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Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 23 December 2022

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 23 December 2022:

-LastPass Users: Your Info and Password Vault Data are Now in Hackers’ Hands

-Ransomware Attacks Increased 41% In November

-The Risk of Escalation from Cyber Attacks Has Never Been Greater

-FBI Recommends Ad Blockers as Cyber Criminals Impersonate Brands in Search Engine Ads

-North Korea-Linked Hackers Stole $626 Million in Virtual Assets in 2022

-UK Security Agency Wants Fresh Approach to Combat Phishing

-GodFather Android malware targets 400 banks, crypto exchanges

-Companies Overwhelmed by Available Tech Solutions

-Nine in 10 Third-party Contractors, Freelancers Use Personal, Unmanaged Devices Likely to be Infected

-UK Privacy Regulator Names and Shames Breached Firms

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

  • LastPass Admits Attackers have an Encrypted Copy of Customers’ Password Vaults 

Password locker LastPass has warned customers that the August 2022 attack on its systems saw unknown parties copy encrypted files that contain the passwords to their accounts.

In a December 22nd update to its advice about the incident, LastPass brings customers up to date by explaining that in the August 2022 attack “some source code and technical information were stolen from our development environment and used to target another employee, obtaining credentials and keys which were used to access and decrypt some storage volumes within the cloud-based storage service.” Those creds allowed the attacker to copy information “that contained basic customer account information and related metadata including company names, end-user names, billing addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers, and the IP addresses from which customers were accessing the LastPass service.”

The update reveals that the attacker also copied “customer vault” data, the file LastPass uses to let customers record their passwords. That file “is stored in a proprietary binary format that contains both unencrypted data, such as website URLs, as well as fully-encrypted sensitive fields such as website usernames and passwords, secure notes, and form-filled data.” The passwords are encrypted with “256-bit AES encryption and can only be decrypted with a unique encryption key derived from each user’s master password”.

LastPass’ advice is that even though attackers have that file, customers who use its default settings have nothing to do as a result of this update as “it would take millions of years to guess your master password using generally-available password-cracking technology.” One of those default settings is not to re-use the master password that is required to log into LastPass. The outfit suggests you make it a complex credential and use that password for just one thing: accessing LastPass.

LastPass therefore offered the following advice to individual and business users: If your master password does not make use of the defaults above, then it would significantly reduce the number of attempts needed to guess it correctly. In this case, as an extra security measure, you should consider minimising risk by changing passwords of websites you have stored.

LastPass’s update concludes with news it decommissioned the systems breached in August 2022 and has built new infrastructure that adds extra protections.

https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/23/lastpass_attack_update/

  • Ransomware Attacks Increased 41% In November

Ransomware attacks rose 41% last month as groups shifted among the top spots and increasingly leveraged DDoS attacks, according to new research from NCC Group.

A common thread of NCC Group's November Threat Pulse was a "month full of surprises," particularly related to unexpected shifts in threat actor behaviour. The Cuba ransomware gang resurged with its highest number of attacks recorded by NCC Group. Royal replaced LockBit 3.0 as the most active strain, a first since September of last year.

These factors and more contributed to the significant jump in November attacks, which rose from 188 in October to 265.

"For 2022, this increase represents the most reported incidents in one month since that of April, when there were 289 incidents, and is also the largest month-on-month increase since June-July's marginally larger increase of 47%," NCC Group wrote in the report.

Operators behind Royal ransomware, a strain that emerged earlier this year that operates without affiliates and utilises intermittent encryption to evade detection, surpassed LockBit 3.0 for the number one spot, accounting for 16% of hack and leak incidents last month.

https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/news/252528505/NCC-Group-Ransomware-attacks-increased-41-in-November

  • The Risk of Escalation from Cyber Attacks Has Never Been Greater

In 2022, an American dressed in his pyjamas took down North Korea’s Internet from his living room. Fortunately, there was no reprisal against the United States. But Kim Jong Un and his generals must have weighed retaliation and asked themselves whether the so-called independent hacker was a front for a planned and official American attack.

In 2023, the world might not get so lucky. There will almost certainly be a major cyber attack. It could shut down Taiwan’s airports and trains, paralyse British military computers, or swing a US election. This is terrifying, because each time this happens, there is a small risk that the aggrieved side will respond aggressively, maybe at the wrong party, and (worst of all) even if it carries the risk of nuclear escalation.

