Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of darkbluegr
darkbluegr

asked on

Restoring SBS 2003 server after hack

hi, I temporarily put my SBS2003 on the public internet (configured my lan connection with public IP) and 3 hours later my domain admin password was changed.

fortunately all my data in D: drive (exchange store) and my user profiles (also in D) are intact.

I noticed however several new .dll and .txt files on the root of C: drive.

How can I recover my domain admin pass? or can I restore it to the previous one?

I can still log on locally with a limited -privilege user. if I run "net user administrator" on the command prompt, I see that the password was last changed 3 hours ago (and it wasn't us)

I have physical access to the machine and ideally i'd like to revert to our previous password.

Thank you.
SOLUTION
Avatar of Cliff Galiher
Cliff Galiher
Flag of United States of America image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Avatar of darkbluegr
darkbluegr

ASKER

Thanks - the password was changed in the last 3:30 hours, so I can restore last night's backup. I just need to regain control of either the local admin or the domain admin account, so I can launch the windows restore utility..
Once I'm in and the files are restored, I will try to keep only the essential data files and copy them to a new , clean box. thanks!
SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Thanks - i only have a limited domain user account that I can use, and it doesn't let me restore.

I can't login to the directory recovery mode unfortunately, as I do not know the new domain admin password. I assume the local admin password was changed when the intruder changed the domain admin password? none of my 3 passwords works it seems..
Thanks, I remembered another admin-level account that i had and i used it successfully to change my original "Administrator" domain-admin account.

Any suggestions for a thorough scan of backdoors/trojans while I am preparing a new box from scratch? should I try trend micro's scanner, any other recommendations?

Thank you
Younghv has several articles on anti-virus tactics.
https://www.experts-exchange.com/Digital_Living/Software/A_1958-MALWARE-An-Ounce-of-Prevention.html
https://www.experts-exchange.com/Software/Internet_Email/Anti_Spyware/A_5124-Stop-the-Bleeding-First-Aid-for-Malware.html

You should disable the administrator account.
You should limit an administrator from being able to use terminal services.
Your compromise may have come through several means, exchange if not update, iis, etc.

Make sure you do not expose the system directly to the outside.
ok i have the server back behind my sonicwall, with only essential services allowed.
seems i have a variant of the "darkshell" exploit. i am running trendmicro housecall as a first step and then I will also try malwarebytes and superantispyware.
i also deleted three users that i noticed were created:

systemd , member of Administrators
systeme, member of Administrators
systems, member of Administrators

will report back soon..
You should consider for the duration applying a restriction on the SBS from the sonicwall to prevent back door, tunnels out just in case.  Add loging to see if some of the tools miss anything.
thanks - will do!
i also kept a zip of the infected files, should i upload at a web "scanning" service for investigation/reference for other users?
SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Thank you , I do plan to reinstall, but meanwhile my email needs to run while I'm preparing the migration. Is it a good idea to setup a brand new machine and reinstall sbs 2003 from scratch? Will I be able to migrate my users, mails, and settings, between servers? Any tips how to approach this project?

Regards
Doing what you suggest could render the entire environment inoperable.
Before suggesting such an approach, you should always explore whether the asker actually has backups and the types of backups to make sure that the environment can be reconstituted to functional level as it existed before.
Or the asker may wind up having to reinstall all workstations, etc.
I have backup of my data drive (user profiles and mail store), but not the system state as it turns out..

Maybe I could add a secondary dc and wait for replication, and then transf fsmo roles to secondary, and rebuild the primary (hacked) one?
Ps. As suspected housecall by trendmicro found 6 infec
You have to also make sure you have a correct backup setup for exchange.  File system level backup will not cover the exchange restore.
Sbs can not exist without being the master for most of the fsmo.
so in order to recap, the consensus is that I should make sure my backup of the exchange database is OK and then try to rebuild my SBS on a new machine?
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial