Cloud Pentesting, Pt. 1: Breaking Down the Basics

The concept of cloud computing has been around for awhile, but it seems like as of late — at least in the penetration testing field — more and more customers are looking to get a pentest done in their cloud deployment. What does that mean? How does that look? What can be tested, and what’s out of...

Metasploit Weekly Wrap-Up

CVE-2022-21999 - SpoolFool Our very own Shelby Pace has added a new module for the CVE-2022-21999 SpoolFool privilege escalation vulnerability. This escalation vulnerability can be leveraged to achieve code execution as SYSTEM. This new module has successfully been tested on Windows 10 10.0 Build...

3 Ways InsightIDR Customers Leverage the MITRE ATT&CK Framework

The MITRE ATT&CK framework is one of the most comprehensive and reputable knowledge bases of known adversary tactics, pragmatic mitigation strategies, and prudent detection recommendations available today. ATT&CK is freely available and widely used by defenders in industry and government to find...

[Security Nation] Bob Lord on Securing the DNC

!\Security Nation\ Bob Lord on Securing the DNChttps://blog.rapid7.com/content/images/2022/03/securitynationlogo--1-.jpg In this episode of Security Nation, Jen and Tod chat with Bob Lord, recently the Chief Security Officer for the Democratic National Committee, about the unique challenges of...

The VM Lifecycle: How We Got Here, and Where We’re Going

Written in collaboration with Joel Ashman The immutable truth that vulnerability management VM programs have long adhered to is that successful programs should follow a consistent lifecycle. This concept is simply a series of phases or steps that have a logical sequence and are repeated according...

Cybercriminals’ Recruiting Effort Highlights Need for Proper User Access Controls

The Lapsus$ ransomware gang’s modus operandi seems to be evolving. Following the recent data breaches of Nvidia and Samsung, on March 10, 2022, the Lapsus$ ransomware gang posted a message on their Telegram channel claiming that they were looking to recruit employees/insiders of companies in the...

InsightVM Scanning: Demystifying SSH Credential Elevation

Written in collaboration with Jimmy Cancilla The credentials to log into the assets on the network are one of the most critical inputs that can be provided to a vulnerability assessment. In order to capture and report on the full risk of an asset, the scan engine must be able to access the asset ...

An Inside Look at CISA’s Supply Chain Task Force

When one mentions supply chains these days, we tend to think of microchips from China causing delays in automobile manufacturing or toilet paper disappearing from store shelves. Sure, there are some chips in the communications infrastructure, but the cyber supply chain is mostly about virtual...

Metasploit Weekly Wrap-Up

Mucking out the pipes. Thanks to some quick work by timwr, CVE-2022-0847 aka "Dirty Pipe" gives Metasploit a bit of digital plumber's training. The exploit targeting modern Linux v5 kernels helps elevate user privileges by overwriting a SUID binary of your choice by plunging some payload gold...

Run Faster Log Searches With InsightIDR

While it could be true that life is more about seeking than finding, log searches are all about getting results. You need to get the right data back as quickly as possible. In this blog, let’s explore how to make the best use of InsightIDR’s Log Search capabilities to get the correct data returne...

7 Rapid Questions: Growing From BDR to Commercial Sales Manager With Maria Loughrey

Welcome back to 7 Rapid Questions, our blog series where we hear about the great work happening at Rapid7 from the people who are doing it across our global offices. For this installment, we sat down with Maria Loughrey, Commercial Sales Manager for the UK and Ireland at our Reading, UK office...

New US Law to Require Cyber Incident Reports

The US Congress is poised to pass the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022. Once signed by the President, it will become law. The law will require critical infrastructure owners and operators to report cyber incidents and ransomware payments. The legislation was...

CVE-2022-0847: Arbitrary File Overwrite Vulnerability in Linux Kernel

CVE | Disclosure | AttackerKB | IVM Content | Patching Urgency | Blog's Last Update ---|---|---|---|---|--- CVE-2022-0847 | Original disclosure | AttackerKB | March 10, 2022 | When practical | March 10, 2022 3:21 PM EST On March 7, 2022, CM4all security researcher Max Kellermann published technic...