This is because cyber weapons are different from conventional ones. They are cheaper to design and wield. That means great powers, middle powers, and pariah states can all develop and use them.

More important, missiles come with a return address, but virtual attacks do not. Suppose in 2023, in the coldest weeks of winter, a virus shuts down American or European oil pipelines. It has all the markings of a Russian attack, but intelligence experts warn it could be a Chinese assault in disguise. Others see hints of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. No one knows for sure. Presidents Biden and Macron have to decide whether to retaliate at all, and if so, against whom … Russia? China? Iran? It's a gamble, and they could get unlucky.

Neither country wants to start a conventional war with one another, let alone a nuclear one. Conflict is so ruinous that most enemies prefer to loathe one another in peace. During the Cold War, the prospect of mutual destruction was a huge deterrent to any great power war. There were almost no circumstances in which it made sense to initiate an attack. But cyber warfare changes that conventional strategic calculus. The attribution problem introduces an immense amount of uncertainty, complicating the decision our leaders have to make.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/12/the-risk-of-escalation-from-cyberattacks-has-never-been-greater/

  • FBI Recommends Ad Blockers as Cyber Criminals Impersonate Brands in Search Engine Ads

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) this week raised the alarm on cyber criminals impersonating brands in advertisements that appear in search engine results. The agency has advised consumers to use ad blockers to protect themselves from such threats.

The attackers register domains similar to those of legitimate businesses or services, and use those domains to purchase ads from search engine advertisement services, the FBI says in an alert. These nefarious ads are displayed at the top of the web page when the user searches for that business or service, and the user might mistake them for an actual search result.

Links included in these ads take users to pages that are identical to the official web pages of the impersonated businesses, the FBI explains. If the user searches for an application, they are taken to a fake web page that uses the real name of the program the user searches for, and which contains a link to download software that is, in fact, malware.

“These advertisements have also been used to impersonate websites involved in finances, particularly cryptocurrency exchange platforms,” the FBI notes. Seemingly legitimate exchange platforms, the malicious sites prompt users to provide their login and financial information, which the cyber criminals then use to steal the victim’s funds.

“While search engine advertisements are not malicious in nature, it is important to practice caution when accessing a web page through an advertised link,” the FBI says.

Businesses are advised to use domain protection services to be notified of domain spoofing, and to educate users about spoofed websites and on how to find legitimate downloads for the company’s software.

Users are advised to check URLs to make sure they access authentic websites, to type a business’ URL into the browser instead of searching for that business, and to use ad blockers when performing internet searches. Ad blockers can have a negative impact on the revenues of online businesses and advertisers, but they can be good for online security, and even the NSA and CIA are reportedly using them.

https://www.securityweek.com/fbi-recommends-ad-blockers-cybercriminals-impersonate-brands-search-engine-ads

  • North Korea-Linked Hackers Stole $626 Million in Virtual Assets in 2022

South Korea’s spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, estimated that North Korea-linked threat actors have stolen an estimated 1.5 trillion won ($1.2 billion) in cryptocurrency and other virtual assets in the past five years.

According to the spy agency, more than half the crypto assets (about 800 billion won ($626 million)) have been stolen this year alone, reported the Associated Press. The Government of Pyongyang focuses on crypto hacking to fund its military program following harsh UN sanctions.

“South Korea’s main spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, said North Korea’s capacity to steal digital assets is considered among the best in the world because of the country’s focus on cyber crimes since UN economic sanctions were toughened in 2017 in response to its nuclear and missile tests.” reported the AP agency. North Korea cannot export its products due to the UN sanctions imposed in 2016 and 1017, and the impact on its economy is dramatic.

The NIS added that more than 100 billion won ($78 million) of the total stolen funds came from South Korea. Cyber security and intelligence experts believe that attacks aimed at the cryptocurrency industry will continue to increase next year. National Intelligence Service experts believe that North Korea-linked APT groups will focus on the theft of South Korean technologies and confidential information on South Korean foreign policy and national security.

Data published by the National Intelligence Service agency confirms a report published by South Korean media outlet Chosun early this year that revealed North Korean threat actors have stolen around $1.7 billion (2 trillion won) worth of cryptocurrency from multiple exchanges during the past five years.

https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/139909/intelligence/north-korea-cryptocurrency-theft.html

  • UK Security Agency Wants Fresh Approach to Combat Phishing

The UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has called for a defence-in-depth approach to help mitigate the impact of phishing, combining technical controls with a strong reporting culture.

Writing in the agency’s blog, technical director and principal architect, “Dave C,” argued that many of the well-established tenets of anti-phishing advice simply don’t work. For example, advising users not to click on links in unsolicited emails is not helpful when many need to do exactly that as part of their job.

This is often combined with a culture where users are afraid to report that they’ve accidentally clicked, which can delay incident response, he said. It’s not the user’s responsibility to spot a phish – rather, it’s their organisation’s responsibility to protect them from such threats, Dave C argued.

As such, they should build layered technical defences, consisting of email scanning and DMARC/SPF policies to prevent phishing emails from arriving into inboxes. Then, organisations should consider the following to prevent code from executing:

  • Allow-listing for executables

  • Registry settings changes to ensure dangerous scripting or file types are opened in Notepad and not executed

  • Disabling the mounting of .iso files on user endpoints

  • Making sure macro settings are locked down

  • Enabling attack surface reduction rules

  • Ensuring third-party software is up to date

  • Keeping up to date about current threats

Additionally, organisations should take steps such as DNS filtering to block suspicious connections and endpoint detection and response (EDR) to monitor for suspicious behaviour, the NCSC advised.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/uk-security-agency-combat-phishing/

  • GodFather Android malware targets 400 banks, crypto exchanges

An Android banking malware named 'Godfather' has been targeting users in 16 countries, attempting to steal account credentials for over 400 online banking sites and cryptocurrency exchanges.

The malware generates login screens overlaid on top of the banking and crypto exchange apps' login forms when victims attempt to log into the site, tricking the user into entering their credentials on well-crafted HTML phishing pages.

The Godfather trojan was discovered by Group-IB analysts, who believe it is the successor of Anubis, a once widely-used banking trojan that gradually fell out of use due to its inability to bypass newer Android defences. ThreatFabric first discovered Godfather in March 2021, but it has undergone massive code upgrades and improvements since then.

Also, Cyble published a report yesterday highlighting a rise in the activity of Godfather, pushing an app that mimics a popular music tool in Turkey, downloaded 10 million times via Google Play. Group-IB has found a limited distribution of the malware in apps on the Google Play Store; however, the main distribution channels haven't been discovered, so the initial infection method is largely unknown.

Almost half of all apps targeted by Godfather, 215, are banking apps, and most of them are in the United States (49), Turkey (31), Spain (30), Canada (22), France (20), Germany (19), and the UK (17).

Apart from banking apps, Godfather targets 110 cryptocurrency exchange platforms and 94 cryptocurrency wallet apps.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/godfather-android-malware-targets-400-banks-crypto-exchanges/

  • Companies Overwhelmed by Available Tech Solutions

92% of executives reported challenges in acquiring new tech solutions, highlighting the complexities that go into the decision-making process, according to GlobalDots.

Moreover, some 34% of respondents said the overwhelming amount of options was a challenge when deciding on the right solutions, and 33% admitted the time needed to conduct research was another challenge in deciding.

Organisations of all varieties rely on technology more than ever before. The constant adoption of innovation is no longer a luxury but rather a necessity to stay on par in today’s fast-paced and competitive digital landscape. In this environment, IT and security leaders are coming under increased pressure to show ROIs from their investment in technology while balancing operational excellence with business innovation. Due to current market realities, IT teams are short-staffed and suffering from a lack of time and expertise, making navigating these challenges even more difficult.

The report investigated how organisations went about finding support for their purchasing decisions. Conferences, exhibitions, and online events served as companies’ top source of information for making purchasing decisions, at 52%. Third-party solutions, such as value-added resellers and consultancies, came in second place at 48%.

54% are already using third parties to purchase, implement, or support their solutions, highlighting the value that dedicated experts with in-depth knowledge of every solution across a wide range of IT fields provide.

