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Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 27 May 2022
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 27 May 2022
-How Confident Are Companies in Managing Their Current Threat Exposure?
-'There's No Ceiling': Ransomware's Alarming Growth Signals a New Era, Verizon DBIR Finds
-Paying Ransom Doesn’t Guarantee Data Recovery
-Report: Frequency of Cyber Attacks in 2022 Has Increased by Almost 3M
-New Zoom Flaws Could Let Attackers Hack Victims Just by Sending them a Message
-VMware, Airline Targeted as Ransomware Chaos Reigns
-Crypto Hacks Aren't a Niche Concern; They Impact Wider Society
-State of Cyber Security Report 2022 Names Ransomware and Nation-State Attacks as Biggest Threats
-Vishing (Voice Phishing) Cases Reach All Time High
-DeFi (Decentralised Finance) Is Getting Pummelled by Cyber Criminals
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
How Confident Are Companies In Managing Their Current Threat Exposure?
Crossword Cybersecurity has released a report based on the findings of a survey of over 200 CISOs and senior UK cyber security professionals. The paper reveals companies are more concerned and exposed to cyber threats than ever before, with 61 percent describing themselves as at best only “fairly confident” at managing their current cyber security threat exposure, which should raise some eyebrows around the boardroom.
Respondents also feared their cyber strategy would not keep pace with the rate of tech innovation and changes in the threat landscape. 40 percent of organisations believe their existing cyber strategy will be outdated in two years, and a further 37 percent within three years. Additional investment is needed to address longer term planning, with 44 percent saying they only have sufficient resources in their organisation to focus on the immediate and mid-term cyber threats and tech trends.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/05/26/organizations-cyber-strategy/
'There's No Ceiling': Ransomware's Alarming Growth Signals A New Era, Verizon DBIR Finds
Ransomware has become so efficient, and the underground economy so professional, that traditional monetisation of stolen data may be on its way out.
The past year has seen a staggering acceleration in ransomware incidents, with 25% of all breaches containing a ransomware component.
That's the top-line finding in the 2022 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR), which found that ransomware events in conjunction with breaches ballooned 13% in the past year — last year's report found that just 12% of incidents were ransomware-related. That translates into a rate of increase that's more than the previous five years of growth combined.
The 15th annual DBIR analysed 23,896 security incidents, of which 5,212 were confirmed breaches. About four in five of those were the handiwork of external cyber criminal gangs and threat groups, according to Verizon. And according to Alex Pinto, manager of the Verizon Security Research team, these nefarious types are finding it easier and easier to earn an ill-gotten living with ransomware, making other types of breaches increasingly obsolete.
"Everything in cyber crime has become so commoditised, so much like a business now, and it's just too darn efficient of a methodology for monetising their activity," he tells Dark Reading, noting that with the emergence of ransomware as-a-service (RaaS) and initial-access brokers, it takes very little skill or effort to get into the extortion game.
"Before, you had to get in somehow, look around, and find something worth stealing that would have a reseller on the other end," he explains. "In 2008 when we started the DBIR, it was by and large payment-card data that was stolen. Now, that has fallen precipitously because they can just pay for access someone else established and install rented ransomware, and it's so much simpler to reach the same goal of getting money."
https://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/ransomware-alarming-growth-verizon-dbir
Paying Ransom Doesn’t Guarantee Data Recovery
A Veeam report has found that 72% of organisations had partial or complete attacks on their backup repositories, dramatically impacting the ability to recover data without paying the ransom.
Additionally, 76% of organisations admitted to paying the ransom. But while 52% paid the ransom and were able to recover data, 24% paid the ransom but were still not able to recover data.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/05/24/paying-ransom-recover-data-video/
Report: Frequency Of Cyber Attacks in 2022 Has Increased By Almost 3M
Kaspersky has released a new report revealing a growing number of cyber attacks on small businesses in 2022 so far. Researchers compared the period between January and April 2022 to the same period in 2021, finding increases in the numbers of Trojan-PSW detections, internet attacks and attacks on Remote Desktop Protocol.
In 2022, the number of Trojan-PSW (Password Stealing Ware) detections increased globally by almost a quarter compared to the same period in 2021 一 4,003,323 to 3,029,903. Trojan-PSW is a malware that steals passwords, along with other account information, which then allows attackers to gain access to the company network and steal sensitive information.
Internet attacks grew from 32,500,000 globally in the analysed period of 2021 to almost 35,400,000 in 2022. These can include web pages with redirects to exploits, sites containing exploits and other malicious programs, botnet command & control centres and more.
The number of attacks on Remote Desktop Protocol grew in the U.S. (while dropping slightly globally), going from 47.5 million attacks in the first trimester of 2021 to 51 million in the same period of 2022. With the widespread shift toward remote work, many companies have introduced Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), a technology that enables computers on the same corporate network to be linked together and accessed remotely, even when the employees are at home.
With small business owners typically handling numerous responsibilities at the same time, cyber security is often an afterthought. However, this disregard for IT security is being exploited by cyber criminals. The Kaspersky study sought to assess the threats that pose an increasing danger to entrepreneurs.
New Zoom Flaws Could Let Attackers Hack Victims Just By Sending Them A Message
Popular video conferencing service Zoom has resolved as many as four security vulnerabilities, which could be exploited to compromise another user over chat by sending specially crafted Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) messages and execute malicious code.
With Zoom's chat functionality built on top of the XMPP standard, successful exploitation of the issues could enable an attacker to force a vulnerable client to masquerade a Zoom user, connect to a malicious server, and even download a rogue update, resulting in arbitrary code execution stemming from a downgrade attack.
https://thehackernews.com/2022/05/new-zoom-flaws-could-let-attackers-hack.html
VMware, Airline Targeted As Ransomware Chaos Reigns
Global ransomware incidents target everything from enterprise servers to grounding an airline, with one India-based group even taking a Robin Hood approach to extortion with the "GoodWill" strain.
Ransomware incidents are on the rise and this week proved no exception, with the discovery of a Linux-based ransomware family called Cheerscrypt targeting VMware ESXi servers and an attack on SpiceJet, India’s second largest airline.
Meanwhile, an oddball "GoodWill" variant purports to help the needy.
The Cheerscrypt ransomware variant was uncovered by Trend Micro and relies on the double-extortion scheme to coerce victims to pay the ransom – i.e., stealing data as well and threatening to leak it if victims don’t pay up.
Because of the popularity of ESXi servers for creating and running multiple virtual machines (VMs) in enterprise settings, the Cheerscrypt ransomware could be appealing to malicious actors looking to rapidly distribute ransomware across many devices.
Meanwhile, low-cost carrier SpiceJet faced a ransomware attack this week, causing flight delays of between two and five hours as well as rendering unavailable online booking systems and customer service portals.
While the company’s IT team announced on Twitter that it had successfully prevented the attempted attack before it was able to fully breach all internal systems and take them over, customers and employees are still experiencing the ramifications.
https://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/vmware-airline-targeted-as-ransomware-chaos-reigns
Crypto Hacks Aren't A Niche Concern; They Impact Wider Society
Million-dollar crypto heists are becoming more common as the currency starts to go mainstream; prevention and enforcement haven't kept pace.
The attack against the Ronin Network in March was quickly speculated to be one of the largest cryptocurrency hacks of all time. Approximately $540 million was stolen from the cryptocurrency and NFT games company in a combination of USDC and Etherium, with $400 million of the stolen funds owned by customers playing the game Axie Infinity.
This attack was the latest in a string of thefts perpetrated against crypto and should be a jolt to both the digital asset and cyber security communities to bring the security of cryptocurrencies into line.
The current vogue of large-scale crypto heists goes as far back as the 2014 Mt. Gox hack (another cryptocurrency exchange built around a game, Magic: The Gathering), which went into bankruptcy after losing $460 million of assets.
However, the trend has been gathering pace. In the months leading up to the Ronin Network attack, cyber criminals stole nearly $200 million worth of cryptocurrency from the crypto trading platform BitMart, attacked 400 Crypto.com users, and orchestrated NFT-related scams, to name but a few incidents.
There is often an uncomfortable tendency to see these attacks as something that takes place in isolation in a remote part of the Internet when they actually have a huge impact on thousands of people.
State Of Cyber Security Report 2022 Names Ransomware And Nation-State Attacks As Biggest Threats
Ransomware is the biggest concern for cyber security professionals, according to results of the Infosecurity Group’s 2022 State of Cybersecurity Report, produced by Infosecurity Europe and Infosecurity Magazine.
Cyber Security Professionals' Number One Concern: Ransomware.
This attack vector was voted as the biggest cyber security trend (28%) by the survey respondents (including CISOs, CTOs, CIOs and academics), marking a significant change from the previous report in 2020, where ransomware did not break the top three. This follows surging ransomware incidents in 2021, with ransom demands and payments growing significantly last year. A number of these attacks have also impacted critical industries, for example, taking down the US’ largest fuel pipeline.
The survey respondents also highlighted the evolving tactics and capabilities of ransomware attackers. This includes threat actors becoming more sophisticated as they evolve into loosely coupled service-based operations.
A number of cyber security professionals believe that cyber-criminal groups will become more guarded in their approach due to new initiatives by governments and law enforcement to tackle these activities.
Cyber Security Professionals' Number Two Concern: Nation-State Attacks.
The second biggest concern for survey respondents was geopolitics/nation-state attacks (24%), particularly the shifting hostilities from the Russia-Ukraine conflict into cyberspace. Russia already had a reputation for conducting offensive cyber operations prior to the conflict, and the Ukrainian government and critical services have experienced numerous attacks both before and since the war began.
