Unpatched Os

[Alethia Tiell]

Is there a way to hide the unpatched channels on the Live Summary Patched tab on my Nomad screen that I am using as a backup/remote to my Ion? They don't appear on the Ion, and in fact the unused channels are deleted in the Ion's patch.

Here's my thoughts on the channel screen: On the 500's, I was very comfortable with two screens making 400 channels. I really dig the zoom feature on the Eos. It is so much easier than changing your display resolution to see more/less channels. I will find a setting on the Eos that will give me something in that 400 channel neighborhood to be my standard Live screen look. When I program my own shows, I like to start with those 400 channels existing, but indicating an unpatched status. Then I am able to lay out my patch structure visually, with different systems in different areas of the screens. That way, until I have channel numbers memorized I only have to remember, say, that the cycs are in the bottom left, the ground row next to that, the fronts on top, washes in the middle, and so on. When working this way, I avoid deleting channels, as that shifts the grid around, mucking up my visual organization. Will (does) the flexichannel patched mode show all channels with an indication between patched and un, or is it only the channels that are patched with no fixed layout?

This report highlights how ransomware outcomes differ depending on the root cause of the attack. It compares the severity, financial cost, and operational impact of attacks that start with an exploited vulnerability with those where adversaries use compromised credentials to penetrate the organization. It also identifies the industry sectors most and least commonly exploited.

While all ransomware attacks have negative outcomes, those that start by exploiting unpatched vulnerabilities are particularly brutal for their victims. Organizations hit by attacks that began in this way report considerably more severe outcomes than those whose attacks started with compromised credentials, including a higher propensity to:

32% of ransomware attacks experienced by the survey respondents in the past year started with an exploited vulnerability. Diving deeper, we see that the proportion of ransomware attacks that began in this way varies considerably by industry:

This variation is likely impacted, in part, by the different technology solutions used and their associated patching challenges. Sectors such as energy, oil/gas, and utilities typically use a higher proportion of older technologies more prone to security gaps than many other sectors, and patches may not be available for legacy and end-of-life solutions.

As organizations grow, their IT infrastructures tend to grow with them. The larger the environment, the greater the challenge in understanding the attack surface and the more tools and technologies that need to be maintained.

This may be because adversaries who leverage unpatched vulnerabilities are more skilled at breaching backups. It may also reflect that organizations with an exposed attack surface have weaker backup protection. Whatever the cause, having your backups compromised reduces resilience against the full impact of the attack.

While the attack root cause has an almost negligible impact on the ransom payment sum, with the median amount coming in at $1.988M (exploited vulnerabilities) and $2M (compromised credentials), it does have a considerable impact on the funding of the ransom payment:

Looking more broadly at the propensity of insurance carriers to honor claims we see that one quarter (25%) of denied claims by organizations that experienced an exploited vulnerability were due to not having the required cyber defenses for the claim to be honored, compared to 12% of claims where adversaries used compromised credentials.

The ransom is just one element that contributes to the overall recovery cost from a ransomware attack. Leaving aside any ransom paid, the median overall recovery cost for ransomware attacks that start with an exploited vulnerability ($3M) is four times greater than for those that begin with compromised credentials ($750K).

This finding likely reflects the different remediation activities that victims need to undertake depending on the root cause, and their respective operational overheads. Patching a system or upgrading from an end-of-life product to a supported version may well be more time-consuming than resetting credentials. It may also be a result of the greater damage caused by exploited vulnerability attacks, including a greater likelihood of backup compromise and data encryption.

Sophos Managed Risk is a vulnerability and attack surface management service powered by industry-leading Tenable technology and delivered by a dedicated team of Sophos threat exposure and remediation experts. It addresses four critical use cases: attack surface visibility, continuous risk monitoring, vulnerability prioritization, and fast identification of new risks.

