security professionals, have said they believed that “most” organizations were either “significantly” or “somewhat” vulnerable to a damaging cyber attack. “Board members don’t want to be the next headline,” said ISSA Board President Candy Alexander, herself an experienced chief information security officer (CISO). “But it comes down to the bottom line. Do we spend more money on development and services, or do we go ahead and strengthen our security? Only rarely is it the latter.” Yet Alexander and other experts also stress that simply throwing money at the latest danger isn’t the right answer. To make organizations more secure, they say, IT security teams need to view threats and investment programs from a broader perspective. Below, we examine a range of experts’ proposals that may help CISOs argue successfully for new resources, while also demonstrating that existing resources are being used effectively. Assess the harm that has been avoided thanks to existing investments – but define harm appropriately broadly. IT security teams seeking new resources should first show how existing programs have (or haven’t) worked. For example, a CISO’s team might plot the last year’s major threats, describe how the company’s current security measures addressed them, and quantify the savings produced by having such measures in place. University of Kent Assistant Professor of Cyber Security Jason Nurse advises CISOs to think broadly in this regard, assessing past and potential damage using categories including reputational, physical, psychological and societal harm, as well as basic financial harm. “A lot of attention is placed on the financial impact,” Nurse said. “But realistically there are other types of impact that result from a cyber attack. Identifying these could help convince a board that security is important even beyond the financial perspective.” For example, this could include factors such as loss of customer or supplier confidence in the company, damage to physical infrastructure, the worry and fear instilled in employees or users, or increased societal distrust of important digital services. Create a full-company risk assessment that compares IT security risks with other business risks. IT security is fundamentally about managing risk. But mature corporations manage risk globally, not in isolation. Pitches for greater IT security resources should be thus made in the context of an organization’s overall risk profile, says RAND Corporation researcher Sasha Romanosky. Romanosky's work has shown that the cost of security incidents is often small compared to overall company revenue. To portray threats accurately, CISOs should therefore be integrated into an overall enterprise risk-profiling team tasked with normalizing risk assessments across the organization, he argues. This in turn can help a security team make comprehensive and credible arguments for its specific goals, while tailoring those goals to meet overall corporate objectives. “This isn’t just about getting money for the security group,” Romanosky said. “But you get better at understanding where risks fall across the entire firm.” Shape IT-security programs around the organization’s overall corporate strategy. ISSA’s Alexander too agrees that CISOs need to analyze their companies’ overall strategies, and develop security programs around concrete new programs or initiatives rather than general threats. “There is often a lack of ability for CISOs to make the business justification and incorporate this into the business-planning cycle,” Alexander said. “They need to understand what the corporate goals are, and how their security plan will interact with that. When you appeal to the business case, that’s in line with the language that boards understand.” In some cases, this may require IT-security teams to cultivate additional skills in order to understand the budgeting, marketing and corporate-strategy perspectives alongside the core technology issues. Industry peer groups and conferences can help them acquire the knowledge – and crucially, the language – needed to develop security programs in this way. Ask whether past “best practices” regarding security budgets still make sense, and explain why they may not. As a rule of thumb, corporate security budgets have tended to average around 5% to 8% of overall IT budgets. Symantec EMEA-region CTO Darren Thomson notes that this is based on several assumptions: that the threat landscape is not becoming more complex, and that infrastructure requirements are growing at a reasonably steady pace. Neither of these assumptions are valid today, he says. First, as attackers begin using machine-learning or artificial intelligence, or tapping vast, poorly secured internet-of-things networks, their attacks are becoming more sophisticated. Second, many organizations are now shifting to hybrid security systems that include cloud-based elements, producing parallel security environments that must be managed and maintained. Additional pressures stem from the costs of complying with laws such as Europe’s General Data Privacy Directive, and the rising cost of salaries driven by a worldwide shortage of IT-security skills, he says. Clearly identifying these cost drivers may help CISOs convince even non-technical board members to reexamine conventional budgetary wisdom. Promote an organizational culture of security Many breaches are traceable to mistakes such as clicking on a well-crafted phishing email. The rise of Net-enabled personal gadgets has also resulted in employees increasingly bringing unsecure devices into the corporate environment. The creation of an organizational culture of security thus offers potentially great returns in terms of mitigating risk – and is a goal that even the least tech-savvy board should be able to understand and support. To be sure, this is no easy task. CISOs must work closely with other departments to create awareness, taking an “integrated psychological, technological and business approach,” Nurse said. Nor does experience show a clear way forward. While simple scare tactics don’t seem to work, research provides no unambiguous answers regarding what does. However, training, continuous feedback, and sensitivity to employees’ different cultural contexts and responses all appear to be important factors.
