Creating coefficiency: DevOps, Security, and Compliance

Secure IaC Infrastructure-as-code IaC is a powerful partnership accelerator. As businesses and organizations scale into the cloud to realize its full production-enablement potential, security often struggles to keep up. The ultimate goal on the security horizon is, of course, to prevent risks and...

How the Biden Administration's cybersecurity order will affect companies

“It is the policy of my Administration that the prevention, detection, assessment, and remediation of cyber incidents is a top priority and essential to national and economic security.” The Biden Administration recently issued Executive Order EO 14028, “Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity,” to...

Metasploit Wrap-Up

RCE Exploit For CVE-2020-0796 SMBGhost This week our very own Spencer McIntyre has added an exploit for CVE-2020-0796, which leverages a vulnerability within the Microsoft Server Message Block 3.1.1 SMBv3 protocol to gain unauthenticated remote code execution against unpatched Windows 10 v1903 an...

5 questions to answer before spending big on cloud security

Do your tool diligence Convincing people to sign off on big cloud security spends is, most assuredly, a never-ending process. Because every so often be it in 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, your security organization will have to pitch to the check-writers all over again. Of course, we all know it’s...

Kill chains: Part 1→Strategic and operational value

It really is a good thing The term “kill chain” sounds extremely harsh. Almost as if after something is killed, it gets moved down the chain to be killed again. How dramatic! Indeed, the original definition was to describe how an enemy combatant of the military might attack; that is, the steps th...

[Security Nation] How Robert Black Wards Off Cyber-Attackers with Deception Techniques

!\Security Nation\ How Robert Black Wards Off Cyber-Attackers with Deception Techniqueshttps://blog.rapid7.com/content/images/2021/05/securitynationlogo-2.jpg In our latest episode of Security Nation, we talk with Robert Black, Deputy Director of the UK National Cyber Deception Lab, about his wor...

CVE-2021-21985: What you need to know about the latest critical vCenter Server vulnerability

On Tuesday, May 25, 2021, VMware published security advisory VMSA-2021-0010, which includes details on CVE-2021-21985, a critical remote code execution vulnerability in the vSphere Client HTML5 component of vCenter Server 6.5, 6.7, and 7.0 and VMware Cloud Foundation 3.x and 4.x. The vulnerabilit...

Reducing Risk With Identity Access Management (IAM)

A cloudy picture of identity and access As your supply chain grows, so does your attack surface. As business scales up and cloud providers release new services and resources to support, it becomes exponentially more challenging for security teams to manage access. With this growth, an intrinsic —...

Metasploit Wrap-Up

Dell DBUtil23.sys IOCTL memmove privilege escalation Our very own zeroSteiner added a new module, which exploits insufficient access control in Dell's dbutil23.sys firmware update driver included in the Dell Bios Utility that comes pre-installed with most Windows machines. The driver accepts...

Want to stay ahead of emerging threats? Here’s how.

Are you working with good information? A key question security organizations might ask themselves with regard to emerging — or imminent — threats: Are the systems we have logging the correct information? They may need that information to hunt threats or to reconstruct what an attacker did while...

Rapid7's 2021 ICER Takeaways: Vulnerability Disclosure Programs Among the Fortune 500

This blog post covers key takeaways from our 2021 Industry Cyber-Exposure Report ICER: Fortune 500. Every major corporation on Earth is a technology company. It is unthinkable that a business that generates billions of dollars in revenue and employs thousands of workers would not have a significa...

Calling for cybersecurity in infrastructure modernization

Yesterday, Rapid7 sent a group letter urging the Biden Administration and Congress to work together to integrate cybersecurity into infrastructure legislation. The letter was signed by 19 companies, industry associations, and nonprofit groups who collaborated on the recommendations. The letter...

How to Implement Secure and Compliant IaC

Success lies in security True separation of developer and security teams is becoming a thing of the past. Today’s cloud environments enable deployments at previously unheard-of speed and scale; there simply isn’t time to build infrastructure, then code, then hand it all off for security...

A Look Into Remote Onboarding at Rapid7

Picture this; you accept a new role and walk in on your first day with jitters. You swing the double doors open and are welcomed by the fresh scent of kombucha on tap and the buzz of office chatter. The front desk receptionist welcomes you with a warm “hello!” and a freshly brewed tea or coffee. ...

How to Address the Current Complexity and Chaos of Cloud IAM

Cloudy judgement Combining the separate themes of cloud technology and identity access management IAM might seem like an oxymoron in today’s endlessly scaling environments, but there’s really no going back in the box when it comes to the promise of cloud in driving innovation. The fact is, securi...

Metasploit Wrap-Up

Stopped at the gate? A fun new module from timwr, taking advantage of a technique reported by Cedric Owens, is reminding everyone if there is no fence a gate will not deter us. The new module provides a quick wrapper for payloads that bypasses download origination and authorization requirements...

Rapid7's 2021 ICER Takeaways: High-Risk Services Among the Fortune 500

This blog post covers key takeaways from our 2021 Industry Cyber-Exposure Report ICER: Fortune 500. Original analysis for these findings was conducted by Tom Sellers. There are certain services that are generally considered to be high-risk when found available on the public internet. As an exampl...

