Hitachi Incident Response Team2016.11.21 11:42:41 +09'00'
HIRT: Annual Report 2015

HIRT: Annual Report 2015
Hitachi Incident Response Team (HIRT)
http://www.hitachi.com/hirt/
OMORI BELLPORT Tower D, 6-26-3 Minamioi, Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan 140-0013

1

Introduction

When a large-impact incident occurs, great change in the
counterapproach is also seen. In 2006 when information
leaks occurred in file-sharing software, thin client terminals
were adopted. In 2011 when defense industry and otherenterprise companies were hit by targeted attacks, egresscountermeasures were introduced. Then in 2015 when arash of similar cyber attacks occurred, there was renewedemphasis on the risk decremental approach of accessblocking until safety can be confirmed (Figure 1). Here, theintent of the approach of access blocking until safety is
confirmed is to shorten the potential threat period andservice interruption time (Figure 2). In other words, theattacker's cyber attack speed is tracked.

1990

2000

2010

2020

Information leakage from file-sharing software (2006)

Data-centric measuresThin client

Client with HDD

Targeted attacks on defense industry
enterprise companies (2011)

Ingress countermeasures

Egress countermeasures
Rash of similar cyber attacks (2015)

Continue to use
until deemed dangerous(risk incremental approach)

Access blocking
until safety is confirmed(risk decremental approach)Figure 1: Change in counterapproach.

Risk
value

Potential threat
period (measurepreparation period)

Service interruption
periodWorkaround measure

Fundamental measure

Risk threshold value
Start measure

Complete measure

Large-scale cyberattack
activity occurs
Limited cyberattack
activity occurs

Figure 2: Potential threat period.

The specific role of HIRT (Hitachi Incident ResponseTeam) as a CSIRT (Computer/Cyber Security Incident
Response/Readiness Team) remains, as before, to lead thecyber security measure activities of the Hitachi Group,
through vulnerability countermeasures - activities toeliminate vulnerabilities that could pose a threat for cybersecurity, and incident responses - activities to avert andresolve cyber attacks when they occur. Further, we consider
that the requirements for CSIRTs in carrying out
vulnerability countermeasures and incident responses are topossess the capabilities for "predicting and altering from atechnical point of view", "making technical collaboration"and "collaborating with external communities on thetechnical aspects".
We are not envisioning special requirements here. It is amatter of making use of experience in incident operations(the series of security measure activities implemented inorder to predict and prevent damage from incidents and tolessen the expansion of damage after incidents occur) so as
to "catch any signs of future threats and take actions as
early as possible". As an organization that possesses theseroles, HIRT leads the way in vulnerability countermeasuresfor products and services and in incident responses formalware infection damage and information leakage, besides
shouldering duties as the Hitachi Group's integrated CSIRT
liaison organization.
This report will introduce a summary of the threats andvulnerabilities, and the activities of HIRT, in 2015.

2
Elapsed time

Serious vulnerability found/cyberattack activity occurs

Furthermore, with a targeted attack such as an APT(Advanced Persistent Threat: advanced hidden attack aimed
at a specific target), which has drawn attention since 2010,
the successful result of an invasive activity will act as aplatform for use in the next targeted attack and/or be tied to
an invasion of a specific organization, which is the ultimate
target. In short, security measures and incident responses
are composed in no small part to affect otherorganizations/be affected by other organizations; therefore,
a speed-up in professional, practical collaboration between
CSIRTs will be sought as well.

Overview of activities in 2015

This section focuses on the threats and vulnerabilities, andHIRT's activities, in 2015.

2.1

Overview of Threats and Vulnerabilities(1) Overview of Threats
Copyright © Hitachi Incident Response Team(HIRT). 2015. All rights reserved.

HIRT: Annual Report 2015
The known threats like targeted attack and website
compromised actions have continued to cause damage.
The feature of 2015 in terms of incidents was that damage
by malicious programs that target online banking become
serious. Meanwhile, the following methods became steadyoccurrences: ransomware attacks, which hold the files in a
PC to ransom, and amplification attacks, which use
amplification of request/response messages (also known as
reflection attacks).
Internet Banking

According to a National Policy Agency report, there werea total of 1,495 cases of fraudulent money transfer damage
occurred in Japan in 2015 (0.8 times more than in 2014),
amounting to some 3.073 billion yen in total damage (1.05
times the 2014 level; Figure 3) [1]. Characteristics of thesecases were a rapid rise in damage to credit union corporate
accounts, and record amounts of damage related to accounts
in the name of corporations.


If important files are encrypted by ransomware, business
continuity can be directly impacted; therefore, it isnecessary not only to acquire backup but to direct attention
to recovery from backup.
Website Cyberattack Activities

35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

Table 1: Notable Ransomware since 2013.

Damage cases (number)Year/Month2013
September
December
2014
Feburay
March
May
July
AugustOctoberNovember
2015
January
Feburay
March
July
September
November
December

2,000
Damage amount
Cases

1,500
1,000
500
0

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

Figure 3: Fraudulent money transfers by year and damage.
(Source: National Police Agency)
1,200

Number of website injections (onIP address basis)

Number of website injections

1,000

Ransomware
CryptoLocker
CryptoLocker 2.0
CryptoDefense
CryptoWall 1.0
ANDROIDOS_LOCKER.HBT (Android Env.)
CTB-Locker
TorrentLocker
CryptoWall 2.0
Coinvault
CryptoWall 3.0
TeslaCryptCRYPVAULT
TeslaCrypt 2.0
Chimera，TeslaCrypt 2.1
CryptoWall 4.0，Linux.Encoder (Linux Env.)
TeslaCrypt 2.2

400 (Gbps)

Website injections in Japan
since March 2013

800

Reflection Attacks

DDoS attack peak traffic is on an increasing trend (Figure5), and the threat from DDoS attacks is ongoing. According
to a report by Arbor Networks [4], over 20% of the attacks
exceed 1 Gbps, and attack traffic from DrDoS (Distributed
Reflective Denial of Service) attacks is increasing. Attacks
that use the SSDP (Simple Service Discovery Protocol) of
equipment that supports UPnP (Universal Plug and Play)are particularly prominent.

Incidents of website alteration in Japan with the intentionof infecting the sites with redirecting malware have been
continuing since March 2013. Looking at the number ofreported cases, one sees that these alterations are continuing
to occur in larger quantities than the Gumblar incidents thattook place in 2009 (Figure 4).

Damage amount (100 million yen)

Ransomware"Ransomware" is a generic term for malicious programs
that hold the files in a PC to ransom. Since 2015 inparticular, ransomware that encrypts the files in a PC anddemands money in return for decrypting them has increased
sharply (Table 1). According to a report by Symantec [2],64% of the ransomware was the crypto type, whichencrypts a PC's files, while 36% was the locker type, which
restricts access to a PC. Japan is number two in number ofcrypto ransomware cases detected. Also, according to areport by McAfee [3], ransomware cases increased 127%
from 2014, with approximately 1.2 million new samples
discovered in the second quarter of 2015 alone.

350

300

600

250

Gumblar
400

200
150

200

0
2009/01

100
50

2011/01

2013/010

2015/012010

Figure 4: Number of reported cases of website injections.
(Source: JPCERT/CC).
Copyright © HIRT. 2015. All rights reserved.

2011

2012

2013

2014

Figure 5: Trend in DrDoS attack peak traffic.
(Source: Arbor Networks) [4]22015

HIRT: Annual Report 2015

(2) Overview of Vulnerabilities
Overall Trend

The total number of vulnerabilities entered in the NIST
NVD (National Vulnerability Database) [6] was 6,488 in
2015. About 20% (1,319) of the vulnerabilities were in web
software application products (Figure 6). Breaking thesedown, cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection accountfor about 70%, which is a continuing trend (Figure 7).
Likewise, some 60% of the vulnerabilities in operational
websites that were reported to the IPA are accounted for bycross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection, though thispercentage is lower than most years (Figure 8) [7].

6,000
4,000
2,000
0

2,500
2,000
1,500

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
Path Traversal
SQL Injection
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

1,000
500
0
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015

Industrial Control System Products

The ICS-CERT (Industrial Control System-CERT) issued
10 alerts and 126 advisories (Figure 9).