Affiliates Unlocked: Gangs Switch Between Different Ransomware Families The demise of Sodinokibi has led to a surge in LockBit activity, while there’s evidence affiliates are using multiple ransomware families to achieve their goals. The shutdown of the Leafroller ransomware gang (aka Sodinokibi/REvil) has resulted in a surge in LockBit activity, as some ex-Sodinokibi affiliates move to that ransomware. Meanwhile, there is also more evidence that some attackers are affiliated to more than one ransomware group and are switching between ransomware families mid-attack if the initial ransomware they attempt to deploy fails to execute. These are just the latest developments Symantec, part of Broadcom Software, has seen as ransomware actors continue to evolve their tactics to make their attacks more dangerous and effective. Sodinokibi shutdown leads to LockBit surge Attacks involving the LockBit ransomware have increased markedly over the past month, with some indications that the group behind it is attempting to fill the gap left by the Sodinokibi ransomware. Sodinokibi’s infrastructure and websites disappeared on July 12, 2021, shortly after the group had carried out a major ransomware attack in which it encrypted approximately 60 managed service providers (MSPs) and more than 1,500 individual businesses using a zero-day vulnerability in the Kaseya VSA remote management software. It’s unclear why exactly the gang’s operations shut down, but it has been speculated that the gang shuttered their activity following either pressure or action by law enforcement. Symantec researchers have seen evidence that at least one former Sodinokibi affiliate is now using LockBit. Symantec has observed an attacker using consistent tactics, tools, and procedures (TTPs) attempting to deliver Sodinokibi to victims until July of 2021, when the payload switched to LockBit. LockBit (aka Syrphid) was first seen in September 2019, and launched its ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) offering in January 2020, however, there was a marked increase in its activity in the last month as it seemingly attempted to recruit former Sodinokibi affiliates. This recent attack began with a file named mimi.exe, which is an installer that drops a number of password-dumping tools. Immediately prior to the ransomware being launched, a large number of commands were executed to disable various services, block access to remote desktop protocol (RDP), and delete shadow copies. This is activity we typically see before ransomware is deployed on a system. The actor behind this attack consistently named their ransomware payload as svhost.exe and this practice was maintained following their transition to LockBit. The actors behind recent LockBit campaigns were seen using a variety of different TTPs before deploying the ransomware payload, including: DefenderControl.exe – disables Windows Defender NetworkShare – scans infected network Nsudo-dropper – file dropper Credential Stealing – collecting credentials from infected machines Mimikatz – credential dumper, used for lateral movement across networks Defoff.bat DelSvc.bat Netscan – retrieves information about services running on infected machines PasswordRevealer – shows obfuscated passwords The numerous password-dumping tools used by these attackers indicates that harvesting credentials is a key part of their attack chain. Splitting allegiances In another ransomware attack that occurred in June 2021, it appears that attackers who usually encrypt networks using the Conti ransomware switched payloads and used the Sodinokibi ransomware instead. Initial activity in this attack followed the attackers’ usual playbook, deploying Cobalt Strike, an off-the-shelf remote access tool commonly seen used in ransomware attacks. This would usually be followed by them delivering Conti. Conti first appeared in December 2019 and has been seen used in some high-profile recent ransomware attacks, many targeting healthcare providers, including a May 2021 ransomware attack that crippled Ireland’s public health service provider, the HSE. However, in this recent attack, instead of deploying Conti, the attackers switched payloads and deployed Sodinokibi to encrypt several hundred machines on the network. Before Sodinokibi was deployed we saw the attackers use BitsAdmin when moving across the victim network, while they also carried out some other preliminary activity before deploying the ransomware, including disabling Microsoft Defender, disabling RealTime Monitoring, and deleting shadow copies. The attackers maintained a presence on the victim network for approximately three weeks before the Sodinokibi ransomware was deployed. While not common up to now, this isn’t the first time we have seen evidence of affiliates appearing to have access to more than one ransomware family at the same time. In the attack we talked about in our blog Ransomware: Growing Number of Attackers Using Virtual Machines, there was evidence the attacker had access to both the Mount Locker and Conti ransomware, and may have attempted to run one payload on a virtual machine and, when that didn’t work, ran Mount Locker on the host computer instead. Impact Affiliates switching between different ransomware families like this is yet another attempt by ransomware actors to increase the chances of their attacks succeeding, and it will be interesting to see whether or not this is a tactic we start to increasingly observe during ransomware attacks. Having access to multiple ransomware families increases the likelihood of affiliates being able to encrypt machines, increasing the dangers posed by these already dangerous attacks. This is just the latest development we have seen from ransomware actors, who are constantly refining their tactics in order to maximise their profits. The use of virtual machines was another example of attackers tweaking their approach in order to carry out a ransomware attack, while the emergence of double-extortion ransomware attacks last year, where attackers steal data and threaten to release it while also encrypting machines in ransomware attacks, led to one of the biggest shifts we saw in the ransomware landscape in recent times. The surge in LockBit activity that we have seen also shows that while some big ransomware names have shut down their operations in recent times, there are many other ransomware operators waiting to fill the space that has been left. Ransomware actors continue to change and refine their tactics in an effort to evade the security steps taken by organizations to stop these types of attacks, which is why ransomware remains one of the biggest threats on the cyber crime landscape in 2021. Protection/Mitigation For the latest protection updates, please visit the Symantec Protection Bulletin. Indicators of Compromise (IoCs) File hashes Descriptions Detection Names 66b4a0681cae02c302a9b6f1d611ac2df8c519d6024abdb506b4b166b93f636a Mimikatz Hacktool.Mimikatz c667c916b44a9d4e4dd06b446984f3177e7317f5f9cff91033d580d0cc617eaa LockBit Ransom.LockBit f47e3555461472f23ab4766e4d5b6f6fd260e335a6abc31b860e569a720a5446 Alias: NetworkShare Hacktool c4f3f4bd9ebd180388ed1812df0cd48e02a2393bccee822410cf28b44c44a382 LockBit Heur.AdvML.B 7e97f617ef7adbb2f1675871402203c245a0570ec35d92603f8f0c9e6347c04a LockBit Heur.AdvML.B 659ce17fd9d4c6aad952bc5c0ae93a748178e53f8d60e45ba1d0c15632fd3e3f Alias: Nsudo-dropper Trojan Horse ad9e1593f9d992ddb9d21495f06bd31a7e39ee7746510d66f0596c5dfbc4e8ab PasswordDumper PasswordRevealer bce5c2583c32efc411dddaaee8b63a36fe8010c284ddeb558246e81a62179323 LockBit Heur.AdvML.B dae5fbdaa53b4f08876e567cf661346475ff4ae39063744ca033537d6393639a LockBit Ransom.LockBit 068D94A8AD277637412AE710AB431789A5E6F020B6FB412FC2C06D5C00E5342A DelSvcBAT Trojan Horse 0A9E09A970E6E0EDEE2D9120F6E5020F7C1B75CCF7AD1A0C720A63E914099CF5 LockBit Trojan Horse 2DDDFD3FF13F0CAF9644E95F93F008590D54B521DCBC4DEFC9EB37801498DD51 Netscan Trojan Horse 5D74EFDF9062FE052E8676F9CA9AFB4BFF770B55AC98F51210E502061E706DB8 DelSvcBAT Trojan Horse 6C76C93867B28C070E32E17312B1FD1E01FC7BA2D7DC0AE2A0B96CD615F643F9 Unknown Trojan Horse A398C70A2B3BF8AE8B5CEDDF53FCF6DAA2B68AF2FADB76A8EA6E33B8BBE06F65 DefoffBAT Trojan Horse 36E33EB5280C23CBB57067F18514905E42F949250F95A5554F944180FCD5FE36 Mimikatz Trojan Horse 2e30bdb70372d97f5cd7c7d88d153b14668e78f5dfb868261673855baad08df9 8aabffacc45d8f044af81471c63a5f67e463480e1f6d3ab87307756af73ce67b 8df0c0544c50eae988b87c4e6083adca6753364a2ee55d1265c8a1a93399d3b6 f78b7cb4b959617a26308d0da0db61e57333ace1ce58a70ba705994554baf46c 7791490640e6a8fbc1b9df63bceb843c8a14675bfe27024bebb3107288dd3a72 b3221fa17d52cc4481cbcc7358f54f03bab295815da4428ff518994adc31789f 17afc0edec09efba9a72743b0099d3caf7edc46a00c24ee1e8a1bb51f1a257e1 daf7bccd4de5ea2774f31c0d4a55768be5cb11ce2b0b4c8ff45723af2906b62d Directory: csidl_windows\temp\temp\mimi\passrecpk Commands: net stop MSSQL$MSFW net stop MSSQL$ISARS net stop MSSQLServerADHelper100 net stop MSSQLServerADHelper100 net stop SQLAgent$ISARS net stop MSSQL$MSFW net stop MSSQL$ISARS net stop MSSQLServerADHelper100 net stop SQLAgent$MSFW net stop SQLAgent$ISARS net stop MicrosoftDependencyAgent net stop Veeam.Archiver.Service net stop "Microsoft Storsimple Management Service" /y net stop VeeamFilesysVssSvc net stop Veeam.Archiver.Proxy schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\Windows Defender\Windows Defender Cache Maintenance" /Disable schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\Windows Defender\Windows Defender Scheduled Scan" /Disable schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\Windows Defender\Windows Defender Cleanup" /Disable schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\ExploitGuard\ExploitGuard MDM policy Refresh" /Disable schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\Windows Defender\Windows Defender Verification" /Disable schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\Windows Defender\Windows Defender Scheduled Scan" /Disable schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\ExploitGuard\ExploitGuard MDM policy Refresh" /Disable schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\Windows Defender\Windows Defender Cache Maintenance" /Disable Symantec Enterprise Blogs YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY 4 MIN READ Ransomware: Growing Number of Attackers Using Virtual Machines Tactic hides ransomware payload and lowers the risk of discovery while encryption process is underway.
After a Year in the Bunker, CISOs Reflect on Lessons Learned Security execs from around the world share their experiences keeping their organizations secure during a pandemic The RSA Conference 2021 Virtual Experience is happening May 17-20 and Symantec, as a division of Broadcom, will be providing a summary of some of the leading stories from the conference to help you stay informed. After more than a year keeping their organizations secure during a global pandemic, what’s it like to be a CISO trying to focus on the job while family, friends and colleagues are getting sick and dying around them? “As security professionals, we are used to dealing with crises and so maybe that's why we do good at it,” said Florence Mottay, Senior Vice President Information Security and Global CISO for the Dutch grocery retail company, Ahold Delhaize. “We're expected to be calm. We're expected to be the strong ones. But the COVID-19 crisis was very different in that it also affected all of us personally.” Mottay, one of several senior security execs at the RSA Conference 2021 who shared their experiences via video hookup with former Symantec Chief Technology Officer Hugh Thompson, said her department initially functioned as if nothing odd was happening even as the pandemic rampaged throughout Europe. “Very quickly I realized that everyone on the team was trying to put on a brave face and act as if they had everything under control,” she recalled. “I think I was doing it too. But the fact is that we were all struggling in our own way.” Meanwhile, pandemic or no pandemic, the company was still growing and adding headcount. Ahold Delhaize ended up hiring 45,000 people in 2020. Other than the usual onboarding process, everything else was done remotely. “I couldn't even imagine – not just having to deal with the physical security implications and the new protocols and the things that have to happen in the stores. But also suddenly everybody's working remotely. The kind of stress this puts on the IT team when you've got a global security organization that's now being asked to secure this massive ecosystem. How do you manage the team through something like that?” Ahold Delhaize ended up hiring 45,000 people in 2020. Other than the usual onboarding process, everything else was done remotely. It was “challenging,” Mottay said, offering what might prove to be one of the biggest understatements of the entire conference. “I held a town hall just under two weeks after lock down with my entire team. And I shared that for me, it had been hard combining work and helping my daughters with distance learning and that I was worried about my family, about my grandmother.” She then introduced a concept to her team that she dubbed called “the vitamin shots.” Every morning, each team leader would hold a 30-minute meeting so people could talk about what they were feeling – their struggles, their fears, where we needed help; it was an exercise designed to get people to share and unburden themselves as much as possible. “I really encouraged the entire team to share as much as they felt comfortable with, of course, but just to share with others and just develop that system where they could trust each other. That's really helped. It worked out really well.” Not for the Faint of Heart During normal times, Marene Allison held down a big job as Johnson & Johnson’s CISO. The pandemic made it that much bigger. As J&J embarked on an accelerated project to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, the company became an even bigger-than-usual target for cyber gangs that specialized in attacking the healthcare industry. “COVID made us a target,” Allison said, adding that it forced her team “to do our very, very best work” to maintain resilience in the face of the stepped-up volume of threats. “I thought about the magnitude of what was before us, before my organization, before my information security, risk management group. When you know something is big, but you really don't know how big it is and being able to use almost everything I've learned...to be able to take an arrow out of the quiver and be able to say, `I got this. We got this.’ And it wasn't just the information security organization. It was the whole risk management at J&J.” She expressed great satisfaction at the job turned in by her team over the last year but after a year like the past one, Allison left Thompson with one final thought – “being a CSO is not for the faint of heart.” Year of Survival Like the other executives responsible for security when COVID struck, Reem Al-Shammari was forced to navigate a dramatically changed work world for her and her employer, the Kuwait Oil Company. “2020 was a year of survival,” she said. “It was about trying to grasp what has changed and a very unprecedented and accelerated digital transformation. And the business was in shock. We were the guardians that were being tested in real time.” But after being battle tested by a once-in-a-century health crisis, Al-Shammari said her team responded by growing stronger as it drew together in the face of a shared challenge. If 2020 was a year of survival, Al-Shammari predicted 2021 would be a year of resilience where the focus on excellence and agility would pay dividends. “As we have evolved, as we have learned through this year, we became closer to each other,” she said. “We wanted to strengthen the first line of defense as cyber security defenders, and that was by enriching the people.” Al-Shammari said she also recognized that cyber security was a culture that needed to be reflected everywhere, particularly as the Kuwait Oil Company underwent its own digital transformation. “I saw how crucial it is to embed these cyber security culture controls and measures effectively and efficiently,” she said. “It's not about an audit. It's not about compliance. It's about weaving cyber security into this technology and making your digital transformation journey very secure. And this is what we have done...building that partnership between cyber security and the business as we started to strengthen that trust relationship between each other.” If 2020 was a year of survival, Al-Shammari predicted 2021 would be a year of resilience where the focus on excellence and agility would pay dividends. “It's never about, `will we be attacked?’ It's just about when? So knowing that fact and being aware that we need to get cyber security involved and weaved into this transformation, this is where our success factors in.”
After the Breach What you can do today to protect critical and sensitive data Last week a historic data leak was discovered. While the long-term impact of this stolen data on the victims is still unknown, we can expect the damages to be high. According to IBM, the average cost of a single data breach globally reached an all-time high of $4.45 million in 2023. Investing in prevention technologies alone is no longer the answer. And just this week energy management and automation giant Schneider Electric made headlines when it was revealed that the company suffered a Cactus ransomware attack leading to the theft of terabytes of corporate data. Organizations need to understand that breaches will happen and must protect their critical assets, from customer and employee data and intellectual property to financial data, business plans and even source code. Data should be protected at every stage, from when it enters an organization until it is destroyed. In this piece, we will look at why data is so difficult to secure and share valuable insights to help you develop a strong and effective data lifecycle protection. Begin with data protection Organizations increasingly are moving away from perimeter-based security to adopting a Zero Trust framework. Today “identity” is the new perimeter. In fact, the first two tenets of the Zero Trust framework are “verify the identity of every user and device requesting access” and “enforce least privilege,” which is to help organizations prevent unauthorized access to data. This is an outside-in point of view. However, the third tenet, Assume Breach, takes a different perspective. Now the question you are asking yourself is this: Okay, despite all of my layers of security, a bad actor has gotten inside. How do I mitigate the damages he can do? What can I do to further reduce the risk that my data is stolen? This is an inside-out point of view. This is where our story begins – the data: Where is it created? Where is it stored? How is it used? When is it no longer needed? How is it destroyed? The enterprise needs to look at every stage of the data lifecycle and ask: How am I protecting this data? What could I do to help minimize damages if someone breaks through one or more layers of my security? Do we have all the protections for the complete data protection lifecycle? Remember, data lives everywhere – from mainframes and corporate devices to hybrid multi-cloud environments. And as the data grows, so does the risk. For example, let’s say data comes into the organization and goes into a single database. You then find that you’re replicating it five times to other databases or other user stores. Ask yourself: Is this necessary? Do I really need to create five targets for malicious users to run my business? Some organizations have the same data in a hundred different places. All you need to do is make a mistake in one of those places, and you put the data at risk. Understand what data you have and, if it is in multiple locations, consolidate it – it’s easier to protect one spot vs. hundreds. A Data-centric approach to security means that every decision made, every policy enforced and every action taken is done so with Data Protection top of mind. A data-centric implementation depends on strong DLP applied at every control point, applying consistent policy for web, SaaS, and private applications. DLP offers protection for data in-use, in-motion and at-rest. But it does not end there. As the ultimate safeguard, there’s a last line of data-centric protection – Encryption. Encryption: The last line of defense In our recently published ebook, “Welcome to the Jungle: Safeguarding your most valuable asset – your data,” we provide a great overview of the data protection challenges and provide five valuable best practices that can help address your data lifecycle protection strategy. While I encourage you to download this resource to get our complete recommendations, let’s take a closer look at one of the five best practices, “Encrypt data that is in your custody, and fully destroy it when it is no longer needed.” Regulatory requirements make encryption a necessity for many companies. Those needing to comply with regulations such as Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM), Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) must implement an auditable encryption solution to protect the privacy of customer data. Encrypting data is also the last line of defense – if adversaries have gotten through every layer of your protection, they can’t access it. It’s your last opportunity to mitigate the impact post-breach. The Symantec PGP® Encryption Suite is a new bundle that provides flexible data-at-rest and data-in-transit protection through three product offerings. Symantec Endpoint Encryption combines strong full-disk and removable media encryption with an intuitive central management platform to protect sensitive data from loss or theft. It also helps administrators prove that a device was encrypted should it go missing. Symantec PGP File Share Encryption extends file server access controls to include robust end-to-end encryption. Administrators can set encryption policies for content such as documents, spreadsheets, presentations, videos, and audio. The Symantec PGP Encryption Suite also provides the option to secure data in motion through a third product, Symantec Desktop Email Encryption, which protects email communications through automated encryption, decryption, digital signing, and message verification. This encryption process takes place at the client level, ensuring that communications remain secure prior to traversing internal networks or being stored within cloud repositories. You can find more details about the role this solution can play in your overall data protection strategy in our solution brief, “Safeguarding Data throughout Its Lifecycle.” What’s Next With the governor’s signing of New Jersey’s privacy law on January 16, 2024, New Jersey became the 14th U.S. state to pass a comprehensive data protection law. As we look ahead to the rest of the year, we can expect the need to protect data to continue to evolve and penalties to climb. The good news is that there are steps you can take today to mitigate your risk. We invite you to reach out to Broadcom to see how we can help.
