Download SharePoint Data w/o Rights

At a company I worked at recently, I ran across a Sharepoint site and wondered whether I could download data that I wasn’t supposed to see.

Now I understand the purpose of SharePoint and company intranets is to share data, but even then, some data should be restricted to a limited number of people.

So I decided to check (before doing things like this, you better know How to Stay Out of Jail).

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10+ Signs Mgmt Doesn’t Really Support Analytics

Your management says it wants more analytics, but does it really support analytics? Here’s 10+ signs that indicate that your mgmt:

• Does NOT knows what it takes to get analytics off the ground
• Believes that analytics multiply like rabbits, naturally
• Is NOT willing to make the adjustments required to deliver and sustain real value.

Periodic Access Review Problems

One of my current clients is trying really hard to do periodic access reviews.

They know that mistakes are made in granting access, that users get access and eventually don’t need it anymore, but don’t tell anyone, and that some users leave the company without their manager’s knowledge (I never have understood how that happens, but it does; it has happened in every Fortune 500 company in which I’ve worked).

How to Audit User Access

When checking system access, make sure you look at all the different items that affect the user’s access. For example, the user might need one or more of the following:

• Application ID
• Application role or group
• Membership in an local server group, Active Directory (AD) group, or UNIX Group
• Access to the application’s share and/or folder on the server
• Database ID
• Database role, including access permissions (read/write)
• Other permission (from a home-grown application code or enterprise identify management system)

Top 10 Reasons to be an IT Auditor

Here’s my list of the top 10 reasons to be an IT auditor:

10. You have access to all systems, data, and people (with a business reason, of course). Employees rarely ignore you.

9. You can uncover fraud, mischief, ignorance, and just plain laziness. Either way, you “add value to the business” (yeah, I hate that term too, but it is what audit is about, and so appropriate).

Vendor Provides Access, No Questions Asked

During an audit, I had a vendor provide me with access to data I shouldn’t have, no questions asked. I didn’t ask for the access, I just needed some information for my audit.

The audit involved checking some vendor software to determine whether it is patched by IT on a regular basis. I obtained from IT a screenshot of the version number of software that was installed, but needed to know the last couple of versions released by the vendor. The admin was going to send me the URL because he said I probably wouldn’t find it the info on the vendor’s site. After a couple days of waiting for the URL, I took matters into my own hands and went to the vendor’s website.

Download Domino Database to Excel w/o Rights

I recently downloaded the contents of a Lotus Notes Domino database to Excel without any access to the database. If you’ll recall, I do audit consulting, and was performing an audit at a Fortune 100 company.

Important update regarding your LinkedIn password = SPAM?

A friend of mine received the following email on Friday, 2 full days after the LinkedIn attack was made public, titled “Important update regarding your LinkedIn password”. Here’s the text she received, addressed to her by her first and last name:

[see UPDATE below]

Internal Attacker Detected: Conclusion

Minutes later, one of the security techs met me at Lynn’s cube with a box that we quickly filled with the contents of her desk: files, CDs, DVDs, notedpads, books, etc. The other help desk analysts in adjacent cubes looked at us with silent questions on their faces.

I noticed that one of them was a new employee that had attended my security presentation in employee orientation last week, so he knew who I was. That meant rumors would spread quickly. While I never enjoyed walkouts, they reminded the staff that security incidents have consequences.

This is a multi-part series. See Internal Attacker Detected: Part 1, Internal Attacker Detected: Part 2, and Internal Attacker Detected: Part 3.

Others on my team had already imaged the old computer and had started imaging the new one across the network as soon as my meeting with Lynn began (by design, she was not told of the meeting beforehand). Both images would be sent off to the Forensics team.

ACL tip: Quickly View/Print Table Layout

To quickly view or print the table layout in ACL, type dis in the ACL command line (dis is short for display).

The table layout contains information about the fields in a table, such as field names, field type (ASCII, Date, Numeric), field length, and most importantly, the expressions used to create computed fields. For more info on computed fields, see What is a Computed Field?

How Virtualization Changes Audits

If you haven’t determined how server virtualization changes your audit plans, you better get moving. I’m not just talking about a virtualization audit (more on that later), but the audits that you typically do every year or on a multi-year cycle.

For example, if every year you do an audit on all networks, servers, applications, and databases that host your key financial reporting or PHI systems, you’re looking at policies and procedures, configuration management, security (including patching), user access, logging, and so on. But do you first consider whether those assets run on virtualized servers?

Free ACL Bootcamp Training – from ACL!

ACL is offering FREE training as part of their bootcamp series, which started in September 2011. The training consists of a video presentation that includes ACL demos. The best part is that you do NOT have to be a current ACL customer or even have a copy of ACL.

The purpose of the series, according to ACL, is to teach basic skills and deal with common problems that ACL users encounter. Each session lasts about 30-40 minutes, followed by a Q&A session. The bootcamp is led by Shane Grimm (see his blog comment here).

Avoid Hiring Paroled Auditors and CSOs

CSO magazine had a great article some time ago that I came across again entitled, How Not to Hire an Information Security Officer Who’s on Parole. After it describes some true-life hiring horrors, it provides some good points to remember about hiring: