The American Defense Industrial Complex operates on Active Directory

Folks,

From the U.S. Department of Defense to the Israeli Defense Forces, Microsoft to Nvidia, and Lockheed Martin to Palantir, today virtually the entire American Defense Industrial Complex operates on Microsoft Active Directory.

In fact, the entire United States Government, as well as the Fortune 100 and Wall Street also operate on Active Directory.

For those who may not know, Active Directory is one of the most important and trustworthy foundational technologies ever built, and it provides two paramount imperatives that the Cloud cannot - operational autonomy and organizational privacy.

Consequently, Active Directory lies at the very foundation of national security, defense and corporate security worldwide.

The National Security Agency Agrees

The stated mission of NSA in cybersecurity is to prevent and eradicate threats to U.S. national security systems with a focus on the Defense Industrial Base and the improvement of its weapons’ security.

Active Directory Security is so important to global security, that just last fortnight, the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) issued joint guidance on how to mitigate Active Directory attacks, and I quote -

"Active Directory is the most widely used authentication and authorization solution in enterprise Information Technology (IT) networks globally." 

"Like numerous other networks, Active Directory is used in many Department of Defense and Defense Industrial Base networks as a critical component for managing identities and access,” 

“This makes it an attractive target for malicious actors to attempt to steal the proverbial ‘keys to the kingdom. Taking steps to properly defend AD from these common and advanced techniques will detect and prevent adversary activities and protect sensitive data from determined malicious cyber actors.”

To state it as simply as one can, the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States of America just confirmed not only what we've been saying for years, but also the paramount importance of what it is we do at Paramount Defenses. 

You see, the number one way to steal the proverbial Keys to the Kingdom that the NSA is referring to is Active Directory Privilege Escalation, and in fact we had released the underlying technical facts in The Paramount Brief way back (2014).

I wonder what took the NSA so long. We've been saying this for a decade - 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020.

This is Paramount

The accurate assessment of privileged access in Active Directory is absolutely paramount to organizational cyber security.

As every cyber security professional, Domain Admin and CISO worth his/her salt knows well, the most important (the #1) measure in all of organizational cyber security and in Active Directory security is the attainment of Least Privilege Access (LPA) in Active Directory, which involves accurately assessing and then locking-down privileged access in Active Directory, and one simply cannot do so without the ability to accurately assess privileged access in Active Directory. 

Decision Support (aka Proof)

At the heart of both the SolarWinds Breach and the Colonial Pipeline Hack lay privileged access in Active Directory.

Both these attacks could've been prevented if only organizations had attained and maintained LPA in Active Directory. 

Here's why / consider this - the Top-5 ways of escalating in privilege in Active Directory are i) DC Sync eff-perms / WD eff-perms on domain root, ii) WD eff-perms on AdminSDHolder, iii) CR-Reset Password eff-perms on any AD admin account, iv) WP-member eff-perms on any AD admin group, and v) WP - GP Link and GP Options eff-perms on the default DC OU.

Anyone who has any of these eff-perms in AD owns the organization, and can completely destroy it, should they so desire, so at an absolute minimum*, assessing and locking-down the above eff-perms domain-wide is absolutely paramount.

*Oh, and this is merely the tip of the iceberg. Consider the following - 

Anyone and everyone who has { CR-Reset Password or WD or WO } eff-perms on any AD user account in the domain can own that account in one second, anyone who has { WP-Member or WD or WO } eff-perms on any AD group in the domain can control that group in one second (and access everything it protects), anyone who has { WD or WO } eff-perms on an(y) OU in the domain can own every* object in that OU, easily escalate privilege and/or control and/or destroy everything in it.

Pro Tip for Amateurs - Count the number of times I've said eff perms above, because it is NOT perms, but eff-perms (aka Active Directory Effective Permissions) that control everything in AD. Permissions analysis is almost useless. 

Organizations that do not know who has what eff-perms in their AD are dangerously operating in the proverbial dark.

Extremely Difficult

The accurate determination of access entitlements, i.e. who has what privileged access where and how, in Active Directory is extremely difficult and error-prone, and likely one of the biggest challenges in organizational cyber security today.

It is extremely difficult because it involves analyzing millions of individual access control specifications that cumulatively impact resultant access, and thus is involves meticulously connecting millions of dots with absolutely zero room for error.

There is no room for error, because like performing heart surgery or screening baggage at airports, even a single error could result in an unmitigated privilege escalation path that could be used to completely destroy an entire organization.

The process is akin to finding a thousand unique needles in a haystack the size of One World Trade Center, New York, wherein in order to ensure security, it is paramount that each and every single needle in the entire haystack be found. 

Mission Accomplished

For anyone who may not yet know, there is one and only cyber security solution in the entire world that can accurately assess privileged access in Active Directory - our unique, unrivaled, all-American, Microsoft-endorsed Gold Finger.

Gold Finger is the only cyber security solution in the world that can accurately assess access entitlements i.e. who has what privileged access in Active Directory, based on the accurate determination of effective permissions in Active Directory.

Let there be no ambiguity about that cardinal technical fact, none whatsoever. Although there are over twenty solutions that claim to be able to assess privileged access in Active Directory, not even one of them can do so accurately, because there is one and only correct way to accurately assess privileged access in Active Directory and that involves the accurate determination of Active Directory Effective Permissions, which is extremely difficult, and none of those solutions do so.

Not a single one of them.

As such, the method and system for the accurate determination of who has what access entitlements in Active Directory, including of course privileged access, and privilege escalation paths, is governed by our patent, U.S. Patent 8429708.

The Bible of Access Assessment

I should also mention this is no ordinary patent. It is the Bible of how to accurately assess access in an IT system, wherein access is controlled using ACLs, and today, over 75 patents from many of the world's top cyber security companies cite it, including Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, VMWare, McAfee, CyberArk, FireEye, Dell, VMWare, Palantir and others.

Our patented, Microsoft-endorsed accurate effective access assessment capabilities are embodied in our Gold Finger, Gold Finger Mini and Gold Finger 007G solutions, are unique in their ability to enable organizations to fulfill this paramount objective and over the last decade, from the U.S. DoD to the United Nations and from the U.S. Treasury to several Fortune 100 companies, they have been instrumental in helping so many important organizations attain and maintain LPA in AD.

Simply Unrivaled  (F-35)

To give the world an idea of just how capable and superlative our access assessment technology is, consider this -

Gold Finger can accurately assess exactly who has what privileged access, where and how, domain-wide in any Active Directory domain in the world, comprised of thousands of objects, within just minutes, and at the touch of a button. 

To put that in perspective, in less time than the Generals in the U.S Military can brief the U.S. Secretary of Defense as to the state of cyber security of their respective forces, or for that matter in less time than the CEO of Microsoft has an hourly meeting with his top cyber security experts, Gold Finger can find out exactly who has not just the Keys to the Kingdom, but also who has the keys to every single door in the kingdom, in every Active Directory domain in the U.S. Dept. of Defense.

In fact, we recently offered to give away up to one hundred million dollars in software to any and every organization or professional who could provably show us even one tool in the world that can do what Gold Finger's privileged access assessment capabilities can, and guess how many organizations/professionals have taken us up on the offer thus far? 

Zero! Need one say more?

In Closing

In closing, I will only add that at Paramount Defenses we continue to be laser-focused on Active Directory security because it is absolutely paramount to the national security of the United States of America, and that of 100+ countries worldwide. 

You see, there can be no national security without a government having operational autonomy and organizational privacy, and only Active Directory makes these two imperatives possible. Fortunately, today every organization in the world that wishes to do so can easily attain and maintain least privilege access (LPA) in their foundational Active Directory domains, thereby measurably eliminating 99% of avenues of privilege escalation to the "Keys to the Kingdom" in Active Directory.

That's all for now.

Best wishes,
Sanjay.

Which is the most powerful country in the world today?

Folks,

In light of current geopolitical events, I'd like to ask a very simple question, one that the entire world ought to consider, posed above.

Is it -

A. The United States of America

B. The United Kingdom

C. Russia

D. China

E. Some other country (If so, which one?)

I'll leave you with a hint - based on current geopolitical events it appears it's not the country you think it is, and it's not the country that thinks it is the most powerful country in the world. (You see, another country's clout seems to be running it.)

To the wise, I needn't say more (, so I won't.)

Thanks,
Sanjay

Iran COULD launch a cyber attack on Microsoft prior to an attack on Israel

Folks,

I hope this finds you doing well. Today's post will be short, because we strive not to comment on any geopolitical events, but out of an abundance of caution, I felt the need to state that which may/should already be obvious to the entire world.

It is a well-known fact that Israel, like many countries in the western world, is a highly digital nation, wherein thousands of its business and government organizations across all sectors e.g. financial, transport, medical, government, defense etc., have and thus operate a digital IT infrastructure.

For the last two decades, for the most part, most of these organizations have been operating on trustworthy, autonomously (independently) operable "on-premises" Microsoft technologies, primarily, Active Directory, Exchange and Office, which enabled and empowered these organizations to operate securely and autonomously without having to rely on anyone else.

However, over the past few years, under the guise of "modernization", Microsoft has been spending billions of dollars to convince/persuade organizations to transition over to its new subscription-based Cloud offerings, Azure and 365 (Office).

As a result, in all likelihood, today thousands of business and government organizations in Israel are now likely using, i.e. relying on, Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Azure for likely all organizational communications, access, mgmt and security.

To put it in layman terms for the world's populace, today, in all likelihood, communication, productivity and security at thousands of business and government organizations in Israel, today depends on Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365.

In light of this elemental fact, it would appear that a successful attack on Microsoft Corporation's various Cloud Services could have a disruptive impact on the digital foundation of thousands of business and government organizations in Israel.

For instance, hypothetically speaking, a cyber attack that could result in a successful denial-of-service (DoS) attack on just Microsoft 365 services to thousands of Israeli organizations, could impact many mission-critical services across Israel.

In light of the above, if as is being widely reported, were Iran to launch a strike on Israel, it seems possible that it could try to also launch a cyber attack on Microsoft prior to doing so, to try and disrupt essential services/comms within Israel.

It must be mentioned that Microsoft is a successful American Corporation and likely has many cyber defenses in place. However, it must be noted that, unlike script-kiddies or lone-wolfs, when a nation state decides to wage a cyber attack, it has the financial and operational resources of an entire nation at its disposal, and you have to ask yourself whether the defenses of what is basically a for-profit business, may be adequate against a proficient, nation-state cyber adversary.

It must also be stated that there are many Israeli cyber security companies today, including several prominent publicly-held American Corporations, and there are many Israelis working in cyber security within Microsoft, and yet, logically speaking, no cyber security company can protect an organization from the impact of a successful denial-of-service attack launched against Microsoft 365 i.e. I mean, if there is no service, there is no service, period. (All email, access etc. comes to a halt.)

That's all I wanted to say today. This is all public knowledge, but I felt the need to state it out of an abundance of caution.

Sincerely,
Sanjay.

PS: Please note that the perspective shared above is not unique to Israel. Today, thousands of organizations worldwide have basically taken on a mission-critical dependency on Microsoft Cloud Services, having relinquished operational autonomy for a semblance of better security, and a formidable cyberattack on Microsoft could impact all of them.

Introducing a FREE Active Directory Privileged Access Assessment Service

Folks,

At Paramount Defenses, we care deeply about the foundational cyber security of all organizations worldwide, and we remain committed to helping organizations secure their foundational Active Directory deployments.

Towards that objective, it is my privilege to announce that today we are introducing a free service to help all organizations worldwide instantly obtain an accurate assessment of the state of privileged access in their foundational Active Directory.

Without further adieu, I'd like to introduce our 100% FREE Active Directory Privileged Access Assessment Service.

Unique and 100% Free

This service is 100% free, with no strings attached, and no obligation of any sort, and is intended to help organizations determine exactly how many individuals possess privileged access in their foundational Active Directory domains.

The most important and novel aspect of this service is that it is unlike any other in the world, because it is the only service that can deliver such paramount insights based on the accurate determination of Active Directory Effective Permissions.

Accurate and Instant Insights

This unique service is powered by our unique, unrivaled Microsoft-endorsed Gold Finger software tooling, which uniquely enables us to instantly deliver accurate Active Directory privileged access insights to organizations worldwide.

In less than an hour, every organization that wants to know, can now have the following determinations, for free - 

1. How many users can create domain user accounts in Active Directory?
2. How many users can delete domain user accounts in Active Directory?
3. How many users can reset the passwords of domain user accounts in Active Directory?
4. How many users can disable Smartcard use on domain user accounts in Active Directory?
5. How many users can enable disabled domain user accounts in Active Directory?
6. How many users can modify domain security groups memberships in Active Directory?
7. How many users can link group policies to organizational units in Active Directory?
8. How many users can modify security permissions domain-wide in Active Directory?
9. How many users can modify the ACL protecting the AdminSDHolder object in Active Directory?
10. How many users can launch replicate secrets (password hashes) from Active Directory?

These are merely a few of the many Active Directory privileged access insights that we can instantly deliver to any and every organization in the world. We can actually answer just about any question related to effective access in any AD, so if your organization has any specific/niche needs, just let us know, and we'll be happy to help you figure it out in minutes.

Of course, if you want to know the simple stuff like how many users have any kind of permissions in Active Directory, how many users own objects in Active Directory etc., that's 100 times easier to figure out, and we'll do that as well, all for free. 

A Limited Opportunity

At Paramount Defenses, we care deeply about the foundational cyber security of all organizations worldwide, and are happy to be able to offer this unique and valuable service free of cost to help organizations across the world.

Today, thousands of organizations in over a hundred and seventy countries worldwide operate on Active Directory (AD), and that makes it difficult for us to be able to offer this service to every single organization that may wish to avail of it. 

We have thus decided to offer this service to the first one thousand (1000) organizations that request it, from each country, at our discretion, and capacity permitting, we will strive to accommodate all additional requests on a best-efforts basis.

How to Sign-up

Organizations that wish to avail of this unique, free service can do by submitting their request on the service page here.

You can also find a list of helpful frequently asked questions (FAQ) related to the service at the bottom of the page.

Finally, to help you get some perspective, you may want to consider the above, in light of what I've shared here.

That wraps up the little announcement that we wanted to make today. Thank you very much.

Best wishes,
Sanjay

Our Cloud/Modernization Strategy - We Impost ZERO TRUST in the Cloud

Folks,

Hello. I hope this finds you doing well. Let me begin by saying that we are slated to make a small announcement today or tomorrow, and this post is NOT that announcement. That should likely follow in a few hours, or tomorrow.

Our Cloud/Modernization Strategy - We Impose ZERO TRUST in the Cloud

In this post, I wanted to take a few moments to share our Cloud/Modernization strategy.

There appears to be a narrative in the world, likely funded by the world's many Cloud Computing companies, that every organization ought to consider and implement a Cloud/Modernization strategy, or risk getting left technologically behind.

At the core of this narrative appears to be a strong (but inaccurate) message that the Cloud is inherently more trustworthy and cost-effective to use than the traditional computing systems that most of the world's organizations operate on today.

A closer look reveals that such narratives/their core principles seem to emanate from and be delivered to a global audience via guidance from government organizations tasked with promoting "American innovation and industrial competitiveness", published in the form of high-level guidance, which American cloud computing companies seize the opportunity to quote.

It also seems that such narratives/initiatives seem to provide certain vendors of operating systems and hosting providers (, mostly American Corporations,) a golden opportunity to additionally have their entire global organizational customer base now also pay them, on a recurring basis, for a host of new computing and cyber security services built, marketed and labelled as the 'Cloud.'

To further worsen the situation, it appears that some of these vendors seem to invest billions of dollars in sophisticated marketing strategies, to not only get some of these initiatives to become part of American Government policy, but also to convince/persuade the "C-Suite" at their global organizational customer base, to transition assets over to their Cloud.

Little do these hapless organizational customers from across the world seem to realize that whilst embracing these new services marketed as the Cloud may sound rosy and secure, in reality, it requires (involves) them to basically relinquish* operational control (autonomy) and privacy, and take on an eternal dependency on an external third-party.

* The moment an organization transitions its primary identities into the Cloud is the moment it loses its operational autonomy.

The world's organizations and their shareholders may want to contrast this with the undeniable fact that the alternative, i.e. operating on traditional computing systems upon which the world has been successfully operating for years now, does NOT require organizations to relinquish their operational autonomy, privacy or security, i.e. give up their sovereignty.

It appears that this paramount fact, one that directly impacts the security, autonomy and sovereignty of every organization, and in the case of governments, also impacts national sovereignty and national security, is astonishingly overlooked!

The Cloud is a No-Starter for Us

It likely cannot be stated any simpler than someone already has - "The Cloud is just someone else's computer."

The world ought to understand, in no uncertain terms, that the moment you put your assets onto someone else's computer, they are no longer, either private OR solely yours. They can be accessed by, copied, modified and destroyed by ANYONE who has ADMINISTRATIVE or sufficient access to that computer, or anyone who could gain UNAUTHORIZED access to it, including 1000s of the Cloud provider's personnel (, whose identities/computers too could be compromised and misused.) 

Further, because these Cloud providers are starting to be used by thousands of organizations, they themselves are now MASSIVE targets for highly proficient, and often state-funded adversaries, and their compromise could easily cascade.

Finally, when you use an Identity Provider (IDP), you must understand that that IDP now knows exactly who you are, where you are, what you are logging on to, and what you are accessing. In other words, you have no privacy left. None.

For starters, for that reason to begin with, the Cloud is a no-starter for us.

Concluding Thoughts

My time is very valuable so I will not spend more time on this. Time permitting, I may pen another blog post in the future with sufficient (concrete) technical details, but for now, this is all I wish to say, and have time to say regarding the Cloud. 

Let me be very clear - we are perfectly capable of offering the most technologically advanced services in the Cloud as well, but since it is conceptually a no-starter for us, we do not invest time or resources to build and offer Cloud based services.

In short, at Paramount Defenses, we literally impose zero trust in the Cloud, and since we know how to operate a secure IT environment, we do NOT rely on anyone i.e. any Cloud provider to operate our internal organizational IT infrastructure.

As a result, we fully retain our operational autonomy, organizational privacy and cyber security. 

That's all I have to say about it. As a well-wisher, I encourage the entire world to consider the perspective shared above.

Thanks,
Sanjay