Category Archives: notech

Layers Are Important

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We in InfoSec chant it often and for some of us it might even be a daily mantra. “Use Multi-Factor Authentication!” (MFA) Sometimes called Two Factor Authentication (2FA), it adds an additional layer of security to your organization that almost allows for the use of ‘password’ as a password.

If you keep up with the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, you should already know that user credentials are the most sought after piece of information over all the incidents. With that kind of data to support a solution, it is still a bit surprising how many organizations out there are exposing services to the public internet without the extra layer(s) of authentication.

More Layers

As great as MFA/2FA is, it will not eliminate all of your problems. I had a troublesome case recently that involved phishing, exposed web services, Remote Access Tools (RAT), stolen credentials, and more. The part that made it really scary was how the attackers were able to figure out the infrastructure enough to almost get VPN access.

The attackers got access to email. Through email they were able to social engineer their way into quite a few areas. One of those areas was how employees obtain the token software and keys for VPN access. Let me restate that with a little more clarity. The attackers requested and got access to VPN tokens used as a part of the MFA/2FA protection.

The process of getting approved for VPN was quite a lengthy one, I know since I had to go through it for remote access as a part of the incident management. After struggling to get myself access, I was astounded at the fact that attackers were able to get so far. It took me quite a while to work through the protections even with the guys on the phone walking me through it all.

Simple Works

You know what stopped the attackers? A registry key. Nothing functional. Just a simple registry key that they inject on company assets. The VPN login process has a full posture check on validating your patches, anti-virus program version, firewall configuration, agent installs, etc. and part of that process includes checking for the existence of a simple registry key.

It might sound silly amidst discussions about all this high tech prevention and machine learning analysis, but sometimes simple works. Don’t overlook the basic protections. They add layers of protection that just might actually be the one piece that saves the day.

James Habben
@JamesHabben Continue reading Layers Are Important→

Soft Skills: Be Present

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On the heels of an industry conference, there are so many emotions running through me. Excitement – to apply new techniques and tools to my work. Frustration – that I didn’t get over my shyness to engage with others that also looked shy. Happiness – that I got to see friends from around the world that would otherwise be logistically difficult. Pride – that I didn’t screw up too badly while talking in my sessions. Exhaustion – that I didn’t get enough sleep because there are only 24 hours in a day. This time for me, it was Enfuse 2017.

In reflection, there was one trend that I noticed quite a lot during the conference. Many people were not being present in their conversations with others. I saw this in hallways between sessions, during mealtimes, and at the various parties. I wasn’t immune either, as I caught myself a couple times as well. There is always a lot going on at conferences, and that makes it especially hard to stay focused on the current engagement. This is one of the best times to either start building or further reinforce a connection with other like-minded folks in the industry. Some call it networking, although I prefer the word connecting because I feel that ‘networking’ doesn’t convey the right meaning.

Networking is when you go to an evening mixer party with a stack of business cards hoping that the numbers will work for you. The larger the number of people that have you card, the more likely you are to get contacted about something. That something might be a sales lead, a job opportunity, or even a free meal. This is not a bad thing.

Connecting is when you spend time to get to know a person. The key difference is how you engage. You focus on the one or few people in the circle and you pay attention to those people. You listen to the conversation and interact.

Some focus points to be present:

  1. Keep your phone in your pocket, purse or bag
  2. Turn your phone alerts off if you are too easily distracted
  3. Look at the person talking, not behind or beside
  4. Point your feet at the person (or group) to help keep your body engaged

Some points to help others be present:

  1. In a networking/connecting event, don’t latch onto one person and prevent them from being able to make other connections
  2. If you notice another person drifting away from you, politely bring it into conversation to either lock in attention or give the opportunity to disengage
  3. Pay attention to your own behavior to ensure you aren’t causing someone to drift
  4. Respect other people’s conversations – don’t barge in and take over

Any other tips you have to be present?

UPDATE: Reading Material

How To Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Part Two, Section 6 – How to Make People Like You Instantly

Key point: Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.

This book was originally written in 1936 and is still considered one of the best on this subject. It is referenced by almost every book that presents thoughts and ideas. You will serve yourself well by reading this book, and not just once.

This chapter gives many examples of situations on both sides of this recommendation – making yourself the most import and showing others that they are important. It is a great read with a lot of perspective.

There is nothing more frustrating to a person than to feel like the other person doesn’t value the discussion. Although some people do love to talk for hours regardless of anyone actually listening, I will hold off that discussion for another time. If you don’t want to be there, respectfully disengage. If you want to be there, be there.

James Habben
@JamesHabben

Continue reading Soft Skills: Be Present→

Real Self Improvement

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This Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) industry attracts a lot of hard working individuals. The curious nature of people is what has stood out to me the most in all the people that I have talked to. We have an internal drive to find out how things work, and that is not satisfied until we know every part. This is a big part of what makes us stick to a job that can sometimes seem like a battle that could never be won.

The Ongoing Battle

The battle we face is a constant discovery of new artifacts and techniques. These come from both the offense side and the defense side. We don’t all have time to research these on our own, and the community is fortunately very supportive in that there a blogs to detail these findings. The offense finds a new hole and shares with their like minded folks. Then often times the defense finds a way to detect or monitor, and there is more sharing with the like minded community. You only need to see the list of links for a one week period on thisweekin4n6.com to understand the volume and community we have.

Constant Improvement

Because of the community, there are tons of resources to explain all the technical loveliness that we all enjoy. Improving our technical skills is a very achievable task. Reality is that some of the skills I learned to examine Win2k systems are (thankfully) starting to fade. Our tech changes with rapid speed.

