cloud security Archives

Troubleshooting Syspeace

January 16, 2015/in brute force, cloud security, ids/ips, syspeace /by redcloudit

An interesting support case came to our attention recently.

A customer claimed that Syspeace wouldn’t block according to the rules.

The bruteforce attacks would continue , even after they should have been blocked.

We checked the ususal culprits (verify that the .Net is fully patched, that the customer is running the latest Syspeace version, verify that logging is enabled and that the firewall is turned on )

The rules were added as expected in the firewall but they didn’t have any effect.

After a lot of troubleshooting the root-cause was found.

The customers server did indeed have the firewall enabled but only in one of the firewall profiles (public, private, domain) and unfortuantely, the network used was not the one the firewall was enabled for, hence, nothing was blocked as expected. The rules were added but did not take effect in the expected amount of time

So, as a general troubleshooting tip , check how your firewall is enabled and verify that it indeed is the correct network profile in there, or, enable the firewall for all three profiles.

The usual troubleshooting tips we give are described in the manual in the troubleshooting section

1. Make sure you’ve enabled the firewall (as described in Firewall), firewall enabled, prefferably on all profiles.

2. Make sure you’ve enabled the auditing (as described in Windows login detection prerequisites).

3. Verify that the server can reach https://s.syspeace.com/ping . (You should see a message saying Hello from Stockholm. and the local time of the server and recommended Syspeace version)

4. In some instances, when running Terminal Server or Remote Desktop Services there’s actually the scenario where the Windows server itself fails to obtain the source IP address of the login attempt (you can verify this by checking the Windows event log and look for Source Network Address: ) Sometimes, that entry is empty, thus disabling Syspeace from actually having anything to block. Syspeace will attempt to corroborate the IP address from some other logs. If it doesn’t find any, there is not much that Syspeace can do. (Update: starting with Syspeace 2.7, these attempts can be detected too.)

5. In any applicable firewall or antivirus software, allow Syspeace access to https://s.syspeace.com/ (port 443).

6. Verify any proxy settings, if applicable.

7. Some methods of Windows authentication actually attempts to log in several times. Two failures may be part of one log in attempt. Syspeace has no way of knowing how many attempts were intended and has to work with the actual failures. Due to counting failures instead of attempts, rules may be triggered seemingly ahead of time.

8. One way of quickly verifying functionality is to use a workstation (not whitelisted) and attack your server with the net use command from the command prompt. After the number of tries defined in the current rules, the workstation should be blocked from communicating with the server. Example of the command: net use * \server name or server IP addressanyshare /user:syspeacetester “anypassword”

9. If you want to submit logs to us, start Syspeace, go to Management → System settings, enable logging and start the service. The log file is created in a subfolder of the Syspeace installation folder.

10. When submitting logs,
Please create a .zip file of the logfiles, include any relevant information from Windows Eventlogs (application, system and security and when applicapble, the Syspeace eventlog ) and also create a .Zip-file of the database and email them directly to the devteam . The email address can be found in the manual

11. If your server doesn’t pick up the source IP address in your eventlog , please have a look a this blog article

12. If your database has grown above the size limit of 4 GB, in the current version ( 2.5.2) you will have to manually delete the database and set up your Syspeace again. Please refer to this post on the matter
by Juha Jurvanen

#infosec How to block an ongoing dictionary attack / brute force attack against Windows Servers, #MSexchange and more

October 7, 2014/in cloud security, ids/ips, IT securiy, syspeace, windowsserver /by Syspeace

How to block an intrusion attack against Windows Servers for free

If your server or data center is targeted by a brute force attack a.k.a dictionary attacks , it might be hard to figure out how to quickly make it stop.
If the attack is from a single IP address you’d probably block it in your external firewall or the Windows Server firewall and after that start tracking and reporting the attack to see if needs following up.
However, if the attacks is triggered from hundreds or even thousands of IP addresses, it will become basically impossible to block all of them in the firewall so you need something to help you automate the task.

This is where Syspeace comes into play.

Fully functional, free trial for brute force prevention

Since Syspeace has a fully functional trial for 30 days, you can simply download it here, install, register with a valid email address, enter the license key into the Syspeace GUI and the attack will be automatically handled (blocked, tracked and reported) as soon as the Syspeace service starts up.

In essence, the attack will be blocked within minutes from even connecting to your server.

The entire process of downloading, installing and registering ususally only takes a few minutes and since Syspeace is a Windows service it will also automatically start if the server is rebooted.

If the attack is triggered to use just a few login attempts per attacking IP address and for a longer period of time in between attempts, I’d suggest you change te default rule to monitor for failed logins for a longer triggerwindow , for example 4 days so you’d also automatically detect hacking attempts that are trying to stay under the radar for countermeasure such as Syspeace.

The Syspeace Global BlackList

Since Syspeace has already blocked over 3.6 Million attacks worldwide , we’ve also got a Global Blacklist that is automatically downloaded to all other Syspeace clients.

This means that if an IP address has been deemed a repeat offender (meaning that it has attacked X number of Syspeace customers and Y number of servers within Z amount of tme), the attackers IP address is quite likely to already be in the GBL and therefore it will be automatically blacklisted on all Syspeace-installations, thus making it preemptively blocked.

Syspeace does not simmply disable the login for the attacker, it completely blocks the attacker on all ports from communicating with your server so if you’ve got otther services also running on the server (such as an FTP or SQL Server) the attacker will not be able to reach any if those services either. The lockdown is on all TCP ports.

More Syspeace features, supported Windows Server editions and other services such as Exchange Server, Terminal Server, SQL Server …

You will also get tracking and reporting included immediately for future reference or forensics.
Syspeace supports Windows Server editions from Windows 2003 and upwards, including the Small Business Server editions. It also supports Terminal Server (RDS) and RemoteAPP and RDWeb, Microsoft Exchange Serevr including the webmail (OWA) , Citrix, Sharepoint,
SQL Server and we’ve also released public APIs to use with various weblogins. All of this is included in Syspeace. Out of the box.
We’ve got a IIS FTP server detector in beta and also a FileZilla FTP Server detector and we’re constantly developing new detectors for various server software.

Download and try out Syspeace completely free

Even if you’re not being attacked by a large brute force attack right now, you can still download the trial and have Syspeace handle attacks for you in the background. Who knows, there could be more invalid login attemtpts than you think, such as disabled or removed users that have left the company or very subtle, slow dictioanry attacks going on in the background that actaully might be quite tricky to spot if your not constantly monitoring logfles.

On this blog, http://syspeace.wordpress.com, we’ve written a lot of blog articles on how Syspeace works and a lot of other articles regarding securing your servers that we hope you’ll find useful.

How to battle slowgrind #bruteforce attacks against #msexchange #windows server #remotedesktop #sharepoint with #Syspeace

August 11, 2014/in cloud security, ids/ips, syspeace /by redcloudit

Syspeace automatically blocks attacks that occur according to the rules.
The default rule is that if an intruder fails to login more than 5 times within 30 minutes, the intruders IP address is blocked, tracked and reported for 2 hours and simply is denied any access to the server.

A new trend though has emerged and that is for bruteforce attackers to “slowgrind” through servers, trying to stay “under the radar” really from IDS/IPS HIPS/HIDS such as Syspeace.
They’ve got thousands and thousands of computers at their disposal so they’ll basically just try a few times at each server and then move on to next one in the IP range or geographical location hoping not to trigger any alarms or hacker countermeasures in place.

An easy way to battle this is actually simply to change the default rule in Syspeace from the time windows of 30 minutes to for example 5 days.

This way , I’m pretty sure you’ll see there are quite a few attackers that only tried 2 or three times a couple of days ago and they’re back again but still only trying only a few times.

With the “5 day” windows, you’ll catch and block those attacks too.

Here’s actually a brilliant example of an attack blocked, using a 4 day window.

Blocked address 121.31.114.99() [China] 2014-08-11 15:06:00
Rule used (Winlogon):
        Name:                   Catch All Login
        Trigger window:         4.00:30:00
        Occurrences:            5
        Lockout time:           02:00:00
        Previous observations of this IP address:
        2014-08-11 13:05:51     aksabadministrator
        2014-08-10 22:06:48     aksabadministrator
        2014-08-10 06:39:12     aksabadministrator
        2014-08-09 15:39:52     aksabadministrator
        2014-08-09 00:32:05     aksabadministrator

Syspeace has blocked more than 3 285 300 intrusion attempts against Windows Servers worldwide so far.