After Triton, Will the Industrial Threat Landscape Ever be the Same? Researchers say it’s easier than ever to acquire the malware to wage a destructive attack The cyber attack against a Saudi oil and gas petrochemical facility in the summer of 2017 opened a new and troubling page in the history of cyber warfare, marking the first time that malware targeted industrial safety equipment. Unlike the code used in the 2010 Stuxnet attack that knocked out centrifuges at an Iranian uranium enrichment facility, the malware featured in this attack, called Triton, was designed to disrupt the behavior of the safety instrumented system that monitored the performance of critical systems. This was a milestone event. Without the protection of a last line of safety defense, a cyber attack that interferes with a facility’s automatic emergency shutdown processes could lead to equipment or operational failures that cause injury or the loss of life. The danger was averted this time because the malware was discovered before it could disrupt the plant’s operations. But there’s no putting the genie back into the bottle. Researchers presenting at the recent BlackHat 2018 conference simulated how Triton might be used to wage a destructive attack. They also provided a narrative explaining how someone might acquire the resources necessary to obtain the Triton engineering tools to execute a malicious payload. It didn’t take much – just some clever sleuthing along with reverse engineering skills. As more old line heavy industries digitize their processes and connect them to outside networks, malicious hackers are probing new points of vulnerability – and finding them. “You don’t have to be a government to build an attack like Triton,” said Andrea Carcano, Nozomi Networks’ co-founder and chief product officer, pointing to several trends that have come together to clear the way for threat actors to attack industrial control systems (ICS). Increased connectivity with IT networks and the internet has greatly increased the attack surface. Dedicated tools and information found on the internet make the life of a hacker much easier. Advanced exploitation tools, frameworks and malware samples are readily available. There were no examples of ICS malware frameworks on the internet before Stuxnet. Nowadays, you can locate several, including Triton. ICS equipment and documentation are easy to procure. The number of published ICS device vulnerabilities is growing, with slow implementation of counter-measures. The researchers took no solace from the fact that Triton failed this time around. The attacker might just as easily have been able to inject the final payload successfully. Indeed, fellow BlackHat presenter, independent researcher Marina Krotofil, said that Triton has the potential to transform the concept of cyber war by executing arbitrary code to reach a “kinetic” stage where industrial plants start exploding. It’s a scenario that’s no longer beyond the realm of imagination. As more old line heavy industries digitize their processes and connect them to outside networks, malicious hackers are probing new points of vulnerability – and finding them. And since modern safety instrumented systems are software-based, Krotofil continued, that means “they can be exploited.” Triton hasn’t been much in the news since the incident at the Saudi petrochemical plant. But Carcano suggested that this may be a respite with Triton featuring in future copycat attacks against industrial targets. Given that the expertise and the financial resources needed to create the Triton malware were lower than originally expected, he said industrial sites need to remain vigilant and more closely monitor the security of their equipment with auditing and forensic tools before Triton-like exploits become common. Because if there’s one constant when it comes to the history of cyber threats, past very often turns out to be prologue. “As soon as a new exploitation technique becomes available,” Carcano said, “everybody jumps on the bandwagon.” If you found this information useful, you may also enjoy: Trojan.Trisis
Agencies Continue to Benefit from the NIST Cyber Security Framework The CSF has played an invaluable role helping organizations manage their cyber security risk The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Cyber Security Framework (CSF) recently celebrated its fifth birthday. By the end of next year, Gartner estimates that 50% of organizations will have implemented the NIST Framework. This is a long way from the early days when technology leaders instituted the CSF to provide cover and defend their actions. Back then, the belief was that if a breach happened, technology leaders could deflect blame by pointing out they followed the federal government’s recommendation, almost as a way to avoid getting in trouble. However, as these organizations adopted the CSF an interesting thing happened. They began to find its utility, even if their original goal for using the CSF was perhaps not what the framework’s authors imagined. As I discussed on a recent GovLoop webinar with Matt Barrett, who was the NIST Program Manager, Cyber Security Framework (access it on-demand), there are many lessons learned from the first five years of implementing the CSF that can be used going forward. Full Organizational Buy-In More than anything, the data shows that organizations – no matter what industry or sector they operate within – must have complete buy-in from all stakeholders. That can be difficult but remains a key aspect of a successful implementation. In the government sector, this can be especially challenging. Take the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for example. There are 21 institutes that make up the NIH, which itself is part of the much larger Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). Not only will the 21 institutes need to support the CSF, but they must align their cyber security efforts upstream with DHHS in order to provide a comprehensive view of their cyber security posture. Organizations must also contend with multiple compliance requirements, budgetary constraints, a “one and done” mentality where the CSF is used once and then forgotten, and a lack of understanding from leadership about the importance of following the CSF. One way Symantec helps customers understand and adopt the CSF is to host what we call a Cyber DNA Workshop. The workshop gathers all the key stakeholders in an organization and walks them through a process to help them define their “Current” Profile. We ask them a series of questions based on the Subcategories of the CSF – to determine desired outcomes, and the priority of each outcome – which we use to generate a report the customer can use to prioritize steps to get to their “Target” Profile. Properly Managing Risk The CSF itself does not tell you how to improve cyber security. It is intended to help organizations manage their cyber security risk. By using the CSF, organizations can determine what part of their cyber operations are working and what areas need improvement. They can then prioritize improvements and upgrades, mapping out a multi-year plan to improve their cyber security posture. That said, similar to all cyber initiatives, the CSF is designed to be a continuous process versus a “one and done.” Organizations will need to reassess themselves against the CSF when new risks emerge as technologies, threats and priorities change. It is hard to believe the CSF just passed the five-year mark. In many ways, it seems like a “tried and true” pillar of cyber we’ve always had, while at the same time feeling new and innovative. While the Gartner numbers show great progress (I believe their 50% adoption prediction will prove to be low), there are still a lot of organizations that yet to benefit from the approach the CSF lays out. Please download our infographic, watch the webinar and let Symantec know how we can help your organization take advantage of the CSF. Also, make sure to join us for a GovLoop nano-course on the CSF. This course features three lessons on the CSF with a quick quiz at the end to test your skills.
AI Seen as Taking Increasingly Lead Role in Fight against Cyber Threats The business world has been slow to incorporate AI as a security measure but that’s going to change in 2019 More than 25 years ago, the worldwide web was likened to the wild west – a virtual frontier lined with black hats gunning to spread viruses that latched onto computers, erase their data and, even worse, shut them down for good. Those dark days persist – and show little sign of brightening in the near future. Today, the daily news abounds with reports of hackers breaking into the seemingly impenetrable computer networks of government agencies, political organizations and banking, retail and hotel giants and making off with everything from confidential data to social security, credit card and passport information. These security breaches are hardly surprising: as security programs have gotten increasingly more sophisticated, so too have cyber criminals, who are often at least one-step ahead of the risk management tools designed to thwart their malevolence. According to the most recent study by The Risk Institute at The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business, 28% of firms have been victims of a cyber attack, with the number far higher for financial companies, and while 33% of all firms remain vulnerable to a cyber attack, the proportion increases to 50% for those in the financial sector. Enter artificial intelligence, which has gained momentum within the cyber security field as a mechanism not only for enhancing processes but mitigating risks, said Phil Renaud, executive director of The Risk Institute. But AI is no panacea, according to experts. As security programs have gotten increasingly more sophisticated, so too have cyber criminals. “In the hands of cyber criminals, artificial intelligence is used to fashion more sophisticated, targeted spear phishing emails that can more readily avoid detection,” said Steve Weisman, a professor who focuses on white-collar crime, including cyber security, at Bentley University in Waltham, University. In addition, AI technology requires constant human oversight – which taxes already overburdened security operations personnel – and it can lead to false positives. Plus, cyber hackers have deployed AI to infiltrate government and corporate networks. While Symantec’s products have targeted AI against cyber threats for more than a decade, it continues to research and develop tools that can achieve more accurate results, said Leyla Bilge, a technical director who leads the firm’s European research labs. Its current research, said Bilge, involves “deep learning,” which utilizes AI-based algorithms to solve problems even in the face of a dissimilar, amorphous and interconnected data set. While such AI-based algorithms are now better at understanding the data and recognizing critical associations that humans might miss, deep learning is far from foolproof. “We can detect more things but sometimes, the algorithm will decide based on elements that don’t matter, such as extraneous information,” which can lead to false positive alerts, said Bilge. “So, at the end of the day, we still keep humans in the loop because we can’t rely on AI by itself.” External Challenges Abound Although many AI applications, predictions and detections are based on models created from data-sharing, the industry is prohibited from gathering such information in Europe, where strict laws protect the sharing, transferring and use of personnel data. “Our hands are tied if you can’t collect data from people,” said Yufei Han, a Symantec senior principle researcher. And even when data is readily available, attackers have the know-how to corrupt it, thereby reducing its quality and calling into question the validity of the model based on the shared data, he said. In the article “How AI Advancements Are Affecting Security, Cyber Security and Hacking,” which ran on Technopedia’s site, writer Claudio Buttice noted that AI could potentially turn into an even more dangerous and powerful tool in the wrong hands. “If the automation level,” Buttice mused, “brought by AI can increase the scale of their attacks, especially if they're able to recruit vast armies of machine-learning-powered bots, IoT botnets will be a much larger threat.” Looking ahead, more companies are likely to utilize AI for security purposes in 2019. As cyber villains become increasingly more adept at surreptitiously wending their way into computer networks, the security industry has significantly stepped up its focus on AI as a preventive measure against invasion. At several professional conferences this year, the program incorporated AI as a defensive strategy, not just as a detection tool with a warning alert, said Han. But whether AI is positioned as a warning or defense tool, the business world has been slow to incorporate it as a security measure. Today, just 15% of enterprises are using AI, with top-performing companies deploying the technology for marketing purposes, according to Adobe’s 8th annual “Digital Trends” report. Looking ahead, more companies are likely to utilize AI for security purposes in 2019. According to a report from The Risk Institute, 60% of risk managers believe AI will play a role in their firms’ risk management in the near future. Some firms, like TransPerfect, a New York-headquartered global translation company, have begun evaluating the players, getting their references and testing out products. With the proliferation of start-up cyber security firms and products, as well as the hype surrounding AI, CTO Mark Hagerty refers to the firm’s efforts as “an educational process that takes a fair among of time.” And as part of its due diligence, Hagerty said, IT needs to determine "which companies are going to make it -- since a new product involves an investment in training people on how to use it, as well as tailoring it for our specific needs." If you found this information useful, you may also enjoy: Symantec Global Intelligence Network
Almost 100 Organizations in Brazil Targeted with Banking Trojan Recent campaign shows that this kind of activity is an ongoing threat for organizations and individuals in Latin America. Up to 100 organizations in Brazil have been targeted with a banking Trojan since approximately late August 2021, with the most recent activity seen in early October. This campaign appears to be a continuation of activity that was published about by researchers at ESET in 2020. The attackers appeared to be undeterred by exposure and Symantec, a division of Broadcom Software, has found a large number of new indicators of compromise (IOCs) relating to this latest wave of attacks. Symantec’s Threat Hunter Team first became aware of this recent campaign when suspicious activity was spotted in a customer environment on September 30, 2021. This initial suspicious activity was detected by our Cloud Analytics technology, and further investigation found that attempts were being made to download a suspicious file named mpr.dll onto the customer’s environment. Msiexec.exe was attempting to download the file from a suspicious URL. Further analysis indicated that five files were downloaded, four of which were signed and appeared to be legitimate DLL files, but the file named mpr.dll was not signed and was suspiciously large for a single DLL file at 588 MB. Symantec researchers concluded that this was a “Latin American banking Trojan”, due to the similar characteristics and file names seen in this campaign and in the research into Latin American banking Trojans published by ESET in 2020. Further investigation by our analysts revealed similar activity had been aimed at multiple different organizations since late August 2021. In fact, as many as 98 organizations may have been targeted with similar activity, with all affected organizations based in Brazil. The sectors targeted with this activity included information technology, professional services, manufacturing, financial services, and government. What is a “Latin American banking Trojan”? Banking Trojans are a type of malware designed to steal victims’ online banking information so malicious actors can access victims’ bank accounts. Once on a machine, the malware typically works by monitoring the websites victims are visiting and comparing these to a hardcoded list. If the victim visits a banking website the Trojan will generally display a spoofed login page in a pop-up over the legitimate page in an attempt to harvest victims’ banking credentials. These pop-ups are generally made to imitate the specific banks’ legitimate login pages and are often quite convincing. While once one of the biggest threats on the cyber-crime landscape, banking Trojans have been usurped in many parts of the world by ransomware in recent times. However, in Latin America particularly they still dominate a lot of cyber-crime activity. In its 2020 report, ESET determined that there were 11 banking Trojan gangs operating in Latin America, and that these groups cooperated with each other. It came to this conclusion due to the many shared tactics, tools, and procedures used by the cyber criminals deploying banking Trojans in Latin America. Attack chain for recent activity We did not observe what the initial infection vector was in this campaign, but it was likely a malicious URL spread via either spam email campaigns or through malvertising, which is typically the first step in Latin American banking Trojan campaigns. Victims are then directed to one of the following malicious URLs: hxxps://centreldaconsulta[.]com/ hxxps://www.centralcfconsulta[.]net/ hxxps://centralcfconsulta[.]net/index3.php?api=vFUMIfUzGz2QdjxTFKAMyTlh hxxps://centralcfconsulta.net/ hxxps://www.centralcfconsulta[.]net/index3.php?api=r0ubnHRxDycEy5uFPViNA55Y3t hxxps://www.centralcfconsulta[.]net/index3.php?api=4DQSbdp3hLqPRGTbOGtl7jCD9FKNViKXmKd9Lv hxxps://centreldaconsulta[.]com/index3.php?api=nJsdr1J3h0fsG18sRAVQt6JjVW hxxps://centreldaconsulta[.]com/index3.php?api=ThMyMCAQEOLIC9nO hxxps://www.centralcfconsulta[.]net/index3.php?api=wen1eIFCeUh0jAS3mWIDUhSLt3sXMQ Victims are then redirected to an Amazon Web Services (AWS) URL, which it appears the attackers abused to use as a command-and-control (C&C) server. A ZIP file that contains a Microsoft Software Installer (MSI) file is downloaded from the AWS infrastructure. ESET reported that most gangs deploying banking Trojans in Latin America had started using MSI files as an initial download in 2019. An MSI file can be used to install, uninstall, and update applications running on Windows systems. If the victim double-clicks the MSI file inside the downloaded ZIP, it will execute msiexec.exe, which then connects to a secondary C&C server to download another ZIP file containing the payload (mpr.dll), along with other legitimate portable executable (PE) files. The URLs observed being accessed by msiexec.exe included: hxxp://13.36.240[.]208/ando998.002 hxxp://13.36.240[.]208/msftq.doge hxxp://15.237.60[.]133/esperanca.lig2 hxxp://15.237.60[.]133/esperanca.liga hxxp://52.47.163[.]237/microsft.crts hxxp://52.47.163[.]237/nanananao.uooo hxxp://15.237.27[.]77/carindodone.ways The extracted ZIP file contains a renamed legitimate Oracle