What I want to know is how to find a machine already infected with double pulsar.
On Jun 23, 2017 4:49 PM, "Kurt Buff" <kurt.b...@gmail.com> wrote: > I know that EternalBlue was fixed in the March round of patches, and > my quick googling indidates that DoublePulsar was covered in MS17-010 > > Kurt > > On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 12:43 PM, Ed Ziots <eziot...@gmail.com> wrote: > > 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:listsad...@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 > > >
