I can’t call myself an “influencer” by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, I view social media as a necessary evil—a double-edged sword that’s incredibly useful for sharing and discovering valuable content, but also a place where we often waste time on pointless arguments and superficial discussions. However, a few days ago, I stumbled upon a meme that brought back memories of an incident from years ago. In this particular case, the attackers’ documentation was indeed more comprehensive than our company’s own records.

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This meme isn’t just a joke—it’s a reflection of a real-world scenario that many of us in the cybersecurity field have encountered. Let me take you back to 2016, to a rainy autumn day when I was working for a large multinational corporation. Little did I know that this day would become a turning point in my career and in the company’s approach to cybersecurity.

Setting the Scene: A Rainy Day in Cybersecurity

It was just before lunch when our antivirus system (back then, the term EDR wasn’t even on the horizon) flagged an alarming alert: a copy of Mimikatz had been detected on one of our Windows Server 2008 machines. For those unfamiliar with Mimikatz, it’s a powerful tool often used by both penetration testers and malicious actors to extract plaintext passwords, hashes, and Kerberos tickets from memory.

Now, before we dive into full-blown panic mode, let me give you a quick Cybersecurity 101 lesson. When you encounter something like this, the first step is always to verify that it’s not a false positive. After all, we’ve all had those moments where a perfectly innocent file gets flagged because it shares some characteristics with malware. It’s like when your mom mistakes your friend for you from a distance—same general shape, but definitely not you.

In this case, we had to rule out the possibility that one of our more… let’s say “enthusiastic” sysadmins hadn’t decided to run some unorthodox tests. You know the type—the ones who think, “Hey, let’s poke the bear and see what happens!” While their intentions are usually good, they sometimes forget to inform the security team, leading to moments of sheer panic followed by facepalms all around.

Once we confirmed that this wasn’t just an overzealous sysadmin’s science experiment gone wrong, we knew we had a real situation on our hands. It was time to switch into full incident response mode. The first order of business? Isolation. We quarantined that server faster than you can say “potential data breach.” It was like putting the digital equivalent of a hazmat suit on our network.

Down the Rabbit Hole: Initial Investigation

With the server safely isolated, we began our investigation. Now, if you’ve never done a memory analysis, let me paint you a picture. Imagine trying to read a book where all the pages are constantly shuffling and some of the words are disappearing in real-time. That’s what analyzing volatile memory is like. It’s a race against time to capture and make sense of the data before it’s gone.

Despite the challenges, our quick memory analysis yielded some fascinating results. We managed to retrieve a history of commands executed on the machine, and boy, was it a page-turner! It turns out our server wasn’t just sitting there minding its own business—it had been transformed into a veritable command center for network reconnaissance activities.

The plot thickened when we discovered that the RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) connections to this server were originating from an IP address within our internal network. Now, that might not sound too alarming at first. After all, it’s our network, right? Wrong. This particular IP address wasn’t listed in any of our asset registers. It was like finding an extra room in your house that you never knew existed—exciting, but also terrifying.

We managed to narrow down the location of this mystery machine to the VLAN designated for physical machines. At this point, it felt like we were starring in our own episode of “CSI: Cyber” (minus the dramatized enhance buttons and improbable GUI interfaces).

The Ghost in the Machine: Uncovering the Forgotten Server

Armed with this information, we embarked on a digital archaeology expedition. We scoured through router and switch logs, tracing back the mystery IP like we were following a trail of breadcrumbs in a dense forest. Eventually, we pinpointed the exact switch port where this ghost in our machine was connected.

Lo and behold, we discovered an old ProLiant server running Windows Server 2003. Yes, you read that right—Windows Server 2003. In 2016. If servers could collect cobwebs, this one would have looked like a haunted house prop.

Now, finding an undocumented, outdated server in your network is about as comforting as finding an unmarked package with a ticking sound in your mailbox. We isolated this machine faster than you can say “potential security nightmare” and proceeded to create dumps of both the disk and volatile memory.

Here’s a pro tip: Always ensure your incident response team has domain admin credentials. In this case, our Active Directory domain admin credentials were our skeleton key, allowing us to access this forgotten relic without having to result to more… creative methods.

The Digital Archaeologist’s Dream: Analyzing the Forgotten Server

What we uncovered in our analysis was nothing short of fascinating. It was like opening a time capsule, except instead of finding nostalgic trinkets, we found a cybersecurity horror story. Let’s break down our findings:

  1. The Origin Story: This Windows 2003 server wasn’t just old; it was practically ancient in tech years. It had been installed back in 2008 for a project that had long since been abandoned. You know how sometimes you buy something for a specific purpose, forget about it, and then find it years later while spring cleaning? Well, this was the corporate IT equivalent of that, except with potentially catastrophic consequences.

    The project manager, in a classic case of “not my job anymore,” had failed to properly communicate the project’s closure. Meanwhile, the sysadmins, probably drowning in tickets and coffee, hadn’t bothered to decommission, update, or even monitor the server. It was the perfect storm of miscommunication and neglect.

  2. The Uninvited Guests: Our unwelcome visitors, whom we strongly suspected were of Chinese origin (more on that later), had initially gained access to an internal subnet by exploiting a Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability in Apache Struts. This particular vulnerability had been discovered in 2016, but in the grand tradition of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” (spoiler alert: it was very much broken), it hadn’t been patched.

    Once they had their foot in the door, these resourceful intruders took full advantage of our network’s questionable segregation. They performed reconnaissance like they were planning a heist in a Hollywood movie, eventually stumbling upon our forgotten Windows 2003 server. To them, finding this server must have felt like striking gold. They promptly set it up as their “base camp” for further operations.

  3. The Reconnaissance Mission: Using the Windows 2003 server as their launchpad, the attackers went to town on our network. They ran numerous scans, once again exploiting our network’s poor segregation. It was like watching someone play a real-life version of the classic game “Minesweeper,” except instead of avoiding mines, they were actively looking for vulnerabilities.

    In the process, they gathered an impressive amount of data about our internal network structure. But wait, there’s more! They also managed to collect numerous credentials. It was as if they had found the keys to the kingdom, and we had inadvertently left them under the doormat.

  4. The Unexpected Archivists: Now, here’s where things get really interesting. When we analyzed the disk of the Windows 2003 server, we didn’t just find evidence of malicious activity. We found a treasure trove of documentation meticulously collected by the attackers.

    Much of this documentation was in Chinese, which supported our theory about the attackers’ origin. But the real kicker? They had created detailed schemas of our internal network structure. And here’s the pièce de résistance: they had compiled an asset registry that was more up-to-date and comprehensive than our official one.

    Yes, you read that correctly. Our uninvited guests had done a better job of documenting our network assets than we had. Talk about adding insult to injury! Their registry even included several “shadow IT” endpoints that we weren’t aware of. It was like they had conducted an audit we didn’t know we needed.

The Aftermath: Lessons Learned and Changes Made

This incident was the first “serious” security breach handled by our then-fledgling cybersecurity team. It was our baptism by fire, so to speak. But as they say, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and this incident certainly made us stronger as a team and as an organization.

The experience led to several important “lessons learned” that helped us radically redefine our cybersecurity strategy in the years that followed. Let’s break them down:

  1. Asset Management is King: We realized that keeping our asset registry up-to-date wasn’t just a tedious administrative task—it was a critical component of our security posture. After all, you can’t protect what you don’t know you have.

    We implemented a more rigorous asset management process, including regular audits and automated discovery tools. We also established clear ownership for each asset, ensuring that someone was always responsible for its lifecycle management.

    Remember: in the world of cybersecurity, an unknown asset is a vulnerable asset. Don’t let your forgotten servers become someone else’s playground.

  2. Tackling Shadow IT at the Root: The discovery of several shadow IT endpoints in the attackers’ asset registry was a wake-up call. We realized we needed to address this issue head-on.

    We developed strict procedures for asset commissioning and decommissioning. This included clear communication channels between project managers, sysadmins, and the security team. We also implemented technical controls to detect and alert on unauthorized devices connecting to our network.

    Additionally, we launched an awareness campaign to educate employees about the risks of shadow IT and provide them with approved alternatives for their needs. Remember, people often turn to shadow IT because they’re trying to solve a problem. By understanding and addressing those needs, you can reduce the temptation.

