EventSentry Blog

EventSentry v3.4: New Security Features, Software Version Checker, Better Performance & more!

November 6, 2017November 7, 2017 ingmar.koecher 0 Comment Announcements, Event Log, EventSentry, Monitoring, RansomWare, Tools & Utilities auditing, diskspace monitoring, netflow, ransomware, UPS Monitoring

We’re again excited to announce the availability of EventSentry v3.4, the latest release of our hybrid SIEM monitoring suite.

EventSentry v3.4 delivers a number of new features to

Protect yourself against ransomware attacks
Detect lateral movement on a network with collector thresholds
Identify outdated software on your network
View detailed bandwidth utilization (requires NetFlow)
Monitor attached UPS devices
Integrate with open source solutions (Graylog, ELK, Nagios Log Server & others)

and more. We’ve also been focusing on making the data EventSentry collects more actionable and subsequently more helpful, and as result you will see additional contextual data provided with some alerts & reports, and one new search page in EventSentry.

All in all, this upcoming release has a lot of improvements in store to help you do your job better by ensuring that your network is as reliable, secure and fast as possible.

Audit Subcategories with audit success enabled, grouped by host

Ransomware

While high-profile Ransomware attacks have slowed down somewhat in recent weeks, businesses – especially small businesses – are still hit with Ransomware infections every day. Even though EventSentry is not positioned as a AV or a AntiMalware software, it does include a variety of functionality which can detect Ransomware outbreaks.

What sets EventSentry apart from AV and most AntiMalware solutions is that it looks for pattern exhibited by the Ransomware – regardless of the variant. What’s new in version v3.4 is the ability to detect changes to the MBR and bootsector as well as the ability to calculate the entropy of (changed) files.

MBR/BootSector Monitoring & Backup
Some more recent Ransomware variants modify the MBR and/or boot sector and trigger a reboot to initiate an offline encryption process. EventSentry v3.4 can now monitor the MBR and detect changes in near real-time to alert the admin when suspicious activity is occurring.

By utilizing EventSentry’s advanced filtering engine it is also possible to potentially stop the encryption process, e.g. by hibernating the infected host. EventSentry even backs up the MBR and boot sector, making it possible to repair an infected system (with a boot disk) without having to perform a full restore from backup.

File Entropy
Entropy describes the randomness of a file, essentially a metric that can help detect compressed and encrypted files.

Since most Ransomware encrypts large amounts of files, EventSentry can utilize the entropy of a file, combined with event log thresholds, to make a determination that a Ransomware infection is in progress and take corrective measures.

Lateral Movement Detection with Thresholds

Lateral Network Movement — Lateral movement through a network

EventSentry has always included agent-side thresholds in order to throttle the alert volume or detect repeated events. Because these thresholds were executed on the agents, event patterns which involved more than one host could not be detected that way.

By adding a threshold component to collector – which analyzes and processes all events in real time – we can leverage this feature to new heights and detect network-wide event-based patterns – in real time!

Collector-side thresholds are configured exactly like agent-side thresholds with one the key difference – the threshold limit applies to all aggregated events sent to the collector. Collector-side thresholds also introduce the “Group By” setting that makes the lateral movement detection possible – the ability to count unique instances of an event property, and not just the total number of events.

Some of the event-based threat patterns you can detect:

The same user logging on to multiple hosts within a specific time frame
A process spreading (trickling) across multiple hosts within a specific time frame
A user running too many processes – either on a single or multiple hosts
Authentication failures of a user on too many hosts
Too many unique logon types used by a user account

Any event property and insertion string can be used to craft thresholds – the sky is the limit.

Software Version Checker

Earlier versions of EventSentry include a substantial hardware, software and patch inventory, making it extremely easy to find out which software packages are installed on your network, but also get alerted when software is installed or removed from a server/workstation.

In v3.4 we are taking this to the next level by providing the latest version available from the publisher for a growing list of 100+ software packages so that you can effortlessly identify outdated software on your network. You can now create reports listing any software on your network which is outdated, a dashboard tile is also available. The Web Reports refresh the version info list every 2 hours to ensure all reports are accurate.

If an application you are using on your network is not currently included then simply email us the name of the software as it is detected by EventSentry (and ideally the URL where we can obtain the current version) and we will add it to our list.

64-bit Web Reports for Windows

The EventSentry web reports are now available as a 64-bit application, and upgrading to v3.4 will automatically upgrade the existing v3.x 32-bit web reports to 64-bit on 64-bit when installed/upgraded on a 64-bit version of Windows. The new 64-bit web reports will allow you to run larger reports that would not run due to limits with the address space associated with 32-bit applications.

UPS & Battery Monitoring

Any UPS directly attached to a server/workstations that is detected by Windows can now be monitored by EventSentry. The status of the UPS will show up on the host inventory page, and alerts will be generated when a host is on battery power and back on AC power. EventSentry can also initiate a shutdown when the remaining run-time or charge level falls below a certain limit.

Batteries in laptops are also detected and listed on the host inventory page (battery capacity and current charge level), but generated alerts are informational only.

User Activity Tracking

While EventSentry provides its users with a wealth of information from multiple angles, it can be tedious to piece together data from multiple reports that is associated with a specific user. Data which can be linked to a user is scattered among process tracking, file access tracking, compliance logons and other pages.

The new “User Activity” page, which is located in the “Dashboard” menu, solves this problem by displaying data from the following pages on a single page:

Logons
Processes
File Access
Active Directory Changes
Tasks
Events

The user activity page makes seeing all activity by a user as easy as never before!

Integration with third-party log management solutions

A few months ago, one of our users approached with the need to integrate EventSentry into an existing log management system which was already in place at the location where EventSentry was to be deployed. While reviewing the request we recognized that even though we position EventSentry as a one-stop log management solution with a compelling and robust web-based reporting component, an integration with other products can be helpful in some cases.

Supplement EventSentry’s built-in reporting with additional reporting
Integrate EventSentry with an existing log management solution located in a different business unit
Integrate EventSentry’s sophisticated real-time agent and deployment infrastructure with a different log management back-end

In version 3.3 and earlier, EventSentry can be integrated with 3rd party products using the HTTP, process and Syslog action. The HTTP & process action are intended to be used with ticketing systems where only a low volume of alerts are submitted while the Syslog action obviously supports submitting a high volume of events. The Syslog format was however limited to the traditional RFC 3164 format, making an integration with other log management systems difficult.

Starting with version 3.4, EventSentry now supports the following formats in the Syslog action

RFC 3164 (legacy)
Snare
RFC 5424
GELF (Graylog)
Nagios Log Server
Common Event Format (CEF)
JSON (customizable)

If a log management server you need to integrate with is not listed above but supports the JSON format, then you can craft your own JSON packet with the JSON format, also introduced in v3.4.

Disk Space Alerts

Part of the effort to make EventSentry’s alerts more actionable is reflected in our improved disk space alerts which now list the 15 largest files and folders of the volume where disk space is low. The supplemental data will in many cases be enough to immediately identify the culprit so that corrective action can be taken immediately, without the need to run disk space analyzers on the volume.

Diskspace Alert with embedded file/folder size info

Audit Policy Status

Since the introduction of the compliance tracking components, EventSentry has been recording all audit (and many other!) changes performed in Windows as part of the “Policy Changes” feature. It wasn’t however possible to see the current status of all audit categories and subcategories at a glance. Reviewing the current audit status of all monitored hosts can be important however, if only to verify that group policies are configured correctly.

In v3.4 we now have the new “Status” page available under “Compliance -> Audit Policy” which delivers information such as:

Compare/review audit settings of a particular sub category (e.g. “Registry”) among all monitored hosts
View all disabled audit settings across all or select hosts
(Re)view audit settings based on computer types (e.g. domain controllers, servers, workstations)

NetFlow Bandwidth

Our NetFlow component can now provide bandwidth visualization based on the collected NetFlow data. The information can either be accessed on the NetFlow page or as a dashboard tile. Even though bandwidth data can already be determined using SNMP, the data gathered by NetFlow should be preferred since it contains additional data not available via SNMP, such as:

Packets sent/received
Bytes sent/received
Bytes per packet
% Utilization

Bytes per packet as well as packets sent received can be used to detect anomalies, e.g. when a host sends a large amount of network packets, or network packets with large/small content.

Auditing DNS Server Changes on Windows 2012 R2 and later with EventSentry

October 3, 2017November 8, 2022 ingmar.koecher 0 Comment Event Log, EventSentry, Monitoring, Tips & Tricks auditing, dns, dns auditing

Auditing changes on Microsoft Windows DNS server is a common requirement and question, but it’s not immediately obvious which versions of Windows support DNS Auditing, how it’s enabled, and where the audit data (and what data) is available. Fortunately Microsoft has greatly simplified DNS Server auditing with the release of Windows Server 2012 R2.

In this post we’ll show how to enable DNS Auditing on 2012 R2 and later, and how to configure EventSentry to collect those audit events. In a future post we’ll also show how to do the same with older versions of Windows – 2008, 2008 R2 & 2012.

When configuration is finished you are going to be able to see when a zone/record is created/modified/deleted as well as by whom. The audit data will be available (and searchable) in the EventSentry Web Reports, and you’ll also be able to setup email alerts when some or all DNS entries are changed.

Prerequisites

Since native DNS auditing was only introduced with Windows 2012 R2 or later you’ll need to run at least Windows Server 2012 R2 in order to follow this guide. The table below shows the types of DNS auditing available on Windows Server Operating Systems:

Windows OS	Auditing Type	Comments
Windows 2008	Active Directory – based auditing only
Windows 2008 R2	Active Directory – based auditing only
Windows 2012	Active Directory – based auditing only
Windows 2012 R2	Native DNS Auditing	Available with hotfix 2956577 (automatically applied via windows update!)
Windows 2016	Native DNS Auditing	enabled by default
Windows 2019	Native DNS Auditing	enabled by default
Windows 2022	Native DNS Auditing	enabled by default

Configuration

Enhanced DNS logging and diagnostics are enabled by default in supported versions of Windows Server when the “DNS Server” role has been added to Windows, so there are no additional configuration steps that need to be done.

1. Package Creation

On the EventSentry machine we are going to add a package under Packages/Event Logs by right-clicking “Event Logs” and selecting “Add Package”. In this example we are going to call the package “Windows Server 2016”:

2. Adding a Filter

The next step is to add a filter to the previously created package “Windows Server 2016”. Right click the package and then select “Add Filter”.

Adding a DNS Audit filter — Adding the DNS Audit filter

Note: For a short tutorial on how to create a filter click here.

3. Filter Configuration

There are several ways to approach the filter configuration depending on your needs. As a reminder, a filter is a rule in EventSentry that determines to where an event is forwarded to, or how it is processed.

Collect all or select (e.g. creation only) DNS audit data in the database
Email alert on select audit data (e.g. email all deletions)
Email alert on all activity from a specific user

In this guide we will show how to accomplish (1) and (2) as a bonus.

On the right pane of the management console after the creation of the filter you will see the General tab of the new filter. We decided to configure it to log to the Primary Database, but the events can be sent to any action (Email, Syslog, …).

Under “Event Severity” we check all boxes since we want to log everything (it’s important to check “Information” since most of the creation/deletions/etc are logged at this level of severity).

4. Adding a custom event log

In the “Log” section click on “more” to jump to the “Custom Event Logs” tab (or, just click on that tab). Now we need to add the Microsoft-Windows-DNSServer/Audit event log to the list of custom event logs so that this filter picks up events from the DNS Audit event log. Click the save button in EventSentry Management Console title bar to save the changes we’ve made so far.

Adding an Application & Services event log

5a. Assigning the package (method A – manual assignment)

To assign the package, select the server you would like to assign it to and select “Assign Packages”. In the resulting dialog simply check the box next to the package we created in step 1. Alternatively you can also select the package and click “Assign” from the ribbon (or context menu) and select a group or host(s) to assign the package to.

5b. Assign the package (method B – dynamic activation)

Instead of assigning the package manually, the package can be assigned dynamically so that any host monitored by EventSentry running Windows Server 2012 R2 or later will automatically have this package assigned. To dynamically assign a package do the following:

Click the package and select “Properties” from the ribbon, or right-click.
In the “Dynamic Activation” section, check “Automatically activate …”
In the “Installed Services” field enter “DNS”
For the “Operating System”, select “at least” and “Windows 2012 R2”
Click the “Global” icon in the ribbon to make sure the package gets assigned to all hosts. Don’t worry, it will still only be activated on 2012 R2 or later hosts that have the DNS server running

6. Saving

After assigning the package and saving the configuration click “Save & Deploy” or push the configuration to all remote hosts. Please note that only new events generated in the DNS Audit Log will be processed, pre-existing log entries will be ignored.

Testing the Configuration

To test the configuration we will create a domain called “testzone.com” and add an A record called www on the monitored DNS server. We’ll then check if those modifications are visible in the EventSentry Web Reports. The screenshot below shows the new A record in the DNS console:

testzone.com with the new A record "www" — testzone.com with the new A record “www”

First, lets take a look to see what the actual DNS Audit entries look like (using the Windows Event Viewer: Applications and Services Logs/Microsoft/Windows/DNS-Server/Audit):

In the EventSentry Web Reports, navigate to Logs/Event Log and filter by the log “Microsoft-Windows-DNSServer” and then select “Detailed”. You should see all the modifications that were performed:

Bonus Track: Configuring alerts for a specific change

The first part of this post was purposely generic in order to understand the basics of monitoring your DNS Server. But as a bonus we’ll show how to monitor a specific change (in this case a creation) and trigger an email alert for that.

The process is the same as explained in the beginning:

Create a new filter and add it to the same package. The filter should be configured exactly the same way. To make things easier, you can also copy & paste the filter with the familiar Copy/Paste buttons in the ribbon or context menu.
This time however we specify the “Default Email” action in “General” tab so that we receive an email alert when the filter criteria matches an event.
In the “Details” area specify event id 515 in the “Event ID” field, which is the event id corresponding to the creation of a new record. This is how the filter would look like:

Filter for receiving an alert on record creation

Filters can of course be more specific as well, it’s possible to filter based on the user or event content of the actual event. Below is a list of all audit events logged by the DNS Server:

Event ID	Type	Event ID	Type
512	Zone added	551	Clear statistics
513	Zone delete	552	Start scavenging
514	Zone updated	553	Enlist directory partition
515	Record create	554	Abort scavenging
516	Record delete	555	Prepare for demotion
517	RRSET delete	556	Write root hints
518	Node delete	557	Listen address
519	Record create – dynamic update	558	Active refresh trust points
520	Record delete – dynamic update	559	Pause zone
521	Record scavenge	560	Resume zone
522	Zone scope create	561	Reload zone
523	Zone scope delete	562	Refresh zone
525	Zone sign	563	Expire zone
526	Zone unsign	564	Update from DS
527	Zone re-sign	565	Write and notify
528	Key rollover start	566	Force aging
529	Key rollover end	567	Scavenge servers
530	Key retire	568	Transfer key master
531	Key rollover triggered	569	Add SKD
533	Key poke rollover	570	Modify SKD
534	Export DNSSEC	571	Delete SKD
535	Import DNSSEC	572	Modify SKD state
536	Cache purge	573	Add delegation
537	Forwarder reset	574	Create client subnet record
540	Root hints	575	Delete client subnet record
541	Server setting	576	Update client subnet record
542	Server scope create	577	Create server level policy
543	Server scope delete	578	Create zone level policy
544	Add trust point DNSKEY	579	Create forwarding policy
545	Add trust point DS	580	Delete server level policy
546	Remove trust point	581	delete zone level policy
547	Add trust point root	582	Delete forwarding policy
548	Restart server
549	Clear debug logs
550	Write dirty zones

We hope that DNS changes will never remain a mystery after activating DNS auditing. Don’t fear if you’re running 2012 or earlier, the next post is on its way.

Mariano + Ingmar.

AutoAdministrator: Chapter 3

June 2, 2017June 2, 2017 ingmar.koecher 0 Comment EventSentry, Tools & Utilities

Today I have good news and bad news. You’d like to hear the good news first? OK. The bad news is that AutoAdministrator is being retired and will no longer be developed.

OK, now on to the good news. AutoAdministrator is of course not entirely history and is undergoing a similar transformation the NTToolkit did a few years back. AutoAdministrator is joining the “EventSentry” brand as the “EventSentry Admin Assistant”.

This brings the total number of software products under the EventSentry brand to three:

EventSentry + EventSentry Light (free)
EventSentry SysAdmin Tools (free)
EventSentry Admin Assistant (free)

To celebrate this transformation we’ve made a number of improvements in the new release:

The EventSentry Admin Assistant is now available as a native 64-bit application
REG_MULTI_SZ and REG_QWORD data types are now supported (for “read” actions)
WMI queries can be filtered (aka “condition”) to allow for things like checking whether a Microsoft Windows patch is installed

The last enhancement is particularly useful if you need to check whether a particular Windows update is installed on your network – see the screenshot below.

Please note that there is no upgrade path from AutoAdministrator to the EventSentry Admin Assistant – they are treated as separate pieces of software and will install side-by-side. You can download the latest version the EventSentry Admin Assistant here.

Enjoy!

Agent vs Agentless: Why you should monitor (event) logs with an agent-based log monitoring solution

March 14, 2017March 14, 2017 ingmar.koecher 0 Comment Event Log, Monitoring, Pure Knowledge, Tips & Tricks agent vs agentless, agent-based monitoring, siem

The debate as to whether agent-based or agent-less monitoring is “better” has been answered many times over the years in magazine / online articles, blog posts, vendor white papers and others. Unfortunately, most of these articles are often incomplete, inaccurate, biased, or a combination thereof.

To make things slightly more confusing, different ISV use different methods for monitoring servers and workstations. Some use agents, some don’t, and a small few offer both both methods. But what is ultimately the best method?

What are you monitoring?

First it’s important determine what is being monitored to determine whether an agent-based or agent-less approach is better. For example, collecting system metrics like performance data usually creates fewer challenges then transmitting large amounts of (event) log data. Furthermore, agent-based monitoring is not an option for devices which run a proprietary embedded OS (think switch, printer, …) where you can’t install an agent in the first place.

Consequently I’ll be focusing on monitoring (event) logs with an emphasis on Microsoft Windows in this post. Having developed both agent-based as well as agent-less components in C++ over the years I feel that I am in a good position to objectively compare agent-based with agent-less approaches.

The Myths

Monitoring software is of course not the only type of software that uses agents, a lot of other enterprise software (backup, deployment, A/V …) uses agents as well. Below are some of the myths as to what (monitoring) using agents entails:

Agents may use up too many resources on the monitored hosts and slow down the monitored machines
Agents can become unstable and negatively affect the host OS
Deploying and managing agents is tedious and time-consuming
Installing agents may require the installation & deployment of dependencies the agents need (.NET, Java, …)
Installing third-party software will decrease the security of the monitored host

The Reality

It’s understandable that software which is installed on potentially every server and workstation in a network undergoes some level of scrutiny, but would you be surprised to learn that agents excel in the following areas:

	1. Security:	Better security since agents push data to a central component, instead of the monitored server being configured to allow remote collection.
	2. Reliability:	Agents can temporarily store and cache monitored logs if connectivity to the central monitoring server is lost, even if local logs are no longer available. Agents can also take corrective actions more quickly because they can work in isolation (offline). Mobile devices cannot be monitored with agent-less solutions since they cannot be reached by the central monitoring component.
	3. Performance:	Agents can apply local filtering rules and only transmit data which is valuable, thus increasing throughput while decreasing network utilization.
	4. Functionality:	They offer more capabilities since there are essentially no limits as to what type of information can be gathered by an agent since it has full access to the monitored system.