application - VBoxTray.exe. This is executed to load the payload (mpr.dll) by way of DLL search-order hijacking. DLL search-order hijacking takes advantage of how Windows handles DLLs to allow an attacker to load malicious code into a legitimate process. The mpr.dll file is also bigger than 100 MB in order to evade submission to security services, which tend not to process files above that size. Both of these files and this exact same process were observed in the banking Trojan activity detailed in ESET’s report. Persistence is then created for the renamed VBoxTray.exe so that mpr.dll is always side-loaded into it by way of either Windows Registry or Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). This is another common technique used in the attack chain for Latin American banking Trojans. Stay alert for this activity The various steps taken by the attackers behind this activity to evade detection - such as using a large file for the payload so that it won’t be scanned by security software, and leveraging legitimate processes and applications for malicious purposes - show that those behind this attack campaign are reasonably sophisticated actors. The number of organizations affected in this campaign also indicates that a large number of people are likely responsible for this activity - and it may be that more than one group is behind this activity. It could be a number of groups acting in a cooperative manner, as ESET said may be the approach taken by the various banking Trojan attack groups operating in Latin America. While ransomware dominates much of the discussion on the cyber-crime landscape at the moment, it is important to remember it is not the only threat out there. Banking Trojans have the potential to be a costly problem for individuals and organizations, so people, especially those based in Latin America where this activity appears to be particularly prevalent, need to remain alert to this threat. Simple steps, like ensuring you have multi-factor authentication enabled on all financial accounts, can help lessen the impact of threats like these. Protection File-based: Infostealer.Bancos For the latest protection updates, please visit the Symantec Protection Bulletin. Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) IOC Description ad6116abb88fd0383cf6f5a9f66a6ad8dda2be06bdc02a0fc071584689b69055 ZIP 0ee61e700ce0c71afe9bb2c8d7c253b560ddf535c3fd1f633b67e27f68731963 ZIP 35bbbe15471d45d7abb9300576eaee8f2f4d68d469b2cfc816342847e8f91db2 ZIP cf7417c7dcaa27add45bfbba9984f40e0d11c24030a2036c44bd8591a54b4f8f ZIP dee81a0164862d8be16e42177be61d78e82c8e903cbae3686c170b7a81e41f24 ZIP e0c2ce9a2f7ae075e2fee6960af3c69c45fc41ce101499e5697599389a35cb85 ZIP ff8897e5fff9f76bf8d84d478d476f5a9278cbe0a355781224b69c0a28ab4540 ZIP b0c1c6ee59144ae7fbed50a4da8abf8a04510759699076728f2ccfa45ac6fa37 ZIP 0cb4baaaad8751fe293739ddd874437b5b3c6e4ad72747bb9327db6cc74317a8 ZIP 1f6bc4e5c07c3c74764581f1b35c401a5857228a15948402a9bde765d6d58cb3 ZIP 2b85c92db126e93658f2e74da11b3a0ca8001a4f33f293b0e796d952c8d543d9 MSI 52c8236da569e448127dd0735943ae8ad16428e026883c78aae6b0853efc7ece MSI 7cf033b0d80e07c2b5b0675c8aa09a3b3108135b9b2e1d053d52f19964eebc7d MSI 8240909d109da9fd2969ff56bf64a8d75de256539dc825c0c5739b7dc57d5eb5 MSI 8cf0b8b993bba3b1aa3b4b7980d9d784b048dd45c47699a0e04121dd89f2152e MSI 9aeb864a3e587bee375c20eb953750c62ecd58d8f7c1feb2212d3d027c74232f MSI b2c317529c7f95db85867bce6085878ed8db7bdb89f6283708b4261f73808b95 MSI cd66d3f21ec3d4751df942e057e4cad548922f02a9d2253e402b5f7d878b3a39 MSI cfe570c69f1794e9c6c950761f6f2cc1b553d53c82563982850ef8cb77442b35 MSI d5bb070c69c88f3e8de09d17c77dd57bad9adde8c03d625f4497d3a4bcc8892e MSI feb86261d3d6551d92fc1e5554f22a1e9aeece4b5ed5737587580613b6a1d55d mpr.dll e118e0898e000e10c26376d73f5571e2b185c2c4789ed9b5d36bce166dc1dd17 mpr.dll 5ee4719fc1be0238875ad3d79260d09677bf110b4add8057d767e34b5a3d716d mpr.dll 2081f9406af8936ff0c638df9191da763848bea0aae328c54f8e18419d9cd0df mpr.dll 86bb40de9a98c277d29a677b1c1a54f88741ebe9418e7354ec65519102703fb9 mpr.dll 160500920795f38338d2fa12be80fb7a52d804c3d843626832a42c93bd4d28ee mpr.dll 61c0e242c7a959dd673a4abded8a47ab02b919319666d9e81f9ac213a08fc90e mpr.dll 993017c033afb58545d0f5d76288d54bf008cfbc10e19794a152adf3b59f5fbf mpr.dll c01cf8ad6e85743ed687e131b53b90e8cee72d20b50f7faebd7ac793df1d1c1d mpr.dll 2bb4f701a97222d52af5623dba6cd61cae37527a2dd866fe246bbb2f55bdceb4 mpr.dll 5516bfffad1229f65bee736bec6f121abcddab8b5f673d98836e9d68c67c8194 mpr.dll 939cdcfdd19b78ad35d1cad2af8baf31413d180639bb0022eb0796c82fcc64ef mpr.dll 5e54d306f17f39b78ccc79cc19c12b0ff3ba1ea4e0785b58f9ff55e8b5578a07 mpr.dll a1e414d88df22263827233fc65fc8e4114ded43b8d14bd1c09956d834eba525e mpr.dll hxxps://centreldaconsulta[.]com/ URL hxxps://www.centralcfconsulta[.]net/ URL hxxps://centralcfconsulta[.]net/index3.php?api=vFUMIfUzGz2QdjxTFKAMyTlh URL hxxps://centralcfconsulta[.]net/ URL hxxps://www.centralcfconsulta[.]net/index3.php?api=r0ubnHRxDycEy5uFPViNA55Y3t URL hxxps://www.centralcfconsulta[.]net/index3.php?api=4DQSbdp3hLqPRGTbOGtl7jCD9FKNViKXmKd9Lv URL hxxps://centreldaconsulta[.]com/index3.php?api=nJsdr1J3h0fsG18sRAVQt6JjVW URL hxxps://centreldaconsulta[.]com/index3.php?api=ThMyMCAQEOLIC9nO URL hxxps://www.centralcfconsulta[.]net/index3.php?api=wen1eIFCeUh0jAS3mWIDUhSLt3sXMQ URL hxxp://13.36.240[.]208/ando998.002 URL hxxp://13.36.240[.]208/msftq.doge URL hxxp://15.237.60[.]133/esperanca.lig2 URL hxxp://15.237.60[.]133/esperanca.liga URL hxxp://52.47.163[.]237/microsft.crts URL hxxp://52.47.163[.]237/nanananao.uooo URL hxxp://15.237.27[.]77/carindodone.ways URL

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