Rewterz penetration testing services help organizations determine if a cyber attacker can gain access to their critical assets while giving them detailed insights of the overall business impact of a cyber attack.
Before Rewterz got its start, the market was in dire need of a specialized and dedicated information security company. It was nearly impossible for businesses to find a trustworthy provider that could truly cover all of their bases. We wanted to meet this need, giving companies across the globe a chance to get ahead while knowing that their data is in good hands.
Rewterz penetration testing services help organizations determine if a cyber attacker can gain access to their critical assets while giving them detailed insights of the overall business impact of a cyber attack.
Before Rewterz got its start, the market was in dire need of a specialized and dedicated information security company. It was nearly impossible for businesses to find a trustworthy provider that could truly cover all of their bases. We wanted to meet this need, giving companies across the globe a chance to get ahead while knowing that their data is in good hands.
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Recently, Microsoft has issued a warning on a new hacking campaign targeting MSSQL servers, in which threat actors are initiating brute-force attacks against vulnerable instances. The attacks employ the legitimate tool sqlps.exe, a SQL Server PowerShell program, as a LOLBin (short for living-off-the-land binary).
In a series of tweets, Microsoft warned about the attacks:
The attackers accomplish fileless persistence by using the sqlps.exe tool, which is a PowerShell wrapper for running SQL-built cmdlets, to perform recon commands and change the SQL service’s start mode to LocalSystem. The attackers also utilize sqlps.exe to establish a new account and assign it to the sysadmin role, giving them complete access over the SQL server. They then gain the authority to perform other operations, such as deploying payloads like coin miners.
Using sqlps, a utility available with Microsoft SQL Server that allows the loading of SQL Server cmdlets as a LOLBin, allows attackers to run PowerShell commands without fear of defenders detecting their nefarious activity. It also ensures that they leave no traces while analyzing their attacks because sqlps is an excellent approach to bypass Script Block Logging, a PowerShell functionality that would normally report cmdlet activities to the Windows event log.
MSSQL servers have been targeted for years as part of massive campaigns in which threat actors seek to take control of thousands of vulnerable servers every day for various purposes. Therefore, administrators should not expose their MSSQL servers to the Internet, use a strong admin password that cannot be guessed or brute-forced, and put the server behind a firewall to protect it from such attacks.