Today’s security leaders must manage a constantly evolving attack surface and a dynamic threat environment due to interconnected devices, cloud services, IoT technologies, and hybrid work environments. Adversaries are constantly introducing new attack techniques, and not all companies have internal Red Teams or unlimited security resources to stay on top of the latest threats. On…
We all know the culprits. Cloud adoption, remote and hybrid work arrangements and a long list of must-have technologies have led to an ever-expanding attack surface, compelling organizations to become more agile and responsive in their cyber defense. Taming this unwieldy beast seems to be on everyone’s mind as global spending on security and risk…
Every company has some level of tech debt. Unless you’re a brand new start-up, you most likely have a patchwork of solutions that have been implemented throughout the years, often under various leadership teams with different priorities and goals. As those technologies age, they can leave your organization vulnerable to cyber threats. While replacing legacy…
LOLBAS (Living Off the Land Binaries And Scripts) is an attack method that uses binaries and scripts that are already part of the system for malicious purposes. This makes it hard for security teams to distinguish between legitimate and malicious activities, since they are all performed by trusted system utilities. Since LOLBAS are one of…
The rapid pace of technological advancements constantly create new attack vectors and attack surfaces. Consequently, it is critical to constantly stay up-to-date on new changes, in addition to revisiting older technologies and previously identified attack surfaces to ensure that proper security protocols were put in place. As part of Pentera Labs’ mission, we aim to…
In the past 24 months, more than 88% of organizations have been breached. That’s right: almost nine out of ten companies were hacked. Considering that organizations utilize an average of 44 security solutions to protect their IT environments this number is alarming. The way enterprises handle such security threats is impacted by global trends, from…
The version of an MSSQL database is a valuable piece of information for cyber attackers. With the version details in hand, they can attempt to find and exploit any of the version’s known vulnerabilities. As part of our research at Pentera Labs, we attempted to obtain the version of the widely-used MSSQL (Microsoft SQL Server)…
Digitalization initiatives are connecting once-isolated Operational Technology (OT) environments with their Information Technology (IT) counterparts. This digital transformation of the factory floor has accelerated the connection of machinery to digital systems and data. Computer systems for managing and monitoring digital systems and data have been added to the hardware and software used for managing and…
Despite major investments in their security suites, organizations continue to be breached. Our Co-founder and CTO, Arik Liberzon, recently sat down with CyberNews to discuss the value of the adversarial perspective and where his inspiration from Pentera came from. Starting out, I arrived at the idea for Pentera and Automated Security Validation in a pretty…
In this post, we will examine one method of encrypting data-at-rest, specifically how to achieve Data-at-Rest Encryption for MongoDB Community Edition (CE) containers through eCryptfs. Introduction Our goal at Pentera was to implement a solution that prevents data discovery upon theft when the system is offline (e.g. if a host is stolen or someone is…
After CentOS 8 was declared end-of-life (EOL), we had to find an alternative operating system (OS) for our on-premise solution, as did many other teams and organizations. Although our deployment is container-based, we still had to prepare the groundwork for different OS areas, from security patches and network modifications to installing required packages. We had…
In this article, we will show how it’s possible to use reflective loading to run Mimikatz while evading detection by Windows Defender. While this is a known attack method, recent improvements in windows defender blocked the method from working properly, so we needed to find a new way to handle dependencies. Read on to see…
In the era of digitization and ever-changing business needs, the production environment has become a living organism. Multiple functions and teams within an organization can ultimately impact the way an attacker sees the organization’s assets, or in other words, the external attack surface. This dramatically increases the need to define an exposure management strategy. To…
In order to protect an organization’s critical assets from Internet access, IT teams often create isolated or ‘air-gapped’ networks. These networks are often considered inherently untouchable. While air-gapped networks may not have direct access to the Internet, they still often require DNS services in order to resolve a company’s internal DNS records. This will prove…
With only about 15% of vulnerabilities actually exploitable, patching every vulnerability is not an effective use of time. As a security researcher, common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) are an issue for me — but not for the reason you might think. While IT and security teams dislike CVEs because of the threat they pose and the…