  3. Segregation, Segregation, Segregation: Just as location is key in real estate, segregation is crucial in network security. Our lack of proper network segregation had allowed the attackers to move laterally with ease.

    We embarked on a major network restructuring project, implementing strict segregation between different environments, networks, and even individual machines where necessary. We used firewalls, VLANs, and access control lists to create multiple layers of security.

    This not only made it harder for potential attackers to move around but also gave us better visibility into network traffic patterns, making it easier to spot anomalies.

  4. The Gospel of Timely Updates: The fact that the initial breach occurred through an unpatched vulnerability was a harsh reminder of the importance of timely updates. We adopted a more aggressive patching strategy, prioritizing critical security updates.

    We implemented a robust patch management system, complete with testing environments to ensure updates wouldn’t break critical systems. We also established clear SLAs for applying patches based on their severity.

    Remember: every unpatched vulnerability is an open invitation to attackers. Don’t leave the welcome mat out!

  5. Continuous Monitoring and Threat Hunting: The fact that the attackers had been in our network long enough to compile extensive documentation was deeply concerning. It highlighted our lack of effective continuous monitoring and threat hunting capabilities.

    We invested in advanced security information and event management (SIEM) tools and developed a dedicated threat hunting team. We also implemented behavioral analytics to help us spot anomalies that traditional rule-based systems might miss.

    The goal was to shift from a reactive to a proactive security posture. After all, the best defense is a good offense.

  6. Incident Response Planning: While we managed to handle this incident, it was clear that we needed a more structured approach to incident response. We developed comprehensive incident response plans, complete with clear roles and responsibilities, communication protocols, and step-by-step procedures for different types of incidents.

    We also started conducting regular tabletop exercises and simulations to ensure our team was prepared for a variety of scenarios. Remember: in the heat of an incident is not the time to be figuring out who does what.

  7. Third-Party Risk Management: The Apache Struts vulnerability that provided the initial entry point was a stark reminder of the risks associated with third-party software. We implemented a more rigorous third-party risk management program, including security assessments of vendors and more careful evaluation of the software we use.

    We also started keeping a closer eye on vulnerability announcements for all the software in our environment, not just our own.

  8. Documentation and Knowledge Management: Ironically, one of our biggest takeaways was the importance of documentation—a lesson we learned from our attackers! We improved our internal documentation processes, ensuring that network diagrams, asset inventories, and system configurations were kept up-to-date and easily accessible to the right people.

    We also implemented a knowledge management system to capture and share insights and lessons learned from security incidents and near-misses.

The Bonus Lesson: When Life Gives You Lemons…

Now, here’s a somewhat controversial bonus lesson we learned: If you find yourself in a situation where your asset registry is outdated and you don’t have the time or resources to do a complete re-inventory… well, there’s always the option of using the one compiled by the Chinese hackers!

I’m joking, of course. Kind of. While we absolutely don’t condone using ill-gotten information, the incident did give us a unique opportunity to cross-reference our records and identify gaps in our asset management. It was a silver lining in an otherwise stormy situation.

Conclusion: Turning a Security Nightmare into a Wake-Up Call

This incident, as alarming and potentially disastrous as it was, turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It was the wake-up call our organization needed to take cybersecurity seriously and implement robust, proactive measures.

In the years following this incident, we saw a significant improvement in our security posture. Our asset management became more accurate, our network more segmented, our patching more timely, and our team more prepared. We went from being reactive to proactive, from being caught off guard to being vigilant.

The lesson here is clear: in the world of cybersecurity, there’s no such thing as a small oversight. Every forgotten server, every unpatched vulnerability, every instance of poor network segregation is a potential entry point for attackers. But with the right mindset, even a security breach can become an opportunity for improvement.

So, the next time you come across a meme about hackers having better documentation than your IT department, have a laugh—but then go check your asset registry. You never know what you might find, or what might find you.

Remember, in the cat-and-mouse game of cybersecurity, sometimes the most valuable insights come from the most unexpected places. Even if those places happen to be your own forgotten servers, documented by uninvited guests who, inadvertently, became the best asset managers we never hired.

Stay vigilant, keep learning, and may your networks always be secure (and well-documented)!