3 Reasons to Join Rapid7’s Cloud Security Summit

The world of the cloud never stops moving — so neither can cloud security. In the face of rapidly evolving technology and a constantly changing threat landscape, keeping up with all the latest developments, trends, and best practices in this emerging practice is more vital than ever. Enter Rapid7...

Patch Tuesday - March 2022

Microsoft's March 2022 updates include fixes for 92 CVEs including 21 from the Chromium project, which is used by their Edge web browser. None of them have been seen exploited in the wild, but three have been previously disclosed. CVE-2022-24512, affecting .NET and Visual Studio, and...

InsightVM Scan Engine: Understanding MAC Address Discovery

Written in collaboration with Jimmy Cancilla When scanning an asset, one key piece of data that the InsightVM Scan Engine collects is the MAC address of the network interface used during the connection. The MAC address is one of several attributes used by the Security Console to perform asset...

Metasploit Weekly Wrap-Up

This week’s Metasploit Framework release brings us seven new modules. IP Camera Exploitation Rapid7’s Jacob Baines was busy this week with two exploit modules that target IP cameras. The first module exploits an authenticated file upload on Axis IP cameras. Due to lack of proper sanitization, an...

Graph Analysis of the Conti Ransomware Group Internal Chats

We were presented with a remarkably rich source of intelligence with the leaked communications from the Conti ransomware group. It’s a compelling and insightful read. The leaked information contains details on messages, including information on timestamps, sender, receiver, and the actual body of...

Russia-Ukraine Cybersecurity Updates

Cyberattacks are a distinct concern in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, with the potential to impact individuals and organizations far beyond the physical frontlines. With events unfolding rapidly, we want to provide a single channel by which we can communicate to the security community the major...

The Top 5 Russian Cyber Threat Actors to Watch

This post was updated on March 10, 2022 to include a section on the Conti Ransomware Group. As we continue to monitor the situation between Russia and Ukraine – and the potential for global cybersecurity impacts – we realize that our customers and other business and industry stakeholders may be...

CVE-2021-4191: GitLab GraphQL API User Enumeration (FIXED)

On February 25, 2022, GitLab published a fix for CVE-2021-4191, which is an instance of CWE-359, "Exposure of Private Personal Information to an Unauthorized Actor." The now-patched vulnerability affected GitLab versions since 13.0. The vulnerability is the result of a missing authentication chec...

[Security Nation] Matthew Kienow on Open-Source Security and the Recog Framework

!\Security Nation\ Matthew Kienow on Open-Source Security and the Recog Frameworkhttps://blog.rapid7.com/content/images/2022/03/securitynationlogo.jpg In this episode of Security Nation, Jen and Tod chat with Matthew Kienow, Senior Software Engineer at Rapid7, about open-source security – a subje...

InsightAppSec GitHub Integration Keeps Risky Code From Reaching Production

We've all been there. The software development life cycle SDLC is moving at a mile a minute. Developers are writing code, updating features, and all the while attempting to keep everything introduced into production as safe and secure as possible. GitHub Actions are essential to automation and...

Conti Ransomware Group Internal Chats Leaked Over Russia-Ukraine Conflict

UPDATE: As of March 2, 2022, Conti began taking down exposed infrastructure as a result of the chat disclosure. At that time, we assessed that due to their sophisticated capability, deep funding, and quick recovery from exposed infrastructure in November 2021, they remained an active and...

Metasploit Weekly Wrap-Up

Exchange RCE Exchange remote code execution vulnerabilities are always valuable exploits to have. This week Metasploit added an exploit for an authenticated RCE in Microsoft Exchange servers 2016 and server 2019 identified as CVE-2021-42321. The flaw leveraged by the exploit exists in a...

Russia/Ukraine Conflict: What Is Rapid7 Doing to Protect My Organization?

Rapid7 is monitoring the escalating conflict in Ukraine, and we have provided a blog on the various attack vectors organizations may see, as well as guidance on mitigations and remediations. To assist with your preparation and response efforts, Rapid7 is continuously integrating into our products...

Staying Secure in a Global Cyber Conflict

Now that Russia has begun its armed invasion of Ukraine, we should expect increasing risks of cybersecurity attacks and incidents, either as spillover from cyberattacks targeting Ukraine or direct attacks against actors supporting Ukraine. Any state-sponsored Russian attacks aiming to support the...

Demystifying XDR: How Curated Detections Filter Out the Noise

Extended detection and response XDR is, by nature, a forward-looking technology. By adding automation to human insight, XDR rethinks and redefines the work that has been traditionally ascribed to security information and event management SIEM and other well-defined, widely used tools within...

For Health Insurance Companies, Web Apps Can Be an Open Wound

At IntSights, a Rapid7 company, our goal is to ensure organizations everywhere understand the threats facing them in today's cyber landscape. With this in mind, we took a focused look at the insurance industry — a highly targeted vertical due to the amount of valuable data these organizations hol...

This CISO Isn’t Real, But His Problems Sure Are

In 2021, data breaches soared past 2020 levels. This year, it’s expected to be worse. The odds are stacked against this poor guy and you now – but a unified extended detection and response XDR and SIEM restacks them in your favor. Take a few minutes to check out this CISO’s day, and you’ll see ho...

Metasploit Weekly Wrap-Up

Nagios XI web shell upload module New this week is a Nagios Web Shell Upload module from Rapid7' own Jake Baines, which exploits CVE-2021-37343. This module builds upon the existing Nagios XI scanner written by Erik Wynter. Versions of Nagios XI prior to 5.8.5 are vulnerable to a path traversal...

What's New in InsightVM and Nexpose: Q4 2021 in Review

Greetings, fellow security professionals. As we enter into the new year, we wanted to provide a recap of product releases and features on the vulnerability management VM front for Q4 2021. Let's start by talking about the elephant in the room. The end of last year was dominated by Log4Shell, the...

Log4Shell 2 Months Later: Security Strategies for the Internet's New Normal

CVE-2021-44228 rules everything around us — or so it seemed, at least, for those breathless days in December 2021 when the full scope of Log4Shell was starting to take hold and security teams were strapped for time and resources as they scoured their organizations' environments for vulnerable...

Cloud Security and Compliance: The Ultimate Frenemies of Financial Services

Meeting compliance standards as a financial services finserv company can be incredibly time-consuming and expensive. Finserv has some of the highest regulatory bars to clear out of any industry — with the exception, perhaps, of healthcare. That said, these regulations exist for good reason. Even...

[Security Nation] Amit Serper on Finding Leaks in Autodiscover

!\Security Nation\ Amit Serper on Finding Leaks in Autodiscoverhttps://blog.rapid7.com/content/images/2022/02/securitynationlogo.jpg In this episode of Security Nation, Jen and Tod chat with Amit Serper, Director of Security Research at Akamai, on his work uncovering a flaw in the Autodiscover...

The Future of Finserv Security: Cloud Expert and Former CISO Anthony Johnson Weighs In

In today's increasingly mobile, fast-paced world, it's no surprise that financial services finserv organizations have a massive bullseye on their backs. The amount of personal data they access daily makes them an attractive target for those with malicious intent. In fact, the average cost of a da...

Prudent Cybersecurity Preparation for the Potential Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Update Feb 24, 2022: The situation in Ukraine has worsened since this blog post was first published, though our preparation advice remains the same. We will update the Rapid7 blog with a new post as events warrant. Tensions between Russia and Ukraine remain elevated, with a high degree of...

How InsightAppSec Detects Log4Shell: Your Questions Answered

If you’re reading this, that means you survived the year 2021, so congratulations! For everyone in the software industry, and especially those in cybersecurity, the past 12 months probably felt like 12 rounds in the ring. Remember the Solarwinds attack and the resulting scramble to mitigate suppl...

