Tag Archive for: Schwachstellen-Management

Elmar Geese

Supposedly pro-Russian hackers try to exploit Sharepoint vulnerability

Update from 2023-12-06:

Last week, we reported on pro-Russian hacktivists scanning for vulnerable SharePoint Servers to exploit a critical vulnerability (CVE-2023-29357).

New findings suggest that the group, calling themselves “Zarya”, is undertaking various exploit-attempts, including directory traversal and targeting specific vulnerabilities in systems such as OpenWRT-Routers. The IP address 212.113.106.100, associated with these activities, has been observed in several different exploit attempts. In addition to simple reconnaissance, specific attacks on configuration files and Admin-APIs have been detected. This case re-emphasizes the importance of securing systems against such threats and shows, how unprotected or poorly configured systems can become targets of such attacks.

A critical vulnerability for Sharepoint (CVE-2023-29357), is being targeted by presumably pro-Russian attackers who are trying to exploit this vulnerability.

The Internet Storm Center has discovered corresponding activity on its honeypots. The severity for this vulnerability is critical (a score of 9.8 out of 10), and the attack complexity is very low, making this vulnerability particularly dangerous. Greenbone customers can benefit from the automatic detection of this vulnerability in our Enterprise Feed. Microsoft offers a security update since June 12, 2023, Microsoft customers who missed the update should install it now.


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Greenbone AG

IT security update November 2023: Critical vulnerabilities and threats

In the November 2023 commVT Intelligence Update, several critical vulnerabilities and security threats have come to light. Cisco’s Internetworking Operating System (IOS) XE Software Web User Interface (UI) was found to be vulnerable to two actively exploited critical vulnerabilities, allowing attackers to execute arbitrary code remotely. The curl command-line tool, widely used across various platforms, faced a serious vulnerability that could result in arbitrary code execution during SOCKS5 proxy handshakes. VMware is urging immediate updates for its vCenter Server due to a critical vulnerability potentially leading to remote code execution. Multiple vulnerabilities were found in versions of PHP 8; one is a particularly critical deserialization vulnerability in the PHAR extraction process. Additionally, SolarWinds Access Rights Manager (ARM) was found susceptible to multiple critical vulnerabilities, emphasizing the urgency to update to version 2023.2.1. Lastly, two F5 BIG-IP vulnerabilities were discovered to be actively exploited, with mitigation options available and outlined below.

Cisco IOS XE: Multiple Critical Vulnerabilities

Two actively exploited critical CVSS 10 vulnerabilities were discovered in Cisco’s Internetworking Operating System (IOS) XE Software Web User Interface (UI); CVE-2023-20198 and CVE-2023-20273. Combined, they allow an attacker to remotely execute arbitrary code as the system user and are estimated to have been used to exploit tens of thousands of vulnerable devices within the past few weeks. Greenbone has added detection for both the vulnerable product by version [1], and another aimed at detecting the BadCandy implanted configuration file [2]. Both are VTs included in Greenbone’s Enterprise vulnerability feed.

Cisco IOS was created in the 1980s and used as the embedded OS in the networking technology giant’s routers. Fast forward to 2023, IOS XE is a leading enterprise networking full-stack software solution that powers Cisco platforms for access, distribution, core, wireless, and WAN. IOS XE is Linux-based, and specially optimized for networking and IT infrastructure, routing, switching, network security, and management. Cisco devices are pervasive in global IT infrastructure and used by organizations of all sizes, including large-scale enterprises, government agencies, critical infrastructure, and educational institutions.

Here’s how the two recently disclosed CVEs work:

• CVE-2023-20198 (CVSS 10 Critical): Allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to create an account [T1136] on an affected system with privilege level 15 (aka privileged EXEC level) access [CWE-269]. Privilege level 15 is the highest level of access to Cisco IOS. The attacker can then use that account to gain control of the affected system.
• CVE-2023-20273 (CVSS 7.2 High): A regular user logged into the IOS XE web UI, can inject commands [CWE-77] that are subsequently executed on the underlying system with the system (root) privileges. This vulnerability is caused by insufficient input validation [CWE-20]. CVE is also associated with a Lua-based web-shell [T1505.003] implant dubbed “BadCandy”. BadCandy consists of an Nginx configuration file named `cisco_service.conf` that establishes a URI path to interact with the web-shell implant but requires the webserver to be restarted.

