Hitachi Incident Response Team2014.05.26 11:04:14 +09'00'
HIRT: Annual Report 2013

HIRT: Annual Report 2013
Hitachi Incident Response Team (HIRT)
http://www.hitachi.com/hirt/
Kashimada 1-1-2, Saiwai, Kawasaki, Kanagawa, 212-8567 Japan

1

Introduction

Since the VBS/Loveletter virus of the year 2000, cyberattacks have developed continually and the vulnerabilities
they target have broadened out from operating systems toapplications. Malicious programs too have evolved whilevarying their forms - malware-attached emails, network
worms, bots and so forth. From around 2008, methods thattake advantage of users’ psychological and behavioral
vulnerabilities to draw them into the vortex of a cyberattack activity have become common. Such methods
include redirecting-type malware (typified by Gumblar) andinfection via USB memory sticks.
Targeted attacks - typified by the APTs (Advanced
Persistent Threats) that have been in the limelight since2010 - are not solely attacks with the objective of stealing
information. The Stuxnet malware that circulated in July2010 was a malicious program that targeted nuclear power
facilities and induced operational abnormalities in theircontrol systems via SCADA (Supervisory Control And
Data Acquisition) software.
As for online banking trojan, it progressively varies its
forms of attack and continues to evolve while passing on its
techniques in the form of toolkits (Figure 1).

1998-2003

2004-20092010-2015

Predawn Phase

Settlement Phase[ Local CSIRT Activities ]Acknowledge Phase

Brute-force and other attacks aimed at weak keys
Theft of twofactor
Theft of accounts by keylogging
authentication- Bancos (2004-)
information
Theft of accounts by malicious pop-ups- Bancos (2004-)
Theft of accounts by phishing sites
Theft of accounts by malicious pop-ups
Theft of
- Zeus (2007-), SpyEye (2009-), Citadel (2012-)
ID/password
Fraudulent money transfer
information
by data injection- Operation High Roller (2012)
Toolkits

Zeus(Zbot)
SpyEyebasis. Alongside that, the role of CSIRTs is showing abroadening-out from information security countermeasures
to cyber security measures that will protect social
infrastructures. This development can be seen from the factthat organizations naming themselves Cyber Security
Incident Response Team rather than Computer Security
Incident Response Team are gradually increasing.
The specific role of HIRT (Hitachi Incident ResponseTeam) as a CSIRT remains, as before, to lead thecybersecurity 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 incarrying out vulnerability countermeasures and incident
responses are to possess the capabilities for "predicting andalerting from a technical point of view", "making technicalcollaboration"and"collaboratingwithexternal
communities on the technical aspects". We are notenvisioning special requirements here. It is a matter ofmaking use of experience in incident operation (the seriesof security measure activities implemented in order topredict and prevent damage from incidents and to lessen the
expansion of damage after incidents occur) so as to "catchany sign of future threats and take actions as early as
possible". As an organization that possesses thesecapabilities and roles, HIRT leads the way in vulnerability
countermeasures for products and services and in incident
responses for malware 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.

2

Overview of activities in 2013This section focuses on the threats and vulnerabilities, andHIRT's activities, in 2013.

Citadel

KINS

Figure 1: Activities of online banking trojan.
Social infrastructures, which have been constructedutilizing the internet on a base of information systems,
control systems and so forth, are facing new threats andneed to overcome them through vulnerability
countermeasures and incident responses on a day-to-day

2.1

Overview of Threats and Vulnerabilities(1) Overview of Threats
The known threats like targeted attack, website
compromised actions and USB malware (e.g. Conficker)
have continued to cause damage.
The features of 2013 in terms of incidents were thatwebsite compromised actions became steady occurrences

Copyright © Hitachi Incident Response Team(HIRT). 2013. All rights reserved.

HIRT: Annual Report 2013and damage by malicious programs that target online
banking became serious. Meanwhile, the following attack
methods manifested: malware that assumes authenticatedproxies in targeted attacks; password list attacks in which
account information is archived and used for attempting
unauthorized accesses at various sites to steal personal
information, etc.; and amplification attacks (also known as
reflector attacks) that use amplification of request/response
messages.


Number of cases

250

200
150

100
50
0
2011/01 2011/07 2012/01 2012/07 2013/01 2013/07

Figure 3: Monthly cases of fraudulent money transfer
damage. (Source: National Police Agency)

Steady occurrence of website invasive actions

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 occurringin larger quantities than the Gumblar incidents that took
place in 2009 (Figure 2). All kinds of files inside a website
are targets for such alteration - HTML files, JavaScript (.js)
files, PHP (.php) files, CSS (.css) files and so on. Also,
most of the alteration cases have occurred in sites that run
on cloud services or rental services. In particular, sites havebeen compromised because the vulnerabilities of theirold-version CMSs (such as Wordpress，Movable Type，
Joomla!，Drupal) or management tools (such as Parallels
Plesk Panel) were exploited.



Targeted attacks

Remote Access Trojan / Remote Administration Tool
known as RAT is used as programs for remotely controllingsystems that have been penetrated in targeted attacks. Since
about 2013, RATs with capabilities for getting past anauthenticated proxy server and communicating with theoutside world, by for example stealing proxy server
authentication information, have been gradually spreading(Figure 4).
Also, Watering Hole Attacks have continued to occur,
sometimes taking the form of zero-day attacks (Table 1).
Watering Hole Attacks began to be reported around 2012;
they are ambush-style attacks that stow tricks in a group ofwebsites that people in a targeted organization are likely tovisit, and develop this into a targeted attack.

1,200

Number of website injctions (on IP address basis)
Number of Website injections

1,000
800
600

Gumblar

About 2000
BackOrifice、SubSeven

Website injections in Japan
ongoing since March 2013

400

About 2010
Poison Ivy、MFC Hunter
About 2012
PlugX
via firewall / HTTP proxy
without authentication

200
02009/01

2010/01

2011/01

2012/01

2013/01

Figure 2: Number of reported cases of website injections.
(Source: JPCERT/CC).


About 2013
New PlugXvia HTTP proxywith authentication

Damage by malicious programs that target online
banking

According to a National Police Agency Report, there werea total of 1,315 cases of fraudulent money transfer damage
in Japan in 2013, affecting 32 banks and amounting to some
1.406 billion yen in total damage (Figure 3)[1]. A salient
trick in fraudulent money transfers is to infect bank users’
personal computers with malware that steals the ID andpassword they use for transactions. In roughly 50% of thecases, money was taken out from an ATM after beingtransferred using a traded account, and in roughly 20%,money was transferred overseas via a fund transfer service
provider.

HTTP proxy
without
authentication
HTTP proxy withauthentication

Figure 4: Development of Remote Access Trojan /Remote Administration Tool (RATs).
Table 1: Cases of Watering Hole Attack.
Time
May
2013
October2013

November
2013

Copyright © HIRT. 2013. All rights reserved.

Firewall
Attacker

2

OutlineUnited States Department of Labor
Internet Explorer vulnerability (CVE-2013-1347(April 2013)) exploited
Invasive action called "Operation DeputyDog"
targeting Japan [2]Internet Explorer vulnerability (CVE-2013-3893(September 2013)) exploited
Invasive action called "Operation Ephemeral
Hydra" [3]Internet Explorer vulnerability (CVE-2013-3918(November 2013)) exploited

HIRT: Annual Report 2013



DNS/NTP Server

Conficker

Conficker emerged as a worn that exploited Vulnerability
in Windows, "Server Service Could Allow Remote Code
Execution (MS08-067)" in around November 2008. In
December 2008, by modification of Conficker (enhancedwith the feature to infect via a USB memory stick),
infection spread to the closed networks via a physicalmeditational means. Although the number of reports ofinfection damage has been decreasing since 2009, about 1.2
million computers (on an IP address basis) remain infectedwith Conficker according to observations by the Conficker
Work Group (Figure 5) [4].

TargetedserverResponse

ProtocolAmplification
FactorDNS
NTP
SNMPv2NetBIOSSSDP
CharGEN

28 - 54
556.9
6.3
3.8
30.8
358.8

Request(IP spoofing)
Attacker

Figure 6: Reflector attack.
7 (M)6400 (Gbps)

5

300

4
3

200

2
1
0
2009

100
2010

2011

2012

2013

0

Figure 5: Number of Infection of ConfickerA+B(per day). (Source: Conficker Work Group)


2010

2012

2013

Figure 7: Trend in DrDoS attack peak traffic.
(Source: Arbor Networks)

Password List Attacks (List-Based Attacks)

Since April 2013 numerous cases have occurred in Japanof account information (ID and password) lists, obtained bysome means or other, being archived and unauthorized
log-ins being attempted using such account information listarchives. Users who use account information acrossmultiple websites are highly likely to fall victims to this
attack method. According to the IPA (Information
Promotion Agency, Japan), the success rate forunauthorized log-ins is provisionally estimated at 0.15 to
1.35% from the cases that have occurred [5].
2011(2) Overview of Vulnerabilities


Overall Trend

The total number of vulnerabilities entered in the NIST
NVD (National Vulnerability Database) was 5,186 in 2013[6]. About 20% (984) of the vulnerabilities were in web
software application products (Figure 8). Breaking thesedown, cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection accountfor about 80%, which is a continuing trend (Figure 9).
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, and this too isa continuing trend, with close to 600 a year of thesevulnerabilities being reported (Figure 10) [7].

