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Why networks are vulnerable?

No matter how many people manage and automation is carried out, the networks and its components are bound to be vulnerable. This is because the network configurations keep on changing however, those may not always be carried out in a secure way. Strict procedures and policies are required but it is observed that those usually fail to get into the intricacies of network configurations. For example - a firewall change being performed to close a port needs to be done carefully; else, it will fix an intended port but may inadvertently open another port or an entire network segment.

Besides this, the inherent security vulnerabilities in the firmwares of various components may be insecure by design. Incorporating such components (for ex - firewalls, switches, servers etc), can render the network insecure.





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How Network VAPT can impact the organization in a good way?



Time and again it had been observed that and internal vulnerability assessment can expose the default userid and passwords. Or in some cases it exposes a bunch of servers which were never patched in years. If a carefully prepared network vapt checklist is used, such loopholes can be brought to surface, thus increasing the overall network security posture of the organization.

In some cases it can also help expose few vulnerabilities which can potentially result into serious data thefts. On the same note, getting network pentesting performed by a technically best and known top network security company can really add value. Organizations are found to save money and time along with the reputation, if they perform the pentesting periodically via carefully designed processes.

Network Security Vulnerabilities and Impact

Following table shows that various types of vulnerabilities can result into serious damages to the organization. This table is for reference purpose only, while network security vapt should include appropriate methods and tools.

Vulnerability
Risk
Impact

Externally open port on firewall

External data theft or denial of service attack
Data theft

Internal unpatched server

Internal data theft or malware attack
Intellectual property loss or service unavailability

Firewall misconfigured

Internal or external data theft or malicious remote control

Data theft

Default userid and passwords allowed on a database server.

Internal data leakage or malware attack
Intellectual property

Running old firmware on network components

Targeted malware attack
Reputational and monetary loss

What Valency Networks Offers?

Valency Networks is a team of certified professionals who perform technically advanced attacks while performing network pentesting (VAPT) for an organization. Below list shows a gist of the security testing.

Exploit Categories

  • IP network exploits

  • Firewall device evasion

  • Router device evasion

  • Intrusion detection system bypassing

  • Perimeter defence exploits

  • L2-L3 switch exploits

  • VPN Exploits

Vulnerabilities Detected

  • IP ports (TCP / UDP) vulnerabilities

  • Device Detection

  • Service Mapping

  • Service Penetration

  • Device misconfiguration exploitation

  • Device Penetration

Standards Followed

  • OWASP Top 10 - 2014

  • NIST - CWE Standard

  • ISO27001:2013 Compliance

Test Approaches

  • Externally over Internet

  • Internally from within LAN

Advanced Network Security Attacks

Any corporate network undergoes lots of attacks over a period of time. While performing network pentesting, it becomes important to include those attacks in the penetration testing contract with the vendor company. Below is a list of few key attacks which matter a lot to corporates from information security standpoint.

DOS ATTACK

DoS attacks today are part of every Internet user's life. They are happening all the time, and all the Internet users, as a community, have some part in creating them, suffering from them or even loosing time and money because of them. DoS attacks do not have anything to do with breaking into computers, taking control over remote hosts on the Internet or stealing privileged information like credit card numbers.

Using the Internet way of speaking DoS is neither a Hack nor a Crack. It is a whole new and different subject. This section is entirely devoted to denial of service attacks and its variants. Here, we present a broad definition of this kind of network threat, and examples of the most common attacks.

WIFI SECURITY

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Wireless security is something that most everyone wants, but which few actually use. Barriers to use include throughput loss in older 802.11b products, WEP's ability to be cracked, and di culty in getting the darned thing working!

What are the risk of wifi security

Unauthorized connections, Stealing bandwidth, Attacks on your systems from inside firewall, Attacks on 3, rd party systems that appear to be from you! Information leakage, Eavesdroppers capturing sensitive information, Often can be done from greater range than normal.

DDOS ATTACK

DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks would, usually, be generated by a very large number of hosts. These hosts might be amplifiers1 or reflectors2 of some kind, or even might be zombies' (agent program, which connects back to a pre-defined master hosts) who were planted on remote hosts and have been waiting for the command to attack' a victim. It is quite common to see attacks generated by hundreds of hosts, generating hundreds of megabits per second floods. The main tool of DDoS is bulk flooding, where an attacker or attackers flood the victim with as many packets as they can in order to overwhelm the victim. The best way to demonstrate what a DDoS attack does to a web server is to think on what would happen if all the population of a city decided at the same moment to go and stand in the line of the local shop.

