As we shared at ZeekWeek 2022 in October, we’re thrilled to announce emerging support for Zeek on Windows, thanks to an open-source contribution from Microsoft. Part of its integration of Zeek into its Defender for Endpoint security platform, this contribution provides fully-native build support for Windows platforms and opens up a range of future technical possibilities in this vast ecosystem.
On Nov. 22, 2022 Microsoft announced research findings about an ongoing supply chain attack against IoT devices running Boa web servers. The Boa web server, an open-source small-footprint web server suitable for embedded applications, was discontinued in 2005, but many software development kits still use this lightweight server on IoT hardware. Since being discontinued, vulnerabilities were discovered in Boa that make every version out there exploitable.
The Corelight Labs team prides itself on the ability to create novel Zeek and Suricata detection content that delves deep into packet streams by leveraging the full power of these tools. However this level of additional sophistication is not always required: sometimes there are straightforward approaches that only require queries over standard Zeek logs. It’s always valuable when developing detections to keep in mind that “sometimes simple does just fine.”
As organizations continue to rapidly adopt cloud services, they struggle to expand network detection and response (NDR) capabilities to their hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Network visibility is critical for security operations center (SOC) teams to secure their cloud environments and ensure they can elevate threat detection and incident investigation capabilities. However, traditional NDR solutions require management, configuration and often lack the security context needed.
“Knowing what’s on your network is the first step for any organization to reduce risk.” -CISA Director, Jen Easterly. On October 3, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 23-01: Improving Asset Visibility and Vulnerability Detection on Federal Networks.
This summer, we launched Investigator, Corelight’s SaaS-based network detection and response (NDR) solution that fuses rich network evidence with machine learning and other security analytics to unlock powerful threat hunting capabilities and accelerate analyst workflows. Today, we are pleased to share that the Investigator platform is engaged in attestation for GDPR to support customer threat hunting and incident response operations across Europe.
Security practitioners may know about common command-and-control (C2) frameworks, such as Cobalt Strike and Sliver, but fewer have likely heard of the so-called Chinese sibling framework “Manjusaka” (described by Talos in an excellent writeup). Like other C2 frameworks, we studied the Manjusaka implant/server network communications in our lab environment, and here we document some of the detection methods available. We have also open-sourced the content we describe.
In July 2022, Microsoft disclosed a vulnerability in the Windows Server Service that allows an authenticated user to remotely access a local API call on a domain controller, which triggers an NTLM request. This results in a leak of credentials that allows an attacker to authenticate to Active Directory Certification Services (ADCS) and to generate a client certificate that enables remote code execution on a domain controller.
The saying “data is king” has been around for quite a while and we all know that the world operates and makes decisions on digital data 24x7x365. But, is data king in the field of cybersecurity? I believe that evidence - not data - is what is needed to speed defenders’ knowledge and response capabilities, so let's talk about both.
Evidence is the currency cyber defenders use to pay down security debt, balancing the value equation between adversaries and the enterprise. Defenders can use evidence proactively, identifying and protecting structural risks within our zone of control. Evidence can also be used reactively by supporting detection (re)engineering, response, and recovery activities, guiding us back to identifying and protecting structural risks.
