Yesterday, SophosLabs published details of a sophisticated new ransomware attack that takes the popular tactic of “living off the land” to a new level.
- Sophos Xg Virtualbox
- Sophos Xg Virtualbox Download
- Sophos Xg Virtualbox Extension
- Sophos Xg Home Virtualbox
- Sophos Xg Virtualbox Windows 10
To ensure their 49 kB Ragnar Locker ransomware ran undisturbed, the crooks behind the attack bought along a 280 MB Windows XP virtual machine to run it in (and a copy of Oracle VirtualBox to run that).
It’s almost funny, but it’s no joke.
The attack was carried out by the gang behind Ragnar Locker, who break into company networks, make themselves admins, conduct reconnaissance, delete backups and deploy ransomware manually, before demanding multi-million dollar ransoms.
Like a lot criminals who conduct similar “targeted” or “big game” ransomware attacks, the Ragnar Locker gang try to avoid detection as they operate inside a victim’s network with a tactic dubbed “living off the land”.
Well, I could not find any other possible steps concerning the mouse cursor other than the home computer. I am also thinking about whether the home computer screen resolution has the same screen resolution of the office computer because indifference that may also affect the display when on remote desktop. Sophos is a well known and trusted vendor of security antivirus software, however, they manufacture also a home firewall/router as well. This is the free home-use XG Sophos Firewall. It offers complete protection for your home network, and it has anti-malware, web security, URL filtering, application control, IPS, traffic shaping, VPN.
Living off the land entails using legitimate software administration tools that either already exist on the network the crooks have broken into, or that don’t look suspicious or out of place (PowerShell is a particular favourite).
- Astaro Security Gateway has been renamed Sophos UTM (Sophos SG) Cyberoam become Sophos XG. Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) server 2000, 2004, 2006 or a Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG) server 2010 EOL, one of the option are using Sophos SG UTM as a replacement.
- Firewall with synchronized security built in. Category: Controlled Applications: Publisher Name: innotek GmbH. Try Sophos products for.
SophosLabs reports that in the attack, the gang used a Windows GPO (Group Policy Object) task to execute the Microsoft Installer, which downloaded an MSI containing a number of files, including a copy of VirtualBox and a Windows XP virtual machine with the Ragnar Locker executable inside.
Sophos Xg Virtualbox
VirtualBox is hypervisor software that can run and administer one or more virtual guest computers inside a host computer. Typically, guests are sealed off from the host, and processes running inside the guest are unable to interact with the host’s operating system. This is to prevent hostile processes, like malware, from attacking the host or taking it over, in what’s known as a virtual machine escape.
However, the protections that separate the guests from their host assume a hostile guest inside a friendly host, and that wasn’t the case here, because the attackers had access to both guest and host.
In fact, from the attackers’ perspective they were trying to create the reverse of the normal situation – a friendly (to them) guest environment protected from a hostile host.
To the attackers, the victim’s network is a hostile environment. Living off the land is designed to allow them to work as stealthily as possible, without triggering any alarms in the network’s security software. When they start running malware they’ve broken cover and are at much greater risk of detection.
Running their malware inside a virtual machine allowed them to hide it from the prying eyes of security software on the host.
And because the attackers controlled the host they were easily able to weaken the wall between the host and the guest.
They did this by installing VirtualBox add-ons that allow files on the host to be shared with the guest, and then making every local disk, removable storage and mapped network drive on the host accessible to the guest virtual machine. With those drives mounted inside the guest, the ransomware could encrypt the files on them from inside the protective cocoon of the virtual machine.
Meanwhile, as far as the security software on the host was concerned, data on the local network was being encrypted by legitimate software: VirtualBox’s
VboxHeadless.exe
process.So, from the perspective of the host, the attackers never broke cover and continued to “live off the land”, using legitimate software, until they dropped the ransom note.
For the technical details of this attack, read Mark Loman’s in-depth article on Ragnar Locker over on our sister site, Sophos News.
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Sophos Xg Virtualbox Download
This article describes the steps to configure SSL VPN remote access.
The following sections are covered:
![Extension Extension](https://picsum.photos/328/407.jpg?random=159)
- Configuring Sophos Firewall
- Configuring SSL VPN client
Applies to the following Sophos products and versions
Sophos Firewall
Sophos Firewall
Defining SSL VPN group and users
Go to Authentication > Groups and create a group for remote SSL VPN users.
Go to Authentication > Users and create remote SSL VPN users.
Defining local subnet and remote SSL VPN range
Go to Hosts and Services > IP Host and define the local subnet behind Sophos Firewall.
Go to Hosts and Services > IP Host and define the remote SSL VPN range.
Note: Please make sure that the LAN and VPN assigned networks are not the same.
Defining remote SSL VPN policy
Go to VPN > SSL VPN (Remote Access) and select Add to create an SSL VPN policy.
Verifying the authentication services for SSL VPN
Go to Authentication > Services andmake sure that Local authentication server is selected under SSL VPN Authentication Methods section.
Note: Also make sure that Local authentication server is selected under Firewall Authentication Methods section. This is needed for remote users to logon to the portal to download the SSL VPN client software later in this article.
Verifying the allowed zones for SSL VPN
Go to Administration > Device Access and allow SSL VPN and User Portal for WAN and LAN zones under Local Service ACL section. Add other zones as required.
Configuring advanced SSL VPN settings
Go to VPN and select Show VPN Settings.
Under SSL VPN tab, verify the IPv4 Lease Range configured earlier and set the rest of options as required.
Note: If the XG Firewall do not have a public IP assigned on the WAN interface but behind a NAT device, set the public IP in the Override Hostname field. This sets the SSL VPN client configuration file to use this public IP when establishing the connection. The NAT device has to be configured to forward the SSL VPN connection to the XG Firewall.
Creating a firewall rule
Go to Firewall,click + Add Firewall Rule and select User/Network Rule.
Backup iphone contacts to google. Notes:
- If there is multiple firewall rules from VPN to LAN zones, then put the above firewall rule at the top of the list as described in Sophos XG Firewall: How to change firewall rule order.
- It is possible for the remote host to access the internet via the XG Firewall. To do this, create a firewall rule with VPN as the source zone and WAN as the destination zone.
Downloading the SSL VPN client software
From a browser, logon to the user portal using the Sophos Firewall’s public IP address and the user portal https port. In this example, user portal is accessible at https://172.20.120.15:4443
Note: You can find the user portal https port configured in Sophos Firewall by going to Administration > Admin Settings under Port Settings for Admin Console section.
Once logged into the portal, download the SSL VPN client for the required endpoint accordingly. In this article, we will download and install the client and configuration for Windows 10.
Installing the SSL VPN client software on Windows
Run the downloaded SSL VPN client.
Note: If you have an application control software, make sure to unblock OpenVPN and SSL VPN Client for Windows in order for the installation to be successful.
Sophos Xg Virtualbox Extension
Click Next and follow the wizard. |
Accept the license agreement. |
Choose the folder location and click Install. |
Monitor the installation process. |
Click Finish to complete the installation. |
Once installed, start the VPN authentication by clicking on the traffic light symbol in the task bar. |
Log in using the same credentials for the user portal. |
The traffic light will change from red (disconnected) to red and amber (negotiating/connecting). As soon as the traffic light changes to green, a pop up message appers confirming the SSL VPN connection is established. |
![Sophos xg home virtualbox Sophos xg home virtualbox](/uploads/1/1/4/2/114243007/742482651.png)
From your Windows machine, verify that you have been assigned an IP address from the SSL VPN range configured earlier in Sophos Firewall.
Note: You can also verify the route injected by the SSL VPN client by running
route print
command.Sophos Xg Home Virtualbox
From Sophos Firewall, go to Firewall and verify that rmote SSL VPN access rule allows ingress and egress traffic.
Go to Current Activities > Live users to verify SSL VPN users.
Sophos Xg Virtualbox Windows 10
Go to Report > VPN Watch dogs 2 free to play. to verify remote SSL VPN users list.