Demystifying XDR: Where SIEM and XDR Collide

Innovations solve longstanding problems in creative, impactful ways — but they also raise new questions, especially when they're in the liminal space between being an emerging idea and a fully fledged, widely adopted reality. One of the still-unanswered questions about extended detection and...

2021 Cybersecurity Superlatives: An InsightIDR Year in Review

We laughed, we cried, we added over 750 new detections. It's been a rollercoaster of a year for everyone. So let's have some fun with our 2021 year in review — shall we? The last year was an exciting one for InsightIDR, Rapid7's industry-leading extended detection and response XDR and SIEM...

Metasploit Weekly Wrap-Up

I'm sure you know what's coming, more Log4Shell For those wondering when the Log4Shell remediation nightmare will end, I'm afraid I can't give you that. What I can give you, though, is a new Log4Shell module! With the new module from zeroSteiner you can expect to get unauthenticated RCE on the...

Why Security in Kubernetes Isn't the Same as in Linux: Part 1

Kubernetes was first presented in 2014, and it almost entirely changed the way technological and even non-tech companies use infrastructure for running their applications. The Kubernetes platform still feels new and exciting — it has awesome features and can fit most use cases. But hackers find t...

How Ransomware Is Changing US Federal Policy

In past decades, attackers breaching systems and stealing sensitive information prompted a wave of regulations focused on consumer privacy and breach notification. The current surge in ransomware attacks is prompting a new wave of action from policymakers. Unlike the more abstract harms threatene...

The Great Resignation: 4 Ways Cybersecurity Can Win

Pandemics change everything. In the Middle Ages, the Black Death killed half of Europe’s population. It also killed off the feudal system of landowning lords exploiting laborer serfs. Rampant death caused an extreme labor shortage and forced the lords to pay wages. Eventually, serfs had bargainin...

Metasploit Weekly Wrap-Up

Image Credit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Logs.jpg without change while j==shell; Log4j; The Log4j loop continues as we release a module targeting vulnerable vCenter releases. This is a good time to suggest that you check your vCenter releases and maybe even increase the...

Is the Internet of Things the Next Ransomware Target?

Ransomware attacks over the last couple years have been traumatic, impacting nearly every business sector and costing billions of dollars. The targets have mostly been our data: steal it, encrypt it, and then charge us a fee to get it back. Over the last several years, there's been concern across...

[Security Nation] Mike Hanley of GitHub on the Log4j Vulnerability

!\Security Nation\ Mike Hanley of GitHub on the Log4j Vulnerabilityhttps://blog.rapid7.com/content/images/2022/01/securitynationlogo.jpg In our first episode of Security Nation Season 5, Jen and Tod chat with Mike Hanley, Chief Security Officer at GitHub, all about the major vulnerability in...

Open-Source Security: Getting to the Root of the Problem

The past few weeks have shown us the importance and wide reach of open-source security. In December 2021, public disclosure of the Log4Shell vulnerability in Log4j, an open-source logging library, caused a cascade of dependency analysis by developers in organizations around the world. The inciden...

Active Exploitation of VMware Horizon Servers

This post is co-authored by Charlie Stafford, Lead Security Researcher. We will update this blog with further information as it becomes available. CVE | Vendor Advisory | AttackerKB | IVM Content | Patching Urgency | Blog's Last Update ---|---|---|---|---|--- CVE-2021-44228 | VMware Advisory |...

2022 Planning: Metrics That Matter and Curtailing the Cobra Effect

During the British rule of India, the British government became concerned about the number of cobras in the city of Delhi. The ambitious bureaucrats came up with what they thought was the perfect solution, and they issued a bounty for cobra skins. The plan worked wonderfully at first, as cobra...

Metasploit Weekly Wrap-Up

Log4Shell goodness Log4Shell made an unfortunate end to 2021 for many organizations, but it also makes for some great additions to Metasploit Framework. Contributors sempervictus, schierlm, righel, timwr and our very own Spencer McIntyre have collaborated to bring us a Log4Shell module that uses...

7Rapid Questions: Stephen Donnelly

At Rapid7, there's no shortage of passionate leaders looking to challenge convention and make an impact. Our "7Rapid Questions" series is a way to highlight some of the amazing work taking place behind the scenes, and the exciting growth opportunities available in our global offices. For this...

Being Naughty to See Who Was Nice: Machine Learning Attacks on Santa’s List

Editor’s note: We had planned to publish our Hacky Holidays blog series throughout December 2021 – but then Log4Shell happened, and we dropped everything to focus on this major vulnerability that impacted the entire cybersecurity community worldwide. Now that it’s 2022, we’re feeling in need of...

Evaluating MDR Vendors: A Pocket Buyer's Guide

Cyberthreats are now the No. 1 source of stress among CEOs, with 71% of respondents to PwC's 2021 CEO Study reporting they are "extremely concerned" about the issue. At the same time, the cybersecurity skills gap continues to grow, with 95% of security pros saying the shortage of talent in their...

A Quick Look at CES 2022

The first thing I noticed about CES this year was COVID’s impact on the event, which was more than just attendance size. A large amount of the technology focused on sanitation, everything from using light to sanitize surfaces on point-of-sale systems to hand-washing stations. When I attend events...

A December to Remember — Or, How We Improved InsightAppSec in Q4 in the Midst of Log4Shell

Ho, ho, holy cow — what a wild way to wrap up the year that was. Thousands of flights were cancelled during Christmas week, nearly every holiday party became a super-spreader event, and we lost a legend in Betty White. In our neck of the woods, Log4Shell has been dominating the conversation for...

Demystifying XDR: How Humans and Machines Join Forces in Threat Response

In our first post on demystifying the concepts and practices behind extended detection and response XDR technology, Forrester analyst Allie Mellen joined Sam Adams, Rapid7's VP for Detection and Response, to outline the basic framework for XDR and highlight the key outcomes it can help security...

Patch Tuesday - January 2022

The first Patch Tuesday of 2022 sees Microsoft publishing fixes for over 120 CVEs across the bulk of their product line, including 29 previously patched CVEs affecting their Edge browser via Chromium. None of these have yet been seen exploited in the wild, though six were publicly disclosed prior...

CVE-2021-20038..42: SonicWall SMA 100 Multiple Vulnerabilities (FIXED)

Over the course of routine security research, Rapid7 researcher Jake Baines discovered and reported five vulnerabilities involving the SonicWall Secure Mobile Access SMA 100 series of devices, which includes SMA 200, 210, 400, 410, and 500v. The most serious of these issues can lead to...

The 2021 Naughty and Nice Lists: Cybersecurity Edition

Editor’s note: We had planned to publish our Hacky Holidays blog series throughout December 2021 – but then Log4Shell happened, and we dropped everything to focus on this major vulnerability that impacted the entire cybersecurity community worldwide. Now that it’s 2022, we’re feeling in need of...

Log4Shell Strategic Response: 5 Practices for Vulnerability Management at Scale

This post is co-authored by Blake Cifelli, Senior Advisory Services Consultant. In today’s cybersecurity world, risks evolve faster than we can remediate them. To meet our goals and become resilient to these fast changes, we need the right balance of automation and human interaction. Enabling rap...

Metasploit Wrap-Up

Dump Windows secrets from Active Directory This week, our very own Christophe De La Fuente added an important update to the existing Windows Secret Dump module. It is now able to dump secrets from Active Directory, which will be very useful for Metasploit users. This new feature uses the Director...

What's New in Threat Intelligence: 2021 Year in Review

This post was originally published on the IntSights blog. Last year marked a huge milestone with the acquisition of IntSights by Rapid7. The IntSights team is very excited to join a company committed to simplifying and improving security outcomes for its customers. Rapid7's focus is a great...

