Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 09 September 2022

Welcome to this week’s Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing – a weekly digest, collated and curated by our cyber experts to provide senior and middle management with an easy to digest round up of the most notable threats, vulnerabilities, and cyber related news from the last week.

Top Cyber Stories of the Last Week

  • Why It’s Mission-Critical That All-Sized Businesses Stay Cyber Secure

A study analysing millions of emails across thousands of companies found that on average, employees of small businesses with less than 100 employees experience 350% more social engineering attacks than employees of larger enterprises. 57% of these are phishing attacks – the most prevalent social engineering attack of 2021.

Add to the mix that the global average cost of a data breach for businesses has skyrocketed. According to IBM Security’s annual Cost of a Data Breach Report, the average global cost is now a phenomenal $4.35 million.

Generally, larger corporations tend to have bigger security budgets, making them less of a target than smaller businesses with lesser budgets, and as such, more attractive to cyber criminals. This means that for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) – with fewer resources and money – protection from cyber-attacks is now a matter of survival.

Ease of attack is not the only reason why criminals attack SMEs either. SMEs are often an entry point to target bigger organisations within the same supply chain. These larger corporations can either be crucial partners, suppliers, or customers, making SMEs prime targets.

But with efficient cyber security measures, every business regardless of size can keep themselves and their network safe.

https://informationsecuritybuzz.com/articles/why-its-mission-critical-that-all-sized-businesses-stay-cyber-secure/

  • Half of Firms Report Supply Chain Ransomware Compromise

Over half (52%) of global organisations know a partner that has been compromised by ransomware, yet few are doing anything to improve the security of their supply chain, according to Trend Micro.

The security vendor polled nearly 3,000 IT decision makers across 26 countries to produce its latest report, ‘Everything is connected: Uncovering the ransomware threat from global supply chains’.

It revealed that 90% of global IT leaders believe their partners and customers are making their own organisation a more attractive ransomware target.

That might be down in part to the fact that SMBs comprise a significant chunk of the supply chain for 52% of respondents. The security of SMBs is generally thought to be less effective than protection in larger, better resourced companies.

However, despite their concerns, less than half (47%) of respondents said they share knowledge about ransomware attacks with their suppliers, while a quarter (25%) claimed they don’t share potentially useful threat information with partners.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/half-firms-supply-chain-ransomware/

  • Vulnerability Exploits, Not Phishing, Are the Top Cyber Attack Vector for Initial Compromise

Breaches involving phishing and credential compromise have received a lot of attention in recent years because of how frequently threat actors have employed the tactics in executing both targeted and opportunistic attacks. But that doesn't mean that enterprise organisations can afford to lessen their focus on vulnerability patching one bit.

A report from Kaspersky this week identified more initial intrusions last year resulting from exploitation of vulnerabilities in Internet-facing applications than breaches involving malicious emails and compromised accounts combined. And data that the company has collected through the second quarter of 2022 suggests the same trend might be playing out this year as well.

Kaspersky's analysis of its 2021 incident-response data showed that breaches involving vulnerability exploits surged from 31.5% of all incidents in 2020 to 53.6% in 2021. Over the same period, attacks associated with the use of compromised accounts to gain initial access declined from 31.6% in 2020 to 17.9% last year. Initial intrusions resulting from phishing emails decreased from 23.7% to 14.3% during the same period.

https://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities-threats/vulnerability-exploits-phishing-top-attack-vector-initial-compromise

  • Uber’s Ex-Security Chief Faces Landmark Trial Over Data Breach That Hit 57m Users

Uber’s former security officer, Joe Sullivan, is standing trial this week in what is believed to be the first case of an executive facing criminal charges in relation to a data breach.

The US district court in San Francisco will start hearing arguments on whether Sullivan, the former head of security at the ride-share giant, failed to properly disclose a 2016 data breach affecting 57 million Uber riders and drivers around the world.

At a time when reports of ransomware attacks have surged and cyber security insurance premiums have risen, the case could set an important precedent regarding the culpability of US security staffers and executives for the way the companies they work for handle cyber security incidents.

The breach first came to light in November 2017, when Uber’s chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, revealed that hackers had gained access to the driver’s licence numbers of 600,000 US Uber drivers as well as the names, email addresses and phone numbers of as many as 57 million Uber riders and drivers.

Public disclosures like Khosrowshahi’s are required by law in many US states, with most regulations mandating that the notification be made “in the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay”.

But Khosrowshahi’s announcement came with an admission: a whole year had passed since the information had been breached.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/sep/06/uber-joe-sullivan-trial-security-data-breach

  • Over 10% of Enterprise IT Assets Found With Missing Endpoint Protection

More than 10% of enterprise IT assets are missing endpoint protection and roughly 5% are not covered by enterprise patch management solutions.

The figures come from new research by Sevco Security, which the company has compiled in the State of the Cybersecurity Attack Surface report.

"Attackers are very adept at exploiting enterprise vulnerabilities. Security and IT teams already have their hands full mitigating the vulnerabilities that they know about, and our data confirms that this is just the tip of the iceberg," Sevco told Infosecurity Magazine.

The document analyses data aggregated from visibility into more than 500,000 IT assets, and underlines existential and underreported cyber security issues in relation to securing enterprises’ assets.

“The uncertainty of enterprise inventory – the elements that make up an organisation’s cyber security attack surface – upends the foundation of every major security framework and presents a challenge to security teams: it’s impossible to protect what you can’t see,” they said.

For instance, the data found that roughly 3% of all IT assets are “stale” in endpoint protection, while 1% are stale from the perspective of patch management coverage.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/enterprise-assets-miss-endpoint/

  • Some Employees Aren't Just Leaving Companies — They're Defrauding Them

Since the Great Resignation in 2021, millions of employees have left their roles with current employers in search of better ones. According to Microsoft, 40% of employees reported they are considering leaving their current roles by the end of 2022. With many still working in remote or hybrid positions due to the pandemic, larger businesses have started implementing measures to gain a better understanding of employee morale and sentiment to prevent turnover.

While most employees leave companies on good terms, some may become extremely unhappy or disgruntled prior to their departure and are more likely to defraud the company either before leaving or on their way out the door. The unfortunate reality is that no business is immune to fraud, but luckily, there are several steps you can take to prevent it from happening.

According to the Cressey Fraud Triangle, fraudulent behaviour often occurs due to three contributing factors. These include pressure or motive to commit a fraud (usually a personal financial problem), perceived opportunity within the organisation to commit a fraud (poor oversight or internal controls), and rationalisation (the ability to justify the crime to make it seem acceptable).

Very often, a fraudster needs all three sides of the triangle to successfully commit a crime. Therefore, it is extremely important for organisations to do their best to create controls and understand the risk associated with each of these areas. For example, an employee may be disgruntled and also have personal financial issues. However, if internal controls are robust and the employee doesn't have access to financial instruments, valuable assets or software systems, their ability to defraud the company is extremely limited or will get identified immediately.

https://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities-threats/some-employees-aren-t-just-leaving-companies-they-re-defrauding-them

  • Ransomware Gangs Switching to New Intermittent Encryption Tactic

A growing number of ransomware groups are adopting a new tactic that helps them encrypt their victims' systems faster while reducing the chances of being detected and stopped.

This tactic is called intermittent encryption, and it consists of encrypting only parts of the targeted files' content, which would still render the data unrecoverable without using a valid decryption key.

For example, by skipping every other 16 bytes of a file, the encryption process takes almost half of the time required for full encryption but still locks the contents for good.

Additionally, because the encryption is milder, automated detection tools that rely on detecting signs of trouble in the form of intense file IO operations are more likely to fail.

SentinelLabs has posted a report examining a trend started by LockFile in mid-2021 and now adopted by the likes of Black Basta, ALPHV (BlackCat), PLAY, Agenda, and Qyick.

These groups actively promote the presence of intermittent encryption features in their ransomware family to entice affiliates to join the RaaS operation.

"Notably, Qyick features intermittent encryption, which is what the cool kids are using as you read this. Combined with the fact that is written in Go, the speed is unmatched," describes a Qyick advertisement on hacking forums.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/ransomware-gangs-switching-to-new-intermittent-encryption-tactic/

  • How Posting Personal and Business Photos Can Be a Security Risk

Image geotags, metadata, and location information can allow competitors, cyber criminals, and even nation-state threat actors to gain knowledge they can use against organisations.

Marketers in every industry enjoy evidencing their reach to their superiors and providing tangible examples of their width and breadth of influence via social networks, media, and other means of engagement. Photos of both customers and employees engaging at hosted social events, trade shows, conferences, and direct one-on-one encounters are often viewed as gold. Couple this with the individual employee’s or customer’s photos working their way onto social network platforms for others to see and admire, and the value of that gold increases, success being quantified by impressions, views and individual engagements.

The value of that gold doubles when not only does the company harvest data and call it a success, but their competitors also analyse such photos capturing a plethora of useful data points, including geotagged data, metadata of the photo, and identity of the individuals caught in the frame. They, too, call it a success. Yes, the digital engagement involving location data and or location hints within photos is a double-edged sword.

It isn’t just competitors who harvest the data. Criminal elements and nation-state intelligence and security elements do as well. Francis Bacon’s adage, “Knowledge itself is power,” applies. With location, time and place, and identity, competitors, criminals, and nation-states are given their initial tidbits of openly acquired information from which to begin to build their mosaic. 

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3672869/how-posting-personal-and-business-photos-can-be-a-security-risk.html#tk.rss_news

  • Your Vendors Are Likely Your Biggest Cyber Security Risk

As speed of business increases, more and more organisations are looking to either buy companies or outsource more services to gain market advantage. With organisations expanding their vendor base, there is a critical need for holistic third-party risk management (TPRM) and comprehensive cyber security measures to assess how much risk vendors pose.

While organisations assess and manage risk on a multitude of layers, none present bigger threats to business resiliency than third-party risk and a lack of robust cyber security controls. Breaches and service interruptions tied to these risk areas have brought down critical systems of major organisations. In 2021, 53% of CISOs surveyed by Black Kite reported being hit by at least one ransomware attack.

It bears repeating: Cyber security and third-party risk are the two biggest problems facing your long-term viability. Businesses need to be able to tackle these risk vectors individually to gain a complete view of their risk profile. A cross-functional process is essential to managing the overlap between these risk areas to better protect your organisation and increase workflow efficiency.

Ensuring that the cyber security practices of your vendors align with your organisation’s standards is critical to safeguarding your systems and data. In fact, it is just as important as how stable the business is or how well it delivers products and services.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/09/05/vendors-cybersecurity-risk/

  • A Recent Chinese Hack Is a Wake-up Call for the Security of the World’s Software Supply Chain

It’s perhaps only a coincidence that there’s a famous Chinese saying ‘No one knows, not even the ghosts’ that neatly summarises a recent hack on MiMi, a Chinese messaging app. According to recent reports, a Chinese state-backed hacking group inserted malicious code into this messaging app, essentially pulling off the equivalent of the infamous SolarWinds hack. Users of MiMi were served a version of the app with malicious code added, thanks to attackers taking control of the servers that delivered the app. In short, this was a software supply chain attack in which the software delivery pipeline was compromised.

Observers could be forgiven for thinking that this is just another hack. Chinese hacking groups, and those of Western countries too, have developed a reputation over the past two decades for spying, surveillance, and sabotage. But this attack is different than typical hacking fare because the attackers rode in on the back of a trusted piece of software. This is a software supply chain attack, where the attackers tamper with either source code, the software build system, or the software publishing pipeline, all of which have become essential to the functioning of the world’s digital economy.

Software supply chain attacks have been rapidly growing in frequency. Twenty years ago, there might have been one or two a year. These days, depending on the methodology, there are either hundreds or thousands a year, and that’s only counting the reported attacks. And increasingly anybody who depends upon software (read: everybody) is or shortly will be a victim: the U.S. government, Microsoft, thousands of other companies and, apparently in this MiMi attack, individuals.

https://thediplomat.com/2022/09/a-recent-chinese-hack-is-a-wake-up-call-for-the-security-of-the-worlds-software-supply-chain/

  • Massive Hotels Group IHG Struck by Cyber Attack Which Disrupts Booking Systems

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), which owns brands such as InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, and many others, has had its IT systems breached by malicious hackers.

In a filing with the London Stock Exchange, the multinational hospitality company reported that "parts of the company's technology systems have been subject to unauthorised activity."

As a result, the company said, "IHG's booking channels and other applications have been significantly disrupted since [Monday], and this is ongoing."

The first indication that the company was experiencing problems appeared early on Monday morning UK time, when anyone who tried to book a hotel room via the company's website or app, or access their IHG One Rewards account was greeted by a maintenance message.

Although it has made no declaration regarding the nature of the security breach, in its filing with the London Stock Exchange, IHG mentioned they were "working to fully restore all systems". This would fit into the scenario of IHG having hit been hit with ransomware, which may not only have encrypted data - locking the company out of its systems and demanding a ransom be paid - but could have also caused even more problems.

https://www.bitdefender.com/blog/hotforsecurity/massive-hotels-group-ihg-struck-by-cyberattack-which-disrupts-booking-systems/

  • London's Biggest Bus Operator Hit by Cyber "Incident"

Travellers in London were braced for more delays last week after the city’s largest bus operator revealed it has been hit by a “cyber security incident,” according to reports.

Newcastle-based transportation group Go-Ahead shared a statement with the London Stock Exchange indicating “unauthorised activity” had been discovered on its network yesterday.

“Upon becoming aware of the incident, Go-Ahead immediately engaged external forensic specialists and has taken precautionary measures with its IT infrastructure whilst it continues to investigate the nature and extent of the incident and implement its incident response plans,” it stated. “Go-Ahead will continue to assess the potential impact of the incident but confirms that there is no impact on UK or International rail services which are operating normally.”

However, the same may not be true of its bus services. Sky News reported that bus and driver rosters may have been impacted by the attack, which could disrupt operations.

Go-Ahead operates multiple services in the South, South West, London, North West, East Anglia, East Yorkshire and its native North East. It is London’s largest bus company, operating over 2400 buses in the capital and employing more than 7000 staff.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/londons-biggest-bus-operator-hit/


Threats

Ransomware and Extortion

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

Other Social Engineering; Smishing, Vishing, etc

Malware

Mobile

Internet of Things – IoT

Data Breaches/Leaks

Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking/NFTs/Blockchain

Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime

AML/CFT/Sanctions

Insurance

Supply Chain and Third Parties

Software Supply Chain

Denial of Service DoS/DDoS

Cloud/SaaS

Identity and Access Management

Encryption

API

Open Source

Passwords, Credential Stuffing & Brute Force Attacks

Social Media

Privacy

Parental Controls and Child Safety

Cyber Bullying and Cyber Stalking

Regulations, Fines and Legislation

Spyware, Cyber Espionage & Cyber Warfare, including Russian Invasion of Ukraine






Sector Specific

Industry specific threat intelligence reports are available.

Contact us to receive tailored reports specific to the industry/sector and geographies you operate in.

·       Automotive

·       Construction

·       Critical National Infrastructure (CNI)

·       Defence & Space

·       Education & Academia

·       Energy & Utilities

·       Estate Agencies

·       Financial Services

·       FinTech

·       Food & Agriculture

·       Gaming & Gambling

·       Government & Public Sector (including Law Enforcement)

·       Health/Medical/Pharma

·       Hotels & Hospitality

·       Insurance

·       Legal

·       Manufacturing

·       Maritime

·       Oil, Gas & Mining

·       OT, ICS, IIoT, SCADA & Cyber-Physical Systems

·       Retail & eCommerce

·       Small and Medium Sized Businesses (SMBs)

·       Startups

·       Telecoms

·       Third Sector & Charities

·       Transport & Aviation

·       Web3


As usual, contact us to help assess where your risks lie and to ensure you are doing all you can do to keep you and your business secure.

Look out for our ‘Cyber Tip Tuesday’ video blog and on our YouTube channel.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Links to articles are for interest and awareness and linking to or reposting external content does not endorse any service or product, likewise we are not responsible for the security of external links.

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Black Arrow Cyber Alert 15/09/2022 – NCSC Warns of Phishing Attacks relating to the Death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

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Black Arrow Cyber Advisory 09/09/2022 – Cisco provides patches to address vulnerabilities across product range