Operation security Case

Background:

No-Internal-Controls, LLC is a mid-sized pharmaceutical sales company in the Midwest of the US employing around 150 personnel. It has grown over the past decade by merging with other pharmaceutical sales companies and purchasing smaller firms.

Recently No-Internal-Controls, LLC suffered a ransomware attack. The company was able to recover from the attack with the assistance of a third party IT Services Company.

Attack Analysis:

After collecting evidence and analyzing the attack, the third party was able to recreate the attack.

No-Internal-Controls, LLC has a number of PCs configured for employee training

These training computers use generic logins such as “training1”, “training2”, etc. with passwords of “training1”, “training2”, etc.

The logins were not subject to lock out due to repeated incorrect logins

One of the firms purchased by No-Internal-Controls, LLC allowed Remote Desktop connections from the Internet through the firewall to the internal network for remote employees

Due to high employee turnover and lack of documentation none of the IT staff were aware of the legacy remote access 

The main office has only a single firewall and no DMZ or bastion host exists to mediate incoming remote connections

The internal network utilized a flat architecture

An attacker discovered the access by use of a port scan and used a dictionary attack to gain access to one of the training computers

The attacker ran a script on the compromised machine to elevate his access privileges and gain administrator access

The attacker installed tools on the compromised host to scan the network and identify network shares

The attacker copied ransomware into the network shares for the accounting department allowing it spread through the network and encrypt accounting files

Critical accounting files were backed up and were recovered, but some incidental department and personal files were lost

Instructions:

All Questions are worth 3 points each – 12 points total for the assignment. Assignment is due on February 26th, at 11:59 pm, EPT.

Question 1:

Suggest a password policy for No-Internal-Controls. Include an example of a technical control and an administrative control. Also include examples of a preventative control and a detective control. You may include as many controls as you like. Explain how this will mitigate against similar attacks.

Question 2:

No-Internal-Controls has a main office, two regional sales offices, and two warehouses. Suggest a physical security policy for No-Internal-Controls that includes controls that address each of the following potential vulnerabilities:

• The warehouses have multiple controlled pharmaceuticals that must be logged when received and shipped out.
• Each warehouse has a separate room for highly regulated narcotics.
• The main office has a public lobby and conference rooms for guests and prospective clients.
• One of the regional offices is in an urban area that has been suffering from an increase in vandalism and petty crime.
• The data center is located at the main office. There are two doors, one from the Network Admin’s office and one from the main hallway between the IT department and the Finance department.

Question 3:

No-Internal-Controls has a limited budget and is considering one of three different projects for the first half of the year:

• A network penetration test from an accredited third party security firm
• New firewalls, a NIDS appliance, jump servers for remote access, and RSA tokens for remote employees
• A new fiber channel SAN with specialized backup software allowing off-site replication to one of the regional offices. (See Lecture 7)

The organization can only afford one project, the other two will be delayed until the end of the year. The board has asked you to recommend which project will be funded first. Which one do you support, and why?

Question 4:

The Board of Directors wants to preserve evidence in the event that the attacker can be identified and prosecuted. Refer to slide 8 from the Week 5 lecture. How can we assure that the evidence is authentic? Accurate? Complete? Should you request documentation from the IT services company that investigated? Why?

Bonus Question (1 point):

 What ports and protocol was in use by the remote employees at the time of the attack?