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/2022-state-industry-report/
Vishing (Voice Phishing) Cases Reach All Time High
Vishing (voice phishing) cases have increased almost 550 percent over the last twelve months (Q1 2021 to Q1 2022), according to the latest Quarterly Threat Trends & Intelligence Report from Agari and PhishLabs.
In Q1 2022, Agari and PhishLabs detected and mitigated hundreds of thousands of phishing, social media, email, and dark web threats targeting a broad range of enterprises and brands. The report provides an analysis of the latest findings and insights into key trends shaping the threat landscape.
According to the findings, vishing attacks have overtaken business email compromise (BEC) as the second most reported response-based email threat since Q3 2021. By the end of the year, more than one in four of every reported response-based threat was a vishing attack, and this makeup continued through Q1 2022.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/05/24/vishing-cases-increased/
DeFi (Decentralised Finance) Is Getting Pummelled By Cyber Criminals
Decentralised finance lost $1.8 billion to cyber attacks last year — and 80% of those events were the result of vulnerable code, analysts say.
Decentralised finance (DeFi) platforms — which connect various cryptocurrency blockchains to create a decentralised infrastructure for borrowing, trading, and other transactions — promise to replace banks as a secure and convenient way to invest in and spend cryptocurrency. But in addition to attracting hordes of new users with dreams of digital fortune, cyber criminals have discovered them to be an easy target, wiping out wallets to zero balances in a moment, tanking whole markets while profiting, and more, according to a new report.
Analysts with Bishop Fox found that DeFi platforms lost $1.8 billion to cyber attacks in 2021 alone. With a total of 65 events observed, 90% of the losses came from unsophisticated attacks, according to the report, which points to the lax cyber security practices of the sector.
DeFi averaged five attacks per week last year, with most of them (51%) coming from the exploitation of "smart contracts" bugs, the analysts found. Smart contracts are essentially records of transactions, stored on the blockchain.
Other top DeFi attack vectors include cryptowallets, protocol design flaws, and so-called "rug-pull" scams (where investors are lured to a new cryptocurrency project that is then abandoned, leaving targets with a worthless currency). But taken together, 80% of all events were caused by the use (and re-use) of buggy code, according to the report.
https://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/defi-pummeled-by-cybercriminals
Threats
Ransomware
Ransomware Attacks Increasing at “Alarming” Rate - Infosecurity Magazine
VMware, Airline Targeted as Ransomware Chaos Reigns (darkreading.com)
Clop ransomware gang is back, hits 21 victims in a single month (bleepingcomputer.com)
Link Found Connecting Chaos, Onyx and Yashma Ransomware | Threatpost
Ransomware demands three good demands to restore files • The Register
Ransomware Cheerscrypt targets VMware ESXi systems • The Register
New Chaos Malware Variant Ditches Wiper for Encryption (darkreading.com)
Industrial Spy data extortion market gets into the ransomware game (bleepingcomputer.com)
BlackCat/ALPHV ransomware asks $5 million to unlock Austrian state (bleepingcomputer.com)
Conti Ransomware Operation Shut Down After Splitting into Smaller Groups (thehackernews.com)
Suspected phishing email crime boss arrested in Nigeria • The Register
BEC – Business Email Compromise
Interpol arrests alleged leader of the SilverTerrier BEC gang (bleepingcomputer.com)
Cyber security breach at the city of Portland led to fraudulent $1.4M transaction | KATU
Phishing & Email Based Attacks
Intuit warns of QuickBooks phishing threatening to suspend accounts (bleepingcomputer.com)
Suspected phishing email crime boss arrested in Nigeria • The Register
Other Social Engineering
Malware
BPFDoor malware uses Solaris vulnerability to get root privileges (bleepingcomputer.com)
New Windows Subsystem for Linux malware steals browser auth cookies (bleepingcomputer.com)
This Windows malware uses PowerShell to subvert Chrome • The Register
Hackers have found a new way to smuggle malware onto your device | TechRadar
Cyber Security Community Warned of Fake PoC Exploits Delivering Malware | SecurityWeek.Com
Popular Python and PHP libraries hijacked to steal AWS keys (bleepingcomputer.com)
New Attack Shows Weaponized PDF Files Remain a Threat (darkreading.com)
Mobile
Microsoft finds severe bugs in Android apps from large mobile providers (bleepingcomputer.com)
Google warns Android smartphones targeted by dangerous Predator spyware | TechRadar
New ERMAC 2.0 Android malware steals accounts, wallets from 467 apps (bleepingcomputer.com)
BYOD
Data Breaches/Leaks
GM Discloses Data Breach of Cars' Locations, Mileage, Service (gizmodo.com)
MGM Resorts' customer data now leaked on Telegram for free • The Register
Organised Crime & Criminal Actors
REvil prosecutions reach a 'dead end,' Russian media reports - CyberScoop
Scammer Behind $568M International Cyber Crime Syndicate Gets 4 Years (darkreading.com)
Multi-Continental Operation Leads to Arrest of Cyber Crime Gang Leader - Infosecurity Magazine
Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking/NFTs
Insider Risk and Insider Threats
68% of Legal Sector Data Breaches Caused by Insider Threats - Infosecurity Magazine
Verizon Report: Ransomware, Human Error Among Top Security Risks | Threatpost
Dark Web
Military cyber weapons could become available on dark web: Interpol (cnbc.com)
Darknet market Versus shuts down after hacker leaks security flaw (bleepingcomputer.com)
Supply Chain and Third Parties
Denial of Service DoS/DDoS
Cybergang Claims REvil is Back, Executes DDoS Attacks | Threatpost
DDoS Extortion Attack Flagged as Possible REvil Resurgence (darkreading.com)
Anatomy of a DDoS amplification attack - Microsoft Security Blog
Cloud/SaaS
Attack Surface Management
Open Source
Privacy
Passwords & Credential Stuffing
Strong Password Policy Isn't Enough, Study Shows (darkreading.com)
Verizon DBIR: Stolen credentials led to nearly 50% of attacks (techtarget.com)
Regulations, Fines and Legislation
GDPR Anniversary, Expert Insight On What Lead To GDPR Fines – Information Security Buzz
Indian stock markets given ten day deadline to file reports • The Register
Spyware, Espionage & Cyber Warfare, including Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Network of hyperlocal Russian Telegram channels spew disinformation in occupied Ukraine - CyberScoop
Predator spyware uses in Chrome, Android zero-day exploits • The Register
Unknown APT group is targeting Russian government entities - Security Affairs
Hackers target Russian govt with fake Windows updates pushing RATs (bleepingcomputer.com)
Remote bricking of Ukrainian tractors raises agriculture security concerns | CSO Online
Anonymous Declares Cyber-War On Pro-Russian Hacker Gang Killnet – Information Security Buzz
Ex-spymaster and fellow Brexiteers' emails stolen, leaked • The Register
Nation State Actors
Nation State Actors – Russia
Russian Hackers Believed to Be Behind Leak of Hard Brexit Plans - Infosecurity Magazine
Russian Gamaredon APT could fuel a new round of DDoS attacks - Security Affairs
Putin aimed cyber attack at me, says former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove | News | The Times
Nation State Actors – China
Trend Micro Patches Vulnerability Exploited by Chinese Cyber Spies | SecurityWeek.Com
Chinese "Twisted Panda" Hackers Caught Spying on Russian Defense Institutes (thehackernews.com)
Nation State Actors – Iran
Vulnerabilities
CISA ‘Strongly Urges’ You To Patch 75 Actively Exploited Security Bugs (forbes.com)
CISA adds 41 vulnerabilities to list of bugs used in cyber attacks (bleepingcomputer.com)
Exploit released for critical VMware auth bypass bug, patch now (bleepingcomputer.com)
Zyxel addresses four flaws affecting APs, AP controllers, and firewalls - Security Affairs
Critical New Google Chrome Security Warning For All Users, Update Now (forbes.com)
Patching the latest Active Directory vulnerabilities is not enough | CSO Online
Microsoft Elevation-of-Privilege Vulnerabilities Spiked Again in 2021 (darkreading.com)
Sector Specific
SMBs – Small and Medium Businesses
Legal
Health/Medical/Pharma Sector
teiss - News - American healthcare tech giant Omnicell suffers a major ransomware attack
Web app attacks on the rise in healthcare as insider challenges remain (scmagazine.com)
Retail/eCommerce
Microsoft: Credit card stealers are getting much stealthier (bleepingcomputer.com)
Microsoft warns of new highly evasive web skimming campaigns - Security Affairs
Transport and Aviation
Hundreds Stranded After Ransomware Attack on Indian Airline | SecurityWeek.Com
SpiceJet airline passengers stranded after ransomware attack (bleepingcomputer.com)
CNI, OT, ICS, IIoT and SCADA
Taking the Danger Out of IT/OT Convergence (darkreading.com)
Critical Flaws in Popular ICS Platform Can Trigger RCE | Threatpost
Energy & Utilities
Oil, Gas and Mining
Education and Academia
Other News
IP and cyber security disputes are top legal concerns for tech companies | TechCrunch
Verizon DBIR: Stolen credentials led to nearly 50% of attacks (techtarget.com)
Managed Detection and Response (MDR): Who's Responsible for the R? - MSSP Alert
Survey Evidences Leaders Lack Confidence in Cyber-Risk Management - Infosecurity Magazine
Flaw in PayPal can allow attackers to steal money from users' account - Security Affairs
Most organisations do not follow data backup best practices - Help Net Security
Why are current cyber security incident response efforts failing? - Help Net Security
Nation-state malware will be a commodity on dark web soon, Interpol warns - Security Affairs
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.
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Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 13 May 2022
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 13 May 2022
-UK, US Intelligence Agencies Warn Managed Service Providers, including External IT Providers, Are Now Prime Targets for Cyber Attacks
-Wannacry – 5 Years On, 68% Of Enterprises Are Still At Risk
-You Can’t Eliminate Cyber Attacks, So Focus on Reducing the Blast Radius
-Just In Time? Bosses Are Finally Waking Up to The Cyber Security Threat
-Most Organisations Hit by Ransomware Would Pay Up If Hit Again
-31,000 FTSE 100 Logins Found on Dark Web
-Ransomware: How Executives Should Prepare Given the Current Threat Landscape
-What Your Cyber Insurance Application Form Can Tell You About Ransomware Readiness
-NCSC Shut Down 2.7 Million Scams in 2021
-Top 6 Security Threats Targeting Remote Workers
-Password Reuse Is Rampant Among Employees in All Sectors
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
UK, US Intelligence Agencies Warn Managed Service Providers, including External IT Providers, Are Now Prime Targets for Cyber Attacks
The Five Eyes coalition of international cyber security authorities, this week issued an advisory to warn managed service providers (MSPs), including external IT providers, of an escalating threat of attack from both everyday cyber criminals and state-sponsored threat actors.
MSPs provide or operate information and communications technology services.
With input from cyber security leaders from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US, the NSA provided recommendations to help bolster their cyber defences, including:
Finding and disabling dormant accounts.
Implementing and enforcing multifactor authentication on accounts.
Ensuring contracts clearly map out who owns and is responsible for securing data.
Malicious actors are targeting MSPs to break into their customers' networks and deploy ransomware, steal data, and spy on them, the Five Eyes authorities have formally warned in a joint security alert.
"The UK, Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, and US cyber security authorities expect malicious cyber actors — including state-sponsored advanced persistent threat (APT) groups — to step up their targeting of MSPs in their efforts to exploit provider-customer network trust relationships," the alert warned.
These types of supply-chain or "island-hopping" attacks can prove very lucrative for cyber criminals because once they break into an MSP, they gain access to all of the customers' networks and data being managed, and in turn commit computer crimes and fraud against those customers' customers.
Wannacry – 5 Years On, 68% Of Enterprises Are Still at Risk
5 years on from one of the world’s most damaging ransomware attacks, research from network detection and response leader ExtraHop has found that 68% of enterprises are still running insecure protocol that were exploited by the North Korean ransomware.
The events of 12 May 2017 live on in cyber security lore. WannaCry revealed just how extensive the damage caused by ransomware can be if deployed in large scale – from downtime to ransom paid to reputational damage. Yet despite the danger, huge numbers of organisations are still running SMBv1, the protocol exploited in the WannaCry attacks that has been publicly deprecated since 2014.
You Can’t Eliminate Cyber Attacks, So Focus on Reducing the Blast Radius
Given it is impossible to prevent all cyber attacks, many organisations should look to reduce the size of the company’s attack surface and the limit the “blast radius” of a potential attack.
There is a danger that the biggest risk concerning cyber attacks is that we’re becoming desensitised to them. After all, businesses experience a ransomware attack every 11 seconds—the majority of which the public never hears about. Faced with this reality, it may seem like efforts to safeguard the enterprise are futile. But that’s all the more reason to strengthen your resolve—and switch up your cyber defence strategy.
The core of this strategy should be the concept of “reducing the blast radius” of an attack, and since you can’t completely eliminate cyber attacks, you need to take steps to contain the impact.
This strategy should contain basic blocking and also consider things such as Zero Trust for remote access, traffic inspection, software-based micro-segmentation and other practical measures to reduce your attack surface.
https://threatpost.com/cyberattacks-blast-radius/179612/
Just In Time? Bosses Are Finally Waking Up to The Cyber Security Threat
Boardrooms have a reputation for not paying much attention to cyber security, but it could be that executives are finally keen to take more interest in securing the systems and networks their businesses rely on.
Senior figures from American, British and Australian cyber security agencies have said that business execs are now more aware of cyber threats and are actively engaging with their chief information security officer (CISO) and information security teams.
Chief execs are starting to ask their CISOs the right questions, rather than leaving them to it because they don't have to understand complex technology. It does feel like a much more engaging strategic conversation, but there can still be a disconnect between knowing what needs to happen, then actually budgeting for and implementing a cyber security strategy.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/just-in-time-bosses-are-finally-waking-up-to-the-cybersecurity-threat/
Most Organisations Hit by Ransomware Would Pay Up If Hit Again
Almost nine in 10 organisations that have suffered a ransomware attack would choose to pay the ransom if hit again, according to a new report, compared with two-thirds of those that have not experienced an attack.
The findings come from a report titled "How business executives perceive ransomware threat" by security company Kaspersky, which states that ransomware has become an ever-present threat, with 64 percent of companies surveyed already having suffered an attack, but more worryingly, that executives seem to believe that paying the ransom is a reliable way of addressing the issue.
The report is based on research involving 900 respondents across North America, South America, Africa, Russia, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. The respondents were in senior non-IT management roles at companies between 50 and 1,000 employees.
Kaspersky claims that in 88 percent of organisations that have had to deal with a ransomware incident, business leaders said they would choose to pay the money if faced with another attack. In contrast, among those that have not so far suffered a ransomware attack, only 67 percent would be willing to pay, and they would be less inclined to do so immediately.
https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/13/organizations_pay_ransomware/
31,000 FTSE 100 Logins Found on Dark Web
Researchers with Outpost24 are reporting over 31,000 corporate credentials for many of the UK’s leading FTSE 100 firms on the dark web. These are the 100 biggest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange by market capitalisation. The researchers used their threat monitoring and auditing tool Blueliv to search dark web sites for the breached credentials.
Key findings from stolen and leaked credentials study:
The majority (81%) of the companies within the FTSE 100 had at least one credential compromised and exposed on the dark web
31,135 total stolen and leaked credentials detected for FTSE 100 companies, with 38% disclosed on the underground in the past 12 months
Nearly half (42%) of FTSE 100 companies have more than 500 compromised credentials exposed on the dark web
Up to 20% of credentials are stolen via malware infection and stealers
11% disclosed in the last 3 months (21% in the last 6 months and over 68% have been exposed for over 12 months)
Over 60% of stolen credentials came from 3 industries – IT/Telecom (23%), Energy and Utility (22%) and Finance (21%)
IT/Telecoms industry is the most at risk with the highest total amount (7,303) and average stolen credentials per company (730), they are most affected by malware infection and have the most amount of stolen credentials disclosed in the last 3 months
On average, healthcare has the highest number of stolen credentials per company (485) from data breach as they found themselves increasingly in the cyber criminals’ crosshairs since the pandemic.
https://informationsecuritybuzz.com/expert-comments/31000-ftse-100-logins-found-on-dark-web/
Ransomware: How Executives Should Prepare Given the Current Threat Landscape
As the number of ransomware attacks continue to increase, the response at C-level must be swift and decisive.
Top executives are increasingly dreading the phone call from their fellow employee notifying them that their company has been hit by a cyber attack. Nearly every week in 2021 and early 2022, a prominent organisation has been in the media spotlight as their public relations team struggles to explain how they were attacked and how they can regain consumer confidence. A recent survey showed that 37 percent of organisations surveyed had been affected by ransomware attacks in the last year.
Worse, the days when executive leadership teams could fully delegate responsibility to a CISO are over. Regardless of reality, surveys have shown that about 40 percent of the public perception of fault for a ransomware attack lands squarely on the CEO’s shoulders, and that 36 percent of attacks result in the loss of C-level talent. While executive involvement in the security program does not guarantee a successful defence, it does give the executive leadership team (ELT) a degree of ownership of the final product, as well as the ability to speak confidently and knowledgeably to the public.
What Your Cyber Insurance Application Form Can Tell You About Ransomware Readiness
The annual cyber insurance application form shows what the carriers think you should be doing to best prevent and recover from ransomware attacks. Pay attention.
If it’s the time of year for you to fill out the annual cyber insurance policy application, you will see how the focus for insurance firms is changing. Each year you can get an insight into what insurance vendors are using to rate the risks and threats to your business and what they are stressing firms should have in place as best practice or what they are expecting you should have in place as a baseline set of controls. Not having them in place could affect insurance rates, whether you are able to get cyber coverage at all, or crucially whether they would pay out in the event of you having to make a claim.
This year you might find more questions specifically around ransomware prevention techniques and protections, from Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) to Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), and email filtering protections to the robustness of your backups.
Make sure to review your cyber insurance policy and its related questionnaire. And ask whether you are doing everything you can to protect your firm and tailoring your actions to align with what your insurance provider has deemed as a best practice.
NCSC Shut Down 2.7 Million Scams in 2021
The UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) removed 2.7 million online scams last year, it was revealed this week, four times as many scams compared to 2020.
The announcement comes as the security agency shared the most recent data from its Active Cyber Defence initiative at the CYBERUK summit earlier in the week.
According to the NCSC, neutralised scams included fake celebrity endorsements and spoof extortion emails.
It has also been revealed that fraud campaigns used common themes, with NHS vaccines and vaccine passports being particularly popular.