This article is part of Pentera’s Engineering Series – a behind-the-scenes look at the technologies we develop to keep companies secure. In this piece, we look at the testing processes that we use to QA our platform and deliver a high-quality solution. It almost goes without saying that testing is a critical part of the…
Every year, billions of credentials appear online, be it on the dark web, clear web, paste sites, or in data dumps shared by cybercriminals. These credentials are often used for account takeover attacks, exposing organizations to breaches, ransomware, and data theft. While CISOs are aware of growing identity threats and have multiple tools in their…
Much of a company’s assets are connected to Wi-Fi networks. However, security teams are often less likely to validate these networks. This pushed us to wonder what we might find if we were to test a corporate WiFi network. After running the Pentera platform™️ over Wi-Fi, we found several vulnerabilities, which helped us gain insight…
If you’re heading out of the office on a well-deserved vacation, are you certain the security controls you have in place will let you rest easy while you’re away? More importantly – do you have the right action plan in place for a seamless return? Whether you’re on the way out of – or back…
If it was possible to nominate a command-line utility for an award, PsExec would definitively win the most useful category. This tool allows administrators to run remote commands as if they were on the local computer. But unfortunately, not only network administrators love this tool, so do hackers. Sysinternals 101 Windows Sysinternals is a suite…
Cloud-based services are a growing asset for enterprises to optimize scale and reduce deployment efforts. In our research, we found a web XSS vulnerability on Microsoft Azure Functions due to an improper implementation of access control and poor enforcement of SOP. This paper shares a behind-the-scenes window into our process of discovering the vulnerability and…
External Attack Surface Management (EASM) tools are not new, but only this year has Gartner named this category as a top trend to keep an eye on in 2022. So, why does the top research & consulting firm think its time has come? The main reason is the relentless expansion of the digital footprint of…
2022 discoveries of new privilege escalation techniques Reading this blog will allow you to understand the eBPF mechanism and how a fairly small bug can lead to the compromise of the entire system. Executive summary Modern hacking techniques often use legitimate operating system tools for bad purposes. Such is the potential case with the common…
New zero-day vulnerability joins a chain of recently discovered vulnerabilities capable of operating an end-to-end attack on ESXi. Organizations should evaluate risk and apply vCenter client patches immediately. Executive Summary Pentera Labs’ Senior Security Researcher, Yuval Lazar, discovered an Information Disclosure vulnerability impacting more than 500,000 appliances running default vCenter Server deployments. This finding is…
Originally published on Dark Reading. According to a Cisco CISO Benchmark survey, 17% of organizations had 100,000 or more daily security alerts in 2020, and its trajectory has only increased. Source: Cisco 2020 CISO Benchmark Survey 2021 only followed this trend with a record year of newly-discovered CVEs – 20,137 to be exact, topping the…
Network misconfigurations take on many types and forms, and come about for many different reasons. Many of them stem from blind adherence to poorly-informed common practices or even just from simply not being aware that operating system configuration defaults inherently contain security misconfigurations. Let’s review 2 common misconfigurations to serve as our examples: Why closed…
An ethical hacking journey to flatten network segmentation and increase the attack surface by leveraging SoftEther VPN, an open-source project.
Hopefully, the PwnKit vulnerability will be the turning point where security teams stop the vulnerability-centric approach that results in patch whack-a-mole and shift toward focusing on evaluating and validating true risk.
Right before you run off to patch patch patch – let’s look at the key things you should be aware of. We’ll specifically relate to Log4Shell but this is relevant for other recently reported critical vulnerabilities.
DHCP may be famous for being an essential Windows networking protocol, but it is also infamous, or at least it should be, for falling victim to cyber attacks and leading adversaries to dangerous achievements.
DHCP is an essential Windows networking protocol, a favorite among network admins. Read about the basics of DHCP allocation and common DHCP Spoofing techniques.
Pentera’s research team ‘Pentera Labs’ discovered a vulnerability in VMware’s vCenter Server program. The affected VMware software is installed in over 500,000 organizations worldwide and is responsible for managing their most critical systems. The findings were proactively reported to VMware and later released under CVE-2021-22015.
The trope of the burglar comparison in cybersecurity is more than overused. But when we talk about the damage of a break-in, it’s not just picking the lock that’s the problem- we worry about what they’ll steal, what they’ll destroy, even what they’ll plant (yes, I have an active imagination). What seals the deal on a good heist is always the inside man, the bank clerk, the janitor or even the shareholder with gambling problems. It seems that the ransomware groups are catching up.
Inspecting a vulnerability in silo will not reduce the organization’s true risk as critical context is missing. To outsmart and outmaneuver the sophisticated adversary, shifting from silo approaches – asset management, vulnerability-centric focus, bi-yearly penetration testing, continuous red-teaming, risk-based vulnerability management, and patch management is critical to scale and mature your security program.
If this question is keeping you up at night, you are certainly not alone. The threat is tangibly real and immediate, with ransomware damages projected to top $20 billion by the end of the year (Cybersecurity Ventures, 2021) and the average cost to recover from a ransomware attack estimated at $1.85 million (Varonis 2021). The stakes have reached a critical point and no organization, no matter how big or small, can hope to escape unscathed without addressing the threat head-on.
There are patches or remediations for all the top vulnerabilities, but they’re still being exploited in the wild. Why is that? Well, if you were the attacker, would you go through all the trouble of inventing a new zero day exploit (just for some street cred), or instead leverage an off-the-shelf one?
Today we embark on a new journey. One that will have even a bigger impact on our customers, as we continue to contend with the ever-evolving threat landscape and increased digital attack surface. While our name changed, the mission we set for ourselves when we wrote the first line of code, remains the same.
With an expanded remote workforce and a rise in cyber-attacks over the past year, validating organizational resilience is top of the enterprise agenda.
Remote working is often cited as one of the top reasons for the rise in cyber-crime in 2020, but it’s far from the only growing challenge for today’s CISOs. Let’s set aside zoom-bombing, phishing scams, and the weak link of at-home devices, and take a look at 5 unique recent security breaches and what we can learn about boosting the efficacy of vulnerability testing as a result.
Who doesn’t love some good old nostalgia? Ok, it’s true, many of us are glad to see the back of 2020. But as we start 2021 strong, let’s take a moment to remember some of the community’s favorite content, including our top-read blog, our most-watched webinar, and a chance to make your voice heard on one of the year’s biggest controversies… the best Cybertoon of 2020!
As additional details regarding the SolarWinds supply chain attack unfold, the above true story reminded me how much continuous testing of our complete attack surface (the one we are aware of and the one we are not) is absolutely critical.
If someone were to tell me 2.5 years ago that by August 2020 Pcysys would conclude its series B funding round and have raised $40M, by the most prominent cybersecurity investors of our time, I would have pleaded to keep sleeping, I mean, what an amazing dream!
Our end in mind when raising this Series B funding round was to enable a significant leap towards the company’s vision of becoming the world’s cyber security validation authority. This means automation, algorithm-based and completely “hands-off” penetration testing routines. In a technology combersed security market that spends very little on accuracy validation, automation is the dire need.
CEOs cite cybersecurity as the biggest threat to the world economy and as a result, the global spend in cybersecurity is expected to surpass $1 trillion by 2021. An enterprise cyber attack can turn into a catastrophe in a matter of hours, potentially damaging any business at any point in time. As we see from the past few years, the greatest have already fallen.
Ransomware is a topic that regularly comes up when I speak to CISOs and information security leaders, understandably so as recent reports have highlighted two growing themes. Firstly, Covid-19 has resulted in an uptick in campaigns dropping ransomware and secondly, the direction has shifted to more targeted campaigns against larger organizations (both per the NTT 2020 Global Threat Intelligence Report).
Better prepared, Right!? Companies are investing a significant amount of resources in building and improving their cybersecurity posture. As the threat landscape continues to evolve and expand, this investment continues to rise dramatically. Per a report by Cybersecurity Ventures, worldwide spending on information security products and services will exceed $1 trillion between 2017-2021.
There is no precedence to the unconscionable way hackers exploit human distress during these times. Albeit a few hacker groups “swore” on paper they won’t attack hospitals (gee, thanks), the reality is one of taking gruesome advantage of the situation.
In an effort to contain the Corona Virus and stop its expansion, countries all over the world have closed their borders. Enterprises globally are fast to follow suit by halting employee travels and prohibiting external visitors from entering their offices. However, within these restrictions and with minimal physical contact, business must go on. Fortunately, some services, such as accounting, legal or even HR, can easily be rendered remotely. But when it comes to cybersecurity, that is not always the case.
In legal terms, the process of transferring evidence from one place to another is handled in a vigilant manner – the chain of custody. The purpose is to ensure that the evidence remains untainted or tampered with, and is in fact related to the alleged crime. The smallest crack in the process can result in setting a criminal free, or worse, convicting an innocent man as guilty.
Almost two years have passed since I began my role as Pcysys CEO, joining Arik Liberzon, our Co-founder & CTO and Arik Faingold our Co-founder and Chairman, on this great mission to revolutionize Cyber Risk Validation, together with industry veteran Ran Tamir, our VP of Product, and Aviv Cohen, our visionary CMO. Being an enterprise sales veteran, and an ex-VP of Global Sales, I didn’t need more than 3-4 PoC’s at Pcysys, to understand that we’re onto something big. Very big.
As VP of Product for Pcysys, I wanted to take this exciting opportunity to share with you a few tips and tales of our product evolution in the past 4 years, bringing us to this point, when Blackstone elected to invest in our growth.
An Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) framework is a collection of roles, processes, and systems that manage risks that could impact business objectives. If you consider the range of technologies that underpin the business processes that deliver those objectives, it is logical to accept that these same technologies introduce risk to meeting the strategic objectives.
What happens when you hack 60 companies who think their security is up to par? We ran penetration testing on the networks of 60 leading companies in banking, investment, legal, insurance, and retail. Working alongside some of the industries sharpest CISO’s, our ethical hacking with PenTeraTM uncovered that few companies are sufficiently prepared for a cybersecurity attack. While…
Vulnerability management today is a key process in any security program and regulatory compliance framework. With the growing amount of data breaches and cost of stolen data, vulnerability management tools can no longer be considered a side dish, rather the bread and butter of a corporate security stack. But although vulnerability management programs are the cornerstone of…
I build penetration testing software for a living. That means, businesses give our software a 007 license to hack and our software does a terrific job at it.
Computer-room heroism or what I like to refer to as “Cyber Patriotism” is told in the compelling story of The Imitation Game. Based on the book “The Enigma” by Andrew Hodges, the film tells the story of crafting the first computing machine to decipher the Nazi Enigma code. It is also the story of Alan Turing, the English computer…
Those who know – rarely speak. Those who speak – rarely know. But those who know and speak – are rare. I had the honor and pleasure of being in the company of such a rare person last Thursday,listening to him speak about the threats and dilemmas of cyber warfare on a global scale with…
I have a friend who manages a large financial investment company based in NJ and each year, sometimes twice a year, he brings in a team of pen testers to run a test and check the box for security regulations.When I told him that my company automated pen testing (PT) in software for corporations to…
Think like a hacker. It seems so obvious but you might be surprised to hear that most cyber security professionals were taught to think about cyber security from a defensive standpoint. How to protect against a hacker’s attack versus asking the question, if I were a hacker how would I penetrate this network? Today, more than…
As people, we make do with what we have, but once a better tool is within our reach we adopt it without looking back. For centuries we had no flowing water supply and managed just fine with the village water well, but nowadays it’s hard to imagine how life would be without this amenity. Such…
Would you believe if I told you that you 81% of data breaches worldwide are caused by hacked passwords? This statistic provided by Verizon Data Breach Investigations emphasizes the extreme importance of implementing strong passwords at every entry point to try and deter hackers from infiltrating your systems. In my company’s work providing automatic pen-testing…
“He shoots, he scores!” I still hear the sports announcer’s excitement coming across the loudspeaker — in my high school basketball court days. That same thrill that drove me down the basketball court — angling the ball through wide stances, dribbling, passing, aiming and finally sending the ball soaring to the rim — continues to…
In cyber warfare, like in chess, the game outcome is not determined by a single exploit (or move), but rather by a patient silent-predator strategy. The same can be said of hackers sniffing a corporation’s many interfaces until they have an “in”. When a hacker further exploits the corporation without detection – till it’s “checkmate”…
I’m one of those managers who can’t sit in the office for more than a few days. I travel the world and constantly meet with customers, partners and investors. During 2018, I’ve met with over 100 prospects across three continents from all verticals- finance, insurance, telecommunication, retail, education, energy, healthcare – you name it. I’d…