Reflector Attacks

In 2013 there manifested the threat of DrDoS (Distributed
Reflective Denial of Service) attacks, which exploit UDP
services. DrDoS is an attack method whereby a packet istransmitted, from a spoofing IP address, to a service thatoffers a high request/response message amplification factor(a high value for response size / request size) and will serve
as a springboard (Figure 6). DNS (open resolver) and NTP
servers, which can be sent any inquiry over the internet,
have been particularly exploited as such springboards for
attacks. In March 2013, DrDoS attack peak traffic on theorder of 300 Gbps was reported (Figure 7).

Control System Products

The ICS-CERT (Industrial Control System-CERT) issued
10 alerts and 85 advisories concerning vulnerabilities(Figure 11). 23 of these were vulnerabilities that allowed
denial-of-service attacks due to inadequate verification of
input data (CWE-20), and another 15 related tovulnerabilities in products that implement the DNP3(Distributed Network Protocol) that is used at electric
power, water supply and similar facilities.

3

Copyright © HIRT. 2013. All rights reserved.

HIRT: Annual Report 2013

7,000
6,000
5,000
4,000
3,000
2,000
1,000
0

Web Application
Other

2.2

2,000
1,500

(1) Improvement of Hitachi Group CSIRT activities(Phase 2)

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

In 2010, we started improvements of Hitachi GroupCSIRT activities with the goal of "instilling incident
operation into the whole Hitachi Group" (Figure 12). 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).

1,000
500
0

For the passing on of techniques, we divided thetechniques into three categories: (1) analysis (reverse
engineering) of the operation of the malware and so forth
used in cyber attacks, (2) investigation (forensics) todetermine the phenomena from the recorded traces, and (3)assessment (penetration) to clarify the vulnerabilities thatare liable to become targets of cyber attacks. Regarding
analysis, we tried out technique pass-on loci using level
division into experiencing, fundamentals, application andspecialization, while for investigation, we made use of a
HIRT OPEN Meeting (Technical Meeting) (Table 2) [*a].

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
Path Traversal
SQL Injection
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)(2) Trial IRT activities for individual domains


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

Number of Vulnerabilities

Figure 9: Changes in the number of vulnerabilities reported
for software products of web application(Source: NIST NVD).
1,600
1,400
1,200
1,000
800
600
400
200
0

Number of reports

ICS-CERT Advisory
ICS-CERT Alert

20
15[*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.

10
5
0
2010

2011

2012

2013

Figure 11: Change in the number of control systemvulnerabilities reported (Source: ICS-CERT).
Copyright © HIRT. 2013. All rights reserved.

Moving ahead with readiness activities at
HIRT-FIS

In order to put into practice the three-tiered cycle forincident response and readiness (Figure 13) 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.

Figure 10: Changes in the number of vulnerabilities
reported for websites (Source: IPA and JPCERT/CC).
25

HIRT Activities

This subsection describes the HIRT activities in 2013.

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

Number of Vulnerabilities

Figure 8: Number of Vulnerabilities Reported(Source: NIST NVD).
2,500

Broadband Routers

Among the vulnerabilities present in broadband routers,
two problems manifested as threats: (a) broadband routers
mistakenly operating like a DNS server (open resolver) and
responding to any inquiry from the internet, and (b) accessto broadband router management screens from the internet
being mistakenly allowed. Cases have been reported inwhich account information (PPPoE ID and password)stolen in such management screen accessing was
subsequently used to mount password list attacks [8].

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

Number of vulnerabilities

4

HIRT: Annual Report 2013

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(Figure 14). 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.

Phase 3
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 Vender IRT
Business Division orGroupcompany IRT
事業部・グループ会社IRT- Security information- Security review consulting- Technical support for evaluation tools- Education planning and offering

Operation Chief

HIRT
Center

実行責任者

Vulnerability
Handling Chief
脆弱性関連情報

Units that need support

ハンドリング責任者
IRT連絡窓口担当者

IRT Liaison Staf f

Product Vendor IRT

Phase 2 IRT supporting staff
Strengthen Partnershipwith IRT supporting staff
Phase 1
Improve Collaboration with Business Divisionsand Group Companies' IRT
Internal User IRT

Category
Phase 1

Phase 2Phase 3

Table 2: HIRT OPEN Meeting (Technical meeting) in2013.

