Alert - Continued threat actor exploitation post Pulse Secure VPN patching (CISA)

Number: AL20-012
Date: 16 April 2020

ASSESSMENT

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the United States’ agency responsible for protecting its critical infrastructure Critical infrastructureProcesses, systems, facilities, technologies, networks, assets, and services essential to the health, safety, security, or economic well-being of Canadians and the effective functioning of government. Critical infrastructure can be stand-alone or interconnected and interdependent within and across provinces, territories, and national borders. Disruptions of critical infrastructure could result in catastrophic loss of life, adverse economic effects, and significant harm to public confidence. from physical and cyber threats, has produced an update to its January 2020 Alert regarding CVE-2019-11510, an arbitrary file reading vulnerability VulnerabilityA flaw or weakness in the design or implementation of an information system or its environment that could be exploited to adversely affect an organization's assets or operations. affecting Pulse Secure virtual private network Virtual private networkA private communications network usually used within a company, or by several different companies or organisations to communicate over a wider network. VPN communications are typically encrypted or encoded to protect the traffic from other users on the public network carrying the VPN. (VPN VPNSee virtual private network. ) appliances. The Cyber Centre would like to highlight the updated Alert, as it provides important new information to system owners and operators responsible for defending their systems and networks from cyber threats. The Cyber Centre previously reported on this vulnerability in September 2019; the updated CISA Alert contains additional information describing post-compromise CompromiseThe intentional or unintentional disclosure of information, which adversely impacts its confidentiality, integrity, or availability. activity, related IOCs, and a detection DetectionThe monitoring and analyzing of system events in order to identify unauthorized attempts to access system resources. tool.

The CISA Alert(AA20-107A) can be found at:
 
https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/aa20-107a

Should activity matching the content of either of these Alerts be discovered, recipients are encouraged to contact the Cyber Centre by email (contact@cyber.gc.ca) or by telephone (1-833-CYBER-88 or 1-833-292-3788).

REFERENCES

Initial CISA Alert on Pulse Secure VPN vulnerability (AA20-010A):

https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/aa20-010a

Vulnerabilities exploited in VPN products used worldwide (NCSC Alert):

https://cyber.gc.ca/en/alerts-advisories/vulnerabilities-exploited-vpn-products-used-worldwide-ncsc-alert
 
Cyber Centre Alert on Active Exploitation of VPN Vulnerabilities (AL19-016):

https://cyber.gc.ca/en/alerts-advisories/active-exploitation-vpn-vulnerabilities-0

NOTE TO READERS

The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security Cyber securityThe protection of digital information, as well as the integrity of the infrastructure housing and transmitting digital information. More specifically, cyber security includes the body of technologies, processes, practices and response and mitigation measures designed to protect networks, computers, programs and data from attack, damage or unauthorized access so as to ensure confidentiality, integrity and availability. (Cyber Centre) operates as part of the Communications Security Establishment.  We are Canada's national authority on cyber security and we lead the government's response to cyber security events. As Canada's national computer security incident response team, the Cyber Centre works in close collaboration with government departments, critical infrastructure, Canadian businesses and international partners to prepare for, respond to, mitigate, and recover from cyber events. We do this by providing authoritative advice and support, and coordinating information sharing and incident response. The Cyber Centre is outward-facing, welcoming partnerships that help build a stronger, more resilient cyber space in Canada.