Windows Server 2019 – now available in preview

This blog post was authored by Erin
Chapple, Director of Program Management, Windows Server.

Today is a big day for Windows
Server! On behalf of the entire Windows Server team, I am delighted to announce
Windows Server 2019 will be generally available in the second half of calendar
year 2018. Starting now, you can access the preview build through our Insiders program.

What’s
new in Windows Server 2019

Windows Server 2019 is built on the
strong foundation of Windows Server 2016 – which continues to see great
momentum in customer adoption. Windows Server 2016 is the fastest adopted
version of Windows Server, ever! We’ve been busy since its launch at Ignite
2016 drawing insights from your feedback and product telemetry to make this
release even better.

We also spent a lot of time with
customers to understand the future challenges and where the industry is going.
Four themes were consistent – Hybrid, Security, Application Platform, and
Hyper-converged infrastructure. We bring numerous innovations on these four
themes in Windows Server 2019.

Hybrid cloud scenarios:

We know that the move to the cloud
is a journey and often, a hybrid approach, one that combines on-premises and
cloud environments working together, is what makes sense to our customers.
Extending Active Directory, synchronizing file servers, and backup in the cloud
are just a few examples of what customers are already doing today to extend
their datacenters to the public cloud. In addition, a hybrid approach also
allows for apps running on-premises to take advantage of innovation in the
cloud such as Artificial Intelligence and IoT. Hybrid cloud enables a
future-proof, long-term approach – which is exactly why we see it playing a
central role in cloud strategies for the foreseeable future.

At
Ignite in September 2017, we announced the Technical Preview of Project Honolulu
– our reimagined experience for management of Windows and Windows Server.
Project Honolulu is a flexible, lightweight browser-based locally-deployed
platform and a solution for management scenarios. One of our goals with Project
Honolulu is to make it simpler and easier to connect existing deployments of
Windows Server to Azure services. With Windows Server 2019 and Project
Honolulu, customers will be able to easily integrate Azure services such as
Azure Backup, Azure File Sync, disaster recovery, and much more so they will be
able to leverage these Azure services without disrupting their applications and
infrastructure.

 
Security:
Security continues to be a top
priority for our customers. The number of cyber-security incidents continue to
grow, and the impact of these incidents is escalating quickly. A Microsoft
study shows that attackers take, on average, just 24-48 hours to penetrate an environment after
infecting the first machine. In addition, attackers can stay in the penetrated
environment – without being noticed – for up to 99 days on average, according to a report
by FireEye/Mandiant. We continue on our journey to help our customers improve
their security posture by working on features that bring together learnings
from running global-scale datacenters for Microsoft Azure, Office 365, and
several other online services.

Our approach to security is
three-fold – Protect, Detect and Respond. We bring security features in all
three areas in Windows Server 2019.
On the Protect front, we introduced Shielded VMs in Windows Server 2016, which
was enthusiastically received by our customers. Shielded VMs protect virtual
machines (VM) from compromised or malicious administrators in the fabric so
only VM admins can access it on known, healthy, and attested guarded fabric. In
Windows Server 2019, Shielded VMs will now support Linux VMs. We are also
extending VMConnect to improve troubleshooting of Shielded VMs for Windows
Server and Linux. We are adding Encrypted Networks that will let admins encrypt
network segments, with a flip of a switch to protect the network layer between
servers.

On the Detect and Respond front, in Windows
Server 2019, we are embedding Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
that provides preventative protection, detects attacks and zero-day exploits
among other capabilities, into the operating system. This gives customers
access to deep kernel and memory sensors, improving performance and
anti-tampering, and enabling response actions on server machines.
 

