Playbook for the Secure Enterprise

CyberSecurity Latest Rundown

Heroes, our idea of a Sunday Funday is a detailed look at the current cybersecurity landscape for August 31, 2025.

HIGH SEVERITY ITEMS

• US Homeland Security chief reports breach at FEMA, fires 23 employees

  Date & Time: 2025-08-30T03:52:49

  A significant breach has been reported at the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), leading to the termination of 23 employees. This incident underscores the persistent threat of insider risk and security lapses within critical government agencies. The full extent of the data compromised is still under investigation.

  CVE Details: n/a

  Source: Reuters via Hacker News

• Microsoft and IRONSCALES Crack Down on the Direct Send Exploit

  Date & Time: 2025-08-29T11:15:00

  Microsoft and IRONSCALES are highlighting ongoing efforts to combat a popular email spoofing technique that abuses the Microsoft 365 Direct Send feature. Attackers exploit this feature to send emails that appear to originate from a trusted internal domain, bypassing traditional email security controls. This serves as a critical reminder for organizations to review and secure their M365 email configurations against this known attack vector.

  CVE Details: n/a

  Source: IRONSCALES Blog

OTHER NOTEWORTHY ITEMS

• Microsoft says recent Windows update didn't kill your SSD

  Date & Time: 2025-08-29T14:21:27

  Microsoft has officially stated that its investigation found no evidence linking the August 2025 security update KB5063878 to reports of SSD and HDD failures. This clarification helps IT administrators distinguish between actual patch-related issues and unrelated hardware failures during troubleshooting. No recall or change to the update is planned.

  Source: BleepingComputer

EXECUTIVE INSIGHTS

• BSidesSF 2025: Centralizing Egress Access Controls Across A Hybrid Environment

  Date & Time: 2025-08-31T15:00:00

  A presentation from BSides San Francisco 2025 detailed strategies for unifying egress traffic controls across complex on-premise and cloud environments. This is a key strategic challenge for security leaders, as inconsistent egress policies can create blind spots for data exfiltration and command-and-control communication. The talk provides a framework for creating a more defensible and manageable security posture.

  Source: Security Boulevard

• Palo Alto, Fortinet, Check Point Control Firewall Gartner MQ

  Date & Time: 2025-08-29T20:44:11

  Gartner's first Magic Quadrant for hybrid mesh firewalls places established leaders Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, and Check Point at the top. This new category reflects the market's shift towards solutions that offer centralized management and consistent policy enforcement across diverse and distributed network environments. For executives, this report provides key insights into the vendors best equipped to handle modern network security complexities.

  Source: BankInfoSecurity

VENDOR SPOTLIGHT

• Spotlight Rationale: With the increasing complexity of hybrid environments, as highlighted in the BSidesSF talk on egress controls, the ability to centrally manage and enforce security policy is paramount. Gartner's recent Magic Quadrant for Hybrid Mesh Firewalls identifies key vendors addressing this exact challenge.

  Threat Context: BSidesSF 2025: Centralizing Egress Access Controls Across A Hybrid Environment At Block

  Platform Focus: Palo Alto Networks - Hybrid Mesh Firewall Solutions

  Palo Alto Networks, recognized as a leader by Gartner, provides a centralized orchestration platform for its firewalls that directly addresses the challenge of managing security in hybrid environments. Their approach allows security teams to define consistent policies for threat prevention, URL filtering, and application control that are enforced uniformly, whether the traffic originates from a corporate data center, a cloud VPC, or a remote branch. This capability is crucial for preventing the policy gaps that attackers exploit for data exfiltration and C2 communications.

  Actionable Platform Guidance: Organizations should leverage centralized management platforms like Panorama to create unified egress security policies. This involves defining strict application-based rules, enabling decryption where possible, and using URL filtering with custom categories to block access to high-risk sites and newly registered domains, ensuring consistent enforcement across all network segments.

  Source: BankInfoSecurity

DETECTION & RESPONSE KIT

• ⚠️ Disclaimer: Test all detection logic in non-production environments before deployment.

  1. Vendor Platform Configuration - Palo Alto Networks Egress Filtering

  [copy]

  # Generic Policy Steps for Egress Control in Palo Alto Panorama/Firewall UI
  
  # 1. Create Custom URL Categories for High-Risk Traffic
  #    - Navigate to Objects > Custom Objects > URL Category
  #    - Create categories like 'Newly-Registered-Domains' and 'High-Risk-TLDs' (.xyz, .top, etc.)
  
  # 2. Define an Application Filter for Risky Applications
  #    - Navigate to Objects > Application Filters
  #    - Create a filter named 'Risky-Egress-Apps' including categories like 'proxy-avoidance-anonymizers', 'remote-access', and 'encrypted-tunnel'.
  
  # 3. Create a Unified Security Policy for Egress Traffic
  #    - Navigate to Policies > Security
  #    - Create a new rule:
  #      - Name: Block-High-Risk-Egress
  #      - Source Zone: [Internal/Trust Zones]
  #      - Destination Zone: [External/Untrust Zone]
  #      - Application: Use the 'Risky-Egress-Apps' filter.
  #      - Service/URL Category: Add your custom URL categories and built-in high-risk categories.
  #      - Action: Deny
  #      - Profile Setting: Attach strict Threat Prevention, Anti-Spyware, and DNS Security profiles.
  
  # 4. Verify Policy Enforcement
  #    - Use the firewall's traffic log to monitor for hits on the new deny rule.
  #    - Ensure legitimate business applications are not impacted and create exceptions as needed with high specificity.

  2. YARA Rule for Sitecore Exploit Artifacts (CVE-2025-53693)

  [copy]

  rule Detect_Sitecore_Unsafe_Reflection_CVE_2025_53693 {
  meta:
  description = "Detects potential artifacts of Sitecore unsafe reflection exploit (CVE-2025-53693) in web logs or cached files."
  author = "Threat Rundown"
  date = "2025-08-31"
  reference = "https://thehackernews.com/2025/08/researchers-warn-of-sitecore-exploit.html"
  strings:
  $s1 = "sc_itemid=" nocase
  $s2 = "sc_mode=" nocase
  $s3 = "<script>" nocase
  $s4 = "onerror=" nocase
  $s5 = "javascript:"
  condition:
  all of ($s1, $s2) and any of ($s3, $s4, $s5)
  }

  3. SIEM Query — Web Cache Poisoning Attempt

  [copy]

  // Splunk Search to identify potential cache poisoning against a specific URI
  index=weblogs uri="/path/to/vulnerable/resource"
  | rex field=_raw "(?X-Forwarded-Host:.+)"
  | stats dc(http_header) as distinct_header_vals count by uri, clientip
  | where distinct_header_vals > 5 AND count > 20
  | `comment("Looks for multiple variations of a poisoning header from a single IP, suggesting an attempt to poison the cache for different hosts.")`

  4. PowerShell Script — Check Sitecore Directories for Suspicious Files

  [copy]

  # Scans a Sitecore web root for recently added suspicious file types (e.g., webshells)
  
  $sitecorePath = "C:\inetpub\wwwroot\yoursitecore.instance\Website"
  $checkDays = 1 # How many days back to check for new files
  $suspiciousExtensions = @(".aspx", ".ashx", ".asmx", ".php", ".jsp")
  
  if (Test-Path $sitecorePath) {
  Write-Host "Scanning $sitecorePath for suspicious files created in the last $checkDays day(s)..."
  Get-ChildItem -Path $sitecorePath -Recurse -File | Where-Object { $_.CreationTime -ge (Get-Date).AddDays(-$checkDays) -and $suspiciousExtensions -contains $_.Extension } | ForEach-Object {
  Write-Warning "Suspicious file found: $($_.FullName) | Created: $($_.CreationTime)"
  }
  Write-Host "Scan complete."
  } else {
  Write-Error "Path not found: $sitecorePath"
  }

  This rundown should provide a solid overview of the current threat landscape. Thank you to all our cyberheroes for your diligence and hard work. Stay vigilant!