Figure 7: Changes in the number of vulnerabilities reported
for software products of web-based application(Source: NIST NVD).

Number of vulnerabilities

Vulnerabilities arising from stack buffer overflow(CWE-121), cross-site scripting (CWE-79), and inadequate
verification of input data (CWE-20) were the mostcommonly reported types, followed by problems associatedwith hard-coded passwords (CWE-798). There were 10
reports of vulnerabilities in Device Type Manager (DTM)
products that utilize the Highway Addressable Remote
Transducer (HART) Protocol, which superimposes andtransmits digital signals over analog transmission signals.
Also, in the healthcare domain, there were 6 reports ofvulnerabilities in infusion systems.

2.2

Web application
Other

Figure 6: Number of vulnerabilities reported(Source: NIST NVD).

Number of vulnerabilities



8,000

HIRT Activities

1,600
1,400
1,200
1,000
800
600
400
200
0

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
Path Traversal
SQL Injection
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015



10,000

1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015

Number of vulnerabilities

Also, SSDP and NTP reflection attacks and Wordpress
XML-RPC reflection attacks have been utilized even in
attacks called DD4BC (DDos for Bitcoin), which demand
Bitcoins as ransom to stop DDoS attacks that are intended
to cause service interruptions [ 5 ]. Damage from DD4BC
attacks in other countries became noticeable starting in
mid-2014, and damage was reported in Japan, too, in 2015.

This subsection describes the HIRT activities in 2015.

Figure 8: Changes in the number of vulnerabilities reported
for websites (Source: IPA and JPCERT/CC).

(1) Improvement of Hitachi Group CSIRT activities(Phase 3)

160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0

ICS-CERT Advisory
ICS-CERT Alert

1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015

Number of Vulnerabilities

In 2010, we started improvements of Hitachi GroupCSIRT activities with the goal of "instilling incident
operations into the whole Hitachi Group" (Figure 11). In
2015, the sixth and final year of the activities, we took
regulation-strengthening steps to make our virtual,horizontal incident response framework (HIRT Center IRT - IRT supporting staff) a reality. Specifically, in therelevant regulations for security incident countermeasures,
we stipulated that the role of the Division IRT is "theconstruction and maintenance of the security response
system," based on future operations.

Figure 9: Changes in the number of control systemvulnerabilities reported (Source: ICS-CERT).

3

Copyright © HIRT. 2015. All rights reserved.

HIRT: Annual Report 2015

Also, to pass on technical skills, we held HIRT OPEN
Meetings (Technical Meetings) (Table 2) [*a], and held
Advanced HIRT OPEN Meetings in the Omika district with
IRT supporting staff. In addition, utilizing the HIRTLaboratory Project Room, which opened in 2014 inside the
Yokohama Research Laboratory, we constructed a virtualenvironment of the organization's internal networks toinvestigate targeted attacks and other cyber attacks. There,
we have begun to engage in "Observation of Threat Actors
Activities" (Figure 10), recording and analyzing the
behavior of a threat actor following intrusion, and in thepractical use of cyber security information between
organizations utilizing STIX/TAXII [*b] [8].

Phase 3 (2014 to 2015)
Establish a virtual, horizontal incident response framework(HIRT Center - IRT - IRT supporting staff) >>> Install and promote theincident operations throughout the whole Hitachi GroupAll Business Divisions of Hitachi & Groups Companies
SI Vendor IRT
Business Division orGroupcompany IRT
事業部・グループ会社IRT
Operation Chief

HIRT
CenterCategory
Phase 1

Phase 2

Table 2: HIRT OPEN Meeting (Technical meeting) in2015.
OutlineAdvanced HIRT OPEN Meeting
Hands-on forensic investigation[External instructor]
Yukata Kokubu, Takeshi Terada (Mitsui Bussan
Secure Directions)"From the Standpoint of Vulnerability Finder"
Advanced HIRT OPEN Meeting @Omika
Seminar on Technical Countermeasures forExternal Server Vulnerability Surveys[External instructor]
Jack YS Lin (JPCERT Coordination Center(General Foundation))"China: Emerging Cyber Power?"
Advanced HIRT OPEN Meeting
Hands-on Windows event log investigation

March
April
May

AuguestSeptemberPhase 3[*a] HIRT OPEN Meeting
HIRT OPEN Meeting is an activity is to popularize the HIRT community
on the basis of relationships of trust. The meetings are held in line with
policies of "offering an opportunity for HIRT Center members to share
information about HIRT activities", "offering an open event for people ofthe Hitachi Group to learn about the HIRT Center's activities for the HIRT
Center members to share information with and get opinions from non
HIRT Center members", and "providing an opportunity to call forparticipation in the HIRT community on the basis of relationships of trust".
HIRT OPEN Meeting (Technical Meeting)Technical Meeting is for designers, system engineers and persons willingto share their technical expertise come together to share and learn thetechnical know-how necessary to build security into products and services.
[*b] STIX (Structured Threat Information eXpression) is an XML
specification that describes cyber attack activities. TAXII (Trusted
Automated eXchange of Indicator Information) is a procedure forexchanging threat information. They are attracting attention as
specifications for information infrastructure.

Internet
Internet

RouterDeceive threat actor,
using virtual environment.

Virtual network

FirewallSales(mobile, etc.)

Firewallon Behavior Observable
System (BOS)

RouterInternal network
serverPhysical network

Record threat actor's
behavior after
intrusion.

Figure 10: BOS (Behavior Observable System) for
Observable Threat Actors Activities.
Copyright © HIRT. 2015. All rights reserved.

Concrete Measures
Improve Collaboration with IRT of Business
Divisions and Group Companies- Promote support activities with the collaboration
between the IRT of Business Divisions and Group
Companies- Establish an IRT coalition framework andmechanism to share technological know-how using
the HIRT OPEN Meetings- Disseminate information about
solutions/countermeasures for the problems
discussed in the security review consultation.
Strengthen Partnership with IRT supporting staffs- Trial collaboration with IRT supporting staffs (ofbusiness divisions and group companies)- Bottom up the IRT activities with the IRT
supporting staffs as a starting point
Establish Virtual, Horizontal Incident Response
System- Promote various support activities by the HIRT
Center, IRTs and IRT collision support members- Develop a HIRT in a broad sense (virtualorganization model) by combining the user
collaboration model (Phase 1 and 2) and entity
collaboration model (Phase 3).

Figure 11: Scenario on a Virtual, Horizontal
Incident Response System.

Branch office(relevant office)Publ ic web server
E-ma il relay s erver
Externa l DNS server

IRT supporting staff

Phase 2 (2012 to 2013)
Strengthen Partnershipwith IRT supporting staff
Phase 1 (2010 to 2011)
Improve Collaboration with Business Divisionsand Group Companies' IRT

In order to put into practice the three-tiered cycle forincident response and readiness (Figure 12) thatincorporates the perspectives of individual businessdomains, HIRT-FIS (Financial Industry Information
Systems HIRT) engaged as main actor in internal/externalreadiness activities for the financial domain.

Feburary

Units that need support

ハンドリング責任者
IRT連絡窓口担当者

IRT Liaison Staff

Internal User IRT

Moving ahead with readiness activities at
HIRT-FIS

Month
January

実行責任者

Vulnerability
Handling Chief
脆弱性関連情報

Product Vendor IRT(2) Trial IRT activities for individual domains
- Security information- Security review consulting- Technical support for evaluation tools- Education planning and offering

4

HIRT: Annual Report 2015

In the HIRT-FIS internal activities, they proceeded withgathering and analyzing financial-related security
information and issuing HIRT-FIS reports. In the external
activities, they held view-exchange meetings withfinancial-related CSIRTs, and tried out weekly
dissemination of HIRT-FIS Security Notes in order to put
out feelers for collaboration with financial-related CSIRTs(Table 3, Figure 13). The HIRT-FIS Security Notes are
simple reports that cover subjects such as financial-related
security incidents that have arisen in Japan or overseas,
relevant regulations and so forth.

