Creating a honeypot for CVE-2021-41773 (Path Traversal and RCE)

A path traversal vulnerability and exploit just dropped in the wild for a specific version of Apache (Apache/2.4.49). This vulnerability allows an unauthenticated attacker to execute a path traversal attack (and now shown RCE if MOD_CGI is enabled) to read files outside of the virtual directory path bounds. This only affects a single version of Apache, there’s a fair few of these online, however it’s very unlikely all are vulnerable. The vulnerability requires specific permissions to be configured.

Guides

Reporting an email as phishing in Office 365 with…

Did you ever just ignore or delete a phishing email? I mean that’s great in one sense that you won’t have any negative impact. But if the email did get past the mail security filters, you can report it using the “Mark as phishing” option.

What if as well you wanted to not only enable users to report but also pass the intelligence onto the NCSC Suspicious Email Reporting Service (SERS)? How cool would that be! Well, have no fear people, we are going to show you how easy this stuff is to deploy and configure. Read more “Reporting an email as phishing in Office 365 with NCSC SERS” →

Guides

mRr3b00ts Pentest Plus Study Notebook

I created a PDF notebook a while ago when I decided on a whim to to the Pentest+. I have quite a few people ask me about getting into cyber security and well, you know when I was younger this stuff was just called IT mainly (IT + Infosec) so I thought let’s go test out the Pentest+. I did the course and exam in a week (whilst writing the notebook) (don’t think that’s a good idea but my objectives were more to make sure if I think it’s any good or not). Pleased to say I thought the course was good (I used pluralsight at 1.x speed) and the exam was fun (for an exam).

Hopefully this helps people explore the some of the world of offensive security and appsec. Read more “mRr3b00ts Pentest Plus Study Notebook” →

Defense

Defending against authentication attacks

Ok so my most popular blog on pwndefend is about using Hydra… so I guess that’s all the goodies using it for good things, right? Probably not but it does help people understand the weaknesses of single factor authentication systems without supplementary controls.

So, let’s look at authentication defences, but let’s do this from an attacker perspective! (The opposite of what helps an attacker usually helps defend). Crazy madness right, let’s get to it!

Foundations of Sand

Ok so authentication is a key security control in computer systems. To understand the challenge around authentication and think it’s all a technical problem is to error.

See most modern computer systems require at least two things to authenticate:

A Username
A Password

Defense

Cyber Security Tips – Keeping your digital self, safe!

Not even most of my digital life is in the enterprise security space, whilst this is great if you have access to technology budgets, security specialists and modern business class solutions, this doesn’t really fit into the general populations landscape of technology. I thought I’d take a high-level exploration of what digital security looks for people who aren’t security nerds! This is a bit of an experiment for me as it’s a journey into a world where although some things apply to me (obviously I’m human), some of this from a thinking/blogging point of view aren’t my comfort space. So, let’s see what a world outside of being a nerd look like!

Commons Risks

I’m thinking the risk landscape is still broad however when we think about risks, I reckon a general view model may look at some of the following scenarios:

Fraud/Scams
Sextortion
Phishing
Social Media Account Takeover
Device Theft
Device Loss
Equipment Failure/Data Loss
Threat from known individuals with physical access
Human Error

Guides

Cyber Security Design Review

Purpose

To conduct a solution review we need to consider multiple perspectives. Cyber security can be described as (from the NCSC):

“Cyber security’s core function is to protect the devices we all use (smartphones, laptops, tablets and computers), and the services we access – both online and at work – from theft or damage. It’s also about preventing unauthorised access to the vast amounts of personal information we store on these devices, and online.”

Cyber Security is concerned with risks, threats, vulnerabilities, and controls. This really means the breadth and depth of cyber security is vastly wide and terribly deep. Read more “Cyber Security Design Review” →

Defense

Risk management is easy! Isn’t it?

Information security theory and practises use a commonly understood and simple range of tools, methods, and practises to help organisations understand their risk portfolio and to enable them to make both strategic and tactical investment decisions….

Ok someone pinch me. this simply isn’t the reality I see on the ground. The theory is vast, complex and there are a multitude of good/best/insert phrase frameworks and tools that you can leverage to map, model, and communicate risks, vulnerabilities, controls, threats etc.

I’m not going to do a detailed analysis and comparison of different models here, but I am going to at least give people a view of some of the tools and frameworks that you can and may likely experience in the cyber security world. Read more “Risk management is easy! Isn’t it?” →

Defense

Exposed VMWARE vCenter Servers around the world (CVE-2021-22005)

There’s a new CVE in town but don’t think it’s the only problem you get when you expose administrative interfaces to the wild west of the internet (yeeha or something). Let’s go on a quick exploration of what the world looks like with the help of our friends at Shodan and then let’s see the ramblings of Dan when looking at how benign enumeration and exploration of services can work. Let’s get started looking at the world, a quick face analysis on Shodan with vmware as a product shows a hit or two, what we are going to focus on is vCenter but you know.. you might want to review your attack surfaces so any exposed services (damn people expose some risky stuff!) Read more “Exposed VMWARE vCenter Servers around the world (CVE-2021-22005)” →

Defense

How to restore AdminSDHolder Object Permissions using ADSIedit

Ok so the other day “we” as a community put out some guidance around post active directory compromise actions for when you can’t simply nuke the forest from orbit. Well, following on from that a friend asked about how to restore AdminSDHolder permissions? Read more “How to restore AdminSDHolder Object Permissions using ADSIedit” →

CTF

Installing Kali 2021.3

Hax fun with the Dragon distro

Ok today we are going to look at deploying Kali 2013.3. The install process for this is fairly standard and familiar from previous version but for those new to this world, it seems like a good place to start.

Install Procedure (Virtual Machine)

Boot from the ISO

Read more “Installing Kali 2021.3” →