Month: February 2020
Adaptive DLL Hijacking
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Why Do People Confuse “End-to-End Encryption” with “Security”?
It is very common to hear people make blanket statements like “WhatsApp is secure,” but they rarely truly understand the actual security controls that WhatsApp is providing. In fact, this notion of being “secure” is one of the main reasons why WhatsApp gained so much popularity and built such a big user base.
In today’s world where everything is on the Internet, people tend to crave some privacy, especially when they are communicating with other people and sharing personal conversations, and the fact that WhatsApp offers a secure communication channel where the messages between users are fully encrypted to the point where the company/app that is providing the service cannot see the messages between their users makes people feel a false sense of security when using WhatsApp.
What “Security” is WhatsApp Really Providing?
Let’s first make sure we understand what security control WhatsApp is claiming it provides. WhatsApp uses the Signal protocol. The encryption scheme is simply asymmetric encryption of messages between the users, and the transmission of the encrypted messages are facilitated by a server provided by WhatsApp.
So, the way the message is protected while in transit from the sender to the intended recipient is secure.
What Other Aspects of Security Do People Need to be Mindful Of?
When it comes to security, there’s a lot more involved than just securing the data while it’s in transit. If securing applications were as simple as securing the communication channel, then websites wouldn’t have any vulnerabilities in them once they had implemented SSL, but we know that is not the case. So why would it be any different for WhatsApp, or any other mobile app for that matter?
Just because the communication channel is secure, doesn’t mean that the rest of the application is secure too. What people tend to forget is that the content of the messages that they’re receiving may still be malicious and have a security impact based on the user’s behavior.
Phishing Attacks
Let’s say a user is sent a phishing link, and the user clicks on it to see where it takes them – they will fall victim to the attack just like they would have if they had received the same link via email or any other method. Just like people are told never to click on a link from an email – especially if it’s from someone they don’t know or trust – the same rule applies here.
Malware
Malware is everywhere on the internet, and being able to identify and avoid opening infected files is a common challenge. Just like malware can be downloaded from web-browsing or from opening email attachments, similarly, opening files that may be infected that were received by a messaging app has the same consequences. There are many stories on the news today about how people are affected because they opened a video clip, audio file, etc. and were infected with malware.
The App Itself
The app that you are using, may itself be vulnerable too and allow attackers to remotely execute code on a user’s device. WhatsApp had a buffer overflow vulnerability that allowed attackers to easily execute code on WhatsApp users’ devices. Details of the vulnerability itself can be found on the CVE-2019-11931 page. Almost all users of WhatsApp on Android, iOS, and Windows were affected. This wasn’t the only vulnerability found on WhatsApp, but attackers were able to inject spyware on to phones by exploiting a zero-day vulnerability. The most damaging part of this attack was that it did not require any action to be taken by the user that was being infected. Read more in this article by the Financial Times.
Other than WhatsApp, there are also cases where the app itself was created for secure communications but was designed incorrectly and ended up all over the news. The most recent example that comes to mind is when the French government launched a new message app for their state employees only, but the account sign-up process was flawed, and allowed anyone to sign up and message using the system. Details of the issue can be found here.
Why Should You Care?
People need to understand the consequences of using apps for communication purposes, especially when they may be using these apps for business. Organizations will typically have contracts with service providers like Slack, Microsoft Teams, etc. to have official channels of communication. This allows the organization to securely manage their employee’s communications, and ensure that sensitive information stays secured correctly, both in transit and at rest. In addition, in the event of lost devices, these services allow organizations to remotely delete any sensitive data that may have been stored on the devices themselves.
An example of where there’s serious concern around public officials using WhatsApp for official communications was raised when it was discovered that Jared Kushner may have been using WhatsApp for his official communications. Read more about the concerns here.
Using proper communication channels is very critical when conducting business, given the sensitive nature of almost all communication and data that enables running a successful business.
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NetSPI Introduces Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS) Powered by Resolve™
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Attacking Azure with Custom Script Extensions
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What Is.com Word of the Day: Pentesting as a Service (PTaas)
On Feb. 4, 2020, NetSPI Product Manager Jake Reynolds was featured in TechTarget’s WhatIs.com defining Pentesting as a Service.
Pentesting as a Service (PTaaS) is a cloud service that provides information technology (IT) professionals with the resources they need to conduct and act upon point-in-time and continuous penetration tests. The goal of PTaaS is to help organizations build successful vulnerability management programs that can find, prioritize and remediate security threats quickly and efficiently.
In IT security, it is common practice for businesses to hire reputable, white hat testers to come in and proactively look for attack vectors that could be exploited. Inviting an outside entity to try and breach a network, server or application may sound counter-intuitive, but it’s also one of the best ways to identify and remediate difficult-to-spot security issues.
Read the full article here.
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NetSPI Heads to RSAC 2020 to Showcase and Demo Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS) Powered by Resolve™
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Keep Pace with Evolving Attack Surfaces: Penetration Testing as a Service
Study after study shows that business leaders across the country place cybersecurity in their top concerns for 2020. PwC’s 23rd annual CEO Survey shows that 53% of U.S. CEOs are “extremely concerned” about the effect cyber threats will have on growth prospects.
And the findings of the Conference Board are similar. According to the survey, cybersecurity was the top concern for CEOs in 2019. What’s more, according to the study, cybersecurity budgets are increasing, with more than 70% of responding CEOs globally planning to increase their cybersecurity budgets this year. Interestingly, cybersecurity strategy remains elusive: almost 40% of responding CEOs globally say their organizations lack a clear strategy to deal with the financial and reputational impact of a cyberattack or data breach.
Often, we see that an inadequate security test can leave a company with a false sense of security. Couple that with the fact that in 2019 the average cost of a data breach to a company was $3.9 million, and a greater business challenge emerges. The bottom line is that organizations are always-on, so their security should be too. It’s more critical than ever that organizations implement a more proactive strategy to better understand their security weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
Penetration testing, delivered in a consumable fashion, and executed monthly or quarterly, rather than annually, can help. At NetSPI we call it Penetration Testing as a Service or PTaaS. Here’s all you need to know before investing in PTaaS, to achieve a successful vulnerability testing and management program.
An Introduction to PTaaS
PTaaS is the delivery model of combined manual and automated pentesting producing real-time, actionable results, allowing security teams to remediate vulnerabilities faster, better understand their security posture, and perform more comprehensive testing throughout the year.
A successful PTaaS program delivers security testing comprised of an expert manual pentesting team enhanced by automation. It puts customers in control of their pentests and their data, enabling them to simplify the scoping of new engagements, view their testing results in real time, orchestrate quicker remediation, and have the ability to perform always-on continuous testing.
The Case for PTaaS
According to PwC, cyber threats are a drag on growth, and tolerances for breaches and trust in technology are plummeting. To combat these trends, organizations need to shore up resilience. “Step one is to use technology to get real-time views into your most critical processes and assets, and then set up for continuous resilience,” it states.
Organizations with a mature security program understand that point-in-time testing is not the best option for continuously securing their applications and networks. New code and configurations are released every day; a continuous security program delivers results to customers around the clock, enabling them to manage their vulnerabilities easier and more efficiently.
PTaaS should be viewed as an essential IT department activity for identifying exploitable security vulnerabilities present across all networks in computing devices, such as desktop operating systems, web applications, mobile apps, and more. It proactively hardens an environment by identifying security weaknesses and software vulnerabilities, and then prioritizing them by severity of outcome should they be exploited, as factored against the likeliness of the attack. [Want to read more about penetration testing, a commonly misunderstood security discipline? Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy.
Choosing the Best PTaaS Partner for Your Business
When evaluating PTaaS options, security professionals would be well advised to:
- Insist on real-time accessible reporting and not settle for reams and reams of static PDF reports that don’t allow for access to data in real-time as vulnerabilities are found.
- Look for a platform, dashboard or technology efficiencies, that offer increased speed to remediation and direct communication with the pentesting experts. For example, NetSPI’s platform houses all vulnerability data and provides remediation guidance for real-time access and assessment.
- Prioritize non-negotiables like employing a team of expert deep-dive manual pentesting professionals with enhanced automation, as automated pentesting and scanners will only ever find a portion of an organization’s vulnerabilities. While automation creates efficiencies, the human touch is also necessary to identify potentially high and critical severity threats that can only be discovered by manual testing.
As attack surfaces constantly grow and evolve, it’s important to recognize that point-in-time penetration testing, while important, is no longer an effective means of year-round security and that there are options available that can increase the value that you get from traditional testing. As an industry, our ultimate goal is to prevent breaches from happening – but, how can we make that happen without having an “always-on” mentality?