Cisco has released software updates for mitigating both CVEs in IOS XE software releases, including versions 17.9, 17.6, 17.3, and 16.12 as well as available Software Maintenance Upgrades (SMUs) and IT security teams are strongly advised to urgently install them. Cisco has also released associated indicators of compromise (IoC), Snort rules for detecting active attacks, and a TAC Technical FAQs page. Disabling the web UI prevents exploitation of these vulnerabilities and may be suitable mitigation until affected devices can be upgraded. Publicly released proof of concept (PoC) code [1][2] and a Metasploit module further increase the urgency to apply the available security updates.

Critical Vulnerability In The Curl Tool

A widespread vulnerability has been discovered in the popular curl command line tool, libcurl, and the many software applications that leverage them across a wide number of platforms. Tracked as CVE-2023-38545 (CVSS 9.8 Critical), the flaw makes curl overflow a heap-based buffer [CWE-122]] in the SOCKS5 proxy handshake that can result in arbitrary code execution [T1203]. Greenbone’s community feed includes several NVTs [1] to detect many of the affected software products and will add additional detections for CVE-2023-38545 as more vulnerable products are identified.

CVE-2023-38545 is a client-side vulnerability exploitable when passing a hostname to the SOCKS5 proxy that exceeds the maximum length of 255 bytes. If supplied with an excessively long hostname, curl is supposed to use local name resolution and pass it on to the resolved address only. However, due to the CVE-2023-38545 flaw, curl may actually copy the overly long hostname to the target buffer instead of copying just the resolved address there. The target buffer, being a heap-based buffer, and the hostname coming from the URL results in the heap-based overflow.

While the severity of the vulnerability is considered high because it can be exploited remotely and has a high impact to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA) of the underlying system, the SOCKS5 proxy method is not the default connection mode and must be declared explicitly. Additionally, for an overflow to happen an attacker also needs to cause a slow enough SOCKS5 handshake to trigger the bug. All versions of curl are affected between v7.69.0 (released March 4th, 2020) until v8.3.0. The vulnerable code was patched in v8.4.0 commit 4a4b63daaa.

VMware vCenter Server: Multiple Vulnerabilities

CVE-2023-34048 is a critical severity vulnerability that could allow a malicious actor with network access to vCenter Server to cause an out-of-bounds write [CWE-787] potentially leading to remote code execution (RCE). The affected software includes VMware vCenter Server versions 6.5, 6.7, 7.0, and 8.0. VMWare has issued a security advisory to address both vulnerabilities which states that there are no known mitigations other than installing the provided updates. Both vulnerabilities can be detected by Greenbone’s enterprise vulnerability feed [1]. The vCenter Server patch also fixes CVE-2023-34056, a medium-severity information disclosure resulting from improper authorization [CWE-285].

Although there are no reports that CVE-2023-34048 is being actively exploited in the wild attackers have proven adept at swiftly converting threat intelligence into exploit code. Research by Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 threat research group shows that on average an exploit is published 37 days after a security patch is released.

Here are some brief details on both CVEs:

• CVE-2023-34048 (CVSS 9.8 Critical): vCenter Server contains an out-of-bounds write [CWE-787] vulnerability in the implementation of the DCERPC protocol. A malicious actor with network access to vCenter Server may trigger this vulnerability to achieve remote code execution (RCE). The Distributed Computing Environment Remote Procedure Call (DCERPC) protocol facilitates remote procedure calls (RPC) in distributed computing environments, allowing applications to communicate and invoke functions across networked systems.
• CVE-2023-34056 (CVSS 4.3 Medium): vCenter Server contains a partial information disclosure vulnerability. A malicious actor with non-administrative privileges to vCenter Server may leverage this issue to access unauthorized data.

Multiple Vulnerabilities Discovered In PHP 8

Several vulnerabilities were identified in PHP 8.0.X before 8.0.28, 8.1.X before 8.1.16 and 8.2.X before 8.2.3. Although the group of vulnerabilities does include one critical and two high-severity vulnerabilities, these require particular contexts to be present for exploitation; either deserializing PHP applications using PHAR or else using PHP’s core path resolution functions on untrusted input. Greenbone’s enterprise VT feed includes multiple detection tests for these vulnerabilities across multiple platforms.