Top Challenges for Security Analytics and Operations, and How a Cloud-Based SIEM Can Help

As the attack surface continues to grow, the job of a security professional is getting exponentially more complicated. With the surge in remote work over the last year, this has only accelerated. To keep up and combat key security operations challenges, many organizations are making the move to t...

Rapid7’s Response to Codecov Incident

Cybersecurity is Rapid7’s top priority, and when there is an incident that may pose a risk to our customers, we are transparent about it. We also believe that providing this level of transparency ultimately helps the security community better address potential pending threats and safeguard...

[Security Nation] Megan Stifel and Ciaran Martin discuss the sticky issue of ransomware payments

!\Security Nation\ Megan Stifel and Ciaran Martin discuss the sticky issue of ransomware paymentshttps://blog.rapid7.com/content/images/2021/05/securitynationlogo.jpg In this episode of Security Nation, we are joined by Ciaran Martin of Oxford University and Megan Stifel of the Cyber Global...

How ViacomCBS Digital delivers uninterrupted content streaming to millions of fans without compromising security: Lessons for enterprise CISOs

Each day, ViacomCBS Digital sees a growing surge in digital content demand—from MTV and Comedy Central to CBS Sports, rushing across its Paramount+ formerly CBS All Access streaming platform. Delivering digital content to millions of users on a daily basis doesn’t happen on its own—it makes it to...

Patch Tuesday - May 2021

Here we are again with another installment of Patch Tuesday. When compared to the past few months this one feels a bit light both in severity and number of vulnerabilities addressed. Microsoft has only released patches for 55 CVEs this month, less than half of the usual volume, with only 4 of the...

Patch Tuesday Dashboard Template Release

We know that many security teams rely on Microsoft’s patch cycle to remediate vulnerabilities in their environments. However, every month , Patch Tuesday introduces numerous vulnerabilities and their solutions that apply to many, if not nearly all, devices. Keeping up with the deployment of these...

MDR Vendor Must-Haves, Part 10: Included Security Orchestration and Automation

This blog post is part of an ongoing series about evaluating Managed Detection and Response MDR providers. For more insights, check out our guide, “10 Things Your MDR Service Must Do.” Cybersecurity teams continue to be challenged by resource constraints and disconnected toolsets. One method of...

Metasploit Wrap-Up

Two new Active Directory attacks This week we added a pair of new post-exploitation modules from community contributor timb-machine. Both modules target UNIX machines running SSSD or One Identity's Vintela Authentication Services VAS as Active Directory integration solutions. The new UNIX Gather...

The Evolution of DevOps in 2021

DevOps has long been a key tool in helping organizations reliably and rapidly deliver systems into production. While in the past, IT and software development teams suffered from lengthy processes and struggled to resolve incompatible priorities, now DevOps allows for easier collaboration, as well...

Rapid7's 2021 ICER Takeaways: Version Complexity Among the Fortune 500

This blog post covers key takeaways from our 2021 Industry Cyber-Exposure Report ICER: Fortune 500. Original analysis for these findings was conducted by Bob Rudis. Complexity is the enemy when it comes to successful security outcomes in an organization. Diversity in systems, technologies, and...

MDR Vendor Must-Haves, Part 9: Assigned Analyst Pods and Security Program Advisors

This blog post is part of an ongoing series about evaluating Managed Detection and Response MDR providers. For more insights, check out our guide, “10 Things Your MDR Service Must Do.” Every organization is unique, with different goals, missions, security maturities, staffing models, technologies...

Rapid7 Releases New Industry Cyber-Exposure Report (ICER): ASX 200

Today, we are excited to release the third report in our Industry Cyber-Exposure Report ICER series, which digs into cyber-exposure among organizations in Australia’s ASX 200. This series focuses on five key areas we believe CISOs at mega-corporations actually have a shot at accomplishing, and wi...

4 DevOps Challenges to Cloud Security and Compliance—and How IaC Can Help

To react or to prevent? The term “cure” is generally a positive one. However, in cloud security, it assumes a reactive position to some vulnerability or breach that’s already taken place. When it comes down to it, DevOps and Security teams—we all hope—are working together toward a culture of...

Kubernetes Security Is Not Container Security

Container-specific security I recently had an interesting discussion with Gianluca Brindisi from Spotify about the differences between Kubernetes security and container security. Typically, the discussion about container security focuses on general questions that aren’t focused on a specific...

Securing Kubernetes Deployments From Runway to Takeoff

Kubernetes use is rising rapidly—according to a 2019 Cloud Native Computing Foundation CNCF survey, 78% of respondents say they use Kubernetes today 58% more respondents than the previous year. With numbers like those, it looks like everyone is headed toward the cloud. But as with any journey, yo...

Grow, Develop, and Impact More Than Just Your Career: Software Engineering at Rapid7 Belfast

Growth and learning – in any career at any level – are imperative for job satisfaction and company commitment. While it is necessary to have inherent curiosity as well as a desire to grow and achieve, it is also important to work for an organization that encourages and enables this curiosity and...

Metasploit Wrap-Up

Operations shell Operations and management software make popular targets due to their users typically having elevated privileges across a network. Our own wvu contributed the VMware vRealize Operations vROps Manager SSRF RCE exploit module for the vulnerabilities discovered by security researcher...

Rapid7's 2021 ICER Takeaways: Web Security Among the Fortune 500

This blog post covers key takeaways from our 2021 Industry Cyber-Exposure Report ICER: Fortune 500. The vast majority of the interactions an average person has with technology is through some form of a web application, but what constitutes a “web app” can be considered quite nebulous, and the...

DevSecOps and the New Scope of Application Development

Hand in hand: Application development and application security As expectations of developers change, so too do those of security teams. It’s more of a collective effort than ever as business dependence on applications continues to grow. Security must shift further left into the software developme...

[Security Nation] Marina Ciavatta and int eighty Put the Fun into Hacking With Hacking Esports and Dual Core Music

!\Security Nation\ Marina Ciavatta and int eighty Put the Fun into Hacking With Hacking Esports and Dual Core Musichttps://blog.rapid7.com/content/images/2021/04/securitynationlogo-65.jpg In this episode of Security Nation, we are joined by Marina Ciavatta and int eighty to talk about Hacking...

What's New in DivvyCloud by Rapid7: April 2021

Keeping you on scheduler The latest release of DivvyCloud 21.3 encompasses many of the standard changes that we included in each major release, from bug fixes to support for new cloud resources to new filters and other enhancements. As always, all the details are available in the release notes...

Rapid7's 2021 ICER Takeaways: Email Security Among the Fortune 500

This blog post covers key takeaways from our 2021 Industry Cyber-Exposure Report ICER: Fortune 500. Original analysis for these findings was conducted by Kwan Lin. We all know and love—or at least begrudgingly rely upon—email. It is a pillar of modern communications, but is unfortunately also...

What’s New in InsightVM: Q1 2021 in Review

Are you ready to return to the office? At many companies around the world, plans are being put into place for a phased workforce return to physical offices. With big moves come big changes, which inevitably reveal new vulnerabilities. For many across the security landscape, it’s as if hundreds of...

Metasploit Wrap-Up

Nagios modules Community member Erik Wynter has contributed two more Nagios XI modules this week, on top of the previous week’s contributions! If you’ve noticed Nagios XI 5.6.0 to 5.7.5 running within your target’s infrastructure during a pen test, be sure to check both these new modules out as...

MDR Vendor Must-Haves, Part 8: Rapid7 Incident Response (Breach) Support

This blog post is part of an ongoing series about evaluating Managed Detection and Response MDR providers. For more insights, check out our guide, “10 Things Your MDR Service Must Do.” This is possibly the most overlooked aspect of selecting an MDR partner. But when you get to a hair-on-fire,...

Active Exploitation of Pulse Connect Secure Zero-Day (CVE-2021-22893)

On Tuesday, April 20, 2021, security firm FireEye published detailed analysis of multiple threat campaigns targeting Ivanti’s Pulse Connect Secure VPN. According to FireEye’s analysis, threat actors have been leveraging multiple techniques to bypass single- and multi-factor authentication on Puls...

The Future is Friction-Free: Drive Innovation With DevOps + Security

Going from a centralized security group that dictates a “command and control” approach to cloud security toward a model of “trust but verify,” is at the core of the modern shift toward security-practice democratization. Organizational practices behind legacy, centralized data centers are being...

Rapid7 and Velociraptor Join Forces

Exciting news! Rapid7 has acquired a digital forensics and incident response DFIR framework. Velociraptor is an open-source project that allows for hunting across thousands of hosts to provide actionable data in minutes and unprecedented visibility into the state of endpoints. A cyberattack can...

Overview of the EU’s draft NIS 2 Directive

Anticipating stronger security requirements for critical EU sectors A pdf copy of this brief is available here. The EU Commission recently proposed a revision to its Directive on Security of Network and Information Systems NIS. The existing NIS Directive “NIS 1” requires EU Member States to enact...

How to Turbocharge Your Phishing Response Plan

A quick reaction to a phishing threat can mean the difference between a massive breach or a fast fix. This reaction typically requires strong coordination across non-tech employees and their teammates over in security who can help them verify and conquer phishing campaigns. In any organization wi...

Rapid7 Announces Kubernetes Integration General Availability in InsightVM

Rapid7 is excited to announce the general availability of our Kubernetes integration in InsightVM, our vulnerability management tool.This represents a step forward in Rapid7’s ability to provide vulnerability and remediation management capabilities for container environments. Kubernetes is the mo...

Metasploit Wrap-Up

Google Chrome exploits return Community member r4j0x00 contributed a new module for CVE-2020-16040, an integer overflow in the SimplifiedLowering phase of TurboFan in Google Chrome = 87.0.4280.66 that grants attackers RCE. Whilst the exploit in and of itself does not grant RCE by default, unless...

Codecov Discloses Supply Chain Compromise

The following blog was co-authored by Curt Barnard and Caitlin Condon. On April 15, 2021, code coverage and testing company Codecov announced a supply chain compromise in which a malicious party gained access to their Bash Uploader script and modified it without authorization, enabling the...