by Nexlogica Team | Feb 8, 2023 | Security
SQL Injection is a type of security vulnerability that occurs in web applications when user-supplied input is not properly validated or sanitized before being used in a SQL database query. This can allow attackers to inject malicious SQL code into the database, potentially compromising sensitive information and impacting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the data stored in the database.
How SQL Injection attacks are made
SQL Injection attacks are made by exploiting security vulnerabilities in web applications that interact with a SQL database. Here is the basic process of a SQL Injection attack:
- Input injection: The attacker provides malicious input to a web form or URL parameter, which is then incorporated into a SQL query executed by the application.
- Exploitation of vulnerability: The attacker’s input is used to modify the structure of the original SQL query in a way that allows the attacker to gain unauthorized access to sensitive information or to manipulate the data stored in the database.
- Execution of malicious code: The attacker’s modified SQL query is executed by the application, and the malicious code embedded in the query is executed on the database.
- Data theft or manipulation: The attacker can use the results of the SQL injection attack to steal sensitive information, modify data, or even take control of the database server itself.
Damages SQL Injection can cause
SQL Injection can cause significant harm to organizations and individuals by compromising the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data stored in a database. Some of the damage that can result from a successful SQL Injection attack include:
- Data theft: The attacker can access sensitive information, such as confidential user data, passwords, financial information.
- Data manipulation: The attacker can alter, modify, or delete important data from the database.
- Database server compromise: The attacker can gain unauthorized access to the underlying operating system and potentially take over the entire server.
- Denial of Service (DoS): The attacker can cause the database to crash, leading to denial of service for legitimate users.
- Reputation damage: A successful SQL injection attack can lead to negative publicity and loss of trust in the affected organization.
How to prevent SQL Injection attacks
To prevent SQL Injection attacks, it is important to validate user input, use parameterized queries, and follow other secure coding practices to ensure that user-supplied data is not directly incorporated into SQL queries.
There are several ways to protect against SQL Injection:
- Input Validation: Validate all user-supplied input to ensure it is of the correct type, length, format, and range before using it in a SQL query.
- Parameterized Queries: Use parameterized queries (also known as prepared statements) instead of dynamically building SQL queries using string concatenation or string substitution.
- Escaping Special Characters: Escape special characters in user-supplied input before using it in a SQL query.
- Stored Procedures: Use stored procedures to encapsulate complex business logic in the database, reducing the risk of SQL injection attacks.
- Least Privilege: Use the principle of least privilege by granting the minimum permissions necessary to the database users and applications.
- Regular Patches and Updates: Keep the database management system and all related software up-to-date with the latest security patches and updates.
- Network security: Implement strong network security measures, such as firewalls and secure authentication mechanisms, to protect the database from unauthorized access.
- Monitoring and Logging: Monitor the database for suspicious activity, and regularly review logs to detect any signs of a SQL injection attack.
By following these best practices and being vigilant about security, you can reduce the risk of a SQL injection attack and protect your database and its sensitive information.
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by Nexlogica Team | Jan 30, 2023 | Security
Increasing the efficiency of processes carried out within not only the IT industry but also the SEO industry requires companies to adopt new, unexpected measures. One of them is the introduction of special roles such as blackhat and whitehat.
Blackhat refers to unethical or illegal practices in the realm of computer security or hacking, usually with malicious intent. It involves unauthorized access to computer systems or networks for personal gain or to cause harm. Examples include hacking into computer systems without permission, distributing malware, and conducting online fraud or theft.
On the other hand, whitehat is a term used in the cybersecurity industry to describe ethical hacking practices. It involves the use of hacking techniques to identify security weaknesses in a computer system or network, with the goal of improving security. Whitehat hackers are often hired by organizations to test their defenses and help prevent unauthorized access or attacks.
Greyhat refers to hacking practices that fall between ethical (whitehat) and unethical (blackhat) behavior. Greyhat hackers may not have malicious intent, but they may engage in unauthorized access to computer systems or networks without permission. This behavior can range from harmless exploration to actions that may cause harm or violate laws. Greyhat activities blur the line between ethical and unethical behavior and can sometimes result in legal consequences.
Blackhat hacking should not be used at any time, as it involves unauthorized access to computer systems or networks, distribution of malware, and online fraud or theft. Engaging in these activities can result in serious legal consequences and harm to individuals and organizations.
Instead of blackhat hacking, organizations should use ethical hacking practices. Some common use cases include:
- Penetration testing: simulating a real-world attack on a system to identify vulnerabilities and assess the strength of security measures.
- Vulnerability assessments: regularly scanning systems for security weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
- Compliance testing: ensuring that systems and networks meet industry regulations and standards for security.
- Application security testing: evaluating the security of software applications before deployment.
These activities are performed with the owner’s permission and are designed to improve the overall security of a system or network.
The key difference between blackhat and whitehat hacking lies in the intention behind the actions and the methods used. Blackhat hacking is malicious and illegal, while whitehat hacking is ethical and done with the owner’s permission.