(3) Strengthening of Partnership with the CSIRT
Community
We support membership in the Nippon CSIRT
Association (Table 4) and, in cooperation with the SSH
Server Secure Configuration Working Group, issued "SSH
Server Secure Configuration Guide V1.0" [9].
Table 4: Support for membership in Nippon CSIRT
Association.
Approval
March 2015
October 2015
November 2015

Industrial

Team Name
MY-SIRT (Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Company)
AHIRU (Aflac)
MELCO-CSIRT (Mitsubishi Electric Corporation)

Financial

Customer system Service provisionsystem(1) Incident(1) Incident(4) Eleventh "IISEC Information Security CultureAward"

Internal infrastructure(1) Incident(2) Incident response[responsibility: Cyber
Countermeasures Office](4) Incident readiness(3) System for cyber attack(3) Industry standards for cyber attack
countermeasurescountermeasures[responsibility: Cyber[responsibility: IRT for theCountermeasures Office]industry domain]

After receiving recognition for a number of constructive
activities, such as launching an in-house CSIRT ahead ofother companies and being the first Japanese manufacturer
to join the international forum FIRST in the same field, we
received the Institute of Information Security's "IISEC
Information Security Culture Award" [10].

(2) Incident response[responsibility: QA](6) Incident readiness(5) Other activities(5) Security measures compromised(5) Security measures compromisedby novel attacks
by novel attacks[responsibility: HIRT]Participation in MWS (anti Malware engineering
workshop) 2015.
We took part in this workshop with the aim ofsupporting research activities for malware
countermeasures and contributing, through suchsupport, to the formation of the next-generation
CSIRT community.

Contributed an article on vulnerability
countermeasures titled "Vulnerability Information to
Keep in Mind", to the ITpro CSIRT Forum held by
Nikkei Business Publications, Inc. [11].

3

HIRT

Figure 12: System view of "Three-tiered cycle for Incident
Response and Readiness" approach.

Table 3: HIRT-FIS Security Notes.
Item
Number issued
Number of recipients
Number of receivingorganizations

2013
10 Notes
4 persons2 organizations

2014
48
9
5

2015
48
35
22

To give you an in-depth understanding of HIRT, thissection describes the organizational model adopted, the
HIRT/CC, a coordinating unit, and the activities currently
promoted by the HIRT/CC.

3.1

Organizational Model

We have adopted an organizational model that consists offour IRTs (Figure 14 and Table 5). From the perspective of
incident response, there are three IRTs for the HitachiGroup's corporate activities; Product Vendor IRT; SI
Vendor IRT, and Internal User IRT; each corresponding to
one of the IRT's aspects: the Product Vendor IRT
corresponds to the aspect of developer of products such as
information systems and control systems, the SI Vendor
IRT to that of a system integrator/service provider that uses
those products, and the Internal User IRT to that of aninternet user that operates and manages its own enterprise.
By adding to these a fourth IRT - the HIRT/CC (HIRT

Figure 13: Example of the HIRT-FIS Security Notes thatare disseminated weekly to financial-domain CSIRTs.
5

Copyright © HIRT. 2015. All rights reserved.

HIRT: Annual Report 2015

Coordination Center), which carries out coordination work
among the others - a model is obtained which we
considered would be able to implement efficient andeffective security measure activities that achieve
collaboration among the IRTs, while making clear theirindividual functions. The name "HIRT" signifies theincident operation activities promoted by the Hitachi Group
as a whole, in the broad sense, and signifies the HIRT/CC(HIRT Center) in the narrow sense.

In fact, four phases (set forth in Table 6) had to be gone
through in order to put the four IRTs in place. For eachphase, there was an "impetus" that encouraged
organizational formation. For instance, the impetus for thesecond phase - establishing of the Product Vendor IRT was the fact that the vulnerability in SNMP [12] reported by
CERT/CC had affected large numbers of Hitachi products.
The impetus for the third phase - establishing of the SI
Vendor IRT - was the commencement of the Information
Security Early Warning Partnership. The HIRT Center was
set up to play the role of coordinator inside Hitachi andwith external entities, after the other three IRTs had largely
taken shape.

Table 6: Phases until the organization was formed.
Phase
April 1998
1st phase
Establishing theInternal User IRT(1998 - 2002)

Hitachi<Establishment>
2nd phase
Establishing the
Product Vendor
IRT(From 2002 -)Figure 14: Four IRTs as an organizational model.
Table 5: Role of each IRT.
Category
HIRT/CC

SI Vendor
IRT

Product
Vendor
IRTInternal
User IRT

Role
Corresponding sections: HIRT/CC- Provides a point of contact to external CSIRT
organizations, such as FIRST, JPCERT/CC andCERT/CC.
- Provides coordination among the SI Vendor,
Product Vendor and Internal User IRTs.
Corresponding sections: Sections providing
SI/services- Promotes CSIRT activities for customer systems.
- Provides customer systems with equivalent
security against reported vulnerabilities to thatfor internal systems.
Corresponding sections: Sections developing
products- Provides support to promote vulnerability
measures for Hitachi products and the release of
information concerning such countermeasures- Promptly investigates whether a reported
vulnerability has an impact on Hitachi products,
notifies users of the impact, if any, and provides
a security fix.
Corresponding sections: Sections administeringinternal infrastructures- Provide support to promote security measures forinternal networks lest Hitachi websites should be
used as a base for making unauthorized access.

Copyright © HIRT. 2015. All rights reserved.

<Establishment>
3rd phase
Establishing the
SI Vendor IRT(From 2004 -)<Establishment>
4th phase(October 2004)<Establishment>
1st phase(2010-2011)<Improvement>
2nd phase(2012-2013)<Improvement>
3rd phase(2014-2015)<Improvement>

6

Overview
We started CSIRT activities as a project toestablish a Hitachi CSIRT framework.
In order to run a Hitachi CSIRT on a trial
basis, we formed a cross-sectional virtual
team within the Hitachi group to start
mailing list based activities. Most of themembers comprised internal security experts
and those from sections administeringinternal infrastructures.
In order to start conducting activities
seriously as a Hitachi CSIRT, the sections
developing products played a central role inestablishing an organizational structure of
the Product Vendor IRT with related
business sites through cooperation frominternal security experts, the sections
administering internal infrastructures, thesections developing products and the Quality
Assurance Department.
We started to form an SI Vendor IRT withthe sections providing SI/services. In order toswiftly implement proactive measuresagainst vulnerabilities, as well as reactive
measures against incidents, via partnershipwith Internet communities, we started toform HIRT/CC, which provides a point ofcontact for external organizations andenhances coordination among Internal IRTs.
We established the HIRT/CC.

Improvements of Hitachi group CSIRT
activities
Goal: instilling incident operation into thewhole Hitachi GroupHIRT: Annual Report 2015

3.2

Such organization is based on the concept that theperformance of duties by each section and cooperation
among sections are necessary to solve security issues, given
the great diversity of equipment in the information andcontrol systems.

Position of HIRT/CC

The HIRT/CC is positioned under Information andTelecommunication Systems Company and has the role of
not only a coordinator within and with the entities outside
Hitachi but also a leader in promoting security technology.

3.3

The main area of activity is to support the Product andService Security Committee technically, to promotesecurity efforts from technical and institutional aspect incooperation with the IT & Security Strategy Division,
Information Technology Division and Quality Assurance
Division. Moreover, it also includes helping each businessdivision and group company implement proactive security
measures against vulnerabilities, as well as reactive
measures against incidents, and promoting security
measures through partnerships among organizations as apoint of contact for CSIRT activities in the Hitachi group(Figure 15).

The main activities of the HIRT center currently being
promoted include CSIRT activities for internalorganizations (Table 7) and those for external organizations(Table 8). The internally-oriented CSIRT activities
comprise issuing alerts and advisories that embody theknow-how obtained through gathering and analyzing
security information. Besides those, we are currently
engaged in activities to feed such knowledge back into
product development processes in the form of various
guidelines and support tools.
HIRT security information in internally-oriented alerts andadvisories has been broken down into two types since June
2005. One is HIRT security information that aims to
distribute alerts and hot topics widely, and the other is
HIRT-FUP information, which is used to request individual
sections to take counter-action. This distinction is for thesake of information propagation and priority ranking.
(Table 9 and Figure 16). To communicate information
efficiently, we condense it to reduce the number of
information items and release it in tandem with the IT &Security Strategy Division and the Quality Assurance
Division.

