Login
In large metropolitan areas, tourists are often easy to spot because they’re far more inclined than locals to gaze upward at the surrounding skyscrapers. Security experts say this same tourist dynamic is a dead giveaway in virtually all computer intrusions that lead to devastating attacks like data theft and ransomware, and that more organizations should set simple virtual tripwires that sound the alarm when authorized users and devices are spotted exhibiting this behavior.
In a blog post published last month, Cisco Talos said it was seeing a worrisome “increase in the rate of high-sophistication attacks on network infrastructure.” Cisco’s warning comes amid a flurry of successful data ransom and state-sponsored cyber espionage attacks targeting some of the most well-defended networks on the planet.
But despite their increasing complexity, a great many initial intrusions that lead to data theft could be nipped in the bud if more organizations started looking for the telltale signs of newly-arrived cybercriminals behaving like network tourists, Cisco says.
“One of the most important things to talk about here is that in each of the cases we’ve seen, the threat actors are taking the type of ‘first steps’ that someone who wants to understand (and control) your environment would take,” Cisco’s Hazel Burton wrote. “Examples we have observed include threat actors performing a ‘show config,’ ‘show interface,’ ‘show route,’ ‘show arp table’ and a ‘show CDP neighbor.’ All these actions give the attackers a picture of a router’s perspective of the network, and an understanding of what foothold they have.”
Cisco’s alert concerned espionage attacks from China and Russia that abused vulnerabilities in aging, end-of-life network routers. But at a very important level, it doesn’t matter how or why the attackers got that initial foothold on your network.
It might be zero-day vulnerabilities in your network firewall or file-transfer appliance. Your more immediate and primary concern has to be: How quickly can you detect and detach that initial foothold?
The same tourist behavior that Cisco described attackers exhibiting vis-a-vis older routers is also incredibly common early on in ransomware and data ransom attacks — which often unfurl in secret over days or weeks as attackers methodically identify and compromise a victim’s key network assets.
These virtual hostage situations usually begin with the intruders purchasing access to the target’s network from dark web brokers who resell access to stolen credentials and compromised computers. As a result, when those stolen resources first get used by would-be data thieves, almost invariably the attackers will run a series of basic commands asking the local system to confirm exactly who and where they are on the victim’s network.
This fundamental reality about modern cyberattacks — that cybercriminals almost always orient themselves by “looking up” who and where they are upon entering a foreign network for the first time — forms the business model of an innovative security company called Thinkst, which gives away easy-to-use tripwires or “canaries” that can fire off an alert whenever all sorts of suspicious activity is witnessed.
“Many people have pointed out that there are a handful of commands that are overwhelmingly run by attackers on compromised hosts (and seldom ever by regular users/usage),” the Thinkst website explains. “Reliably alerting when a user on your code-sign server runs whoami.exe can mean the difference between catching a compromise in week-1 (before the attackers dig in) and learning about the attack on CNN.”
These canaries — or “canary tokens” — are meant to be embedded inside regular files, acting much like a web beacon or web bug that tracks when someone opens an email.
The Canary Tokens website from Thinkst Canary lists nearly two-dozen free customizable canaries.
“Imagine doing that, but for file reads, database queries, process executions or patterns in log files,” the Canary Tokens documentation explains. “Canarytokens does all this and more, letting you implant traps in your production systems rather than setting up separate honeypots.”
Thinkst operates alongside a burgeoning industry offering so-called “deception” or “honeypot” services — those designed to confuse, disrupt and entangle network intruders. But in an interview with KrebsOnSecurity, Thinkst founder and CEO Haroon Meer said most deception techniques involve some degree of hubris.
“Meaning, you’ll have deception teams in your network playing spy versus spy with people trying to break in, and it becomes this whole counterintelligence thing,” Meer said. “Nobody really has time for that. Instead, we are saying literally the opposite: That you’ve probably got all these [security improvement] projects that are going to take forever. But while you’re doing all that, just drop these 10 canaries, because everything else is going to take a long time to do.”
The idea here is to lay traps in sensitive areas of your network or web applications where few authorized users should ever trod. Importantly, the canary tokens themselves are useless to an attacker. For example, that AWS canary token sure looks like the digital keys to your cloud, but the token itself offers no access. It’s just a lure for the bad guys, and you get an alert when and if it is ever touched.
One nice thing about canary tokens is that Thinkst gives them away for free. Head over to canarytokens.org, and choose from a drop-down menu of available tokens, including:
-a web bug / URL token, designed to alert when a particular URL is visited;
-a DNS token, which alerts when a hostname is requested;
-an AWS token, which alerts when a specific Amazon Web Services key is used;
-a “custom exe” token, to alert when a specific Windows executable file or DLL is run;
-a “sensitive command” token, to alert when a suspicious Windows command is run.
-a Microsoft Excel/Word token, which alerts when a specific Excel or Word file is accessed.
Much like a “wet paint” sign often encourages people to touch a freshly painted surface anyway, attackers often can’t help themselves when they enter a foreign network and stumble upon what appear to be key digital assets, Meer says.
“If an attacker lands on your server and finds a key to your cloud environment, it’s really hard for them not to try it once,” Meer said. “Also, when these sorts of actors do land in a network, they have to orient themselves, and while doing that they are going to trip canaries.”
Meer says canary tokens are as likely to trip up attackers as they are “red teams,” security experts hired or employed by companies seeking to continuously probe their own computer systems and networks for security weaknesses.
“The concept and use of canary tokens has made me very hesitant to use credentials gained during an engagement, versus finding alternative means to an end goal,” wrote Shubham Shah, a penetration tester and co-founder of the security firm Assetnote. “If the aim is to increase the time taken for attackers, canary tokens work well.”
Thinkst makes money by selling Canary Tools, which are honeypots that emulate full blown systems like Windows servers or IBM mainframes. They deploy in minutes and include a personalized, private Canarytoken server.
“If you’ve got a sophisticated defense team, you can start putting these things in really interesting places,” Meer said. “Everyone says their stuff is simple, but we obsess over it. It’s really got to be so simple that people can’t mess it up. And if it works, it’s the best bang for your security buck you’re going to get.”
Further reading:
Dark Reading: Credential Canaries Create Minefield for Attackers
NCC Group: Extending a Thinkst Canary to Become an Interactive Honeypot
Cruise Automation’s experience deploying canary tokens
As part of Verisign’s ongoing effort to make global internet infrastructure more secure, stable, and resilient, we will soon make an important technology update to how we protect the top-level domains (TLDs) we operate. The vast majority of internet users won’t notice any difference, but the update will support enhanced security for several Verisign-operated TLDs and pave the way for broader adoption and the next era of Domain Name System (DNS) security measures.
Beginning in the next few months and continuing through the end of 2023, we will upgrade the algorithm we use to sign domain names in the .com, .net, and .edu zones with Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC).
In this blog, we’ll outline the details of the upcoming change and what members of the DNS technical community need to know.
DNSSEC provides data authentication security to DNS responses. It does this by ensuring any altered data can be detected and blocked, thereby preserving the integrity of DNS data. Think of it as a chain of trust – one that helps avoid misdirection and allows users to trust that they have gotten to their intended online destination safely and securely.
Verisign has long been at the forefront of DNSSEC adoption. In 2010, a major milestone occurred when the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and Verisign signed the DNS root zone with DNSSEC. Shortly after, Verisign introduced DNSSEC to its TLDs, beginning with .edu in mid-2010, .net in late 2010, and .com in early 2011. Additional TLDs operated by Verisign were subsequently signed as well.
In the time since we signed our TLDs, we have worked continuously to help members of the internet ecosystem take advantage of DNSSEC. We do this through a wide range of activities, including publishing technical resources, leading educational sessions, and advocating for DNSSEC adoption in industry and technical forums.
Since the TLDs were first signed, we have observed two very distinct phases of growth in the number of signed second-level domains (SLDs).
The first growth phase occurred from 2012 to 2020. During that time, signed domains in the .com zone grew at about 0.1% of the base per year on average, reaching just over 1% by the end of 2020. In the .net zone, signed domains grew at about 0.1% of the base per year on average, reaching 1.2% by the end of 2020. These numbers demonstrated a slow but steady increase, which can be seen in Figure 1.
