Title:
Choosing an Azure Ledger Technology

URL: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/security-compliance-and-identity/choosing-an-azure-ledger-technology/ba-p/2451024
Date Published
(MM/dd/YYYY): 06/17/2021
Overview:

At the annual Microsoft Build 2021 Developer Conference, we announced two
new products that are based on blockchain technology.  Azure Confidential
Ledger, now in preview, offers a fully managed service for customers who
need to store sensitive data with high integrity and confidentiality. Azure SQL Database ledger,
also in preview, enables storage of sensitive relational data in a
tamper-evident way.

 

In this blog post, we’ll introduce you to both of these new products as well
as help you understand when it makes sense to use them individually, together,
and even with an existing blockchain system.

 

Azure
Confidential Ledger

Enterprises running sensitive workloads need a secure way to store their
logs and important metadata while collaborating with other parties. 
The Confidential Consortium Framework (CCF) is a
Microsoft-created open framework for building confidential permissioned
blockchain services. By running a confidential blockchain network of nodes in secure enclaves, data remains append-only with immutability
guarantees and the data from the client goes straight to the ledger’s
enclaves. 

 

Building on the CCF framework, Azure Confidential
Ledger (preview) provides the ability to store sensitive data records
with integrity and confidentiality guarantees, all in a highly available and
performant manner. Stored data remains immutable and tamper-proof in the
append-only ledger with the benefits of a fully managed solution that provides
infrastructure and operations so customers can get started quickly. The service
provides these assurances by harnessing the power of Confidential Computing‘s secure enclaves when setting up
the decentralized blockchain network. Microsoft’s access is limited to setting
up and managing the network, and this specialized design means that only the
customer has access to transaction data in the Confidential Ledger.

 

Asking yourself the following questions can help you decide if Azure
Confidential Ledger is right for you:

 

1. Do you need to store unstructured data (i.e. files,
   digests) that must remain intact for recordkeeping purposes?
2. Are you working with sensitive workflows where
   confidentiality must be maintained?
3. Are you in need of a service that has high integrity
   and security with a minimalistic trusted computing base?
4. Are you working with parties that need irrefutable
   evidence that tampering did not occur to the stored data?

If you said yes to one or more of these, Azure Confidential Ledger is right
for you. Customers have been using Azure Confidential Ledger in various
ways. Novaworks,
an e-parliamentary software solution, is using Azure Confidential Ledger to
securely log votes in a tamper-proof ledger for a high-fidelity voting process.

 

Azure
SQL Database ledger

Azure SQL Database
ledger (preview) is a tamper-evident solution for your databases that
provides cryptographic proof of your database’s integrity.  Using a
blockchain data structure implemented as system tables in your database, the
ledger feature ensures that any transaction which modifies relational data in
your database can be tracked, and any potential tampering detected and easily
remediated.  Providing proof that your data has not been tampered with is
as simple as running a stored procedure that compares the calculated
cryptographic hashes in your database against a database digest, which is
published automatically in a secure location, such as Azure Confidential
Ledger. 

 

Ledger is a feature of Azure SQL Database, meaning there is no additional
cost to add tamper-evidence capabilities.  You don’t have to migrate data
from your existing SQL databases to add tamper-evidence capabilities and no
changes are needed to your applications as ledger is an extension of existing
SQL table functionality. 

 

Asking yourself the following questions can help you decide if Azure SQL
Database ledger is right for you.

 

1. Do you have business-critical data in Azure SQL
   Database where you must ensure data integrity is intact?
2. Can 3^rd parties who interact with your
   data accept a “trust, but verify” model rather than each party having a
   copy of the ledger?
3. Do you need to prove to auditors or regulators that
   your data has not been tampered with?
4. Do you have a need for queryability and strong data
   management capabilities, such as streaming data from a blockchain to an
   off-chain store while maintaining integrity from on-chain to off-chain?

If you can answer “yes” to any of these questions, then Azure SQL Database
ledger is right for you.  Customers like RTGS.global, who provide a
global liquidity network for banks, are already using this capability to
provide a ledger of transactions to regulators to prove that global banking
transactions have not been tampered.  Read our blog to learn
more.