Some cyber criminals even posed as NCSC CEO Lindy Cameron – victims received an email claiming the NCSC had prevented £5m of their money from being stolen, and were urged to supply personal information to retrieve the funds.
https://www.itsecurityguru.org/2022/05/10/ncsc-shut-down-2-7-million-scams-in-2021/
Security Threats Targeting Remote Workers
Remote work offers great benefits, like reduced commute time, increased freedom, and more time to spend with loved ones. But there can be security downsides if sufficient controls are not in place to protect remote workers against the digital threats that come with working via unsecured connections.
Being on a home network lacks the layered network security of the company environment. Remote work itself is not new, but the dramatic shift to working from home over the past two years means there are more security-naive people who are not in the office.
Not all security threats are the fault of technology. Much of it also comes from human error.
Remote work greatly exacerbates human-activated risk, and people are working in more distracting environments where they may have to answer the door for deliveries or might multitask with household chores. That means mistakes are more likely to happen, like sending an email to the wrong recipient or falling for a malicious email attack.
Recent research by Egress found that 77% of IT leaders said they have seen an increase in security compromises since going remote two years ago.
https://www.darkreading.com/endpoint/top-6-security-threats-targeting-remote-workers
Password Reuse Is Rampant Among Employees in All Sectors
SpyCloud published an annual analysis of identity exposure among employees of Fortune 1000 companies in key sectors such as technology, finance, retail and telecommunications.
Drawing on a database of over 200 billion recaptured assets, researchers identified over 687 million exposed credentials and PII tied to Fortune 1000 employees, a 26% increase from last year’s analysis.
Analysis of this data showed a 64% password reuse rate, widespread use of easy-to-guess passwords, and a spike in malware-infected devices –– all sources of cyber risk for both employers and consumers who rely on businesses to safeguard their personal data. With remote work blurring the lines between work and personal device use, a larger attack surface compounds the risk of cyber attacks proliferating beyond compromised employee and consumer identities to penetrate corporate networks.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/05/11/fortune-1000-identity-exposure/
Threats
Ransomware
Costa Rica Shows the Damage Ransomware Can Do to a Country - The Washington Post
Ransomware Works Fast, You Need to Be Faster To Counter It - Help Net Security
A Closer Look At Today’s Ransomware Attack Landscape - MSSP Alert
Ransomware Is a National Security Threat, So Please Tell Us About Attacks, Says Government | ZDNet
5 Years That Altered the Ransomware Landscape (darkreading.com)
Colonial Pipeline Faces Nearly $1m Fine After Ransomware • The Register
These Ransomware Attackers Sent Their Ransom Note to The Victim's Printer | ZDNet
New Malware Samples Indicate Return of REvil Ransomware | SecurityWeek.Com
How to Avoid Falling Victim to PayOrGrief's Next Rebrand (darkreading.com)
Examining the Black Basta Ransomware’s Infection Routine (trendmicro.com)
Phishing & Email Based Attacks
Novel Phishing Trick Uses Weird Links to Bypass Spam Filters | Threatpost
New Email Security Tool Launched to Help Organisations Check Their Defences - NCSC.GOV.UK
Malware
Novel ‘Nerbian’ Trojan Uses Advanced Anti-Detection Tricks | Threatpost
Low-rent Remote Access Trojan (RAT) Worries Researchers | Threatpost
Eternity Malware Kit Offers Stealer, Miner, Worm, Ransomware Tools (bleepingcomputer.com)
It costs $7 to Rent DCRat Malware to Backdoor Your Network • The Register
Shopping For Malware: $260 Gets You a Password Stealer... • The Register
Microsoft: Sysrv Botnet Targets Windows, Linux Servers with New Exploits (bleepingcomputer.com)
Google Drive Emerges as Top App For Malware Downloads - Help Net Security
Stealthy Linux Implant BPFdoor Compromised Organizations Globally For Years | CSO Online
Malware Attacks Getting More Regional, Claims Netskope • The Register
5-Buck DCRat Malware Foretells a Worrying Cyber Future (darkreading.com)
Threat Actors Use Telegram to Spread ‘Eternity’ Malware-as-a-Service | Threatpost
German Automakers Targeted in Year-Long Malware Campaign (bleepingcomputer.com)
Data Breaches/Leaks
PII Of 21M SuperVPN, GeckoVPN Users Leaked On Telegram - Information Security Buzz
Victims of Horizon Actuarial Data Breach Exceed 1M (techtarget.com)
Organised Crime & Criminal Actors
Crypto Robber Who Lured Victims Via Snapchat and Stole £34,000 Jailed (bleepingcomputer.com)
Crook Jailed for Selling Stolen Credentials On Dark Web • The Register
US Agrees to International Electronic Cyber Crime Evidence Swap (darkreading.com)
Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking/NFTs
NFTs Emerge as the Next Enterprise Attack Vector (darkreading.com)
Fake Binance NFT Mystery Box Bots Steal Victim's Crypto Wallets (bleepingcomputer.com)
Possible $1 Billion Crypto Ponzi Scheme Probed by Tax Investigators - Bloomberg
Insider Risk and Insider Threats
Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime
How Can Your Business Defend Itself Against Fraud-as-a-Service? (darkreading.com)
Scammers Impersonate Britain’s Top Cyber Crime Chief in Fake £5m Heist (telegraph.co.uk)
Caramel Credit Card Stealing Service Is Growing in Popularity (bleepingcomputer.com)
Hackers Are Exploiting WordPress Themes, Plugins to Hawk Scams (gizmodo.com)
Thousands of WordPress Sites Hacked to Redirect Visitors to Scam Sites (thehackernews.com)
Insurance
Multi-Factor Authentication: A Key to Cyber Risk Insurance Coverage (tripwire.com)
How Cyber Liability Insurance Can Help Protect Your Business Reputation - MSSP Alert
Supply Chain and Third Parties
Denial of Service DoS/DDoS
Cloud
Open Source
Travel
Parental Controls and Child Safety
Cyber Bullying and Cyber Stalking
Regulations, Fines and Legislation
Spyware, Espionage & Cyber Warfare, including Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Wars Start in Cyberspace Well Before Shots Are Fired • The Register
#CYBERUK22: Cyber Trends from the Russia-Ukraine War - Infosecurity Magazine
US Pledges to Help Ukraine Keep the Internet and Lights On (darkreading.com)
Spain’s Spy Chief Sacked Over Pegasus Scandal - Infosecurity Magazine
OpRussia Update: Anonymous Breached Other Organizations - Security Affairs
Pro-Russian Hacktivists Target Italy Government Websites - Security Affairs
Nation State Actors
Nation State Actors – Russia
Russian Hackers Targeting Opponents Of Ukraine Invasion, Warns GCHQ Chief | Hacking | The Guardian
Western Intelligence Blames Russia for Europe-Wide Cyber Attack - Infosecurity Magazine
State Department Says Russian Cyber War Against Ukraine Began in January | The Independent
Ukraine War: Don’t Underestimate Russia Cyber-Threat, Warns US - BBC News
Nation State Actors – China
Experts Uncovered a New Wave Of Attacks Conducted By Mustang Panda - Security Affairs
China-Backed Winnti Hackers Attacked Manufacturers Globally, Cybereason Alleges - MSSP Alert
Nation State Actors – Iran
Vulnerability Management
Vulnerabilities
Critical F5 BIG-IP Vulnerability Exploited to Wipe Devices (bleepingcomputer.com)
Adobe Warns of 'Critical' Security Flaws in Enterprise Products | SecurityWeek.Com
Log4Shell Exploit Threatens Enterprise Data Lakes, AI Poisoning (darkreading.com)
Intel Emits Raft of Firmware Patches For Security Flaws • The Register
Actively Exploited Zero-Day Bug Patched by Microsoft | Threatpost
HP Fixes Bug Letting Attackers Overwrite Firmware in Over 200 Models (bleepingcomputer.com)
Zyxel Fixes Firewall Flaws That Could Lead to Hacked Networks (bleepingcomputer.com)
Microsoft Releases Fixes for Azure Flaw Allowing RCE Attacks (bleepingcomputer.com)
Researchers Find Flaws in Word, PDF Script Handling • The Register
SonicWall Releases Patches for New Flaws Affecting SSLVPN SMA1000 Devices (thehackernews.com)
Microsoft: May Windows Updates Cause AD Authentication Failures (bleepingcomputer.com)
Sector Specific
Health/Medical/Pharma Sector
Ransomware Group Strikes Second US Health Care System in The Last Two Months - CyberScoop
Is That Health App Safe to Use? A New Framework Aims To Provide An Answer - Help Net Security
Manufacturing
German Automakers Targeted in Year-Long Malware Campaign (bleepingcomputer.com)
China-Backed Winnti Hackers Attacked Manufacturers Globally, Cybereason Alleges - MSSP Alert
Education and Academia
Reports Published in the Last Week
Other News
An Offensive Mindset Is Crucial for Effective Cyber Defence - Help Net Security
Zero-Click Attacks Explained, And Why They Are So Dangerous | CSO Online
Britain Must Upgrade Cyber Defences ‘Or Be Hit By 9/11-Style Attack’ (telegraph.co.uk)
Everything We Learned From the LAPSUS$ Attacks (thehackernews.com)
Threat Actors Are Stealing Data Now to Decrypt When Quantum Computing Comes (darkreading.com)
Prepare for What You Wish For: More CISOs on Boards | SecurityWeek.Com
Ready, IAM, Fire: How Weak Identity and Access Management (IAM) Makes You a Target (darkreading.com)
How Privileged Access Management (PAM) Must Evolve - MSSP Alert
Secure Your CMS-Based Websites Against Pervasive Attacks - Help Net Security
Threats To Hardware Security Are Growing - Help Net Security
Government’s “Whole of Society” Cyber Strategy Takes Shape - Infosecurity Magazine
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.