#infosec #cloudsecurity #Syspeace – Host Intrusion Prevention Software on an external #Windowsserver #VPS in the #Cloud #IaaS #PaaS

June 3, 2014/1 Comment/in brute force, cloud security, ids/ips, syspeace /by redcloudit

Syspeace – Host Intrusion Prevention Software on an external Windows Server VPS in the Cloud

There are many variations of IaaS / PaaS / Cloud services.
Some are public clouds and some are hybrids and some are private.
There’s also the possibility rent an external VPS and use as a server at quite a few providers nowadays.

The IaaS/PaaS (Infrastracture as a Service/ Platform as a Service) provider gives you acces to a virtual server designed as to your needs when it comes to RAM and storage. Basically, it’s usually an empty server with an operating system.

Running IT solutions on an external VPS decreases the need for hardware investements but there are still things you need to consider and you need to manage your server the same way you would with any physical server i terms of monitoring security and tha availability of services and applications.

Logically, the server is reachable from the Internet which will make it a target.
Anything that is reachable will be targeted for intrusion attempts. The responsibility for Iaas/PaaS provider is simply to provide you with the Hypervisor needed to host you operating system and the rest is up to you. You install the applications, webservers and everything just as you would with a normal physical server.

Some aware Iaas/PaaS/Cloud service provders do have some kind of Appshop/Control panel where you can get preconfigured software such as an antivirus or even Syspeace for intrusion prevention but it’s not that common.

Remember that your VPS shares “IP-space” with other customers when it comes to the network at your provider and you have absolutely no idea of what your “neighbors” are doing and if they’re the slightest security aware.
They may hve been hacked without you knowing it (or them either for that matter) and they could have the IP address right next to you and their server could be used for instance for portscanning or hacking attempts against your VPS (if seen this quite a few times now).

Your IaaS/PaaS provider usually wouldn’t know since it’s not their responsibility. Their role is simply to provide you and their other customers with a VPS. Nothing more. No security monitoring, no antivirus, no application / services monitoring
In case of a larger DDoS attack, they probobaly have ways to handle them if it concerns their entire network and affects a lot of their customers but when it comes to attacks speciafically targetet at your VPS and your users on it, it’s a bit trickier.

Imagine the scenario you’ve set up a server, you got your users set up, installed your applications and services and it’s up and running. Now, rermember that there’s no connection nbetween you userdatabase and login mechanisms locally on the VPS and your IaaS/PaaS systems so they’ll actually never even get any alarms if some is trying to brute force your server or your webapplication. They will be alerted in case of a large DDoS attack against their entire netowrk but they will not be alerted in cases of a bruteforce attack targetetd against your VPS.
So, in short, it’s all up to you. There’s no differnce apart from your not running the server in your own datacenter or at a hosting company.

Protecting your Windows Server, Exchange, Terminal Server / RDS, Sharepoint, SQL Server, Citrix and more from intrusion attempts

If your running a Windows server as a VPS you need to set up Syspeace to automatically handle intrusion attempts and have them blocked, tracked and reported againts the Syspeace Global Blacklist.
You also need to secure the server in other ways such as an antivirus, have your services monitored, you webapplication login form secured both from malicios code and from brute force logins (this is also wher Syspeace comes into play since there are plugins available for various webplatforms to use against bruteforce attacks)

Syspeace is an automated Host Intrusion Prevention System (also called a HIPS) and is targeted to protect Windows servers, Exchange and OWA , Sharepoint, Terminal Server / RDS and the RDWEB login, Citrix , SQL Server and more from bruteforce / dictionary attacks. . It is easy to install, and easy to manage and you’ll set it up in a couple of minutes and you’re protected. Instantly.

As I’m writing this, Syspeace has succesfully blocked, tracked and reported over 2 921 200 (2.9 Million) brute force and dictionary attacks against Windows servers worldwide.

Have a look the Syspeace website for a free trial download or keep reading some of the previous articles I’ve written on various securiy aspects on server managagement such as Using various brute force and dictionary attack prevention methods to prevent hackers – and why they don’t work and Securing your #WinServ and #MSExchange with an acceptable baseline security

By Juha Jurvanen @ JufCorp

#infosec #cloudsecurity #Syspeace – Host Intrusion Prevention Software on an external #Windowsserver #VPS in the #Cloud #IaaS #PaaS

June 3, 2014/1 Comment/in brute force, cloud security, ids/ips, syspeace /by Syspeace