The Easy Way Out

Developing agents along with an easy-to-use deployment mechanism requires a lot of time and resources, so it doesn’t come as a surprise to learn that many vendors prefer to monitor hosts without agents. To compensate for the short-fall, ISV which solely have to rely on an agent-less approach will do their best to:

Emphasize that they do not use agents
Persuade you that agent-less monitoring is preferable

The irony, when promoting a solution as agent-less, is that even so-called agent-less solutions do in fact utilize and agent – the only difference being that the agent is (usually) integrated into Windows. Windows doesn’t just magically service remote clients asking for a boatload of WMI data – it processes these requests through the WMI service, which, for all intents and purposes, is an agent. For example, accessing the Windows event logs via WMI traverses significantly more layers than accessing the event logs directly.

Conclusion

With the exception of network devices where an agent cannot be installed, agent-based solutions will provide a more thorough monitoring experience 9 out of 10 times – assuming that the agent meets all the checklist requirements below.

Some event log monitoring vendors will try to convince you that agent-less monitoring is better & easier (easier for whom?) – but don’t fall for it. We’ve been tweaking and improving the EventSentry agent for more than 10 years, and as a result EventSentry offers one of the most advanced and efficient Windows agents for log monitoring on the market. Developing a rock-solid, secure and fast agent is hard, but it’s the only sensible approach which doesn’t cut corners.

There are situations when deploying a full-scale monitoring solution with agents is not possible, for example when you are tasked with monitoring a third-party network where installing any software is not an option. While unfortunate, an agent-less monitoring solution can fill the gap in this case.

EventSentry also utilizes SNMP (agent-less) to gather inventory, performance metrics as well as other system data from non-Windows devices, including Linux hosts. This collection method does suffer from the above limitations, but since log data is pushed from Non-Windows devices via the Syslog protocol, it’s an acceptable compromise.

Don’t compromise when it comes to monitoring the (event) logs of your Windows infrastructure and select an architecture which scales and offers security & performance.

Technical Comparison

The table below examines the difference between agent-based and agent-less solutions in greater detail.

Resource Utilization & Performance
Agent-Based	Agent-Less	Verdict
Usually higher throughput since agents can analyze, filter and evaluate log entries before sending them across the network. Local resource utilization depends on the implementation of the agent. Agent can access (event) logs directly via efficient API access.	Network utilization is likely much higher since more logs have to be transmitted across the network before being evaluated. Local filtering capabilities are limited and depend on the protocol (usually WMI). Network latency and utilization affect performance of monitoring solution. Network utilization cannot be controlled. Accessing (event) log data remotely through WMI is much less efficient. Over-saturation of central monitoring component can negatively affect monitoring of entire infrastructure.	Higher network utilization combined with the fact that remote log collection will still utilize CPU cycles on the remote host (e.g. through WMI provider) favors agent-based solutions. Agent-less solutions have a single point of failure, while agents can filter & evaluate data locally before transmitting them to a central database.
EventSentry Agents are designed to be essentially invisible under normal operations and do not impact the host system negatively in any way.

Stability & Reliability
Agent-Based	Agent-Less	Verdict
Failure of an agent does not affect monitoring of other hosts. Locally collected data can be cached if central monitoring component is temporarily unavailable. Failure of a central component may negatively affect deployed agents if they rely on the central component and cannot cache data.	Failure of central monitoring system will affect and potentially disable monitoring of all hosts. Hosts which lose network connectivity (e.g. laptops) cannot be monitored while unreachable.	Agent-based solutions have an advantage since local data can be cached and corrective actions can be executed even when the central monitoring component is unavailable. Cache data & logs are re-transmitted – even if the local logs have been cleared or overwritten. Agent-based solutions can monitor hosts even when disconnected from LAN.
The EventSentry Agent auto-recovers if the process aborts unexpectedly, and by default alerts the user when this occurs. When using the collector (default), the agent caches all data locally and retransmits when the network connection becomes available again.

Deployment
Agent-Based	Agent-Less	Verdict
Has to be deployed either with vendor management software and/or with third-party deployment software if vendor provides installation package (e.g. MSI).	Larger deployments will require multiple central monitoring components, potentially distributed over several LANs. Only hosts in local LAN can be monitored.	Depends on deployment tools made available by vendor as well as management tools in place for configuring Windows settings. A poorly developed deployment tool would favor an agent-less solution.
EventSentry Agents can be deployed (multi-threaded) with the management console or through 3rd party deployment software by creating a MSI installer on the fly. When using the collector (default), agent updates (patches) can be deployed automatically.

