Wednesday 18 January 2017

A UNIX command a day -- ucare

sudo apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

How many times have you typed that, or called it up from command history?

There's a new utility I've discovered that, with one command, do better than that if you want a lean, clean system. And it claims to keep your Debian (Ubuntu) systems up to date and free from unused kernels, configurations, and cache. Here's what it does


  • Update all available packages
  • Update your Ubuntu system.
  • Download and install updates.
  • Check for the list of old Linux Kernels and uninstall them
  • Clear the apt cache folder
  • Uninstall packages that are obsolete and no longer needed
  • Uninstall orphaned packages
  • Delete package settings (from software you have previously uninstalled)
To install:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:utappia/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ucaresystem-core

To run:

sudo ucaresystem-core

Note that it may restart so if you're updating a server, plan for this.



Wednesday 19 October 2016

Powershell and 'net use' with ampersand

So I had to make a script to transfer some files over the network using Robocopy.  And the password has an ampersand in it, so Robocopy parsed the password into a new command. D'oh!

Some documents say prepend the & with ^ (^&). Some say surround in double quotes ("&"). The error message Powershell gives you is to wrap in double quotes. It even shows you an example! ("&")

But it is wrong. In Powershell you have to wrap the ampersand in single quotes ('&').

 net use \\TO_DOMAIN_OR_IP\g$ /user:TODOMAIN\TOUSER pass'&'word
 robocopy c:\backups\folder\ \\TO_DOMAIN_OR_IP\c$\backups\ /Z /MIR

Good luck!

Monday 16 December 2013

OSSEC Server System Hardening

Your Intrusion Detection System is only as secure as the system it is build upon. From the official OSSEC Host-Based Intrusion Detection Guide, the following are tips for hardening your server's OS:


Some guidelines to remember for OSSEC HIDS server operating system hardening:
  • The system must be dedicated to the OSSEC HIDS server and provide no other services to the network.
  • Unnecessary software must never be installed on the server.
  • All non-OSSEC HIDS ports must be blocked.
  • If SSH access is required to the system, it must be restricted to other secure hosts.
  • If used, the WUI must only be accessible from other secured hosts.
  • The OSSEC HIDS server system must not be part of the main network authentication domain.
  • All documented techniques for hardening the chosen operating system must be followed before installing the OSSEC HIDS.
These suggestions are all intended as preventative measures to reduce the risk of unauthorized access. They also make rootkit and Trojan installation extremely difficult even during a major incursion into your network.
There are many resources available for system hardening. Thankfully, the OSSEC HIDS server does not run on Windows platforms so system hardening is not complicated. Here are some starting points for Linux system hardening:

OSSEC Rules

There are a series of rules.xml files in /var/ossec/rules

To customize rules, change only the local_rules.xml file.

During the upgrade process, the scripts overwrite all rules files, except the local_rules.xml file.
Any user rule created to replace a preexisting OSSEC HIDS rule must contain the overwrite="yes" option within the rule.

Rules are applied as follows:
-an Event is logged
-Pre-Decoding is done on event
-Decoding is done on event
-Rule Matching is applied
-Alerting is triggered, either to DB storage, to Email Alert, or to Active Response

Event

Sample logged event:
 
Apr 14 17:32:06 linux_server sshd[1025]: Accepted password for dcid from
192.168.2.180 port 1618 ssh2
 

Pre-Decoding

Extracts hostname, program_name, datestamp, and log message of event.

Decoding

Decoder options available:

program_name
Executes the decoder if the program_name matches the syslog program name.
prematch
Executes the decoder if prematch matches any portion of the log field.
regex
Regular expression to specify where each field is.
offset
Attribute of regex. It can be after_prematch or after_parent. It essentially tells the regex where to start computing the expression.
order
Order within the regular expression. It can be all the fields in the normalized event (srcip, user, dstip, dstport, etc.)
parent
Parent decoder that must be matched for this decoder to be called.

Example rule to extract user and srcip from sshd:

<decoder name="sshd-test">
  <program_name>sshd</program_name>
  <regex>^Accepted \S+ for (\S+) from (\S+) port </regex>
  <order>user, srcip</order>
</decoder>

Extracts dcid as user, and 192.168.2.180 as srcip from sample event:


Apr 14 17:32:06 linux_server sshd[1025]: Accepted password for dcid from
192.168.2.180 port 1618 ssh2

See /var/ossec/etc/decoder.xml for existing decoder examples.

Rule Matching 

There are two kinds of OSSEC Rules: atomic and composite.


There are two types of OSSEC HIDS rules: Atomic, which are based on single events without any correlation; and Composite, which are based on multiple events.

Important note from manual:

User-defined rules should range from 100,000 to 119,999. If you choose any other ID, it might collide with the official ones from the OSSEC HIDS project
Custom Decoders and Rules
OSSEC Rules syntax.
Rule Alert levels

Alerting

OSSEC Output and Alert Options

Active Responses

OSSEC Agent Configuration

There are two files which manage configuration options, ossec.conf and agent.conf.

ossec.conf is present on both server and agents, and agent.conf is a file you can create on the server to have configurations pushed out to clients, possibly based on agent host name or OS type.

Default locations are /var/ossec/etc/ossec.conf, and /var/ossec/etc/shared/agent.conf

Official Documentation is here.

The OSSEC server manager only re-reads configuration files every few hours, so restarting the manager will push the configuration files more quickly. Once the configuration is pushed, run agent_control to ensure the configuration was pushed:

agent_control -i 002 #assuming 002 is the id of the agent

And then restart the agent remotely:

agent_control -R 002#assuming 002 is the id of the agent


Sample configuration sections:

File Integrity Monitoring

<agent_config os="Windows">
    <syscheck>
        <directories check_all="yes">C:\ossec_test</directories>
        <scan_time>10am</scan_time>
        <scan_day>friday</scan_day>
        <frequency>360</frequency>
    </syscheck>
</agent_config>

Note: All queries are recursive, so only the directory must be specified. You do not need to specify all the files within the directory to monitor the directory contents.


To run syscheck manually on all agents:

    /var/ossec/bin/agent_control -r -a 

To run syscheck manually on agent 002:
 
    /var/ossec/bin/agent_control -r -u 002 

Rootkit Detection

<agent_config name="agent1">
    <rootcheck>
        <location>/var/log/my.log</location>
        <log_format>syslog</log_format>
    </rootcheck>
</agent_config>

Log Analysis


<agent_config os="Linux">
    <localfile>
        <location>/var/log/my.log</location>
        <log_format>syslog</log_format>
    </localfile>
</agent_config>

Thursday 12 December 2013

OSSEC Installation Tutorial for File Integrity Montoring

Intro


We have used Osiris File Integrity Monitor for several years at work, to satisfy PCI DSS Section 11.5. (PCI Compliance, or Payment Card Industry Compliance, is something your business has to achieve to process credit card payments, and includes rules your business must follow. See here.) It has worked well, but lately we have noticed Osiris processes running out-of-control and pinning the CPU on our production servers. We have used compensating controls to produce an Intrusion Detection System, as commercial packages such as Tripwire, though very good,  are very costly (like $30K/year). Osiris has not been under active development since 2007. I updated the fine open-source code and compiled new agents to install on Windows 7 computers, and have happily shared this with many people over the years who discover and decide to use this software. However old, it worked. But it's time to move on...

Still budget-constrained, our organization has decided to go with OSSEC. the Open Source SECurity Host-based Intrusion Detection System. We're just getting started with the File Integrity Monitoring part, but OSSEC also performs log analysis, policy monitoring, real-time alerting and active response. All big-ticket items in PCI Compliance. It will also do rootkit detection, which is a bonus.

Following are some notes on how to get your File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) set up. OSSEC server requires a *nix system, while client agents are available for PC/Linux/Mac/BSD/Solaris.

I will set up the OSSEC server on an Ubuntu Server 12.04 (LTS) VM running in VMPlayer, connected to my Windows 7 box. Our production environment is 100% Windows, so we will need a separate *nix server to use this software. Going forward, using OSSEC will be worth it as we use more features of OSSEC to satisfy our PCI Compliance needs.

Instructions

This tutorial assumes you are doing this on a Windows machine, and running the test VM on this machine.

Prepare the VM


Download the following files:

Download VMWare Player and Ubuntu Server iso.
Install VMWare Player.
Open VMWare Player, create a new VM. Select Ubuntu, select the iso file you downloaded.
Boot into the Ubuntu VM.
Install gcc:

    sudo apt-get install gcc make 


Install OSSEC


Get OSSEC:

    wget http://www.ossec.net/files/ossec-hids-2.7.1.tar.gz
    wget http://www.ossec.net/files/ossec-hids-2.7.1-checksum.txt
    wget http://www.ossec.net/files/ossec-agent-win32-2.7.1.exe
    wget http://www.ossec.net/files/ossec-agent-win32-2.7.1-checksum.txt

Unpack and verify file intergrity:

    cat ossec-hids-2.7.1-checksum.txt
    [this will show the MD5 and SHA1 hash values]
    sha1sum ossec-hids-2.7.1.tar.gz
    [this will show the SHA1 hash value of the file, can do same with md5sum]
    tar xzvf ossec-hids-2.7.1.tar.gz

Compile source:

    cd ossec-hids-2.7.1/
    sudo ./install.sh

Once installed, run:

    /var/ossec/bin/./ossec-control start 

Accept the defaults, but enter your own email address and a valid smtp server. See bottom half of this page if you are uncertain.