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 29 April 2022
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 29 April 2022
-Ransomware Attacks Surged to New Highs in 2021
-NCSC and Allies Publish Advisory on The Most Commonly Exploited Vulnerabilities In 2021
-Network Attacks Increased to a 3-Year High
-World War Three Is Far More Likely Than Anyone Is Prepared to Admit
-The Ransomware Crisis Deepens, While Data Recovery Stalls
-Ransoms Only Make Up 15% of Ransomware Costs
-Defending Your Business Against Russian Cyber Warfare
-5-Year Vulnerability Trends Are Both Surprising and Sadly Predictable
-Cisco Talos Observes 'Novel Increase' in APT Activity in Q1
-Deepfakes Set to Be Used in Organised Crime
-Smart Contract Developers Not Really Focused on Security. Who Knew?
-Tractor-Trailer Brake Controllers Vulnerable to Remote Hacker Attacks
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
Ransomware Attacks Surged to New Highs in 2021
Ransomware attacks are getting more frequent, more successful and more expensive.
Sixty-six percent of the organisations surveyed by Sophos for its annual State of Ransomware report admitted that they were hit with a ransomware attack last year, up from 37% in 2020. And 65 percent of those attacks were successful in encrypting their victims' data, up from 54 percent the year before.
On top of that, the average ransom paid by organisations for their most significant ransomware attack grew by nearly five times, to just over $800,000, while the number of organisations that paid ransoms of $1 million or more tripled to 11%, the UK-based cybersecurity company said. For its annual report, Sophos surveyed 5,600 organisations from 31 countries. A total of 965 of those polled shared details of their ransomware attacks.
The numbers aren't a huge surprise after a year of epic ransomware attacks that shut down everything from a major oil pipeline to one of the largest meat processors in the US. While both Colonial Pipeline and JBS US Holdings paid millions in ransom, the attacks paused their operations long enough to spark panic buying and drive prices up for consumers.
NCSC and Allies Publish Advisory on The Most Commonly Exploited Vulnerabilities In 2021
The UK and international partners have published an advisory for public and private sector organisations on the 15 most commonly exploited vulnerabilities in 2021.
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), a part of GCHQ, has jointly published an advisory with agencies in the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, showing that malicious cyber actors aggressively targeted newly disclosed critical software vulnerabilities across the public and private sectors worldwide.
Threat actors often geared their efforts towards targeting internet-facing systems, such as email and virtual private network (VPN) servers.
It also indicates that, to a lesser extent, actors continue to exploit publicly known – and often dated – vulnerabilities, some of which were routinely exploited in 2020 or earlier.
The advisory directs organisations to follow specific mitigation advice to protect against exploitation, which includes applying timely patches, using a centralised patch management system and replacing any software no longer supported by the vendor.
Network Attacks Increased to a 3-Year High
WatchGuard Technologies’ Internet Security Report for Q4 2021 revealed all threats were up, whether they’re network attacks or malware.
When the pandemic started, their research team saw a big drop in malware being detected by network security devices. In this period, tech based jobs moved to remote work, which meant a lot of users were no longer browsing the internet and encountering bad things through the network security control at the office. That’s probably why network detection for malware dropped quite a bit at the beginning of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, network attacks continued to rise even through the pandemic, since the servers still lived at the offices and the cloud, and network security still protected those.
The big takeaway in Q4 2021 is that malware rose significantly, returning to normal levels. The reason might be the holiday season, but it’s most probably the fact that, at the end of last year, a lot of tech-based offices started reopening and offering employees to come back in, and thus there’s a bigger chance for network security controls to catch malware.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/04/25/network-attacks-q4-2021-video/
World War Three Is Far More Likely Than Anyone Is Prepared to Admit
A Telegraph article looks at the Russia-Ukraine conflict and considers risks posed by new weapons and how the West’s failure to understand our enemies are raising the chances of a horrific conflict.
The fact is the world is becoming more, rather than less, dangerous: there are plenty of other wannabe Putins, and they are better equipped to sow death and destruction. Not only traditional and nuclear threats but bioterrorism is a growing worry and a major cyber attack or assault on transatlantic cables could be so devastating to an internet-based economy as to be seen as a declaration of war.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/27/world-war-three-far-likely-anyone-prepared-admit/
The Ransomware Crisis Deepens, While Data Recovery Stalls
Higher probabilities of attack, soaring ransoms, and less chance of getting data back — the ransomware plague gets worse, and cyber insurance fails to be a panacea.
When it comes to ransomware, more companies are seeing attacks and have had data encrypted, according to research out this week. And even though more companies are backing up or paying ransom demands, less data was recovered in 2021 compared with the previous year.
For instance, in its "State of Ransomware 2022" report, cybersecurity firm Sophos found that 66% of surveyed companies had encountered ransomware in 2021, with two-thirds of those firms — or 43% overall — suffering from an actual attack that encrypted data. In its previous report covering 2020, the frequency of successful attacks was much smaller, with about 20% overall resulting in encryption.
The deteriorating cyberthreat landscape is largely due to the evolution of ransomware groups and their techniques, says Sean Gallagher, senior threat researcher with Sophos.
"Over the past couple of years, there has been a massive transition from ransomware to ransomware-as-a-service," he says. "There are very well-established [groups] that are doing these attacks, and as a result, the number of attacks companies are seeing has gone up."
Ransomware continues to plague companies with business-disrupting attacks and defy efforts by cybersecurity experts to rein in the operators behind the criminals’ campaigns. Not only did the portion of companies affected by ransomware more than double last year, but the mean ransomware payment more than quadrupled to $812,000, according to the Sophos report.
https://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/ransomware-crisis-deepens-data-recovery-stalls
Ransoms Only Make Up 15% of Ransomware Costs
New research suggests that paying ransoms is only the tip of the cost iceberg when it comes to ransomware attacks.
Researchers at Check Point have revealed that the collateral damage of ransomware attacks make up costs roughly seven times higher than the ransom demanded by threat actors.
The costs include financial implications caused by incident response efforts, system restoration, legal fees, monitoring costs and the overall impact of business disruption.
Ransomware attacks are an increasingly popular attack method, typically involving stealing data from the victim, encrypting data and forcing them to pay for decryption and avoiding a data leak.
Check Point said in the report:
“Most other losses, including response and restoration costs, legal fees, monitoring costs, etc., are applied whether the extortion demand was paid or not. The year 2020 showed that the average total cost of a ransomware attack was more than seven times higher than the average ransom paid.”
https://www.itsecurityguru.org/2022/04/28/ransoms-only-make-up-15-of-ransomware-costs/
Defending Your Business Against Russian Cyber Warfare
We are likely to see Russian state sponsored attacks escalate as the West continues to increase sanctions and support Ukraine.
The eyes of the world are focused on the war in Ukraine. As expected, Russia has targeted Ukraine with cyber attacks first, and much of the West is wondering when Russia will also retaliate against countries supporting Ukraine. Most agree that some attacks are already in progress, and the attacks against western entities are sure to escalate as the war continues and more sanctions are put in place.
The first wave of companies targeted by the Russian state, and threat actors it supports, will be those that suspend Russian operations or take direct action to support Ukraine. Information operations and subversion against these companies will likely ensue. In the event of Russian cyberwarfare, reviewing the industries, styles, and objectives of their attacks can help organisations to prepare and implement more robust defences. These defences include actions both inside and outside an enterprise's perimeter.
https://www.securityweek.com/defending-your-business-against-russian-cyberwarfare
5-Year Vulnerability Trends Are Both Surprising and Sadly Predictable
What 5,800+ pentests show us: Companies have been struggling with the same known and preventable security bugs year over year. Bandwidth stands at the heart of the problem.
Cyber crime can cause major disruption when it comes to the sustainability and long-term success of companies. Teams want to have robust security but often struggle to meet that objective. It's crucial for security professionals to leverage insights into emerging trends in cybersecurity to pinpoint which vulnerabilities put organisations at the greatest risk, and Cobalt's "State of Pentesting" reports explore how to achieve efficiency to strengthen security.
The "State of Pentesting 2022" surveyed 602 cybersecurity and software development professionals and analysed data from 2,380 pentests conducted over the course of 2021 to pull key insights that are relevant to security and development teams when it comes to fixing vulnerabilities.
As a result of the data collected, the top five most common vulnerability categories outlined in this year's "State of Pentesting" report include:
· Server Security Misconfigurations
· Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
· Broken Access Control
· Sensitive Data Exposure
· Authentication and Sessions
Surprisingly — yet predictably — these vulnerability categories have stayed at the top of the list for at least the last five years in a row. They're also recognisable to those who are familiar with OWASP Top 10 list for Web Application Security Risks.
The majority of these findings are connected to missing configurations, outdated software, and a lack of access management controls — all common and easily preventable security flaws. So, what's holding companies back from preventing well-known security flaws? Why does this come as a surprise?
Cisco Talos Observes 'Novel Increase' in APT Activity in Q1
Advanced persistent threat actors have been busy over the past few months, according to Cisco Talos.
