U need to patch.. I believe the 0 days are fixed in last round of m$ patches
On Jun 23, 2017 7:19 AM, "Kent, Larry J CTR USARMY 93 SIG BDE (US)" < larry.j.kent2....@mail.mil> wrote: > CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED > > Interesting article, but is there a fix for this? > > -----Original Message----- > From: listsad...@lists.myitforum.com [mailto:listsadmin@lists. > myitforum.com] On Behalf Of Kurt Buff > Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2017 11:02 PM > To: ntsysadm <NTSysADM@lists.myitforum.com> > Subject: [Non-DoD Source] [NTSysADM] Thank you, NSA... > > All active links contained in this email were disabled. Please verify the > identity of the sender, and confirm the authenticity of all links contained > within the message prior to copying and pasting the address to a Web > browser. > > > > > ---- > > Caution-https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/technology/ > ransomware-attack-nsa-cyberweapons.html > > A Cyberattack ‘the World Isn’t Ready For’ > > NEWARK — There have been times over the last two months when Golan Ben-Oni > has felt like a voice in the wilderness. > > On April 29, someone hit his employer, IDT Corporation, with two > cyberweapons that had been stolen from the National Security Agency. > Mr. Ben-Oni, the global chief information officer at IDT, was able to fend > them off, but the attack left him distraught. > > In 22 years of dealing with hackers of every sort, he had never seen > anything like it. Who was behind it? How did they evade all of his > defenses? How many others had been attacked but did not know it? > > Since then, Mr. Ben-Oni has been sounding alarm bells, calling anyone who > will listen at the White House, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the > New Jersey attorney general’s office and the top cybersecurity companies in > the country to warn them about an attack that may still be invisibly > striking victims undetected around the world. > > And he is determined to track down whoever did it. > > “I don’t pursue every attacker, just the ones that piss me off,” Mr. > Ben-Oni told me recently over lentils in his office, which was strewn with > empty Red Bull cans. “This pissed me off and, more importantly, it pissed > my wife off, which is the real litmus test.” > > Two weeks after IDT was hit, the cyberattack known as WannaCry ravaged > computers at hospitals in England, universities in China, rail systems in > Germany, even auto plants in Japan. No doubt it was destructive. > But what Mr. Ben-Oni had witnessed was much worse, and with all eyes on > the WannaCry destruction, few seemed to be paying attention to the attack > on IDT’s systems — and most likely others around the world. > > The strike on IDT, a conglomerate with headquarters in a nondescript gray > building here with views of the Manhattan skyline 15 miles away, was > similar to WannaCry in one way: Hackers locked up IDT data and demanded a > ransom to unlock it. > > But the ransom demand was just a smoke screen for a far more invasive > attack that stole employee credentials. With those credentials in hand, > hackers could have run free through the company’s computer network, taking > confidential information or destroying machines. > > Worse, the assault, which has never been reported before, was not spotted > by some of the nation’s leading cybersecurity products, the top security > engineers at its biggest tech companies, government intelligence analysts > or the F.B.I., which remains consumed with the WannaCry attack. > > Were it not for a digital black box that recorded everything on IDT’s > network, along with Mr. Ben-Oni’s tenacity, the attack might have gone > unnoticed. > > Scans for the two hacking tools used against IDT indicate that the company > is not alone. In fact, tens of thousands of computer systems all over the > world have been “backdoored” by the same N.S.A. weapons. > Mr. Ben-Oni and other security researchers worry that many of those other > infected computers are connected to transportation networks, hospitals, > water treatment plants and other utilities. > > An attack on those systems, they warn, could put lives at risk. And Mr. > Ben-Oni, fortified with adrenaline, Red Bull and the house beats of > Deadmau5, the Canadian record producer, said he would not stop until the > attacks had been shut down and those responsible were behind bars. > > “The world is burning about WannaCry, but this is a nuclear bomb compared > to WannaCry,” Mr. Ben-Oni said. “This is different. It’s a lot worse. It > steals credentials. You can’t catch it, and it’s happening right under our > noses.” > > And, he added, “The world isn’t ready for this.” > > Targeting the Nerve Center > > Mr. Ben-Oni, 43, a Hasidic Jew, is a slight man with smiling eyes, a thick > beard and a hacker’s penchant for mischief. He grew up in the hills of > Berkeley, Calif., the son of Israeli immigrants. > > Even as a toddler, Mr. Ben-Oni’s mother said, he was not interested in > toys. She had to take him to the local junkyard to scour for typewriters > that he would eventually dismantle on the living room floor. As a teenager, > he aspired to become a rabbi but spent most of his free time hacking > computers at the University of California, Berkeley, where his exploits > once accidentally took down Belgium’s entire