The organization of the HIRT/CC features the
combination of vertical and horizontal collaboration ofpeople and units. More specifically, this model has
achieved a flat and cross-sectional organizational system
for implementing measures and coordinating ability throughdistribution if functions by creating a virtual organizationconsisting of dedicated personnel and those who areassigned to HIRT as an additional task.
Table 7: (Internally) promoting projects.
Category
Collecting,analyzing andproviding security
information

Promotingproactive measuresagainstvulnerabilities, aswell as reactive
measures against
incidents for
products/services
Enhancing security
technology for
products/services

Developing aframework forresearch activities

Main Activities of HIRT Center

Overview- Promoting Information Security Early
Warning Partnership (Information
concerning proactive measures against
vulnerabilities, as well as reactive
measures against incidents/horizontal
deployment of know-how)- Building a wide-area observation network
based on the concepts of the Hitachi
Security Operation Center Information
eXchange (SOCIX)- Strengthening of collaboration with IRT
contact points of business divisions andgroup companies (Phases 1 and 2- Passing on of techniques for the incident
operation- Promoting the publication of security
information from external websites using
the Security Information Integration Site-- Establishment of processes forbuilding-in of security (approach fromthe three perspectives of specifications,codes and configurations, and in addition
move ahead with creating precedents incontrol devices and systems)- Developing a framework for joint
research with the Yokohama ResearchLaboratory

We are now promoting activities to expand the HitachiGroup's commitment to product and service security toInternet users via our security portal website, as a proactive
measure against vulnerabilities, as well as reactive
measures against incidents.

Information and Telecommunication Systems

HQ

Information Technology Division

Lead institutional aspects
IT & Security Strategy Division

Information Management Committee

Quality Assurance Division

Security Technology Subcommittee

Deployment of measures
Technical
SupportHIRT Center

Lead technical aspects
Point of contact for Hitachi IRTs
(Mutual corporation
among organizations)Mutualcollaboration

Hitachi business division andgroup companies

Collaborationon technical aspects

SI Vendor
IRT
Division/Gr. Company IRT- Vulnerability Handling Support- Incident Response Support etc.

External IRT Communities• IRT communities (FIRST.org, NCA.gr.jp (JP))• IRT organizations (CERT/CC (US), CPNI (UK), JPCERT/CC (JP))• Governmental organizations (Cabinet Secretariat, Ministry of Economy,
Trade and Industry, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications,
National Police Agency)• ISP/security vendors (NTT, IIJ, Trend Micro, etc.)• ISAC organizations (ICT-ISAC (JP), Financials ISAC (JP))

Operation Chief

Vulnerability
Handling Chief
IRT Liaison Staff

Internal User
IRT

Product Vendor
IRT

Division/Gr. Company IRT

Division/Gr. Company IRT

Operation Chief

Operation Chief

Vulnerability
Handling Chief

Vulnerability
Handling Chief

IRT Liaison Staff

IRT Liaison Staff

Figure 15: Position of HIRT Center.

7

Copyright © HIRT. 2015. All rights reserved.

HIRT: Annual Report 2015

In particular, for issuing security information forvulnerabilities and incidents, to external entities, we also
adopt an approach in which an "Emergency Level" of
information is determined and a "Website Level" at which
the information is to be published is selected, in addition tojust routinely publishing security information via our
security portal website (Figure 17).

Number of issues

200

Category
Strengthening thedomestic
partnership for
CSIRT activities
Strengthening theoverseas
partnership for
CSIRT activities

Developing aframework forresearch activities

Overview- Deploying proactive measures against
vulnerabilities based on the Information
Security Early Warning Partnership- Promoting activities related to the Nippon
CSIRT Association- Improving partnerships with overseas
CSIRT organizations/product vendor
IRTs through lectures or events at FIRST
conferences- Promoting UK WARP related activities.
- Countermeasures against vulnerabilities,
such as CVE and CVSS, andstandardization of incident response(ISO, ITU-T) [*c] [13]- Establish a joint research between Meiji
University (Professor Hiroaki Kikuchi)
and HIRT.
- Participating in academic research
activities, such as a workshop to develop
human resources for research on malware
countermeasures (MWS) [14]HIRT-yynnn

HIRT-FYIyynnn

50
0Figure 17: Conceptual view of issuing information based on"Emergency Level" x "Website Level".

4

Activity Summary from 1998 to 2014

This section describes the activities for each year from1998 when the HIRT project started.

4.1

The Year 2014(1) Improvement of Hitachi Group CSIRT activities(Phase 3)

Usage
Priority: Urgent
Distributed to: Only relevant sections
Is used to notify relevant sections ofvulnerability when an HIRT member has
found such vulnerability in a Hitachi groupproduct or a website, or received suchinformation.
Priority: Middle - HighDistributed to: No restriction
Is used to widely call attention to proactive
measures against vulnerabilities, as well asreactive measures against incidents.
Priority: Low
Distributed to: No restriction
Is used to notify people of HIRT OPEN
Meetings or lecture meetings.

In 2014, the fifth year of the activities, we opened a HIRTLaboratory Project Room inside the Yokohama ResearchLaboratory's facilities to mark the start year of Phase 3. The
purposes of this Project Room are to be a locus for passing
on technical skills and to serve as a hub for support
activities and for collaboration with the ResearchLaboratory.
(2) Trial IRT activities for Individual Domains
Moving ahead with readiness activities at
HIRT-FIS

For external readiness activities for the financial domain,
we expanded weekly distribution of the HIRT-FIS Security
Notes and held view-exchange meetings withfinancial-related CSIRTs in order to put out feelers forcollaboration with financial-related CSIRTs.

[*c]Under ISO SC27/WG3, work began in 2007 to develop a"Vulnerability Disclosure" international standard (29147), and in 2010 todevelop a "Vulnerability Response Procedure" international standard(30111). These international standards were completed in February 2014
and November 2013 respectively.
Work to develop a "Cyber Security Information Exchange Framework(X.cybex)" international standard covering CVE (Common Vulnerability
and Exposures), CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) and soforth has been proceeding since 2009 under ITU-T SG17 Q.4.

Copyright © HIRT. 2015. All rights reserved.

100

Figure 16: Number of issues of security information
by ID number.

Table 9: Classification of security information
issued by HIRT.
ID number
HIRT-FUPyynnn

150

1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015

Table 8: (Externally) promoting projects.

HIRT-FYIHIRT-FUP
HIRTVulnerability countermeasures for industrial
control systems

We moved ahead with approaching vulnerability
countermeasures for industrial control systems, startingfrom three perspectives: specification designs, codes, andconfigurations.
8

HIRT: Annual Report 2015(3) Strengthening of Partnership with the CSIRT
Community

then possibly attempting to exploit them if access may begained.

As concrete activities for strengthening our partnershipwith the CISIRT community, we continued with thegatherings with NTT-CERT [15] that we have been holding
periodically since 2006, at which we exchanged
information for improving CSIRT activities. Also, we
supported membership in the Nippon CSIRT Association(Table 10), launched the SSH Server Secure Configuration
Working Group, and carried out information disseminationin cooperation with its Incident Information Utilization
Framework Working Group [20].

(2) Trial IRT activities for individual domains

Regarding vulnerability of GNU bash - shellshock

Struts: Regarding vulnerabilities that allow operationof ClassLoader (CVE-2014-0094, CVE-2014-0112,
CVE-2014-0113)

Regarding vulnerability that allows OpenSSL
information leakage - HeartbleedFor external readiness in the financial domain, we began
trial weekly distribution of the HIRT-FIS Security Notes.
November 2014

Vulnerability countermeasures for industrial
control systems

We established a framework for vulnerability handlingand incident handling with HIRT as basic point of contact
for external organizations (Figure 18) [16].
(3) Strengthening of Partnership with the CSIRT
Community
We carried out information dissemination in cooperation
with the Nippon CSIRT Association’s Incident Information
Utilization Framework Working Group [20]．


Table 10: Support for membership in Nippon CSIRT
Association.
Approval
May 2014
October 2014

Moving ahead with readiness activities at
HIRT-FIS

Regarding the domestic web page alteration incidents
ongoing since March 2013.

