WordPress Security Considerations

WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems in the world today. I believe it is about 35% of the market share globally. That is a lot of sites.

I have been using WordPress for years myself; some people give it some stick for being vulnerable but that is usually them referring to third party plugins. I like it because you can build a site easily, without having to spend ages and you can deploy it and migrate etc. without having a huge headache. Read more “WordPress Security Considerations” →

Defense

Combating Cyber Crime: Should we really be charging to…

Sensational Press or Cyber War Mongering?

I do not know Mr Martin, but I would assume that his role at NCSC and GCHQ would have given him a good insight into the realities of cybercrime, cyber terrorism, nation state affairs and how to effectively defend against cyber criminals (and other threat actors) so please read this blog as it is intended, it’s an analysis on the quoted statements and reporting style and general view of mine about current cyber war rhetoric, not an analysis of the person. Why am I writing this? Well, I am seeing an increased level of FUD, snake oil and cyber war rhetoric and I wanted to share some of my thoughts, opinions, and ideas in this space. For it is far too easy to call for war and in cyberspace do we even know what that means? Read more “Combating Cyber Crime: Should we really be charging to cyber war?” →

Defense

Retrieving Passwords From Veeam Backup Servers

Firstly before we get into recovering passwords from the veeam servers we have to think why is this technique so important to know?

It’s not what you think, so if you are a red teamer/penetration tester then sure you are going to want to know this to support your goals. But the real value in knowing this is to drive home a specific message.

DO NOT (PRODUCTION) DOMAIN JOIN BACKUP SERVERS

Veeam expicitly suports not being on a domain for this very reason. Why Dan? Why is it so important to not (PRODUCTION) domain join them? Well my friends, if a threat actor gets into your network, gains high priviledge access to active directory and get’s onto you veeam server they will probably disrupt and destroy your backup just prior to ransoming everyhing they can. You do no want this!

Defense

Aggressively Defending Information Systems

Taking a more active approach

You may have seen my post on hacking back and how it’s a nightmare that screams inexperience when I hear it (don’t get me wrong there are very limited times when it might be useful from a national defence perspective/intelligence services but that isn’t really ‘hacking back’ in my book, they are already working that space so it’s not a retaliation) however I’ve been spurred on this morning by a tweet I saw from @1njection:

After tweeting a quick reply, I thought I had put together a quick blog on aggressive active defences! (not wordy much). Read more “Aggressively Defending Information Systems” →

Defense

5 Major Challenges with Business Digital Security

This is not meant to be an essay, but simply a rapid-fire view of things that I see that are major challenges with digital security in today’s age. So, without any further delay let us hit it:

Defense

Routine Security Governance and Management Activities you should plan…

Security Planning 101

I have been thinking about how organisations manage (or do not manage) their security postures from both a governance and management point of view. To help organisations that are just starting on their security improvement journey I thought I have put together a list of activities they may want to have in a forward schedule document (you could even call it a roadmap). It is not going to be all things to all people and different organisations and markets will have different requirements.

Defense

Things to try & keep an environment safe

I chose these words on purpose, I don’t think keeping environments secure and working is easy. I don’t think anyone has all the answers, even with massive budgets large organisations fail to keep their data and systems secure. But I do know that by doing these activities we can massively change the game when compared to the security posture of an organisation compared to organisations that don’t do this! So, I thought I’d share some of the things I do to try and keep on top of environments cyber heigine. But to start let’s think about the kind of questions are we looking to answer:

Defense

Cyber Incident Response – Have you planned to fail?

Drill, drill more and drill again

I’ve worked with hundreds of companies over the years and one area I consistently see them struggle with is incident response drills. Sure I see some board level table top simulations but nothing says i’m ready more than practising actual responses.

In table tops people mainly assume the log files exist, they assume the resources are there, they assume the best. I’m not a pessimist but I assume breach and assume things will go wrong (even with preperation).

So to help people I put together an Incident Response planning toolkit workbook. This excel document is a rough guide of different types of incidents and different horror levels (there’s a cool D00M flavoured easter egg in there too). Now one thing, you will need to tailor this. BEC for example can be very simple to repel and remediate, however the cost and impact of BEC can be huge (even if it’s a single mailbox) so take the numbers in here with a pinch of salt and tailor it to suit your needs.

Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail

Failing to plan for a cyber incident both large or small is a sure fire way to ensure you are planning to fail! So with this in mind we thought we’d share a quick workbook to try and kick start your mind into NOT planning to fail!

Defense

Internet Presence Technology and Security Management

Living on the internet in the digital age

I have watched enough technology deployments occur over the last 20 years to have learnt a thing or two. One constant I find is the perception that deploying and technology in a business environment is ‘simple and easy’. However, history and experience teach us that this simply isn’t the case. Whilst working on a project recently I thought I would try and show this in terms of looking at foundational technology and security management capabilities regarding internet presence. In this post I’m going to outline a look at foundational capabilities for Domain Registrar, DNS and internet preens management. Read more “Internet Presence Technology and Security Management” →

Defense

Active Directory Security: Securing the crown jewels with PingCastle…

Securing the crown jewels

At the heart of most organisations are a Windows server active directory domain (or multiple of these), yet one of the most common findings when we review organisations security postures are there are significant weaknesses in their active directory deployments, both from an architectural, operational and security perspectives.

Active directory provides a range of functionality to organisations, from authentication, authorisation as well as supporting services such as printer and share listing, DNS, people/information lookups and integration for 3^rd party services. It’s the very hub that links most modern networked systems together and now it’s expanded beyond the corporate walls into the cloud with integration into Azure Directory Services as part of Azure or Office 365.

Essentially Active Directory can be considered a castle whereby crown jewels are held! This may be in the form of credentials/identity or by nature of granting access to business systems that hold sensitive data (such as using AD integration to log into an HR or Finance system). Read more “Active Directory Security: Securing the crown jewels with PingCastle 2.8.0.0” →