phone system for 15 minutes. > > To his parents’ horror, he dropped out of college to pursue his love of > hacking full time, starting a security company to help the city of Berkeley > and two nearby communities, Alameda and Novato, set up secure computer > networks. > > He had a knack for the technical work, but not the marketing, and found it > difficult to get new clients. So at age 19, he crossed the country and took > a job at IDT, back when the company was a low-profile long-distance service > provider. > > As IDT started acquiring and spinning off an eclectic list of ventures, > Mr. Ben-Oni found himself responsible for securing shale oil projects in > Mongolia and the Golan Heights, a “Star Trek” comic books company, a > project to cure cancer, a yeshiva university that trains underprivileged > students in cybersecurity, and a small mobile company that Verizon recently > acquired for $3.1 billion. > > Which is to say he has encountered hundreds of thousands of hackers of > every stripe, motivation and skill level. He eventually started a security > business, IOSecurity, under IDT, to share some of the technical tools he > had developed to keep IDT’s many businesses secure. > By Mr. Ben-Oni’s estimate, IDT experiences hundreds of attacks a day on > its businesses, but perhaps only four each year that give him pause. > > Nothing compared to the attack that struck in April. Like the WannaCry > attack in May, the assault on IDT relied on cyberweapons developed by the > N.S.A. that were leaked online in April by a mysterious group of hackers > calling themselves the Shadow Brokers — alternately believed to be > Russia-backed cybercriminals, an N.S.A. mole, or both. > > The WannaCry attack — which the N.S.A. and security researchers have tied > to North Korea — employed one N.S.A. cyberweapon; the IDT assault used two. > > Both WannaCry and the IDT attack used a hacking tool the agency had > code-named EternalBlue. The tool took advantage of unpatched Microsoft > servers to automatically spread malware from one server to another, so that > within 24 hours North Korea’s hackers had spread their ransomware to more > than 200,000 servers around the globe. > > The attack on IDT went a step further with another stolen N.S.A. > cyberweapon, called DoublePulsar. The N.S.A. used DoublePulsar to > penetrate computer systems without tripping security alarms. It allowed > N.S.A. spies to inject their tools into the nerve center of a target’s > computer system, called the kernel, which manages communications between a > computer’s hardware and its software. > > In the pecking order of a computer system, the kernel is at the very top, > allowing anyone with secret access to it to take full control of a machine. > It is also a dangerous blind spot for most security software, allowing > attackers to do what they want and go unnoticed. In IDT’s case, attackers > used DoublePulsar to steal an IDT contractor’s credentials. Then they > deployed ransomware in what appears to be a cover for their real motive: > broader access to IDT’s businesses. > > The N.S.A. campus in Fort Meade, Md. Tens of thousands of computer > systems, some of which could be connected to public utilities, have been > “backdoored” using the agency’s stolen cyberweapons. Patrick > Semansky/Associated Press > > Mr. Ben-Oni learned of the attack only when a contractor, working from > home, switched on her computer to find that all her data had been encrypted > and that attackers were demanding a ransom to unlock it. He might have > assumed that this was a simple case of ransomware. > > But the attack struck Mr. Ben-Oni as unique. For one thing, it was timed > perfectly to the Sabbath. Attackers entered IDT’s network at 6 p.m. on > Saturday on the dot, two and a half hours before the Sabbath would end and > when most of IDT’s employees — 40 percent of whom identify as Orthodox Jews > — would be off the clock. For another, the attackers compromised the > contractor’s computer through her home modem — strange. > > The black box of sorts, a network recording device made by the Israeli > security company Secdo, shows that the ransomware was installed after the > attackers had made off with the contractor’s credentials. And they managed > to bypass every major security detection mechanism along the way. Finally, > before they left, they encrypted her computer with ransomware, demanding > $130 to unlock it, to cover up the more invasive attack on her computer. > > Mr. Ben-Oni estimates that he has spoken to 107 security experts and > researchers about the attack, including the chief executives of nearly > every major security company and the heads of threat intelligence at > Google, Microsoft and Amazon. > > With the exception of Amazon, which found that some of its customers’ > computers had been scanned by the same computer that hit IDT, no one had > seen any trace of the attack before Mr. Ben-Oni notified them. The New York > Times confirmed Mr. Ben-Oni’s account via written summaries provided by > Palo Alto Networks, Intel’s McAfee and other security firms he used and > asked to investigate the attack. > > “I started to get the sense that we were the canary,” he said. “But we > recorded it.” > > Since IDT was hit, Mr. Ben-Oni has contacted everyone in his Rolodex to > warn them of an attack that could still be worming its way, undetected, > through victims’ systems. > > “Time is burning,” Mr. Ben-Oni said. “Understand, this is really a war — > with offense on one side, and institutions, organizations and schools on > the other, defending against an unknown adversary.” > > ‘No One Is Running Point’ > > Since the Shadow Brokers leaked dozens of coveted attack tools in April, > hospitals, schools, cities, police departments and companies around the > world have largely been left to fend for themselves against weapons > developed by the world’s most sophisticated attacker: the N.S.A. > > A month earlier, Microsoft had issued a software patch to defend against > the N.S.A. hacking tools — suggesting that the agency tipped the company > off to what was coming. Microsoft regularly credits those who point out > vulnerabilities in its products, but in this case the company made no > mention of the tipster. Later, when the WannaCry attack hit hundreds of > thousands of Microsoft customers, Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, > slammed the government in a blog post for hoarding and stockpiling security > vulnerabilities. > > For his part, Mr. Ben-Oni said he had rolled out Microsoft’s patches as > soon as they became available, but attackers still managed to get in > through the IDT contractor’s home modem. > > Six years ago, Mr. Ben-Oni had a chance meeting with an N.S.A. > employee at a conference and asked him how to defend against modern-day > cyberthreats. The N.S.A. employee advised him to “run three of everything”: > three firewalls, three antivirus solutions, three intrusion detection > systems. And so he did. > > But in this case, modern-day detection systems created by Cylance, McAfee > and Microsoft and patching systems by Tanium did not catch the attack on > IDT. Nor did any of the 128 publicly available threat intelligence feeds > that IDT subscribes to. Even the 10 threat intelligence feeds that his > organization spends a half-million dollars on annually for urgent > information failed to report it. He has since threatened to return their > products. > > “Our industry likes to work on known problems,” Mr. Ben-Oni said. > “This is an unknown problem. We’re not ready for this.” > > No one he has spoken to knows whether they have been hit, but just this > month, restaurants across the United States reported being hit with similar > attacks that were undetected by antivirus systems. There are now YouTube > videos showing criminals how to attack systems using the very same N.S.A. > tools used against IDT, and Metasploit, an automated hacking tool, now > allows anyone to carry out these attacks with the click of a button. > > Worse still, Mr. Ben-Oni said, “No one is running point on this.” > > Last month, he personally briefed the F.B.I. analyst in charge of > investigating the WannaCry attack. He was told that the agency had been > specifically tasked with WannaCry, and that even though the attack on his > company was more invasive and sophisticated, it was still technically > something else, and therefore the F.B.I. could not take on his case. > > The F.B.I. did not respond to requests for comment. > > So Mr. Ben-Oni has largely pursued the case himself. His team at IDT was > able to trace part of the attack to a personal Android phone in Russia and > has been feeding its findings to Europol, the European law enforcement > agency based in The Hague. > > The chances that IDT was the only victim of this attack are slim. Sean > Dillon, a senior analyst at RiskSense, a New Mexico security company, was > among the first security researchers to scan the internet for the N.S.A.’s > DoublePulsar tool. He found tens of thousands of host computers are > infected with the tool, which attackers can use at will. > > “Once DoublePulsar is on the machine, there’s nothing stopping anyone else > from coming along and using the back door,” Mr. Dillon said. > > More distressing, Mr. Dillon tested all the major antivirus products > against the DoublePulsar infection and a demoralizing 99 percent failed to > detect it. > > “We’ve seen the same computers infected with DoublePulsar for two months > and there is no telling how much malware is on those systems,” > Mr. Dillon said. “Right now we have no idea what’s gotten into these > organizations.” > > In the worst case, Mr. Dillon said, attackers could use those back doors > to unleash destructive malware into critical infrastructure, tying up rail > systems, shutting down hospitals or even paralyzing electrical utilities. > > Could that attack be coming? The Shadow Brokers resurfaced last month, > promising a fresh load of N.S.A. attack tools, even offering to supply them > for monthly paying subscribers — like a wine-of-the-month club for > cyberweapon enthusiasts. > > In a hint that the industry is taking the group’s threats seriously, > Microsoft issued a new set of patches to defend against such attacks. > The company noted in an ominously worded message that the patches were > critical, citing an “elevated risk for destructive cyberattacks.” > > Mr. Ben-Oni is convinced that IDT is not the only victim, and that these > tools can and will be used to do far worse. > > “I look at this as a life-or-death situation,” he said. “Today it’s us, > but tomorrow it might be someone else.” > > > CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED >
