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govindhtech · 6 months

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Mastering Risk Mitigation: A Comprehensive Guide

According to Benjamin Franklin, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” A good risk mitigation plan can be like this. An enterprise must utilize a step-by-step risk mitigation approach to categorize and manage risk and have a business continuity plan for unexpected events to reduce risk.

An organization may respond well to risk with a robust risk mitigation strategy. This can mitigate corporate threats including cyberattacks, natural disasters, and other vulnerabilities.

What is risk mitigation?

Risk mitigation is creating a plan to decrease or eliminate an organization’s hazards. The company must assess progress and make modifications as the business develops and evolves after developing and implementing that plan. Every part of the supply chain and company risk must be addressed.

Risk types

Many industries have different hazards, but there are a few common ones.

Compliance risk: When a corporation breaks internal and external rules, risking its reputation and finances.

Legal risk: Breaking government rules can cost the company money and reputation.

Operational risk: It occurs when failed or defective processes threaten the organization’s daily business.

5 stages to risk minimization success

Organizations can use numerous methods to mitigate risk. However, organizations must avoid copying others. Most businesses have distinct demands and must create their own risk mitigation plan to succeed.

It takes time to form a competent risk mitigation team to strategize and create a successful plan. The degree and impact of each risk should be considered in this risk mitigation plan. Five steps to an effective risk mitigation strategy, however plans will vary by necessity:

Step1: Identify

Every risk mitigation plan starts with risk identification. The ideal first step is to thoroughly document each risk and continue doing so throughout risk reduction.

Get input from all business stakeholders and a project management team. Risk mapping and discovery require as many views as possible.

All employees matter, therefore consider them when analyzing hazards.

Step 2: Assess risk

Next, quantify each risk identified in the first phase. This step is crucial to the risk mitigation plan because it sets the stage.

You will compare and analyze each risk during assessment. Cybersecurity and operational risks will be assessed for their potential negative impact on the firm.

Prioritize Step 3

Risks are known and analyzed. Now rank dangers by severity. The severity level should have been determined earlier.

Prioritizing may involve taking on some risk in one aspect of an organization to safeguard another. If your organization has many risks across different domains and sets an acceptable risk level, this tradeoff may occur.

After setting this level, an organization can develop business continuity resources and apply the risk mitigation plan.

Step 4: Monitor

After planning, it’s time to act. A robust risk mitigation and management plan should be in place by now. Risks must be allowed to play out and monitored regularly.

Since business demands and risks change, an organization needs solid metrics to track each risk, its category, and its mitigation approach.

Set up a weekly meeting to discuss risks or use a statistics tool to track risk profile changes.

Step 5: Report

The risk mitigation strategy concludes with plan implementation and monitoring and metrics to assess its efficacy. You must constantly evaluate and adjust it as needed.

The risk mitigation strategy must be reviewed to ensure it is current, compliant with regulations, and effective for the firm. If something severe or risky happens, have backup plans.

Strategy types for risk mitigation

The following risk mitigation measures are employed most often and in combination, depending on business risks and possible impact.

Acceptance of risk: Accepting a gain may outweigh the risk. It doesn’t have to be permanent, but it may be the best way to focus major dangers.

Risk avoidance: This practice reduces risk by preventing it. This strategy may require the company to sacrifice other resources or tactics.

Risk monitoring: After completing its risk mitigation study, a business may monitor risks to lessen their likelihood or impact. Accepting risk, limiting losses, and preventing spread are its goals.

Risk transfer: Risk is transferred to a third party. This technique distributes risk from the corporation to an insurance firm, often. Insurance for property damage or personal injury is an example.

IBM and risk mitigation

Today, businesses must fight financial crime and fraud, manage financial risk, and mitigate technology and operational hazards. Develop and implement effective risk management methods and improve risk assessment, compliance, and regulation processes.

IBM-integrated technology, regulatory knowledge, and managed services from Promontory are their services. IBM’s scalable operations and intelligent workflows enable clients meet priorities, manage risk, fight financial crime and fraud, and meet changing customer needs while meeting supervisory requirements.

Read more on Govindhtech.com

#technology #govindhtech #technews #news #ibm #risk mitigation #risk management #cybersecurity

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the-learning-hub · 1 year

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Protecting Your Small Business from Ransomware Attacks: The Importance of Employee Education

As a small business owner, the thought of a ransomware attack can be terrifying. Not only can it lead to costly downtime, but it can also put your sensitive data at risk. But the good news is, there are steps you can take to protect your business from these attacks, and one of the most important is employee education. First, let’s define what a ransomware attack is. Ransomware is a type of…

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#Attacks #Business continuity #Cybersecurity #data #Education #Employees #Mitigation #Prevention #ransomware #recovery #security #Small business #threats #Training #Vulnerabilities

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clovenhooves-dot-org · 1 day

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clovenhooves.org registration process

There is some information on how to register here, and I am also explaining it in this post. The reason for this application system is to reduce the amount of trolls and people intending on using the forum in bad faith.

Please read the forum rules & guidelines. I'd like interested persons to feel like they can adhere to the rules. The guidelines are more suggestive.

