Scott Lundgren

Today's Adobe security update has patched the in-the-wild zero-day PoC that EXPMON Public (https://pub.expmon.com) detected couple months ago (https://lnkd.in/ghQYYzXR). https://lnkd.in/gqxHHCfe Note: not want to cause confusion - this is not a working exploit, but a good PoC. Users are recommended to update their Adobe Reader ASAP, as we're going to point to the public sample with all the details soon in the next few days.

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** There's New Development about this case ** We tested the (exactly the same) sample on the "patched" Adobe Reader version, it displayed additional dialogs, but if the user clicked/closed those dialogs, the app still crashed! Same UAF bug! We're contacting Adobe to find out what's going on and will update here. For now, we have to postpone the release of the details because the bug seems not properly fixed. [Update on Monday] Adobe has confirmed to us that the bug is not properly patched. "I can confirm our Acrobat product team has identified a secondary fix that is required to fully address this issue. We are actively reviewing and working to prioritize the fix in an upcoming patch. I will be sure to follow up with you once we have a clear release timeframe." Guess we have to hold our blog posts until the new patch becomes available to users. Sigh.. https://lnkd.in/gbBDuDHC #expmon #adobe #pdf #zeroday #0day #detection

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What defines value? After three years of effort, this week marks the start of the federal government's enforcement of new secure software development requirements. Starting with GSA and then shifting to all commercial vendors selling to all agencies, the Office of Management and Budget industry-changing mandate is now in action. For years, vendors commented that they thought this would never happen, but guess what? It did. Attacks on nations' software are skyrocketing, and as a nation, we need to take steps to produce more secure software by design. Before implementing tools such as application security testing (SCA/SAST/DAST), you must ensure your organization has a proper foundation. This is why the NIST 800-218 Secure Software Development Framework (#SSDF) starts with organizations preparing themselves to ensure that their people, processes, and technology are prepared to perform secure software development at the organization level. CodeLock, Inc. received a grant from VIPC | Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation to develop a dashboard to provide companies across the country with the resources they need to get started and comply with these new requirements. Over the last month, we have uploaded templates for policies and procedures that your organizations need to have in order to meet specific practice areas. Rather than you having to create this from scratch, we did the work for you, saving thousands of hours and the finances associated with that work. You can get a CodeLock account today and access all of these resources for only $19/month. Do no wait to take action, get started with the compliance process today. If you made it this far into my post, congratulations! Send me a message, and I will give you a discount code to get started for free. #ZeroTrust, #CyberSecurity, #SoftwareDevelopment, #DepartmentOfDefense, #InfoSec, #NationalSecurity, #DefenseTech, #CyberDefense, #SecureSoftware, #MilitaryTechnology, #DevSecOps, #InformationSecurity, #CyberAwareness, #GovernmentTech, #CyberThreats, #TechInnovation, #DigitalTransformation, #CloudSecurity, #DataProtection, #NetworkSecurity, #SecurityArchitecture, #CyberResilience, #IdentityManagement, #Encryption, #Compliance, #SecureCoding, #CyberRiskManagement, #AIInCybersecurity, #ThreatIntelligence, #CriticalInfrastructure, #CyberLaw, #CyberEthics, #TechnologyLeadership, #PublicSectorInnovation, #TechGovernance, #SecureByDesign, #PrivacyByDesign, #MilitaryInnovation, #DefenseStrategies, #CyberWarfare, #CyberDiplomacy, #GovernmentContracting, #DefenseContractors, #MilitaryTec, #TechPolicy, #SecureInfrastructure, #NationalCybersecurity, #TechForDefense, #SecureDevelopment, #GovernmentIT

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This week's blog post is a practical guide to securing your mail gateways, written by Patryk Z.! If you want some examples of how SPF, DKIM, DMARC, etc. can be used to reduce the number of phishing emails hitting your staff inboxes then this is the one for you! https://lnkd.in/erE_mGUa #SPF #DKIM #DMARC #email #security #phishing

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Today, Nucleus Security announced our sponsorship of the inaugural EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) report from Cyentia Institute. This report evaluates EPSS performance over the last few years and drills into questions related to understanding vulnerability exploitation in the wild. I'm adding links to the report and related resources in the comments. #cybersecurity #EPSS #NucleusSecurity #vulnerabilitymanagement

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Thoughts on Just-In-Time procedures and NIST SP 800-171 / #CMMC compliance... At Kieri Solutions - Authorized C3PAO , we figured out that people follow procedures best when they 𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯'𝘵 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘥𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘴. ??? Let me explain. You're onboarding a new user. To be compliant with #CMMC, your onboarding team needs to go through a convoluted process involving getting details about the new user, verifying NDA, background checks, training, requesting permissions, justifying permissions, reviewing permissions, authorizing permissions, creating accounts, creating records of the accounts, creating records of the permissions for the accounts, assigning expiration dates for each account, setting up a laptop, authorizing the laptop...!!! It goes on and on. If your strategy is to tell your HR and IT team that they need to perfectly follow a 70 step process on page 19 of ye old 𝐈𝐓_𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐝𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬_𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐚𝐥, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘢𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘱𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘶𝘱 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘣𝘢𝘨𝘴 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘸. The error rate will be upwards of 80%, unless you nag and threaten 😡 everyone constantly, in which case you might get down to an error rate of 30% (and your team will quit). Instead, if you use a combination of a well-designed Access Request Form and an Account Management database, all your team needs to do is remember to start with the correct form. 📝 The form should have fields and just-in-time instructions for each step of the process between HR and your IT Department. All your team needs to do is fill out each field in the form and they will complete the background screening, training, permissions, justifications, etc. naturally without nagging. Then, a well designed Account Management database helps your team manage the accounts long-term by including checks ◻️ for commonly-forgotten steps (like user agreements), next-review dates, annual training refresher dates, mapping the user to their supervisor, granular "should-be" permissions for both digital systems and facilities, and historic authorization notes. The last step for perfect procedures is a regular review to look for and fix errors. But again, if you want to be successful, don't expect your team to remember your dusty policies and procedures book in the corner. Instead, use a scheduled task, a ticket, or a checklist with just-in-time instructions to make sure that the review gets done. Pro-tip: next-review-dates are an excellent way to spread this task across time, instead of trying to do it all in one lump. Are your compliance policies and processes working for you, or against you? There is a better way. Use thoughtful design in your compliance system to reduce errors and streamline functionality. Screenshot below is from the Kieri Compliance Documentation's Account Management Database, showing some of the magic of our full-featured 800-171 / CMMC Level 2 compliance program. I'll put the link in comments, for anyone that is interested.

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I was looking for an open source alternative for a tool this morning and it led to a conversation with a fellow practitioner. Bottom line: the state of open source security tooling seems to be really bad now vs. when we entered the industry 10-20 years ago. It seems more and more tools are built for making a quick buck vs. building a personal brand and seeking the common good of making the internet a safer place. This is not ubiquitous, but it certainly seems to be the trend. When I first got into security, people were all about sharing, networking, and community. This led to wonderful careers where we enjoyed not only financial success, but even more so, relationships and the joy of leaving things better than we found them. I still give the vast majority of the code I write away, but it is becoming increasingly harder to find useful open source tooling. This conversation reminded me of a keynote I gave on a similar topic a few years back. It seems to apply as much today as it did then. https://lnkd.in/eTVBCka9

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I’ve written a number of posts on testing and rolling out security controls safely on my blog including this one from 2020 ~ Better Testing for Better Outcomes. I have a bunch of others in a thread on X (sorry it’s the easiest right now) and on my blog. Taking the time to properly test and building tests into the software itself can prevent a lot of pain later. I explain how to do that in my posts and show examples of things not properly tested as well. https://lnkd.in/gcJ-PeG

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It's CMMC o'clock. Do you know where your controls are? If you thought you could keep kicking the old CMMC can down the road for another few months or years before having to really deal with it, think again. The timeline for having the CMMC certification requirements in federal contracts has just been accelerated. (Thank you Jacob Horne for spotting the OIRA announcement!) Do you know if your environment could pass CMMC tomorrow? A month from now? Do you know where the gaps are and how to mitigate them? Remember, those indefinite POAMs that never close are a thing of the past now. As the old camping joke goes, I don't need to outrun the bear, I just need to outrun you. Your competitors have been publicly downplaying their CMMC concerns while quietly working to shore up their controls ahead of the deadline. What have you been doing? The real worry isn't just "getting past" the CMMC certification so you don't lose your contracts or a chance to bid on new business. It's thinking you got past the requirements just to find out later you were wrong. In the realm of federal contracts that's called a "false claim," as in the False Claims Act - a criminal offense. It's not just about getting past CMMC. It's about getting there with integrity and credibility. If you're still relying to manually populated spreadsheets or legacy GRC platforms acting as repositories for manually collected artifacts, that compliance confidence you need becomes rather hard to achieve. True end-to-end compliance automation that drastically reduces your reliance on manual evidence collection and subjective interpretation of control posture is the answer. What's the question? Why haven't you implemented compliance automation in your environment? Why indeed. Learn more at https://lnkd.in/ezSb5rGv #cmmc #compliance #cybersecurity #govcon #security #automation

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There's a pretty advanced "detection in depth" (I like that name) feature I've been working on for EXPMON system for PDF zero-day exploit detection. Currently on private test, will roll out to https://pub.expmon.com when good to go. This was inspried by my personal witness at PWN2OWN this year where Adobe Reader once again got easily exploited. There're SO MANY need to be done/innovated from exploit detection perspective. Detection-in-depth in PDF is super challenging. The PDF on Adobe Reader is like a browser (JavaScript) + complicated file format + various undocumented features, combined.. Sigh.. #expmon #zeroday #exploit #detection #pdf #adobe

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Selling to the Army? It's crucial to adapt to the upcoming changes in software contracts. The Army will soon mandate vendors to provide bills of materials (SBOM) for most software, excluding cloud services. Stay ahead of the curve by familiarizing yourself with SBOM generation and management. This shift will impact how software is procured and managed within the Army. Learn more about this new policy and its implications here: https://lnkd.in/gzneffCn

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CMMC Level 2 Assessment Objective: Flaw Remediation for Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) Data PRACTICE: Organizations must identify, report, and correct system flaws in a timely manner. ASSESSMENT: All software and firmware have potential flaws. Organizations must identify systems that are affected by announced software and firmware flaws, including potential vulnerabilities resulting from those flaws, and report this information to designated personnel with information security responsibilities. Security-relevant updates include patches, service packs, hot fixes, and antivirus signatures. Be prepared! Your assessor could ask to 🔍 EXAMINE system and information integrity policy. 🗣 INTERVIEW system or network administrators. 📝 TEST organizational processes for identifying, reporting, and correcting system flaws. (CMMC Assessment Guide: Level 2 Version 2.11, page 241) #CMMC #DoD #cybersecurity #NIST #InformationSecurity

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A lot of talk regarding CMMC lately, at Island we believe that a more user-friendly way of protecting CUI is possible. Take a look at what we pulled together: https://lnkd.in/e8UjeKqE

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At Gartner IAM? Come meet the Permiso Security Team at Booth 235! Come see how bad actors bypass IAM controls across your IDP, SaaS, and cloud environments. Learn why standard IAM controls miss these attacks and how Permiso helps you get a grasp on and improve your identity risk posture and detect compromised credentials in minutes.

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Day 2 Gartner IAM! IAM teams: You're masters of identity hygiene and Tier Zero asset protection. Now it's time to lead the charge on identity threat detection. Visit Permiso at Booth 235 to see how your IAM expertise can power better threat detection and incident response across cloud and SaaS. If you are on the Security side, see how we detect compromised credentials across SaaS and cloud in minutes, automate investigation, and enable you to move right to response. Breaking silos between IAM and Security = stronger identity defense. Sanjeev Williams Kyle M. Christine Stevenson

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Let's get better together! New article on the people + process needed in DevSecOps. Shout out to the amazing group from the Platform Engineering meetup a few weeks ago and Steven Smith CISSP, ISSAP, CCSP, CCISO, GCIH, GCED, GDSA on his contributions to this piece.

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API keys are essential to connect applications, services, or data lakes together. Yet, they can also be a security risk. Imagine Alice sets up an API key to give her team or a vendor access to sensitive data—many times these keys are long-lived and often shared across different workloads. If the group uses federation, actions taken by Alice or others occur using a shared credential/role in the environment. This means logs would only show the credential conducting that activity, which again, gets shared with others who have access to the role. Alice's coworker, Bob, has their legitimate cloud credentials compromised. The threat actor uses Bob's credentials to federate into a shared credential/role in the environment. The threat actor exploits native features/functions of the cloud to appear as Bob, thereby blending their activity in to avoid detection. Most security teams today won't spot Bob's impersonator fast enough or at all. Trying to make sense of cloud logs is a real challenge, especially when it's happening in real-time. It can take hours or even days to piece together what happened. And by then, detection and response are delayed and the damage might already be done. What can you do? Security teams can start by keeping a detailed record of all identities, keys, tokens, certificates, and credentials they've provisioned and used, services accounts they have access to, what roles they assume. Then, security teams can set up what's considered "normal" access and behavior. Once the team understands “normal” behavior, they can develop rules and alerts from logs to try to detect and respond to access and behavioral anomalies. At Permiso, we have developed an identity-centric approach to cloud threat detection and response. Our solution can help security teams detect and respond to access and behavioral anomalies in the environments faster and with greater confidence from having the full session access and activity. Want to learn more? DM me or visit https://lnkd.in/gC4DUJ9j to learn about our approach to solving the challenge of detecting and responding to threats in and across IaaS, SaaS, CI-CD, IDP environments.

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