Building a Security Operations Centre (SOC)

Building a Security Operations Centre (SOC) is undoubtedly the best move you can make towards protecting not only your organisation’s data, systems and services, but also any sensitive information about your clients that you handle or store. This article is a brief overview of the task of building a SOC, introducing not only the key elements but also how the challenges of increased security requirements and rapid response are addressed.

The process for building a SOC can be time consuming and it is directly related to the available budget. The best approach is to create a plan that allows for incremental phases of implementation. Starting with a gap analysis, you will be able to define and prioritise the milestones for incremental improvements by setting the appropriate expectations and timelines. To start with, take a look at the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI) and more specifically the Top 20 Critical Security Controls guidance.

The incremental improvements need to take under consideration the collaboration and communication between people, technology, and processes. These are the three equally important components that define a SOC.

Format a memory card back to its original size

After using an SD card to install Kali Linux on Raspberry Pi, I decided I had to reformat it to its original size. If you try to do this using the format tool on Windows you won't be able to format your card. 

The best way to do this, if you want to use Windows, is to start the command prompt and use the diskpart command line tool. Insert your memory card and follow the instructions below.

Start the command prompt and run the command: diskpart

This will open up a new command prompt window similar to the following screen.

Raspberry Pi 2 Model B and Kali Linux 2.1 - quick setup

In order to install Kali Linux on Raspberry Pi, you will need to download the new image for Raspberry Pi 2 version 2.1 from https://www.offensive-security.com/kali-linux-arm-images/ (filename: kali-2.1-rpi2.img.xz). 

Many people want to play around with this combination of a Raspberry Pi and Kali Linux, but they do not want to waste any time figuring out why something is not working as it should. This quick setup guide is structured in a way that will allow you to streamline the process and make sure you have your Raspberry Pi up and running within a few minutes. 

[Extraction]
The .xz extension (for more info on xz see: http://tukaani.org/xz/) means that the image file is compressed and needs to be extracted. You can download the xz utilities using the command: apt-get install xz-utils 

Under Linux, in order to decompress the file you can use the command:
unxz filename.any.xz or the command xz -d filename.any.xz 

Since version 9.04 the package p7zip manages xz files and can extract them using the command: 7za e filename.any.xz

Decrypting RSA with Obsolete and Weakened eNcryption (DROWN)

An OpenSSL security hole enables Secure Sockets Layer (SSLv2), to be used to attack modern web sites. Even though this is a  an ancient, long deprecated security protocol, it is estimated to be able to "kill" at least one-third of all HTTPS servers (approx. 11.5 million servers). 

The attack is dubbed as DROWN based on the words: 

Decrypting RSA with Obsolete and Weakened eNcryption. 

Obsolete Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) versions 7 and earlier are vulnerable as well, and editions of Network Security Services (NSS), a common cryptographic library built into many server products prior to 2012's 3.13 version, are also open to attack. 

OpenSSL 1.0.2 users should upgrade to 1.0.2g. 
OpenSSL 1.0.1 users should upgrade to 1.0.1s. 

If you're using another version move up to 1.0.2g or 1.0.1s

OpenSSL 1.0.2g is available for download via HTTP and FTP from the following master locations (you can find the various FTP mirrors under http://www.openssl.org/source/mirror.html):

• http://www.openssl.org/source/
• ftp://ftp.openssl.org/source/

The flaw was identified by academics and the code for the attack has not yet been released. The main reason for this, is to allow people to patch their systems before the vulnerability starts being exploited. 

For further information on the issue, please visit the site: https://drownattack.com

Migration/Protection: https://drownattack.com/#mitigation
Instructions for Apache: https://drownattack.com/apache.html
Instructions for Postfix: https://drownattack.com/postfix.html
Instructions for Nginx: https://drownattack.com/nginx.html

There is also an offline scanner available on GitHub: 
https://github.com/nimia/public_drown_scanner

Teach your brain to regenerate passwords instead of remembering them

@TripwireInc posted a brief article about my talk for @AbertayHackers and #SecuriTayV happening this Friday 26/Feb. For those attending, you will learn how to teach your brain to regenerate passwords instead of remembering them! 

Let's cut to the chase. Despite the existence of a number of advanced authentication mechanisms, such as Single Sign-On (SSO), different types of Biometrics, multi-factor authentication, etc., the use of passwords is still the most popular means of authenticating users.

The need to generate, and hopefully to remember these passwords, has become even more demanding due to the rapid increase in the number of systems and online accounts being used. 

Best practice is that these passwords need to be as strong as the assets they protect, and password management applications are supposed to be the most straightforward solution for storing them safely.

If you think about it for a moment, no one has ever actually taught you how to think when choosing a password. Due to the fact, it is generally considered a straightforward task, it is assumed that you actually know how to choose the appropriate password for protecting a particular asset (email, social media account, OS login, etc.).