Please read the cybersecurity guidelines to make sure you feel comfortable with making an account. I want to make sure people are aware of how to mitigate harm to themselves in the case of a database breach (which I have hopefully done enough security measures to avoid happening, but there is always some risk of hacking when it comes to websites).

Please check the membership application and see if you feel comfortable answering these questions. (Note: Your application will only be visible by yourself, trusted members, and admins. Once your application is accepted/rejected, only yourself and admins can look at it. This is in part to minimize copying of answers, we want people to answer honestly based on what they know, not based on what others have said.)

Create an account. Please read the "About Cloven Hooves" and "Registration Agreement" section and make sure you are good with it. Remember, you do not need to provide a real email address if you don't want to. But caution: a fake email address means I cannot help you recover your account if you lose your password.

Please provide some info in the "Invite code/referral" section -- at least write "tumblr" since I assume you learned about it from here. :) If you are willing to share your tumblr username (assuming you have an active feminist blog), that would help speed along this step. (Note: this field and the "why are you interested in this forum?" are private and only visible to yourself and admins.)

Wait for your account to be approved by an admin. Please be patient, as I'll be checking the forum when I'm home/not working/not busy. (While you are waiting for your account to be approved, it might be a good use of time to fill out the membership application offline, so that it's ready to post when your account is approved.)

Once your account is approved, please post your membership application in the "Pending Applications" forum.

Wait for your account to be accepted as a member, accepted as a learner, or rejected. If you are accepted as a member, you will be able to post anywhere on the forum. If you are accepted as a learner, you will be able to post questions and have discussions in "The Learning Channel". If you are rejected, you will not be able to post, so the same as a guest account. Learners and rejected people are welcome to reapply later on, probably within a few weeks/months. (Admins will not give detailed explanations on why an account has been marked as learner or rejected, as that could lead to gaming the system.)

Okay, that's all, yay!

(And when I refer to "people" throughout this post, I mean "women." Women are people. Female human beings. This is a feminist/woman-centered community.)

#radblr #terfblr #gender critical #gender critical feminism #radical feminism #radical feminists do touch #radical feminists please touch #radical feminist safe #radical feminist community #feminism #pro women #pro woman #feminist #radical feminists do interact

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loser-female · 5 months

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The job of a SOC Analyst

The #1 thing people ask me about is what I do for a job.

I'm a tier 1 SOC Analyst and I'm currently training to do some Cyber Threat Intelligence.

I will explain in detail what I do on a daily basis and why I've decided to do this job... And the negatives.

First of all, what's a SOC. SOC stands for "security operations center". It's a place (in my case virtual as I'm full remote) where a group of people, divided by experience and area of expertise, do the following:

Monitor the activities going on the customer's network or endpoints(= every device connected to the network);

Assess and mitigate alerts coming from the network and/or the endpoint of the client -> These tools send alerts that need to be evaluated and mitigated/responded in a certain amount of time (it depends on the SOC and the type of alert, generally I can assume an amount of time from 15 to 30 minutes per alert. Which is not that much;

Investigate cybersecurity incidents -> the SOC also analyses the kind of "incident" that happens in deep detail by analysing malware, spam emails, the behaviour of users and so on;

If the SOC is big/mature enough there could be some sort of prevention of cybersecurity issues, generally we talk about threat hunting (here for more information on that) and cyber threat intelligence (gathering information from various sources to produce a report about the potential attackers considering also the characteristic of the customer's company such as the size, the geographical area of operations, media exposure, geopolitical issues and what they do - doing this for a bank is different than doing it for a industry)

There are also other functions (such as we have a Security Architect that prepares a personalised solution for each client).

I know what you're thinking. But the AI...

No, they cannot do my job, as the ability of a human to notice patterns and correlate the information among various sources is unique. I memorised, with time, the usual activities my customers do, therefore I can interpret the user actions even with limited sources. And this is just one example.

Soc analysts are roughly divided in three "categories", always keep in mind that every SOC is different and has its own internal rules, that are not to be divulged. This is the rough division I've learned studying cybersecurity and NOT my organisation division.

Tier 1 Analysts are the one that monitors the traffic and activities I've mentioned before. They triage the alerts and if something deserves more investigation or can be discarded. They often perform simple actions of remediation of incidents.

Tier 2 Analysts are the ones that go deeper - they collect malware samples from the incident and analyse it, investigate and remediate more complex security incidents.

Tier 3 Analysts perform more active prevention duties like threat hunting and vulnerability assessments.

Some sources put intelligence activity on the tier 3, others consider it a different activity from the scenario I've described. If a SOC is big enough they might have their own intelligence team separated from the "regular" soc analysts. The rigidity of these roles can vary, as you probably got from my own duties.

On the top we have a SOC manager to coordinate the activities I've described and security architects that design the solution (although the deployment of these solutions can be delegated to the analysts, since we also have to monitor how well these perform).

All these people are usually referred as "blue teamers" btw, which are the ones that perform defensive actions.

A company can have a red team (basically they attack the customer to gain information that the blue team will use to improve their activities). I actually wanted to be a red teamer at first, since it's considered the "cooler" job.

Ok, got it. Now explain to me how you got there since I've never heard anything about this before.

I have a friend that's a system engineer and recommended this job to me.

