You're assuming that the app has no other network dependencies. You also need 
to at this point turn on SQL Auth on the DB which is not the default and not 
technically best practice. Further you still have the app pool running as 
network service which means it has the access a computer account has in the 
case of one of the OP's scenarios.

Encryption is pretty subjective. For all we know the OP's app is returning 
yesterday's weather from a database.

Thanks,
Brian Desmond
br...@briandesmond.com

c - 312.731.3132


From: Andrew S. Baker [mailto:asbz...@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 07, 2010 8:44 PM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Re: Need System/Application Security Advice

What you're asking for is a redesign

One way to address this issue is the place authentication in the hands of your 
database tier, and not grant any special domain level rights to IIS.  This way, 
successful attacks against the web servers [1] would still require subsequent 
successful attacks against the database [2] before getting at this sensitive 
data.

I hope that lots of encryption is being intelligently used throughout this 
application -- in transit AND at rest.



ASB (My XeeSM Profile)<http://XeeSM.com/AndrewBaker>
Exploiting Technology for Business Advantage...

[1] Where we hope not to find database connection strings for privileged 
accounts
[2] Which would now be trivial



ASB (My XeeSM Profile)<http://XeeSM.com/AndrewBaker>
Exploiting Technology for Business Advantage...

On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 1:53 PM, Klint Price 
<kpr...@arizonaitpro.com<mailto:kpr...@arizonaitpro.com>> wrote:
So what steps should be taken to secure it since no instructions are provided 
to do so?

Because IIS knows the password for the xyzweb account. If someone can get IIS 
to execute arbitrary code (e.g. by uploading some of their own webpages) then 
IIS can connect to serverB using the domain\xyzweb account, and that account 
has privileges on serverB.

By running your website as a domain user it is basically giving permission to 
your web server to access anything that the user has access to on the entire 
domain. Wouldn't that mean that
if someone manages to take advantage of one of the many IIS vulnerabilities 
they very well may have access to information all over your network instead of 
just the one machine?

A workaround or possible solution would be to instruct the customer that if 
they are going to use a domain account (which by architecture they are forcing 
them to do), that they should use a non-privileged account, and remove it from 
the "domain users" group.  That way the account can be considered 
"authenticated", but has no other default rights on the domain.  Additional 
settings should be implemented to prevent the password from expiring, and 
locking out.



From: Brian Desmond 
[mailto:br...@briandesmond.com<mailto:br...@briandesmond.com>]
Sent: Thursday, October 07, 2010 10:49 AM

To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: RE: Need System/Application Security Advice

It's very common. There are many things you simply cannot do if you run in a 
local security context. FYI if you run the app pool as Network Service on a 
domain joined machine that provides it the domain rights of the server's 
computer account.

If an internet facing app even not in a corp environment runs on a web farm and 
is anything other than static content you're almost guaranteed to have a domain 
and shared domain accounts running it too.

Thanks,
Brian Desmond
br...@briandesmond.com<mailto:br...@briandesmond.com>

c - 312.731.3132


From: Klint Price 
[mailto:kpr...@arizonaitpro.com<mailto:kpr...@arizonaitpro.com>]
Sent: Thursday, October 07, 2010 7:36 PM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: RE: Need System/Application Security Advice

Internal corporate, yes.  Directly exposed to the internet? I would hope not.

From: Brian Desmond 
[mailto:br...@briandesmond.com<mailto:br...@briandesmond.com>]
Sent: Thursday, October 07, 2010 10:34 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: RE: Need System/Application Security Advice

Ermm what you describe (as I understand it) is probably how 75-90 percent of 
apps run on IIS in a corporate environment.

Thanks,
Brian Desmond
br...@briandesmond.com<mailto:br...@briandesmond.com>

c - 312.731.3132


From: Klint Price 
[mailto:kpr...@arizonaitpro.com<mailto:kpr...@arizonaitpro.com>]
Sent: Thursday, October 07, 2010 7:28 PM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Need System/Application Security Advice

My off-hour job is consulting for various companies.  One such small company 
puts out a product that I feel needs to be fixed.

Company sells two products;  ProductA integrates with ProductB which both 
manage sensitive data and are exposed to the public Internet

Windows Forms Authentication is tied to LDAP to authenticate users prior to 
allowing them into the inner-workings of the system.

ProductA and ProductB are configured so that IIS allows a domain account to run 
the entire website for anonymous users (the equivalent of running an app pool 
with a domain account).

Because the entire site runs under the domain account, there are inherent 
security risks which Company fails to disclose.

I am about to send off an e-mail to the higher ups detailing why this is a bad 
idea without instructing the customer on the possible security risks, and 
associated steps to mitigate, let alone re-architect the application to reduce 
this exposure.

Why is it a bad idea to configure a site in this way out-of-the-box, and what 
articles can you point me to?  Any security articles would also be appreciated.

At minimum I think the domain user should be removed from the "domain users" 
group, with additional GPO's applied to lock down the account.

What say ye?


~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~
~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/>  ~

---
To manage subscriptions click here: 
http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/
or send an email to 
listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com<mailto:listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com>
with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin

~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~
~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/>  ~

---
To manage subscriptions click here: 
http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/
or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com
with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin

Reply via email to