Providing credentials to Nessus so that it can log into the systems being scanned is a very effective method of vulnerability scanning. It enables the scanner to provide a patch audit, perform local operating system identification, portscanning, and audit the configuration files present on the target. For web application testing, credentials allow Nessus to enumerate and detect vulnerabilities inside the application, ensuring that a larger percentage of functionality is tested. The following two videos cover how to perform both network-based credentialed scanning, and provide credentials for web application scanning using Nessus 4.2.

Network-based Credentialed Scanning & Patch Auditing

"The objectives of this regulation are to insure (sic) the security and confidentiality of customer information in a manner fully consistent with industry standards; protect against anticipated threats or hazards to the security or integrity of such information; and protect against unauthorized access to or use of such information that may result in substantial harm or inconvenience to any consumer."

Welcome to the Tenable Network Security Podcast - Episode 20

Announcements

• A new blog post has been released titled "Being Pro-Active Against the "0-Day" Threat" and covers how you can more effectively defend your network given that the bad guys have "0-day" exploits. Marcus Ranum also published an article titled, "Afterbytes - Ranum on Google Considering Leaving China" where he weighs in on the Google Aurora incident. Brian Martin also contributed an article titled, Putting OSVDB to work for Nessus Vulnerability Management where covers how to use OSVDB to provide additional references to give system administrators more information about a particular vulnerability.
• You can provide feedback to this podcast and all of our social media outlets by visiting our discussions forum and adding messages to the "Tenable Social Media" thread. I would love to hear your feedback, questions, comments, and suggestions! I put up a call for ideas on new Nessus videos, so please give us your feedback!
• We're hiring! - Visit the web site for more information about open positions, there are currently 12 open positions listed!
• You can subscribe to the Tenable Network Security Podcast on iTunes!
• Tenable Tweets - You find us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tenablesecurity where we make various announcements, Nessus plugin statistics, and more!

Interview: Mike Murray

Recent investigations into the Google "Aurora" incident uncovered evidence that Chinese attackers used a 0-day exploit for Internet Explorer to gain access to Google employees’ computer systems. This event has sparked the release of Microsoft Security Bulletin MS10-002 - Critical , and a public exploit for the vulnerability. To mitigate this vulnerability, Microsoft originally recommended that customers upgrade to Internet Explorer 8, and enable DEP (Data Execution Prevention). On January 21, 2010 Microsoft released an "out-of-band" patch for the vulnerability, which fixes the problem on Internet Explorer version 6, 7 and 8. Methods exist to reliably exploit Internet Explorer versions 6 & 7, and there are several people who have working exploits for IE version 8, including Dino Dai Zovi, a well-respected vulnerability researcher. (A concise list of the details surrounding this issue can be found in this article).

Being Proactive

Many organizations are likely to implement the patch released by Microsoft since the issue has been receiving a lot of media attention. Patching because of a media event is an all-too-common mistake made by many organizations that cannot be convinced to implement new security measures until exploits make the news. Patching systems needs to be part of an organization’s overall strategy – not just a reaction to a media event. When new technologies become available as upgrades to your existing systems, put a plan in place to test and migrate to them, especially if they offer increased security. The organizations doing this today are looking at the latest exploit and implementing their patch strategy as part of the standard operating procedure.

Title: Google Considering Leaving China Date: January 12, 2010

In the wake of the attacks on Google and other companies, Google has indicated that it may no longer cooperate with Chinese censorship rules and that it may consider pulling out of China altogether. When Google opened operations in China in 2006, it operated under an agreement with the Chinese government that it would remove banned subject matter from search results.

Sources: Google, Citing Attack, Threatens to Exit China, Update: Google may pull out of China because of cyberattacks, Google's response to being attacked by China

Paired with this fascinating piece by Gerald Posner.

The ongoing story of the Chinese "cyberwar" just keeps popping up in the news, again and again, like a zombie that takes repeated blows with a shovel and just won't stop moving. Am I talking about it too much? Perhaps, but it's one of those nodal point issues that I think tells us an incredible amount about what's going on in information security at the government and major corporation level. What do I mean? It's becoming a litmus test, for me, as to who has a clue and who doesn't. But if you want to be a paranoid skeptic, ask yourself "why are people with clues acting as if they have none?"

A customer recently asked us to provide a count of patches issued in 2009 for various Unix and Linux-based operating systems. To honor their request, we turned to OSVDB, the Open Source Vulnerability Database. OSVDB covers over 60,000 vulnerabilities, spans over 26,000 products and has a powerful search engine that can produce search results based on disclosure date(s), vendor and/or product, CVSSv2 scores, references, vulnerability classifications and more. When generating any statistic regarding vulnerabilities, it is important to qualify the statistics and understand they are only as good as the data set that generated them. While OSVDB does not have a complete data set, it is the only Vulnerability Database (VDB) that provides powerful and flexible search capabilities.

