Dark Reading is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them.Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Database Security
Authentication
Mobile
Privacy
Compliance
Careers and People
Identity & Access Management
Security Monitoring
Advanced Threats
Insider Threats
Vulnerability Management
Comments
Advanced Attacks Call For New Defenses
Newest First  |  Oldest First  |  Threaded View
sweerek
sweerek,
 User Rank: Apprentice
5/1/2012 | 7:03:52 PM
re: Advanced Attacks Call For New Defenses
Even better than no root is no persistence. Boot the machine from ROM (think LiveCD) and then reboot occasionally to insure a pristine machine. -áAlso, don't 'not allow' but rather not even provide the code/kernel to do those things. In other words, don't lockdown, gut instead. -áThese and other approaches are old hat to AFRL and form the Three Tenets of CyberSecurity -- see-áhttp://spi.dod.mil/tenets.htm. Wrt clients, the solution is Secure End Nodes, see -áhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.... -á
sweerek
sweerek,
 User Rank: Apprentice
5/1/2012 | 6:58:24 PM
re: Advanced Attacks Call For New Defenses
The best yet weak solution will be some new software or patch. -áYou cannot have a true sandbox on the same hardware. -áInstead, why not use many-many core processors to each run their own environment (OS, apps, etc.) and contain it there. -áAFRL created something like this about a decade ago, called the Cyber Sensing Station ---áhttp://spi.dod.mil/docs/CSS_DS.... -áIt was built for many remote users to have full root / hardware access to servers, yet not exfiltrate data. -áWrt this article and jumping ahead a decade, each environ could run on its own hardware (not VM) yet be bounded inward & outward by hardware. -áJust a thought.....
macker490
macker490,
 User Rank: Ninja
5/1/2012 | 1:10:07 PM
re: Advanced Attacks Call For New Defenses
you got it!! production machines need to be locked down and then certified using a Software Inventory Audit.-á If they pass the audit they get a production certificate (x.509 ) which remains valid until the machine requires maintenanace.-á as soon as maintenace starts its x.509 certificate is REVOKED .After the maintenance it will be re-certified and a new certificate created.

MSFT AppLocker is a very important concept in this. In AppLocker YOU specify what OS and apps you will allow; anything else is ejected.

remember: the common element in hacking is un-authorized programming, used to compromise the operation of the victim.
macker490
macker490,
 User Rank: Ninja
5/1/2012 | 1:04:23 PM
re: Advanced Attacks Call For New Defenses
System Intake: where you have web-browsers and e/mail programs taking in data pages all day every day -- and Hackers busy building kits to manufacture polymorphic virus attacks, well yes: you do need to proceed with the idea that you are going to take in some bad code

and that bad code will attempt to direct one of your applications to do something it should never have been allowed to do: update your system

and so: the "sandbox"-á -- essentially Problem State a'la System /360, c.1965

way to go, margie [belated applause]

the appearance of executable documents -- i.e. documents containing Java, Visual Basic etc creates a new and worse problem: what occurs if an executable document is moved from its intake area into another directory on the system and is picked up by a user or process that has sensitive privileges?

creating executable documents was a bad idea to begin with but now that we have them we will have to determine what to do when such a document is moved from its intake area

this will turn out to be an ugly problem
CiscoJones
CiscoJones,
 User Rank: Apprentice
5/1/2012 | 12:36:51 PM
re: Advanced Attacks Call For New Defenses
Just a quick thought.-á We need two new operating systems.-á One for Dev and Q&A and the other for Prod.-á The Prod server has two modes: maintenance and on-line.-á When in on-line mode, nothing can be changed and least privilege is strictly enforced with no admin privileges.-á Any admin changes will be done when the server is put into maintenance mode which will force all Internet applications (web, ftp, ssh, email, etc...) to shut down.-á The Prod server will not allow connections to originate from it to the outside world so browsing, ftp/tftp, file share, etc... clients will not work.-á The only way for an admin to move files on or off the server will be through the security hardened console mode.-á Logs will be configured in maintenance mode to send to a SIEM in an encrypted tunnel.-á This should fix the server issue.-á Protecting the clients is going to be tougher.-á
Bprince
Bprince,
 User Rank: Ninja
5/1/2012 | 2:31:03 AM
re: Advanced Attacks Call For New Defenses
I think there is room for both Arkin and Wang's points of view. Both are correct in a sense...
Brian Prince, InformationWeek/Dark Reading Comment Moderator


Edge-DRsplash-10-edge-articles
I Smell a RAT! New Cybersecurity Threats for the Crypto Industry
David Trepp, Partner, IT Assurance with accounting and advisory firm BPM LLP,  7/9/2021
News
Attacks on Kaseya Servers Led to Ransomware in Less Than 2 Hours
Robert Lemos, Contributing Writer,  7/7/2021
Commentary
It's in the Game (but It Shouldn't Be)
Tal Memran, Cybersecurity Expert, CYE,  7/9/2021
Register for Dark Reading Newsletters
White Papers
Video
Cartoon
Current Issue
The 10 Most Impactful Types of Vulnerabilities for Enterprises Today
Managing system vulnerabilities is one of the old est - and most frustrating - security challenges that enterprise defenders face. Every software application and hardware device ships with intrinsic flaws - flaws that, if critical enough, attackers can exploit from anywhere in the world. It's crucial that defenders take stock of what areas of the tech stack have the most emerging, and critical, vulnerabilities they must manage. It's not just zero day vulnerabilities. Consider that CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog lists vulnerabilitlies in widely used applications that are "actively exploited," and most of them are flaws that were discovered several years ago and have been fixed. There are also emerging vulnerabilities in 5G networks, cloud infrastructure, Edge applications, and firmwares to consider.
Flash Poll
Twitter Feed
Dark Reading - Bug Report
Bug Report
Enterprise Vulnerabilities
From DHS/US-CERT's National Vulnerability Database
CVE-2023-1172
PUBLISHED: 2023-03-17
The Bookly plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the full name value in versions up to, and including, 21.5 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that w...
CVE-2023-1469
PUBLISHED: 2023-03-17
The WP Express Checkout plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the ‘pec_coupon[code]’ parameter in versions up to, and including, 2.2.8 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for authenti...
CVE-2023-1466
PUBLISHED: 2023-03-17
A vulnerability was found in SourceCodester Student Study Center Desk Management System 1.0. It has been rated as critical. This issue affects the function view_student of the file admin/?page=students/view_student. The manipulation of the argument id with the input 3' AND (SELECT 2100 FROM (SELECT(...
CVE-2023-1467
PUBLISHED: 2023-03-17
A vulnerability classified as critical has been found in SourceCodester Student Study Center Desk Management System 1.0. Affected is an unknown function of the file Master.php?f=delete_img of the component POST Parameter Handler. The manipulation of the argument path with the input C%3A%2Ffoo.txt le...
CVE-2023-1468
PUBLISHED: 2023-03-17
A vulnerability classified as critical was found in SourceCodester Student Study Center Desk Management System 1.0. Affected by this vulnerability is an unknown functionality of the file admin/?page=reports&date_from=2023-02-17&date_to=2023-03-17 of the component Report Handler. The manipula...