Cloud computing security & forensics (manu)

CLOUD 9:U N C O V E R I N G S E C U R I T Y & F O R E N S I C S D I S C O V E RY

I N C L O U D[ C LU B H A C K 2 0 1 0 E D I T I O N ]

CLOUD 9:U N C O V E R I N G S E C U R I T Y & F O R E N S I C S D I S C O V E RY

I N C L O U D[ C LU B H A C K 2 0 1 0 E D I T I O N ]

“Aut viam inveniam aut faciam ” Hannibal Barca

by Manu ZachariaMVP (Enterprise Security), C|EH,

ISLA-2010 (ISC)², C|HFI, CCNA, MCPCertified ISO 27001:2005 Lead Auditor

Director – Information SecurityUS Based Consultancy Firm

• I am an Information Security Evangelist • For paying my bills – I work as Director – Information Security – US Based Consultancy.

• Awards• Information Security Leadership Achievement Award from International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium - (ISC)²

• Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (Enterprise Security)

• Author of a Book – Intrusion Alert – An Ethical Hacker’s Guide to Intrusion Detection Systems

• President – Information Security Research Association - NPO

#whoami

• Developed an Operating System from Linux

kernel – Matriux – (www.matriux.com) - Asia’s

First OS for Hacking, Forensics and Security

testing – Open Source & Free

• Founder c0c0n – International Security &

Hacking Conf

• Extend service to police force as Cyber

Forensics Consultant

#whoami

• The opinion here represented are my personal ones and do not necessary reflect my employers views.

• Registered brands belong to their legitimate owners.

• The information contained in this presentation does not break any intellectual property, nor does it provide detailed information that may be in conflict with any laws (hopefully...) :)

DISCLAIMER(S)

4

• Information and resources from Internet (including publications from Cloud Security Alliance) were extensively used for the creation of this presentation.

•

REFERENCES

5

CONCLUSION

EXPLOITING CLOUD & FORENSICS

CLOUD SECURITY & RISK ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK

INTRO & CLOUD ARCHITECTURE

AGENDA

6

INTRODUCTION

7

• So what is Cloud Computing?

• Do you know what is EC2 and S3?

• What is SPI Model?

QUESTION

8

• cloud is loud

• Headline stealer

• Everybody is concerned about Cloud

Security

WHY THIS TALK?

9

• Why handle cloud differently?

• Simple – power of cloud

WHY CLOUD IS DIFFERENT?

10

TIGR - ??????• Barack Obama's Technology

Innovation and Government Reform Team (TIGR) describe the use of cloud computing as "one of the most important transformations the federal government will go through in the next decade."

11

• A 64 node Linux cluster can be online in

just five minutes

• Forget about those sleepless nights in

your data centers

CLOUD POWER

12

• Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

(Amazon EC2)

• A web service that provides resizable

compute capacity in the cloud

EC2

13

• Allows users to rent computers on which

to run their own computer applications.

• A user can boot an Amazon Machine

Image (AMI) to create a virtual machine,

which Amazon calls an "instance",

containing any software desired.

EC2 - WIKIPEDIA

14

• A user can create, launch, and terminate

server instances as needed, paying by the

hour for active servers, hence the term

"elastic".

EC2 - WIKIPEDIA

15

• Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) is

an online storage web service offered by

Amazon Web Services.

• Provides unlimited storage through a

simple web services interface

S3

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• $0.15 per gigabyte-month

• 102 billion objects as of March 2010

S3

17

• The New York Times - Amazon EC2 and

S3 - PDF's of 15M scanned news articles.

• NASDAQ uses Amazon S3 to deliver

historical stock information.

POWER OF CLOUD

18

• Cloud separates:

• application and information resources

from the underlying infrastructure, and

• the mechanisms used to deliver them.

CLOUD

19

Use of a collection of

• services,

• applications,

• information, and

• infrastructure

comprised of pools of compute, network,

information, and storage resources.

CLOUD

20

• Components can be

• rapidly orchestrated,

• provisioned,

• implemented & decommissioned, and

• scaled up or down

• Provide an on-demand utility-like model.