We are living in an age of abundance when it comes to tech solutions for organisations, and this makes researching and purchasing the right solutions for your organisation extremely challenging.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/12/20/tech-purchasing-decisions/

  • Nine in 10 Third-party Contractors, Freelancers Use Personal, Unmanaged Devices Likely to be Infected

Talon Cyber Security surveyed 258 third-party providers to better understand the state of third-party working conditions, including work models, types of devices and security technologies used, potentially risky actions taken, and how security and IT tools impact productivity.

Looking at recent high-profile breaches, third parties have consistently been at the epicenter, so they took a step back with their research to better understand the potential root causes. The findings paint a picture of a third-party work landscape where individuals are consistently working from personal, unmanaged devices, conducting risky activities, and having their productivity impacted by legacy security and IT solutions.

Here’s what Talon discovered:

  • Most third parties (89%) work from personal, unmanaged devices, where organisations lack visibility and cannot enforce the enterprise’s security posture on. Talon pointed to a Microsoft data point that estimated users are 71% more likely to be infected on an unmanaged device.

  • With third parties working from personal devices, they tend to carry out personal, potentially risky tasks. Respondents note that at least on occasion, they have used their devices to:

    • Browse the internet for personal needs (76%)

    • Indulge in online shopping (71%)

    • Check personal email (75%)

    • Save weak passwords in the web browser (61%)

    • Play games (53%)

    • Allow family members to browse (36%)

    • Share passwords with co-workers (24%)

  • Legacy apps such as Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) solutions are prominent, with 45% of respondents using such technologies while working for organisations.

https://www.msspalert.com/cybersecurity-research/nine-in-10-third-party-contractors-freelancers-use-personal-unmanaged-devices-likely-to-be-infected/

  • UK Privacy Regulator Names and Shames Breached Firms

The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has taken the unusual step of publishing details of personal data breaches, complaints and civil investigations on its website, according to legal experts.

The data, available from Q4 2021 onwards, includes the organisation’s name and sector, the relevant legislation and the type of issues involved, the date of completion and the outcome.

Given the significance of this development, it’s surprising that the ICO has (1) chosen to release it with limited fanfare, and (2) buried the data sets on its website. Indeed, it seems to have flown almost entirely under the radar.

Understanding whether their breach or complaint will be publicised by European regulators is one of – if not the – main concern that organisations have when working through an incident, and the answer has usually been no. That is particularly the understanding or assumption where the breach or complaint is closed without regulatory enforcement. Now, at least in the UK, the era of relative anonymity looks to be over.

Despite the lack of fanfare around the announcement, this naming and shaming approach could make the ICO one of the more aggressive privacy regulators in Europe. In the future, claimant firms in class action lawsuits may adopt “US-style practices” of scanning the ICO database to find evidence of repeat offending or possible new cases.

The news comes even as data reveals the value of ICO fines issued in the past year tripled from the previous 12 months. In the year ending October 31 2022, the regulator issued fines worth £15.2m, up from £4.8m the previous year. The sharp increase in the value of fines shows the ICO’s increasing willingness selectively to crack down on businesses – particularly those that the ICO perceives has not taken adequate measures to protect customer and employee data.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/uk-privacy-regulator-names-and/


Threats

Ransomware, Extortion and Destructive Attacks

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

BEC – Business Email Compromise

Other Social Engineering; Smishing, Vishing, etc

2FA/MFA

Malware

Mobile

Botnets

Denial of Service/DoS/DDOS

BYOD

Internet of Things – IoT

Data Breaches/Leaks

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking/NFTs/Blockchain

Insider Risk and Insider Threats

Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime

Supply Chain and Third Parties

Cloud/SaaS

Hybrid/Remote Working

Attack Surface Management

Encryption

API

Open Source

Passwords, Credential Stuffing & Brute Force Attacks

Social Media

Malvertising

Parental Controls and Child Safety

Regulations, Fines and Legislation

Governance, Risk and Compliance

Careers, Working in Cyber and Information Security

Law Enforcement Action and Take Downs

Privacy, Surveillance and Mass Monitoring

Artificial Intelligence

Misinformation, Disinformation and Propaganda

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



Vulnerability Management

Vulnerabilities

Tools and Controls

Reports Published in the Last Week

Other News


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 Threat Briefing 02 September 2022

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 02 September 2022

-79% Of Companies Only Invest in Cyber Security After Hacking Incidents

-Nearly Half of Breaches During First Half of 2022 Involved Stolen Credentials

-Outdated Infrastructure Not Up to Today’s Ransomware Challenges

-Ghost Data Increases Enterprise Business Risk

-Detected Cyber Threats Surge 52% in 1H 2022

-An Interview with Initial Access Broker Wazawaka: ‘There Is No Such Money Anywhere as There is in Ransomware’

-Cyber Crime Underground More Dangerous Than Organisations Realize

-New Ransomware Group BianLian Activity Exploding

-Can Your Passwords Withstand Threat Actors’ Dirty Tricks?

-Ransomware Gangs’ Favourite Targets

-Tentacles of ‘0ktapus’ Threat Group Victimize 130 Firms

-Organisations Are Spending Billions on Malware Defence That’s Easy to Bypass

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

  • 79% Of Companies Only Invest in Cyber Security After Hacking Incidents

The British cyber security company Tanium published a survey on investments in digital protection in UK companies with alarming results: 79% of them only approve investments in cyber security after suffering a data breach; 92% experienced a data attack or breach, of which 74% occurred in 2021. Leadership reticence is also high, with 63% of leaders convinced cyber security is only a concern after an attack.

The complexity of the situation has grown with the digital transformation of work. If it streamlines many processes, it can also open up serious security gaps. A sensitive point is the “home office”: companies need effective solutions to eliminate gaps that may appear between employees’ computers (often shared devices) and the company’s internal network.

Putting in solutions is just the beginning of a necessary strategy and investment effort in virtual protection. Complex scams based on phishing, reverse engineering, and backdoor-type malicious programs (“planted” discreetly on a device and sometimes inactive for months) often combine real-world and virtual-world fraud.

The escalation of corporate data hijacking appears in this scenario. The most notorious case at a global level of such an incident, with a million-dollar ransom demand, was launched in 2021 on Colonial Pipeline. This US company paid $40 million to regain control over strategic data after fuel supplies through its pipelines to several states were threatened for days.

https://informationsecuritybuzz.com/infosec-news/79-of-the-companies-only-invest-in-cybersecurity-after-hacking-incidents/

  • Nearly Half of Breaches During First Half of 2022 Involved Stolen Credentials

According to a new report by Acronis, a Switzerland-based cyber security company, nearly half of breaches during the first six months of 2022 involved stolen credentials.

The goal of stealing credentials is to launch ransomware attacks. According to the report, these “continue to be the number one threat to large and medium-sized businesses, including government organisations.”

Attackers usually use phishing techniques to extract these credentials. In the first half of the year, over 600 malicious email campaigns made their way across the internet, of which 58% were phishing attempts and 28% featured malware.

Acronis also added that “as reliance on the cloud increases, attackers have homed in on different entryways to cloud-based networks.”

Additionally, cyber criminals now also target unpatched or software vulnerabilities to extract data, with a recent increase on Linux operating systems and managed service providers (MSPs) and their network of SMB customers.

The third vector spotted by Acronis was “non-traditional entry avenues” such as cryptocurrencies and decentralised finance (DeFi) systems.

https://www.itsecurityguru.org/2022/08/30/nearly-half-of-breaches-during-first-half-of-2022-involved-stolen-credentials/

  • Outdated Infrastructure Not Up to Today’s Ransomware Challenges

A global research commissioned by Cohesity reveals that nearly half of respondents say their company depends on outdated, legacy backup and recovery infrastructure to manage and protect their data. In some cases, this technology is more than 20 years old and was designed long before today’s multicloud era and onslaught of sophisticated cyber attacks plaguing enterprises globally.

Challenges pertaining to outdated infrastructure could easily be compounded by the fact that many IT and security teams don’t seem to have a plan in place to mobilise if and when a cyber attack occurs. Nearly 60% of respondents expressed some level of concern that their IT and security teams would be able to mobilise efficiently to respond to the attack.

These are just some of the findings from an April 2022 survey, conducted by Censuswide, of more than 2,000 IT and SecOps professionals (split nearly 50/50 between the two groups) in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. All respondents play a role in the decision-making process for IT or security within their organisations.

IT and security teams should raise the alarm bell if their organisation continues to use antiquated technology to manage and secure their most critical digital asset – their data.

Cyber criminals are actively preying on this outdated infrastructure as they know it was not built for today’s dispersed, multicloud environments, nor was it built to help companies protect and rapidly recover from sophisticated cyber attacks.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/08/30/outdated-infrastructure-manage-data/

  • Ghost Data Increases Enterprise Business Risk

IT has to get its hands around cloud data sprawl. Another area of focus should be on ghost data, as it expands the organisation's cloud attack surface.

Cloud sprawl is a big issue for organisations, with business teams spinning up cloud systems and services on their own, often without IT oversight. That leads to cloud data sprawl as data is scattered across different environments. If IT doesn’t know about the cloud systems and services, then IT is also not managing the data being collected, processed, and stored there.

We all know about shadow IT, the systems and network devices in the organisation’s environment that IT is not managing. Similarly, shadow data refers to unmanaged data store copies and snapshots or log data that are not part of IT’s backup and recovery strategy. Researchers at Cyera estimate that 60% of the data security posture issues that are present in cloud accounts stem from unsecured sensitive data.

Then there is the problem of ghost data. When data gets deleted from cloud systems, it isn’t fully gone. Copies linger in backups or snapshots of data stores. Ghost data refers to those copies left behind after the original has been deleted, and Cyera’s recent analysis show that enterprises have quite a lot of it.

After scanning the three major cloud providers (Amazon Web Services, Azure, and Google Cloud), Cyera researchers found that over 30% of scanned customer cloud data stores are ghost data and more than 58% contain sensitive, or very sensitive, data. For example, researchers found unsecured database snapshots in non-production environments that contained sensitive customer data where the original database had been destroyed. Researchers also uncovered sensitive personal and authentication data in plain text where the production data and application were no longer in use.

Ghost data usually has no business value - the data was deleted for a reason - and having it around unnecessarily increases business risk. Attackers don’t care if they get their hands on the original sensitive information or the copy because to them, all data has value, regardless of the form it takes.

https://www.darkreading.com/edge-threat-monitor/ghost-data-increases-enterprise-business-risk

  • Detected Cyber Threats Surge 52% in 1H 2022

A leading cyber security vendor blocked 63 billion threats in the first half of 2022 alone, over 50% more than the same period a year ago.

The findings come from the Trend Micro 2022 Midyear Cybersecurity Report and illustrate the scale of the challenge facing network defenders.

Trend Micro highlighted the persistent threat posed by ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) groups as one that will continue to cause major challenges for organisations in the years to come.

It said detections of prolific groups such as LockBit and Conti increased by 500% year-on-year in 1H 2022. Such groups will continue to adapt their tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) in the race for profits.

The report warned of a surge in threats targeting Linux systems, for example. It said detections of attacks on Linux servers and embedded systems grew 75% year-on-year in the first half of 2022. Both SMBs and larger organisations are now a target, it claimed.

Many RaaS groups exploit vulnerabilities as a primary attack vector. Their job is getting easier as the number of published common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) continues to grow strongly.

Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative published advisories on 944 vulnerabilities in the first half of 2021, a 23% year-on-year increase. The number of critical bug advisories it published soared by 400% over the same period.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/detected-cyberthreats-surge-52-in/

  • An Interview with Initial Access Broker Wazawaka: ‘There Is No Such Money Anywhere as There is in Ransomware’

Last April, a ransomware group threatened to expose police informants and other sensitive information if the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department did not pay a demand.

The brazen attack was the work of a gang known as Babuk, which in early 2021 gained a reputation for posting stolen databases on its website from victims that refused to pay a ransom. Just days after it tried to extort the Metropolitan Police Department, Babuk announced it was closing its ransomware affiliate program, and would focus on data theft and extortion instead.

Earlier this year, cyber security journalist Brian Krebs uncovered details about one man behind the operation named Mikhail Matveev, who was also connected to a number of other groups and identities, including the handle ‘Wazawaka.’ According to Krebs, Matveev had become more unhinged than usual, “publishing bizarre selfie videos” and creating a Twitter account to share exploit code.

Matveev talked to Recorded Future about his interaction with other hackers, details about ransomware attacks he’s been involved in, and how he settled on the name Babuk.

Click the link below for the full interview but the long and short is ransomware has created a criminal ecosystem the likes of which the world has never seen.

https://therecord.media/an-interview-with-initial-access-broker-wazawaka-there-is-no-such-money-anywhere-as-there-is-in-ransomware/

  • Cyber Crime Underground More Dangerous Than Organisations Realise

Kela, a cyber threat intelligence specialist, found in a new study of some 400 security pros in the US that organisations are more at risk from the “cyber crime underground” than they realise.

The Israel-based company surveyed security team members responsible for gathering cyber crime threat intelligence daily to better understand if they’re proactively scanning the dark web and other cyber crime sources, what tools they’re using and the gaps they see in their cyber crime threat intelligence approach. Nearly 60% of the respondents do not believe their current cyber crime prevention is effective, the results showed.

Here are the study’s key findings:

  • 69% are concerned about threats from the cyber crime underground.

  • 54% wouldn’t be surprised to find their organisation’s data on the cyber crime underground.

  • Only 38% believe that they’re very likely to detect it if it was released.

  • 48% have no documented cyber crime threat intelligence policy in place.

  • Only 41% believe their current security program is very effective.

  • 49% are not satisfied with the visibility they have of the cyber crime underground.

  • Of the 51% who were satisfied with their visibility into the cyber crime underground, 39% were still unable to prevent an attack.

  • Additional training and proficiency in cyber crime intelligence investigations is the most needed capability.

https://www.msspalert.com/cybersecurity-research/cybercrime-underground-more-dangerous-than-organizations-realize-threat-intelligence-firm-warns/

  • New Ransomware Group BianLian Activity Exploding

A new ransomware group operating under the name BianLian emerged in late 2021 and has become increasingly active since.

The threat actor already has twenty alleged victims across several industries (insurance, medicine, law and engineering), according to a research paper from US cyber security firm Redacted, published on September 1, 2022. The majority of the victim organisations have been based in Australia, North America and the UK.

The research team has given no attribution yet but believes the threat actor “represents a group of individuals who are very skilled in network penetration but are relatively new to the extortion/ransomware business.”

BianLian uses a custom toolkit, including homemade encryptors and encryption backdoors. Both, as well as the command-and-control (C&C) software the hackers use, are written in Go, an increasingly popular programming language among ransomware threat actors.

Troublingly, the Redacted team of researchers has found evidence that BianLian is likely now trying to up their game.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/new-ransomware-group-bianlian/

  • Can Your Passwords Withstand Threat Actors’ Dirty Tricks?

Password security hinges on the answer to that seemingly simple question. Unfortunately, you can’t know the answer until you’ve engaged a ruthless penetration tester to find out if your environment can stand up to the frighteningly good password cracking skills of today’s most nefarious hackers.

The whole purpose of hiring skilled penetration testers (“pentesters”) is to find out if your environment is truly impenetrable — and if it’s not, exactly how you should shore up your defences. Good pentesters and red teamers spend their time trying to simulate and emulate the real bad actors. After all, what’s the point of pressure-testing your IT infrastructure if you don’t use the same pressure that you’ll face in the real world?

You should “train like you fight.” Without sparring, how can you expect to jump into a boxing ring and go a few rounds with a skilled boxer? That’s the entire point of goal-based penetration testing and red/purple team engagements that simulate real-world threat actors.

Password cracking will continue to evolve – and so should your penetration testing tactics and plans. By the time you get to your fourth or fifth round with a quality pentesting consultancy, your risk mitigation will have dramatically improved — which means you’ll be able to move on to the next stage of security maturity.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/08/30/stand-up-to-password-cracking/

  • Ransomware Gangs’ Favourite Targets

Barracuda released its fourth-annual threat research report which looks at ransomware attack patterns that occurred between August 2021 and July 2022.

For the 106 highly publicised attacks our researchers analysed, the dominant targets are still five key industries: education (15%), municipalities (12%), healthcare (12%), infrastructure (8%), and financial (6%). The number of ransomware attacks increased year-over-year across each of these five industry verticals, and attacks against other industries more than doubled compared to last year’s report.

While attacks on municipalities increased only slightly, the analysis over the past 12 months showed that ransomware attacks on educational institutions more than doubled, and attacks on the healthcare and financial verticals tripled. Many choose not to disclose when they get hit.

This year, researchers dug in deeper on these highly publicised attacks to see which other industries are starting to be targeted. Service providers were hit the most, and ransomware attacks on automobile, hospitality, media, retail, software, and technology organisations all increased as well.

Most ransomware attacks don’t make headlines, though. Many victims choose not to disclose when they get hit, and the attacks are often sophisticated and extremely hard to handle for small businesses.

As ransomware and other cyber threats continue to evolve, the need for adequate security solutions has never been greater. Many cyber criminals target small businesses in an attempt to gain access to larger organisations. As a result, it is essential for security providers to create products that are easy to use and implement, regardless of a company’s size.

Additionally, sophisticated security technologies should be available as services, so that businesses of all sizes can protect themselves against these ever-changing threats. By making security solutions more accessible and user-friendly, the entire industry can help to better defend against ransomware and other cyber attacks.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/08/31/ransomware-attack-patterns/

  • Tentacles of ‘0ktapus’ Threat Group Victimise 130 Firms

Over 130 companies were tangled in sprawling phishing campaign that spoofed a multi-factor authentication system.

Targeted attacks on Twilio and Cloudflare employees are tied to a massive phishing campaign that resulted in 9,931 accounts at over 130 organisations being compromised. The campaigns are tied to focused abuse of identity and access management firm Okta, which gained the threat actors the 0ktapus moniker, by researchers.

The primary goal of the threat actors was to obtain Okta identity credentials and multi-factor authentication (MFA) codes from users of the targeted organisations. These users received text messages containing links to phishing sites that mimicked the Okta authentication page of their organisation.

114 US-based firms were impacted, with additional victims of sprinkled across 68 additional countries. The full scope of the attack is still unknown but the 0ktapus campaign has been incredibly effective, and the full scale of it may not be known for some time.

The 0ktapus attackers are believed to have begun their campaign by targeting telecommunications companies in hopes of winning access to potential targets’ phone numbers.

While unsure exactly how threat actors obtained a list of phone numbers used in MFA-related attacks, one theory researchers posit is that 0ktapus attackers began their campaign targeting telecommunications companies.

https://threatpost.com/0ktapus-victimize-130-firms/180487/

  • Organisations Are Spending Billions on Malware Defence That’s Easy to Bypass

Last year, organisations spent $2 billion on products that provide Endpoint Detection and Response, a relatively new type of security protection for detecting and blocking malware targeting network-connected devices. EDRs, as they're commonly called, represent a newer approach to malware detection. Static analysis, one of two more traditional methods, searches for suspicious signs in the DNA of a file itself. Dynamic analysis, the other more established method, runs untrusted code inside a secured "sandbox" to analyse what it does to confirm it's safe before allowing it to have full system access.

EDRs—which are forecasted to generate revenue of $18 billion by 2031 and are sold by dozens of security companies—take an entirely different approach. Rather than analyse the structure or execution of the code ahead of time, EDRs monitor the code's behaviour as it runs inside a machine or network. In theory, it can shut down a ransomware attack in progress by detecting that a process executed on hundreds of machines in the past 15 minutes is encrypting files en masse. Unlike static and dynamic analyses, EDR is akin to a security guard that uses machine learning to keep tabs in real time on the activities inside a machine or network.

Despite the buzz surrounding EDRs, new research suggests that the protection they provide isn't all that hard for skilled malware developers to circumvent. In fact, the researchers behind the study estimate EDR evasion adds only one additional week of development time to the typical infection of a large organisational network. That's because two fairly basic bypass techniques, particularly when combined, appear to work on most EDRs available in the industry.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/08/newfangled-edr-malware-detection-generates-billions-but-is-easy-to-bypass/


Threats

Ransomware

BEC – Business Email Compromise

Malware

Mobile

Internet of Things – IoT

Data Breaches/Leaks

Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking/NFTs/Blockchain

Insider Risk and Insider Threats

Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime

Insurance

Dark Web

Supply Chain and Third Parties

Software Supply Chain

Denial of Service DoS/DDoS

Cloud/SaaS

Encryption

API

Open Source

Passwords, Credential Stuffing & Brute Force Attacks

Social Media

Training, Education and Awareness

Privacy

Travel

Parental Controls and Child Safety

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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