Team Name
YMC-CSIRT (Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd.)NISSAY IT CSIRT (Nissay Information
Technology Corporation)
MS&AD-CSIRT (MS&AD Insurance Group
Holdings, Inc.)(4) LecturesFebruary 2014: "A Security Incident in China:
DarKnight" by Jack YS Lin, JPCERT Coordination
Center

March 2014: "The Surveilled Internet" by Masafumi
Negishi, Internet Initiative Japan Inc.



August 2014: "General Coping Flow for Targeted
Attacks, and Proactive Countering and Profiling Using
Big Data: What are They?" by Nobuaki Hirahara,
Trend Micro Incorporated.

4.2

Vulnerability
handling for IT

CERT/CC

Vulnerability
handling for ICS

JPCERT/CCICS-CERT

Figure 18: Framework for vulnerability handling.

The Year 2013

(4) Winning of (ISC)2 Asia-Pacific ISLA 2013
We won the 2013 Senior Information Security
Professional Award for ISLA (Information Security
Leadership Achievements) from (ISC)2, which runs the
CISSP information security certification and is highly
appraised for its contributions to the vulnerability
countermeasure activities pertaining to the JVN (Japan
Vulnerability Notes), in which HIRT is involved [17]．

(1) Improvement of Hitachi Group CSIRT activities(Phase 2)
In 2013 - the fourth year of the improvements and the final
year of Phase 2 - we moved ahead with entrenching loci forpassing on techniques for cyber security countermeasures,in concert with the HIRT supporting staff (staff who workwith the HIRT Center to actively promote IRT activities).

(5) Lectures

For the passing on of the techniques, we divided them into
three: (a) analysis (reverse engineering) of the behavior of
the malware and so forth used in cyber attacks, (b)investigation (forensics) to extract information and datafrom computers to serve as digital evidence, and (c)assessment (penetration) to looks for the vulnerabilities,9June 2013: "Security for Android Apps and Security
Activities for Software Development Worksites" by
Masaru Matsunami, Sony Digital Network
Applications, Inc.
Copyright © HIRT. 2015. All rights reserved.

HIRT: Annual Report 2015

September 2013: "Control System Security:
Suggestions for Proactive Approaches Toward theGeneration When Information and Control Systems
Fusion" by Lauri Korts-Pärn, Cyber Defense Institute.

4.3

August 2012: "Elements and Implementation of
Database Security" by Haruto Kitano, Oracle
Corporation Japan

September 2012: "Trends in Cyber Attacks and theCutting Edge of Cyber Security Research" by Daisuke
Inoue, National Institute of Information andCommunications Technology

November 2012: "A Look Back Over Remote Control
Incidents, the Firstserver Problem and theLeap-Second Problem" by Tetsutaro Uehara, The
Research Institute of Information Security (NPO)The Year 2012

(1) Start of improvement of Hitachi Group CSIRT
activities (Phase 2)
2012 was the third year of the improvements and in it westarted Phase 2, which is to strengthen collaboration inside
the Hitachi Group through the HIRT supporting staff.
Disseminating Countermeasure Information through
HIRT OPEN Meetings

4.4Start of Advanced HIRT OPEN Meetings(1) Improvement of Hitachi Group CSIRT Activities(Phase 1)(2) Trial IRT activities for individual domains

2011 was the second and concluding year of Phase 1, andin it we concentrated our efforts on entrenching the support
activity cycle (issue identification, analysis, countermeasuredeliberation and deployment) that links with the Divisions
and the Group Company IRTs.

We started trial IRT activities for individual domains, inorder to take the approach of the three-tiered cycle forincident response and readiness that incorporates theperspectives of individual business domains (Figure 12).
Also, as an advanced endeavor in the financial domain, we
set up HIRT-FIS inside our financial section on October 1,
2012 (Figure 19).
Positioning

Domains

HIRT::SpecificDrew up a list of check points to be re-verified in FY2010

Expanded HIRT OPEN Meeting (Technical Meeting)(2) Disseminating Information on Vulnerability inControl System Products

Framework

We elected to deal with vulnerability in control systemproducts on a monthly basis, because the number ofvulnerabilities reported for such products had increased,
and in order to routinely determine the trends in thevulnerabilities reported.

HIRT-FIS
GeneralThe Year 2011

Financial domain
HIRT-FIS(Financial Industry
Information Systems HIRT)・・・ domain
HIRT-###

Figure 19: Positioning and framework of IRT activities forindividual industry domains(3) Strengthening of Partnership with the CSIRT
Community(3) Strengthening of Partnership with the CSIRT
community

We carried out information transmission in cooperation
with the Nippon CSIRT Association's Incident Information
Utilization Framework Working Group.









On Febuary 29, 2012 we held the CSIRT Workshop
2012 as an opportunity for exchange of opinions on
corporate CSIRT, targeting corporate staff interested
in CSIRT activities [18].

(4) Lectures

Together with the FIRST member teams in Japan, we
held the FIRST Technical Colloquium 2012 Kyoto at
the Kyoto International Community House from
November 13 to 15, 2012 [19].
In order to continue with study of "Future of Global
Vulnerability Reporting", which was raised at the
FIRST Technical Colloquium 2012 Kyoto, we
launched a Vulnerability Reporting and DataeXchange SIG (Special Interest Group) inside FIRST.

July 2011: "Defining Security Requirements for Web
Application Development" by Hiroshi Tokumaru,
HASH Consulting Corporation



September 2011: "Difficulties and Actual Practice in
the Information Leakage Countermeasure Field Tracking Down Malicious Data Diffusion Crimes" by
Toshifumi Tokuda, IBM Japan

December 2011: "Circumstances Surrounding
Android (Trends in the Android Malware)" by
Norihiko Maeda, Kaspersky Labs JapanMarch 2012: "Framework for Promoting Security
Measures in Organizations" by Nobuo Miwa, S&J
Consulting

Copyright © HIRT. 2015. All rights reserved.

(5) Other activities(4) Lectures
Web Malware "mstmp" exploiting Mash-up

10

Cooperated with the standardization activities for
ITU-T's Cybersecurity Information Exchange
Framework ("CYBEX")HIRT: Annual Report 2015

4.5

The Year 2010

(1) Start of Improvement of Hitachi Group CSIRT
Activities (Phase 1)

Information leakage malware ratio in all files
Information leakage malware ratio in archive files

20%

We began activities for Phase 1 of the improvement of
Hitachi Group CSIRT activities, with the goal of "installingincident operation into the whole Hitachi Group". In 2010,
the initial year of Phase 1, we concentrated our efforts onentrenching the liaison meetings (operational and technicalmeetings) for the vulnerability-related information handlingofficers and IRT liaison staff.

15%

Operational Meeting (once/term): for thevulnerability-related information handling officers and
IRT liaison staff, held with the objectives of sharing
and passing on the operational know-how necessary
for IRT activities

Figure 20: Changes in malware circulating in Winny thatcauses information leakage.

Technical Meeting (2-4 times/term): for designers,
system engineers and persons able to assist with
disseminating technological expertise, held in order todisseminate the technological expertise necessary forbuilding security into products and services.

Basicknowledge

10%
5%



Information about Stuxnet




4.6

2010

2009
Test

Operation

Hands-oncourse of web
application
inspection

Support for
adopting
countermeasur
es in incidents

Training in theuse ofinspection
tools

Support of log
checking

As part of the security engineer training program utilizing
the CSIRT activities, we accepted a trainee and trained him
for six months with the focus on web system security.
(3) Lectures(3) Other activities

Support of
security review

Implementationand construction(2) Providing Security Engineer Training

A website with the information about Gumblar
countermeasure
Information on the SSL attack by the Botnet PushDo

DesignFigure 21: Systematizing HIRT support activities(Web application security).

In December 2012, we provided support for the holding of
the Nippon CSIRT Association's International Partnership
Workshop Also, in cooperation with the Nippon CSIRT
Association's Incident Information Utilization Framework
Working Group, we carried out information disseminated
[20]:



Quotation

Basic course on
webapplication
security(2) Strengthening of Partnership with the CSIRT
Community



2008

2007

0%



July 2009: "Web Application Security" by Hiromitsu
Takagi, National Institute of Advanced Industrial
Science and Technology (AIST)

July 2009: "NTT-CERT Activity" by, Takehiko
Yoshida, NTT-CERTIn July 2010, we provided backing for the organizingof an "Academy CERT Meeting" in collaboration with
JPCERT/CC, to help Indonesia's academic CSIRT
activities [21].