CLOUD

21

• From an architectural perspective; there

is much confusion

• How cloud is both similar to and

different from existing models of

computing?

CLOUD CONFUSION

22

• How these similarities and differences

impact the• organizational, • operational, and • technological approaches

to network and information security

practices.

CLOUD CONFUSION

23

Marcus Ranum - Same old,

Same old

CLOUD SECURITY – DIFFERENT?

24

Same Client / Server paradigm from Mainframe days – Bruce Schneier

CLOUD SECURITY – DIFFERENT?

25

So what is this cloud?

26

CLOUD ARCHITECTURE

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• NIST (U.S. National Institute of Standards

and Technology) defines cloud computing

by describing:

• five essential characteristics,

• three cloud service models, and

• four cloud deployment models.

CLOUD

28

• Five essential characteristics

• On-demand self-service

• Broad network access

• Resource pooling

• Rapid elasticity

• Measured service

CLOUD CHARACTERISTICS

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• On-demand self-service

• Unilaterally provision computing

capabilities as needed automatically,

without requiring human interaction with

a service provider.

• Computing capabilities include server time

and network storage


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• Broad network access

• Available over the network and

accessed through standard mechanisms


31

• Can be accessed through

heterogeneous thin or thick client

platforms (e.g., mobile phones, laptops,

and PDAs) as well as other traditional or

cloud based software services.


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• Resource pooling

• The provider’s computing resources are

pooled to serve multiple consumers

using a multi-tenant model,

• Different physical and virtual resources

dynamically assigned and reassigned

according to consumer demand.


33

• Degree of location independence -

customer has no control or knowledge over

the exact location of the provided resources

• Customer may be able to specify location

at a higher level of abstraction (e.g.,

country, state, or datacenter).


34

• Examples of resources include:

• storage,

• processing,

• memory,

• network bandwidth, and

• virtual machines.


35

• Rapid elasticity

• Capabilities can be

• rapidly and elastically provisioned to

quickly scale out ; and

• rapidly released to quickly scale in.

• In some cases this is done automatically.


36

• Measured service.

• Metering capability at some level of

abstraction appropriate to the type of service

• Resource usage can be monitored,

controlled, and reported — providing

transparency for both the provider and

consumer of the service.


37

• Example:

• storage,

• processing,

• bandwidth,

• active user accounts


38

• Myths about Cloud Computing Essential

Characteristics

• Virtualization is mandatory

• Answer is No

• Cloud services are often but not always

utilized in conjunction with, and enabled by,

virtualization technologies

MYTHS - CLOUD CHARACTERISTICS

39

• There is no requirement that ties the

abstraction of resources to

virtualization technologies

• In many offerings virtualization by

hypervisor or operating system

container is not utilized.


40

• Multi-tenancy as an essential cloud

characteristic

• Multi-tenancy is not called out as an

essential cloud characteristic by NIST

but is often discussed as such.


41

• Divided into three archetypal models.

• The three fundamental classifications are

known as the SPI Model.

• Various other derivative combinations are

also available.

CLOUD SERVICE MODELS

42

• Cloud Service Models

• Cloud Software as a Service (SaaS).

• Cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS).

• Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

CLOUD SERVICE MODELS

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• The client use the software / applications

running on a cloud infrastructure.

• Accessed through thin client interface

such as a browser.

CLOUD SERVICE MODELS - SaaS

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• User does not manage or control the

underlying cloud infrastructure including:

• network,

• servers,

• operating systems,

• storage, or

• even individual application capabilities


45

• Possible exception - limited user specific

application configuration settings.


46

• User can deploy onto the cloud

infrastructure consumer-created or

acquired applications created using

programming languages and tools

supported by the provider.

CLOUD SERVICE MODELS - PaaS

47

• The consumer does not manage or control

the underlying cloud infrastructure including

• network,

• servers,

• operating systems, or

• storage,


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• Has control over the deployed

applications and possibly application

hosting environment configurations.


