Black Hat USA 2024: SOC within the NOC

One of many new integrations this 12 months was with a utility written by one in all our SOC crew members. Each safety skilled — particularly SOC analysts and responders — have a sequence of “fast lookup” type instruments that they use to reply varied questions on artifacts in an investigation. Shodan is a good instance; “given an IP tackle, what providers is that IP offering, and what software program are they utilizing to offer it?”. Paste the IP into Shodan, and you’ll doubtless get your reply. With the Shodan integration in XDR, you don’t even have to repeat and paste — simply click on the IP after which within the drop down menu, click on the Shodan hyperlink. However there are a whole lot of such instruments…

Ben took one of many integration server templates that Cisco Security published on Github and modified it to our wants. He then hosted it on his cloud supplier of selection, added it to our XDR configuration and will add these easy pivots to XDR on the fly. A easy edit of a textual content file on the server and we might leap from any observable to any new related reference website that anybody had prompt.

Cisco XDR is constructed on the beliefs of an open integration framework, with revealed knowledge fashions, API specs and pattern code out there to be modified or used as examples/tutorials (together with precise tutorials at DevNet). This dedication to extensibility permits for modifications such because the above with out requiring any motion from the XDR improvement or product groups, permitting prospects to tailor XDR to their distinctive wants.

For instance, an IP tried <AndroxGh0st> Scanning Site visitors towards the Registration Server, blocked by the Palo Alto Networks firewall.

Investigation of the IP confirmed: It was recognized malicious.

Additionally, the geo location is in RU and recognized affiliated domains. With this info, the NOC management accepted the shunning of the IP.

XDR: Asset visibility

By: Ben Greenbaum

Because the Black Hat community evolves, totally different distributors are given alternatives to carry their merchandise into the toolbox. On account of this ongoing biking, we didn’t have entry to the depth of intelligence beforehand offered by deployment of a Meraki wi-fi infrastructure. Nevertheless, as a result of functionality constructed into XDR Asset Insights to add a customized CSV file of property, we had been capable of simply operationalize recognized community topography into investigative and response operations.

One of many distinctive challenges of the Black Hat atmosphere is how totally different it’s from a “regular” buyer’s manufacturing community. We now have a couple of hundred units whose safety is our major aim, however tens of 1000’s of unmanaged (and infrequently hostile) units within the native community which we wish to shield from one another and shield the skin world from. This distinctive association very a lot drives house the worth that an EDR brings to an XDR resolution. With out good endpoint visibility, the problem is much higher. The good thing about an open XDR strategy that isn’t an evolution of an present EDR providing is that it may be one in all a number of EDRs, however “one” is preferable to none.

Malware Analytics

By: Ben Greenbaum

Cisco Malware Analytics (previously Menace Grid) was once more used because the backend file evaluation and malware detection engine. We supported our companions from CoreLight and Netwitness, with evaluation of recordsdata pulled from clear textual content (convention attendee) and choose encrypted periods (essential infrastructure).

As traditional, the recordsdata present in clear textual content communications had been an excellent indicator of what varieties of knowledge could be anticipated to be leaked by a crowd of safety professionals, and this 12 months the end result rated a strong “much less terrible.” Doubtlessly spicy content material included varied PII (names, employers, positions, e mail addresses, and so forth.) from Black Hat receipts and some company e mail attachments. 

And whereas Umbrella did alert us to some wandering infections phoning house, we are able to say that a minimum of no malware was transferred…within the clear.

By: Aditya Sankar

Cisco XDR features a built-in automation functionality referred to as XDR automation. If in case you have heard of Safety Orchestration Automation Response (SOAR), Cisco XDR has the complete suite of SOAR options. That features the flexibility to drag-and-drop prebuilt code blocks in a selected sequence to create a customized workflow, executing arbitrary API calls to function one-click response actions and creating guidelines to set off workflows primarily based off a schedule or another standards.

We now have been utilizing XDR Automate at Black Hat for 3 years to enhance the Cisco providers to our joint buyer, Black Hat, and have applied a wide range of use instances. Nevertheless, this has sometimes required fairly a little bit of time to be taught APIs and create a totally customized workflow. With the newest XDR Automation Change, the Change web page is used to search out, view, set up and uninstall pre-written workflows which have been launched or accepted by Cisco engineers and content material suppliers. Workflows authored by the group have handed a fundamental high quality test and are supported by the Cisco DevNet Community on a best-effort foundation. The Exchanges helps allow collaboration between workflow creators and moreover reduces the time it takes for a person to expertise worth from XDR automation.

Shout out to Ivan Berlinson, who wrote a workflow to drag menace logs from the Palo Alto Networks API and create Incidents in Cisco XDR. Since Ivan was variety sufficient to publish the workflow to the Change, it was extraordinarily simple to import the workflow and get it operational. Putting in a workflow from the trade is actually like strolling by means of a configuration wizard. It features a description of what the workflow does, the required targets and variables, in addition to a contact individual for assist. Here’s what the workflow appears like within the Change simply earlier than set up.

This workflow requires Automation distant, on-premises digital machine deployed over ESXi to make sure correct connectivity to the Palo Alto Panorama equipment. Shoutout to Matt Vander Horst who helped with the vCenter required to deploy the Automation distant equipment. The Change prompts the person to offer values for the required variables and choose the suitable on-premises goal.

Then the workflow is put in and scheduled to run each quarter-hour through an automation rule.

This workflow makes use of the PAN-OS XML API to question for menace logs at this path <?kind=log&log-type=menace&nlogs=50>. This kicks off a search job. As soon as the search job is completed, the workflow retrieves the outcomes and begins parsing the menace logs. A Cisco Menace Intelligence Mannequin (CTIM) sighting is created for every particular person menace log and grouped collectively by inside host IP. Subsequent, a CTIM indicator with the outline of the menace log and a relationship to the corresponding sighting are each created. Lastly, an incident bundle is created with the sighting, relationship and indicator entities and posted to the XDR API. The workflow has logic inbuilt to test for duplicate incidents and present indicators.

Here’s what one of many incidents that was created from this automation workflow appears like in Cisco XDR. This gave us as analysts within the SOC an important start line for an investigation.

These Palo Alto Community menace logs point out a listing traversal assault that goals to entry recordsdata and directories which are saved outdoors the online root folder. PAN Firewall alerts on listing traversal and accessing </and so forth/passwd> from supply IP 192.168.130.86 on common attendee Wi-Fi to vacation spot IP <104[.]198.XXX.2XX>, which resolves to < yXXXXis[.]social gathering>. This area is marked as suspicious by a number of menace intelligence sources and has a medium threat rating of 72 in Cisco Umbrella. The host then proceeded to obtain recordsdata from <file://var/run/secrets and techniques/> host with fundamental authentication within the HTTP POST header. This exercise was then correlated to comparable classroom exercise, however the host MAC tackle was not seen in any school rooms.

The vacation spot IP exhibits unknown with XDR menace intelligence, however the area it resolves to appears to be suspicious and it’s hosted within the Russian Federation, as seen within the Umbrella console. Listed below are extra particulars offered by the Corelight crew in our energetic Menace Looking Slack chanel: HTTP POST exercise to the vacation spot in query exhibits a fundamental authentication token that decodes to <admin:p034BHUSA43op> which does appear to be it’s getting used for Black Hat coaching because it says BHUSA within the password. Nevertheless, this supply host’s MAC tackle was not seen in any school rooms, solely on the overall Wi-Fi.

We did discover the host making comparable queries like <uri = /token$/ uri=/kubernetes/>, which had been seen within the Superior Infrastructure Hacking class, however it’s not sufficient to attribute this exercise to a category. Anyhow, this habits sometimes shouldn’t be seen on the overall Wi-Fi. On this situation, we didn’t take any motion of blocking the vacation spot IP or forcing a captive portal for host IP because the Black Hat community goals to watch for assault and abuse, however not block malicious visitors.