What's New in InsightIDR: Q4 2021 in Review

More context and customization around detections and investigations, expanded dashboard capabilities, and more. This post offers a closer look at some of the recent releases in InsightIDR, our extended detection and response XDR solution, from Q4 2021. Over the past quarter, we delivered updates ...

2022 Cybersecurity Predictions: The Experts Clear Off the Crystal Ball

As we walk through the doorway of 2022, it's hard not to wish at least some among us had the gift of cosmic foresight. Many most? of the questions we thought in 2021 that we'd have answered by this point — chief among them, when will COVID finally leave us alone??? — still seem to elude us. In...

Rapid7 2021 Wrap-Up: Highlights From a Year of Empowering the Protectors

Now that 2022 is fully underway, it's time to wrap up some of the milestones that Rapid7 achieved in 2021. We worked harder than ever last year to help protectors keep their organization's infrastructure secure — even in the face of some of the most difficult threats the security community has...

Metasploit 2021 Annual Wrap-Up

As 2022 kicks off, we now have another year in the books. Like years past, 2021 brought some surprises and had its share of celebrity vulnerabilities and recurring trends. Let’s highlight some statistics! Quick stats 651 merged pull requests from 113 users 184 new modules 102 exploits, 45 post, 3...

5 Security Projects That Are Giving Back

Editor’s note: We had planned to publish our Hacky Holidays blog series throughout December 2021 – but then Log4Shell happened, and we dropped everything to focus on this major vulnerability that impacted the entire cybersecurity community worldwide. Now that it’s 2022, we’re feeling in need of...

Sharing the Gifts of Cybersecurity – Or, a Lesson From My First Year Without Santa

Editor’s note: We had planned to publish our Hacky Holidays blog series throughout December 2021 – but then Log4Shell happened, and we dropped everything to focus on this major vulnerability that impacted the entire cybersecurity community worldwide. Now that it’s 2022, we’re feeling in need of...

Test for Log4Shell With InsightAppSec Using New Functionality

We can all agree at this point that the Log4Shell vulnerability CVE-2021-44228 can rightfully be categorized as a celebrity vulnerability. Security teams have been working around the clock investigating whether they have instances of Log4j in their environment. You are likely very familiar with...

Metasploit Wrap-Up

Log4Shell - Log4j HTTP Scanner Versions of Apache Log4j impacted by CVE-2021-44228 which allow JNDI features used in configuration, log messages, and parameters, do not protect against attacker controlled LDAP and other JNDI related endpoints. This module will scan an HTTP endpoint for the...

The Everyperson’s Guide to Log4Shell (CVE-2021-44228)

If you work in security, the chances are that you have spent the last several days urgently responding to the Log4Shell vulnerability CVE-2021-44228, investigating where you have instances of Log4j in your environment, and questioning your vendors about their response. You have likely already rea...

How to Protect Your Applications Against Log4Shell With tCell

By now, we’re sure you’re familiar with all things Log4Shell – but we want to make sure we share how to protect your applications. Applications are a critical part of any organization’s attack surface, and we’re seeing thousands of Log4Shell attack attempts in our customers' environments every...

Patch Tuesday - December 2021

This month’s Patch Tuesday comes in the middle of a global effort to mitigate Apache Log4j CVE-2021-44228. In today’s security release, Microsoft issued fixes for 83 vulnerabilities across an array of products — including a fix for Windows Defender for IoT, which is vulnerable to CVE-2021-44228...

Log4Shell Makes Its Appearance in Hacker Chatter: 4 Observations

It's been a long few days as organizations' security teams have worked to map, quantify, and mitigate the immense risk presented by the Log4Shell vulnerability within Log4j. As can be imagined, cybercriminals are working overtime as well, as they seek out ways to exploit this vulnerability. Need...

Using InsightVM to Find Apache Log4j CVE-2021-44228

There are many methods InsightVM can use to identify vulnerable software. Which method is best depends on the software and specific vulnerability in question, not to mention variability that comes into play with differing network topologies and Scan Engine deployment strategies. When it comes to ...

