Free Privileged Account Discovery Tool: Identify & secure credentials to stop lateral movement. Download Free

BeyondTrust
  • Products
    Privileged Password Management
    Discover, manage, audit, and monitor privileged accounts
    Password Safe DevOps Secrets Safe
    Endpoint Privilege Management
    Manage privileges on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Unix endpoints
    Windows and Mac Unix and Linux Active Directory Bridge
    Secure Remote Access
    Centrally manage and secure remote access for service desks and vendors
    Remote Support Privileged Remote Access
    BeyondInsight Analytics
    See All Solutions
  • Resources

    Universal Privilege Management

    Our innovative Universal Privilege Management approach secures every user, asset, and session across your entire enterprise.

    Watch Video

    Learn

    Case Studies
    Competitor Comparisons
    Datasheets
    Glossary
    Product Demos
    Whitepapers

    Attend

    Events
    Go Beyond
    Training
    Webinars

    Support

    Changelog
    Professional Services
    Technical Documentation
  • Blog
  • Partners
  • Contact
  • Support
  • Services
  • Training
  • Events
  • Company

Rogue Asset Detection

March 3, 2011

  • Blog
  • Archive
A few weeks ago in my blog, I mentioned a critique regarding targeted vulnerability assessment and its ability to not identify rogue devices. Anytime you have definitive host list (by host name or from Active Directory for example), or a fixed set of IP addresses (versus ranges) you can potentially miss devices connected to your network for vulnerability assessment. Whether those devices are authorized or not becomes the primary point for rogue asset detection. The hardest part of rogue asset detection is performing an initial assessment of everything on a given network and determining what is authorized and what is not. Many times just pulling back the host name, operating system, and domain is sufficient to determine this. The example below is from Retina CS and shows how to do this for Windows devices: This simple rule will automatically build a logical group of machines where the domain name is not “eEye”. The default domain for Windows can be everything from MSHome to Workgroup and if the host is not registered to the domain (most rogue devices for Windows are not since the user should / would not have permissions to join the domain) the asset would be listed in the group. Just as easily, if your organization uses a standardized NetBIOS naming convention, a simple rule like this could group machines that do not follow the correct syntax and could be potentially rogues regardless of the operating system: This would group all assets (in an IP range, not shown) that would not contain a string USPHX for devices potentially located in the United States and Phoenix. If the standard naming convention is not followed, they would be grouped for further investigation. Retina CS allows for a large variety of rules to be created that can capture traits from a host that do not conform to your deployment policies and group them for reference. These can be used to isolate rogue devices based on anything from the operating system, asset name, and even to ports and services available on the asset. For example, "this subnet should never have any webservers running", would be an example of a potential rogue application. It only takes a little standardization to build a rule to capture the devices that do not comply. Next, once we have established a baseline for what is legitimately on the network, we need to capture unauthorized changes that could be rogue devices. Many organizations only perform a single quarterly vulnerability assessment due to regulatory compliance or a lack of resources. For these businesses, I would strongly encourage using a VA solution to discover (not necessarily assess) your network at least once a week to identify and document any changes that may occur. Using a discovery scan frequently (even daily), can identify any changes. Consider the rule below: This will build a group (and even send email alerts) for newly discovered devices that are less than one day old, or for any devices that have not been detected or updated within 8 days. Therefore, if I am scanning once a week, I can capture new devices (possible rogues) and any devices that may have been taken off the network in appropriately. Rogue asset detection can be tricky when assessment or discovery scans do not occur on a frequent basis. In addition, if an organization does not have any standardization for naming, operating systems, or policies for change control, the problem is compounded. This can lead to improper mappings when creating rules because policies are not being used as a point of reference to identify deviations. In order to perform any type of rogue asset detection, you must first establish a baseline. Then you can determine if any changes that occur are acceptable and if they do occur, which systems should be investigated further. Ask your team members two questions:
- Do you know all of the devices on your network? - Are they all authorized?
If the answer is “no” to either of these questions, you should consider using your vulnerability assessment to help with rogue asset detection.

Morey J. Haber, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Information Security Officer at BeyondTrust

Morey J. Haber is Chief Technology Officer and Chief Information Security Officer at BeyondTrust. He has more than 25 years of IT industry experience and has authored four Apress books: Privileged Attack Vectors (2 Editions), Asset Attack Vectors, and Identity Attack Vectors. In 2018, Bomgar acquired BeyondTrust and retained the BeyondTrust name. He originally joined BeyondTrust in 2012 as a part of the eEye Digital Security acquisition. Morey currently oversees BeyondTrust strategy for privileged access management and remote access solutions. In 2004, he joined eEye as Director of Security Engineering and was responsible for strategic business discussions and vulnerability management architectures in Fortune 500 clients. Prior to eEye, he was Development Manager for Computer Associates, Inc. (CA), responsible for new product beta cycles and named customer accounts. He began his career as Reliability and Maintainability Engineer for a government contractor building flight and training simulators. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Stay Up To Date

Get the latest news, ideas, and tactics from BeyondTrust. You may unsubscribe at any time.

I agree to receive product related communications from BeyondTrust as detailed in the Privacy Policy, and I may manage my preferences or withdraw my consent at any time.

You May Also Be Interested In:

Whitepapers

A Zero Trust Approach to Secure Access

Webcasts

Rising CISOs: Ransomware, Cyber Extortion, Cloud Compromise, oh my!

Whitepapers

A Zero Trust Approach to Windows & Mac Endpoint Security

BeyondTrust Logo
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn

Keep up with BeyondTrust

I agree to receive product related communications from BeyondTrust as detailed in the Privacy Policy, and I may manage my preferences or withdraw my consent at any time.

Customer Support
Contact Sales

Products

  • Endpoint Privilege Management
  • Password Management
  • Privileged Remote Access
  • DevOps Secrets Safe
  • Remote Support

Resources

  • Blog
  • Case Studies
  • Competitor Comparisons
  • Datasheets
  • Glossary
  • Videos
  • Webcasts
  • Whitepapers

About

  • Company
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Events
  • Leadership Team
  • Partner Program
  • Press

Languages

  • English
  • German
  • French
  • Spanish
  • Korean
  • Portuguese
  • Japanese
  • Privacy
  • Security
  • Manage Cookies
  • WEEE Compliance

Copyright © 1999 — 2020 BeyondTrust Corporation. All rights reserved. Other trademarks identified on this page are owned by their respective owners. BeyondTrust Corporation is not a chartered bank or trust company, or depository institution. It is not authorized to accept deposits or trust accounts and is not licensed or regulated by any state or federal banking authority.