I studies physics at university but I failed (in my country physics include some computer science classes btw) and I had some related experience I won't share for privacy reasons. No I'm not a criminal lol.

I then started studying - did a bootcamp and got a couple of certifications. Then I got my job.

However. Generally you get a degree in computer science or software engineering, and some universities offer cybersecurity degrees. Unfortunately I cannot tell you what to pick as every university has its own program and I cannot help you with that.

Certifications are a big part of my job unfortunately - mostly because due to how fast it goes you absolutely need to be "on top". It's annoying, yes, I hate it.

However. Consider that once you're hired you definitely will get them paid by your employer - at least in Europe this is on them(idk about the US), but you need some knowledge of cybersecurity to start.

Since some of them are stupid expensive I 100% recommend the compTIA ones. They're basics and respected worldwide. A+, Network+ and Security+ are basics, vendor neutral (which doesn't tie you to a particular "source", as every company works differently), and is relatively cheap (~300€).

Remember that I had previous experience so no one cares that I don't have a degree - I do however and I hope that in the future I will be able to "fix" this.

Great. How do I know if I'm good for this job?

This is on you. However:

One important thing if you don't live in an English speaking country is a good attitude towards foreign languages. I speak 5 for example, but it's an hobby I do since I was a teen;

Can you manage stress? A SOC is a fast paced environment, and you have a limited time to deal with whatever gets thrown at you. You have 15 to 30 minutes to deal with an alert and make a decision. Can you do that without panicking, crying or throwing a tantrum?

Are you a fast learner? You need to learn quickly how to do things, since the tools we use are quite complicated.

Are you willing to work on shifts, Saturdays, Sundays, festivities included? A lot of people can't cope with this and it's fine because it's a massacre. The job is so stressful to the point a lot of people leave cybersecurity because of it. Do not underestimate it, please.

How good are you at remembering random information and making correlations? Because I can remember random bits of information that no one ever thinks of it and it's one of my greatest strengths.

You need to do teamwork and be good with people, customers and so on - you have to explain complicated things you probably read in another language to people that don't know anything about what you do. It's more difficult than most people think.

Procedures are everything here - and for good reasons.

I think this is it.

Money.

USA avg salary: 74 307$ (Glassdoor)

France avg salary: 42 000€ (Glassdoor)

UK avg salary: 28 809 £ (Glassdoor)

There are random numbers I've found online(and with a lot of discrepancies). Consider that you MUST negotiate your salary, and that in certain places you get paid more if you work out of the usual 8-19 work shift. Obv since I live in a different place I cannot tell you if it's worth it - you do your own calculations.

But that's beyond the purpose of this post.

#ada.txt #cybersecurity #resources

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thursdayisbetterthanfriday · 8 months

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Atom: The Beginning & AI Cybersecurity

Atom: The Beginning is a manga about two researchers creating advanced robotic AI systems, such as unit A106. Their breakthrough is the Bewusstein (Translation: awareness) system, which aims to give robots a "heart", or a kind of empathy. In volume 2, A106, or Atom, manages to "beat" the highly advanced robot Mars in a fight using a highly abstracted machine language over WiFi to persuade it to stop.

This may be fiction, but it has parallels with current AI development in the use of specific commands to over-run safety guides. This has been demonstrated in GPT models, such as ChatGPT, where users are able to subvert models to get them to output "banned" information by "pretending" to be another AI system, or other means.

There are parallels to Atom, in a sense with users effectively "persuading" the system to empathise. In reality, this is the consequence of training Large Language Models (LLM's) on relatively un-sorted input data. Until recent guardrail placed by OpenAI there were no commands to "stop" the AI from pretending to be an AI from being a human who COULD perform these actions.

As one research paper put it:

"Such attacks can result in erroneous outputs, model-generated hate speech, and the exposure of users’ sensitive information." Branch, et al. 2022

There are, however, more deliberately malicious actions which AI developers can take to introduce backdoors.

In Atom, Volume 4, Atom faces off against Ivan - a Russian military robot. Ivan, however, has been programmed with data collected from the fight between Mars and Atom.

What the human researchers in the manga didn't realise, was the code transmissions were a kind of highly abstracted machine level conversation. Regardless, the "anti-viral" commands were implemented into Ivan and, as a result, Ivan parrots the words Atom used back to it, causing Atom to deliberately hold back.

In AI cybersecurity terms, this is effectively an AI-on-AI prompt injection attack. Attempting to use the words of the AI against itself to perform malicious acts. Not only can this occur, but AI creators can plant "backdoor commands" into AI systems on creation, where a specific set of inputs can activate functionality hidden to regular users.

This is a key security issue for any company training AI systems, and has led many to reconsider outsourcing AI training of potential high-risk AI systems. Researchers, such as Shafi Goldwasser at UC Berkley are at the cutting edge of this research, doing work compared to the key encryption standards and algorithms research of the 1950s and 60s which have led to today's modern world of highly secure online transactions and messaging services.

From returning database entries, to controlling applied hardware, it is key that these dangers are fully understood on a deep mathematical, logical, basis or else we face the dangerous prospect of future AI systems which can be turned against users.

As AI further develops as a field, these kinds of attacks will need to be prevented, or mitigated against, to ensure the safety of systems that people interact with.

References:

Twitter pranksters derail GPT-3 bot with newly discovered “prompt injection” hack - Ars Technica (16/09/2023)

EVALUATING THE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF PRE-TRAINED LANGUAGE MODELS VIA HANDCRAFTED ADVERSARIAL EXAMPLES - Hezekiah Branch et. al, 2022 Funded by Preamble

In Neural Networks, Unbreakable Locks Can Hide Invisible Doors - Quanta Magazine (02/03/2023)

Planting Undetectable Backdoors in Machine Learning Models - Shafi Goldwasser et.al, UC Berkeley, 2022

#ai research #ai #artificial intelligence #atom the beginning #ozuka tezuka #cybersecurity #a106 #atom: the beginning

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understandingactivedirectory · 9 months

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Exploring Kerberos and its related attacks

Introduction

In the world of cybersecurity, authentication is the linchpin upon which secure communications and data access rely. Kerberos, a network authentication protocol developed by MIT, has played a pivotal role in securing networks, particularly in Microsoft Windows environments. In this in-depth exploration of Kerberos, we'll delve into its technical intricacies, vulnerabilities, and the countermeasures that can help organizations safeguard their systems.

Understanding Kerberos: The Fundamentals

At its core, Kerberos is designed to provide secure authentication for users and services over a non-secure network, such as the internet. It operates on the principle of "need-to-know," ensuring that only authenticated users can access specific resources. To grasp its inner workings, let's break down Kerberos into its key components:

1. Authentication Server (AS)

The AS is the initial point of contact for authentication. When a user requests access to a service, the AS verifies their identity and issues a Ticket Granting Ticket (TGT) if authentication is successful.

2. Ticket Granting Server (TGS)

Once a user has a TGT, they can request access to various services without re-entering their credentials. The TGS validates the TGT and issues a service ticket for the requested resource.

3. Realm

A realm in Kerberos represents a security domain. It defines a specific set of users, services, and authentication servers that share a common Kerberos database.

4. Service Principal

A service principal represents a network service (e.g., a file server or email server) within the realm. Each service principal has a unique encryption key.

Vulnerabilities in Kerberos

While Kerberos is a robust authentication protocol, it is not immune to vulnerabilities and attacks. Understanding these vulnerabilities is crucial for securing a network environment that relies on Kerberos for authentication.

1. AS-REP Roasting

AS-REP Roasting is a common attack that exploits weak user account settings. When a user's pre-authentication is disabled, an attacker can request a TGT for that user without presenting a password. They can then brute-force the TGT offline to obtain the user's plaintext password.

2. Pass-the-Ticket Attacks

In a Pass-the-Ticket attack, an attacker steals a TGT or service ticket and uses it to impersonate a legitimate user or service. This attack can lead to unauthorized access and privilege escalation.

3. Golden Ticket Attacks

A Golden Ticket attack allows an attacker to forge TGTs, granting them unrestricted access to the domain. To execute this attack, the attacker needs to compromise the Key Distribution Center (KDC) long-term secret key.

4. Silver Ticket Attacks

Silver Ticket attacks target specific services or resources. Attackers create forged service tickets to access a particular resource without having the user's password.

Technical Aspects and Formulas

To gain a deeper understanding of Kerberos and its related attacks, let's delve into some of the technical aspects and cryptographic formulas that underpin the protocol:

1. Kerberos Authentication Flow

The Kerberos authentication process involves several steps, including ticket requests, encryption, and decryption. It relies on various cryptographic algorithms, such as DES, AES, and HMAC.

2. Ticket Granting Ticket (TGT) Structure

A TGT typically consists of a user's identity, the requested service, a timestamp, and other information encrypted with the TGS's secret key. The TGT structure can be expressed as:

3. Encryption Keys

Kerberos relies on encryption keys generated during the authentication process. The user's password is typically used to derive these keys. The process involves key generation and hashing formulas.

Mitigating Kerberos Vulnerabilities

To protect against Kerberos-related vulnerabilities and attacks, organizations can implement several strategies and countermeasures:

1. Enforce Strong Password Policies

Strong password policies can mitigate attacks like AS-REP Roasting. Ensure that users create complex, difficult-to-guess passwords and consider enabling pre-authentication.

2. Implement Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

MFA adds an extra layer of security by requiring users to provide multiple forms of authentication. This can thwart various Kerberos attacks.

3. Regularly Rotate Encryption Keys

Frequent rotation of encryption keys can limit an attacker's ability to use stolen tickets. Implement a key rotation policy and ensure it aligns with best practices.

4. Monitor and Audit Kerberos Traffic

Continuous monitoring and auditing of Kerberos traffic can help detect and respond to suspicious activities. Utilize security information and event management (SIEM) tools for this purpose.

5. Segment and Isolate Critical Systems

Isolating sensitive systems from less-trusted parts of the network can reduce the risk of lateral movement by attackers who compromise one system.

6. Patch and Update

Regularly update and patch your Kerberos implementation to mitigate known vulnerabilities and stay ahead of emerging threats.

4. Kerberos Encryption Algorithms

Kerberos employs various encryption algorithms to protect data during authentication and ticket issuance. Common cryptographic algorithms include:

DES (Data Encryption Standard): Historically used, but now considered weak due to its susceptibility to brute-force attacks.

