Microsoft confirms that Chinese hackers breached the email accounts of more than two dozen organizations worldwide, including U.S. and Western European government agencies. The attacks were carried out by a threat group tracked as Storm-0558, who used an inactive consumer signing key to create tokens for Azure Active Directory and Microsoft accounts (MSA) to access [...]
Threat actors affiliated with the Play ransomware strain are leveraging a never-before-seen exploit method that bypasses Microsoft’s ProxyNotShell URL rewrite mitigation. A New Exploit Chain CrowdStrike researchers have discovered a new exploit method they have named OWASSRF, or Outlook Web Access Server-Side Request Forgery. The novel exploit affects Exchange Server 2013, 2016 and 2019 by leveraging CVE-2022-41080 [...]
Security breaches cause organizational chaos, financial and reputation risk. Given how organizations have shifted to a hybrid of in-office and work-from-home, there is a significant increase in the security threat landscape, and it’s more important than ever to improve and harden Exchange Server security. These best practices help provide a baseline security framework that all [...]
Early in the morning, a sudden spike in calls to the helpdesk for password resets and releases swamped IT-support staff at a hospital network. User accounts were under attack and Active Directory lockouts were spreading fast. Together we installed Messageware Exchange Protocol Guard (EPG) to look in detail at Outlook Web and immediately two things [...]
The UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is warning that criminals are looking to exploit the trend toward home office (Coronavirus) to conduct cyberattacks and hacking campaigns. These ‘phishing’ attempts have been seen in several countries and can lead to significant losses: financial, reputational, and sensitive data. And no one is immune —as you'll read [...]
Exchange Server Hacks: Notes From The Field Summary: In this article we look at how bots targeting a credit union's Exchange Servers with password spray attacks caused AD account lockouts. Cybersecurity is a top concern for everyone in the banking and financial sectors, and credit unions are no exception. The speed at which bots discover [...]
Exchange Server: Notes From the Field This case involves attacks at a division of a large Telco with a strong IT team operating more than sixty on-premises servers and mandated 2FA security solution for divisions managing their own Exchange Servers. And then … several incidents lead one Division’s security team to discover that password guessing [...]
Exchange Server: Notes from the Field Support staff in a large manufacturing company were experiencing a sudden increase in the number of calls dealing with Active Directory user account lockouts and email password resets. The Exchange Server messaging group reached out to us for help. Together we installed Exchange Protocol Guard (EPG) to find out [...]
Summary: In this article we discuss how to secure OWA, protect Outlook Web from DoS and brute force attacks, discuss what these attacks are, and how they can be prevented. We also look into automated brute force attacks and why setting an account lockout threshold can leave your Exchange Server vulnerable to DoS attacks. RELATED: [...]
Firstline workers comprise over 2 billion employees including retail sales associates, hospitality staff, medical workers and teams on the manufacturing floor. Often, they are the first and only representation of your brand with your customers. To help transform and empower this workforce at a reasonable cost, Microsoft created the Office 365 F1 plan (a replacement [...]
Recently, The New York Times ran an article warning travelers to exercise the same degree of security over data on mobile devices as they would in protecting themselves from muggers. The warning comes in the wake of increased pressure by foreign and domestic governments for travelers to hand over devices and passwords because border agents [...]
Most IT organizations have to deal with remote workers, employees who travel or telecommute, temporary contractors and agents or staff who are simply being productive at home. For all these people, email remains the bedrock of corporate communication. Without it they simply wouldn’t get their jobs done. So for organizations that use Microsoft Exchange Server, [...]
Last week we demonstrated a variety of ways in which an OWA session can be compromised and how to mitigate against it, even though the user may have been doing their best to follow company security policies. This week's series of tests will highlight the exposures that exist, and how to provide OWA attachment security. Simply [...]
This article covers how to secure Outlook Web Access (OWA). It discusses the risks of leaving OWA sessions open and how to test for vulnerabilities. We’ll cover risks users should be aware of and steps to mitigate them. Nowadays employees are mobile and constantly connected; the traditional work environment has expanded beyond the physical office walls to include coffee shops, airports, and [...]
These days, it’s challenging to read anything about the Internet without stumbling across an article about security concerns. Recent events have brought online security and Internet confidence to the forefront once again. We, at Messageware, think this is a good thing - a very good thing. We want you to be thinking about it, to [...]
An attack campaign using advanced cyber-espionage techniques launched against Office 365’s Outlook Web App users in an attempt to steal email log-in credentials from the employees of military agencies, embassies, defense contractors and international media outlets. The group behind the attack used an interesting technique against organizations using OWA; for each attack they used JavaScript [...]
Not addressing the Public vs. Private Logon options for OWA means you are leaving corporate security decisions in the hands of your OWA users.
Whether your motivation for implementing Data Loss Prevention strategies is to protect your organization’s intellectual property, or to remain compliant with regulations in your industry, your Microsoft Exchange and OWA deployment should be considered as one data source requiring careful scrutiny for DLP possibilities
OWA Guard v2.0 includes a new Dynamic CAPTCHA for OWA, automatic IP-filtering, and enhanced reporting of OWA usage history.
I recently read an interesting article that stated “automated password-cracking software can perform 100 million checks per second – equating to a four-character password being cracked in 0.16 seconds, and a six-character password in just 11.4 minutes.” (SC Magazine, February 2013) When you think about a typical user password, it is no wonder why [...]