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by Nexlogica Team | Jan 10, 2023 | Security
Network security is constantly evolving. Here are some practices to follow:
Review the basics
Regular reviews of the basic elements of network security, including reminding employees of their own responsibilities, allows you to identify and correct elementary vulnerabilities. Strong password protocols are more important than one can think.
Ensure you have end-to-end visibility
Enterprises need end-to-end visibility to see everything that happens on your network in an instant, with all the high-fidelity metadata at your fingertips so you can know in real time how users, devices, systems and applications are behaving on the network.
Aggregate your data in a SIEM
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) technologies is a solution that helps organizations detect, analyze, and respond to security threats before they harm business operations. SIEM combines two functions: security information management and security event management. This combination provides real-time security monitoring, allowing teams to track and analyze events and maintain security data logs for auditing and compliance purposes.
Employ proactive threat hunting
Threat hunting is a proactive measure that can uncover anomalies in your network, such as non-human patterns, spikes of activity outside normal business hours and other red flags that may indicate an attack, insider theft or intentional destruction of data.
Have a response playbook
Many organizations are now shifting their resources from perimeter protection to incident response with a mindset of continuous compromise. An incident response playbook empowers teams with standard procedures and steps for responding and resolving incidents in real time. Playbooks can also include peacetime training and exercises, which will prepare the team for the next incident.
Hire a certified internal threat analyst
A cyber threat intelligence analyst takes all of the information derived from your threat intel program— from active threats to potential security weaknesses—and creates a plan that your defense teams can use to better target critical risks and risk apertures. That’s essential for your company to hire the best CTIA.
Access to the PCAP
PCAP is a valuable resource for file analysis and to monitor your network traffic. Packet collection tools like Wireshark allow you to collect network traffic and translate it into a format that’s human-readable. There are many reasons why PCAP is used to monitor networks. Some of the most common include monitoring bandwidth usage, identifying rogue DHCP servers, detecting malware, DNS resolution, and incident response.
Use a managed solution
A managed solution runs the daily operations of your business’ applications across product portfolios and in any cloud or on-premises environment. It provides the compliance, security, and availability you need and expect, freeing up in-house IT to focus on the core competencies of the business.
Compare real cost-effectiveness
When analyzing the total cost of ownership of your integration solutions, thoroughly evaluate both apparent and hidden software and hardware costs of integration tools. Even more importantly, you need to account for the costs related to implementing, supporting, maintaining, updating, and growing integrated environments. Integration resourcing costs represent a majority of overall integration costs. Leveraging Managed Services can help reduce integration costs.
You can find more information about Network Security in our blog and here.
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by Nexlogica Team | Dec 21, 2022 | Security
Google Workspace, formerly known as Google Apps and later G Suite, is a collection of cloud computing, productivity and collaboration tools, software and products developed and marketed by Google. It consists of Gmail, Contacts, Calendar, Meet and Chat for communication; Currents for employee engagement; Drive for storage; and the Google Docs Editors suite for content creation. An Admin Panel is provided for managing users and services. Depending on edition Google Workspace may also include the digital interactive whiteboard Jamboard and an option to purchase such add-ons as the telephony service Voice. The education edition adds a learning platform Google Classroom and today has the name Workspace for Education.
The company developed mechanism to increase the security of mail data served by the Workspace (Gmail) service, calling it Client-Side Encryption (CSE). The solution gives Workspace customers the opportunity to implement their own mail encryption system, so data is protected before it reaches Google servers. Once the customer has enabled this encryption option, all attachments, emails, and embedded images are encrypted. However, CSE does not encrypt items such as email headers, subjects, timestamps, and recipient lists. Google explains that with CSE, content encryption is handled directly in the customer’s browser before any data is uploaded or stored in the Google cloud. This way Google’s servers cannot access the encryption keys.
CSE differs in one important respect from end-to-end encryption. For CSE, customers use encryption keys that are generated and stored in a cloud-based key management service. Therefore, administrators can control the keys and see who has access to them, and can always revoke a user’s access to the keys. With E2EE encryption, administrators have no control over customer keys and who can use them. They also cannot see what content users have encrypted. Those testing this mechanism should note that it is disabled by default and can be enabled at the domain or group level. Only then can the user click on the padlock icon to add CSE encryption to any message.
Google Workspace Client-side encryption is currently available for the following services:
- Google Drive for web browser, Drive for Desktop (non-Google file formats only), and Drive on Android and iOS (view-only for non-Google file formats).
- Google Meet for web browser only. CSE support for the Meet mobile app and meeting room hardware will be available in a later release.
- Google Calendar (beta) for web browser only.
You can read more about CSE here.
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by Nexlogica Team | Nov 30, 2022 | Security
Sharing files is as simple as sending a link, and personal email accounts that shouldn’t have access to confidential documents can be added without IT teams knowing. In fact, over half of employees admit that they or a coworker have accidentally added their personal email accounts to company documents.
These personal email accounts usually have fewer protections than corporate accounts, leading to outsized security risks and headaches for admins. For example, a personal account could have access to a company file for months or years after the employee who owned it has left the organization.
IT and Security teams have zero to little visibility into this access, and fixes take up valuable time and resources.
Understand the scope of the problem
Identify risks through full visibility of personal account access.
To resolve issues with personal account access, companies must first understand the scope of their risks. With the right process and tooling, this should take almost no time and zero manual effort.
Create clear policies
Get stakeholder approval and ensure all employees understand security policies
Once a company has visibility into its personal account risk, it can begin creating policies. In our experience, policy creation is a process that requires conversations with key stakeholders, and, depending on a company’s size, a formal approval process.
Once policies have been aligned and approved, it’s important to make sure employees fully understand the policies they’ll be expected to abide by.
Educate and empower employees
Train employees and delegate processes to end-users to create a culture of security
Another key step to keeping company information secure is to train employees on risks and issues related to personal accounts. It’s vital to help employees first understand the problems so that they can take part in solutions.
Remediate problems and automate processes
Quickly fix issues through simple investigations and bulk remediation actions
A key step in the journey is cleaning up personal account access. However, without the right tooling and processes, this often takes lots of time and bandwidth for IT and Security teams.
Unauthorized or accidental access by personal accounts is one of the biggest risks companies deal with when keeping their sensitive data safe. And creating a culture of security and protecting company documents from this risk is not a simple task.
You can read more about Protecting Company Data From Personal Account Access here.
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by Nexlogica Team | Nov 23, 2022 | Security
You can secure your organization from risks of ransomware and recovery with a robust, fool-proof and tested plan. However, designing a ransomware incident response plan can be a daunting task, especially if you’re not sure where to start. These are 5 steps with key pointers and best practices for creating an effective ransomware response plan that is tailored to your organization’s specific needs.
1. Assess Risks | Validate Attack
Before you can begin building your ransomware response plan, you first need to assess your organization’s risks and vulnerabilities. Conduct a thorough risk assessment and threat analysis. This includes understanding the types of ransomware attacks that are most likely to occur, as well as identifying which systems and data are most at risk.
Validate that an attack is actually happening. There are a variety of malware – phishing, adware, or other malware infections that exhibit ransomware-like symptoms, such as strange file extensions, unusual emails or files, or system slowdowns. Proceed to the next steps if the two telling signs of ransomware are verified – your files are encrypted or locked.
2. Mitigate Risks | Contain Attack
Once you have assessed your organization’s risks and vulnerabilities, it’s time to start mitigating them. This may include implementing additional security measures, such as firewalls, intrusion detection/prevention systems (IDS/IPS), and anti-virus software. It’s also important to make sure that your employees are properly trained in how to identify and respond to ransomware attacks.
If you determine that an attack is in progress, it’s important to take steps to contain it. This may involve isolating infected systems, disabling network access from affected systems, quarantining infected files, and contacting law enforcement for assistance.
3. Respond to Attack | Recover Data
Once you have contained the ransomware attack, it’s time to start responding to it. This may include restoring systems and data from backup, removing ransomware infections, or contacting law enforcement. It’s important to have a well-defined Incident Response Plan (IRP) or a Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plan (BCDR) in place so that you can respond quickly and effectively to a ransomware attack. CIOs, CSOs, and IT managers outline processes that help their organization prepare for and recover from disruptive events.
Once you have contained and responded to the ransomware attack, your next priority will be to restore systems and data as quickly as possible. Depending on the scope of the attack, this may involve restoring data from backup and/or reinstalling affected systems from scratch. If you have followed the 3-2-1 best practice of backups, then your backup should be unaffected – on the cloud or offsite – such that you can restore the “last known good version”. It’s important to work closely with IT staff during this process to make sure that any necessary security patches or updates are applied before bringing affected systems back online.
4. Train Employees | Communicate and Coordinate
Turn your weakest link to your strongest with comprehensive, contextual, and regular cybersecurity training. Also, remember to keen it contextual by building governance into your systems such that alerts and red flag checks appear at pertinent times. For instance, on sharing files or folders advise employees to provide minimal access on a strict need-to-know basis.
As part of your ransomware response plan, it is important to outline clear communication and coordination with all relevant stakeholders throughout the incident response process. This includes working closely with IT teams, security personnel, legal teams, and other key stakeholders both within and outside your organization.
5. Retrospect and Improvise
Effective ransomware incident response requires coordination between multiple teams and individuals, both inside and outside your organization. Make sure that everyone involved in the response understands their roles and responsibilities, and that there is a clear chain of command so that decisions can be made quickly and effectively.
Once the ransomware attack has been contained and dealt with, it is important to take a step back and retrospectively analyze what happened. Performing a post-mortem analysis of a ransomware attack can help your organization learn from its mistakes and improve its defenses against future attacks.
Finally, it is important to continually monitor for new threats and risks related.
You can read more about Ransomware Incident Response Plan here.
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