Dependencies
Agent-Based	Agent-Less	Verdict
Agent may have dependencies on third-party frameworks	Depends on whether the mechanism utilized by the monitoring software requires a Windows component to be added and/or configured.	Depends on whether agent has dependencies and whether configuration changes need to be made on the monitored hosts.
The EventSentry Agent does not depend on any 3rd party frameworks or libraries.

Security
Agent-Based	Agent-Less	Verdict
Potential security issues if installed agent exposes itself to the network (if not firewalled) and/or suffers from local vulnerabilities which can be exploited.	Remote log collection has to be enabled and at least the central monitoring component needs to have remote access. Secure data transmission relies on protocols and settings from Windows. Enabling multiple methods for gathering data remotely (e.g. WMI) provides additional attack vectors. Credentials (usually Windows user/password) for remote systems must be stored in a central location so that the remote hosts can be queried. If the central system gets compromised, critical credentials can be exploited.	Since agent-based solutions do not require permanent remote access and monitored hosts can therefore be hardened more, they are inherently more secure IF the agent doesn’t suffer from an insecure design and/or vulnerabilities. Agent-based solutions also have more control over how data is transmitted from the remote hosts. If there is general concern against third-party software then the product in question should be researched in a vulnerability database like http://www.cvedetails.com.
The EventSentry Agent does not open any ports on a monitored host and resides in a secured location on disk. The agent transmits compressed data securely via TLS to the collector. No major security vulnerabilities have been discovered in the EventSentry agent since its first release in 2002.

Scope & Functionality
Agent-Based	Agent-Less	Verdict
Agents have full access to the monitored system and can choose which technology to utilize to get the required data (API, WMI, registry, …) Easily execute local corrective action like launching a script or process	Agent-less solutions are limited to remote APIs provided by the monitored host, most commonly WMI. While WMI does offer a lot of functionality, there are limitations. Executing scripts on remote host is more involved and only possible when host is reachable.	Agent-based solutions have an advantage since they can utilize multiple technologies to obtain data, including highly efficient direct API access. Agents can also trigger (corrective) actions locally even while the agent is unreachable. Agent-less solutions can only monitor data which is made available by the remote protocol.
The EventSentry Agent accesses log files, event logs and other system health data almost exclusively via direct API calls. The more resource-intensive WMI interface is only used minimally, for very specific purposes. Corrective action can be taken directly on the monitored host, often only in milliseconds after an error condition (event) has occurred.

Appendix: Checklist

When evaluating software that offers agents then you can utilize the check list below for evaluation purposes.

Resource Utilization

An agent needs to consume as little resources as possible under normal operations. With the exception of short (and unusual) peak periods, a user should never know that an agent is running on their server or workstation – period.

The thought of having a resource-hogging agent running on a server sends shivers down the backs of many SysAdmins, and the agents used by certain AntiVirus vendors that rhyme with Taffy didn’t set a good precedent.

Stability & Reliability

The agent needs to run at all times without crashing – the SysAdmin needs to be able to go to sleep knowing that his agents will reliably monitor all servers and workstations. Unstable agents are just no fun, especially when they negatively impact the host OS.

If an agent that encounters an issue, it needs to at least auto-recover and communicate the issue to the admin.

Deployment

Agent deployment and management needs to be streamlined and easy – it shouldn’t be a burden on the end user. And while agent deployment is important, agent management, keeping the remote agent up-to-date, is equally important and should – ideally – be handled automatically.

Most SysAdmins have enough work the way it is, the last thing they need is baby-sitting agents of their monitoring solution.

Dependencies

The more dependencies an agent has, the more difficult it is to deploy the agent. Agents that rely on complex frameworks like .NET, Java or specific Visual Studio runtimes are difficult and time-consuming to deploy.

Furthermore, any third-party software that is installed as a dependency creates an additional attack vector and needs to then be kept up-to-date.

Security

An agent needs to be 100% secure and cannot expose the monitored host to any additional security risks. I will explain below why using agents is actually more secure than not using an agent – even though this seems counter-intuitive at first glance.

Remote Support with VNC – The Easy & Secure Way!

February 3, 2017November 8, 2018 ingmar.koecher 0 Comment EventSentry, Miscellaneous, Monitoring, Pure Knowledge, Tips & Tricks, Tools & Utilities remote console, remote desktop, remote session, VNC

Almost everyone in IT has heard of VNC – which actually stands for “Virtual Network Computing”. The RFB (Remote Framebuffer) protocol which VNC relies on, was developed around 1998 by Olivetti & Oracle Research Labs. Olivetti (unlike Oracle) isn’t much known outside of Italy/Europe, and the ORL was ultimately closed in 2002 after being acquired by AT&T. But enough of the history.

