The Other Side

Learning outcomes:

  • Describe what tools can detect scanning
  • Describe typical preparation for detection systems
  • Describe the differences between IDS and IPS
  • List training for staff to vaccinate against phishing
  • Describe how to hide information and give some examples of traps and trigger systems

Would you like to download my PowerPoint to follow along?

  • Detecting Scans
    • IDS vs IPS
    • Scripts - is this Hacker vs legitimate user vs search engine spider
    • Snapshots - Checks of what is on the system at a specific point in time
    • Traps and triggers such as Honeytrap or Canary
  • Examples of traps
    • Too small for a human to read text
    • Honeytoken - Like a trip wire, seems valuable but isn't
    • Fake admin login info in plain text
    • White on white text
    • Crawler traps (be mindful of SEO)
    • Be careful of accessability!
  • How to hide emails, employee lists and other info
    • Email
      • Image of email or @ symbol
      • Replace mailto with script or use code to disguise the email
        • Bonus: if you use an email only scripts/bots can read, it becomes a honeytrap!
      • Write out email - Username AT myURL DOT com
      • CAPTCHA before email is given
      • Contact form to request an email rather than posting the email publicly
      • Keep in mind, anything you do that is abnormal can be difficult for accessible websites and software
    • Company wide Name Policies
      • Server names such as email03 easy to guess other 2 email servers even if some are "hidden"
      • Are the policies posted online?
      • Do they follow an obvious naming scheme? If yes, do you publish your employee list?
      • Email address - Example Jane Doe Jane@company.com jdoe@comapny.com jane.doe@company.com are all very common policies and easy to guess (and generate with a short command) with an employee list
      • Consider using generic emails CEO@acmecorp.com​
    • Job descriptions, do you list the products you use?
    • Do you list your AV and networking needs in your job postings? If yes it's easy to guess your setup
  • DNS
    • Split DNS for public and private access
      • Public should only show public facing servers
      • Private should show ONLY what's in network
    • Disable Zone transfers - Zone transfer means you replicate the DNS database across a set of DNS servers. BIG NO NO to allow this
  • How to secure the wetware (people)
    • Social engineering
      • Do you have training to prevent social engineering?
      • Are your employees aware this is a concern?
      • Role Play to show what it looks like and how to prevent it
    • Security procedures and policies
      • Are you employees aware of the policies?
      • Are they following the policies?
      • If they aren't, why not? Is it a you problem? Or a them problem?
      • As a company you shouldn't use PII as authentication
        • Mother's maiden name isn't good proof you are you
        • Knowledge Based Answers are not good proof of ID,, think of all the social media quizzes "10 things you should know about me!" and how many answers are posted publicly.
      • Mission critical systems should have extra layers of protection
      • Think about doing air locked systems for the most sensitive of data
      • Do you educate your employees on what is public about them regularly?
      • Do they google themselves? Do you have google alerts set up? What does your employee education system look like?
  • In depth: Phishing/Vishing/smishing Training
    • Phishing training
      • Show sample phishing emails
      • Phishing email campaign with an invite for more training
      • Spoofed email addresses
      • Dangerous links, shortened links and attachments
    • Vishing
      • Vishing training for all employees with publicly search able numbers or those that interact with the public regularly (help desk, sales)
      • Threats or coercive language is common
        • The IRS will SUE YOU if you don't respond right now with this information
      • Time Pressures are common
        • Please I really need this by 4pm today or I will be fired (call is placed at 3:50)
        • Calls before long weekends, or when people are about to get off work and just want to go home
  • Reduce your Digital footprint tips
    • What are your employees saying about the company online? Even on private social media? What are they sharing about themselves? Do you have a policy on info sharing and IP?
    • Are you deleting old info? Old social media? Old job postings? What has been archived(If anything)?
    • Following breadcrumbs - Are you linked to old accounts? How much public data is available about your employees? Are they aware of what's available?
  • System Hardening
    • Ports - What's open? Is that still needed?
    • Services - What's running? Is that still needed? Can you get rid of it? Any extras on the system is one more potential vulnerability for a hacker to find
    • Patch Management - What is your update cycle? Patch cycle? How often do you audit your systems?
    • Security checkups - Examples like Lynis for Linux
    • Firewalls
      • Firewalls are used to direct traffic
      • The default options are accept, deny (drop no response) or redirect
      • Packet inspection vs Deep packet inspection
  • Policies and Procedures
    • Security Audits - Frequent security audits to make sure everything is still in date and valid. For example, if you haven't had a winXP machine in 10yrs do you still need them running? Are they controlling anything?
    • Devices - Are you keeping a running log of changes to the infrastructure and devices
    • Devices - BYOD? Are there rules such as lockers for all devices before getting on the campus?
    • Passwords - What's your password policy? What about shared passwords? Who holds master passwords? How do you backup the passwords? Who updates the backups?
    • Is your plan and backup and backup of the backup a single person? What if any one or two aren't in? Then what?

Suggested Activities and Discussion Topics:

  • As pairs, discuss 1 thing that wasn't already mentioned on how to hide info, hide email addresses, or a trap you think is valuable for a company to have set up. Be ready to share
  • Now that you know about digital footprints. What's yours? What can you find about yourself online? What alerts do you have set up? Remember to do more then just google your name, think of all the things you learned in OSINT and apply them here

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