Update on Log4Shell’s Impact on Rapid7 Solutions and Systems

Like the rest of the security community, we have been internally responding to the critical remote code execution vulnerability in Apache’s Log4j Java library a.k.a. Log4Shell. We have been continuously monitoring for Log4Shell exploit attempts in our environment and have been urgently...

Hacky Holidays: Celebrating the Best of Security Nation [Video]

!Hacky Holidays: Celebrating the Best of Security Nation \Video\https://blog.rapid7.com/content/images/2021/12/security-nation-recap-2.jpg Most of us allow ourselves a few extra indulgences around the holidays — so despite my best editorial sensibilities, I'm letting myself indulge here in a...

Driver-Based Attacks: Past and Present

"People that write Ring 0 code and write it badly are a danger to society." - Mickey Shkatov There is no security boundary between an administrator and the Windows kernel, according to the Microsoft Security Servicing Criteria for Windows. In our analysis of CVE-2021-21551, a write-what-where...

Metasploit Wrap-Up

Word and Javascript are a rare duo. Thanks to thesunRider. you too can experience the wonder of this mystical duo. The sole new metasploit module this release adds a file format attack to generate a very special document. By utilizing Javascript embedded in a Word document to trigger a chain of...

Widespread Exploitation of Critical Remote Code Execution in Apache Log4j

Table of Contents Overview Affected versions Mitigation and detection guidance Rapid7 customers InsightVM and Nexpose InsightIDR and Managed Detection and Response Velociraptor tCell InsightCloudSec IntSights Attacks and campaigns External resources Updates Need clarity on detecting and mitigatin...

Stay Ahead of Threats With Cloud Workload Protection

When it comes to cloud-native applications, optimal security requires a modern, integrated, and automated approach that starts in development and extends to runtime protection. Cloud workload protection CWP helps make that goal possible by bringing major structural changes to software development...

2022 Planning: Simplifying Complex Cybersecurity Regulations

Compliance does not equal security, but it’s also true that a strong cybersecurity program meets many compliance obligations. How can we communicate industry regulatory requirements in a more straightforward way that enhances understanding while saving time and effort? How can we more easily...

A Dream Team-Up: Integrate InsightAppSec With ServiceNow ITSM

At Rapid7, we are constantly improving InsightAppSec and tCell with the goal of making our customers' lives easier. Over the last few months alone, we've improved the way your team structures permissions, integrated with Microsoft's .Net 6.0, and automated authentication to make scan after scan...

Patch Now: SonicWall Fixes Multiple Vulnerabilities in SMA 100 Devices

Summary On December 7, 2021, SonicWall released a security advisory that includes patching guidance for five vulnerabilities in SonicWall SMA 100 series devices that were discovered by Rapid7 including CVE-2021-20038 which is rated CVSSv3 9.8, critical, as well as several other CVEs discovered by...

Demystifying XDR: A Forrester Analyst Lays the Foundation

Extended detection and response XDR is no longer a future state in cybersecurity practice — it's a full-fledged reality for some. In fact, it's been a thing for a lot longer than you might think. Still, XDR is new vocabulary for many security operations center SOC teams, and the contours of this...

Oh No, Zoho: Active Exploitation of CVE-2021-44077 Allowing Unauthenticated Remote Code Execution

CVE | Vendor Advisory | AttackerKB | IVM Content | Patching Urgency | Last Update ---|---|---|---|---|--- CVE-2021-44077 | Zoho's Advisory | AttackerKB | In Development | Immediately | December 9, 1:30pm ET Summary Zoho customers have had a huge incentive lately to keep their software up to date,...

3 Strategies That Are More Productive Than Hack Back

2021 has been a banner year in terms of the frequency and diversity of cybersecurity breaking news events, with ransomware being the clear headline-winner. While the DarkSide group now, in theory, retired may have captured the spotlight early in the year due to the Colonial Pipeline attack, REvil...