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Category Archives for "Security"

Online meetup recap: Introduction to LinuxKit

At DockerCon 2017 we introduced LinuxKit: A toolkit for building secure, lean and portable Linux subsystems. Here are the key principles and motivations behind the project:

  • Secure defaults without compromising usability
  • Everything is replaceable and customizable
  • Immutable infrastructure applied to building Linux distributions
  • Completely stateless, but persistent storage can be attached
  • Easy tooling, with easy iteration
  • Built with containers, for running containers
  • Designed for building and running clustered applications, including but not limited to container orchestration such as Docker or Kubernetes
  • Designed from the experience of building Docker Editions, but redesigned as a general-purpose toolkit
  • Designed to be managed by external tooling, such as Infrakit or similar tools
  • Includes a set of longer-term collaborative projects in various stages of development to innovate on kernel and userspace changes, particularly around security

For this Online Meetup, Docker Technical Staff member Rolf Neugebauer gave an introduction to LinuxKit, explained the rationale behind its development and gave a demo on how to get started using it.

LinuxKit

Watch the recording and slides

You’ll find below a list of additional questions asked by attendees at the end of the online meetups:

You said the ONBOOT containers are run sequentially, does it wait for one to finish before it Continue reading

I want to talk for a moment about tolerance

This post is in response to this Twitter thread. I was going to do a series of tweets in response, but as the number grew, I thought it'd better be done in a blog.


She thinks we are fighting for the rights of Nazis. We aren't -- indeed, the fact that she thinks we are is exactly the problem. They aren't Nazis.

The issue is not about a slippery slope that first Nazi's lose free speech, then other groups start losing their speech as well. The issue is that it's a slippery slope that more and more people get labeled a Nazi. And we are already far down that slope.

The "alt-right" is a diverse group. Like any group. Vilifying the entire alt-right by calling them Nazi's is like lumping all Muslims in with ISIS or Al Qaeda. We really don't have Nazi's in America. Even White Nationalists don't fit the bill. Nazism was about totalitarianism, real desire to exterminate Jews, lebensraum, and Aryan superiority. Sure, some of these people exist, but they are a fringe, even among Continue reading

Progressive Dutch Municipality Protects Citizen Data and Meets Compliance with VMware NSX

Summary: Municipality of Zoetermeer implements Zero-Trust model with VMware NSX-enabled micro-segmentation for advanced security inside data centers. Zoetermeer follows the Dutch BIG (Baseline Information Security Dutch Municipalities) regulations

Zoetermeer is a modern, fast-growing municipality in the province of South Holland. It provides local services such as water supply, sewage and garbage disposal to around 125,000 residents. As a forward-thinking organization, the municipality of Zoetermeer recognizes that the increasing volume of cyber attacks against organizations today has shown that traditional, perimeter-centric security models are no longer effective.

The municipality responded by working with VMware partner ON2IT IT Services on a solution that wouldn’t treat everything inside the network as trusted. Zoetermeer deployed VMware NSX® network virtualization to facilitate a Zero Trust security model. This Zero Trust model is enabled by the unique micro-segmentation capabilities of VMware NSX.  Zoetermeer is now compartmentalizing different segments of its network and applying automated, fine-grained security policies to individual applications.

“The municipality of Zoetermeer is committed to delivering digital services to our citizens, and also digital tools to enable the best experience for our employees,” said Mr. Van Gaalen, IT Manager, Municipality of Zoetermeer. “But security must remain paramount. Thanks to VMware, we can Continue reading

Technology Short Take #83

Welcome to Technology Short Take #83! This is a slightly shorter TST than usual, which might be a nice break from the typical information overload. In any case, enjoy!

Networking

  • I enjoyed Dave McCrory’s series on the future of the network (see part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4—part 5 hadn’t gone live yet when I published this). In my humble opinion, he’s spot on in his viewpoint that network equipment is increasingly becoming more like servers, so why not embed services and functions in the network equipment? However, this isn’t enough; you also need a strong control plane to help manage and coordinate these services. Perhaps Istio will help provide that control plane, though I suspect something more will be needed.
  • Michael Kashin has a handy little tool that functions like ssh-copy-id on servers, but for network devices (leveraging Netmiko). Check out the GitHub repository.
  • Anthony Shaw has a good comparison of Ansible, StackStorm, and Salt (with a particular view at applicability in a networking context). This one is definitely worth a read, in my opinion.
  • Miguel Gómez of Telefónica Engineering discusses maximizing performance in VXLAN overlay networks.
  • Nicolas Michel has a good Continue reading

Bastion Hosts and Custom SSH Configurations

The idea of an SSH bastion host is something I discussed here about 18 months ago. For the most part, it’s a pretty simple concept (yes, things can get quite complex in some situations, but I think these are largely corner cases). For the last few months, though, I’ve been trying to use an SSH bastion host and failing, and I could not figure out why it wouldn’t work. The answer, it turns out, lies in custom SSH configurations.

In my introduction on using SSH bastion hosts (linked above)—or in just about any tutorial out there on using SSH bastion hosts—brief mention is made of adding configuration information to SSH to use the bastion host. Borrowing from my original post, if you had an instance named “private1” that you wanted to access via a bastion named “bastion”, the SSH configuration information might look like this:

Host private1
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/rsa_private_key
  ProxyCommand ssh user@bastion -W %h:%p

Host bastion
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/rsa_private_key

Normally, that information would go into ~/.ssh/config, which is the default SSH configuration file.

