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Category Archives for "Security"

VMware NSX and Check Point vSEC

One of the current challenges of data center security is the East-West traffic that has become so pervasive as modern applications communicate a great deal between their different components.  Conventional perimeter security is poorly placed to secure these lateral flows, to promote a zero-trust model in order to prevent threats moving within each application layer.  VMware NSX addresses this, providing virtual firewall at the virtual NIC of each VM with a management framework where micro-segmentation is achievable with a sensible level of overhead.  Check Point vSEC can be deployed in conjunction to provide threat and malware protection.

The VMware NSX Distributed Firewall (DFW) protects East-West L2-L4 traffic within the virtual data center. The DFW operates in the vSphere kernel and provides a firewall at the NIC of every VM.  This enables micro-segmented, zero-trust networking with dynamic security policy leveraging the vCenter knowledge of VMs and applications to build policy rather than using IP or MAC addresses that may change.  Tools for automation and orchestration as well as a rich set of APIs for partner and customer extensibility complete the toolset for security without impossible management overhead.  While this is a dramatic improvement in the security Continue reading

Counting things, a lot of different things…

Counting things, a lot of different things…

Back in April we announced Rate Limiting of requests for every Cloudflare customer. Being able to rate limit at the edge of the network has many advantages: it’s easier for customers to set up and operate, their origin servers are not bothered by excessive traffic or layer 7 attacks, the performance and memory cost of rate limiting is offloaded to the edge, and more.

In a nutshell, rate limiting works like this:

  • Customers can define one or more rate limit rules that match particular HTTP requests (failed login attempts, expensive API calls, etc.)

  • Every request that matches the rule is counted per client IP address

  • Once that counter exceeds a threshold, further requests are not allowed to reach the origin server and an error page is returned to the client instead

This is a simple yet effective protection against brute force attacks on login pages and other sorts of abusive traffic like L7 DoS attacks.

Doing this with possibly millions of domains and even more millions of rules immediately becomes a bit more complicated. This article is a look at how we implemented a rate limiter able to run quickly and accurately at the edge of the network which Continue reading

The First Question in Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity professionals know that security cannot be a bolt on process or technology. Likewise, I also believe that that the thought of including the security team is rarely  goes far enough. To be effective, security should be ingrained and it should be pervasive. With a this commitment, there is at least one primary question that every organization should be asking in regards to Cybersecurity. That question is simply “Why?”

Not only should this question be asked organizationally, it should also be asked by individuals that are assuming security related roles within an organization. Some would think that the answer is simple or obvious. In many cases it is, but the complete answer WILL differ from organization to organization and differ based on the type of organization. What is important is that the organization itself agree upon the answer to this question.

Relevant answers to the Why question might be any or all of the following:

Governance—Specific regulatory requirements that the organization is required to meet. When these exist, they are often considered a top priority and a baseline requirement to transact business.

Cost/Expense—This could be direct and/or indirect. A direct example would be the typical scenario that occurs with ransomeware. Continue reading

What about other leaked printed documents?

So nat-sec pundit/expert Marci Wheeler (@emptywheel) asks about those DIOG docs leaked last year. They were leaked in printed form, then scanned in an published by The Intercept. Did they have these nasty yellow dots that track the source? If not, why not?

The answer is that the scanned images of the DIOG doc don't have dots. I don't know why. One reason might be that the scanner didn't pick them up, as it's much lower quality than the scanner for the Russian hacking docs. Another reason is that the printer used my not have printed them -- while most printers do print such dots, some printers don't. A third possibility is that somebody used a tool to strip the dots from scanned images. I don't think such a tool exists, but it wouldn't be hard to write.

