Posts by Rapid7

5 min Komand

Early Warning Detectors Using AWS Access Keys as Honeytokens

Deception lures are all of the rage these days [http://blogs.gartner.com/anton-chuvakin/2016/11/21/our-applying-deception-technologies-and-techniques-to-improve-threat-detection-and-response-paper-is-published/?utm_content=buffera88d3&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer] , and when deployed properly, are extremely low overhead to maintain and trigger little to no false alarms. Honeytokens, closely related to honeypots, are ‘tripwires’ that you leave on machines and data

4 min Komand

Adding Proactive Components to Your Incident Response Process

Effectiveness in security operations is a common theme these days. Often, security teams already have a long list of ways to optimize their current programs and processes, but not enough time to endlessly fiddle with the details. Choosing methods to boost effectiveness usually comes down to scale of impact and, ultimately, priority. One high visibility way to improve your response times, and, as a result, the success of your team is by shifting from a reactive security posture to a proactive on

3 min Komand

3 Signals Your Security Workflows Are Inefficient

When valuable time is spent on mundane tasks, it means that there isn’t enough for strategic planning or timely response to security events and incidents. That’s how threats go unnoticed and vulnerabilities remain open for days, weeks, or months at a time. With the cost of a data breach averaging $4 million [http://www-03.ibm.com/security/data-breach/], this can’t be ignored. Every security team worth its salt wants to: * Prove their value by doing high-value and strategic work, and; * Catch

8 min Automation and Orchestration

How to Use OpenVAS to Audit the Security of Your Network (2/2)

Synopsis Last time [/2016/11/08/how-to-use-openvas-to-audit-the-security-of-your-network-12/], we discussed how to install the Open Vulnerability Assessment System (OpenVAS), on Debian GNU/Linux. OpenVAS is a Free/Libre software product that can be used to audit the security of an internal corporate network and find vulnerabilities in a free and automated fashion. Now that we have access to the Greenbone Security Assistant web application, the tool that will allow us to manage and configure Open

5 min IT Ops

Node.js as a Proxy to Logentries.com

Logging from the client side of a web application can seem like a challenge.  The web browser exposes everything to the user.  There is no way to hide anything delivered to the client from prying eyes, including your log token to your Logentries [https://logentries.com/centralize-log-data-automatically/?le_trial=nodejs_as_a_proxy-logentries_blog-post_cta-create_trial&utm_campaign=nodejs_as_a_proxy&utm_source=logentries_blog&utm_medium=post_cta&utm_content=create_trial] log.  There is no relia

3 min InsightIDR

How to Troubleshoot Slow Network Issues With Network Traffic Analysis

In this blog, we discuss how to troubleshoot slow network issues with Network Traffic Analysis.

1 min Automation and Orchestration

A Guide on Security Automation Best Practices

Ask three different security teams what is holding them back from faster time-to-response and chances are you’ll get three different answers: 1. Manual, time-intensive processes 2. Lack of integrated tools 3. Lack of development resources All of these problems exist across both big and small companies in any industry, from healthcare to finance to e-commerce. But in a digital world where attacks are both prevalent and pervasive, defenders always need to be a step (if not two) ahead. This i

4 min IT Ops

Goodbye to the VCR: Rewinding Down Memory Lane

The VHS tape was a thing of a magic that is alien in the world of on-demand media.  It represented a promise of entertainment. A promise only realized when loading the tape into the player and pressing the play button. There was an air of excitement around every video, and you could never be entirely certain about what the video contained. I was reminded of the mystique of the VCR just this month when I read about its final demise.  Funai Electric, the last major manufacturer of VCR players,

4 min Komand

The 5 Security Processes That Should Be Automated

According to CSO Online, the average time it takes a security team of a mid-sized company to respond to a successful attack is 46 days [http://www.csoonline.com/article/2989302/cyber-attacks-espionage/average-business-spends-15-million-battling-cybercrime.html] . This includes time spent manually investigating the incident, analyzing the data, jumping between unintegrated systems during triage, and coordinating the response. And while there are many reasons for slow incident response times, manu

4 min Automation and Orchestration

How to Use OpenVAS to Audit the Security of Your Network (1/2)

Synopsis The Open Vulnerability Assessment System [http://www.openvas.org/index.html] (OpenVAS), is a Free/Libre [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html] software product that can be used to audit the security of an internal corporate network and find vulnerabilities in a free and automated fashion. It is a competitor to the well known Nessus vulnerability scanning tool. Analyzing the results from tools like Nessus or OpenVAS is an excellent first step for an IT security team working to c

3 min IT Ops

Widely-used Android App Leaks MS Exchange Credentials

In October, Rapid7 researchers [https://community.rapid7.com/community/infosec/blog/2016/10/11/r7-2016-21-nine-folders-certificate-validation-vulnerability-cve-2016-2533] uncovered a significant vulnerability in the Nine mobile application [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ninefolders.hd3&hl=en] for Android. Baldly stated, this app leaks Microsoft Exchange user credentials, plus mail envelopes and attachments, mailbox synchronization data, caleandar entries and tasks to attac

4 min IT Ops

Overview of 'online' algorithm using Standard Deviation example

Here at Logentries [https://logentries.com/centralize-log-data-automatically/?le_trial=online_algorithm-logentries_blog-post_cta-create_trial&utm_campaign=online_algorithm&utm_source=logentries_blog&utm_medium=post_cta&utm_content=create_trial] we are constantly adding to the options for analysing log generated data. The query language ‘LEQL’ [https://logentries.com/resources/how-to-videos/building-a-query/] has a number of statistical functions and a recent addition has been the new Standard

5 min IT Ops

Logging OwnTracks to Logentries

A previous blog [/2016/10/07/logging-mosquitto-server-logs-from-raspberry-pi-to-logentries/] showed how MQTT logs can be sent to Logentries for storage, analysis and how those logs can be to alert on potential MQTT security threats, as well as to store and visualize sensor data. This blog follows that by showing how to build a fully connected IoT system composed of the OwnTracks iOS app as an MQTT publisher, a Raspberry Pi with Mosquitto embedded as an MQTT messaging broker and Logentries as

5 min IT Ops

Logging Mosquitto Server logs (from Raspberry Pi) to Logentries

The Internet is evolving and part of this is the emerging Internet of Things (IoT). IoT allows us to use the Internet to seamlessly connect the cyberspace and real world using physical sensors at huge scale, allowing us to gather and analyze the data across many domains. It is estimated that there will be 20 billion Things connected to the Internet by 2020, generating an enormous amount of data. A previous blog post [/2016/05/17/raspberry-pi-logs-and-iot-sending-pi-log-and-sensor-data-to-loge

3 min Komand

How Security Orchestration and Automation Saves up to 83% of Time Spent Investigating Alerts

You have the tools to detect and notify your team about security threats. You’ve hired the best security practitioners who know what an effective security posture looks like. You’re all set to stop attackers from compromising your systems. Just one more thing: How can you maximize the value of these resources, especially in the face of complex threats and a huge volume of alerts? While processes can go a long way in harmonizing your tools and personnel to accelerate tedious tasks such as alert