When the need arises to remotely log into a (Windows) host on the network, Microsoft’s Remote Desktop application (which utilizes Microsoft’s RDP protocol – not RFB) is usually the default choice. And why wouldn’t it be? It’s built into Windows, there is no additional cost, and it’s usually quite efficient (=fast) – even over slower connections.

Remote Desktop has a few disadvantages though, especially when it comes to the IT help desk:

You cannot view the remote user’s current desktop
It’s not cross-platform
You can’t use RDP if it’s disabled or misconfigured

Especially when troubleshooting user problems, being able to see exactly what the user is doing is obviously very beneficial. VNC-based applications are a good alternative since they allow you to view the user’s desktop and subsequently interact with the user. This makes VNC viable for help desk as well as troubleshooting. Nevertheless, VNC-based solutions have their own shortcomings:

Free variations of VNC usually offer no deployment assistance
With over 10 variants available, finding the best VNC implementation is a daunting task
VNC is still deemed as somewhat insecure
VNC can be slow

We set out to solve these shortcomings by creating a number of scripts around UltraVNC that integrate with the EventSentry management console (although they’ll work well without EventSentry as well!). Using the QuickTools feature, you can then connect to a remote host via VNC with 2 clicks, even if the remote host doesn’t have VNC installed.

Important: The scripts only work in environments where you have administrative access to the remote hosts. The scripts need to copy files to the remote host’s administrative shares and control the remote VNC service.

Alternatively, you will also be able to start a VNC session by running the following command:

vnc_start.bat remotehost.yourdomain.com

Even better, VNC can be automatically stopped and deactivated (until vnc_start.bat is run again) once the session is completed in order to reduce the attack surface.

VNC Deployment
As long as you have administrative access to the remote host(s), the script will remotely install VNC and even setup a firewall exclusion rule if necessary – although the UltraVNC installer takes care of this out of the box.

Security
To reduce the attack surface of machines running VNC you can automatically stop the VNC service after you have disconnected from the remote host. Our connection script will automatically start the remote service again when you connect the next time.

For the utmost security you can also completely uninstall VNC when you are done, a script (vnc_uninstall.bat) is included for this purpose.

Speed
Even though VNC is generally not as fast as RDP, it’s usually sufficiently fast in LAN environments (especially for shorter trouble-shooting sessions) and the UltraVNC port which we’ll be covering in this post performs reasonably well even over slower WAN connections.

Integration with EventSentry
Monitoring workstations with EventSentry strengthens the capabilities of any IT helpdesk and IT support team with:

Software & Hardware Inventory
Access to process utilization and log consolidation
Enhanced security with security log & service monitoring
User console logon tracking
Pro-active troubleshooting with access to performance and other system health metrics

Remote desktop sharing is an additional benefit with the UltraVNC package which is included with the latest version of EventSentry (v3.3.1.42). Customizing the scripts and integrating them with EventSentry literally shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes, and once setup & configured will allow you to remotely control any monitored host with a couple of clicks. The scripts do not require EventSentry, but are included with the setup and integrate seamlessly into the EventSentry Management Console.

The EventSentry Management Console includes the “QuickTools” feature which allows you to link up to 8 commands to the context menu of a computer item. EventSentry ships with a few default QuickTools commands, for example to reboot a remote machine. Once configured, you simply right-click a computer icon in the EventSentry Management console and select one of the pre-configured applications from the QuickTools sub menu.

How does it work?
When you run the vnc_start.bat script, it will first check to see if UltraVNC is already installed on the remote host. If it is, it will skip the installation routine and bring up the local VNC viewer. If you configured the script to automatically stop the VNC service when not in use, it will start the service beforehand. When you disconnect, it will (optionally) stop the VNC service again so that VNC is not accessible remotely anymore.

If VNC is not installed, the script will remotely install & configure UltraVNC using psexec.

If you do not want to leave the UltraVNC service installed on the remote computer, the vnc_uninstall.bat script can be run when the remote session is done. Automatically stopping the remote VNC service is however sufficient in most cases.

Prerequisites
There is not much you need:

psexec.exe from Sysinternals
Administrative access to the remote hosts
UltraVNC itself (duh!)

Installation
The scripts need to be configured before they can be used in your environment, unless you are an EventSentry user, in which case you only need to download & install the prerequisites.

Super Quick Setup for EventSentry Users
It’s no secret, we’re a little biased towards our EventSentry users, and as such setting this up with an existing EventSentry installation is rather easy:

Get psexec.exe and save it in C:\Program Files (x86)\EventSentry\resources.
Download the UltraVNC installers (they have 32-bit and 64-bit – download for the platforms you have on your network) and store them in the C:\Program Files (x86)\EventSentry\scripts\ultravnc folder.
Install UltraVNC on the computer where EventSentry is installed so that the VNC Viewer is available. It’s not necessary to install the whole package, only the viewer component is required.
If “VNC” is not listed in your QuickTools menu, then you will need to add it under Tools->Options->QuickTools. Simply enter “VNC” as the description and specify the path to the vnc_start utility, e.g. “C:\Program Files (x86)\EventSentry\scripts\ultravnc\vnc_start.bat $COMPUTER”. You can optionally check the “Hide” box to prevent the script output from being shown before you connect.