The security vendor released its Quarterly Trends report, which examined incident response trends from engagements in the first quarter of 2022. While ransomware remained the top threat, as it has for the past two years now, Cisco observed a new trend of increased APT activity. The Cisco Talos Incident Response (CTIR) team attributed some of the increase to groups like Iranian state-sponsored Muddywater and China-based Mustang Panda.
One suspected Chinese APT, dubbed "Deep Panda," was connected to exploitation of the Log4j flaw that was discovered last year in the widely used Java logging tool. Log4j exploitation was the second most common threat for Q1 behind ransomware, indicating the bug is a growing threat despite a patch being available.
Deepfakes Set to Be Used in Organised Crime
New research from Europol suggests that deepfakes will be used extensively in organised crime operations.
Europol has warned of a projected rise in the use of deepfake technology by organised crime organisations.
Deepfakes involve the use of artificial intelligence to create realistic audio and audio-visual content “that convincingly shows people saying or doing things they never did, or create personas that never existed in the first place.”
Law enforcement and the challenge of deepfakes is the first published analysis of the Europol Innovation Lab’s Observatory function, warning that law enforcement agencies must rapidly improve skills and technologies utilised by officers in order to keep up with criminal deepfake use.
The analysis report highlighted how deepfakes are used primarily in disinformation, non-consensual pornography and document fraud campaigns, which will grow more realistic in years to come.
https://www.itsecurityguru.org/2022/04/29/deepfakes-set-to-be-used-in-organised-crime/
Smart Contract Developers Not Really Focused on Security. Who Knew?
"Smart contracts," which consist of self-executing code on a blockchain, are not nearly as smart as the label suggests.
They are at least as error-prone as any other software, where historically the error rate has been about one bug per hundred lines of code.
And they may be shoddier still due to disinterest in security among smart contract developers, and perhaps inadequate technical resources.
Multi-million dollar losses attributed to smart contract bugs – around $31m stolen from MonoX via smart contract exploit and ~$34m locked into a contract forever due to bad increment math, to name a few – illustrate the consequences.
https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/26/smart_contract_losses/
Tractor-Trailer Brake Controllers Vulnerable to Remote Hacker Attacks
We’ve been predicting this for a while now and the move to more and more connected systems, autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles, how long until someone is subject to threats to disconnect a vehicle’s brakes as they are driving along a motorway? Who wouldn’t pay the ransom demand in that scenario?
A report this week is related to articulated lorries but this is something that will be affecting all vehicles unless safeguards are put in place.
Researchers have analysed the cyber security of heavy vehicles and discovered that the brake controllers found on many tractor-trailers in North America are susceptible to remote hacker attacks.
The research was conducted by the US National Motor Freight Traffic Association (NMFTA), which is a non-profit organisation that represents roughly 500 motor freight carriers, in collaboration with Assured Information Security, Inc.
NMFTA has been analysing the cyber security of heavy vehicles since 2015 and it has periodically disclosed its findings. The latest report from the organisation came in early March, when the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) also issued an advisory to describe two vulnerabilities affecting trailer brake controllers.
The flaws described in the CISA advisory are related to the power line communications (PLC) between tractors and trailers, specifically the PLC4TRUCKS technology, which uses a standard named J2497 for bidirectional communications between the tractor and trailer without adding new wires.
https://www.securityweek.com/tractor-trailer-brake-controllers-vulnerable-remote-hacker-attacks
Threats
Ransomware
Prevent HEAT Attacks to Foil Ransomware Incidents - Help Net Security
Conti Ransomware Operations Surge Despite Recent Leak - Security Affairs
Beware: Onyx Ransomware Destroys Files Instead of Encrypting Them (bleepingcomputer.com)
FBI says BlackCat Rust-Based Ransomware Scratched 60+ Orgs • The Register
REvil Ransomware Attacks Resume, But Operators Are Unknown (techtarget.com)
Fake Windows 10 Updates Infect You with Magniber Ransomware (bleepingcomputer.com)
New Black Basta Ransomware Springs into Action with A Dozen Breaches (bleepingcomputer.com)
Companies Can't Get Enough of Good Ol' Tape Storage For Ransomware Resistance | PC Gamer
Phishing & Email Based Attacks
Phishing Goes KISS: Don’t Let Plain and Simple Messages Catch You Out! – Naked Security (sophos.com)
Phishing Attacks Benefiting from Shady SEO Practices (techtarget.com)
Malware
Emotet Malware Now Installs Via Powershell in Windows Shortcut Files (bleepingcomputer.com)
New RIG Exploit Kit Campaign Infecting Victims' PCs with RedLine Stealer (thehackernews.com)
Emotet Tests New Attack Techniques: Sign of Things to Come? | CSO Online
Cyber Criminals Using New Malware Loader 'Bumblebee' in the Wild (thehackernews.com)
New Powerful Prynt Stealer Malware Sells for Just $100 Per Month (bleepingcomputer.com)
Mobile
Organised Crime & Criminal Actors
Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking/NFTs
Scammers Are Copying News Sites To Push Elon Musk-themed Crypto Scams - Information Security Buzz
Why Did Hackers Target DeFi L1, L2 Solutions for a $1.2 Billion Theft in 2022? (watcher.guru)
Intuit Sued Over Phishing Attack Targeting Trezor Crypto Wallet Users - Decrypt
Crypto Trading Fund Partners Accused of Fraud - Infosecurity Magazine
LemonDuck Botnet Evades Detection in Cryptomining Attacks (techtarget.com)
Bored Ape Yacht Club Instagram Hacked, NFTs Worth Millions Stolen (vice.com)
Insider Risk and Insider Threats
AML/CFT
Two More Indicted Over North Korean Sanctions Evasion Plot - Infosecurity Magazine
FCA: Challenger Banks Failing to Spot Money Launderers - Infosecurity Magazine
Denial of Service DoS/DDoS
Cloudflare Stomps On 15.3 Million Requests Per Second DDoS • The Register
How a New Generation of IoT Botnets Is Amplifying DDoS Attacks | CSO Online
DDoS Attacks Target Healthcare, Education Markets, Research Finds - MSSP Alert
Cloud
Is Cloud Critical Infrastructure? Prep Now for Provider Outages (techtarget.com)
Shadow IT Is A Top Concern Related To SaaS Adoption - Help Net Security
Travel
Parental Controls and Child Safety
Spyware, Espionage & Cyber Warfare, including Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Data-Wiper Malware Strains Surge Amid Ukraine Invasion • The Register
Chinese Hackers Targeting Russian Military Personnel with Updated PlugX Malware (thehackernews.com)
Cyber Attacks Rage in Ukraine, Support Military Operations | Threatpost
Ongoing DDoS Attacks from Compromised Sites Hit Ukraine - Security Affairs
Anonymous Hacked Russian PSCB Commercial Bank and Energy Firms - Security Affairs
Russia-Linked Threat Actors Launched Hundreds of Cyber Attacks on Ukraine - Security Affairs
Russian Hacktivists Launch DDoS Attacks on Romanian Govt Sites (bleepingcomputer.com)
Cyber Espionage APT Now Identified as Three Separate Actors | Threatpost
Nation State Actors
Nation State Actors – Russia
Microsoft Documents Over 200 Cyber Attacks by Russia Against Ukraine (thehackernews.com)
Russian Govt Impersonators Target Telcos in Phishing Attacks (bleepingcomputer.com)
The Subject of Trusting ‘Russian’ Applications - Information Security Buzz
Nation State Actors – North Korea
Nation State Actors – Iran
Nation State Actors – Misc
Vulnerabilities
CISA Adds 7 Vulnerabilities to List Of Bugs Exploited In Attacks (bleepingcomputer.com)
Cisco Patches 11 High-Severity Vulnerabilities in Security Products | SecurityWeek.Com
Update Now! Critical Patches for Chrome and Edge | Malwarebytes Labs
Microsoft Patches Pair of Dangerous Vulnerabilities in Azure PostgreSQL (darkreading.com)
Microsoft Discovers New Privilege Escalation Flaws in Linux Operating System (thehackernews.com)
Millions of Java Apps Remain Vulnerable to Log4Shell | Threatpost
Organisations Warned of Attacks Exploiting WSO2 Vulnerability | SecurityWeek.Com
Vulnerability Found in WordPress Anti-Malware Firewall (searchenginejournal.com)
Sector Specific
Financial Services Sector
Government
Governments Under Attack Must Think Defensively - Help Net Security
Data Breach Disrupts UK Army Recruitment - Infosecurity Magazine
Health/Medical/Pharma Sector
French Hospital Group Disconnects Internet After Hackers Steal Data (bleepingcomputer.com)
Medical Software Firm Fined €1.5M for Leaking Data of 490k Patients (bleepingcomputer.com)
DDoS Attacks Target Healthcare, Education Markets, Research Finds - MSSP Alert
Smile Brands Breach Impacts 2.5 Million Individuals - Infosecurity Magazine
CNI, OT, ICS, IIoT and SCADA
Education and Academia
Gaming/Gambling
Other News
SolarWinds Breach Lawsuits: 6 Takeaways for CISOs | CSO Online
41% Of Businesses Had an API Security Incident Last Year - Help Net Security
Security Leaders Relying More Heavily on MSPs Amid Talent Crunch - Help Net Security
2022 Security Priorities: Staffing and Remote Work (darkreading.com)
GitHub: How Stolen OAuth Tokens Helped Breach Dozens of Orgs (bleepingcomputer.com)
Why Companies Should Focus on Preventing Privilege Escalation (techtarget.com)
German Wind Turbine Firm Hit by 'Targeted, Professional Cyber Attack' | SecurityWeek.Com
308,000 Exposed Databases Discovered, Proper Management Is Key - Help Net Security
Lapsus$ targeting SharePoint, VPNs and virtual machines (techtarget.com)
Top Five Post-Pandemic Priorities for Cyber Security Leaders - Help Net Security
Security Spending Set to Hit $198bn by 2025 - Infosecurity Magazine
Companies Poorly Prepared to Meet CCPA, CPRA and GDPR Compliance Requirements - Help Net Security
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.
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 22 April 2022
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 22 April 2022:
-Why Ransomware Attacks Prefer Small Business Targets Rather Than Rich Enterprises
-Ransomware Plagues Finance Sector as Cyber Attacks Get More Complex
-76% of Organisations Worldwide Expect to Suffer a Cyber Attack This Year
-Most Email Security Approaches Fail to Block Common Threats
-Financial Leaders Grappling with More Aggressive and Sophisticated Attack Methods
-Hackers Sneak Malware into Resumes Sent to Corporate Hiring Managers
-West Warns of Russian Cyber-Attacks As Concerns Rise Over Putin’s Nuclear Rhetoric
-Criminals Adopting New Methods To Bypass Improved Defences, Says Zscaler
-Cyber Criminals Are ‘Drinking the Tears’ Of Ukrainians
-Hackers For Hire Attempt to Destroy Hedge Fund Manager's Reputation
-New Threat Groups and Malware Families Emerging
-Economic Warfare: Attacks on Critical Infrastructure Part of Geopolitical Conflict
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 Ransomware Attacks Prefer Small Business Targets Rather Than Rich Enterprises
Enterprise businesses with 25,000 employees+ are less likely to get hit by a ransomware attack than smaller businesses — even though big companies typically can afford to pay higher ransoms, the 2022 CyberEdge Cyberthreat Defense Report concluded.
What explains hackers taking aim at small businesses more frequently than enterprise giants? The answer: Damaging a critical infrastructure facility or similar disruptions are certain to catch the eye of federal law enforcement, or national governments — something that no hacker wants, CyberEdge said. Smaller to medium-sized firms, as it turns out, get hit more frequently by ransomware attacks, on average at roughly 70 percent, the report said.
Overall, some 71 percent of organisations have been bitten by ransomware in 2022, up a point and a half from last year and by 8.5 points in 2020. It’s companies of 10,000 to 24,999 employees that are the sweet spot for ransomware hackers, nearly 75 percent of which are victimised by cyber extortionists.
The extensive study, which surveyed 1,200 security decision makers and practitioners employed by companies of greater than 500 people in 17 countries across 19 industries, is geared to helping gauge their internal practices and investments against those of their counterparts in other parts of the world.
Ransomware Plagues Finance Sector as Cyber Attacks Get More Complex
Cyber criminals have evolved from hacking wire transfers to targeting market data, as ransomware continues to hit financial firms, says a new VMware report. Here's what to do about it.
Ransomware plagues financial institutions as they face increasingly complex threats over previous years owing to the changing behaviour of cyber criminal cartels, according to VMware's latest Modern Bank Heists report.
This has happened as the cyber crime cartels have evolved beyond wire transfer frauds to target market strategies, take over brokerage accounts, and island-hop into banks, according to the report.
For the report, VMware surveyed 130 financial sector CISOs and security leaders from across different regions including North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Central and South America, and Africa.
Report findings were consistent with observations by other security experts. "The Secret Service, in its investigative capacity to protect the nation's financial payment systems and financial infrastructure, has seen an evolution and increase in complex cyber-enabled fraud," says Jeremy Sheridan, former assistant director at the US Secret Service. "The persistent, inadequate security of systems connected to the internet provides opportunity and methodology."
76% of Organisations Worldwide Expect to Suffer a Cyber Attack This Year
Ransomware, phishing/social engineering, denial of service (DoS) attacks, and the business fallout of a data breach rank as the top concerns of global organisations, a new study shows.
The newly published Cyber Risk Index, a study by Trend Micro and the Ponemon Institute, shows that more than three-quarters of global organisations expect to suffer a cyber attack in the next 12 months — 25% of which say an attack is "very likely."
More than 80% of the 3,400 CISO and IT professionals and managers surveyed say their organisations were hit with one or more successful cyber attacks in the past 12 months, and 35% suffered seven or more attacks, according to the report, which covers the second half of 2021.
Most Email Security Approaches Fail to Block Common Threats
A full 89 percent of organisations experienced one or more successful email breaches during the previous 12 months, translating into big-time costs.
On overwhelming number of security teams believe their email security systems to be ineffective against the most serious inbound threats, including ransomware.
That’s according to a survey of business customers using Microsoft 365 for email commissioned by Cyren and conducted by Osterman Research, which examined concerns with phishing, business email compromise (BEC), and ransomware threats, attacks that became costly incidents, and preparedness to deal with attacks and incidents.
“Security team managers are most concerned that current email security solutions do not block serious inbound threats (particularly ransomware), which requires time for response and remediation by the security team before dangerous threats are triggered by users,” according to the report, released Wednesday.
Less than half of those surveyed said that their organisations can block delivery of email threats. And, correspondingly, less than half of organisations rank their currently deployed email security solutions as effective.
https://threatpost.com/email-security-fail-block-threats/179370/
Financial Leaders Grappling with More Aggressive and Sophisticated Attack Methods
VMware released a report which takes the pulse of the financial industry’s top CISOs and security leaders on the changing behaviour of cyber criminal cartels and the defensive shift of the financial sector.
The report found that financial institutions are facing increased destructive attacks and falling victim to ransomware more than in years past, as sophisticated cyber crime cartels evolve beyond wire transfer fraud to now target market strategies, take over brokerage accounts and island hop into banks.
In the Modern Bank Heists report, 63% of financial institutions admitted experiencing an increase in destructive attacks, with cyber criminals leveraging this method as a means to burn evidence as part of a counter incident response.
Additionally, 74% experienced at least one ransomware attack over the past year, with 63% paying the ransom. When asked about the nation-state actors behind these attacks, the majority of financial instructions stated that Russia posed the greatest concern, as geopolitical tension continues to escalate in cyberspace.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/04/21/cybercriminal-cartels-financial-sector/
Hackers Sneak Malware into Resumes Sent to Corporate Hiring Managers
A new set of phishing attacks delivering the ‘more_eggs’ malware has been observed striking corporate hiring managers with bogus resumes as an infection vector, a year after potential candidates looking for work on LinkedIn were lured with weaponised job offers.
"This year the more_eggs operation has flipped the social engineering script, targeting hiring managers with fake resumes instead of targeting jobseekers with fake job offers," eSentire's research and reporting lead, Keegan Keplinger, said in a statement.
The Canadian cyber security company said it identified and disrupted four separate security incidents, three of which occurred at the end of March. Targeted entities include a US-based aerospace company, an accounting business located in the UK, a law firm, and a staffing agency, both based out of Canada.
The malware, suspected to be the handiwork of a threat actor called Golden Chickens (aka Venom Spider), is a stealthy, modular backdoor suite capable of stealing valuable information and conducting lateral movement across the compromised network.
"More_eggs achieves execution by passing malicious code to legitimate windows processes and letting those windows processes do the work for them," Keplinger said. The goal is to leverage the resumes as a decoy to launch the malware and sidestep detection.
https://thehackernews.com/2022/04/hackers-sneak-moreeggs-malware-into.html
West Warns of Russian Cyber Attacks as Concerns Rise Over Putin’s Nuclear Rhetoric
Cyber crime groups have publicly pledged support for Russia, western officials worry about Putin’s reliance on nuclear threats and the battle for Mariupol in Ukraine grinds on.
The US and four of its closest allies have warned that “evolving intelligence” shows that Russia is contemplating cyber attacks on countries backing Ukraine, as the Kremlin’s frustration grows at its failure to make military gains.
Vladimir Putin used the launch on Wednesday of a powerful new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), capable of carrying ten or more warheads, to make nuclear threats against western countries.
The Sarmat has long been in development and test flights were initially due to start in 2017. The Pentagon confirmed that the US had been given notice of the test and was not alarmed. Western officials are more concerned by the increasing emphasis Moscow puts on its nuclear arsenal as its conventional forces have faltered in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian army continued to put up resistance in the besieged and devastated city of Mariupol, but Putin’s Chechen ally, Ramzan Kadyrov, predicted that the last stand of the port’s defenders at the Azovstal steel works would fall on Thursday.
The Kremlin has made repeated threats against the many countries that have been supplying Ukraine’s army with modern weapons, and members of the “Five Eyes” intelligence sharing network – the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – predicted Moscow could also work with cyber crime groups to launch attacks on governments, institutions and businesses.
Criminals Adopting New Methods To Bypass Improved Defences, Says Zscaler
The number of phishing attacks worldwide jumped 29 percent last year as threat actors countered stronger enterprise defences with newer methods, according to researchers with Zscaler's ThreatLabz research team.
Cyber criminals have adapted to multi-factor authentication (MFA), employee security awareness training, and security controls by broadening who and where they will attack.
While the United States remained the country with the most phishing attempts, others are seeing faster growth in the number of incidents – exploiting new vectors like SMS and lowering the barrier of entry for launching attacks through pre-built tools made available on the market.