Ivan Berlison additionally offered one other workflow to provide an XDR Incident when a file is convicted in Cisco Safe Malware analytics. Corelight, in addition to NetWitness, carve recordsdata off the community and submit them to be detonated in Safe Malware Analytics. Here’s what the XDR incident appears like when a file with a menace rating above 90 is seen:

We had an exquisite time innovating and investigating at Black Hat USA 2024! The XDR automation trade was an enormous help in including extra automation capabilities with very minimal customized work. Try AJ Shipley’s blog on how utilizing Cisco XDR at Black Hat has accelerated our open ecosystem. We’ll be again once more subsequent 12 months, so lengthy Black Hat!

Splunk Assault Analyzer (SAA)

By: Ryan MacLennan

Splunk Assault Analyzer (SAA) is a brand new addition to our deployment. As you might know, Cisco acquired Splunk this 12 months. Due to this new acquisition we labored with our counterparts in Splunk to get their SAA product provisioned for our use at Black Hat. SAA is a file and URL evaluation platform just like Safe Malware Analytics. SAA makes use of a complicated set of standards to find out which engine can be greatest suited to evaluation — like net analyzer, static file evaluation, e mail analyzer, signature engines and/or the sandbox. Whereas the product is able to dynamic and static evaluation, we selected to do solely static evaluation for our use at Black Hat.

What is actually highly effective concerning the evaluation of SAA is its assault chain following functionality: The power to intelligently decide how a human would click on on objects in a webpage. It’s going to observe hyperlinks, obtain recordsdata and analyze extra indicators from community connections, recognized malicious recordsdata, an unknown malicious file that’s analyzed on the fly, phishing domains and extra. It’s going to observe a logical move like a human to find out the trail to compromise. This was attention-grabbing to see in our surroundings because it confirmed the trail from a file, the hyperlinks present in it, to totally different web sites, and every step of the trail had a screenshot for us to observe alongside.

For example, we’ve a PDF that was submitted to SAA. It discovered hyperlinks within the file and adopted them to see if they’d result in one thing malicious. I’ve blocked out many of the URLs, however we are able to see the way it went by means of the PDF knowledge and clicked on the hyperlinks to search out out the place it might go.

After SAA did its factor, we might take a look at the file in query and the screenshots that it took. We discovered that this file was the information utilized in a coaching room and every hyperlink was a reference to an article, a coaching useful resource (self-hosted and official), or different informational assets a pupil may have.

We had been in a position so as to add this integration with the assistance of our associate Corelight. We talked to them on day one they usually had been excited to get a brand new integration developed with SAA. Just a few hours later, we had an integration with them. This was an incredible instance of how all of us come collectively to make the NOC higher at Black Hat yearly.

Umbrella DNS

By: Christian Clasen and Justin Murphy

If in case you have learn the earlier Black Hat NOC/SOC reviews, you recognize that in 2023, we made a change to the DNS design. In prior conferences, we assigned inside forwarders to purchasers through DHCP, however didn’t pressure their use. Basically, attendees might use any DNS resolvers they selected, and we didn’t intrude. The change we applied was to start forcibly redirecting DNS visitors to the on-premises DNS forwarders. You’ll be able to see within the statistics above that this alteration brought on a major leap in queries processed by Cisco Umbrella — from 54.4 million to 79.3 million.

The steep improve in question depend was not sudden. What was sudden, nonetheless, was a lower in question depend between 2023 and 2024. Whereas we don’t know the exact reason for this drop, we do have some theories and methods we are able to check them going ahead.

One doable clarification is the prevalence of encrypted DNS protocols. In recent times, the business has turned its consideration to the privateness, integrity and authenticity issues inherent within the plain-text DNS protocol. To resolve a few of these points, “last-mile” encryption has change into a favourite of OS and browser distributors. DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) and DNS-over-TLS (DoT) are solely a few the most well-liked methods to encrypt DNS between the shopper and the recursive resolver.

Detecting all encrypted DNS could be tough and counting the queries inconceivable. It’s because TCP is the chosen transport for DoH and DoT, and this permits the shopper to pipeline a number of queries over one long-lived TCP and TLS session. However what we are able to typically discover are the “bootstrap” plain-text DNS queries that allow to shopper to search out the encrypted DNS server. By operating a report in Umbrella for the class “DoH and DoT”, we are able to get a deal with on the most well-liked of those providers:

The entry for <dns.google> is almost certainly indicative of Android cellular units who use this DoT resolver by default. The depend of queries for that specific service is prone to be greater as a result of the periods on these units are recognized to be short-lived if queries are usually not frequent sufficient.

On this report, we additionally see “canary” domains similar to <canary.masks.icloud.com> and <use-application-dns.internet>. The latter area is utilized by Firefox to detect when it ought to fall again to unencrypted DNS on the community. Extra particulars on how Umbrella interacts with these is written up within the Umbrella support article for web browsers and DoH default.

Going ahead, we are going to observe the statistics of those protocols on the convention networks and see what different info we are able to collect utilizing the complete packet seize capabilities of our companions and the menace looking capabilities of Cisco XDR. You’ll be able to anticipate this subject to be expanded on within the subsequent convention report.

One of many major causes to a minimum of monitor DNS is to grasp traits and the way the community at Black Hat is getting used from a excessive stage. There are numerous insights that may be gained from forcing DNS by means of a centralized service with intelligence. DNS queries exist for locations that host every thing from Malware, Crypto Mining and Phishing to content material classes like Social Media, Finance and Unlawful Actions. Moreover, these domains could be categorized into particular purposes as nicely. With the App Discovery report in Umbrella, these domains are grouped by software, figuring out the potential use of 1000’s of purposes. This may very well be net apps or different desktop/cellular apps.

As at all times, we proceed to see an increase in app utilization at Black Hat:

• BHUSA 2019: ~3,600
• BHUSA 2021: ~2,600
• BHUSA 2022: ~6,300
• BHUSA 2023: ~7,500
• BHUSA 2024: ~9,300

This 12 months there was one stand out Utility Class that has been rising in recognition: Generative AI. It’s going to doubtless be no shock that there are extra attendees and their instruments utilizing Generative AI. We now have gone from seeing it as a footnote in logs to reporting it at RSAC 2024, as we noticed 80 totally different Generative AI instruments getting used.

Evaluate this to Black Hat 2024, only a few months later, the place the whole quantity has jumped to 194.

This doesn’t seem like only a distinction in conferences, however quite a rising development and acceptance of those instruments.

Community Assurance

By: Adam Kilgore, Shimei Cridlig, Shannon Wellington and Justin Murphy

The ThousandEyes deployment launched at Black Hat USA 2023 one 12 months in the past. At that convention, we spent many lengthy shifts creating the configurations, design, and procedures that shaped the premise for our convention protection. The deployment was additional improved and streamlined at Black Hat London and Black Hat Asia. At this 12 months’s Black Hat USA 2024, we had been able to increase our protection considerably whereas persevering with to refine our procedures.

New {hardware}

We added 20 Orange Pi units at Black Hat 2024, along with the 8 Raspberry Pi units we deployed in 2023. We’re nonetheless nicely in need of the proverbial thousand eyes, however 28 is much more than 8. We deployed our new fleet of Orange Pi units to watch the wi-fi community, whereas the outdated Raspberry Pi units had been used for wired monitoring of Registration, the NOC and core community units.

Orange Pi configuration

Mike Spicer put in numerous time to develop new configuration and deployment procedures for the Orange Pi units earlier than the convention. We had been in a position to make use of a script and a small native community to configure every Orange Pi with a particular SSID and PSK. As soon as the Pi units had been configured and the goal entry factors had been deployed, every Pi was walked to its goal coaching room the place it might mechanically hook up with the entry level (AP) on bootup and start operating its scheduled monitoring checks.

Even with the scripting and automation, the configuration stage nonetheless resulted in a mass of wires (pictured above). Deploying the Pi units resulted in additional strolling than the typical attendee would expertise in a convention (not pictured).

Expanded wi-fi protection

With the extra brokers, we had been capable of deploy to extra Black Hat coaching rooms. The expanded visibility allowed us to catch extra issues earlier than the coaching rooms went stay, together with a misconfigured PSK, an SSID that wasn’t broadcasting and an SSID that broadcast however didn’t have web connectivity. We’d like to have an agent for every coaching room for full visibility and validation heading into the convention, however we’re pleased with what we caught and the extra confidence the brokers offered heading into the coaching days.

Because the convention shifted from trainings to the briefing days, we shifted our protection from the most important coaching periods to massive briefing rooms and heavy-traffic areas like the doorway and Enterprise Corridor. Whereas we nonetheless needed to make powerful strategic selections about what to cowl and what to not cowl, we had been nonetheless capable of unfold brokers throughout every ground for common visibility.

Troubleshooting

Our experiences over the previous three conferences had produced well-established troubleshooting procedures and paperwork for the Raspberry Pi units, however the Orange Pi devicess introduced recent challenges. We had round 25% of our deployed Orange Pi units require troubleshooting through the first 24 hours after deployment, a regarding fee. Log evaluation revealed the wi-fi NIC turning into disconnected and the USB coming into a disconnect loop (the wi-fi NIC is linked through USB on the Orange Pi units). The issues with the wi-fi NIC and USB result in a recurring ThousandEyes agent core recordsdata — a tough set of issues.

Nevertheless, these points turned out to be remoted quite than widespread, and by the tip of the convention we had a full wi-fi deployment that was staying up all day and in a single day as nicely. For what turned out to be remoted wi-fi issues, we developed troubleshooting procedures and documentation.

Automated ticketing

A brand new ticketing system was rolled out at this convention that may create tickets in Slack primarily based on ThousandEyes knowledge or reported points. Beneath is a ticket created primarily based on TE alerts for a particular convention room through the first morning of briefings.

The dashboards in ThousandEyes allowed us to offer fast visible info that confirmed which convention rooms had been experiencing the worst latency, alongside a comparability of latency throughout reporting rooms.

The automated reviews behind every dashboard entry offered extra granular info, together with visitors path and the latency alongside every leg within the visitors path.

The brand new ticketing system allowed screenshots like those above to be aggregated within the ticket for crew communication and file holding.

Troubleshooting WorkflowOn 08/06/2024 at 15:00, we noticed excessive latency to our Inside Umbrella DNS check from the South Seas D Hallway and Enterprise Corridor Brokers. Notice that the links to the investigation views are offered as hyperlinks.

To slender down the view, we used a dashboard filter to give attention to the 2 Brokers.

This confirmed the excessive latency noticed by the 2 Brokers extended across multiple tests.

From right here, we drilled down on every check to test the person check outcomes.

Inside this view, we chosen a number of checks operating on each Brokers and compared the results.

We noticed that there was a latency spike reported by each Brokers.

To know the reason for the excessive latency, we drilled right down to Path Visualization.

We seen the excessive hyperlink delay between the Agent to its gateway. This means a difficulty both between the shopper and AP or between the AP and the server room with the router.

To substantiate the reason for the latency, we visited South Seas D. We ran extra checks to verify that the connection expertise match with the outcomes reported by the Agent. Reviewing the room and topology diagrams additional, we discovered that the AP protecting South Seas D was positioned in an adjoining room, and was broadcasting two SSIDs — one for the room it was positioned in, and the opposite for South Seas D. The mixture of the AP placement, the AP servicing two rooms, and the attendee quantity in South Seas D mixed to provide the latency noticed by the Agent. These findings had been shared with the wi-fi crew.

Cellular gadget administration at Black Hat: The function of Meraki Techniques Supervisor

By: Dalton Ross

The Black Hat cybersecurity occasion in Las Vegas is famend for its cutting-edge expertise and seamless attendee expertise. A essential element of this success lies in efficient cellular gadget administration (MDM). Since Black Hat USA 2021, we leveraged Cisco Meraki Systems Manager (SM) to deal with a wide range of duties essential to the occasion’s operations. Beneath is an in depth take a look at how the Meraki SM was deployed and the challenges confronted alongside the way in which.

Important roles of cellular units at Black Hat

Cellular units had been pivotal in a number of key areas:

1. Registration Kiosk iPad Units (~50 Units): Used at registration kiosks to streamline the attendee check-in course of, the place attendees scan a QR code for fast badge printing
2. Session Scanning iPad Units (~75 Units): Deployed throughout Black Hat periods to scan registered attendees into every session
3. Lead Retrieval Units (~800 Units): A considerable variety of units had been utilized on the present ground cubicles to swiftly gather sales space customer contact knowledge

Deliberate deployment for Meraki Techniques Supervisor

To make sure a clean deployment, our technique included a number of key steps:

1. Pre-State with Apple Automated System Enrollment (ADE): Earlier than cargo to the occasion location, all units had been pre-staged utilizing ADE. This allowed units to be configured with a recognized SSID for quicker deployment on website.
2. Segregated Delivery: Units had been to be shipped in three distinct groupings, every akin to one of many roles. This aimed to facilitate swift deployment upon arrival.
3. Dashboard Script for Function Affiliation: A customized dashboard script was ready to leverage the Meraki Dashboard API and simply affiliate enrolled units with their respective roles.
4. Automated Configuration Obtain: As soon as powered up, units had been anticipated to mechanically obtain any vital configurations or apps associated to their function, making them prepared for rapid deployment.
5. Well being Monitoring with Cisco ThousandEyes: ThousandEyes brokers had been to be deployed all through the venue to log SM well being at totally different occasion areas.
6. Submit-Occasion Manufacturing facility Reset: After the occasion, all units had been to be manufacturing unit erased earlier than being returned.

Challenges and workarounds

As in life, challenges arose that required fast considering and adaptation:

• Utility Listing Adjustments: A final-minute change to the applying record for session scanning units was required. Though we initially deliberate to have all configurations prepared beforehand, this sudden change was effectively managed utilizing the Techniques Supervisor with only a few clicks.
• ThousandEyes Agent Limitations: Since ThousandEyes brokers had been beta SM purchasers, they couldn’t precisely collect connectivity knowledge. This was an anticipated habits, but it surely posed a problem for efficient monitoring. To beat this, NOC members from Cisco ThousandEyes and Cisco Meraki collaborated to hack collectively a proof of idea. By way of exhausting work and a number of other iterations, we configured the ThousandEyes brokers to simulate gadget check-in visitors, mimicking legitimate SM purchasers.

Deploying Meraki Techniques Supervisor at Black Hat was an intricate however rewarding endeavor. Regardless of dealing with challenges, our crew demonstrated agility and innovation, making certain the occasion’s operations ran easily. The expertise underscored the significance of flexibility and fast drawback fixing in managing large-scale occasions.

By leveraging superior MDM options like Meraki Techniques Supervisor, we had been capable of present a seamless expertise for attendees and exhibitors alike, showcasing the facility of expertise in occasion administration.

We’re happy with the collaboration of the Cisco crew and the NOC companions. Black Hat Europe will likely be December 9-12, 2024 on the London eXcel Centre.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the Cisco NOC crew:

• Cisco Safe: Christian Clasen, Matt Vander Horst, Aditya Sankar, Ben Greenbaum, Ryan Maclennan, Adam Kilgore, Shimei Cridlig, Shannon Wellington and Justin Murphy, with distant assist by Jessica (Bair) Oppenheimer
• Meraki Techniques Supervisor: Dalton Ross, with distant assist by Paul Fidler and Connor Laughlin. Search for their report on The Meraki Blog.

Additionally, to our NOC companions:

• NetWitness (particularly Alessandro Zatti)
• Palo Alto Networks (particularly Jason Reverri and James Holland)
• Corelight (particularly Dustin Lee)
• Arista (particularly Jonathan Smith)
• Lumen and your entire Black Hat/Informa Tech employees (particularly Grifter ‘Neil Wyler,’ Bart Stump, Steve Fink, James Pope, Mike Spicer, Sandy Wenzel, Heather Williams, Jess Stafford and Steve Oldenbourg)

About Black Hat

Black Hat is the cybersecurity business’s most established and in-depth safety occasion sequence. Based in 1997, these annual, multi-day occasions present attendees with the newest in cybersecurity analysis, improvement, and traits. Pushed by the wants of the group, Black Hat occasions showcase content material immediately from the group by means of Briefings displays, Trainings programs, Summits, and extra. Because the occasion sequence the place all profession ranges and tutorial disciplines convene to collaborate, community, and talk about the cybersecurity matters that matter most to them, attendees can discover Black Hat occasions in the USA, Canada, Europe, Center East and Africa and Asia.

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