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• The user can provision

• processing,

• storage,

• networks, and

• other fundamental computing resources

CLOUD SERVICE MODELS - IaaS

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• The consumer is able to deploy and run

arbitrary software, which can include

operating systems and applications.

• The consumer does not manage or

control the underlying cloud infrastructure


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• Has control over

• operating systems,

• storage,

• deployed applications, and

• possibly limited control of select networking

components (e.g., host firewalls).


52

• Regardless of the service model, there

are four cloud deployment models:

• Public Cloud

• Private Cloud

• Community Cloud

• Hybrid Cloud

CLOUD DEPLOYMENT MODELS

53

• There are derivative variations that

address specific requirements.


54

• Public Cloud

• The cloud infrastructure is made

available to the general public or a large

industry group

• Owned by an organization providing

cloud services.


55

• Private Cloud

• The cloud infrastructure is operated

solely for a single organization.

• It may be managed by the organization

or a third party, and may exist on-

premises or off-premises.


56

• Community Cloud

• The cloud infrastructure is shared by

several organizations

• Supports a specific community that has

shared concerns


57

• Examples:

• mission,

• security requirements,

• policy, or

• compliance considerations


58

It may be managed by the:

• organizations or

• a third party

and may exist

• on-premises or

• off-premises.


59

• Hybrid Cloud

• Composition of two or more clouds (private,

community, or public)

• They remain unique entities but are bound

together by standardized or proprietary

technology that enables data and

application portability


60

• Example - Hybrid Cloud

• Cloud bursting for load-balancing

between clouds.


61

• New twist on an old concept :)

• Bursting into the cloud when necessary,

or

• using the cloud when additional compute

resources are required temporarily

CLOUD BURSTING

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• Example - used to shoulder the burden of

some of the application's processing

requirements.

• How it is done?

• Basic application functionality could be

provided from within the cloud

CLOUD BURSTING

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• More critical (e.g. revenue-generating or

mission critical) applications continue to

be served from within the controlled

enterprise data center.

CLOUD BURSTING

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• How it is different from the traditional

bursting?

• Traditionally been applied to resource

allocation and automated provisioning /

de-provisioning of resources

• Historically focused on bandwidth.

CLOUD BURSTING

65

• In the cloud, it is being applied to

resources such as:

• servers,

• application servers,

• application delivery systems, and

• other infrastructure…

CLOUD BURSTING

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• …required to provide on-demand

computing environments that expand and

contract as necessary, without manual

intervention.

CLOUD BURSTING

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• Without manual intervention means?

• We generally call it - automation

• But is automation sufficient for cloud? or

is it the right thing for cloud?

CLOUD BURSTING

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Orchestration describes the automated

• arrangement,

• coordination, and

• management of

complex computer systems, middleware,

and services.

CLOUD ORCHESTRATION

69

• Generally used in the context of:

• Service Oriented Architecture,

• virtualization,

• provisioning, and

• dynamic datacenter topics.

CLOUD ORCHESTRATION

70

• Derivative cloud deployment models are

emerging due to the maturation of market

offerings and customer demand.

• Example

• Virtual Private Clouds

DERIVATIVE - DEPLOYMENT MODELS

71

• Public cloud infrastructure in a private or

semi-private manner

• By interconnecting these resources to the

internal resources of a consumers’

datacenter, usually via virtual private

network (VPN) connectivity.

VIRTUAL PRIVATE CLOUDS

72

• Providers that offer intermediation,

monitoring, transformation/portability,

governance, provisioning, and integration

services.

• They also negotiate relationships between

various cloud providers and consumers.

CLOUD SERVICE BROKERS

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• They take advantage of the

incompatibility issues prevailing and

provide an interface for customers.

• Acts as proxy (middle man)

CLOUD SERVICE BROKERS

74

• Open and proprietary APIs are evolving

which seek to enable things such as

• management,

• security and

• inter-operatibility

for cloud.

OPEN AND PROPRIETARY API

75

• Open Cloud Computing Interface Working

Group,

• Amazon EC2 API,

• VMware’s DMTF-submitted vCloud API,

• Sun’s Open Cloud API,

• Rackspace API, and

• GoGrid’s API,


76

• Play a key role in cloud portability and

interoperability as well as common

container formats such as the DMTF’s

Open Virtualization Format (OVF).

• DMTF - Distributed Management Task

Force


77

• Not an essential characteristic of Cloud

Computing in NIST’s model.

• Generally identified as an important

element of cloud.

MULTI-TENANCY IN CLOUD

78

• Implies a need for

• policy-driven enforcement,

• segmentation,

• isolation,

• governance,

• service levels, and

• chargeback/billing models for different consumers.

MULTI-TENANCY IN CLOUD

79

CLOUD

80

CLOUD CUBE

81

CLOUD REFERENCE MODEL

82

• Understanding the relationships and

dependencies between Cloud Computing

models is critical to understanding Cloud

Computing security risks.

CLOUD REF MODEL

83

• IaaS is the foundation of all

cloud services, with PaaS

building upon IaaS, and

SaaS in turn building upon

PaaS

• As the capabilities are

inherited, so are information

security issues and risk.

CLOUD REF MODEL

84

CLOUD SECURITY

85

• From an attackers point of view:

• The boxes,

• Storage,

• Applications

CLOUD – WHAT COULD BE TARGETTED?

86

• With any new technology comes new risks

• New vectors - that we need to be aware of

• Confusion exists - how cloud is both similar

to and different from existing models of

computing

WHY CLOUD SECURITY IS DIFFERENT?

87

• Cloud based security issues,

also commonly know as Cloud

Based Risk – CRISK

SECURITY ISSUES

88

Lock-in• When a cloud user decides to migrate (due to various reasons including poor SLA) to another cloud service provider or to in-house IT

• Different cloud service providers use different API – not compatable with each other for migrating the data

SECURITY ISSUES

89

Lack of:• Tools,• Procedures,• Standard data formats, and• Interfaces,

can considerably delay or prevent a successful migration.

SECURITY ISSUES

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Shared Service Consequences• Any kind of intentional and un-intentional malicious activity carried out or executed on a shared platform may affect the other tenants and associated stake holders.

SECURITY ISSUES

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Examples - Shared Service

Consequences:

• Blocking of IP ranges

• Confiscation of resources as

part of an investigation - the

availability is in question.

SECURITY ISSUES

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Examples - Shared Service Consequences: • The diversity of application running on the cloud platform and a sudden increase in the resource usage by one application can drastically affect the performance and availability of other applications shared in the same cloud infrastructure.

SECURITY ISSUES

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Sudden Acquisitions and Take-overs• Cloud is upcoming and promising domain for organizations to venture and expand.

• Sudden take over can result in a deviation from the agreed Terms of Use & SLA which may also lead to a Lock-In situation.

SECURITY ISSUES

94

Run-on-the-cloud• Similar to the conventional run on the bank concept.

• Bankruptcy and catastrophes does not come with an early warning.

SECURITY ISSUES

95

• What happens if the majority clients

withdraw the associated services from a

cloud infrastructure?

SECURITY ISSUES

96

• The cloud service providers may try to

prevent that move through direct and

indirect methods – which may include a

lock-in also.

SECURITY ISSUES

97

Maintaining Certifications & Compliance• Organizations need to ensure that they can maintain the same when moving to cloud.

• ToU prohibits VA/PT• This may introduce security vulnerabilities and gaps

• Result – Loose your certification.

SECURITY ISSUES

98

Example - Maintaining Certifications:• In general scenario, the PCI DSS compliance cannot be achieved with the Amazon EC2/S3 cloud service.

• Major downfall in performance and quality metrics may affect your certifications.

SECURITY ISSUES

99

Technical and Procedural Vulnerability• Vulnerabilities applicable to the conventional systems & networks are also applicable to cloud infrastructure.

• Lack of could based security standards and non-adherence to procedures may affect the CIA of customer data.

SECURITY ISSUES

100

Confidentiality is @ Risk• The information deleted by the customer may be available to the cloud solution provider as part of their regular backups.

• Insecure and inefficient deletion of data where true data wiping is not happening, exposing the sensitive information to other cloud users.

SECURITY ISSUES

101

Lack of transparency in cloud•The service provider may be following good security procedures, but it is not visible to the customers and end users.

• May be due to security reasons.

• But end user is finally in the dark.

SECURITY ISSUES

102

Lack of transparency in cloud• End user questions remains un-answered:• how the data is backed up, •who back up the data, •whether the cloud service provider does it or has they outsourced to some third party,

SECURITY ISSUES

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• how the backup is transferred to a remote site as part of the backup policy,

• is it encrypted and send, • is the backup properly destroyed after the specified retention period or

SECURITY ISSUES

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• is it lying somewhere in the disk,

• what kind of data wiping technologies are used.

• The lists of questions are big and the cloud users are in dark

SECURITY ISSUES

105

• Problems testing the cloud?• Permission• How do you get permission to test your application running on Amazon EC2 when the results of your testing could show you data from another client completely?

SECURITY TESTING

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• Getting black hole or getting kicked-off

• "In networking, black holes refer to places in the network where incoming traffic is silently discarded (or "dropped"), without informing the source that the data did not reach its intended recipient." - From Wikipedia

SECURITY TESTING

107

• How do you track version?

• How do you do regression

testing?

• How do you know what

version of the search engine

google is currently running on?

SECURITY TESTING

108

• If you test an application

today and find it vulnerable or

not vulnerable, how do you

know that the app you testing

tomorrow is the same one that

you tested yesterday? - You

don't

SECURITY TESTING

109

If its not good, safe or not even new, then why cloud adoption

happening?

Then why we move?

110

FEW TOP REASONS

• Management by in-flight

magazines

• Management version –

something new and promising

– let’s try it out

• Geek version – It’s really cool • There is nobody to put a break when these two people join together.

111

• Poor uptime and service

delivery experience from IT

department.

• Economical factors

• Multi-tenancy means cost

sharing

Other reasons

112

• Cost saving makes it attractive

during recession.

• Cloud computing allows you to

move from CAPEX to OPEX.

• Save 30% of IT Operational

Cost

Other reasons

113

• Variable cost subscription model – rapidly scale up and scale down.

• Go Green or Green IT also influenced many.

• Powerful - A 64 node Linux cluster can be online in just five minutes - forget about those sleepless nights in your data centers

Other reasons

114

ADDRESSING SECURITY ISSUES IN CLOUD – RISK

ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK FOR

CLOUD115

•Adopt a risk based approach

• Evaluate your tolerance for

moving an asset to cloud

• Have a framework to

evaluate cloud risks.

ADDRESSING CLOUD SECURITY

116

• Identify the asset for cloud.

• Evaluate the asset

• Map the asset to cloud deployment

models

• Evaluate cloud service models & providers

• Sketch the potential data flow

RA FRAMEWORK FOR CLOUD

117

• Two types of assets are supported by

cloud:

• Data

• Applications/Functions/Processes

• Either partial functions or full

applications

1 - IDENTIFY THE ASSET

118

• In cloud, we do not need data and

application to reside at the same location.

• We can shift parts of functions to the

cloud.


119

• Example:

• Host the main application and data in our

own data-centre.

• Outsource a portion of its functionality to

the cloud through Platform as a Service

(PaaS).


120

• First step in evaluating risk for the cloud -

determine exactly what data or function is

being considered for the cloud.

• Include potential use of the asset once it

moves to the cloud


121

• This will help you account for scope creep

• Data and transaction volumes are often

higher than expected.


122

• What is scope creep?

• Also known as

• focus creep,

• requirement creep,

• feature creep,

• function creep


123

• Refers to uncontrolled changes in a

project's scope.

• Can occur when the scope of a project is

not properly defined, documented, or

controlled.


124

• Determine how important the data or

function is to the organization.

• A detailed valuation is recommended only

if the organization has an existing process

for that.

2 - EVALUATE THE ASSET

125

• If not, a rough assessment of the following

is recommended:

• how sensitive an asset is, and

• how important an application / function /

process is.


126

• How do we do it?

• For each asset, ask the following

questions:

• How would we be harmed if the asset

became widely public and widely

distributed?


127

• How would we be harmed if an employee

of our cloud provider accessed the asset?

• How would we be harmed if the process

or function were manipulated by an

outsider?


128

• How would we be harmed if the process

or function failed to provide expected

results?

• How would we be harmed if the

information/data were unexpectedly

changed?


129

• How would we be harmed if the asset

were unavailable for a period of time?


130

• What are we doing basically with the

above process?

• Assessing confidentiality, integrity, and

availability requirements for the asset;

and

• how those are affected if all or part of the

asset is handled in the cloud.


131

• Step 3 - Map the asset to potential cloud

deployment models

• Determine which deployment model is

good for the organizational requirement.

3 – MAP THE ASSETS

132

• Decide whether the organization can

accept the risks implicit to the various

deployment models (private, public,

community, or hybrid); and hosting

scenarios (internal, external, or combined).


133

• For the asset, determine if you are willing

to accept the following options:• Public.• Private, internal/on-premises.• Private, external (including dedicated or shared infrastructure).

• Community• Hybrid


134

• End of this phase you should have answer

to the following:

• Deployment models and locations that fits

your security and risk requirements.


135

• Focus on the degree of control you’ll have

at each SPI tier to implement any required

risk management.

4 – EVALUATE MODELS & PROVIDERS

136

• Map out the data flow between:

• your organization,

• the cloud service, and

• any customers/other nodes.

5 – SKETCH DATA FLOW

137

• High-level design can be adopted for the

same.

• Absolutely essential to understand

whether, and how, data can move in and

out of the cloud before finalizing.

5 – SKETCH DATA FLOW

138

• You should have a clear understanding of

the following:

• the importance of what you are

considering moving to the cloud,

• risk tolerance,

RA - CONCLUSION

139

• which combinations of deployment and

service models are acceptable, and

• potential exposure points for sensitive

information and operations.

RA - CONCLUSION

140

• For low-value assets you don’t need the

same level of security controls

• Can skip most of the recommendations —

such as on-site inspections, discoverability,

and complex encryption schemes.

• A high-value regulated asset might entail

audit and data retention requirements.

RA - CONCLUSION

141

EXPLOITING CLOUD FOR IW /

ATTACKS

142

DO YOU KNOW THIS?

143

• Clue:

• Kendo (kumdo in korean)

INFORMATION WARFARE

144

風 - Swift as the wind

林 - Quiet as the forest

火 - Conquer like the fire

山 - Steady as the mountain

INFORMATION WARFARE

145

• Battle strategy and motto of Japanese feudal lord Takeda Shingen ( 武田信玄 ) (1521–1573 A.D.).

• Twenty-Four Generals - famous groupings of battle commanders• (Takeda Nijūshi-shō ) 武田二十四将

INFORMATION WARFARE

146

• Came from the Art of War by

Chinese strategist and

tactician Sun Tzu (Sunzi)

• A sort of abbreviation to

remind officers and troops

how to conduct battle

INFORMATION WARFARE

147

• This is what we need in

information warfare or when

launching an attack

INFORMATION WARFARE

148

• Sample Task

• Break PGP passphrases

• Solution

• Brute forcing PGP

passphrases

EXPLOITING CLOUD

149

•Try – ElcomSoft Distributed

Password Recovery (with

some patches to handle PGP

ZIP)

•Two elements - EDPR

Managers & EDPR Agents

EXPLOITING CLOUD

150

• Dual core Win7 box - 2100

days for a complex

passphrase.

• Not acceptable – too long

• Lets exploit the cloud.

EXPLOITING CLOUD

151

• First things first – Create an

Account on Amazon. Credit

Card Required

• Install Amazon EC2 API Tools

on your linux box.

sudo apt-get install ec2-api-

tools

EXPLOITING CLOUD

152

• Select an AMI

• Example - use a 32 bit

Windows AMI - ami-df20c3b6-

g

EXPLOITING CLOUD

153

• Start an instance from the

Linux shell as follows:

ec2-run-instances -k ssh-

keypair ami-df20c3b6-g

default

EXPLOITING CLOUD

154

• Enumerate the instance ID &

public IP:

ec2-describe-instances

EXPLOITING CLOUD

155

• Instance status change from “pending” to “running”

• Extract the admin password for the instance

ec2-get-password -k ssh-

keypair.pem $instanceID

EXPLOITING CLOUD

156

• Configure EC2 firewall to permit inbound RDP traffic to the instance.

ec2-authorize default -p 3389

-s $trusted_ip_address/32

EXPLOITING CLOUD

157

• Configure the firewall in front

of the EDPR manager system

to permit TCP/12121 from

anywhere.

• RDP into the instance &

configure EDPR

EXPLOITING CLOUD

158

EXPLOITING CLOUD

• Login using the password obtained from ec2-get-password command

159

• Install EDPR Agent,

• Configure the Agent to

connect to the Manager.

• 3 points to configure mainly

EXPLOITING CLOUD

160

• Configure the public IP address or hostname of the EDPR manager you have configured.

EXPLOITING CLOUD

161

•Interface tab - Set the Start-up Mode to "At Windows Start-up".

EXPLOITING CLOUD

162

• Registry hack• EDPR creates a pair of registry values which are used to uniquely identify the agent when connecting to the manager.

• We need to scrub these

values – why?

EXPLOITING CLOUD

163

• If we don’t, every single

instance we initiate will

appear to be the same agent

to the manager.

•Output = The job handling will

be totally corrupted.

EXPLOITING CLOUD

164

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\

Software\ElcomSoft\Distributed

Agent\UID

• Set the value of the UID key

to null, but DO NOT DELETE

THE KEY.

EXPLOITING CLOUD

165

• Let’s bundle the EC2

instance.

• Remember in cloud, bundle is

similar to creating a

‘template’ in VMware

terminology.

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• Install and configure EC2 AMI

Tools

• Command: ec2-bundle-instance $instance_id -b $bucket_name -p $bundle_name -o $access_key_id -w $secret_access_key

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• Bundling process runs

sysprep on the Windows

instance, compress and copies

the instance to S3.

EXPLOITING CLOUD

168

• Check the progress of the

bundle task:

ec2-describe-bundle-tasks

EXPLOITING CLOUD

169

• Register the bundled AMI:

ec2-register

$bucket_name/$bundle_name.

manifest.xml

EXPLOITING CLOUD

170

• The register command

returns AMI ID

• Used to spawn instances of

the EDPR agent. Example:

IMAGE ami-54f3103d

EXPLOITING CLOUD

171

•Start EDPR manager &

configure task.• to brute an password composed of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, and the numbers 0-9, with a length of between 1 to 8 characters against a PGP ZIP file.

ACTION TIME

172

ACTION TIME

173

• Start a single instance of our

EDPR agent:

ec2-run-instances -k $ssh-

keypair ami-54f3103d -g

default

ACTION TIME

174

• Agent check in with the EDPR manager.

ACTION TIME

175

• We started it with default

parameters

• EC2 “small” instance

• Trying 500K keys per second

• How long will it take?

ACTION TIME

176

•Whattt???? 3600 days? = 10

years!!!!!

ACTION TIME

177

• Let’s scale up – deploy 10

additional instances:

ec2-run-instances -n 10 -k ssh-


default -t c1.medium

ACTION TIME

178

• The -n 10 parameter tells EC2

to launch 10 instances.

• c1.medium instance = “High

CPU" instance

ACTION TIME

179

ACTION TIME

180

• Now we have more cracking

agents in the party!!!

• 2+M keys/second

• So what's the time required

now???

ACTION TIME

181

• Down to 122 days

ACTION TIME

182

• Kickoff another 89 to hit a

century.

ec2-run-instances -n 89 -k ssh-


default -t c1.medium

Note: Check your EDPR

License.

ACTION TIME

183

• Error:

Client.InstanceLimitExceeded:

Your quota allows for 9 more

instance(s). You requested at

least 89

ACTION TIME

184

• Option 1

• Request to instance amazon

EC2 Instance Limit -

http://aws.amazon.com/conta

ct-us/ec2-request/

ACTION TIME

185

• Option 2

• Amazon spot instances -

allows us to bid on unused

Amazon EC2 capacity and run

those instances.

ACTION TIME

186

• Option 3

• Create custom python script

to bypass this limitation

ACTION TIME

187

• With a couple more of

instances, we can reduce it to

hours

• A successful cloud based

distributed cracking system.

ACTION TIME

188

CLOUD FORENSICS

189

• Mixed Responses• Bad guys have started using cloud based services and infrastructure for launching attacks

• Cloud do provide a good platform for incidence response and forensics investigations

CLOUD FORENSICS

190

• By utilizing the inherent

features of cloud computing,

computer forensic can become

an on-demand service under

certain circumstances.

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191

• Regular business and operations are not affected when a cloud environment needs to be forensically examined.

• Not the case with the traditional infrastructure where the equipments are seized.

• Cloud Example – Amazon EBS

CLOUD FORENSICS

192

• Cloud based forensics took a new turn when Amazon introduced Elastic Block Store (EBS) volumes

• Enables the user to launch an instance with an Amazon EBS volume that will serve as the root device.

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193

• When there is a need to preserve a cloud environment, EBS can create an exact replica of the cloud instance & put it on the same cloud for forensics evaluation and examination.

• Since the forensic investigators will be working with another instance of the environment, the regular operations is not affected in any way.

CLOUD FORENSICS

194

• Replication process achieved in few minutes.

• Forensic evidences are invalid if they are not cryptographically hashed.

• This can be easily achieved using the on-demand feature of cloud.

CLOUD FORENSICS

195

• Replication process achieved in few minutes.

• Forensic evidences are invalid if they are not cryptographically hashed.

• This can be easily achieved using the on-demand feature of cloud.

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196

•The cloud based hashing takes less time and is much faster when you compare it with the traditional cryptographic hashing process.

• Amazon Web Services is already providing a good forensic feature where it can provide a MD5 hash of every file that is on the cloud system.

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197

• What this practically means is that when a bit by bit copy is initiated (forensic duplication), you have systems in place which can ensure that you made the exact replica and not even a bit has changed during the replication and copying process.

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198

• Even though you have all the above services available, cloud forensics is still challenging.

• Virtualization of various entities like the applications and host systems, which once used to be in-house is now scattered on the cloud.

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199

• Makes evidence gathering a challenging task

• Since we are acquiring data from a virtual environment, the forensic investigator should have a clear and precise understanding of how they work and what files are interesting and required to acquire.

CLOUD FORENSICS

200

• Near to impossible to acquire the complete hard disk due to various reasons including but not limited to:• multiple data owners on the same disk,

• remote geographical location,• jurisdictional difficulties,• RAID configurations etc

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• Questions also arise on the compatibility and reliability of the tools used for investigating cloud forensics - because most of the tools are meant for real time systems and not for virtualized environments.

• A collaborative and collective effort is required to address what we discussed.

And finally

202

CONCLUSION

203

• The architectural mindset used when

designing solutions has clear implications

on the:• future flexibility, • security, • collaborative capabilities, and • mobility

of the resultant solution.

CONCLUSION

204

• With so many different cloud deployment

and service models, and their hybrid

permutations — no list of security controls

can cover all these circumstances.

CONCLUSION

205

A good security professional is someone who always looks both ways before crossing a one-way street.

GOOD SECURITY PROFESSIONAL

206

207

Manu Zacharia

[email protected]

[email protected]

or

QUESTIONS??

thank you !