You can verify what's running with:

    /var/ossec/bin/ossec-control status

Install OSSEC Agent

 On the Windows host, run the downloaded ossec-agent-win32-2.7.1.exe

Once installed, run the app. It will ask for the server IP and key values.

Back on the Ubuntu server VM, you can get the IP with:

    ifconfig

There will be an IP listed under the "eth0" section, second line, 'inet addr:' Enter this in the "OSSEC Server IP" input field in the OSSEC Agent Manager GUI on the Windows Host.

On the Ubuntu server VM:

    /var/ossec/bin/./manage-agents 

Here you can List your Agents, Add/Delete Agents, and get existing Keys. 

Select (A) Add an agent.
Give a descriptive name for the host Agent.
Give the IP of the host (in Windows, open Powershell and type: ipconfig. Use the IPv4 Address that is listed under the section "Ethernet adapter VMWare Network Adapter VMnet1:").
Accept the default Agent ID.
Confirm.

Select (E) Extract key for an agent.

Enter this key into the "Authentication Key" input field in the OSSEC Agent Manager GUI on the Windows Host.


(Reference: OSSEC Manual, Working With Agents)

Edit ossec.conf

On the Ubuntu server VM, copy then open the configuration file:

    sudo mv /var/ossec/etc/ossec.conf /var/ossec/etc/ossec-BACKUP.conf
    sudo vi /var/ossec/etc/ossec.conf

Below the <global> section, add:

<email_alerts>
<email_to>YourEmailAddressHere</email_to>
<rule_id>550, 553, 554</rule_id>
<!-- monitor rules: 550 changes, 553 deleted, 554 added -->
</email_alerts>

In the <syscheck> section, you can enter types of files to ignore, for example:

<ignore type="sregex">.jpg$|.jpeg$</ignore>

Read through the rest of the config file, it will be self-explanatory where to add directories to monitor or skip.

The rules to monitor changes (550) and deletions (553) are pre-defined. To add the rule to create an alert for new files (554):

    sudo vi /var/ossec/rules/local-rules.xml

Under <rule id="100001" ...>, enter:

<rule id="554" level="7" overwrite="yes">
<category>ossec</category>
<decoded_as>syscheck_new_entry</decoded_as>
<description>Added file to system.</description>
<group>syscheck,</group>
</rule>

Restart OSSEC for rules to apply:

    /var/ossec/bin/ossec-control restart

Add firewall rules on Windows for UDP Port 1514.

IP Tables will be wide open on the Ubuntu server. To lock it down, this is a nice summary of what you can do. Before the final rule to block all remaning traffic, I added:

#allow pings:
sudo iptables -A INPUT -p icmp -j ACCEPT
#ossec port

sudo iptables -A INPUT -p udp -–dport 1514 -j ACCEPT

Hook this up to scheduling and reporting, depending on your needs.

More Info

Agent to Server Connection Issues
Alert Options
OSSEC Google Group
Syscheck File Integrity Monitoring
OSSEC Host-Based Intrusion Detection Guide
Agent Control

Happy Intrusion Detection and File Monitoring!


Tuesday 3 December 2013

Skype Ubuntu Default Browser

I've got Linux Mint Nadia, which is basically Ubuntu, which is built on Debian. Using the Desktop GUI I set my default browser, but Skype didn't seem to want to honour that request. So a quick check with update-alternatives showed me the way.

Just open a terminal and type in:

$ sudo update-alternatives --config x-www-browser

There are 3 choices for the alternative x-www-browser (providing /usr/bin/x-www-browser).

  Selection    Path                       Priority   Status
------------------------------------------------------------
  0            /usr/bin/epiphany-browser   85        auto mode
* 1            /usr/bin/chromium-browser   40        manual mode
  2            /usr/bin/epiphany-browser   85        manual mode
  3            /usr/bin/firefox            40        manual mode

Press enter to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number: 2

$

It was set on Epiphany, I selected Chromium. You can select whatever you want. Skype will fall in line. Hope this helps.