3DES (Triple DES): An improvement over DES, it applies the DES encryption algorithm three times to enhance security.

AES (Advanced Encryption Standard): A strong symmetric encryption algorithm, widely used in modern Kerberos implementations for better security.

HMAC (Hash-based Message Authentication Code): Used for message integrity, HMAC ensures that messages have not been tampered with during transmission.

5. Key Distribution Center (KDC)

The KDC is the heart of the Kerberos authentication system. It consists of two components: the Authentication Server (AS) and the Ticket Granting Server (TGS). The AS handles initial authentication requests and issues TGTs, while the TGS validates these TGTs and issues service tickets. This separation of functions enhances security by minimizing exposure to attack vectors.

6. Salting and Nonces

To thwart replay attacks, Kerberos employs salting and nonces (random numbers). Salting involves appending a random value to a user's password before hashing, making it more resistant to dictionary attacks. Nonces are unique values generated for each authentication request to prevent replay attacks.

Now, let's delve into further Kerberos vulnerabilities and their technical aspects:

7. Ticket-Granting Ticket (TGT) Expiry Time

By default, TGTs have a relatively long expiry time, which can be exploited by attackers if they can intercept and reuse them. Administrators should consider reducing TGT lifetimes to mitigate this risk.

8. Ticket Granting Ticket Renewal

Kerberos allows TGT renewal without re-entering the password. While convenient, this feature can be abused by attackers if they manage to capture a TGT. Limiting the number of renewals or implementing MFA for renewals can help mitigate this risk.

9. Service Principal Name (SPN) Abuse

Attackers may exploit misconfigured SPNs to impersonate legitimate services. Regularly review and audit SPNs to ensure they are correctly associated with the intended services.

10. Kerberoasting

Kerberoasting is an attack where attackers target service accounts to obtain service tickets and attempt offline brute-force attacks to recover plaintext passwords. Robust password policies and regular rotation of service account passwords can help mitigate this risk.

11. Silver Ticket and Golden Ticket Attacks

To defend against Silver and Golden Ticket attacks, it's essential to implement strong password policies, limit privileges of service accounts, and monitor for suspicious behavior, such as unusual access patterns.

12. Kerberos Constrained Delegation

Kerberos Constrained Delegation allows a service to impersonate a user to access other services. Misconfigurations can lead to security vulnerabilities, so careful planning and configuration are essential.

Mitigation strategies to counter these vulnerabilities include:

13. Shorter Ticket Lifetimes

Reducing the lifespan of TGTs and service tickets limits the window of opportunity for attackers to misuse captured tickets.

14. Regular Password Changes

Frequent password changes for service accounts and users can thwart offline attacks and reduce the impact of credential compromise.

15. Least Privilege Principle

Implement the principle of least privilege for service accounts, limiting their access only to the resources they need, and monitor for unusual access patterns.

16. Logging and Monitoring

Comprehensive logging and real-time monitoring of Kerberos traffic can help identify and respond to suspicious activities, including repeated failed authentication attempts.

Kerberos Delegation: A Technical Deep Dive

1. Understanding Delegation in Kerberos

Kerberos delegation allows a service to act on behalf of a user to access other services without requiring the user to reauthenticate for each service. This capability enhances the efficiency and usability of networked applications, particularly in complex environments where multiple services need to interact on behalf of a user.

2. Types of Kerberos Delegation

Kerberos delegation can be categorized into two main types:

Constrained Delegation: This type of delegation restricts the services a service can access on behalf of a user. It allows administrators to specify which services a given service can impersonate for the user.

Unconstrained Delegation: In contrast, unconstrained delegation grants the service full delegation rights, enabling it to access any service on behalf of the user without restrictions. Unconstrained delegation poses higher security risks and is generally discouraged.

3. How Delegation Works

Here's a step-by-step breakdown of how delegation occurs within the Kerberos authentication process:

Initial Authentication: The user logs in and obtains a Ticket Granting Ticket (TGT) from the Authentication Server (AS).

Request to Access a Delegated Service: The user requests access to a service that supports delegation.

Service Ticket Request: The user's client requests a service ticket from the Ticket Granting Server (TGS) to access the delegated service. The TGS issues a service ticket for the delegated service and includes the user's TGT encrypted with the service's secret key.

Service Access: The user presents the service ticket to the delegated service. The service decrypts the ticket using its secret key and obtains the user's TGT.

Secondary Authentication: The delegated service can then use the user's TGT to authenticate to other services on behalf of the user without the user's direct involvement. This secondary authentication occurs transparently to the user.

4. Delegation and Impersonation

Kerberos delegation can be seen as a form of impersonation. The delegated service effectively impersonates the user to access other services. This impersonation is secure because the delegated service needs to present both the user's TGT and the service ticket for the delegated service, proving it has the user's explicit permission.

5. Delegation in Multi-Tier Applications

Kerberos delegation is particularly useful in multi-tier applications, where multiple services are involved in processing a user's request. It allows a front-end service to securely delegate authentication to a back-end service on behalf of the user.

6. Protocol Extensions for Delegation

Kerberos extensions, such as Service-for-User (S4U) extensions, enable a service to request service tickets on behalf of a user without needing the user's TGT. These extensions are valuable for cases where the delegated service cannot obtain the user's TGT directly.

7. Benefits of Kerberos Delegation

Efficiency: Delegation eliminates the need for the user to repeatedly authenticate to access multiple services, improving the user experience.

Security: Delegation is secure because it relies on Kerberos authentication and requires proper configuration to work effectively.

Scalability: Delegation is well-suited for complex environments with multiple services and tiers, enhancing scalability.

In this comprehensive exploration of Kerberos, we've covered a wide array of topics, from the fundamentals of its authentication process to advanced concepts like delegation.

Kerberos, as a network authentication protocol, forms the backbone of secure communication within organizations. Its core principles include the use of tickets, encryption, and a trusted third-party Authentication Server (AS) to ensure secure client-service interactions.

Security is a paramount concern in Kerberos. The protocol employs encryption, timestamps, and mutual authentication to guarantee that only authorized users gain access to network resources. Understanding these security mechanisms is vital for maintaining robust network security.

Despite its robustness, Kerberos is not impervious to vulnerabilities. Attacks like AS-REP Roasting, Pass-the-Ticket, Golden Ticket, and Silver Ticket attacks can compromise security. Organizations must be aware of these vulnerabilities to take appropriate countermeasures.

Implementing best practices is essential for securing Kerberos-based authentication systems. These practices include enforcing strong password policies, regular key rotation, continuous monitoring, and employee training.

Delving into advanced Kerberos concepts, we explored delegation – both constrained and unconstrained. Delegation allows services to act on behalf of users, enhancing usability and efficiency in complex, multi-tiered applications. Understanding delegation and its security implications is crucial in such scenarios.

Advanced Kerberos concepts introduce additional security considerations. These include implementing fine-grained access controls, monitoring for unusual activities, and regularly analyzing logs to detect and respond to security incidents.

So to conclude, Kerberos stands as a foundational authentication protocol that plays a pivotal role in securing networked environments. It offers robust security mechanisms and advanced features like delegation to enhance usability. Staying informed about Kerberos' complexities, vulnerabilities, and best practices is essential to maintain a strong security posture in the ever-evolving landscape of cybersecurity.

#cybersecurity #active directory #kerberos #windows os #cyberattack

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zerosecurity · 6 days

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Major Security Vulnerabilities Patched in Cox Modems

Cybersecurity researcher Sam Curry has recently uncovered a series of critical vulnerabilities in the systems of Cox Communications, a major telecommunications provider. These vulnerabilities could have allowed malicious actors to remotely take control of millions of modems used by Cox's customers, posing a significant risk to their privacy and security.

Bypassing Authorization and Gaining Elevated Privileges

Curry's analysis revealed an API vulnerability that allowed bypassing authorization checks, potentially enabling an unauthenticated attacker to gain the same privileges as Cox's technical support team. This exploit could have allowed attackers to overwrite configuration settings, access the routers, and execute commands on the affected devices. According to the researcher, "This series of vulnerabilities demonstrated a way in which a fully external attacker with no prerequisites could've executed commands and modified the settings of millions of modems, accessed any business customer's PII, and gained essentially the same permissions of an ISP support team."

Potential Attack Scenarios and Risks

In a theoretical attack scenario outlined by Curry, a malicious actor could have searched for a targeted Cox business user through the exposed API using personal information such as their name, email address, phone number, or account number. Once identified, the attacker could have obtained additional information from the targeted user's account, including their Wi-Fi password. With this access, the attacker could have executed arbitrary commands, updated device settings, or take over accounts, potentially compromising sensitive data and personal information.

Responsible Disclosure and Prompt Patching

Curry responsibly reported the vulnerabilities to Cox Communications on March 4, and the company took swift action to prevent exploitation by the next day. Cox also informed the researcher that it conducted a comprehensive security review following the report. Notably, Cox found no evidence of the vulnerability being exploited in the wild for malicious purposes, indicating that the potential risks were mitigated before any significant damage occurred.

Origins of the Attack and Unanswered Questions

The origin of the attack on Curry's modem appears to be from an IP address (159.65.76.209) previously used for phishing campaigns, including targeting a South American cybersecurity company. When Curry tried to get a replacement modem from Cox, they required him to turn in the potentially compromised device, preventing further analysis. Curry's traffic was being intercepted and replayed, suggesting the attacker had access to his home network, though the motive for replaying traffic is unclear. The vulnerabilities found in Cox's systems included lack of authentication checks, allowing arbitrary API requests by simply replaying them. Over 700 APIs were exposed. Cox patched the issues after disclosure but found no evidence the specific attack vector was exploited maliciously before 2023, despite Curry's modem being compromised in 2021. The blog aims to highlight supply chain risks between ISPs and customer devices, though Curry's modem may have been hacked through another unrelated method locally. Read the full article

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century-solutions-group · 12 days

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What is Zero Trust Architecture?

Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) is a security model that operates on the principle "never trust, always verify." Unlike traditional security models that assume everything within a network is trustworthy, ZTA requires verification for every access request, regardless of whether it originates inside or outside the network.

Why is it Important?

In today's digital landscape, cyber threats are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Zero Trust Architecture helps mitigate risks by continuously verifying every user and device, ensuring that only authorized entities can access sensitive information.

How Does It Protect You?

1. Enhanced Security: By requiring strict verification, ZTA minimizes the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches.

2. Reduced Attack Surface: Limiting access to only what is necessary decreases potential entry points for attackers.

3. Real-time Monitoring: Continuous monitoring and verification help detect and respond to threats promptly.

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naturalrights-retard · 6 months

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STORY AT-A-GLANCE

In mid-July 2023, Chase Bank closed my business accounts, along with the personal accounts of my CEO and CFO, and the accounts of their spouses and children

Chase Bank has close relationships with the technocratic control network that is trying to usher in a one world totalitarian government, and debanking is the weaponization of finance for the purpose of social control. By debanking us, Chase Bank has given people a foretaste of how central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and social credit scores will be used to control the masses

JP Morgan Chase chief information officer Lori Beer became a member of the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) newly launched Cybersecurity Advisory Committee in December 2021. So, JP Morgan Chase has been advising a federal agency, CISA, on how to most effectively censor and control Americans

Chase is also the only bank represented on CISA’s subcommittee on Protecting Critical Infrastructure from Misinformation and Disinformation. With everything we now know about CISA’s unconstitutional domestic censorship activities, it appears the weaponization of finance was part of the plan from the start, and Chase has now tested the strategy of “punishment by association”

Chase Bank also has intimate ties to Bill Gates and the notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. These connections link the bank not only to global child sex trafficking enterprises but also to Gates’ disastrous vaccine philanthrocapitalism, the hidden eugenics agenda, and the heart of the One World Government cabal, the World Health Organization

As previously reported, in mid-July 2023, Chase Bank closed my business accounts, along with the personal accounts of my CEO and CFO — both of whom have been with me for nearly 20 years — and the accounts of their spouses and children. This despite a new Florida law that specifically prohibits financial institutions from denying or canceling services based on political or religious beliefs.

Lame Excuses

At the time, the only reason given was that there was "unexpected activity" on an unspecified account. Later, a representative told reporters that account closures are typically only done for anti-money laundering purposes.1,2

However, no money laundering charges have ever been leveled against me, and in a real money laundering case, they seize your accounts outright. They don’t instruct you to take your business elsewhere.

Later, in response to an inquiry by Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, a Chase spokesman replied that the accounts were closed because my business had "been the subject of regulatory scrutiny by the Federal government ... for engaging in illegal activity relating to the marketing and sale of consumer products."3

The spokesman claimed the bank had a "legal obligation" to prevent funds from such activities from going through their bank. The problem with that "explanation" is that the last "federal scrutiny" of our business was when the Food and Drug Administration, in 2021, sent us a warning letter accusing us of selling vitamins C, D, and quercetin and pterostilbene advanced to "mitigate, prevent, treat, diagnose or cure COVID-19" in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.4

However, a warning letter is not proof of illegal activity. It’s an accusation. We responded to the FDA’s letter and no further action was ever taken, because we had not, in fact, violated the law.

If Chase Bank insists it has a "legal obligation" to debank me, my employees and their families, over an old FDA warning letter, then they would also be legally obligated to debank Chase executives and employees who intentionally benefited from sex trafficking5,6,7 and defrauded investors with illegal investment schemes,8 which they have not done.

No, something else prompted Chase Bank to close our accounts, and the most likely reason appears to be the bank’s relationships to the technocratic control network that is trying to usher in a one world totalitarian government.

Since our debanking, we’ve discovered that Chase Bank has several connections to entities that are pushing the Orwellian dystopia that is The Great Reset, both domestically and internationally.

Importantly, JP Morgan Chase has been a long-time business partner of Bill Gates, setting up a vaccine "investment fund" together. So, Chase Bank is at the root of Gates’ vaccine profiteering, and has made untold sums from the vaccines Gates is involved with — including mRNA "vaccines."

Chase Bank Has Direct Ties to Domestic Censorship Hub

For starters, JP Morgan Chase chief information officer Lori Beer became a member of the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) newly launched Cybersecurity Advisory Committee in December 2021.9

According to a press release,10 this advisory committee is tasked with making recommendations to the CISA director on "policies, programs, planning and training to enhance the nation’s cyber defense."

Two of the topics to be tackled by the subcommittee included "combating misinformation and disinformation impacting the security of critical infrastructure" and "transforming public-private partnership into true operational collaboration."

So, what we have here is a bank, JP Morgan Chase, advising a federal agency, CISA, on how to censor Americans and figuring out how to leverage this public-private relationship to ensure the survival of an ever-more totalitarian and lawless government.

By debanking me, my CEO, CFO, their spouses and children (actually barring them for life), Chase Bank has given people a foretaste of how central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and social credit scores will be used to control us.

With that in mind, is it any wonder then that Chase was the first bank to "punish by association?" Make no mistake, debanking is the weaponization of finance for the purpose of social control.

If you’re found to be even loosely associated with a "dissenter," the rug that is your financial life will be pulled from under your feet. The desired rest is for people to police each other and shun anyone who doesn’t go along with the official narrative.

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Chase Bank Carries Water for the Censorship Industrial Complex

Chase is also the only bank represented on CISA’s subcommittee on Protecting Critical Infrastructure from Misinformation and Disinformation.

Internal CISA documents obtained from an ongoing lawsuit against the U.S. government shows that a representative of Chase Bank, whose name was redacted, attended the Subcommittee’s March 1, 2022, meeting,11,12 at which the section chief for the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) warned that "subversive information" on social media could undermine public support for the U.S. government and that "media infrastructure" had to be held accountable.13

The committee members went on to discuss what the government’s strategic approach related to misinformation and disinformation ought to be, how best to organize information sharing between the public and private sector, and how to collaborate across channels.

We now know that a formalized process was implemented that allowed government officials to log into a special portal where they could flag social media content for removal.14

The committee also sought to identify entities that had "done appropriate social media monitoring for the government." We now have proof that CISA partnered with a censorship consortium called the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), later rebranded as the Virality Project, to illegally censor Americans. I detailed this relationship in "How the Virality Project Threatens Our Freedom."

Why was Chase Bank included in a meeting in which they were trying to tease out the best way for government to censor Americans? With everything we now know about CISA’s unconstitutional domestic censorship activities, the most likely answer is that the weaponization of finance was part of that plan, and a year and a half later, Chase tested this tactic on my employees and their families.

Chase Bank Also Has Direct Ties to Bill Gates

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, Chase Bank also has intimate ties to Bill Gates, as well as the notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. These connections link the bank not only to global child sex trafficking enterprises but also to Gates’ disastrous vaccine philanthrocapitalism, the hidden eugenics agenda, and the heart of the One World Government cabal, the World Health Organization, which receives most of its funding from the Gates Foundation.

As reported by Seamus Bruner,15 author of "Controligarchs: Exposing the Billionaire Class, Their Secret Deals, and the Globalist Plot to Dominate Your Life," JP Morgan Chase has been one of Gates’ "most powerful business partners."

In 2011, the bank formed an official partnership with Gates called the Global Health Investment Fund (GHIF),16,17 which "sought to profit from the development of vaccines and other health technologies." Investors in GHIF included the Pfizer Foundation, Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, and entities funded by the governments of Sweden, Canada and Germany.

According to Bruner, the GHIF "backed mRNA technologies at least five years before the COVID-19 pandemic, and at least four of the companies that the GHIF invested in — Atomo Diagnostics, Access Bio, genedrive plc and Univercells — ‘actively worked to address the COVID-19 pandemic through efficient diagnostics that help identify and track cases and the application of innovative technologies for vaccine development and manufacturing.’"

In other words, JP Morgan Chase had a direct and financially motivated incentive to collaborate with CISA to censor COVID narrative destroyers like me, and to punish me and my employees for continuing to speak against the narrative even after we’d been successfully buried by Google, deplatformed by every social media out there, and having had our website taken down by hackers and our email servers permanently destroyed.

After all that, that’s when Chase Bank took action against us, and after learning the bank has been backing mRNA developers for nearly a decade, its actions now make more sense than ever. To them, shutting me up and closing me down was what you would call "personal," because my viewpoints pose a clear threat to their investments.

Chase Supported Epstein’s Sex Trafficking Business

Epstein was brought into the partnership by James Staley, a senior Chase Bank executive who managed Epstein’s relationship with the bank. Mind you, in 2008, Epstein, facing federal sex crime charges, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18 and served an 18-month sentence in a work-release program.18

Many knew it was a sweetheart deal that hid a far more sordid reality, yet Chase Bank had no qualms about keeping Epstein as a customer. They also maintained accounts for Epstein’s victims and "managed the flow of money between them," according to The Washington Post.19

Chase Bank didn’t close Epstein’s accounts until 2013,20 and even then, the bank still retained an off-the-books business relationship with him that lasted all the way up to his arrest for sex trafficking in 2019.

Planet Lockdown and the Role of Banks

As explained by finance expert Catherine Austin Fitts, founder of the Solari Report, the central bankers, most of whom are technocrats, have created a parallel society in which they are above all law and control just about everything — including fiscal policy.

Their plan, which is part and parcel of The Great Reset, is to implement a new financial system that will permanently lock their ill-gotten power into place. In short, the technocratic control system and the financial transaction system are one and the same.

This new transaction system is the end of currencies, because in this system, you can never take the currency out of the bank and put it in your pocket. You can only conduct transactions digitally, and all transactions must be validated and approved through and by the central bank.

Using my personal debanking experience as the example, it should be easy to see how this kind of transaction system can be used as a central control mechanism.

When someone steps out of line, their ability to make financial transactions is simply cut off, and there won’t even be a human making this decision. Financial punishment for wrongthink and associations with undesirables will be meted out by the artificial intelligence running the social credit system.

Knowing this, the options become rather simple. We can have a human civilization, or we can have an inhuman civilization. We can have a financial system where private monopoly controls the printing of money, or we can have a decentralized system founded in sound money.

I agree with Fitts, who says she wants to live in a world where the financial printing press has been decentralized, and where we are committed to human civilization — not a transhumanist dystopia run by technocrats steeped in the ideology of eugenics.

To make our vision reality, we must push just as hard for decentralization and freedom as the globalists are pushing their Great Reset. That means rejecting all of their convenience offerings, especially as it pertains to banking and surveillance.

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