Category: cybersecurity

Google Admin Security Specialist Cert plus brief life update(s)

Amplified IT’s Google Admin Security Specialist Certification

Over the last two weeks Ive been doing my best to balance my undergraduate work, my non-existent weightlifting, Wing Chun, BJJ, Jeet Kuen Do (I refuse to continue cosigning to the universal misspelling of the romanization of fist or style of fighting which in Cantonese is kuen vs kune), Thai boxing, and my actual job as a cybersecurity sys admin. Something else Ive added into the mix over the last two weeks is adding in some google education system admin training. I’m happy to report that over these last two weeks I have been able to earn the Amplified Admin Security Specialist Certification for the of us who, at least in a small part, work in the Education Google Workspace Admin arena. It’s an advanced-level, security-specific training for Google. The training built upon the foundational and advanced Amplified Admin Level 1 and 2 courses. It provides a comprehensive understanding of cybersecurity risk factors facing EDU leaders and how to appropriately mitigate through setting configurations.

Next up is Heath Adams’ Practical Network Penetration Tester certification. The #PNPT cert covers Practical Ethical Hacking, OSINT Fundamentals, the External Pentest Playbook, & Linux + Windows Privilege Escalation for Beginners. Once I can get this and just a few more certs under my belt I’ll be able to relax and maybe even take a vacation soon. But who knows, we’ll see 😉

CyberWire Daily 23 JUN 2021

Cyberespionage, in Central Europe and South Asia. Iranian state media sites seized. Sale of inspection and tracing tools leads to an indictment in France. Cooperation, foreign and domestic.

CyberWire Daily 23 JUN 2021

An essential habit for carpenters is to have sharp tools and keep them whetted. It is up to the carpenter to use these tools masterfully, even making such things as miniature shrines, bookshelves, tables, lamp stands, cutting boards, and pot covers. Being a soldier is like this. This should be given careful consideration. 

Common Ports You Need To Know

Below you’ll find a short list of common ports you should commit to memory. Too bad during a recent interview I only got two out of four correct.

That’s the only time that EVER happened. It happened once, won’t happen twice.

In the garden.

Always remember, it’s better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.

OWASP Top Ten

The OWASP Top 10 is a standard awareness document for developers and web application security. It represents a broad consensus about the most critical security risks to web applications.

Globally recognized by developers as the first step towards more secure coding.

Companies should adopt this document and start the process of ensuring that their web applications minimize these risks. Using the OWASP Top 10 is perhaps the most effective first step towards changing the software development culture within your organization into one that produces more secure code.

Top 10 Web Application Security Risks

  1. Injection. Injection flaws, such as SQL, NoSQL, OS, and LDAP injection, occur when untrusted data is sent to an interpreter as part of a command or query. The attacker’s hostile data can trick the interpreter into executing unintended commands or accessing data without proper authorization.
  2. Broken Authentication. Application functions related to authentication and session management are often implemented incorrectly, allowing attackers to compromise passwords, keys, or session tokens, or to exploit other implementation flaws to assume other users’ identities temporarily or permanently.
  3. Sensitive Data Exposure. Many web applications and APIs do not properly protect sensitive data, such as financial, healthcare, and PII. Attackers may steal or modify such weakly protected data to conduct credit card fraud, identity theft, or other crimes. Sensitive data may be compromised without extra protection, such as encryption at rest or in transit, and requires special precautions when exchanged with the browser.
  4. XML External Entities (XXE). Many older or poorly configured XML processors evaluate external entity references within XML documents. External entities can be used to disclose internal files using the file URI handler, internal file shares, internal port scanning, remote code execution, and denial of service attacks.
  5. Broken Access Control. Restrictions on what authenticated users are allowed to do are often not properly enforced. Attackers can exploit these flaws to access unauthorized functionality and/or data, such as access other users’ accounts, view sensitive files, modify other users’ data, change access rights, etc.
  6. Security Misconfiguration. Security misconfiguration is the most commonly seen issue. This is commonly a result of insecure default configurations, incomplete or ad hoc configurations, open cloud storage, misconfigured HTTP headers, and verbose error messages containing sensitive information. Not only must all operating systems, frameworks, libraries, and applications be securely configured, but they must be patched/upgraded in a timely fashion.
  7. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS). XSS flaws occur whenever an application includes untrusted data in a new web page without proper validation or escaping, or updates an existing web page with user-supplied data using a browser API that can create HTML or JavaScript. XSS allows attackers to execute scripts in the victim’s browser which can hijack user sessions, deface web sites, or redirect the user to malicious sites.
  8. Insecure Deserialization. Insecure deserialization often leads to remote code execution. Even if deserialization flaws do not result in remote code execution, they can be used to perform attacks, including replay attacks, injection attacks, and privilege escalation attacks.
  9. Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities. Components, such as libraries, frameworks, and other software modules, run with the same privileges as the application. If a vulnerable component is exploited, such an attack can facilitate serious data loss or server takeover. Applications and APIs using components with known vulnerabilities may undermine application defenses and enable various attacks and impacts.
  10. Insufficient Logging & Monitoring. Insufficient logging and monitoring, coupled with missing or ineffective integration with incident response, allows attackers to further attack systems, maintain persistence, pivot to more systems, and tamper, extract, or destroy data. Most breach studies show time to detect a breach is over 200 days, typically detected by external parties rather than internal processes or monitoring.