You’ll notice that no password was configured – that’s because you will be logging in with a Windows user and password – only allowing domain admins access by default. This can be configured in the authorized_acl.inf file, if you want to give additional groups and/or users access that are not domain admins.

That’s literally it – easy as pie. Even though we designed this thing to be easy peasy, since things do occasionally go wrong I recommend testing a first connection from the command line. Just open an administrative command prompt, navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\EventSentry\scripts\ultravnc and type vnc_start somehost.

Now just right-click any host – or use the “Quicktools” button in the ribbon – and select the “VNC” menu option. Keep in mind that first-time connections will take longer since the VNC setup file has to be copied and installed on the remote computer. Subsequent connections should be faster.

Manual Normal-Speed Setup for Non-EventSentry Users
So you are not an EventSentry user but still want to utilize these awesome scripts? No problem – we won’t hold it against you. The setup is still easy – you’ll just need to customize a few variables in the variables.bat file.

Download the package from here.
Create a local folder for this project, e.g. C:\Deployment\UltraVNC.
Copy all the scripts to this folder, e.g. you should end up with C:\Deployment\UltraVNC\vnc_start.bat
Open the file variables.bat in a text editor and keep it open as you will be making a few modifications to this file.
In variables.bat, set the VNCSOURCE variable to the directory you just created.
Download the latest version of both the 32-bit and 64-bit UltraVNC installers.
In variables.bat, set the VNCSETUP_X86 and VNCSETUP_X64 to the setup file names you just downloaded.
Download the PSTools and extract psexec.exe into the working directory, or a directory of your choice.
In variables.bat, point the PSEXECFILE variable to the location where you just saved psexec.exe.
Optional: Edit the authorized_acl.inf file to specify which Windows group or user will have access to VNC. You can either change the first line, or add additional lines to give additional users and/or groups permission.
Install the respective version of UltraVNC on your workstation so that the VNC Viewer is available.
Open a command line window and navigate to the folder to which VNCSOURCE points to. Test the setup by running vnc_start hostname, replacing “hostname” with an actual host name of a remote host of course.
When presented with the login screen of the VncViewer, log in with a Windows domain admin user.

That wasn’t so bad now, was it? Just remember that you’ll need to initiate any VNC session with the vnc_start.bat file. Just launching the Viewer won’t work – even if VNC is already installed on the remote machine – since the VNC service is stopped by our scripts by default. To use the folder names we created, you’ll just run

C:\Deployment\UltraVNC\vnc_start hostname

Enjoy, and happy RFBing!

Configuration – variables.bat
For the sake of completeness the variables.bat file is explained below:

VNCSETUP_X86: The file name of the 32-bit installer. This needs to only be changed whenever UltraVNC comes out with a new version.
VNCSETUP_X64: The file name of the 64-bit installer. This needs to only be changed whenever UltraVNC comes out with a new version.

REMOTEINSTALLPATH: The directory where the script files will be copied to on the remote host.

VNCSOURCE: This is the folder where all the vnc-related files, including the setup executables, are located on the source host from where you initiate VNC connections – e.g. C:\Deployment\UltraVNC.
VNCINSTALLDIR: The directory in which UltraVNC will be installed in (on the remote hosts).

VNCPASSWORD: This variable is not currently used since UltraVNC is automatically configured to authenticate against Windows, by default giving only Domain Admins access to VNC. This is generally more secure than using a password. You can edit the file authorized_acl.inf to give additional users and/or groups access to VNC. The file supports one ACL entry per line.

PSEXECFILE: Unfortunately we are not allowed to bundle the nifty psexec.exe file for license reasons, so you’ll have to download the PsTools and point this variable to wherever you end up copying the psexec.exe file to. If you already have psexec.exe installed then you can save yourself 2 minutes of time and just specify the path to the existing file here.

SET_VNC_SVC_TO_MANUAL: If you don’t entirely trust the security of VNC, maybe because you know what a brute force attack is, and you only want administrators to access VNC then you can set this variable to 1. As long as you only connect to the remote host(s) using the vnc_install.bat script, the scripts will ensure that the remote VNC service is started before you connect and stopped after you disconnect. Between the two of us, I’d always leave this set to 1 unless you have the desire to launch the VNC Viewer directly, or need non-administrators to be able to connect to the remote host(s).

ADD_FIREWALL_RULE: As the name (almost) implies, this will create a firewall exclusion rule on the remote host(s) if you’ve been doing your homework and enabled the Windows firewall. If you don’t like our boring firewall rule name then you can even change the name below by editing the FW_RULE_NAME variable. Enabling this is usually not necessary since the UltraVNC setup adds firewall exclusion rules by default.

VNCVIEWER: If you find that a different version of the VNC viewer works better than the version which we are shipping, then you can change the file name here.