The focus of ERNW Research is performing Research projects in all areas of IT security - publicly funded projects in cooperation with universities, customer projects, as well as internal research projects.
Our goal is to perform cutting edge research to preserve excellence, and apply our knowledge and research results in highly technical projects for our customers.
Particular fields of attention are the areas of Incident Response, Forensic Computing, Malware Analysis, and Medical Device Security, as well as advanced security assessments.
Following our knowledge-driven company culture, we offer research services to work on both scientific and pragmatic problems in the IT security space. Past funded research activities focused on Security Awareness, Digital Forensics, Reverse Engineering & Vulnerability Analysis, and telecommunications security. Future activities are coordinated by ERNW Research.
We support our customers in implementing incident response processes/preparation as well as in analyzing occurred or suspected incidents. Following common incident response process models, we offer the development of incident preparation plans, immediate and on-site incident response and malware analysis, as well as the compilation of technical forensic reports.
We support our customers implementing incident response processes to be prepared and able to handle incidents as they occur. ERNW delivers services in every step of those models to ensure a fast recovery from the incident. With the help of the so-called common model we focus on the management of incidents and the integration of the incident handling with the processes of an organization. Exact proceeding in evidence collection and incident analysis is another important part of the process. (The incident response process is structured into several phases, which cover a wide range of services. They include the definition of an incident policy, the implementation of pro-active measures, the detection of incidents, the formulation of a response strategy, the report and documentation of an incident and implementing controls to prevent other incidents.)
To collect evidence in a forensically sound manner to be usable in legal proceedings, we document each performed step in detail – especially how evidence has been acquired and preserved. For this we prepare a detailed, comprehensive and credible report. It includes a multi-staged description with on the one hand high-level summaries for legal staff, as well as in-depth technical documentation that allows other experts to monitor every step and to repeat all analysis to reproduce and prove our results independently.
If in the analysis phase of an incident some executable file has been identified, whose functionality is unclear, this might for example be a piece of malware or some custom program implemented by a suspect. IP Addresses or passwords are examples for information that might be of interest. To figure out the functionality of the file, we apply multiple analysis steps and techniques, such as Static Analysis, Automated and Manual Dynamic Analysis and Reverse Engineering.
The environment of a healthcare provider is highly specialized. Various audiences with individual backgrounds, expectations and needs use and rely on a variety of medical devices. A defective or manipulated medical device may be massive threat to a patient’s life and may lead to serious harm. This is why ERNW offers medical device security. We customize methodologies to cover more medicine-exclusive topics such as the interoperability of the devices concerning medical communication standards such as HL7.
We provide assessment services such as penetration testing, audits, red teaming, and (closed-source) product evaluations. While we have developed many defined testing methodologies for different technologies, we mainly focus on highly technical and individual assessments. Examples for specialized assessment expertise comprise IoT/embedded/industrial/medical devices, cloud/virtualization/hosting platforms, Microsoft & Active Directory environments, or network/security appliances.
Penetration tests is an important tool to simulate a targeted attack scenario to evaluate the effectiveness of already implemented security measures and procedures and to demonstrate the potential of such attacks.
Red Teaming is an important tool to simulate a targeted attack and APT scenario to evaluate the effectiveness of already implemented security measures and procedures, as well as monitoring and incident detection capabilities and to demonstrate the potential of targeted attacks and to raise awareness for remaining risks. Red Teaming starts with the threat modelling phase, where different attack strategies are prepared and evaluated in the context of the customer. Following the actual Red Teaming will be performed after a model, that reflects how real-world targeted attacks are conducted. In the end we provide a comprehensive written report including a detailed management summary, and verbal debriefing with the customer. In addition, we offer optional follow-up modules like the creation of a personalized social engineering policy and security awareness training.
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While conducting security research, I identified a critical vulnerability in Kemp’s LoadMaster Load Balancer. This vulnerability is a Command Injection and allows full system compromise. It requires no authentication and can be exploited remotely by having access to the Web User Interface (WUI). Kemp found that all LoadMaster versions up to and including version 7.2.60.0 […]
During a penetration test for a customer, we briefly assessed Vaultwarden, an open-source online password safe. In June 2024, the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) published results1 of a static and dynamic test of the Vaultwarden server component. Therefore, only a partial source code audit was performed during our assessment. However, a quick […]
Hey everybody, during a recent Red Teaming engagement Marius Walter from ERNW found a command injection issue in Progress (Kemp) LoadMaster. It was registered as CVE-2024-7591 and scores a CVSS of 10.0. The vendor already has patches out, make sure to apply them as this is a high severe issue. You can find the official […]
Apple Automated Device Enrollment (ADE) is presented as a way to automate and simplify the enrollment process of Apple devices within Mobile Device Management (MDE) solutions. This blog post is aimed at organizations currently planning or even already using this feature and making you, the reader, aware of potential limitations of this process that might […]
This article is about the massive BSOD triggered by CrowdStrike worldwide on July 19. Analysis and information from CrowdStrike or other sources are regularly published, completing what is expressed here. Updates may also be provided in the future.