(4) Other Activities
"Survey on Malware Circulating Within the P2P File
Exchange Environment" [22]"Survey on Malware Circulating within the P2P File
Exchange Environment" [23]Since 2007, many Antinny-type known malwares thatare liable to cause information leakage have beenswarming on the "Winny" P2P file-sharing
environment (Figure 20).

February 2009: Gave an web application development
exercise for NTT Group at a workshop organized by
NTT-CERTIn cooperation with the Incident Information
Utilization Framework Working Group of Nippon
CSIRT Association, information dissemination using
cNotes (Current Status Notes) [24] which tries tovisualize the observational data.

The Year 2009(1) Start of Product/Service Security Feedback
To give feedback to the product development processes
about the know-how we learned from the experience ofvulnerability fighting and incident response, we started toprovide support for each process (Figure 21).
11

Copyright © HIRT. 2015. All rights reserved.

HIRT: Annual Report 2015

4.7

The Year 2008

4.8

The Year 2007

(1) Supporting countermeasures against DNS cachepoisoning vulnerability(1) Starting Hands-on Security Training at HIRT OPEN
Meetings

We held an HIRT OPEN Meeting "Roles of DNS and Useof Related Tools" in December as a countermeasure to DNS
cache poisoning vulnerability, in order to describe DNS
behavior and how to use tools. To help promote DNS cachepoisoning countermeasures in Japan, the materials prepared
for the HIRT OPEN Meeting were provided as a reference,
based on which "Countermeasures against DNS Cache
Poisoning vulnerability" [ 25 ] issued from the IPA in
January, 2009, was created.

In 2007, to promote the practical use of the guideline"Web Application Security Guideline", we provided ahands-on, exercise-based HIRT OPEN Meeting twice inMarch and June for the web application developer.
(2) Founding the Nippon CSIRT Association
In order to develop a system based on a strong trusting
relationship among CSIRTs that can successfully andpromptly react to events that single CSIRTs find it difficult
to solve, we founded the Nippon CSIRT Association withIIJ-SECT (IIJ), JPCERT/CC, JSOC (LAC), NTT-CERT(NTT) and SoftBank CSIRT (Softbank) in April 2007 [29].
As of December 2015, 106 teams have been joined (Figure22).

(2) Holding JWS2008
March 25-28, 2008, we held the FIRST Technical
Colloquium, a FIRST technical meeting, and Joint
Workshop on Security 2008, Tokyo (JWS2008), a domestic
CSIRT technical workshop, with a team of domestic FIRST
members [26].

120
Total number of teams(3) Participation in the domestic COMCHECK Drill
2008
With a view to ensuring that in-house information security
departments of various organizations could communicate
with each other, we participated in a domestic
COMCHECK Drill (Drill name: SHIWASU, was held by
the Nippon CSIRT Association on December 4, 2008).

60

40
20
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015

Figure 22: Change in Number of Nippon CSIRT
Association Members.

In the 2008 Information Technology Promotion Monthly
Period memorial ceremony held by Information
Technology Promotion Conference (Ministry of Economy,
Trade and Industry, Cabinet Office, Ministry of Internal
Affairs and Communications, Ministry of Finance Japan,
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure andTransport) on October 1, 2008. We were awarded with the"Commerce and Information Policy Bureau Chief Prize,
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (Information
Security Promotion Section)" [27].

(3) Joining UK WARP
In order to strengthen the overseas partnership on CSIRT
activities, we joined the Warning, Advice and Reporting
Point (WARP), promoted by the Centre for the Protectionof National Infrastructure (CPNI), a British government
security organization, in May 2007 [30].
(4) Lectures
(5) Lectures
April 2008: "Management of High Reliability
Organizations" by Aki Nakanishi, the Faculty ofBusiness Administration, Meiji University.

4.9

July 2008: "Vulnerability Assessment through Static
Analysis" by Yuji Ukai, Fourteenforty ResearchInstitute, Inc.

The Year 2006

(1) Providing a Unified Point of Contact for
Vulnerability Reporting(6) Other Activity
In order to partially reveal the actual circumstances oftargeted attack as a part of efforts to develop a newinter-organization collaboration, we provided relatedorganizations with a malware-attached e-mail, which faked
itself as Call for Papers (CFP) for the symposium held by
the Computer Security Symposium 2008 of Information
Processing Societies Japan as a sample [28].

Copyright © HIRT. 2015. All rights reserved.

800(4) Award with the Commerce and Information Policy
Bureau Chief Prize, Ministry of Economy, Trade andIndustry (Information Security Promotion Section)



100

In
November
2006,
in
order
to
circulatevulnerability-related information properly in the Hitachigroup and thereby promote measures against vulnerabilities
in Hitachi software products and websites, we provided aunified point of contact for receiving reports onvulnerabilities found in software products and web
applications.
12

HIRT: Annual Report 2015

As of December 2015, a total of 345 teams have joined
this community, including 25 Japanese teams (Figure 23)[*d].

In October 2006, as part of security measures of web
application in the Hitachi group, we created guidelines andchecklists and provided support for their implementation in
the Hitachi group. We updated "Web Application Security
Guide (Development) V2.0" by adding new vulnerabilities,
such as LDAP injection and XML injection, and a method
for checking the existence of such vulnerabilities.

Total number of teams

400(3) Calling Attention to Information Leakage Caused by
P2P File Exchange Software

350

Total number of teams
Total number of Japanese teams

30
25

300
20

250
200

15

150

10

Total number of Japanese teams(2) Enhancing Web Application Security

Antinny is a virus that has penetrated widely via "Winny",
file exchange software that appeared in August 2003. The
virus causes infected PCs to leak information and attack
particular websites. In April 2006, HIRT issued a security
alert entitled "Prevention of Information Leakage Causedby Winny and Proactive Measures against It" based on
previous experience of threats.

Figure 23: Changes in the number of members of FIRST.

(4) Starting Product Security Activities for Intelligent
Home Appliance and embedded Products(2) Setting Up a Security Information Portal Site
In September 2005, in order to provide Internet users withcomprehensive information on security problems applicableto the products and service of the Hitachi group, we set up a
security information portal site within which the security
information provided through the websites of Hitachi
business divisions and group companies is integrated(Figure 24). We also created "Guidance for Providing
Security Information from Websites to External Users,
V1.0".

In March 2006, we introduced Hitachi's CSIRT activities
in a workshop held by NTT-CERT to exchange information
to improve CSIRT activities with each other.

(3) Strengthening the Domestic Partnership for CSIRT
Activities(6) Lectures

September 2006: "Measures against Botnet inTelecom-ISAC Japan", by Satoru Koyama,
Telecom-ISAC JapanTo strengthen the domestic partnership for CSIRT
activities, we hold meetings with domestic teams that are
members of FIRST, and individual meetings with
NTT-CERT and Microsoft Product Security Team (PST) to
exchange opinions, and have established a contact network
to be used, for example, when a website is found to havebeen tampered with.

(7) Other Activity


0
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015

0

(5) Strengthening Partnership with the CSIRT
Community

May 2006: "Security for embedded systems", by Yuji
Ukai, eEye Digital Security

550

We have started product security activities for intelligent
home appliance and embedded products. HIRT focused on
the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), a call control protocol
used for Internet telephony, and summarized related
security tools and measures into a report.

100Starting to sign a digital signature to technicaldocuments (PDF files) issued from HIRT [31]4.10 The Year 2005[*d] CDI-CIRT (Cyber Defense Institute, Inc.), CFC (National Police
Agency, Japan), DeNA CERT (DeNA Co., Ltd.), DT-CIRT (Deloitte
Touche Tohmatsu LLC), FJC-CERT (Fujitsu Limited), Fuji Xerox-CERT(Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd.), HIRT (Hitachi Ltd.), IIJ-SECT (Internet Initiative
Japan, Inc.), IPA-CERT (Information-technology Promotion Agency,
Japan), JPCERT/CC, JSOC (LAC Co., Ltd.), KDDI-CSIRT (KDDI
Corporation), KKCSIRT (Kakaku.com, Inc.), LINE-CSIRT (LINE
Corporation), MBSD-SIRT (Mitsui Bussan Secure Directions, Inc.),
MIXIRT (Mixi), MUFG-CERT (Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd.),
NCSIRT (NRI SecureTechnologies, Ltd.), NISC (Cabinet Secretariat,
Japan), NTT-CERT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation),
NTTDATA-CERT (NTT DATA Corporation), Panasonic PSIRT(Panasonic Corporation), Rakuten-CERT (Rakuten, Inc.), RicohPSIRT(Ricoh Company, Ltd.), SoftBank CSIRT (SoftBank Corp.) and YIRD
(Yahoo! JAPAN Corporation).

