Tenable Blog

Don't Fall Off The Stool

When I developed the course "Advanced Vulnerability Scanning Techniques Using Nessus", I wanted to mention some of the trade-offs we make when we perform vulnerability scans using different configurations. Nessus creator Renaud Deraison helped point out that it seems to come down to three factors: speed, intrusiveness and comprehensiveness. What I found was that these three factors were extremely important throughout the duration of the class, and I realize that for vulnerability scanning and vulnerability management, these factors must be taken into consideration.

It’s All About the Information

"There's a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it's not about who's got the most bullets. It's about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think... it's all about the information!"

The last part of the quote above always seems to play in my head during the course of an average day in information security. It really is all about information in many different aspects. One aspect I would like to highlight is collecting information about those who are attacking you. Specific information potentially useful to those defending networks and systems could be:

• The Software Itself - Perhaps the most useful information you can have, understanding what the malicious software (a.k.a. "malware") does is critical in being able to detect, prevent and remove it from your systems.
• The Users - Understanding how and why the end-user is using the software can provide some useful information (admittedly not as useful as analyzing the software itself). Malware can give an attacker a host of features. Knowing which ones are using it for denial of service attacks, and which groups are stealing bank data can help aid detection and forensics analysis (on both the system and the network).
• The Programmer - Probably the least useful to those defending networks on an everyday basis. Most authors of malware are most-likely motivated by profit, and create software to sell on the black market. Sometimes interesting things can be found in the software itself, indicating potentially where the software was created and providing hints as to the author's skill level.

I'd like to highlight some of the above information in this article (and an upcoming podcast) as it relates to botnets and malware. There is an endless supply of malware designed to perform a wide-array of "evil biddings". There is an entire economy behind botnets, including outsourcing, marketing and shady business schemes. All of this activity is happening on our networks today, leading to service disruptions from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks to theft of banking information.

Tenable has produced several configuration audits and updates to enterprise products, such as the Log Correlation Engine (LCE) and Passive Vulnerability Scanner (PVS), to help detect this activity in your environment. Nessus ProfessionalFeed customers can download the configuration auditing files that detect malware from the Tenable Support Portal Virus Detection Policies page (requires a Tenable Support Portal Login). For more detailed information on how Nessus is able to detect viruses, refer to the article Auditing Infected Systems for Viruses and Trojans with Nessus.

Tenable has authored a Nessus plugin (ID 46689) named “Cisco IOS Compliance Checks” that implements the APIs used to audit systems running Cisco IOS. This plugin is pre-compiled with the Nessus “.nbin” format. This provides ProfessionalFeed users a method of using Tenable provided .audit files, or their own audit policies, to audit Cisco devices to ensure compliance with corporate policy. This functionality provides a wide range of audit capability including ACL policy detection, service status, device access control and more.

New Keywords

Many of the .audit keywords are the same as for other devices such as Windows and Unix systems. The Cisco compliance checks add two new keywords specific to Cisco IOS based devices:

• feature_set - Similar to the “system” keyword in the Unix Compliance Checks, this keyword checks the Feature Set (e.g. AdvancedEnterprise, AdvancedIP, Advanced Security, K9, etc) version of the Cisco IOS and either runs the resulting check or skips the check because of a failed regex. This is useful for cases where a check is only applicable to systems with a particular Feature Set (e.g. SSH in K8 and K9 bundles).
• ios_version - Similar to the “system” keyword in the Unix Compliance Checks, this keyword checks the version of the Cisco IOS and either runs the resulting check or skips the check because of a failed regex. This is useful for cases where a check is only applicable to systems with a particular IOS version.

Here we go again - another massive “Patch Tuesday”, brought to you by Microsoft. This particular bundle addresses 34 vulnerabilities in Windows, IE, Office, .NET Framework, IIS and Sharepoint, a tie for the largest vulnerability count in a single Microsoft Patch Tuesday to date. The advisories include a wide range of vulnerabilities including code execution, privilege escalation, information disclosure, denial of service and cross-site scripting (XSS).

Among the vulnerabilities addressed in June’s updates are two issues that were recognized by Microsoft in February and April. Three of the ten updates have been given severity ratings of “critical” while the other seven are rated as “important”. Six updates affect the Windows operating system, including Microsoft’s newest OS, Windows 7. As always, Tenable has released Nessus plugins to perform credentialed checks to detect each of these vulnerabilities and help aid your remediation processes.

Patch Tuesday Breakdown and Thoughts:

With the release of Nessus 4.2.2 a new method of credential elevation has been included for Unix-based hosts that have sudo installed: “su+sudo.” This method allows you to provide credentials for an account that does not have sudo permissions, su to a user account that does, and then issue the sudo command. 

This configuration provides greater security for your credentials during scanning, and satisfies compliance requirements for many organizations.

To enable this feature, simply select “su+sudo” in the “Elevate privileges with” section under the credentials/SSH settings as shown in the following screen shot:

Under the “SSH user name”, and “SSH password” tabs, enter the credentials that do not have sudo privileges. In the example above, the user account is “raven.” From the “Elevate privileges with” pull-down menu, select “su+sudo.” Under the “su login” and “su/sudo password” tabs enter the user name and password that do have privileged credentials, in this example “sumi.”

