The mother of all CitySecs, coming to you (very not) live from Chicago, IL. Woman-run security meetup. See also infosec dot exchange forward slash at chisec
Chicago, IL
Joined August 2009
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Asset management is not sexy but this is why you want it.
Security called me at 6:12 AM today.
"Patch every PHP server immediately."
I asked what happened.
"Two critical vulnerabilities. Remote code execution. No authentication required."
Cool.
How many PHP servers do we have?
According to inventory: 12
According to reality:
Nobody knows.
We found one running WordPress.
Three running old internal tools.
One under someone's desk.
Two inside vendor appliances.
A forgotten employee directory from 2016.
And a server named:
PHP-OLD-DO-NOT-TOUCH
Naturally, that one runs payroll exports.
Then we found a PHP 5.6 box.
I asked who owned it.
The documentation said:
BRIAN.
Brian left in 2019.
We called Brian.
He said:
"Oh wow, that's still running?"
Excellent.
By 8 AM, leadership joined the incident call.
CEO:
"Can hackers actually get in?"
Security:
"Potentially yes."
CEO:
"Without a password?"
Security:
"Yes."
CEO:
"Then why do WE need passwords?"
Not the lesson.
Finance asked if we could wait until the weekend to patch because downtime affects revenue.
Security explained that the alternative was letting strangers execute code on our servers.
Finance asked for a cost comparison.
At 9:17, someone suggested temporarily taking the vulnerable websites offline.
Marketing refused.
"Our campaign is live."
So for the next hour, the company officially decided maintaining a landing page for 20% off webinar registration was more important than preventing remote server takeover.
We finally patched everything we could find.
Then our scanner discovered another PHP server.
Hostname:
TEMP-PHP-2014
Uptime:
4,512 days.
Nobody knows what it does.
Nobody owns it.
Nobody can shut it down.
But every time we block network access, the warehouse stops printing shipping labels.
Security has classified it as critical infrastructure.
It is running PHP 5.4.
The vulnerability has existed longer than half our employees.
The emergency patch took four hours.
Finding out what PHP actually runs took eleven.
The internet isn't held together with code.
It's held together with servers everyone is afraid to turn off.
ChiSec retweeted
Regarding the Danfoss refrigeration systems hacked in France:
The username is `admin`, and the password automatically changes every day to... the current date.
Yes, today's date.
The French supermarkets affected in today's attacks had exposed all its refrigeration controllers directly to the internet.
Every single device reportedly used the same password: today's date...
There's also a documented authentication bypass: sending a POST request to /xml.cgi can bypass the login entirely.
Via: GossiTheDog
See you this Thursday (15 Oct) at 18:30 for the last ChiSec of the year at Kaiser Tiger (1415 W Randolph).
ChiSec retweeted
Using Apple's Corelocation you can identify network devices in areas where Wigle simply doesn't have coverage.
This is Pine Gap, a joint Australian and United States satellite communications and signals intelligence surveillance base.
You cannot get within 25KM before getting stopped.
Using Apple's own infrastructure you can map out the location of over 140 Fortinet devices on the base.
I regret to inform you all that there will be no cocaine at ChiSec tonight but you can purchase spirits and appetizers. Kaiser Tiger. 1415 W Randolph. 18:30.
ChiSec is this Thursday, 20 August at Kaiser Tiger. The forecast shows NO RAIN because the universe loves ChiSec. See you at 1415 W Randolph around 18:30.