In my case, I only allow public key authentication to “trusted” systems (I vaguely recall an article I read a while ago about a Continue reading

Technology Short Take #83

Welcome to Technology Short Take #83! This is a slightly shorter TST than usual, which might be a nice break from the typical information overload. In any case, enjoy!

Networking

  • I enjoyed Dave McCrory’s series on the future of the network (see part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4—part 5 hadn’t gone live yet when I published this). In my humble opinion, he’s spot on in his viewpoint that network equipment is increasingly becoming more like servers, so why not embed services and functions in the network equipment? However, this isn’t enough; you also need a strong control plane to help manage and coordinate these services. Perhaps Istio will help provide that control plane, though I suspect something more will be needed.
  • Michael Kashin has a handy little tool that functions like ssh-copy-id on servers, but for network devices (leveraging Netmiko). Check out the GitHub repository.
  • Anthony Shaw has a good comparison of Ansible, StackStorm, and Salt (with a particular view at applicability in a networking context). This one is definitely worth a read, in my opinion.
  • Miguel Gómez of Telefónica Engineering discusses maximizing performance in VXLAN overlay networks.
  • Nicolas Michel has a good Continue reading

Bastion Hosts and Custom SSH Configurations

The idea of an SSH bastion host is something I discussed here about 18 months ago. For the most part, it’s a pretty simple concept (yes, things can get quite complex in some situations, but I think these are largely corner cases). For the last few months, though, I’ve been trying to use an SSH bastion host and failing, and I could not figure out why it wouldn’t work. The answer, it turns out, lies in custom SSH configurations.

In my introduction on using SSH bastion hosts (linked above)—or in just about any tutorial out there on using SSH bastion hosts—brief mention is made of adding configuration information to SSH to use the bastion host. Borrowing from my original post, if you had an instance named “private1” that you wanted to access via a bastion named “bastion”, the SSH configuration information might look like this:

Host private1
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/rsa_private_key
  ProxyCommand ssh user@bastion -W %h:%p

Host bastion
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/rsa_private_key

Normally, that information would go into ~/.ssh/config, which is the default SSH configuration file.

In my case, I only allow public key authentication to “trusted” systems (I vaguely recall an article I read a while ago about a Continue reading

Reading List: WannaCry and Ransomware

A good bit has been written about the recent WannaCry outbreak over the last few weeks; rather than stringing the best out through Worth Reading posts, I have collected the three best posts on the topic here.

There are a number of takeaways and lessons to learn from the far-reaching attack that we witnessed. Let me tie those to voluntary cooperation and collaboration which together represent the foundation for the Internet’s development. The reason for making this connection is because they provide the way to get the global cyber threat under control. Not just to keep ourselves and our vital systems and services protected, but to reverse the erosion of trust in the Internet. —CircleID

Over the weekend a cyber attack known as “WannaCry” infected hundreds of computers all over the world with ransomware (malware which encrypts your data until you pay a ransom, usually in Bitcoin). The attack takes advantage of an exploit for Windows known as “EternalBlue” which was in the possession of NSA and, in mid April, was made public by a group known as “The Shadow Brokers.” Microsoft issued a patch for the vulnerability on March 14 for all supported versions of Windows (Vista and Continue reading

Houston we have a problem!


Of the many undesirable results of the Space Program is the fetishization of the "mission control center", with it's rows of workstations facing a common central screen. Ever since, anybody with any sort of mission now has a similar control center.

It's a pain for us in the cybersecurity community because every organization wants a "security operations center" laid out the same way. The point of he room isn't to create something that's efficient for working, but one that will impress visitors. The things done to impress customers can often make an already difficult job even more difficult.




I point this out because of the "glowing globe" picture from President Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia. It's supposed to celebrate the opening of the "Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology" (http://etidal.org). Zoom the camera out a bit, and you can see it's the mission control center from hell.


Manually counting, I see three sides, each with slightly more than 100 workstations/employees, or more than 300 in total. I don't know if they intend all three sections to focus on the same sets of problems, or if they are split into three different tasks (e.g. broadcast TV vs. Continue reading

Use a Zero Trust Approach to Protect Against WannaCry

network security iconMicro-segmentation with VMware NSX compartmentalizes the data center to contain the lateral spread of ransomware attacks such as WannaCry

On May 12 2017, reports began to appear of the WannaCry malware attacking organizations worldwide in one of the largest ransomware cyber incidents to date. The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) has reported more than 200,000 attacks in over 150 countries and in 27, with the full scope of the attack yet to be determined.  Victims include organizations from all verticals.

WannaCry targets Microsoft Windows machines, seizing control of computer systems through a critical vulnerability in Windows SMB. It also utilizes RDP as an attack vector for propagation. It encrypts seized systems and demands a ransom be paid before decrypting the system and giving back control. The threat propagates laterally to other systems on the network via SMB or RDP and then repeats the process. An initial analysis of WannaCry by the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) can be found here, with a detailed analysis from Malware Bytes here.

One foundational aspect of increasing cybersecurity hygiene in an organization to help mitigate such attacks from proliferating is enabling a least privilege (zero trust) model by embedding security directly into the data center network. The Continue reading

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