When running Nessus is a good thing!

Oh that’s “just a Nessus scan” or that’s not a real pen test etc. is something that if you are in the infosec/cyber world for a few minutes you will probably hear.

It’s honestly a bit odd, some sort of way of diminishing something because a tool was used, which doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense given most activity involves using something that already exists (sure there are fields and scenarios where this isn’t true but I’m generalising).

So why are we as an industry obsessed with tools and obsessed with berating people for using them? It’s all rather odd.

It perhaps ties in with this Cyber Myth about penetration testing being the tool that’s good and useful in every scenario… I hate to break it to people, but it’s not the principles of security and it certainly isn’t the best/most appropriate “tool” in every scenario. Read more “When running Nessus is a good thing!” →

Leadership

Cyber Security in a business environment

“You will respect my authority” … is a sure fast way to be ignored in the business world!

Much like gatekeeping, excessive focus on policies, lack of engagement with the audience and generally mandating security policies and procedures that are not practical will likely not end with a robust, resilient security posture. Read more “Cyber Security in a business environment” →

Education

Cyber Security Testing Myths vs Realities

Everything is 1337! Everyone hacks everything with no sweat, all networks are taken down by cyber magic… or maybe not….

Let’s look at some business realities, shall we? Read more “Cyber Security Testing Myths vs Realities” →

Leadership

Supplier Assurance Tools

Do they replace the need for OSINT and Supplier engagement?

I’ve been conducting sales and assurance-based activities for some while (I’m not counting it will make me feel old!) and I have started looked at a range of supplier management tools which leverage tool-based OSINT, attack surface mapping and manual data inputs and I have to say this:

Read more “Supplier Assurance Tools” →

Leadership

Cyber Insurance: How would I decide to buy it…

Is Cyber Insurance right for you?

Wow a big question, right? I can’t answer this for you, obviously I’d recommend that you consider cyber insurance, however I’d also recommend that you:

Understand your business and it’s supply chain with regards to financials and linkages to cyber risk
Understand your current cyber asset, threat, vulnerability and therefore risk landscape
Ensure you have a good understanding to make informed decisions

I’m not going to write lots this evening on the subject, but I was reviewing a report and thought in line with some research that I started recently (but was side-tracked) and then have seen the report so purchased that instead! (Sometimes it’s easier to not do everything yourself right!)

Guides

How to use Putty as a SOCKS Proxy

Ever stuck in an environment where your internet access isn’t what you want it to be? Ever need to exfilrate data and bypass some DLP? Obviously I’m talking like a pentester (don’t use this if it beaks policies on anohers assets) so this is useful for some scenarios in testing but also in real life!

Education

Infrastructure Penetration Testing Realities

Penetration testing is just like being a cybercriminal, right?

Honestly, it feels weird writing this, however I feel there’s a real issue with penetration testing and some myths that (for understandable and obvious reasons) exist in some people’s minds. So I’ve taken to trying to explain to people what an external penetration test actually entails in the real world of business. So here goes!

Leadership

UK NCSC Active Cyber Defence (ACD)

Defending a single server is often far more complex than people apreciate, defending a single organisation is significantly harder than a single server, defending a country… a much more complex challenge than I think people actually realise.

What is ACD?

According to the NCSC:

The aim of ACD is to “Protect the majority of people in the UK from the majority of the harm caused by the majority of the cyber attacks the majority of the time.” We do this through a wide range of mechanisms, which at their core have the ability to provide protection at scale.
ACD is intended to tackle the high-volume commodity attacks that affect people’s everyday lives, rather than the highly sophisticated and targeted attacks, which NCSC deal with in other ways.
UK NCSC

NCSC Active Cyber Defence

What is included?

The UK NCSC offer and run a range of Active Cyber Defence capabilities which include the following:

Defence

Offensive KEV Alpha 0.1

Working out what exploits to care about is a tough job, kill chains, availability of exploits, complexity, data flows, controls etc. all play a part in understanding a vulnerability and how it affects your organisational risk. To support this effort I’ve started to compile a list of public exploits against CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV). This may be useful for defensive and offensive security pros.

Education

Common Windows Services

Exploitation of common windows services is an important area of knowledge for both offense and defence.

Server Message Block (SMB)
Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP)
Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)
Windows Remote Management (WinRM)
File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

Other common technology platforms in the Windows Stack Include

Active Directory Domain Services (ADDS)
Active Directory Certificate Services (ADCS)
Internet Information Services (IIS)
Microsoft SQL Server (MSSQL)

For now I’m just going to look at a few of the common protocols and vectors.