‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
A hacker was stirring, and clicking his mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.
The security team were snug in their beds,
While visions of SOCs and encryption danced in their heads;
And the CISO in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled down for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the SOC I flew like a flash,
Tore open the user behaviour analytics and threw up the dash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should be seen,
But a determined attacker, committing a major break-in,
With a zero day exploit, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment the attacker was most slick.
More rapid than eagles his DDOS they came,
And he escalated privileges, and called them by name;
“Now, ROOTKIT! now, SQL INJECTION! now, BOTNETS and MALWARE!
On, XSS! on BRUTEFORCE! on, PAYLOAD and RANSOMWARE!
To the source of the PII! to the door of the data warehouse!
Now dash away! dash away! to our criminal hideouts!”
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So into the data centre the attackers they flew,
With a computer full of exploits, and Kali Linux too.
And then, in a twinkling, I saw the breached hole
The attack and counter of each security tool.
As I drew up my response, to turn the tables on the clown,
Down the chimney the payload came with a bound.
He was dressed all in APIs, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were reverse TCP/IP shells to capture console output;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
His eyes — how they twinkled!… thoughts of a big payday!
His smile so evil as he executed his getaway!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
I imagined him with a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head making it hard to breathe;
He had a broad face and a big ugly belly,
That shook when he laughed, and he was also quite smelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right bad villain,
And I gulped when I saw him, gather the health data of million and billion;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had everything to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And pilfered the records; then turned with a jerk,
An exfiltration path as easy as blowing his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney the information flows;
He retreated back to his lair, with great hustle,
And away flew all of the files with very little trouble.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he bolted…
…Oh NO!!! This data is encrypted with Format-Preserving Encryption from Voltage by OpenText™!
HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT!
Protecting your data keeps your customers in good cheer.
Learn more about OpenText Voltage by clicking here:
