This post was authored by Edmund Brumaghin
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana
The Prequel
In March 2017, Microsoft released a security update for various versions of Windows, which addressed a remote code execution vulnerability affecting a protocol called SMBv1 (MS17-010). As this vulnerability could allow a remote attacker to completely compromise an affected system, the vulnerability was rated “Critical” with organizations being advised to implement the security update. Additionally, Microsoft released workaround guidance for removing this vulnerability in environments that were unable to apply the security update directly. At the same time, Cisco released coverage to ensure that customers remained protected.
The following month, April 2017, a group publishing under the moniker “TheShadowBrokers” publicly released several exploits on the internet. These exploits targeted various vulnerabilities including those that were addressed by MS17-010 a month earlier. As is always the case, whenever new exploit code is released into the wild, it becomes a focus of research for both the information security industry as well as cybercriminals. While the good guys take information and use it for the greater good by improving security, cybercriminals also take the code and attempt to find ways to leverage it to achieve their objectives, whether that be financial gain, to create disruption, etc.
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