  • Make sure the network has a firewall up that aggressively keeps everything out except legal traffic.
  • Implement router filters. This will lessen the exposure to certain denial-of-service attacks. Additionally, it will aid in preventing users on network from effectively launching certain denial-of-service attacks.
  • Install patches to guard against TCP/IP attacks. This will substantially reduce the exposure to these attacks but may not eliminate the risk entirely.
  • Disable any unused or unneeded network services. This can limit the ability of an intruder to take advantage of those services to execute a denial-of-service attack.
  • Observe the system performance and establish baselines for ordinary activity. Use the baseline to gauge unusual levels of disk activity, CPU usage, or network traffic.
  • Keep the anti-viral software up to date. This will prevent the site becoming a home for DDoS agents like TFN.
  • Invest in redundant and fault-tolerant network configurations. Besides the rules listed above, it is important for a network administrator, or even a machine administrator, to keep current on the latest DDoS developments.

FIREWALL SCANNING

What Is a Firewall? A firewall is a system that enforces an access control policy between two networks?such as your private LAN and the unsafe, public Internet. The firewall determines which inside services can be accessed from the outside, and vice versa. The actual means by which this is accomplished varies widely, but in principle, the firewall can be thought of as a pair of mechanisms: one to block traffic, and one to permit traffic. A firewall is more than the locked front door to your network?it's your security guard as well.

Screening Levels :

A firewall can screen both incoming and outgoing traffic. Because incoming traffic poses a greater threat to the network, it's usually screened more closely than outgoing traffic. When you are looking at firewall hardware or software products, you'll probably hear about three types of screening that firewalls perform:

  • Screening that blocks any incoming data not specifically ordered by a user on the network
  • Screening by the address of the sender
  • Screening by the contents of the communication

NETWORK SCANNING



Network scanning involves using a port scanner to identify all hosts potentially connected to an organization's network, the network services operating on those hosts, such as the file transfer protocol (FTP) and hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP), and the specific application running the identified service, such as WU-FTPD, Internet Information Server (IIS) and Apache for the HTTP service.

The result of the scan is a comprehensive list of all active hosts and services, printers, switches, and routers operating in the address space scanned by the port-scanning tool, i.e., any device that has a network address or is accessible to any other device.

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All basic scanners will identify active hosts and open ports, but some scanners provide additional information on the scanned hosts. The information gathered during this open port scan will often identify the target operating system.

This process is called operating system fingerprinting. For example, if a host has TCP port 135 and 139 open, it is most likely a Windows NT or 2000 host. Other items such as the TCP packet sequence number generation and responses to ICMP packets, e.g., the TTL (Time To Live) field, also provide a clue to identifying the operating system.

What is the difference between exploit and payload ?

Exploit: It targets a vulnerability found on the system by executing a series of commands.

Payload: It a piece of code carefully written to the intended task. Once delivered, it gets executed on the machines and causes damage to the data.

How do I check my network security?

Listing down a few steps one can take to tighten the security around network.

  • Firewall: Firewall plays an important role in filtering out the traffic coming in and going out of the network. Check for inbound and outbound rules on the firewall and configure those to filter the traffic going to and from network.
  • Anti-virus: A good anti-virus software can help detect, prevent and remove viruses from a system.
  • Windows updates: Windows keeps releasing its updates on every second Tuesday of each month. It is important to patch your device so that it stays protected from underlying vulnerabilities and loopholes in the system.
  • VAPT: With so many tools in the market, one can do detailed analysis of the network to find out flaws and vulnerabilities in it. Tools like Nessus gives detailed description of the risk along with solutions to fix it.
  • Network Profile: Network profiles are of two kind, public and private. It is vital to select the right profile based on the network you are connected to.

Why is it important for companies to plan for internal threats ?

Internal threats refers to risks to data that stem from inside the organization due to poorly managed security of network, resources, assets and much more. According to Gartner, majority of attacks happen from within the organization.

Listing down a few of the factors that contribute to majority of the attacks.

  • Awareness: It all starts from how aware and informed employees are with respect to information security. Employees should be considered as important assets rather than weak links since they access, process and touch the data. They should be made conscious of the risks and threats that are lingering around and should be trained on how to handle data responsibly.
  • Access control: It is important to audit and analyse the level of access given to employees and management. Employees should be given access on least privilege basis. All accesses should be verified and terminated when an employee leaves the organization or when they are no longer necessary to an employee.
  • VAPT: A timely vulnerability analysis of all the network devices and infrastructure can play an important role when tightening the security. It is important to analyse what traffic is coming in and going out of the organization and blocking the malicious traffic immediately. An unpatched system and an unwanted open port is enough for an attacker to get inside the network and do the damage.

How to make my connection private ?

Private profile: When connected to a private network, your device will be discoverable by other devices on your Home or Work network. This can make sharing of files easy with other devices on the network.

Public profile: When you have a public profile, your device will be hidden from other devices on the network and won't be used for sharing of files and printer.

To make your profile private for wired network, open Start > Settings > Network & Internet > Ethernet then click your network adapter and choose the profile.

To make your profile private for wireless network, open Start > Settings > Network & Internet > Wi-Fi then click on the Wi-Fi you are connected to choose the profile.

To customize public or private profiles, open Start > Settings > Network & Internet >Network and Sharing center> Change Advance Sharing settings.

Should my network profile be public or private?

There is no one answer to it. It totally depends on what you want to do with the network and where you are at. You can use private profile when you are in the network you trust such as home or office. Private profile makes your device discoverable to other devices on the network by default. You can use public profile when you are connected to public Wi-Fi. Public profile hides your device from being discovered to other devices on the network.

Can a router be hacked?

Yes, your router can indeed be hacked, which can lead to a host of unfortunate situations like identity theft or the spread of vicious malware. At the same time, your network can also be used to attack other networks.

If router is compromised, the security of all of devices that use that router is in danger and can also be compromised. No router is 100-percent hack-proof. But there are certain steps one can take to minimize threats.

Some of the measures you can take are: Choose a model that possess better inherent protections against hacker, update your router periodically (either automatically or manually), Set a strong password and reboot the device once in a while.

What is a hidden WiFi network?

Most of the WiFi networks broadcast using the Service Set Identifier (SSID) which let other devices know that they are presence. There are some routers which do not broadcast their SSID and this is because the hidden network WiFi option has been turned on in the settings.

This hidden network WiFi stops the broadcasting of the network's SSID, which causes it to disappear and remain hidden to all devices that connect to WiFi networks.

Previously, activating the hidden network WiFi option used to be a popular security mechanism, however nowadays, due to the increase in technology there are many easy-to-use tools that have been introduced to find hidden networks and see detailed information about them.

What are the 3 main threats to a network?

The three main threats to a network are:

  • Malware:
    Malware is malicious software created to infect computer and devices to interrupt their operations and privately track victims' activities. It's one of the most widely spread and potentially damaging attacks. It can be widely spread in multiple organizations through softwares, emails, websites without getting detected by firewalls, IDS.
  • DoS/DDoS Attack:
    A successful DoS/DDoS attack happens when a device's ability to perform is hindered or prevented. DoS attacks uses a single system whereas DDoS attacks use multiple systems to flood the targeted network asset with traffic in order to disrupt operations. In many cases, the attackers hijack high-value targets in order to extort the organization.
  • Social Engineering:
    Social engineering attacks can be performed without technology by taking advantage of social methods of shoulder surfing, eavesdropping, phishing etc. for extracting information that wouldn't normally be given directly.
    One of the common social engineering attacks that have been increasing lately everyone with an email account have likely witnessed is phishing. An attacker sends an email message to a targeted group, with the email disguised to make it appear to be from some trusted source. By doing so if the targeted victims fail to identify the fraud email and tend to share their critical data, the attacker uses this extracted information to gain access to some targeted system by simply logging in with the user's credentials.

Our Culture

Valency Networks is a very agile, friendly and fun loving atmosphere and yet we maintain a cutting edge technical vibrant work environment.

Network Security Testing Features

Valency Networks is our only preferred vendor because the way they find vulnerabilities in our network is par excellence. We hired them on a long term contract to top up our perimeter and wish to continue with them.

CTO
Fortune 50 Manufaturing Company, Pune
Network Security Testing Features

Hardly goes a day when I have not learnt anything new in cyber security space and IT technologies.

Team-mate
for 6+ yrs
Network Security Testing Features

Working at Valency Networks helps me gain great knowledge everyday.

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for 3+ yrs