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).

MonthJanuary

OutlineAdvanced HIRT OPEN Meeting

February

Hands-on: Forensics for Windows (Basics meeting)

March

Cyber Attack Countermeasures from a Defense
Perspective
Hands-on: Forensics for Windows (Hands-on
meeting)[External instructor]
Masaru Matsunami (Sony Digital Network
Applications, Inc.)
Security for Android Apps and Security Activities
for Software Development Worksites
Group discussion on "operational security" forincident response
Advanced HIRT OPEN Meeting

June

July

September

Figure 12: Scenario on a Virtual, Horizontal
Incident Response System.

DecemberSeminar on technical countermeasures during
vulnerability checking of external servers[External instructor]
Lauri Korts-Pärn (Cyber Defense Institute, Inc.)
Control System Security: Suggestions for
Proactive Approaches Toward the Generation
When Information and Control Systems Fuse
Advanced HIRT OPEN Meeting

Industrial
Financial
Customer system Service provisionsystem(1) Incident(1) IncidentInternal 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](2) Incident response[responsibility: QA](6) Incident readiness(5) Security measures compromised(5) Security measures compromisedby novel attacks
by novel attacks[responsibility: HIRT]

Figure 13: System view of "Three-tiered cycle for Incident
Response and Readiness" approach.
Figure 14: Example of the HIRT-FIS Security Notes thatare disseminated weekly to financial-domain CSIRTs.
5

Copyright © HIRT. 2013. All rights reserved.

HIRT: Annual Report 2013


Vulnerability countermeasures for control systems(5) Other Activity

We carried out three efforts using the approach ofextending into the field of control systems the empiricalexperience from the HIRT activities implemented to date.


Utilization of HIRT security information
We gathered information relating to latest trends,
product vulnerabilities, incidents, etc., in control
systems.

Establishment of framework with HIRT as basic pointof contact for external organizations
We established a framework for vulnerability handlingand incident handling (Figure 15).

Proceeding with vulnerability countermeasures thatlook toward dissemination
We approached vulnerability countermeasures fromthe three perspectives of specifications, codes andsettings, and in addition we began deliberations on
creating precedents in control devices and systems.

Participation in MWS (anti Malware engineering
workshop) 2013.
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

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

Vulnerability
handling for IT

CERT/CC

We have adopted an organizational model that consists offour IRTs (Figure 16 and Table 4). There are three IRTs forthe case with Hitachi Group itself; 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
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.

Vulnerability
handling for ICS

JPCERT/CCICS-CERT

Figure 15: Framework for vulnerability handling.
(3) Strengthening of Partnership with the CSIRT
Community
As concrete activities for strengthening our partnershipwith the CSIRT community, we continued with thegatherings with NTT-CERT [9] that we have been holding
periodically since 2006, at which we exchanged
information for improving CSIRT activities. Also, we
carried out information dissemination in cooperation with
the Nippon CSIRT Association’s Incident Information
Utilization Framework Working Group [16]．
In fact, four phases (set forth in Table 3) 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.

Regarding the domestic web page alteration incidents
ongoing since March 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 [10]．
Copyright © HIRT. 2013. All rights reserved.

Organizational Model

6

HIRT: Annual Report 2013

Table 4: Role of each IRT.
Category
HIRT/CC

SI Vendor
IRT

Product
Vendor
IRT

Figure 16: Four IRTs as an organizational model.
Internal
User IRT

Table 3: Phases until the organization was formed.
Phase
April 1998
1st phase
Establishing theInternal User IRT(1998 - 2002)<Establishment>
2nd phase
Establishing the
Product Vendor
IRT(From 2002 -)<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>

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.

3.2

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.

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.
The main area of activity is to support the Product andService Security Committee technically, to promotesecurity efforts from the technical and institutional aspect incooperation with the IT and Security Strategy Division,
Information Technology Division and Quality Assurance
Division.
Moreover, it also includes helping each business divisionand group company implement proactive security measuresagainst vulnerabilities, as well as reactive measures against
incidents, and promoting security measures throughpartnerships among organizations as a point of contact for
CSIRT activities in the Hitachi group (Figure 17).
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. Such organization
is based on the concept that the performance of duties by
each section and cooperation among sections are necessary
to solve security issues, given the great diversification
among components in the information systems.

Improvements of Hitachi group CSIRT
activities
Goal: instilling incident operation into thewhole Hitachi Group7

Copyright © HIRT. 2013. All rights reserved.

HIRT: Annual Report 2013

3.3

Main Activities of HIRT Center
Table 6: (Externally) promoting projects.

The main activities of the HIRT center currently being
promoted include CSIRT activities for internalorganizations (Table 5) and those for external organizations(Table 6). 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.
Information and Telecommunication Systems

HQ

Information Technology Division

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

Lead institutional aspects
IT & Security Strategy Division

Information Management Committee

Quality Assurance Division

Developing aframework forresearch activities

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• CSIRT 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, etc.)• Product and software vendors (Microsoft, FFRI, etc.)• ISP (NTT, IIJ, etc.)• Security vendors (IBM-ISS, LAC, Trend Micro, Secure Brain)

Operation Chief
Vulnerability
Handling Chief

IRT Liaison Staff

Internal User
IRT

Product Vender
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

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 7 and Figure 18). 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.

Figure 17: Position of HIRT Center.
Table 5: (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

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 Hitachi Security Operation
Center Information eXchange (SOC-IX)- 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

Copyright © HIRT. 2013. All rights reserved.

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) [*b]- 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) [13]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.
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 19).

[*b]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 so forth began in 2009 under ITU-T
SG17 Q.4.

8

HIRT: Annual Report 2013

4.1
Table 7: Classification of security information
issued by HIRT.
ID number
HIRT-FUPyynnn

HIRT-yynnn

180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0

(1) Start of improvement of Hitachi Group CSIRT
activities (Phase 2)

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.

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Start of Advanced HIRT OPEN Meetings(2) Trial IRT activities for individual domains
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 13).
Also, as an advanced endeavor in the financial domain, we
set up HIRT-FIS inside our financial section on October 1,
2012 (Figure 20).
Positioning

HIRT-FYI

Framework

Domains

HIRT-FUP

HIRT-FISHIRTGeneralHIRT::Specific

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

Figure 20: Positioning and framework of IRT activities forindividual industry domains

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

Number of issues

HIRT-FYIyynnn

The Year 2012

Figure 18: Number of issues of security information
by ID number.

(3) Strengthening of Partnership with the CSIRT
community


On February 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 [14].

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 [15].

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.

Figure 19: Conceptual view of issuing information based on"Emergency Level" x "Website Level".

(4) Lectures

4

Activity Summary from 1998 to 2012

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

9March 2012: "Framework for Promoting Security
Measures in Organizations" by Nobuo Miwa, S&J
ConsultingAugust 2012: "Elements and Implementation of
Database Security" by Haruto Kitano, Oracle
Corporation Japan
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HIRT: Annual Report 2013




4.2

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

4.3

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)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.

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

The Year 2011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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.

(1) Improvement of Hitachi Group CSIRT Activities(Phase 1)
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.


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

Expanded HIRT OPEN Meeting (Technical Meeting)

The Year 2010(2) Strengthening of Partnership with the CSIRT
Community(2) Disseminating Information on Vulnerability inControl System Products

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[16]:

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.
(3) Strengthening of Partnership with the CSIRT
Community

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

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



Information about StuxnetIn July 2010, we provided backing for the organizingof an "Academy CERT Meeting" in collaboration with
JPCERT/CC, to help Indonesia's academic CSIRT
activities [17].

"Survey on Malware Circulating Within the P2P File
Exchange Environment" [18]Since 2007, many Antinny-type known malwares thatare liable to cause information leakage have beenswarming on the "Winny" P2P file-sharing
environment (Figure 21).

(3) Other activity

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

Cooperated with the standardization activities for
ITU-T's Cybersecurity Information Exchange
Framework ("CYBEX")

Copyright © HIRT. 2013. All rights reserved.

10

HIRT: Annual Report 2013

4.5

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

20%(1) Supporting countermeasures against DNS cachepoisoning vulnerability

15%

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" [ 21 ] issued from the IPA in
January, 2009, was created.

10%
5%
2010

2009

2008

2007

0%

Figure 21: Change in Malware Circulating in Winny That
Causes Information Leakage.

4.4(2) Holding JWS2008

The Year 2009

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 [22].

(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 22).

Basicknowledge

Quotation

Basic
on
Basic
courseBasic course
course on
on
web
web
application
web application
application
security
security
security

DesignSupport ofSupportSupport ofof
security
review
security
security review
review

Implementationand construction

Test
Hands-onHands-oncourse
Hands-oncoursecourse ofof webwebofapplication
web application
application
security
inspection
inspection
inspection
Training in theTrainingininthe
theTraining
use
inspectionuse ofinspectionuseofofinspecti
on
tools
tools
tools

(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).

Operation
Support for

Support for
Supportfor
adpopting
adpoptingadopting
contermeasurescontermeasurescountermeasuresinin incidents
incidents
in incidents
Support of log

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

Figure 22: Systematizing HIRT support activities(Web application security).

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)" [23].

(2) Providing Security Engineer Training
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
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-CERT(5) Lectures
(4) Other Activities
"Survey on Malware Circulating within the P2P File
Exchange Environment" [19]February 2009: Gave an web application development
exercise for NTT Group at a workshop organized by
NTT-CERTThe Year 2008

April 2008: "Management of High Reliability
Organizations" by Aki Nakanishi, the Faculty ofBusiness Administration, Meiji University.

(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.

In cooperation with the Incident Information
Utilization Framework Working Group of Nippon
CSIRT Association, information dissemination using
cNotes (Current Status Notes) [20] which tries tovisualize the observational data.
11

Copyright © HIRT. 2013. All rights reserved.

HIRT: Annual Report 2013

4.6

The Year 2007

(2) Enhancing Web Application Security
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.

(1) Starting Hands-on Security Training at HIRT OPEN
Meetings
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(3) Calling Attention to Information Leakage Caused by
P2P File Exchange Software
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.
(4) Starting Product Security Activities for Intelligent
Home Appliance and embedded Products

50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

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.
(5) Strengthening Partnership with the CSIRT
Community

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

Total number of teams

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 SBCSIRT (Softbank) in April 2007 [24]. As of
December 2012, 31 teams have been joined (Figure 23).

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.

Figure 23: Change in Number of Nippon CSIRT
Association Members.
(3) Joining UK WARP

(6) Lectures

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 [25].

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



September 2006: "Measures against Botnet inTelecom-ISAC Japan", by Satoru Koyama,
Telecom-ISAC Japan(4) Lectures(7) Other Activities





4.7

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

4.8

The Year 2006

Starting to sign a digital signature to technicaldocuments (PDF files) issued from HIRT [26]The Year 2005

(1) Joining FIRST(1) Providing a Unified Point of Contact for
Vulnerability Reporting

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 [ 27 ]. 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.

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.
Copyright © HIRT. 2013. All rights reserved.

12

HIRT: Annual Report 2013

As of December 2013, a total of 289 teams have joined
this community, including 23 Japanese teams (Figure 24)[*c].
Total number of teams

The Information Security Early Warning Partnership
started in July 2004 when the "Standard for Handling
Information Related to Vulnerabilities in Software, etc."
was implemented [28][29].

25

250

20

200
15
150
10

100
50

5

0

0

Total number of Japanese teams

Total number of Japanese teams

300

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) [30].
(2) Enhancing Web Application Security
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.

Figure 24: Changes in the number of members of FIRST.
(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 25). We also created "Guidance for Providing
Security Information from Websites to External Users,
V1.0".

(3) Lectures
(1) Starting Web Application Security Activities

Releasing information to the public Request for investigation

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.

The Hitachi group

Information
disclosure

Request forinvestigation

Affected products
and mesurements

Providing security
information via adomestic security portalsite

HIRT/CC
Aggregating
statusInformation
disclosure

Request forinvestigation

Sections developing
products

Affected
products

Investigationand measures
Preparing for
information
disclosure

Measurements

Providing security
information via Hitachigroup security potal site

January 2004: "Security business affairs after Blasterin the US", by Tom Noonan, President and CEO ofInternet Security Systems (ISS)

4.10 The Year 2003

Security information portal site:
Japanese: http://www.hitachi.co.jp/hirt/
English: http://www.hitachi.com/hirt/
IPA, JPCERT/CC
Information
Security Early
Warning
Partnership

The Year 2004

(1) Participating in the Information Security Early
Warning Partnership

30

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

Total number of teams

350

4.9

(2) Disseminating Vulnerability Information fromNISCC throughout Hitachi
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 [31].

Providing businessdivisions and subsidiarycompanies with security
information

Figure 25: Providing security informationon the Hitachi security information portal.
[*c] CDI-CIRT (Cyber Defense Institute), CFC (Cyber Force Center of the
National Police Agency's Info-Communications Bureau), DeNA CERT(DeNA)，FJC-CERT (Fujitsu)，HIRT (Hitachi)，IIJ-SECT (IIJ)，IPA-CERT(Information-technology Promotion Agency), JPCERT/CC，JSOC (LAC)，
KDDI-CSIRT (KDDI)，KKCSIRT (Kakaku.com)，MBSD-SIRT (Mitsui
Bussan Secure Directions)，MIXIRT (Mixi)，MUFG-CERT (Mitsubishi
UFJ Financial Group)，NCSIRT (NRI Secure Technologies), NISC
(National Information Security Center)，NTT-CERT (NTT)，NTTDATA-CERT (NTT Data)，Panasonic PSIRT (Panasonic)，
Rakuten-CERT (Rakuten)，RicohPSIRT (Ricoh)，SBCSIRT (Softbank) and
YIRD (Yahoo).

(3) Strengthening the Domestic Partnership for CSIRT
Activities
To 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.
13

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HIRT: Annual Report 2013

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/).

(3) Providing a Point of Contact for External
Organizations
In line with the more active reporting and releasing of
information concerning the discovery of a vulnerability [32],we provided a point of contact, as shown in Table 8, that
initiates actions when vulnerabilities or malicious actions in
Hitachi products and Hitachi-related websites are pointedout.

4.12 The Year 2001

Table 8: Information on point of contact.
Name
Address(1) Investigating the Activities of Worms Attacking Web
Services"HIRT": Hitachi Incident Response Team.
Kashimada 1-1-2, Saiwai, Kawasaki City,
Kanagawa, 212-8567 Japan

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 27), 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.

E-mailPGP key

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

4.11 The Year 2002

Number of access counts

2,000(1) Disseminating Vulnerability Information from
CERT/CC throughout Hitachi

1,500

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 [ 33 ].
VU#459371 of October 2002 for security information on
Hitachi product was first published in the CERT/CC
Vulnerability Notes Database after commencing thisactivity [34].

1,000

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 26) [35][36].
2003

2004

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

2005
2004/07/08~
Running official website

2003/02/03~2004/07/07
Trial site running period

CERT/CC publishes notes called "Vulnerability Notes"[ 37 ] for vulnerability. It provides the Severity Metricindicating the severity of vulnerability [ 38 ] Common
Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) classified information
security vulnerabilities into "Vulnerabilities" and"Exposures" and focuses on the former [39]. 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▲ JVN working group formed in June 2002
▲ Trial site (jvn.doi.ics.keio.ac.jp) to the public in February 2003
▲ JVNRSS stared in July 2003
▲ VN-CIAC stared in December 2003
▲ TRnotes stared in January 2004
▲ jvn.jp to the public in June 2004

Figure 26: Building and running a JVN trial site.

Copyright © HIRT. 2013. All rights reserved.

0

Figure 27: Changes in the number of Nimda log counts
found during the observation period (for Nimda).

(2) Assisting JPCERT/CC in Building Vendor Status
Notes

2002

500

14

HIRT: Annual Report 2013

determine the severity of vulnerability, and classifies
vulnerabilities into three levels in the ICAT Metabase [40],a predecessor of NVD.

5

Due to the borderless, global nature of the cyber world,
the social infrastructure that has been constructed utilizing
the internet is facing a novel kind of threat – the threat ofcyber attack.

Note that as severity metrics for vulnerabilities vary,depending on organizations, the Common Vulnerability
Scoring System (CVSS) [41] was proposed as a common
language with which to evaluate the severity ofvulnerability in a comprehensive and general way in 2004.

Given such circumstances, it is essential to realize CSIRT
activities that give attention to national and regional cybersecurity measures. We believe that the role of CSIRTs isstarting to broaden out from information security measures
to cyber security measures that will protect social
infrastructure.

4.14 The Year 1999
(1) Launch of the hirt.hitachi.co.jp domain

Firmly apprehending the situational change frominformation security measures to cyber security measures,
HIRT will be proceeding with activities to disseminate
countermeasures early as part of its efforts to "catch any
sign of future threats". We will also be contributing to therealization of safe and reassuring internet-based social
infrastructure, in such ways as promoting CSIRT activities
tailored to particular industry types and other fields, andfostering academic loci that will lead to the formation of thenext-generation CSIRT community.

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 28).
Number of website defacements

Conclusion(March 21, 2014)

3,000
2,500
2,000
1,500

1,000
500

0

References

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Figure 28: Changes in the number of websites defacements.

1) National Police Agency: Occurrence of Fraudulent
Money Transfer Crimes Relating to Internet Banking in
2013, http://www.npa.go.jp/cyber/pdf/H260131_banking.pdf
2) FireEye: Operation DeputyDog: Zero-Day(CVE-2013-3893) Attack Against Japanese Targets,

4.15 The Year 1998
(1) Starting to provide HIRT security information

http://www.fireeye.com/blog/technical/cyber-exploits/2013/09/operation-d
eputydog-zero-day-cve-2013-3893-attack-against-japanese-targets.html

In April 1998, we started to provide information on
security measures mainly using an internal mailing list andan internal 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.).

3) FireEye: New IE Zero-Day Found in Watering Hole
Attack,http://www.fireeye.com/blog/technical/2013/11/new-ie-zero-day-found-inwatering-hole-attack.html

4) Conficker Work Group - ANY - Infection Tracking,
http://www.confickerworkinggroup.org/wiki/pmwiki.php/ANY/InfectionT
racking(2) Lectures

5) Information-Technology Promotion Agency, Japan:
Alerts for August 2013,

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 [42] as a speaker as an instructor.

https://www.ipa.go.jp/security/txt/2013/08outline.html

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

15

Copyright © HIRT. 2013. All rights reserved.

HIRT: Annual Report 20138) Telecom-ISAC Japan: Investigation of Vulnerable
Broadband Router Situation and Countermeasures Therefor,32) Information-Technology Promotion Agency, Japan:
Research Reports on Policy for Security Vulnerability
Information Disclosure (2003/9),

https://www.telecom-isac.jp/news/news20130830.html

9) NTT-CERT (NTT Computer Security Incident Response
and Readiness Coordination Team), http://www.ntt-cert.org/
10) (ISC)2: Information Security Leadership Achievements(ISLA)プログラム, https://www.isc2.org/japan/isla.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.ipa.go.jp/security/awareness/vendor/vulnerability200309012.p
df33) CERT/CC Vulnerability Disclosure Policy,
http://www.cert.org/kb/vul_disclosure.html

34) 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

35) Considerations on JPCERT/CC Vendor Status Notes
DB: JVN, CSS2002 (2002/10),

http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2002-03.html

13) anti Malware engineering workshop,

http://jvn.doi.ics.keio.ac.jp/nav/CSS02-P-97.pdf

http://www.iwsec.org/mws/2013/36) Development of JVN to Support Dissemination of
Security Information (2005/5),

14) CSIRT Workshop 2012,
http://www.hitachi.co.jp/hirt/topics/20120229.html

http://www.hitachi.co.jp/hirt/csirt/jvn/index.html

15) Kyoto 2012 FIRST Technical Colloquium,37) CERT/CC Vulnerability Notes Database,

http://www.first.org/events/colloquia/kyoto2012

http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls16) Nippon CSIRT Association: incident response,38) CERT/CC Vulnerability Note Field Descriptions,

http://www.nca.gr.jp/2010/incidentresponse.html

http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/html/fieldhelp

17) SGU MIT Workshop Academy CERT Meeting(2010/7),

39) CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures),http://academy-cert-indonesia.blogspot.jp/2010/06/academy-cert-meeting.html

http://cve.mitre.org/
40) ICAT, http://icat.nist.gov/(not available)18) Malware Circulating in P2P File Exchange Software
Environment (2011) (2011/9),41) CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System),
http://www.first.org/cvss/
42) DEFCON, http://www.defcon.org/

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

19) 2009 Survey on information leakage via P2P File
Exchange Software Environment (2009/12),
http://www.hitachi.co.jp/hirt/publications/hirt-pub09008/index.html

20) cNotes: Current Status Notes,
http://jvnrss.ise.chuo-u.ac.jp/csn/index.cgi21) Information-Technology Promotion Agency, Japan:
Countermeasures against DNS Cache Poisoning (2009/2),
http://www.ipa.go.jp/security/vuln/DNS_security.html

22) Recording Site for Joint Workshop on Security 2008,
Tokyo (2008/3), http://www.nca.gr.jp/jws2008/index.html
23) 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
ml24) CSIRT - Nippon CSIRT Association, http://www.nca.gr.jp/

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

26) GlobalSign Adobe Certified Document Services,
http://jp.globalsign.com/solution/example/hitachi.html

27) FIRST (Forum of Incident Response and Security
Teams), http://www.first.org/
28) Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Notification
No. 235: Standard for Handling Information Related toVulnerabilities in Software, etc., (2004/7),[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. Presently, he works as atechnical member of the JPCERT Coordination Center, a researcher of theInformation Technology Promotion Agency, Japan, Telecom ISAC asteering committee member, and vice chief of the steering committee for the
Nippon CSIRT Association.

http://www.meti.go.jp/policy/netsecurity/downloadfiles/vulhandlingG.pdf

29) Information-technology Promotion Agency, Japan:
Information Security Early Warning Partnership Guideline(2004/7), http://www.ipa.go.jp/security/ciadr/partnership_guide.html
30) JVN (Japan Vulnerability Notes), http://jvn.jp/
31) 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
Copyright © HIRT. 2013. All rights reserved.

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