Sophos Endpoint includes more than 60 anti-exploitation capabilities that block the behaviors adversaries use to exploit an unpatched vulnerability, stopping both known vulnerabilities and zero-day threats. The anti-exploit capabilities deploy automatically from day one with no configuration or need for fine tuning.

Sophos Endpoint takes a comprehensive approach to protection without relying on one security technique. Web, application, and peripheral controls reduce your threat surface and block common attack vectors. AI, behavioral analysis, anti-ransomware, and other state-of-the-art technologies stop threats fast before they escalate.

The technical risk is one important aspect.
Another is any legal / commercial / accreditation requirements - check that there are no formal obligations around the use of end of life/non-patched systems. These typically include meeting an accreditation standard, legal T&Cs in contracts and insurances. Check insurance carefully - most organizations have some form of cyber insurance policy and it is 99% likely to require patching / non end of life (or be specifically listed on the policy).

A system is deemed critical, no modern analog, and no way to migrate to a new platform that is supportable (This should be HEAVILY challenged from the get go), but lets say it is true. Administration isolates that system, permits access only to people/stations/IPs/MACs/ports needing it through controlled channels and heavy logging. Any egress, same, allowed only if needed, very targeted, or denied.

One would think, but years have taught me, seldom to never.
Most people do not even think about it until something happens, and then scramble to find out what happened because they never thought about it.

They reset that lab multiple times before I told them that one of their laptops was the persistence and I was gaining access back to the lab before they had time to patch it, just so we could move along.

Making the matter worse, is soooo many manufacturers of cheap IOT stuff, focus on fool proof, app driven, end user experiences. Yet the fools prevail.
In their pursuit of the prefect profitable next, they reuse a lot of the same cheap HW from the same cheap manufacturers. This is not new, and not exclusive to IOT, but any yahoo with some knowledge of UART and can build a JTAG cable, can get into a huge swath of consumer electronics in minutes. There to discover what the developer did not care to disable, change from defaults, introduced with poor coding, etc.

Unpatched systems are definitely security concerns. Legacy, unpatched systems can be allowed to run in environments, but proper mitigating controls should be put into place, such as increased monitoring, putting it behind a FW to limit access whatever else the business feels is necessary.

If its on the network and accessable then any virus that spreads through network shares like SMBv1 (on windows for example) will find an own that computer. It will then be a zombie for what ever the malware wants it to do.

Glad to see I am not alone there, was starting to get worried. Also consider this, once they are in, they are in, given enough time they can be rather difficult to remove. I have gotten shells in network printers, networking equipment, and NVRs, even consulted on an incident where they were burrowed into IP phones. Those types of nests take time, and persistence.

Even the PWN2OWN competitions have had winners simply take the system with documented and forgotten patches. Never think for a second that someone that made it as far as into your network, is not looking for ANY vector, low hanging fruit or breeding a new hybrid fruit, they will pluck whatever they find.

As soon as these vulnerabilities are discovered and acknowledged by software vendors, patches are developed as a means of mitigating the identified risks. It is crucial to keep systems updated and patched using a clear patch management strategy. Failure to do so can leave systems exposed to potential exploits, as the threat actors are often aware of the vulnerabilities before patches are released.

Leaving software unpatched and vulnerable creates some serious security weaknesses. Just take a look at a few of the data breaches that have occurred in 2023 within some of the largest and most well-known companies.

On June 19th of 2023, Reddit was targeted by the BlackCat ransomware gang; the organization threatened to release 80GB of confidential data that they had stolen from servers earlier in the year. BlackCat demanded $4.5 million as payment and wanted Reddit to revoke its new pricing policy.

Automated patching is an indispensable tool for contemporary IT teams, offering a host of benefits that streamline and fortify operations. Firstly, it significantly reduces the manual workload, ensuring that software updates and vulnerability patches are consistently applied without the need for continuous oversight. This efficiency not only minimizes human error but also frees up IT professionals to focus on more strategic tasks and projects.

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