What about our non-technical skills? Do you make any effort to improve how you interact with other people? These are often referred to as ‘soft skills’ and you will find them listed, in some form or another, on every job opening.

  • Strong communication skills
  • Ability to convey technical concepts to others
  • Be a team player
  • Comfortable speaking to a crowd

In fact, you might have been a witness to a peer getting a promotion instead of yourself while you have proven multiple times that you are far more technically capable than this peer. Your technical skills were likely not even part of the consideration for that promotion, as the soft skills matter much more when moving up.

Steps

The first step is always to realize. I won’t call this a problem because I don’t see it as such. It is a deficiency, and one that can easily be corrected if you will first make that realization.

Next, make a commitment to improve. I mean a real commitment. You won’t make much progress if you don’t take it seriously. Improving soft skills is a whole lot harder than improving your technical skills. You cannot do it alone.

Find someone to help you be accountable. This can be a sibling, friend, classmate, coworker, workout partner, or even someone you just met at a local association meet up. The important thing to find in this person is the ability to be called on the carpet if you are not following through. You know yourself best and what type of person you would be most receptive to.

Find a mentor (or two). This mentor doesn’t have to be someone in the DFIR industry since soft skills are pretty universal. In fact, you might find some extra insight from someone outside your circles. Don’t be afraid to aim high either. For the most part, I have found that people are very willing to give advice all the way up through the C-suite. If there is someone who you admire for a certain trait, go talk to them and find out about the struggle they had to gain that trait. There is an interesting program called infosecmentors.com that might be a good start.

Lastly, don’t waste time. This is one of the only things in this world that we can’t just make more of. We can make more money. We can learn more things. We can drink more whiskey. We can’t take back the hour that we sat listening to that one guy who just wanted to blabber on and on about the things only he thought were important. Be respectful of your time and anyone else you ask for time from. These people will want to see improvements made, or they will start to see time spend with you as a waste. Set an expectation of time with a person and don’t waste it.

More to Come

I have seen and heard a lot of discussion about soft skills in more recent times. I initially wanted to put together another ‘must read book list’, but I decided that I would take a little more time and talk about some various soft skills that we can work on improving together. I will be writing about these in future posts and I will provide information about some of the books that I continue to use in my path of improvement. This can be an intimidating set of skills to improve, and I want to help you do it.

James Habben
@JamesHabben Continue reading Real Self Improvement→

BsidesSLC Experience and Offer to Help

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I was given the privilege of speaking at the BsidesSLC conference this month, and it was a very enjoyable conference for me. The people in the SLC area are very welcoming and the crew that puts the conference on did an amazing job. The name of the conference is changing for next year, but the format is staying pretty much the same. If you have the ability to attend next year, I would highly encourage you to do so.

Here are some points that I picked up during my attendance:

Bryce talked about a well known issue of developers posting secrets to code repositories such as GitHub or BitBucket. The funniest part of this is that these developers realize their mistake and commit a revision to remove. What happens to the previous commit? Exactly! This same mistake is made by even more developers when you include other cloud technologies like S3 storage. That Wordpress vulnerability that allows file injection can lead to a complete meltdown when the attacker accesses all of your data that is stored inside S3 or other systems. Keep your secrets secret.

Bri explained the challenges in compromising Industrial Control System (ICS) devices. Getting the highest level of privilege on a system doesn’t automatically mean the compromise of the connected devices. There is a secondary payload required to further infiltrate and that secondary payload requires expert knowledge of the ICS being targeted. We aren’t yet at the point of having commoditized malware for ICS.

JC walked us through how he operates tabletop exercises for his clients. There wasn’t anything new for me in this one, but it was a great reassurance that I have been facilitating a quality exercise for all of my clients. I think the attendees should takeaway that there really needs to be a externally hired facilitator to run some of their exercises to work around any of the internal politics or bias. Mr. ‘Junior Infosec’ may not feel comfortable calling out the CEO for a wrong answer, but I am happy to do it.

Chad gave us an earful of all the various ways that Windows credentials can be picked and harvested by attackers, both on the wire and on the disk. He even provided a handout with all the additional notes he talked about. This is a very important topic to be aware of because the DBIR has consistently shown that credentials are the most targeted in incidents and breaches. Defenders need to be aware of every possibility of credential compromise in order to put safeguards in place.

Lastly, Lesley gave an inspiring talk about how we as industry have a collective skill to land a plane while not being professional pilots (at least most of us). She went through a great demonstration showing how every person (not an exaggeration) can contribute in some way to improving the security field. We just have to look at ourselves and identify the skills we have and offer the help to others that are trying to learn. No one in this field is an expert at everything, even though its hard to believe with the reputation following many people. We all have skills, and we all have something we want to learn.

My Offer to Help

I consistently see advice given to new folks in the field, or those trying to get into the field, that blogging is one of the best ways. This allows you to demonstrate the skills you have and gives you a reference on your resume. You don’t have to post about the latest research on the newest malware. Focus on the skills you have that you can share with others, or document your journey of learning a new skill. Communication is a critical skill in this industry and I challenge you to find a job listing that doesn’t ask for someone with ‘good communication skills’ or the ‘ability to explain technical concepts’. Blogging is pure demonstration of that ability.

I want to put the offer out there to anyone who wants to get into blogging but is too shy to get it rolling. If you enjoy my style and reading my posts, then reach out to me so that I can help you. I can help you to organize your thoughts into a post that flows. I can help you come up with topics. I can help you improve on your writing skills. I am even happy to have you post on this blog.

My DMs are open on twitter, and my email is first@last.net. Your move.

James Habben
@JamesHabben Continue reading BsidesSLC Experience and Offer to Help→