Topics discussed will include limitations in conventional anti-virus detection, white/black list analysis of systems and network traffic, the use of anomaly detection, and how system hardening and policy compliance can help prevent infections in the face of zero-day vulnerabilities.

Register: www.gotomeeting.com/547154601 Date: February 25, 1:30 PM EST

Welcome to the Tenable Network Security Podcast - Episode 19

Announcements

• A new blog post has been released titled "Microsoft Patch Tuesday - January 2010 - "Aged Cheese" Edition" and covers the latest patches released from Microsoft, in addition to some useful plugins to detect deprecated operating systems. Marcus Ranum also published an article titled, "Afterbytes with Marcus Ranum - Using A Dedicated PC For Online Banking".
• You can provide feedback to this podcast and all of our social media outlets by visiting our discussions forum and adding messages to the "Tenable Social Media" thread. I would love to hear your feedback, questions, comments, and suggestions!
• We're hiring! - Visit the web site for more information about open positions, there are currently 12 open positions listed!
• You can subscribe to the Tenable Network Security Podcast on iTunes!
• Tenable Tweets - You find us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tenablesecurity where we make various announcements, Nessus plugin statistics, and more!

Interview: Jake Kouns

Jake Kouns is the co-founder and President of the Open Security Foundation which oversees the operations of the Open Source Vulnerability Database (OSVDB) and the Dataloss DB project.. Kouns' primary focus is to provide management oversight and define the strategic direction the project.

Stinky, Aged Operating System?

It’s that time of the month again - Microsoft patch Tuesday of course! This month I expected to research several different vulnerabilities, how they work, methods to detect them, etc. However, Microsoft is only patching one vulnerability this month. I can’t believe there is only one vulnerability this month! In any case, this month's vulnerability occurs in the way applications handle Embedded OpenType fonts. I was a bit puzzled as to why so much effort was going into font rendering until I discovered that it is common for web sites to implement different languages and have them display correctly to the end user (primarily for “non-English” languages). The vulnerability is triggered when a user renders fonts on a web page or by opening a Microsoft Office document that contains embedded fonts. An interesting fact about this bulletin (which only covers one CVE entry, CVE-2010-0018) is:

"This security update is rated Critical for Microsoft Windows 2000, and is rated Low for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2."

ABA Recommends Using Dedicated PC for Online Banking

Date: January 1 & 4, 2010

Synopsis: The American Bankers' Association (ABA) issued guidance to small and mid-sized businesses regarding how to protect themselves from the growing problem of unauthorized Automated Clearing House (ACH) transactions. Of special note is the recommendation that businesses use a dedicated PC that is never used for email or web browsing to conduct online banking transactions.

Sources: Online banking warning surprises some experts, Businesses warned about online banking

This particular bit of news seems to have gotten disproportionate attention. On one hand, people see it as "ABA tells home users to use a dedicated PC!" and on the other it's business as usual.

But, it's not business as usual - what ABA is doing is recommending a specific response to a deeper problem. The problem is not "online banking" or anything like it; what we're seeing here is an implicit statement that endpoint trust is finally beginning to matter, as cybercriminals are increasingly attacking the shoddy operating systems that everyone seems to use for general purposes.

Welcome to the Tenable Network Security Podcast - Episode 18

Announcements

• A new blog post has been released titled "Airport Security: Don't Make The Same Mistakes" and compares the current challenges of airport security to the very same challenges we face with computer and network security.
• You can provide feedback to this podcast and all of our social media outlets by visiting our discussions forum and adding messages to the "Tenable Social Media" thread. I would love to hear your feedback, questions, comments, and suggestions!
• We're hiring! - Visit the web site for more information about open positions, there are currently 12 open positions listed!
• You can subscribe to the Tenable Network Security Podcast on iTunes!
• Tenable Tweets - You find us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tenablesecurity where we make various announcements, Nessus plugin statistics, and more!

Airport "Security"

Those of us who travel through any U.S. airport are used to the inconvenience of airport security - the long lines, metal detectors, having to take off your shoes, belts, earrings, and of course the ominous "liquids and gels" inspection. While most people accept these inconveniences as an unfortunate necessity, much of what has been implemented shares some of the common pitfalls found in many computer and network security programs. Using the U.S. airport security model as an example, let’s take a look at some of the security being implemented and relate it to security gone wrong in the enterprise:

The dreaded long lines at airport security are a by-product of the current security model at U.S. airports.

Previously, we’ve blogged about the various advantages and disadvantages of using reputation based analysis of NetFlow, firewall and network sessions for event analysis. The basic concept is to use an external source of “badguy” IP addresses from commercial providers or free providers such as the SANS Internet Storm Center and see if any of your network IP addresses communicate with them.