No other scan policy changes are required.

Microsoft's Language

No, I'm not talking about C# or Visual Basic, I'm referring to Microsoft's very own version of the English language ("Minglish"?). An example of the Microsoft variation on the English language is shown here:

"The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user visits a malicious e-mail server."

We've addressed the "could allow" statement in a previous post (for example, changing your shoes “could allow” you to win the lottery). We've also addressed the "remote code" execution and dug into what that really means. In this case, it takes on a slightly different meaning from the traditional remote buffer overflow or client-side attacks. The part that is brand new to the "Minglish" language is "if a user visits a malicious e-mail server". Let me get this straight: you not only have to be running the vulnerable software but must also think to yourself, "Gee, I wonder what a malicious e-mail server looks like? I think I will re-configure my email client to connect to pop3.evilbadguy.com and find out".

As always we are excited to announce a new release of the Nessus vulnerability scanner. This is a point release (moving from 4.2.1 to 4.2.2) and applies fixes to the scanning engine itself in addition to some of the utilities. The GUI has not been updated in this release, however GUI changes will be implemented and released independently from a point release.

Misconfiguration can Lead to Compromise

As a former full-time systems administrator, I understand the pain of managing and maintaining systems. A significant amount of testing is often required to ensure that you have the correct configuration settings, not just in terms of security, but also for system stability. Once you have the correct configuration it is difficult to maintain consistency across the environment on an ongoing basis (especially across hundreds, or even thousands, of disparate systems). This problem crosses all platforms and Unix/Linux and Windows administrators alike share the same challenges. Some examples include:

• Authentication/Logon services implementing the appropriate policies
• Ensuring all services are logging properly
• Permissions on existing users and running processes
• Various configuration settings associated with installed services (and typically specific to the service)

Security In The Cloud Is Still Just Security

A recent paper published in the International Journal of Services and Standards titled "A 'cloud-free' security model for cloud computing", written by Manal M. Yunis, outlines six security considerations for cloud computing. Upon reading the six considerations, I can't help but think that they do not present new challenges but merely rehash old ones. Let’s take a look at each of the six common cloud computing security considerations in more detail:

1. Resource Sharing

"On shared services, there is the possibility that another user on the same system may gain access inadvertently or deliberately to one's data, with potential for identity theft, fraud, or industrial sabotage."

The real problem with resource sharing in the context of cloud computing is that software logically separates one system from the next, but not physically. You can think of it as a "virtual server rack"; whereas traditionally you would have a physically separate server from your neighbor, but in the "cloud”, software is used to separate systems. Unfortunately, software is prone to vulnerabilities that could be exploited and in this case lead to complete access to your server or system. A great example of this in action is the "Cloudburst" exploit from the researchers at Immunity, Inc. that allows an attacker in a guest operating system to break out and gain access to the host operating system.

The resource sharing via software problem is similar to VLANs on switches that are controlled by software, requiring you to carefully design a network and be certain your most critical assets are not on the same switch as something less critical. This is a risk-based decision, and must be constantly evaluated whether you are using a "cloud" provider or designing VLANs on a switch.

How to Score at a Hacking Competition

Over the past weekend I participated in my second CCDC, or Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition.The event put college students in a defending role in five “Blue teams” and "real-world attackers" in the offensive role (pun intended) as the “Red team”. Points are incurred against the Blue teams when their systems become compromised, services are unavailable, or their systems go down. The defending team with the lowest score wins and is sent to a national "cyber exercise" competition. The event hosts a job fair, keynotes by speakers such as Marcus Ranum, a full spectator area and this year hosted two film crews who interviewed players and captured the action. You can watch the videos from last year's CCDC event on their YouTube channel.

At a hacking challenge it can be tough to keep the Red team in line and following the rules. However, the very nature of hacking involves breaking the rules! All of the Red team members did an excellent job of being hackers, and being responsible. While there is no Red team winner, we had some of the highest scoring Red teams in the event's history. You can read more about the Blue team winner and rankings on the CCDC web site.

Hacking challenges have become a bit of a hobby to me in the past few years. I've participated in two previous events and wrote about them here on the Tenable blog. The first was the NYC Capture the Flag event and the second was "Cyberdawn", a diverse cyber exercise. I learn so much by attending these events and participating as a "Red team" member. As the Red team, we set out to compromise systems, run a program that would update a scoring engine, maintain access and disrupt services and operations. It’s a tough balance to maintain; the more aggressive you become on the systems, the more the defending teams notice. Changing a password and locking the teams out incurs points, however they will notice and reset a password. Smart Red team members implant different ways to access the system, such as SSH key trusts and rootkits, to gain a foothold on the systems throughout the competition.

As the Red team captain, I developed a strategy for guiding and organizing the Red team members. We divided into sub-teams and assigned the following roles to each of the members: