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Category: Audit Logging

RMM Automation: Export List of AD Users Last Login Days Ago

As our business continues to grow our focus is on providing white labeled Tier 3 IT support services, RMM as a service, and co-managed IT services. This blog will be highlighting tips for using Powershell to get an Export List of AD Users Last Login was more than 90 Days Ago.

Research

You need to find out what the Organizational Unit (OU) path that you are trying to get the count from. The following command will list all OUs in the domain.

Get-ADOrganizationalUnit -Filter 'Name -like "*"' | Format-Table Name, DistinguishedName -A

If you want the entire organization then you will need the top level information which looks like DC=[DomainName],DC=local

Variables

$SearchOU = This is the full DistinguishedName from the above output.

Script Snippet

$InactiveDays = 90
$Days = (Get-Date).Adddays(-($InactiveDays))
  

Get-ADUser -Filter {LastLogonTimeStamp -lt $Days -and enabled -eq $true} -SearchBase $SearchOU -Properties LastLogonTimeStamp,UserPrincipalName |
  
select-object Name,mail,@{Name="Last Login Date"; Expression={[DateTime]::FromFileTime($_.lastLogonTimestamp).ToString('MM-dd-yyyy')}} | export-csv C:\support\inactive_Users.csv -notypeinformation

The script will take several seconds to run based on the number of users in the OU being searched. The output is saved to the local c:\support directory and you can modify this script to include the FTP upload based on our previous article – https://www.farmhousenetworking.com/rmm/automation/rmm-automation-export-log-files-to-ftp/ The script can also be easily modified to change the number of days since last login.

If your company is a MSP or wants to become one and automation just seems out of reach, then contact us to run your RMM for you.

Zero Trust – Endpoint Security

Endpoint Security - Clackamas, OR

This is the sixth in a series about the concept of Zero Trust, which means in the IT sense that you trust nothing and always verify everything surrounding and connected to your network. Today’s discussion will be on endpoint security. 

Endpoint Security

Endpoint security is a fancy term used to describe how the computers on the network are protected. This used to be done by antivirus but due to the complexity of the attacks hackers are using to compromise networks these days, the definition has expanded greatly. This now includes things like Enhanced Detection & Response software, Security Operations Centers, DNS Filtering, employee train and more. Here are some questions that you should be asking yourself:

  • Are your endpoints protected by antivirus or enhanced detection & response?
  • Is website traffic being monitored? Restricted?
  • Are your employees being trained in cyber security?
  • Are computer logs being monitored for malicious activity?
  • Would unusual or suspicious activity on a computer be noticed? Alerted on?
  • Do you have security permissions set on all file shares?
  • Do you have least privileged access configured on those shares?
  • Do you keep track of what software is installed on all workstations?
  • Do you block access to unauthorized software?
  • Are files encrypted on servers and workstations?
  • Are your mobile devices managed? Can you wipe them remotely?
  • Are USB ports blocking removeable storage devices?
  • Are endpoints set to automatically log-out?

If your company is going to use full disk encryption or has compliance requirements that you need consulting for, then contact us for assistance.

FBI Cyber Defense Best Practices

A recent briefing from the FBI’s Internet Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) detailed current best practices and industry standards for cyber defense. Here is a summation:

Cyber Defense Best Practices

  • Backups – Regularly back up data and verify its integrity. Backups are critical in ransomware; if you are infected, backups may be the only way to recover your critical data.
  • Training – Employees should be made aware of the threat of ransomware, how it is delivered, and trained on information security principles and techniques.
  • Patching – All endpoints should be patched as vulnerabilities are discovered. This can be made easier through a centralized patch management system.
  • Antivirus – Ensure anti-virus and anti-malware solutions are set to automatically update and that regular scans are conducted. Centrally managed is even better.
  • File Permissions – If a user only needs to read specific files, they should not have write-access to those files, directories, or shares. Configure access controls with least privilege in mind.
  • Macros – Disable macro scripts from Office files transmitted via email.
  • Program Execution Restrictions – Implement software restriction policies or other controls to prevent the execution of programs in common ransomware locations, such as temporary folders supporting popular internet browsers, and compression/decompression programs.
  • Remote Desktop Protocol – Employ best practices for use of RDP, including use of VPN, auditing your network for systems using RDP, closing unused RDP ports, applying two-factor authentication wherever possible, and logging RDP login attempts.
  • Software Whitelisting – Implement application whitelisting. Only allow systems to execute programs known and permitted by security policy. This one takes careful planning.
  • Virtualization – Use virtualized environments to execute operating system environments or specific programs. No physical access to servers makes hacking harder.
  • Network Segmentation – Implement physical and logical separation of networks and data for different organizational units. Keep guest traffic out of your business network.
  • No Saved Passwords – Require users to type information or enter a password when their system communicates with a website. Better yet use a password management tool.