Scanner quality

The printed docs are here. They are full of whitespace where it should be easy to see these dots, but they appear not to be there. If we reverse the image, we see something like the following from the first page of the DIOG doc:


Compare this to the first page of the Russian hacking doc which shows Continue reading

OneLogin and Password Managers

An interesting incident this last week brings password managers back to the front of the pile—

OneLogin, an online service that lets users manage logins to sites and apps from a single platform, says it has suffered a security breach in which customer data was compromised, including the ability to decrypt encrypted data. —Krebs on Security

I used to use LastPass, but moved off of their product/service when LogMeIn bought them—my previous encounters with LogMeIn have all been negative, and I have no intention of using their service again in any form. During that move, I decided it was important to make another decision about the tradeoff between an online (cloud based) password manager, or one that keeps information in a local file. The key problem with cloud based services of this kind are they paint a huge target onto your passwords. The counter argument is that such cloud based services are more likely to protect your passwords than you are, because they focus their time and energy on doing so.

First lesson: moving to a cloud based application does not mean moving to a situation where the cloud provider actually knows what you are storing, nor how to access Continue reading

Docker Enterprise Edition Now on G-Cloud 9 Framework

 G-Cloud 9

Docker Enterprise Edition (EE) has been accepted to G-Cloud 9, further exemplifying Docker’s commitment to delivering tools for application modernization and innovation across the UK public sector.

G-Cloud 9 is the UK government’s latest framework that is designed to simplify and accelerate adoption of cloud-based services within the public sector. The inclusion of Docker Enterprise Edition subscriptions, training and Professional Services Organization (PSO) within HM Government Crown Commercial Service’s (CCS) G-Cloud 9 Framework gives UK public sector organizations the opportunity to procure the de facto container solution through the online store known as the “Digital Marketplace” without needing to run a full tender, competition or lengthy procurement process.

Docker’s meteoric rise within enterprise-class business has been built on its ability to be agnostic, agile and secure – whether for hybrid cloud migration, modernizing the application stack or adopting a DevOps methodology.

Bringing application modernization to the public sector

With the UK government’s shift to cloud and DevOps, and move away from locked-down IT contracts in favor of smaller suppliers, Docker perfectly addresses these needs by giving  UK public sector organizations the ability to innovate, transform, define, select and control their infrastructure. Additionally, these organization can retain staff who now feel engaged as they can run their programs Continue reading

How The Intercept Outed Reality Winner

Today, The Intercept released documents on election tampering from an NSA leaker. Later, the arrest warrant request for an NSA contractor named "Reality Winner" was published, showing how they tracked her down because she had printed out the documents and sent them to The Intercept. The document posted by the Intercept isn't the original PDF file, but a PDF containing the pictures of the printed version that was then later scanned in.

The problem is that most new printers print nearly invisibly yellow dots that track down exactly when and where documents, any document, is printed. Because the NSA logs all printing jobs on its printers, it can use this to match up precisely who printed the document.

In this post, I show how.

You can download the document from the original article here. You can then open it in a PDF viewer, such as the normal "Preview" app on macOS. Zoom into some whitespace on the document, and take a screenshot of this. On macOS, hit [Command-Shift-3] to take a screenshot of a window. There are yellow dots in this image, but you can barely see them, especially if your screen is dirty.

We need to highlight the yellow Continue reading

Defining Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is “measures taken to protect a computer or computer system (as on the Internet) against unauthorized access or attack.”

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The true importance of cybersecurity can only be understood if our dependence on “computer systems” is understood. It is difficult to imagine a day using nothing that is actively dependent on technology. We depend on connected systems to purchase groceries, perform medical procedures, manage the delivery of utilities and facilitate communications. These systems facilitate safe travel and alert us of impending dangers. It is conceivable that a cyberattack could take the power grid offline making it difficult or impossible to fill a car with fuel, purchase groceries, receive healthcare and even gain access to the typical procedures to restore the grid itself.

In our world today, unless we are primitive camping, we are using products of computer systems continually. To state it differently, our lives would change drastically if these systems became under widespread compromise. Considering Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, most individuals in a civilized society depend on computer systems for most of the elements defined in the critical first two layers. Since we have built this dependence, we must also protect these systems Continue reading

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