US Senator Throws Penalty Flag at Microsoft
February 26, 2021
JEDI foul? I am not sure. The bright yellow flag has been lofted and it is beginning its descent. One player has a look of disbelief, “A foul. You think I did a chop block?” That’s the image that went through my mental machinery as I read “US Senator claims Microsoft Failed to Fix Cloud Holes before SolarWinds Hack.”
The write up asserts:
Microsoft Corp’s failure to fix known problems with its cloud software facilitated the massive SolarWinds hack that compromised at least nine federal government agencies, according to security experts and the office of US Senator Ron Wyden. A vulnerability first publicly revealed by researchers in 2017 allows hackers to fake the identity of authorized employees to gain access to customers’ cloud services. The technique was one of many used in the SolarWinds hack.
The year 2017. I recall that was the time the DarkCyber research team began yammering about use of the wonderful Microsoft software update system, access control policies, and business processes to allow estimable Microsoft-friendly software to run. The idea was seamless, smooth, quick, and flawless interaction among users, software, the cloud, and assorted components. Fast. Efficient. Absolutely.
The elected official is quoted as saying:
The federal government spends billions on Microsoft software. It should be cautious about spending any more before we find out why the company didn’t warn the government about the hacking technique that the Russians used, which Microsoft had known about since at least 2017.
The write up points out that Microsoft does not agree with the senator’s observations. In the subsequent testimony (you can view it at this link), one of the top dog Microsoft professionals pointed out “only about 15 percent of the victims in the Solar Winds campaign were hurt via Golden SAML.” SAML is a a security assertion markup language. The golden part? Maybe it is the idea that a user or process signs on. If okayed somewhere in the system, the user or process is definitely okay again. Fast. Efficient.
The “golden” it turns out is a hack. Get into the SAML approved system, and bingo. Users, processes, whatever are good to go. Get administrator credentials and become an authorizing and verifying service and the bad actor owns the system. The idea is that a bad actor can pump out green light credentials and do many interesting things. Hey, being authorized and trusted is a wonderful thing, right?
Back to JEDI? Is the senator confident that the Department of Defense has not been compromised? What happens if the JEDI system is penetrated by foreign actors as the DoD wide system is being assembled, deployed, and operated? Does the vulnerability still exist in live systems?
These are good questions? I am not sure the answers are as well crafted.
Stephen E Arnold, February 27, 2021
What’s a Golden SAML?
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