If your company is going to use full disk encryption or has compliance requirements that you need consulting for, then contact us for assistance.

Where do you keep your passwords?

Farmhouse Networking has had a long standing policy that we do not keep a record of client passwords (except when needed for device administration). That is about to change, but before we talk about our new password policy let’s talk password storage:

Common Password Storage

Here are some popular places where many businesses store their passwords that make them very vulnerable to being stolen.

Passwords written on paper (that are not under lock and key):

  • On your desk under your keyboard (or taped underneath)
  • Under your stapler or desk decorations
  • On sticky notes stuck to your monitor or desk
  • On a scrap of paper on your desk or in a drawer
  • In a notebook or address book
  • In a old-fashioned Rolodex file
  • Paper printouts or photocopies of your passwords

Anyone with access to your office could easily find and steal passwords stored like this.

Passwords stored in your computer (without using encryption):

  • Remembered in your web browser
  • A document called “Passwords” that you’ve created anywhere on your computer, perhaps using Microsoft Word or Excel
  • A document with any other name on your computer (including the password as the name)
  • Email drafts that you’ve created (but not sent) containing password information

Anyone with access to your computer could easily find and steal passwords stored like this, including both a person with physical access to it as well as a virus or hacker gaining access via the internet, or scamming you into granting them access, even once.

Passwords stored in your smartphone or tablet (without using encryption):

  • Electronic “Notes” containing password information
  • Other documents or emails similar to the ones listed in computer storage above

Anyone with access to your device could easily find and steal passwords stored like this.

Passwords sent via regular (insecure) email:

  • Emails that you have sent to yourself containing password information
  • Emails that you have sent to anyone else containing password information

Any information that you send using regular (unencrypted) email puts that information at risk of being stolen. Email is neither private nor secure. Sending an email is like mailing a postcard, and hackers and thieves can easily read the contents. You should never send passwords (or any other confidential or sensitive data) via regular email.

Secure Password Storage

Now for the discussion of Farmhouse Networking’s new password policy. We are partnering with a company to provide a storage of passwords and other client documentation with military grade encryption. This partnership also allows us to address the dangers that common password storage present by offering our clients this same encrypted password storage service. Here are some of the benefits of this service:

  • Unlimited users
  • Unlimited passwords
  • Each user has a personal password vault
  • Shared company password vault
  • Security groups to manage access
  • Auditing & reporting (Compliance)
  • Secure password sharing
  • 1-Click Login Tool (for all major browsers)
  • Mobile Device Access
  • Only $15 per month (Compared to Lastpass Business at $4 per user per month)

If your company is using common password storage of any kind do yourself a security favor and contact us to upgrade to secure password storage.

“Recent” Asante Employee Breach & Yahoo Hack

Very weird occurrence the other day, checked the post office box and found a letter regarding my son’s protected health information (PHI) had been improperly accessed in an Asante employee breach that started in 2014. Shortly there after upon returning home, found an email from Yahoo stating that they had been hacked back in 2014 and had just now finished their investigation which could have effected my wife’s personal email. Seems a strange coincidence that both firms had this happen two years ago and it took both firms two years to notice / do the investigation piece to rectify the situation. Here are some quotes from their responses:

Asante Employee Breach

“While Asante cannot provide details regarding the outcome of this internal investigation, we can assure you that we applied our employment policies and processes appropriately. A final audit of the employee’s actions showed that the employee inappropriately accessed records from August 18, 2014 to July 21, 2016 that may have included your child’s name, date of birth, medical records number, medications, diagnosis, and lab results… To date, we have no evidence that any patient information has been misused, nor do we have any reason to believe that the information will be misused. However, as a precaution, we wanted to notify you regarding this incident and assure you that we take it very seriously.”

Yahoo Hack

“A copy of certain user account information was stolen from our systems in late 2014 by what we believe is a state-sponsored actor… The stolen user account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords (the vast majority with bcrypt) and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers.”