 

Application Platform:
 
A key guiding principle for us on
the Windows Server team is a relentless focus on the developer experience. Two
key aspects to call out for the developer community are improvements to Windows
Server containers and Windows Subsystem on Linux (WSL).
Since the introduction of containers
in Windows Server 2016, we have seen great momentum in its adoption. Tens of
millions of container images have been downloaded from the Docker Hub. The team
learned from feedback that a smaller container image size will significantly
improve experience of developers and IT Pros who are modernizing their existing
applications using containers. In Windows Server 2019, our goal is to reduce
the Server Core base container image to a third of its current size of 5 GB.
This will reduce download time of the image by 72%, further optimizing the
development time and performance.
We are also continuing to improve
the choices available when it comes to orchestrating Windows Server container
deployments. Kubernetes support is currently in beta, and in
Windows Server 2019, we are introducing significant improvements to compute,
storage, and networking components of a Kubernetes cluster.
A feedback we constantly hear from
developers is the complexity in navigating environments with Linux and Windows
deployments. To address that, we previously extended Windows Subsystem on Linux (WSL) into insider builds for
Windows Server, so that customers can run Linux containers
side-by-side with Windows containers on a Windows Server. In Windows Server
2019, we are continuing on this journey to improve WSL, helping Linux users
bring their scripts to Windows while using industry standards like OpenSSH,
Curl & Tar.
Finally, Window Server customers
using System Center will be excited to know that System Center 2019 is coming
and will support Windows Server 2019.

We have much more to share between
now and the launch later this year. We will bring more details on the goodness
of Windows Server 2019 in a blog series that will cover the areas above.

Sign
up for the Insiders program to access Windows Server 2019

We know you probably cannot wait to
get your hands on the next release, and the good news is that the preview build
is available today to Windows Insiders. Join the program to ensure you
have access to the bits. For more details on this preview build, check out the Release
Notes.

We love hearing from you, so don’t
forget to provide feedback using the Windows Feedback Hub app, or the Windows Server space in the Tech community.

 

 

 
 

Breaking Botnets and Wrestling Ransomware Webcast

Microsoft has an event

Webcast: Microsoft Security Intelligence Report
Volume 23—Breaking Botnets and Wrestling Ransomware

The security threat landscape is constantly evolving, and
Microsoft has spent over a decade tracking and analyzing software vulnerabilities,
exploits, malware, unwanted software, and attacker group methods and tactics
via the Security Intelligence Report. As organizations move to the cloud and
invest into modern technologies, Microsoft continues its commitment to
analyzing and informing the security community with deep insights on the
latest threats.

During this webinar, we will discuss learnings from the
Security Intelligence Report Volume 23 that include analysis of the top
security threat trends we saw in 2017, dive deep into insights on attack
vectors, and actionable recommendations from a security industry veteran and
a former CISO for your organization to protect and defend itself against
these threats. Key takeaways from this webinar include:
  • Learn about the top security threat trends in 2017
  • Gain insight into attack vectors and attacker
    techniques
  • Hear recommendations and approaches on how to protect
    your organization from the latest threats

Webcast: Microsoft
Security Intelligence Report Volume 23—Breaking Botnets and Wrestling
Ransomware
April 10, 2018
1:00 PM ET / 10:00 AM PT
 
 
 
 

4G LTE Under Attack

 


Over the past few years, Fourth Generation Long Term
Evolution or 4G LTE has become the standard for cellular communications.
Security vulnerabilities affecting 4G LTE need to be taken seriously as any
disruption to the network can have serious consequences to life in 2018 and
beyond. Billions of people around the world depend on the integrity of 4G LTE
for daily activities in both their personal and professional lives.

A recent study conducted by a group of researchers from
Purdue and Iowa University has uncovered a bundle of vulnerabilities affecting
4G LTE cellular networks. These protocol level vulnerabilities can be exploited
for malicious purposes in numerous ways. The researchers have proven that these
flaws can allow an attacker to intercept calls and text messages, kick a device
off of the network, and even track a user’s location. These may sound like
far-fetched scenarios; however eight of the ten attacks discovered have been
proven in a testing environment using devices with SIM cards from real US
carriers.

The discovery of this set of vulnerabilities may sound like
just another security story; however, the potential
for abuse here is enormous. In addition to tracking an individual’s
location, their location can also be spoofed or altered.
This presents unique challenges for criminal
investigations as criminals can use this to provide false alibis or even frame
another person. The research also proves it possible for an attacker to
generate and distribute fake emergency alerts. As seen in the recent case of
the false alarm for a threat against Hawaii, this could be abused to create
massive disruption.

All of these potential attack scenarios are made possible by
authentication relay attacks. A successful authentication relay attack will
allow an attacker to bypass network authentication defenses without any
legitimate credentials and disguise their identity. Once authenticated an
attacker has access to the network core where they can essentially block a
target device from receiving notifications altogether.
The major cellular carriers have been notified of these
flaws and are in the process of releasing fixes. The research team has agreed
to not release their proof of concept code until the fixes have been applied.
Perhaps the most troubling part of this story is that these types of attacks
can be conducted for as little as $1,300, which is negligible to a
well-organized criminal effort
Sources:
 

 

Re-purposing Lucrative Exploits

Last month Adobe released a
Flash security update to remediate the zero-day Remote Code Execution (RCE)
CVE-2018-4878 vulnerability that was most visibly being utilized by the North
Koreans to spy upon the south. The South Korean CERT team noted that the exploit
was being actively used by the North to target valuable information assets in
the south as early as 31, January 2017. The vulnerability, scoring a 9.8 out of
10 base score from the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) was quickly
acknowledged by Adobe who posted a bulletin (APSA18-01) with security advisory
details for the critical vulnerability including mitigations. The 9.8 base
score from the NVD was due to the flaw being exploitable over the internet,
requiring low skill to execute the attack, without any privileges on the target
machine, and no user interaction with the target. The exploit is realized by a
malicious malformed flash object being embedded in Office documents. Once
opened the embedded SWF flash file would execute, downloading an additional
payload from the web, the Remote Access Trojan ROKRAT.
 


Adobe released a patch for the
troubling zero-day on 6 of February to address CVE-2018- 4878 aiming to protect
victims from the RCE vulnerability, but attackers found a new way to exploit
CVE-2018-4878 as noted by TREND MICRO in their February 27, 2018 report stating
“The campaign involves the use of malicious spam – specifically with a
spam email that with an embedded link that directs the recipient to a Microsoft
Word lure document (Detected by Trend Micro as TROJ_CVE20184878.A and
SWF_CVE20184878.A) stored on the malicious website safe-storage[.]biz. After
the file is downloaded and executed, it will prompt the user to enable editing
mode to view what’s inside the document. This document is what triggers the
exploitation of CVE-2018-4878 – in particular, a cmd.exe window is opened that
is remotely injected with a malicious shellcode.”


 This reviving of CVE-2018-4878
illustrates not only the classic “cat and mouse” dance between
attacker and defender but also the ability and keenness of attackers to adapt
methods to keep exploiting lucrative vulnerabilities such as those with high
NVD scores.




Sources:

https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/us/security/news/vulnerabilities-and- exploits/new-campaign-exploits-cve-2018-4878-anew-via-malicious-microsoft- word-documents


 
http://blog.talosintelligence.com/2018/02/group-123-goes-wild.html



Thanks to Peraton CIP report for this information



Malware: The New DRM Solution

Software piracy has been an issue for about as long as there has been software to pirate. Companies are constantly developing new Digital Rights Management (DRM) solutions to protect their products, while software pirates, known as crackers, are constantly finding new ways to bypass these technologies. However, FlightSimLabs (FSLabs) recently thought of a new DRM strategy: place malware within their installer.

FlightSimLabs develops add-ons for Microsoft’s Flight Simulator game. These add-ons allow customers to buy additional planes to fly, expanding the game experience. Some Reddit users noticed a strange file, test.exe, which was extracted into a temporary folder when the A320X add-on was installed. Upon further investigation, the executable turned out to be malware purposefully placed by FSLabs to steal usernames and passwords stored in Google Chrome when a pirated copy is installed.


The malware is designed to run only when a flagged serial number is detected. The application is actually the command-line tool Chrome Password Dump

created by SecurityXploded which retrieves and displays usernames and passwords from Chrome in an easy-to-read format. The .bin file provided with the FSLabs application calls the test.exe file and sends the output to a Log.txt file. As if this wasn’t bad enough, the text file is then encoded with Base64.exe and sent back to an FSLabs site, installLog.flightsimlabs.com over an HTTP connection (not even

HTTPS). Security researchers at Fidus Information Security determined that the malware was not called when the application is run with a legitimate serial number.
 The founder and owner of FSLabs, Lefteris Kalamaras, states “First of all – there are no tools used to reveal any sensitive information of any customer who has legitimately purchased our products.” The malware was intended to collect information on people using pirated copies only. However, stealing credentials may still violate multiple sections of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Also, even though the malware is not activated by the add-on for legitimate users, it was still extracted and puts their systems at risk of someone else activating it. FSLabs has offered another version of the installer without the test.exe file.



Sources:

 https://threatpost.com/flight-sim-labs-heavy-handed-anti-piracy-tactics-raise-hackles/130005/ 
 https://www.fidusinfosec.com/fslabs-flight-simulation-labs-dropping-malware-to-combat-piracy/   https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/264411-flight-sim-labs-caught-deliberately-distributing-malware-gaming-mods   
Thanks to Peraton CIP report for this information
 
 
 

 
 


 

National Consumer Protection Week

Original
release date: March 02, 2018

March 4–10 is National
Consumer Protection Week (NCPW), an event to encourage people and
businesses to learn more about avoiding scams and understanding consumer
rights. During NCPW, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and its partners
highlight free resources to help protect consumers.

NCCIC/US-CERT recommends consumers participate in the FTC/Facebook
live chats and review the following NCCIC/US-CERT security tips:

Winter Olympics Cyberattack

The Olympic Games have always been a symbol of global unity and cooperation, mixed in with friendly competition of course. However, this can also mark the games as a target for groups that don’t share that worldview. This year, the Winter Olympics opening ceremony was targeted by a cyberattack focused on disruption and destruction of systems. The attack resulted in the official website being offline for roughly 12 hours, preventing attendees from accessing tickets and information, as well as disrupting the Wi-Fi at the stadium and various news coverage feeds.

Security researchers at Cisco’s Talos group analyzed the malware and have dubbed it Olympic Destroyer. While it is still unclear how the systems became initially infected, Talos has disclosed some details of how the malware operates. The malware is contained within a binary file which is responsible for propagation across the network. It checks the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) table on the system to discover additional targets, as well as using the Windows Management Instrumentation Query Language (WQL) to run the request “SELECT ds_cn FROM ds_computer” to find other systems. These are carried out using legitimate administrative tools included with Windows, PsExec and WMI. The other function of the binary file is to drop 2 modules, the credential stealers.
 
The stealer modules focus on different types of credentials: a web browser module and a system module. The web browser stealer parses the SQLite file in the registry to access stored credentials for
Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome. The system module gathers credentials
from the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS), a Windows process
that enforces security policy for the system. Once credentials have been
gathered, the binary file is updated to include the credentials hardcoded in,
to be used on newly infected systems for further access.
After reconnaissance, the malware begins a
destruction phase to disable the system. Using the Windows command line
(cmd.exe), various tasks are carried out to prevent recovery of the system:
deletion of all shadow copies on the system, deletion of the wbadmin catalog,
using bcdedit to change the boot configuration and disable Windows recovery,
and deleting the System and Security Windows Event logs. Finally, the malware
stops and disables all Windows services and shuts down the system, preventing
it from being restarted in a usable state.


Olympic
Destroyer used
well-known Sysinternal tools included with Windows, implying the attacker knew
the targets were Windows-based. Talos also suggested the attacker knew a “lot
of technical details of the Olympic Game infrastructure such as username,
domain name, server name, and

obviously
password.”

Sources:

https://thehackernews.com/2018/02/p yeongchang-2018-winter-olympics.html

and The CIP from Peraton

Final Public Draft of Special Publication (SP) 800-171A, Assessing Security Requirements for Controlled Unclassified Information

NIST Computer Security Division Releases the Final Public Draft of Special Publication (SP) 800-171A, Assessing Security Requirements for Controlled Unclassified Information

NIST Computer Security Division releases the Final Public
Draft of Special Publication (SP) 800-171A, Assessing Security Requirements for Controlled Unclassified Information is now available for public comment.  See below for further details.

Learn about the updates to the Final Draft SP 800-171A on
the NIST CSRC website at:
https://csrc.nist.gov/News/2018/NIST-Releases-Final-Draft-SP-800-171A

Below is the link to the Draft SP 800-171A publication
record where links to the document, the comment template and other supplemental
information is available:
https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-171a/draft

Deadline to submit comments to draft SP 800-171A: March 23, 2017

Email comments or questions about this draft document to:

[email protected]

Tips for Tax Time

A 2017 Identity Fraud Study by Javelin Strategy & Research revealed
that nearly one in three consumers notified that their data has been
breached become victims of identity fraud. With the recent Equifax
cyberattack still fresh in our minds, more than 145 million Americans’
names, addresses, birthdates, Social Security numbers and other
sensitive information may be at risk. Cybercriminals are crafty and
continuously looking for ways to steal your personal information. The
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) indicates that phishing schemes continue
to lead its “dirty dozen” list of 2017 tax scams. So what is the average American to do? The National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) and the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC)
have once again joined forces to help consumers keep safe during tax
season with tips for identifying cyber scams, actionable online safety
steps and what to do if you fall victim to tax identity theft.

The ten immutable laws of security administration revisited and updated

Law #1: If a bad guy can persuade you to run his program on your computer, it’s not solely your computer anymore.

Phishing scams, link bait, hacked software, hacks for software, keygens, screensavers, games, codecs, media files… the list goes on and on. Search for anything online you might wish to download, and odds are extremely good that you will find the majority of the links on the first page of your search results will go to downloads that are for anything other than what you really want to download. Check out torrent sites or other sources for what includes binaries of questionable origin, and I guarantee you that most of those downloads are crawling with badness. Everyone wants something for nothing, and the bad guys are happy to use that to their advantage. Set aside the morality and the legality of downloading copyrighted content without paying for it… is it really worth the risk that your computer won’t be yours anymore?

Law #2: If a bad guy can alter the operating system on your computer, it’s not your computer anymore.

Consider how many “fixes” are “documented” online to correct this behavior or to patch that bug. How many posts consist of “download this file from my site to fix that error” and how many of those sites have nothing at all to do with the vendor of your operating system? This is NOT just a problem for Windows users, so don’t think that all repos can be trusted. When you are considering patching, upgrading, or recompiling your operating system, whether it’s a binary or new source you want to compile from scratch… if you cannot read and understand the code yourself, and it’s not coming from the maker directly, don’t trust it. If it is coming from the vendor, make sure that either the digital signatures or the checksums of the downloads check out okay or abandon the file(s) as bad.

Law #3: If a bad guy has unrestricted physical access to your computer, it’s not your computer anymore.

If they can touch it, they can own it. Any system a bad guy has direct physical access to is his or hers to do with as they please. Don’t leave your computer unlocked when you are away from it. Don’t leave it out in the open in a hotel room when you travel. Ensure your workplace provides adequate physical security for all systems. You know that PC the receptionist uses that is sitting in the elevator lobby which anyone can walk up to? Yeah, if your building is not locked down so you need a badge to even get onto your floor, then that PC needs to be locked away every day at the end of the shift.

Law #4: If you allow a bad guy to run active content on your website, it’s not your website any more.

Limit what can and cannot be uploaded to your website or forums. Quarantine and scan any files that are uploaded by users. Regularly and frequently run security scans of your website and all content, and ensure it cannot be exploited by injection or cross-site scripting. One of the most common ways end users’ machines are infected is by visiting a trusted site that is unaware it is hosting bad things.

 Law #5: Weak passwords trump strong security.

There is no variant of P@ssw0rd or p@$$word or Password1 or even b70w$$@q that hasn’t been used by someone enough times that it won’t be in the first 10,000 passwords tried by a brute force attack. And since it will take less than .007 seconds to go through those 10,000 passwords using even the underpowered processing capabilities of a discount tablet, you really want better. I’m going to let you in on a little secret. All passwords are weak. There is no such thing as a strong password, at least when you measure it up against the strength of a dedicated adversary determined to crack it.
The best thing you can do is use multifactor authentication, period. Whether you use a smart card, or a token, or an app on your mobile phone, even if someone does guess a user’s password (or tricks them into giving it away) without that second factor of authentication, it’s of no use to them. You can even go with biometrics if you have the budget for it, but 2FA using a mobile device can be used from any system, and doesn’t have the SciFi creep factor associated with it!

Law #6: A computer is only as secure as the administrator is trustworthy.

Reference checks, employment checks, credit checks, criminal record checks, background investigations… how far does your HR team take their responsibility of looking into new hires? You may not need to do a full scope background investigation on the receptionist or the delivery driver, but IT sysadmins have access to everything that is on the network. They can read the CEO’s emails, pull the payroll history for anyone in the company, learn just what the secret recipe of the Colonel’s chicken is that makes you crave it fortnightly! Ensure that anyone with privileges to any system is fully checked out before hiring.

Law #7: Encrypted data is only as secure as its decryption key.

Which means if the key exchange is weak, or the key itself is, then your encryption is at risk. The only thing worse than an insecure key is using a proprietary algorithm. Stick with commercially recognized encryption protocols, and if you must use and exchange a pre-shared key, do so out of band to the data exchange. In other words, don’t email someone the password to decrypt the file you just emailed them! Call them, text them, send them smoke signals, anything but sending the password using the same method as you sent the data.

Law #8: An out-of-date antimalware scanner is only marginally better than no scanner at all.

I always go one further than this and say it’s worse. If I am on a machine that has no antimalware, I won’t download or install anything that I am not absolutely sure of. I’d say most others would feel the same way. But if antimalware is on the machine, I may not be as circumspect, opting instead to count on the antimalware to keep me safe. Of course, if it is out of date, it’s useless, but that won’t stop me from being stupid!

Law #9: Absolute anonymity isn’t practically achievable, online or offline.

Sure, you can live in a cave and bounce your signal off a neighbor’s insecure Wi-Fi, routing it through three different TOR networks and an open web proxy, then through a Ukrainian satellite before you reach your goal… but wait, this isn’t a Hollywood spy thriller so that isn’t practical or even realistic. There is always a log somewhere, and anything you do online you should assume will stay online forever, and eventually be seen by your grandmother. Don’t be stupid, don’t be rude, and don’t do something your meemaw would be ashamed of!

Law #10: Technology is not a panacea.

There is no firewall that cannot be bypassed. There is no hardening procedure that is bulletproof. There does not exist encryption that cannot be broken given enough CPU cycles, nor is there code written without vulnerabilities. Technology is not a panacea and there is no one solution that can make you 100% guaranteed secure. Work on the human aspect, minimize the opportunities for attackers to find something to exploit, keep up to date on patching and malware definitions, and use a layered defense to do the best you can.

Learn them. Live them. Love them. Make them a part of who you are, and help instill in your users, your friends, and your family an awareness of the same. These ten laws are not just for sysadmins, they are for anyone using technology. But stay tuned!

In future post in this series, we are going to take a look at a related set of laws laid down by Microsoft Director  Scott Culp – The 10 Immutable Laws of Security Administration.