(1) Joining FIRST
In January 2005, to boost experience in CSIRT activities
while creating an organizational structure to addressincidents in partnership with CSIRT organizations overseas,
we joined the Forum of Incident Response and Security
Teams (FIRST), an international community for computer
incident handling teams [ 32 ]. The preparation period
extended for about one year, since any team wishing to join
the community must obtain recommendations from two
member teams before doing so.
13

Copyright © HIRT. 2015. All rights reserved.

HIRT: Annual Report 2015

(2) Disseminating Vulnerability Information fromNISCC throughout Hitachi

Releasing information to the public

Request for investigation

Security information portal site:
Japanese: http://www.hitachi.co.jp/hirt/
English: http://www.hitachi.com/hirt/

Following the dissemination of vulnerability informationfrom CERT/CC in 2002, we started obtaining/publishing
information in accordance with the NISCC (currently,
CPNI) Vulnerability Disclosure Policy. 006489/H323 ofJanuary 2004 for security information on a Hitachi productwas first published in NISCC Vulnerability Advisory after
starting the activity [36].

The Hitachi Group
IPA, JPCERT/CC
Information
Security Early
Warning
Partnership
Information
disclosure

Request forinvestigation

Affected products
and measurements

HIRT/CC
Aggregating
statusInformation
disclosure

Request forinvestigation

Sections developing
products

Affected
products andInvestigation andmeasuresPreparing for
information
disclosure

measurements(3) Providing a Point of Contact for External
Organizations

Providing security
information via a domestic
security portal site

Providing security
information via Hitachigroup security portal site

In line with the more active reporting and releasing of
information concerning the discovery of a vulnerability, we
provided a point of contact, as shown in Table 11, that
initiates actions when vulnerabilities or malicious actions in
Hitachi products and Hitachi-related websites are pointed
out.

Providing businessdivisions and subsidiarycompanies with security
information

Figure 24: Providing security informationon the Hitachi security information portal.

Table 11: Information on point of contact.
Name
Address

4.11 The Year 2004

E-mail(1) Participating in the Information Security Early
Warning Partnership

PGP key

The Information Security Early Warning Partnership
started in July 2004 when the "Standard for Handling
Information Related to Vulnerabilities in Software, etc."
was implemented [33][34].
The Hitachi group registered itself as a productdevelopment vendor to the Partnership, using HIRT as apoint of contact, and started publishing Hitachi'svulnerability handling status on JP Vulnerability Notes(JVN) [35].

(1) Disseminating Vulnerability Information from
CERT/CC throughout Hitachi
SNMP vulnerability [12] reported from CERT/CC in 2002
affected a wide range of software and devices. This
provided an opportunity to start the Product Vendor IRT
and obtaining/publishing information based on the
CERT/CC Vulnerability Disclosure Policy [ 37 ].
VU#459371 of October 2002 for security information on
Hitachi product was first published in the CERT/CC
Vulnerability Notes Database after commencing thisactivity [38].

In November 2004, we created the "Web Application
Security Guide (Development), V1.0" and distributed it
throughout the Hitachi group. The guide summarizes
typical problems that need to be considered when designingand developing web applications, and provides an overview
of measures taken to solve such problems.
(3) Lectures
January 2004: "Security business affairs after Blasterin the US", by Tom Noonan, President and CEO ofInternet Security Systems (ISS)(2) Assisting JPCERT/CC in Building Vendor Status
Notes
We provided support to build and operate a trial website,
JPCERT/CC Vendor Status Notes (JVN)(http://jvn.doi.ics.keio.ac.jp/), in February 2003, as an
attempt to improve the domestic circulation of security
information (Figure 25) [39][40].

4.12 The Year 2003
(1) Starting Web Application Security Activities
We started to consider a method for enhancing web
application security and developed the "Procedure forCreating a Security Measure Standard for Web Application
Development V1.0" with business divisions.

Copyright © HIRT. 2015. All rights reserved.

KeyID = 2301A5FA
Key fingerprint
7BE3 ECBF 173E 3106 F55A
011D F6CD EB6B 2301 A5FA
pub 1024D/ 2003-09-17
HIRT: Hitachi Incident Response Team4.13 The Year 2002

(2) Enhancing Web Application Security

"HIRT": Hitachi Incident Response Team.
Kashimada 1-1-2, Saiwai, Kawasaki City,
Kanagawa, 212-8567 Japan

With the implementation of the "Standard for Handling
Information Related to Vulnerabilities in Software, etc." inJuly 2004, the roles of the trial site were transferred toJapan Vulnerability Notes (JVN), a site releasing
information on reported vulnerabilities (http://jvn.jp/).
14

HIRT: Annual Report 2015

2002

2003

2004

security vulnerabilities into "Vulnerabilities" and"Exposures" and focuses on the former [43]. The former isdefined as mistakes in software to violate a reasonablesecurity policy and the latter as environment-specific,
configuration issues or mistakes in software used to violatea specific policy. The National Institute of Standards andTechnology (NIST) uses whether or not a CERT advisory
and CVE identifier number has been issued as a guide to
determine the severity of vulnerability, and classifies
vulnerabilities into three levels in the ICAT Metabase [44],a predecessor of NVD.

2005
2004/07/08~
Running official website

2003/02/03~2004/07/07
Trial site running period▲ JVN working group formed in June 2002

▲ Trial site (jvn.doi.ics.keio.ac.jp) to the public in February 2003
▲ JVNRSS started in July 2003
▲ VN-CIAC started in December 2003
▲ TRnotes started in January 2004
▲ jvn.jp to the public in July 2004

Figure 25: Building and running a JVN trial site.

Note that as severity metrics for vulnerabilities vary,depending on organizations, the Common Vulnerability
Scoring System (CVSS) [45] was proposed as a common
language with which to evaluate the severity ofvulnerability in a comprehensive and general way in 2004.

4.14 The Year 2001
(1) Investigating the Activities of Worms Attacking Web
Services

4.16 The Year 1999

We investigated the activities of worms attacking web
services in 2001, CodeRed I, CodeRed II and Nimda, from
June 15, 2001 to June 30, 2002, based on the log data fromthe websites on the Internet. For CodeRed II and Nimda(Figure 26), which caused significant damage in Japan, thelog reveals that the time span between the time at which theattack was first logged and the date on which attacks
occurred most frequently was only approximately two days,
indicating that damage caused by the worms had spread
rapidly and widely.

(1) Launch of the hirt.hitachi.co.jp domain
To improve the provision of security information to the
Hitachi group, we created an internal domain for HIRT
projects to set up a website (hirt.hitachi.co.jp) in December
1999.
(2) Investigation of website defacement
Website defacement was a major type of incidents since it
occurred for the first time in the US in 1996 until the
network worm era started (2001 - 2004). We conducted a
research on webpage defacing from 1999 to 2002 to findout how malicious activities were performed (Figure 27).

Number of access counts

2,000

Number of website defacements

1,500
1,000

500

06/15

05/15

04/15

03/15

02/15

01/15

12/15

11/15

10/15

09/15

08/15

07/15

0

Figure 26: Changes in the number of Nimda log counts
found during the observation period (for Nimda).

3,000
2,500

2,000
1,500

1,000
500
0
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Figure 27: Changes in the number of websites defacements.

4.15 The Year 2000
(1) Investigating the Severity Metrics for Vulnerabilities

4.17 The Year 1998

In order to measure the severity level of vulnerability
exploited for destructive or security-compromising
activities, we investigated the severity metrics used byrelevant organizations and summarized the results into areport.