Dropping Files on a Domain Controller Using CVE-2021-43893

On December 14, 2021, during the Log4Shell chaos, Microsoft published CVE-2021-43893, a remote privilege escalation vulnerability affecting the Windows Encrypted File System EFS. The vulnerability was credited to James Forshaw of Google Project Zero, but perhaps owing to the Log4Shell atmosphere,...

Metasploit Wrap-Up

Welcome, Little Hippo: PetitPotam Our very own @zeroSteiner ported the PetitPotam exploit to Metasploit this week. This module leverages CVE-2021-36942, a vulnerability in the Windows Encrypting File System EFS API, to capture machine NTLM hashes. This uses the EfsRpcOpenFileRaw function of the...

The Forecast Is Flipped: How Rapid7 Is Flipping L&D for the Future of Work

The last 2 years have turned the world on its head, and now, companies across the globe are transitioning into a new normal. In this hybrid world, employee engagement is a moving target, the market is more competitive, and historical face-to-face teaching practices are no longer viable. Rapid7’s...

Evolving How We Share Rapid7 Research Data

In the spring of 2018, we launched the Open Data initiative to provide security teams and researchers with access to research data generated from Project Sonar and Project Heisenberg. Our goal for those projects is to understand how the attack surface is evolving, what exposures are most common o...

Rapid7 Team Members Share Key Takeaways From AMP 2022

Each year, Rapid7 hosts AMP, our annual employee kickoff event where leaders from across the organization share their goals for the next 12 months. These goals bring us closer to achieving our mission of closing the security achievement gap. With the effects of COVID-19 still physically separatin...

Patch Tuesday - February 2022

Today’s fixes from Microsoft are relatively light as far as Patch Tuesdays go. This is the first month in possibly forever where no vulnerabilities are considered Critical. A total of 70 CVEs were fixed today including 22 that affect the Chromium browser engine, which is used by Edge. Although 16...

The Big Target on Cyber Insurers' Backs

Here at IntSights, a Rapid7 company, our goal is to equip organizations around the world with an understanding of the threats facing them in today's cyber threat landscape. Most recently, we took a focused look at the insurance industry — a highly targeted vertical due to the amount of personally...

Why Security in Kubernetes Isn't the Same as in Linux: Part 2

Security for Kubernetes might not be quite the same as what you're used to. In our previous article, we covered why security is so important in both Linux on-premises servers and cloud Kubernetes clusters. We also talked about 3 major aspects of Linux server security — processes, network, and fil...

Metasploit Wrap-Up

Wordpress Exploitation Returns What's life without a little WordPress exploitation? Courtesy of Hacker5preme aka Ron Jost and h00die, we now have an exploit for CVE-2021-24862, a bug in the RestorationMagic WordPress plugin prior to 5.0.1.6 whereby user input was not properly escaped in the...

7Rapid Questions With Our APAC Sales Manager, Soumi

For this installment of 7Rapid Questions, we sat down with Soumi Mukherjee, APAC Sales Manager - ANZ North Sales, to learn more about what drives her in her role at Rapid7. 1. Why did you join Rapid7? The truth is I joined for the people. I worked for a Rapid7 channel partner prior, and my...

Velociraptor Version 0.6.3: Dig Deeper With More Speed and Scalability

Rapid7 is very excited to announce the latest Velociraptor release 0.6.3. This release has been in the making for a few months now and has several exciting new features. Scalability and speed have been the main focus of development since our previous release. Working with some of our larger...

[Security Nation] John Rouffas on Building a Security Function

!\Security Nation\ John Rouffas on Building a Security Functionhttps://blog.rapid7.com/content/images/2022/02/securitynationlogo--1-.jpg In this episode of Security Nation, Jen chats with John Rouffas, CISO at intelliflo, about his experience building out a security function and team at a young a...