'Lazy' Hackers Exploit Microsoft RDP To Install Ransomware (sophos.com)

An anonymous reader writes: An investigation by Sophos has uncovered a new, lazy but effective ransomware attack where hackers brute force passwords on computers with [Microsoft's] Remote Desktop Protocol enabled, use off-the-shelf privilege escalation exploits to make themselves admins, turn off security software and then manually run fusty old versions of ransomware.
They even delete the recovery files created by Windows Live backup -- and make sure they can also scramble the database. "Because they've used their sysadmin powers to rig the system to be as insecure as they can, they can often use older versions of ransomware, perhaps even variants that other crooks have given up on and that are now floating around the internet 'for free'."

Most of the attacks hit small-to-medium companies with 30 or fewer employees, since "with small scale comes a dependence on external IT suppliers or 'jack-of-all-trades' IT generalists trying to manage cybersecurity along with many other responsibilities. In one case a victim was attacked repeatedly, because of a weak password used by a third-party application that demanded 24-hour administrator access for its support staff."

Comments

3 ways to crack

[gurps_npc]

Correct me if I am wrong, but there are three basic ways to crack a password.

1) Brute force - the answer to this is long passwords and to have each password attempt take twice as long as the last. I.E. The second attempt after a failure waits 5 seconds. The third attempt takes 10 seconds, the fourth takes 20 seconds, etc. For password length you can use an md5 hash of a selected read -only file. If the system is set up right it will take less mouse clicks to do than the 8 keyboard clicks currently used

2) Social Engineering - the answer to this is a two factor token system, preferably a key fob rather than just using the phone which is easily lost, stolen, or compromised. Can easily be combined with the increasing time method above.

3) Password lists (either stolen or public). Outright forbid the 10,000 most common passwords and tell people that if they reuse the same password, they can be fired from their job and can not sue. Don't blame the company when the user is stupid.

Note that it is NOT a requirement to change the passwords often, as long as you obey the three requirements above, changing the password can be done once a year without affecting safety.

Re:So...

[Antique Geekmeister]

No, it's not. But it's _very_ common to activate it foe personnel who use their more powerful desktop systems for telecommunication. It's also very standard to enable for Windows hosts in a machine room, unless you've the time and resources to set up a remote KVM or the hardware based remote consoles such as DRAC. Those hosts are often surprisingly vulnerable. The various security improvements of a server environment can be overwhelmed by the unwillingness to update, and reboot, production servers. It's also often overwhelmed by the need to support older software. I _still_ see critical XP systems in unprotected internal networks, used for legacy software or proprietary software for which an upgrade is very expensive.

V......P.....N

[Halster]

Oh for crying out loud people. Don't open RDP ports direct to the internet!

If the average Joe can use a VPN to pirate movies I should think YOU could use it to secure your damn network!

L8r.