 

Putting
it all together

Trust is foundational in any business process that spans organizational
boundaries.  Microsoft goes beyond traditional blockchains, using the
building blocks of this technology as the underpinning for the distributed
ledger of Azure Confidential Ledger and the consolidated data store of Azure
SQL Database ledger.  These solutions empower our customers to apply the
power of blockchain to sensitive data, simplifying solution development,
reducing cost and providing a new level of digital trust to transactions.

 

Deciding which technology is best for your needs ultimately depends on the
level of trust between parties transacting with the data, and the type of data
being protected.  In addition to the points mentioned above, consider the
following when deciding whether Azure SQL Database ledger or Azure Confidential
Ledger is right for you.

Learn
more

• Read the Azure Confidential Ledger announcement blog and documentation to learn more about how this new
  service is empowering our customers and securing their work.
• Read the Azure SQL Database ledger documentation and whitepaper to
  learn more about how the ledger feature works and how to use it with your
  Azure SQL Database.

 Title:
Announcing Exciting Updates to Attack Simulation Training

URL: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/security-compliance-and-identity/announcing-exciting-updates-to-attack-simulation-training/ba-p/2455961
Date Published  06/17/2021
Overview:

Simulation
Automations

The modern enterprise, of any size, faces a challenge that the logistics
involved in planning a phishing simulation exercise are often laborious and
time-consuming to implement. So to help address this we are pleased to announce
some extra functionality in Attack Simulation Training that we feel will bring
some added benefits in this space by:

 

• Helping move away from the traditional approach of
  running quarterly or annual simulations, to a more always on ‘educating’
  model, by scheduling simulations to launch at a higher frequency (being
  mindful of simulation and training fatigue of course).

 

• Letting you schedule simulations up to a year in
  advance, so you decide the parameters of your simulations once in advance
  then you are good to go.

 

• Introducing some randomization elements around send
  times and dates to help combat the crowdsource effect that can occur when
  running large simulation exercises.

 

You can access the new functionality by selecting the “Simulation
automations” tab within the main experience.

 

When you create a simulation automation, the experience walks you through a
wizard experience just like creating a manual simulation, with the addition of
a few new steps.

 

• Payload selection – Here we allow you to manually select
  what payloads you would like to be in scope for the simulations, or
  alternatively you can opt to randomize, where we will take a random
  payload from the available library and use that.

 

• Simulation schedule – Here, you get to decide if you
  would like a randomized schedule or a more predictable fixed schedule.
  What is the difference?

 

A randomized schedule
lets you select a start date and end date, the days of the week you would like
to be in scope for delivery and after how many simulation launches would you
like the automation to stop.

 

Once the automation is enabled, the simulations will be launched on random
days between the dates you have specified. You can also choose to randomize the
send times (to negate the water cooler effect of users receiving simulation
messages at the same time and chatting about it).

 

 

A fixed
schedule allows you to run automations in a more controlled manner. We take the
same approach – you specify a start date and end date – however this time you
are prompted to enter the cadence, either weekly or monthly and the parameters
of how often you would like them to launch.

 

For example, you can schedule an automation to run once a week for a period
of 7 weeks starting every Monday, or you can also opt to end the simulations by
a particular date or after a specific number of occurrences that you define.

 

 

 

Government Cloud
and Regional Availability Updates

 

Attack Simulation
Training is now live in GCC:

Starting 15 June 2021, Attack Simulation Training will be generally
available in our Government Community Cloud. If your organization has Office
365 G5 GCC or Microsoft Defender for Office 365 (Plan 2) for Government, you
can use Attack Simulation Training in Microsoft 365 Defender to run realistic
attack scenarios in your organization as described here. Please note that the service is not yet available in
GCC-High or DoD environments and this is part of our future roadmap.

 

Attack Simulation
Training is now live in new regions:

Starting 16 June 2021, Attack Simulation Training will be generally
available to tenants in Latin America, Brazil, and Switzerland that have
Microsoft 365 E5 or Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 2. For any guidance
on running simulations, please start here. For frequently asked questions, please refer to our FAQ page.

 

We hope you find the enhancements useful as you continue your journey of
end-user education and behavior change. If you have any comments or feedback be
sure to let us know.

 

 Title: Join in the
Azure Sentinel Hackathon 2021!

URL: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-sentinel/join-in-the-azure-sentinel-hackathon-2021/ba-p/2466335
Published On: 06/21/2021
Overview:

 

Today, we are announcing the 2^nd
annual Hackathon for Azure Sentinel! This hackathon challenges
security experts around the globe to build end-to-end cybersecurity solutions
for Azure Sentinel that delivers enterprise value by collecting data, managing
security, detecting, hunting, investigating, and responding to constantly
evolving threats. We invite you to participate in this hackathon for a chance
to solve this challenge and win a piece of the $19000 cash prize pool*. This
online hackathon runs from June 21^st to Oct 4^th, 2021,
and is open to individuals, teams, and organizations globally.

Azure Sentinel provides
a platform for security analysts and threat hunters of various levels to not
only leverage existing content like workbooks (dashboard), playbooks (workflow
orchestrations), analytic rules (detections), hunting queries, etc. but also build custom content and solutions  as well.
Furthermore, Azure Sentinel also provides APIs
for integrating different types of applications to connect with Azure Sentinel
data and insights. Here are few examples of end-to-end solutions that
unlocks the potential of Azure Sentinel and drives enterprise value.

• Azure Sentinel Solutions blogpost provides examples of
  end-to-end solutions that deliver product and/or domain and/or industry
  vertical value.

• SOC Prime Sigma integration provides an example
  of API integration.
• Azure Sentinel2Go lab with pre-recorded data
  provides an example of a tool that enables easier onboarding to Azure
  Sentinel. 

 You can discover more examples by reviewing content and solutions in
the Azure
Sentinel GitHub repo and blogs. You can refer to the last year’s Azure Sentinel Hackathon for ideas too!

 

Prizes

In addition to learning more about Azure Sentinel and delivering
cybersecurity value to enterprises, this hackathon offers the following awesome
prizes for top projects:

• First Place (1) – $10,000 USD cash prize  
• Second Place (1) – $4000 USD cash prize
• Runners Up (2) – $1500 USD cash prize each 
• Popular Choice (1) – $1000 USD cash prize
• The first 10 eligible submissions also qualify to
  receive $100 each.

Note: Refer to the Hackathon official rules for details on project types that
qualify for each prize category

In addition, the four winning projects will be heavily promoted on Microsoft
blogs and social media so that your creative projects are widely known to all.
The criteria for judging consist of quality of the idea, value to enterprise
and technical implementation. Refer to the Azure
Sentinel Hackathon website for further details and get started.

 

Judging Panel

Judging commences immediately after the hackathon submission window closes
on October 4^th, 2021. We’ll announce the winners on or before
October 27^th, 2021. Our judging panel currently includes the
following influencers and experts in the cybersecurity community.

• Ann Johnson – Corporate Vice President, Cybersecurity
  Solutions Group, Microsoft
• Vasu Jakkal – Corporate Vice President, Microsoft
  Security, Compliance and Identity
• John Lambert – Distinguished Engineer and General
  Manager, Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center
• Nick Lippis – Co-Founder, Co-Chair ONUG
• Andrii Bezverkhyi – CEO & founder of SOC Prime,
  inventor of Uncoder.IO

 

 Next Steps

• Start by registering for this hackathon at the Azure
  Sentinel Hackathon website and invite your friends to join in the
  fun!
• Build your project by following the Get Started guidance. We have Azure credits for
  eligible participants to help you get started!
• Learn about Azure Sentinel and explore the Azure Sentinel GitHub for
  inspiration.

Let the #AzureSecurityHackathon begin!

 

*No purchase necessary.
Open only to new and existing Devpost users who are the age of majority in
their country. Game ends October 4^th, 2021 at 9:00 AM Pacific Time.
Refer to the official rules for details. 

 

 

Qualcomm has confirmed the bug and fixed the issue and mobile players are notified, according to the researchers.

 

 

 

Title:
Defending against cryptojacking with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Intel
TDT
URL: https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2021/04/26/defending-against-cryptojacking-with-microsoft-defender-for-endpoint-and-intel-tdt/
Date Published
(MM/dd/YYYY): 04/26/2021
Overview:

With cryptocurrency mining on the rise, Microsoft and Intel have partnered
to deliver threat detection technology to enable EDR capabilities in Microsoft
Defender for Endpoint.

—————————————————————-

Title:
Non-interactive logins: minimizing the blind spot
URL: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-sentinel/non-interactive-logins-minimizing-the-blind-spot/ba-p/2287932
Published On (MM/dd/yyyy): 04/25/2021
Overview:

Special thanks to   for
collaborating on this blog post with me! 

 

In this blog post, we will review the new Azure Sentinel data streams for
Azure Active Directory non-interactive, service principal, and managed identity
logins. We will also share the new security content we built and updated in the
product, which includes analytics rules for the detection part and workbooks to
assist our customers to deal with this blind spot.

 

The shift to the cloud and the rise of automation tasks and
service-to-service integration have contributed to a dramatic increase in the
use of managed applications, service principals, and managed identities.

These new security objects perform login activity which is not captured in
Azure Active Directory’s traditional sign-in logs.

The updated Azure Active Directory data connector now brings these important
sign-in events into Azure sentinel.

 What are
non-interactive logins?

Non-interactive user sign-ins are sign-ins that were performed by a client
app or an OS component on behalf of a user. Like interactive user sign-ins,
these sign-ins are done on behalf of a user. Unlike interactive user sign-ins,
these sign-ins do not require the user to supply an Authentication factor.
Instead, the device or client app uses a token or code to authenticate or
access a resource on behalf of a user. In general, the user will perceive these
sign-ins as happening in the background of the user’s activity. 

Some activity that is captured in these logs:

• A client app uses an OAuth 2.0 refresh token to get an
  access token.
• A client uses an OAuth 2.0 authorization code to get an
  access token and refresh token.
• A user performs single sign-on (SSO) to a web or
  Windows app on an Azure AD joined PC.
• A user signs in to a second Microsoft Office app while
  they have a session on a mobile device using FOCI (Family of Client IDs).

 

Why is it so
important to monitor and detect activities in this area?

 

Some examples that highlight why it’s so important to collect, and get
visibility into these logs as part of your detections and hunting:

 

1. SolarWinds
   campaign – As part of our learning on the SolarWinds
   campaign investigation, we used these logs in the hunting phase to check
   if the malicious actor used a sensitive app to gain “Data Access”.

 ————————————————————————-

Title:
Best practices for leveraging Microsoft 365 Defender API’s – Episode Two
URL: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-365-defender/best-practices-for-leveraging-microsoft-365-defender-api-s/ba-p/2198820
Published On (YYYY-dd-MM):2021-26-04
Overview:

In the previous episode we provided recommendations about how to use the Microsoft 365 Defender API
and, specifically, how
to optimize the Advanced hunting query.

In this
episode we will demonstrate use cases detailing how to access the API data and use this information in other products. 

One of the most common uses of the API is for visualization in PowerBI. This provides the capability to analyze, visualize, and share
your data with others quickly and easily.

If you are not familiar with PowerBi, we suggest you visit the Microsoft PowerBi web site, and download PowerBI desktop. 

We already documented how to use PowerBI to create custom
reports using  
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint APIs connection to Power BI –
Windows security | Microsoft Docs. 

——————————————————————–

Title:
Best practices for leveraging Microsoft 365 Defender API’s – Episode Three
URL: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-365-defender/best-practices-for-leveraging-microsoft-365-defender-api-s/ba-p/2290463
Published On (YYYY-dd-MM):2021-26-04
Overview:

In the previous episode, we
described how you
can easily use PowerBi to represent Microsoft 365
data in a visual format. In this episode, we will explore another way
you can interact with the Microsoft 365 Defender
API. We will describe how to automate
data analysis and hunting using Jupyter notebook.

 Automate your hunting queries 

While hunting and conducting investigations on a
specific threat or IOC, you may want to use multiple queries to obtain wider
optics on the possible threats or IOCs in your network. You
may also want to leverage queries that are used by
other hunters and use it as a pivot point to perform deep
analysis and find anomalous behaviors. You can find a
wide variety of examples in our Git repository where various queries related to
the same campaign or attack technique are shared.  

In scenarios such as this, it is sensible to
leverage the power of automation to run the queries rather than running
individual queries one-by-one.  

This is where Jupyter Notebook is
particularly useful. It takes in a JSON file with hunting queries as input and
executes all the queries in sequence. The results are saved in a
.csv file that you can analyze and share. 

 ————————————————————————

Title:
March Ahead with Azure Purview: Access management in Azure Purview – Part 3
URL: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-purview/march-ahead-with-azure-purview-access-management-in-azure/ba-p/2262722
Date Published
(MM/dd/YYYY): 04/22/2021
Overview:

Hopefully, you have read my previous blog posts about Azure Purview access
management Part 1 and Part 2 to find about Azure Purview control plane and data
plane roles and tasks. In this post, I will cover the following topic:

 

• Overview of dashboards and roles required to extend
  your M365 Sensitivity Labels to Azure Purview.

 

By extending M365 Sensitivity Labels to Azure Purview you can
automatically assign labels to files and database columns in Azure Purview.

——————————————————————

We have a new Azure Purview bog for your consideration. Please remember that
Azure Purview is a unified data governance service, and security is one of its
pillars.

Title:
Azure Purview resource set pattern rules available in Public Preview
URL: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-purview/azure-purview-resource-set-pattern-rules-available-in-public/ba-p/2275399
Date Published (MM/dd/YYYY):
04/21/2021
Overview:

​At-scale data
processing systems typically store a single table in a data lake as multiple
files. This concept is represented in Azure Purview by using resource sets. A
resource set is a single object in the data catalog that represents a large
number of assets in storage. To learn more, see the resource set documentation.

 

When scanning a storage account, Azure Purview uses a
set of defined patterns to determine if a group of assets is a resource set. In
some cases, Azure Purview’s resource set grouping may not accurately reflect
your data estate. Resource set pattern rules allow you to customize or override
how Azure Purview detects which assets are grouped as resource sets and how
they are displayed within the catalog.

 

Pattern rules are currently supported in public preview
in the following source types:

• Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2
• Azure Blob Storage
• Azure Files

To learn more on how to create resource set pattern
rules, see our step-by-step
how-to documentation!

———————————————————————–

Title:
eDiscovery in Microsoft 365 One Stop Shop Resource Page
URL: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/security-compliance-identity/ediscovery-in-microsoft-365-one-stop-shop-resource-page/ba-p/2262529
Date Published
(MM/dd/YYYY): 04/21/2021
Overview:

Welcome to the eDiscovery in Microsoft 365 One Stop Shop Resource
Page!

 

We built this page to help you easily find all relevant content and
resources relating to the compliance solutions in Microsoft 365. Please
bookmark this page for future reference as we will update it on an ongoing
basis.

 

 Original
release date: April 26, 2021

A software supply chain attack—such as the recent SolarWinds Orion
attack—occurs when a cyber threat actor infiltrates a software vendor’s network
and employs malicious code to compromise the software before the vendor sends
it to their customers. The compromised software can then further compromise
customer data or systems.

To help software vendors and customers defend against these attacks, CISA
and the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) have released Defending
Against Software Supply Chain Attacks. This new interagency
resource provides an overview of software supply chain risks and
recommendations. The publication also provides guidance on using NIST’s Cyber
Supply Chain Risk Management (C-SCRM) framework and the Secure Software
Development Framework (SSDF) to identify, assess, and mitigate risks.

CISA encourages users and administrators to review Defending
Against Software Supply Chain Attacks and implement its recommendations.

 

 Forescout Research Labs, partnering with JSOF Research, disclose NAME:WRECK, a set of nine vulnerabilities affecting four popular TCP/IP stacks (FreeBSD, Nucleus NET, IPnet and NetX). These vulnerabilities relate to Domain Name System (DNS) implementations, causing either Denial of Service (DoS) or Remote Code Execution (RCE), allowing attackers to take target devices offline or to take control over them.

The widespread use of these stacks and often external exposure of vulnerable DNS clients lead to a dramatically increased attack surface. This research is further indication that the community should fix DNS problems that we believe are more widespread than what we currently know.

This research uncovered vulnerabilities on very popular stacks:

1. Nucleus NET is part of the Nucleus RTOS. The Nucleus RTOS website mentions that more than 3 billion devices use this real-time operating system, such as ultrasound machines, storage systems, critical systems for avionics and others. The most common device types running Nucleus RTOS include building automation, operational technology and VoIP.

2. FreeBSD is widely known to be used for high-performance servers in millions of IT networks and is also the basis for other well-known open-source projects, such as firewalls and several commercial network appliances. The most common device types on Device Cloud running FreeBSD include computers, printers and networking equipment.

3. NetX is usually run by the ThreadX RTOS. Typical applications include medical devices, systems-on-a-chip and several printer models. ThreadX was known to have 6.2 billion deployments in 2017, with mobile phones (probably in baseband processors), consumer electronics and business automation being the most common product categories. The most common device types running ThreadX include printers, smart clocks and energy and power equipment in Industrial Control Systems.

Organizations in the Healthcare and Government sectors are in the top three most affected for all three stacks. If we conservatively assume that 1% of the more than 10 billion deployments discussed above are vulnerable, we can estimate that at least 100 million devices are impacted by NAME:WRECK.

The details of these vulnerabilities are described in our technical report and will be presented at Black Hat Asia 2021.

Helping the community to fix DNS vulnerabilities

Disclosing these vulnerabilities to vendors provides much-needed information and education on the impacted products and continues the dialogue in the research community:

1. We urge developers of TCP/IP stacks that have yet to be analyzed to take the anti-patterns available in our technical report, check their code for the presence of bugs and fix them. To help with this process, we are releasing open-source code developed for the Joern static analysis tool. This code formalizes the anti-patterns we identified, allowing researchers and developers to automatically analyze other stacks for similar vulnerabilities.

2. We invite researchers, developers and vendors to reach out to us if they are interested in a set of small proof-of-concept crashing network packets for the identified anti-patterns. These packets can be used to automatically test intrusion detection rules.

3. We realized that many vulnerabilities exist because RFC documents are either unclear, ambiguous or too complex. To help prevent such issues from reappearing in the future, we have submitted to the IETF an informational RFC draft where we list the anti-patterns we identified and how to avoid them while implementing a DNS client or server.

Recommended Mitigation

Complete protection against NAME:WRECK requires patching devices running the vulnerable versions of the IP stacks. FreeBSD, Nucleus NET and NetX have been recently patched, and device vendors using this software should provide their own updates to customers.

However, patching devices is not always possible, and the required effort changes drastically depending upon whether the device is a standard IT server or an IoT device.

Given the challenges of patching, we also recommend the following mitigation strategy:

1. Discover and inventory devices running the vulnerable stacks. Forescout Research Labs has released an open-source script that uses active fingerprinting to detect devices running the affected stacks. The script is updated constantly with new signatures to follow the latest development of our research. Forescout customers using eyeSight can also automatically identify devices using FreeBSD, Nucleus RTOS, ThreadX or VxWorks.

2. Enforce segmentation controls and proper network hygiene to mitigate the risk from vulnerable devices. Restrict external communication paths, and isolate or contain vulnerable devices in zones as a mitigating control if they cannot be patched or until they can be patched.

3. Monitor progressive patches released by affected device vendors and devise a remediation plan for your vulnerable asset inventory, balancing business risk and business continuity requirements.

4. Configure devices to rely on internal DNS servers as much as possible and closely monitor external DNS traffic since exploitation requires a malicious DNS server to reply with malicious packets.

5. Monitor all network traffic for malicious packets that try to exploit known vulnerabilities or possible 0-days affecting DNS, mDNS and DHCP clients. Anomalous and malformed traffic should be blocked, or its presence should be at least alerted to network operators. To exploit NAME:WRECK vulnerabilities, an attacker should adopt a similar procedure for any TCP/IP stack. This means that the same detection technique used to identify exploitation of NAME:WRECK will also work to detect exploitation on other TCP/IP stacks and products that we could not yet analyze. In addition, Forescout eyeInspect customers that enabled the threat detection SD script delivered as part of AMNESIA:33 can detect exploitation of NAME:WRECK.

For more information, visit our NAME:WRECK resources page