(1) Starting to provide HIRT security information
In April 1998, we started to provide information on security
measures mainly using an internal mailing list and aninternal website for HIRT projects. This information isbased on the security information issued by CERT/CC,
JPCERT/CC, and product vendors (Cisco, HP, Microsoft,
Netscape, Sun Microsystems, etc.).

CERT/CC publishes notes called "Vulnerability Notes"[ 41 ] for vulnerability. It provides the Severity Metricindicating the severity of vulnerability [ 42 ] Common
Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) classified information
15

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HIRT: Annual Report 2015

(2) Lectures

References

On June 25 - 26, 1998, we provided "Network security"
training for Hitachi. We invited an US security expert who
had also participated in the US Security Conference
DEFCON [46] as a speaker as an instructor.

51) National Police Agency: Occurrence of Fraudulent
Money Transfer Crimes Relating to Internet Banking in
2015, http://www.npa.go.jp/cyber/pdf/H280303_banking.pdf
2) Symantec, The evolution of ransomware (Aug. 2015),
http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/media/
security_response/whitepapers/the-evolution-of-ransomware.pdf

Conclusion

3) McAfee, Threat Report (Aug. 2015),

Security measures and incident responses are composed inno small part to affect/be affected by other organizations;
therefore, not only will a speed-up in professional, practicalcollaboration between CSIRTs be sought but damage
associated with physical effects has also started to emerge.
The next challenges to overcome will likely be the tracking
of attackers' cyber attack speed, and the establishment of asystem of incident response from both cyber and physicalaspects. At HIRT, we plan to start a "Six-Year Plan for
Promoting CSIRT Activities for Individual Domains"following the "Six-Year Plan for Improving Hitachi GroupCSIRT Activities" in order to deal with these new threat
situations. At the same time, we will be moving
progressively forward with activities that "catch any signsof future threats and take actions as early as possible", so as
to deal with new threats.

http://www.mcafee.com/jp/resources/reports/rp-quarterly-threat-q2-2015.p
df4) Arbor Networks, ATLAS Q2 2015 Global DDoS Attack
Trends, http://www.slideshare.net/Arbor_Networks/atlas-q2-2015final5) Arbor Networks, ASERT Threat Intelligence Report
2015-04; "DD4BC DDoS Extortion Threat Activity",
http://pages.arbornetworks.com/rs/082-KNA-087/images/ATIB2015-04D
D4BC.pdf

6) NIST NVD (National Vulnerability Database),
http://nvd.nist.gov/

7) Information-Technology Promotion Agency, Japan:
Quarterly Reports,
http://www.ipa.go.jp/security/english/quarterlyrep_vuln.html

8) Hitachi Begins Trial for Sharing Cyber Threat Data withHP, http://www.hitachi.com/New/cnews/month/2015/10/151006a.html
9) Nippon CSIRT Association, SSH Server Secure
Configuration Working Group,
http://www.nca.gr.jp/activity/sshconfig-wg.html

10) Institute of Information Security, Eleventh "IISEC
Information Security Culture Award",(August 14, 2016)

https://www.iisec.ac.jp/news/20150210culsec_11th.html
11) ITpro Security, http://itpro.nikkeibp.co.jp/security/

12) CERT Advisory CA-2002-03, "Multiple Vulnerabilities
in Many Implementations of the Simple Network
Management Protocol(SNMP)" (2002/2),
http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2002-03.html

13) HIRT-PUB14008: Cybersecurity information exchange
framework CYBEX,
http://www.hitachi.co.jp/hirt/publications/hirt-pub14008/index.html

14) anti Malware engineering workshop,
http://www.iwsec.org/mws/2015/15) NTT-CERT (NTT Computer Security Incident
Response and Readiness Coordination Team),
http://www.ntt-cert.org/

16) HIRT-PUB10008： Hitachi Vulnerability Disclosure
Process (2011/9),
http://www.hitachi.com/hirt/publications/hirt-pub10008/index.html

17) (ISC)2: Information Security Leadership Achievements(ISLA)プログラム, https://www.isc2.org/japan/isla.html
18) CSIRT Workshop 2012,
http://www.hitachi.co.jp/hirt/topics/20120229.html

19) Kyoto 2012 FIRST Technical Colloquium,
http://www.first.org/events/colloquia/kyoto201220) Nippon CSIRT Association: incident response,
http://www.nca.gr.jp/2010/incidentresponse.html

21) SGU MIT Workshop Academy CERT Meeting(2010/7),
http://academy-cert-indonesia.blogspot.jp/2010/06/academy-cert-meeting.html

Copyright © HIRT. 2015. All rights reserved.

16

HIRT: Annual Report 201522) Malware Circulating in P2P File Exchange Software
Environment (2011) (2011/9),44) ICAT, http://icat.nist.gov/(not available)45) CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System),

http://www.hitachi.co.jp/hirt/publications/hirt-pub11003/index.html

http://www.first.org/cvss/46) DEFCON, http://www.defcon.org/

23) 2009 Survey on information leakage via P2P File
Exchange Software Environment (2009/12),
http://www.hitachi.co.jp/hirt/publications/hirt-pub09008/index.html

24) cNotes: Current Status Notes,
http://jvnrss.ise.chuo-u.ac.jp/csn/index.cgi25) Information-Technology Promotion Agency, Japan:
Countermeasures against DNS Cache Poisoning (2009/2),
http://www.ipa.go.jp/security/vuln/DNS_security.html

26) Recording Site for Joint Workshop on Security 2008,
Tokyo (2008/3), http://www.nca.gr.jp/jws2008/index.html
27) 2008 Information Technology Period Promotion Awarding companies that have contributed to thepromotion of information technology in 2008 (2008/10),
http://www.jipdec.or.jp/archives/project/gekkan/2008/ceremony/prize02.ht
ml28) IPSJ, Information Processing: Malware: 5. column:
Targeted Email Attack for CSS2008 CFP (2010/3),
https://ipsj.ixsq.nii.ac.jp/ej/?action=repository_uri&item_id=69232&file_id=129) CSIRT - Nippon CSIRT Association, http://www.nca.gr.jp/

30) WARP (Warning, Advice and Reporting Point),
http://www.warp.gov.uk/

31) GlobalSign Adobe Certified Document Services,
http://jp.globalsign.com/solution/example/hitachi.html32) FIRST (Forum of Incident Response and Security
Teams), http://www.first.org/
33) Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Notification
No. 235: Standard for Handling Information Related toVulnerabilities in Software, etc., (2004/7),
http://www.meti.go.jp/policy/netsecurity/downloadfiles/vulhandlingG.pdf

34) Information-technology Promotion Agency, Japan:
Information Security Early Warning Partnership Guideline(2004/7), http://www.ipa.go.jp/security/ciadr/partnership_guide.html
35) JVN (Japan Vulnerability Notes), http://jvn.jp/
36) NISCC: NISCC Vulnerability Advisory 006489/H323:
Vulnerability Issues in Implementations of the H.323
Protocol (2004/1), http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/JSHA-5V6H7S
37) CERT/CC Vulnerability Disclosure Policy,
http://www.cert.org/kb/vul_disclosure.html

38) US-CERT: Vulnerability Note VU#459371: Multiple
IPsec implementations do not adequately validate
authentication data" (2002/10),
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/459371

39) Considerations on JPCERT/CC Vendor Status Notes
DB: JVN, CSS2002 (2002/10),[Author]Masato Terada
After launching HIRT activities in 1998 on a trial basis, he launched aresearch site (http://jvn.doi.ics.keio.ac.jp/), a predecessor of JVN(http://jvn.jp/), in 2002 and acted as a point of contact for HIRT in order topromote external CSIRT activities, including participation in FIRST, aninternational CSIRT organization in 2005. Also, he works as a technicalmember of the JPCERT Coordination Center, a researcher of theInformation Technology Promotion Agency, Japan, Telecom ISAC asteering committee member, and a chief of the steering committee for the
Nippon CSIRT Association.

http://jvn.doi.ics.keio.ac.jp/nav/CSS02-P-97.pdf40) Development of JVN to Support Dissemination of
Security Information (2005/5),
http://www.hitachi.co.jp/hirt/csirt/jvn/index.html

41) CERT/CC Vulnerability Notes Database,
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls42) CERT/CC Vulnerability Note Field Descriptions,
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/html/fieldhelp

43) CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures),http://cve.mitre.org/

17

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