Here are brief descriptions of the most severe recent PHP 8 vulnerabilities:

• CVE-2023-3824 (CVSS 9.8 Critical): A PHAR file (short for PHP Archive) is a compressed packaging format in PHP, which is used to distribute and deploy complete PHP applications in a single archive file. While reading directory entries during the PHAR archive loading process, insufficient length checking may lead to a stack buffer overflow [CWE-121], potentially leading to memory corruption or remote code execution (RCE).
• CVE-2023-0568 (CVSS 8.1 High): PHP’s core path resolution function allocates a buffer one byte too small. When resolving paths with lengths close to the system `MAXPATHLEN` setting, this may lead to the byte after the allocated buffer being overwritten with NULL value, which might lead to unauthorized data access or modification. PHP’s core path resolution is used for the `realpath()` and `dirname()` functions, when including other files using the `include()`, `include_once()`, `require()`, and `require_once()`, and during the process of resolving PHP’s “magic” constants” such as `__FILE__` and `__DIR__`.
• CVE-2023-0567 (CVSS 6.2 Medium): PHP’s `password_verify()` function may accept some invalid Blowfish hashes as valid. If such an invalid hash ever ends up in the password database, it may lead to an application allowing any password for this entry as valid [CWE-287]. Notably, this vulnerability has been assigned different CVSS scores by NIST (CVSS 6.2 Medium) and the PHP group CNA (CVSS 7.7 High), the difference being that the PHP Group CNA considers CVE-2023-0567 a high risk to confidentiality while NIST does not. CNAs are a group of independent vendors, researchers, open source software developers, CERT, hosted service, and bug bounty organizations authorized by the CVE Program to assign CVE IDs and publish CVE records within their own specific scopes of coverage.

SolarWinds Access Rights Manager (ARM): Multiple Critical Vulnerabilities

SolarWinds Access Rights Manager (ARM) prior to version 2023.2.1 is vulnerable to 8 different exploits; one critical and two additional high-severity vulnerabilities (CVE-2023-35182, CVE-2023-35185, and CVE-2023-35187). These include authenticated and unauthenticated privilege escalation [CWE-269], directory traversal [CWE-22], and remote code execution (RCE) at the most privileged “SYSTEM” level. Greebone’s Enterprise vulnerability feed includes both local security check (LSC) [1] and remote HTTP detection [2].

SolarWinds ARM is an enterprise access control software for Windows Active Directory (AD) networks and other resources such as Windows File Servers, Microsoft Exchange services, and Microsoft SharePoint as well as virtualization environments, cloud services, NAS devices, and more. The widespread use of ARM and other SolarWinds software products means that its vulnerabilities have a high potential to impact a wide range of large organizations including critical infrastructure.

These and more recent vulnerabilities are disclosed in SolarWinds’ security advisories. Although no reports of active exploitation have been released, mitigation is highly recommended and available by installing SolarWinds ARM version 2023.2.1.

F5 BIG-IP: Unauthenticated RCE And Authenticated SQL Injection Vulnerabilities

Two RCE vulnerabilities in F5 BIG-IP, CVE-2023-46747 (CVSS 9.8 Critical) and CVE-2023-46748 (CVSS 8.8 High), have been observed by CISA to be actively exploited in the wild soon after PoC code was released for CVE-2023-46747. A Metasploit exploit module has also since been published. F5 BIG-IP is a family of hardware and software IT security products for ensuring that applications are always secure and perform the way they should. The platform is produced by F5 Networks, and it focuses on application services ranging from access and delivery to security. Greenbone has added detection for both CVEs [1][2].

CVE-2023-46747 is a remote authentication bypass [CWE-288] vulnerability while CVE-2023-46748 is a remote SQL injection vulnerability [CWE-89] that can only be exploited by an authenticated user. The affected products include the second minor release (X.1) for major versions 14-17 of BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) and F5 Networks BIG-IP Application Security Manager (ASM).

If you are running an affected version you can eliminate this vulnerability by installing the vendor-provided HOTFIX updates [1][2]. The term “hotfix” implies that the patch can be applied to a system while it is running and operational, without the need for a shutdown or reboot. If updating is not an option, CVE-2023-46747 can be mitigated by downloading and running a bash script that adds or updates the `requiredSecret` attribute in the Tomcat configuration, which is used for authentication between Apache and Tomcat, and CVE-2023-46748 can be mitigated by restricting access to the Configuration utility to allow only trusted networks or devices, and ensuring only trusted user accounts exist thereby limiting the attack surface.


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Markus Feilner

CVE News: Critical vulnerabilities Atlassian and F5 Big vulnerability tests released by Greenbone

Our developers have provided vulnerability tests for two critical vulnerabilities in widely used enterprise software. Within a very short time, tests for CVE 2023-22518 und CVE 2023-46747 were integrated, and customers of Greenbone’s Enterprise Feed were protected.

Knowledge management tools Confluence and Jira from Australian vendor Atlassian have been hit by a serious security vulnerability, rated 9.8 out of 10 on the CERT scale. Since November 8, CVE 2023-22518 has been actively exploited by attackers gaining unauthorized access to company data, according to media reports.

According to the company, the “authentication flaw” affects all versions of Confluence Data Center and Server, but not the cloud version at Atlassian itself. For anyone else, including users of Jira, but especially all publicly accessible Confluence servers, there is a “high risk and need to take immediate action”, writes Atlassian.

We reacted quickly and provided our customers with appropriate tests before ransomware attacks could be successful. Customers of the Greenbone Enterprise Feed were warned and reminded of the patch via update.

Remote code execution: F5 BIG-IP allows request smuggling

Also at the end of October, security researchers from Praetorian Labs discovered a serious vulnerability (CVE-2023-46747) in the products of application security expert F5. The American company’s solutions are designed to protect large networks and software environments; the software, which was launched in 1997 as a load balancer, is primarily used in large enterprises.

However, according to the experts, attackers can remotely execute code on the BIG-IP servers by adding arbitrary system commands to the administration tools via manipulated URLs. Details can be found at Praetorian; patches are available, and a long list of BIG-IP products of versions 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 are affected, both in hardware and software.

We reacted quickly and integrated tests into its vulnerability scanners on the same day, which test the BIG-IP installations at Greenbone Enterprise for vulnerable versions and, if necessary, point to the patches listed at F5.

Our vulnerability management products, the Greenbone Enterprise Appliances, offer the best protection.

Professional vulnerability management is an indispensable part of IT security. It enables the early detection of risks and provides valuable instructions for their elimination.
The Greenbone Enterprise Feed is updated daily to detect new vulnerabilities. We therefore recommend that you regularly update and scan all your systems. Please also read this article on IT security and the timeline of common attack vectors.


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Elmar Geese

Current Report on the State of IT Security in Germany 2023

On November 2, Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser and Claudia Plattner, President of the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), presented the latest report on the state of IT security in Germany. Attacks with ransomware represent the largest and most frequent risk, but by far not the only one. As long as these attacks cannot be completely prevented, systems must become more secure in order to prevent or at least reduce damage.

In Germany, there are a number of initiatives to improve vulnerability management. These include the National IT Security Act (IT-SiG) and the BSI’s IT-Grundschutz Compendium. The “nationwide situation picture” rightly called for by BSI President Claudia Plattner can thus map the threat situation to the situation of vulnerable systems, thereby helping to warn in advance and respond quickly and effectively in the specific event of an attack.

“Digitization makes many things in our everyday lives easier. At the same time, it creates new areas of attack,” says Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser. We need to counter the growing risks posed by progressive networking with automated tools and processes. By using them, companies and organizations can better protect their IT systems and reduce the probability of a successful cyber attack.

Insecure systems make it easier for attackers to cause damage. Improving vulnerability management is therefore an important step toward increasing IT security in Germany.Insecure systems make it easier for attackers to wreak havoc. Improving vulnerability management is therefore an important step towards increasing IT security in Germany.

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Greenbone AG

Critical vulnerability in Citrix Netscaler: Greenbone provides tests

On October 10th, Citrix officially informed about the vulnerability in the Netscaler software, CVE-2023-4966, which is categorized as “critical” according to CVSS with a score of 9.4 and allows unauthorized access to corporate networks.

Greenbone has reacted to these vulnerabilities and implemented vulnerability tests at an early stage. Greenbone customers using the Citrix Netscaler Gateway, or ADC, are therefore on the safe side.

Nevertheless, the vulnerability is serious, which is why the BSI issues an urgent warning:

“The vulnerability allows attackers to disclose sensitive information without authentication. This allows authenticated sessions to be hijacked and multifactor authentication (MFA) or other means of authentication to be bypassed”.

The vulnerability, which has been actively exploited since the end of August, has been reported in numerous media outlets. Users should install the patches provided by Citrix as soon as possible. Citrix’s NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway products, versions 13 and 14, and versions 12 and 13 of NetScaler ADC are affected. In addition to CVE-2023-4966, an advisory has been issued for CVE-2023-4967, which allows a Denial of Service (DoS).

Keep your IT networks secure!

Vulnerability management is a key tool in securing IT networks. It enables you to identify and eliminate potential risks in your systems. The Greenbone Enterprise Feed is updated daily to detect new vulnerabilities. Therefore, we recommend regular updates and scans for all your systems. Please also read this article about IT security and the timeline of common attack vectors.

The Greenbone Enterprise Appliances are offered as hardware or as virtual appliances. Greenbone works GDPR-compliant and offers an open-source solution. This means the best data protection compliance and is thus guaranteed to be completely free of backdoors.


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Markus Feilner

“Vulnerability management is becoming increasingly important” – Greenbone CEO Dr. Jan-Oliver Wagner at PITS Congress

Every year, IT and cyber security experts from public authorities, federal, state and local governments as well as the armed forces, police and intelligence services meet for the cyber security congress “Public IT Security” (PITS), initiated by Behoerdenspiegel. In 2023, the topic of vulnerabilities was once again at the top of the agenda.

This year, our CEO Dr. Jan-Oliver Wagner was invited as an expert to take part in the panel discussion “Putting a finger on a wound – managing or closing vulnerabilities?” Moderated by Katharina Sook Hee Koch from the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), the panel included representatives from the German Informatics Society (Nikolas Becker, Head of Policy & Science), the Bundestag Committee on Digital Affairs (MdB Catarina dos Santos-Wintz, CDU/CSU), the BSI itself (Dr. Dirk Häger, Head of Department Operative Cyber Security) for an exchange of views. Dirk Kunze from the North Rhine-Westphalia State Criminal Police Office (Head of the Cybercrime/Cyber Investigations Department in the Research and Investigation Centre) was present on behalf of the executive.

Panel discussion at the cyber security congress PITS 2023 with Greenbone CEO Dr. Jan-Oliver Wagner and representatives of the BSI, Bundestag, LKA NRW and Gesellschaft für Informatik on the topic of vulnerability management.

from left: Catarina dos Santos-Wintz, Dirk Kunze, Katharina Sook Hee Koch, Dr. Dirk Häger, Dr. Jan Oliver Wagner, Nikolas Becker (Photo: Greenbone AG)

Should vulnerabilities be closed? By all means!

The debate quickly centered on the question of whether and how (quickly) vulnerabilities in software should be closed and/or whether this would impair the work of investigative authorities. There was great unanimity among those present that the security of citizens had the highest priority. Keeping vulnerabilities open, even for political reasons, is hardly an option, both for cost reasons (exploits are expensive) and in risk assessment.

On the contrary, open-source software should be strengthened and more rewards (bug bounties) should be offered to experts who actively search for vulnerabilities. The BSI is also firmly convinced: “Basically, vulnerabilities must be closed.” (Häger). In criminal practice, the topic apparently plays a subordinate role anyway: the police, according to the LKA in North Rhine-Westphalia, know of only a few cases where it could have helped to keep vulnerabilities open. However, open vulnerabilities are still seen as a possible element for investigations. But of course, the decision of the politicians will be followed.

Dr. Jan-Oliver Wagner: “Vulnerability management is becoming increasingly important!”

Greenbone CEO Wagner warns that the number of open vulnerabilities will increase rather than decrease in the coming years. This is despite the fact that good progress is being made with regard to security in software development. However, the regulations and thus the pressure on companies by the legislator are also becoming stricter – not necessarily a bad thing, but it does create a need for action: “The upcoming Common Security Advisory Framework (CSAF 2.0) and the EU’s Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), will significantly increase the number of known vulnerabilities.”

The CSAF makes it easier for manufacturers to report vulnerabilities, while the Cyber Resilience Act also brings responsibility to the hoover manufacturer, i.e. to all parts of the economy. If you don’t want to lose track of this, you need vulnerability management like Greenbone’s, explains Wagner. “Upcoming regulations bring the issue of vulnerabilities into all parts of the economy, as now every manufacturer is responsible for the security of the devices and their software, including, for example, manufacturers for hoover robots or other smart household appliances – For the entire life of the product!”

Vulnerability management is risk management

Vulnerability management today is pure risk management for the professional user, as it is already practiced in insurance companies – decisions are made about which vulnerabilities need to be closed and which can or must wait (triage).

This is exactly where our vulnerability management products come in – as a hardware or as a virtual appliance. Greenbone develops an open source vulnerability management and allows users to detect vulnerabilities in their own network infrastructure within a few steps. Our products generate reports with concrete instructions for action that you can implement immediately.

We work strictly according GDPR Compliance and offer an open source solution. This means best data protection compliance and is thus guaranteed free of backdoors.


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Markus Feilner

Outlook Zero Day: Greenbone vulnerability management helps

At its latest patchday, software manufacturer Microsoft patched a severe zero-day vulnerability that had been exploited by intelligence agencies and Russian hacker groups, among others, in the summer of 2022. Early on, Greenbone was able to provide a test in the process, helping companies find unpatched systems and secure data centers and clients.

The CVE-2023-23397 was discovered by the Ukrainian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-UA), affects all versions of Microsoft Outlook on Windows and allows attackers to access SMB servers via emails with extended MAPI commands.

Fully automated attack in the background

This, Microsoft warns urgently, can happen fully automatically and in the background, without the user having opened or even previewed the malicious mail: The dangerous commands would be executed directly upon arrival – no credentials entered or careless mouse clicks done by the user are necessary.

Even though all users of Outlook for Windows are affected; systems with Android, iOS or macOS are not vulnerable. Attackers can only exploit this vulnerability if the (old) NTLM authentication is used, web interfaces such as Office 365 are also safe, as Microsoft explains.


Mitigation: Block SMB connections, add users to AD groups

Due to the high potential for damage, the vendor strongly urges customers to apply the appropriate patch. As intermediate, temporary solution, users should be included in the group of protected users in Active Directory and all outgoing SMB connections should be blocked.

Greenbone customers had been provided with an examined test shortly after Microsoft’s patchday. Details of our vulnerability test are available to Greenbone customers here – it is already integrated into Greenbone’s Security Feed and the vulnerability detection of our products.

Incidentally, in a blog post, Microsoft states that previous attacks via this vulnerability have been of limited scope, mostly targeting a “limited number of government, transportation, energy and military organizations in Europe” in 2022 and carried out by Russian-based actors. Media outlets such as Bleeping Computer, which first obtained the internal information from Microsoft, reported attacks from April to December 2022, also carried out by the well-known APT-28 group, for example.

Test Greenbone Vulnerability Management for free

As a “Trial” the Greenbone Enterprise Appliances are free of charge for 14 days. Users can try it out quickly, without special know-how directly in the web browser. A direct upgrade to a valid subscription is possible at any time. All Greenbone Enterprise Appliances use the daily updated Greenbone Enterprise Feed which helps to automatically test your IT network and all connected devices for more than 100,000 vulnerabilities and provides a daily updated, accurate status of the security situation in your company. Because the vulnerability check also provides information on the severity, you can easily prioritize the identified vulnerabilities and the measures to be taken.

Vulnerability management that inspects your IT infrastructure from the outside is indispensable in modern companies. Ideally, by acting like a potential attacker, you can find all vulnerabilities in your IT infrastructure the attacker could exploit. so to speak, and take care of its elimination. Only those who know their vulnerabilities can implement the right security measures.


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Markus Feilner

Greenbone launches new Community Portal

Greenbone, the global leader in open source vulnerability management solutions, has launched a community portal for its user and developer community, making the extensive information available for community editions clearer and easier to access.

Graphic with rocket and the welcome to the new Greenbone Community Portal

Who is the portal for?

At community.greenbone.net, vulnerability management experts invite users, developers and all IT professionals who are professionally involved in security and protection against hackers to browse forums, blogs, news and documentation and help shape the pages.

Central point of contact
“Our new Community Portal is the central place where users, experts, Greenbone employees and anyone else interested can meet and get up-to-the-minute information about the products, the company or new features,” explains Greenbone’s Community Manager DeeAnn Little: “We want the portal to be a home for the large, worldwide Greenbone community, with all the links and information anyone who works with our vulnerability management tools needs.”

What the new portal offers
For both Greenbone OpenVAS and the Greenbone Community Edition, you can find (under “Getting started“) numerous instructions on how to install and configure the community versions. In addition, there are news and updates, for example about the recently released Docker container releases of the Community Edition but also current figures about Greenbone installations on a world map and a completely revised forum with new categories and Blog.

For the community, with the community
“All this would not be possible without the numerous contributions from the Greenbone community, but at the same time this is only the first step,” explains Little: “In the future, we will also have our experts explain technical details and present new features here.

Greenbone invites the large community to give input and suggestions which topics are of relevance and interest for them Little explains:

“We welcome all input and all suggestions, ideas and ideas for improvement, which is exactly what the portal is here for. Send us your questions, any questions! What have we missed? What would you like to see? How can we make the portal, the forum and the new pages even better? What topics would you like to see – what should we report on?” You can leave your statement here, we will be glad to reveive it.

Greenbone Community Forum in a new look

Greenbone has also integrated the popular User Forum into the Community Portal. With the new look, it will continue to provide users of Greenbone’s software – regardless of their technical background – with a platform for ideas, mutual help, but also feedback.

Screenshot of the new Greenbone Community Forum with categories and current discussions

“The forum is a place where users can meet and help each other as equals – it’s a place of exchange where we can always learn, too,” Little explains. “Whether it’s a beginner’s question, more in-depth howtos, or getting started guides, many a user will find help from experienced users in the forum, even in exotic setups.”


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Greenbone AG

Direct Integration of Compliance Policies via the Greenbone Security Feed

With the help of compliance policies, a company can check whether all components integrated in the system meet the required specifications. The increasing digitalization and the associated growth of new technologies create opportunities, but also risks. For this reason, the demands on compliance are increasing as well. With GOS 20.08, all compliance policies were made available via the Greenbone Security Feed and four new compliance policies were added: TLS-Map, BSI TR-03116: Part 4, Huawei Datacom Product Security Configuration Audit Guide and Windows 10 Security Hardening.

Compliance policies for different industries

What is a compliance policy anyway?

In addition to legal requirements, companies and public authorities often have their own guidelines that must be met for the secure configuration of a system. The aim is to ensure the information security of the company or authority by guaranteeing the confidentiality, integrity, availability and authenticity of information.

All specifications and guidelines that are necessary for this are summarized in one document to form a policy.

Based on the individual criteria of the guidelines, Greenbone develops vulnerability tests – roughly speaking: one criterion results in one vulnerability test. Greenbone combines these tests into a scan configuration.

Such scan configurations, which reflect policies of companies or authorities, are called Compliance Policies.

Example: a company releases a security policy with the following requirements:

  • Version 2 of software A is installed on the target system
  • SSH is activated on the target system
  • Software B is not installed on the target system

Greenbone develops a vulnerability test for each of the requirements, which checks whether the respective condition is fulfilled.

The three tests are then combined into a compliance policy that a user of the Greenbone solutions can choose when performing a vulnerability test. During the scan, it is checked whether the conditions mentioned above are met on the target system.

New: distribution of compliance policies via the Greenbone Security Feed

Starting with GOS 20.08, all standard scan configurations, reports formats, port lists, and compliance policies of Greenbone are distributed via the Greenbone Security Feed.

Among other things, this allows the publication and distribution of scan configurations for current, hot vulnerability tests. In the past, these were published as XML files for manual download on the Greenbone download website and had to be imported by the users themselves – which was very tedious and left room for mistakes, making a quick application hardly possible.

But this is not the only advantage. It also makes troubleshooting much easier and faster for the customer: objects can be updated and, if necessary, fixed for all setups with a single feed update.

In addition to this innovation, the Greenbone Security Feed has been extended by some important compliance policies.

More Compliance Policies in the Greenbone Security Feed

Four new compliance policies were added to the Greenbone Security Feed in the 4th quarter 2020:

  • TLS-Map
  • BSI TR-03116: Part 4
  • Huawei Datacom Product Security Configuration Audit Guide
  • Windows 10 Security Hardening

About the Special Scan Configuration TLS-Map

Note: TLS-Map is a scan configuration for special scans that are different from vulnerability scans. For reasons of simplicity, this special scan configuration is listed in this article along with the compliance policies.

The special scan configuration TLS-Map is helpful wherever secure communication over the Internet is required. TLS – short for Transport Layer Security – is a protocol for the secure transmission of data on the Internet. It is the successor of SSL – Secure Sockets Layer – which is why both protocols are still often used synonymously today. However, all SSL versions and TLS versions prior to version 1.2 have been outdated since 2020 at the latest and are therefore insecure.

The largest area of application for TLS is data transfer via the World Wide Web (WWW), for example between a web browser as the client and a server such as www.greenbone.net. Other areas of application are in e-mail traffic and in the transfer of files via File Transport Protocol (FTP).

The special scan configuration TLS-Map checks whether the required TLS version is available on the target system and whether the required encryption algorithms – so-called ciphers – are offered.

About the Compliance Policy BSI TR-03116: Part 4

The Technical Guideline BSI TR-03116 Cryptographic Requirements for Federal Projects from the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) is used for Federal Government projects. This means that if a federal project should be implemented, this guideline must be fulfilled. It consists of 5 parts in total:

  • Part 1: Telematic infrastructure
  • Part 2: Sovereign identification documents
  • Part 3: Intelligent measuring systems
  • Part 4: Communications procedures in applications
  • Part 5: Applications of the Secure Element API

The compliance policy, which Greenbone Network has developed accordingly, checks whether the contents of the fourth part of the policy are fulfilled. This part contains requirements for communication procedures.

The compliance policy BSI TR-03116: Part 4 in the Greenbone Security Feed tests the three main requirements – minimum TLS version as well as necessary and not legitimate ciphers – of the technical guideline.

About the Compliance Policy Huawei Datacom Product Security Configuration Audit Guide

Compliance policies for Huawei solutions have been part of the Greenbone Security Feed for quite some time.

Greenbone had already developed compliance policies for the following two solutions:

  • EulerOS: Linux operating system, based on CentOS
    Related compliance Policy: EulerOS Linux Security Configuration
  • GaussDB: database management system (DBMS)
    Related compliance policy: GaussDB 100 V300R001C00 Security Hardening Guide

With a compliance policy for Huawei Datacom, a product category that also includes routers and switches with their own operating system, a third compliance policy for solutions developed by Huawei is added now.

For all three products – Huawei Datacom, EulerOS and GaussDB – there are security configurations that were specified by Huawei. Based on these configurations, Greenbone has developed compliance policies which check the compliance with those security configurations. The different compliance policies are always applied if the corresponding solution is available on the target system.

For the Huawei Datacom operating system, Huawei distributes the Huawei Datacom Product Security Configuration Audit Guide. The associated, newly developed compliance policy tests, for example, whether the correct versions of SSH and SNMP are available on the target system.

About the Compliance Policy Windows 10 Security Hardening

The compliance policy Windows 10 Security Hardening includes vulnerability tests to evaluate the hardening of Windows 10 according to industry standards.

Among other things, the compliance policy checks different password specifications such as age, length and complexity of the password, specifications for the assignments of user rights, and requirements for different system devices.

Even faster integration of compliance policies with GOS 20.08

As digitalization continues, compliance requirements are growing in companies of all sizes and in all industries.

Through the direct integration of compliance policies via the Greenbone Security Feed and the inclusion of new compliance policies, the testing of target systems is even more efficient, easier and quicker, thus increasing the protection of the IT infrastructure without the need for special compliance know-how. Of course, we continue to work on new compliance policies on an ongoing basis. So be curious!

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