So these two things were not related but it is scary to think that it took two years to notice this activity. Even if Asante believes that the employee didn’t do anything malicious with the information, it shows that their information access policies and audit logging on them is severely lacking. They need to step up their game and possibly adopt some behavioral based analysis of the audit logs for inappropriate access like this in the future.

As for Yahoo, why are some of the security questions unencrypted while others were and were the passwords just hashed? If a state-sponsored actor had unsalted password hashes for two years before being detected then the likelihood of them being able to crack the passwords is extremely high. They also state that they are working closely with law enforcement on this one, but what is law enforcement going to do against another government’s hacking crew (aka state-sponsored actor)?

If your company is unsure of its information security posture or needs an evaluation of audit logging / reporting, then contact us for assistance.

Windows Event Logs Intrusion Detection

Big thanks go out to the folks at SANS Institute for this write-up on Detecting Security Incidents Using Windows Workstation Event Logs that gave the guidance for this article on Windows Event Logs Intrusion Detection. These are the basics of creating Custom Views in Event Viewer on Microsoft Windows 2012, but the actual monitoring for these events should be done by more complex log parsing software that is beyond the scope of this article. Here are the basic steps towards finding these events:

Create Windows Event Logs Intrusion Detection Custom View

  1. Open Event Viewer
  2. Right click on Custom Views then choose “Create Custom View…”
  3. Make sure to select all event levels and all Windows Logs
    Windows Event Log - Create Custom View
  4. Add the following event id numbers into the space provided:

    1001,4624,4625,4657,4688,4697,4698,7034,7035,7036,7040,64004

  5. Click OK. Give the Custom View a name then Click OK again.
  6. Right click on the newly created Custom View and select “Attach Task To This Custom View…”
  7. Work through the wizard based interface and select the desired task. Email is a nice one but is depreciated and will require the setup of an SMTP Relay unless there is an onsite Exchange server or dedicated email setup for this purpose with your email provider.

These are just the basics the article from SANS goes into greater depth on how to configure event log monitoring software to parse these for you. Better yet contact us to setup remote monitoring and maintenance to do the heavy lifting for you.

File Server Audit Logging via Group Policy

Recently going through the HIPAA compliance standards and dealing with “accidentally” deleted items on a file share has lead to a need for a standard file server audit logging policy that can be deployed to all servers via Group Policy Object (GPO). Here is the summation of my research:

File Server Audit Logging Policy GPO

1. Create a GPO and name it File Server Audit Policy
2. Set the following settings to enable advanced features and disable shutdown:

[Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options\]
Audit: Force audit policy subcategory settings (Windows Vista or later) to override audit policy category settings – Enabled
Audit: Shut down system immediately if unable to log security audits – Disabled

3. Move down the tree structure to the following and edit these various auditing settings:

[Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Advanced Audit Policy Configuration\Audit Policies\]
Account Logon: Credential Validation – Success and Failure
Account Management: Computer Account Management – Success
Account Management: Other Account Management Events – Success and Failure
Account Management: Security Group Management – Success and Failure
Account Management: User Account Management – Success and Failure
Detailed Tracking: Process Creation – Success
Logon-Logoff: Logoff – Success
Logon-Logoff: Logon – Success and Failure
Logon-Logoff: Special Logon – Success
Object Access: File System – Success
Policy Change: Audit Policy Change – Success and Failure
Policy Change: Authentication Policy Change – Success
Privilege Use: Sensitive Privilege Use – Success and Failure
System: IPsec Driver – Success and Failure
System: Security State Change – Success and Failure
System: Security System Extension – Success and Failure
System: System Integrity – Success and Failure

4. Change the following Maximum Log Size (KB) settings according to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957662:

[Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Event Log Service\Security\]

5. Open the Properties of the shared folder needing Auditing, click on Security tab and then on the Advanced button
Folder Security Properties Page
6. Click on the Auditing tab, if there is UAC prompt then click Continue and then click on the Add button

Folder Advanced Security Settings
7. Click on Select Principal, search for the Everyone security group and then click on the OK button
8. Change the Type to All, click on Show advanced permissions, check the boxes next to “Delete subfolders and files” and “Delete” and then click on the OK button
File Server Audit Logging Entry
9. Put a check next to “Replace all child object auditing with inheritable auditing from this object then click on the OK button
If your company is using a Windows Server for network file access and need help getting the File Server Audit Logging setup property for HIPAA compliance, then contact us for assistance.

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