Figure 1: A chart spanning 2010 through the present shows the number of .com and .net domain names with DS – or Delegation Signer – records. These records form a link in the DNSSEC chain-of-trust for signed domains, indicating an uptick in DNSSEC adoption among SLDs.
We’ve observed more pronounced growth in signed SLDs during the second growth phase, which began in 2020. This is largely due to a single registrar that enabled DNSSEC by default for their new registrations. For .com, the annual rate increased to 0.9% of the base, and for .net, it increased to 1.1% of the base. Currently, 4.2% of .com domains are signed and 5.1% of .net domains are signed. This accelerated growth is also visible in Figure 1.
As we look forward, Verisign anticipates continued growth in the number of domains signed with DNSSEC. To support continued adoption and help further secure the DNS, we’re planning to make one very important change.
All Verisign TLDs are currently signed with DNSSEC algorithm 8, also known as RSA/SHA-256, as documented in our DNSSEC Practice Statements. Currently, we use a 2048-bit Key Signing Key (KSK), and 1280-bit Zone Signing Keys (ZSK). The RSA algorithm has served us (and the broader internet) well for many years, but we wanted to take the opportunity to implement more robust security measures while also making more efficient use of resources that support DNSSEC-signed domain names.
We are planning to transition to the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA), specifically Curve P-256 with SHA-256, or algorithm number 13, which allows for smaller signatures and improved cryptographic strength. This smaller signature size has a secondary benefit, as well: any potential DDoS attacks will have less amplification as a result of the smaller signatures. This could help protect victims from bad actors and cybercriminals.
Support for DNSSEC signing and validation with ECDSA has been well-established by various managed DNS providers, 78 other TLDs, and nearly 10 million signed SLDs. Additionally, research performed by APNIC and NLnet Labs shows that ECDSA support in validating resolvers has increased significantly in recent years.
How did we get to this point? It took a lot of careful preparation and planning, but with internet stewardship at the forefront of our mission, we wanted to protect the DNS with the best technologies available to us. This means taking precise measures in everything we do, and this transition is no exception.
Algorithm 13 was on our radar for several years before we officially kicked off the implementation process this year. As mentioned previously, the primary motivating properties were the smaller signature size, with each signature being 96 bytes smaller than our current RSA signatures (160 bytes vs. 64 bytes), and the improved cryptographic strength. This helps us plan for the future and prepare for a world where more domain names are signed with DNSSEC.
Each TLD will first implement the rollover to algorithm 13 in Verisign’s Operational Test & Evaluation (OT&E) environment prior to implementing the process in production, for a total of two rollovers per TLD. Combined, this will result in six total rollovers across the .com, .net, and .edu TLDs. Rollovers between the individual TLDs will be spaced out to avoid overlap where possible.
The algorithm rollover for each TLD will follow this sequence of events:
Only when a successful rollover has been done in OT&E will we begin the process in production.
Now that we’ve given the background, we know you’re wondering: how might this affect me?
The change to a new DNSSEC-signing algorithm is expected to have no impact for the vast majority of internet users, service providers, and domain registrants. According to the aforementioned research by APNIC and NLnet Labs, most DNSSEC validators support ECDSA, and any that do not will simply ignore the signatures and still be able to resolve domains in Verisign-operated TLDs.
Regarding timing, we plan to begin to transition to ECDSA in the third and fourth quarters of this year. We will start the transition process with .edu, then .net, and then .com. We are currently aiming to have these three TLDs transitioned before the end of the fourth quarter 2023, but we will let the community know if our timeline shifts.
As leaders in DNSSEC adoption, this algorithm rollover demonstrates yet another critical step we are taking toward making the internet more secure, stable, and resilient. We look forward to enabling the change later this year, providing more efficient and stronger cryptographic security while optimizing resource utilization for DNSSEC-signed domain names.
The post Verisign Will Help Strengthen Security with DNSSEC Algorithm Update appeared first on Verisign Blog.
FreshRSS 