Very Pwn-able Network (VPN) – The gift to hackers that keeps on giving!

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) have long been the workhorse of remote access, enabling secure connections for employees. However, as the threat landscape evolves and cyberattacks become more sophisticated, VPNs are increasingly becoming a weak point for organisations. Recent trends underscore a critical concern: VPN technology, once considered a fortification of security, has emerged as a significant weakness in networks. This session aims to explore the vulnerabilities inherent in VPNs, their role in facilitating unauthorised lateral movement attacks, and why they have become a prime target for hackers.

Challenges:

1. VPN Vulnerabilities: Despite their encryption mechanisms, VPNs are not immune to vulnerabilities. Exploiting flaws in VPN protocols or misconfigurations, hackers can gain unauthorized access to networks. Recent incidents have highlighted the pervasive nature of VPN weaknesses.
2. Facilitating Lateral Movements: Attackers feast on VPN technologies to gain access into corporate networks, enabling them to traverse laterally, moving undetected across systems and escalating privileges. VPN compromises serve as entry points for sophisticated cyberattacks, enabling threat actors to navigate through network segments, access sensitive data, and deploy malicious payloads without detection.
3. Easy Pickings for Hackers: VPNs are a security weak point. Their legacy architecture creates vulnerabilities that attackers readily exploit. High-profile CVEs across vendors (Ivanti, Sonicwall, etc.) prove it's not a vendor issue, but a fundamental technology flaw. With remote work booming, the attack surface grows, offering hackers even more opportunities.

The fundamental issue with VPN technologies lies in the fact that they create a public access point, a constant target for attackers probing for weaknesses. Successful authentication (or exploitation) using VPN allows both users and attackers onto your network. With high potential rewards, VPNs remain a prime target. Past, present, and future attacks prove this – lucrative data makes them a relentless bullseye for cybercriminals.

Solution:

Patching is vital, but reactive. Recent VPN vulnerabilities expose the reality that no vendor is immune from software defects and vulnerabilities. However, given the recent barrage of vulnerabilities affecting VPN technologies, it should be clear to security leaders and practitioners that zero trust security is crucial.

The presentation will propose alternative approaches that address these security gaps, including:

• Zero Trust Architecture: "Zero trust" might be a buzzword, but for good reason. Its principles and architecture offer the only effective way to address the security vulnerabilities discussed earlier. Moving away from perimeter-based security and focusing on continuous verification for all access attempts.
• Cloud-based Access Solutions: Leveraging cloud-based security tools for centralised management and granular access controls can lead to vast improvements in protection, particularly when the corporate network doesn’t always need to be traversed.

Target Audience:

This session is for IT professionals, security officers, and business leaders concerned about the security of their remote access infrastructure and networks.

Key Takeaways:

By attending, attendees will gain a deeper understanding of:

• The evolving cybersecurity landscape and the limitations of VPN technology.
• Specific vulnerabilities hackers exploit in VPN systems.
• Practical strategies to move beyond VPNs and build a more secure remote access environment.