"Phishing attacks continue to remain one of the most prevalent attack vectors, often serving as a starting point for more advanced next stage attacks that may result in a large-scale breach," Deepen Desai, CISO and vice president of security research and operations at Zscaler, told The Register.
https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/20/phishing-attempts-on-rise-zscaler/
Cyber Criminals Are ‘Drinking the Tears’ of Ukrainians
In biology, when an insect drinks the tears of a large creature, it is called lachryphagy. And in cyberspace, malicious actors are likewise “drinking tears” by exploiting humanitarian concerns about the war in Ukraine for profit. Different forms of deception include tricking people into donating to bogus charities, clicking on Ukraine-themed malicious links and attachments, and even impersonating officials to extort payment for rescuing loved ones.
It is an unfortunate reality that cyber opportunists are engaging in lachryphagy to exploit humanitarian concerns about the war for profit or data collection. To date, one of the largest cryptocurrency scams involving fraudulent Ukrainian relief payments totalled $50 million in March, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Immediately following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, cybersecurity companies warned the public that criminals were preying on Ukrainian relief fundraising efforts with cryptocurrency scams. Bitdefender Labs reports that cyber criminals have impersonated Ukrainian government entities and charitable organisations such as UNICEF, and the Australian humanitarian agency, Act for Peace. “Some [scammers] are even pretending to be Wladimir Klitschko, whose brother Vitali is mayor of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv,” according to the BBC.
Hackers For Hire Attempt to Destroy Hedge Fund Manager's Reputation
Hackers bombarded a British hedge fund manager with 3,000 emails and fake news stories about his mortgage in an effort to destroy his reputation after being hired by a corporate rival.
Criminals even sought to gain personal information about Matthew Earl by pretending to be his sister in a three-year campaign when he raised concerns over the controversial German payments company Wirecard.
Mr Earl, a former City analyst who runs the hedge fund ShadowFall, said he was targeted by a group called Dark Basin.
This group has been linked to Aviram Azari, who this week pleaded guilty in New York to a conspiracy to target journalists and critics of Wirecard using phishing emails.
Mr Earl said the hacking attempts started in 2016 after ShadowFall, nicknamed the “dark destroyer” in the City, criticised the financial performance of Wirecard. The German company was later mired in a series of accounting scandals and went bust.
He said: “I was being sent very targeted emails, which were crafted with personal information about my interests, friends and family’s details. They were very specific.”
Mr Earl received news stories that appeared to be from media outlets such as Reuters and Bloomberg. Another email appeared to be sent by his sister, sharing family photographs, he added.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/04/21/reign-terror-hackers-hire-ramp-corporate-espionage/
New Threat Groups and Malware Families Emerging
Mandiant announced the findings of an annual report that provides timely data and insights based on frontline investigations and remediations of high-impact cyber attacks worldwide. The 2022 report––which tracks investigation metrics between October 1, 2020 and December 31, 2021—reveals over 1,100 new threat groups and 733 new malware families.
The report also notes a realignment and retooling of China cyber espionage operations to align with the implementation of China’s 14th Five-Year Plan in 2021. The report warns that the national-level priorities included in the plan “signal an upcoming increase in China-nexus actors conducting intrusion attempts against intellectual property or other strategically important economic concerns, as well as defence industry products and other dual-use technologies over the next few years.”
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/04/22/adversaries-innovating-and-adapting/
Economic Warfare: Attacks on Critical Infrastructure Part of Geopolitical Conflict
We’ve known for years that since at least March of 2016, Russian government threat actors have been targeting multiple U.S. critical infrastructure sectors including the energy, nuclear, commercial facilities, water, aviation, and critical manufacturing sectors. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), and other agencies have acknowledged this for quite some time in many of their technical alerts and statements.
In the intervening years, with the acceleration of digital transformation, cyber criminals and nation-state actors have increasingly set their sights on these sectors. The convergence of physical and digital assets brings competitive advantage but also inevitable risks. Attacks against hospitals, oil pipelines, food supply chains, and other critical infrastructure, have brought into sharp focus the vulnerability of cyber-physical systems (CPS) and the impact on lives and livelihoods when they are disrupted. Now, overwhelming signs indicate critical infrastructure companies are in the bullseye of geopolitical conflict.
Threats
Ransomware
How Ready Are Organisations to Manage and Recover From A Ransomware Attack? - Help Net Security
FBI: BlackCat Ransomware Breached At Least 60 Entities Worldwide (bleepingcomputer.com)
Ransomware: This Gang Is Getting a Lot Quicker at Encrypting Networks | ZDNet
Hive Hackers Are Exploiting Microsoft Exchange Servers in Ransomware Spree | ZDNet
REvil's TOR Sites Come Alive to Redirect To New Ransomware Operation (bleepingcomputer.com)
PYSA Ransomware Attacks: Here's What MSSPs Need to Know - MSSP Alert
An Investigation of the BlackCat Ransomware via Trend Micro Vision One
REvil Resurrected? Ransomware Crew Appears to Be Back • The Register
FBI Warning: Ransomware Gangs Are Going After This Lucrative but Unexpected Target | ZDNet
Phishing & Email Based Attacks
LinkedIn Brand Takes Lead as Most Impersonated In Phishing Attacks (bleepingcomputer.com)
FBI Warns of 'Reverse' Instant Payments Phishing Schemes | SecurityWeek.Com
Spreading Malware Through Community Phishing - Help Net Security
Malware
Windows Malware Can Steal Social Media Credentials and Banking Logins (komando.com)
Emotet Botnet Switches to 64-bit Modules, Increases Activity (bleepingcomputer.com)
New SolarMarker Malware Variant Using Updated Techniques to Stay Under the Radar (thehackernews.com)
Emotet Reestablishes Itself at The Top Of The Malware World • The Register
Mobile
BYOD
IoT
How to Secure Smart Home (IOT) Devices | Reviews by Wirecutter (nytimes.com)
New Stealthy BotenaGo Malware Variant Targets DVR Devices (bleepingcomputer.com)
Organised Crime & Criminal Actors
Russian Hackers Are Seeking Alternative Money-Laundering Options (bleepingcomputer.com)
How Russia Is Isolating Its Own Cyber Criminals (darkreading.com)
Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking
Hackers Hammer SpringShell Vulnerability In Attempt To Install Cryptominers | Ars Technica
Beanstalk DeFi Platform Loses $182 Million In Flash-Loan Attack (bleepingcomputer.com)
Hackers Steal $655K After Picking MetaMask Seed from iCloud Backup (bleepingcomputer.com)
LemonDuck Botnet Plunders Docker Cloud Instances in Cryptocurrency Crime Wave | ZDNet
Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime
Security Lessons From a Payment Fraud Attack (darkreading.com)
Scammers Snatch Up Expired Domains, Vexing Google | TechCrunch
Insurance
Dark Web
Supply Chain and Third Parties
Cloud
Rethinking Cyber-Defence Strategies in the Public-Cloud Age | Threatpost
Cyber Criminals Are Shifting Their Gaze To Kubernetes - Information Security Buzz
Passwords & Credential Stuffing
Digital Transformation
Spyware, Espionage & Cyber Warfare, including Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Moving Towards Defence in Depth Under The Grey Skies Of Conflict - Help Net Security
Locked Shields ‘Live Fire’ Cyber Drills to be Held as War in Ukraine Continues - Bloomberg
Russian-Linked Shuckworm Crew Ups Attacks on Ukraine • The Register
Russian Gamaredon APT Continues to Target Ukraine - Security Affairs
Phishing Attacks Using the Topic "Azovstal" Targets Entities in Ukraine - Security Affairs
Hackers Claim to Target Russia with Cyber Attacks and Leaks - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
The Anonymous Collective Hacked Other Russian Organisations - Security Affairs
Spyware Was Used Against Catalan Targets and UK Prime Minister and Foreign Office | CSO Online
Stalkerware Detection Trends: Monitor and Spyware Findings - MSSP Alert
Catalan Chief Accuses Spain's Intelligence Agency of Hacking | SecurityWeek.Com
Anomaly 6 Tracked NSA and CIA Spies as Product Demo: Report (gizmodo.com)
Nation State Actors
Nation State Actors – Russia
Five Eyes Nations Warn of Russian Cyber Attacks Against Critical Infrastructure (thehackernews.com)
NATO Locked Shields War Games Prep for Real Russian Cyber Attack (gizmodo.com)
The Russian Cyber Threat Is Here to Stay and NATO Needs To Understand It | Fox News
A Russian Cyber Attack Is Coming —Lawmakers and Citizens Must Prepare | The Hill
US Officials Increase Warnings About Russian Cyber-Attacks - Infosecurity Magazine
Work From Home Software 'At Risk of Russian Cyber Attacks' (telegraph.co.uk)
US Officials Preparing for Potential Russian Cyber Attacks - CBS News
After Foiled Sandworm Attack, US Critical Infrastructure Should Stand Guard | CSO Online
Nation State Actors – China
Nation State Actors – North Korea
North Korea Funds Nuclear Program with Cyber Crime- IT Security Guru
North Korea Aims 'TraderTraitor' Malware at Cryptocurrency Workers (cyberscoop.com)
Blockchain Companies Warned of North Korean Hackers - IT Security Guru
Nation State Actors – Misc
Vulnerabilities
VMware, Chrome Flaws Added to Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalogue - Security Affairs
Cisco Releases Security Patches for TelePresence, RoomOS and Umbrella VA (thehackernews.com)
Time to get patching: Oracle's quarterly Critical Patch Update arrives with 520 fixes | ZDNet
7-Zip Zero-Day Vulnerability Grants Privilege Escalation | TechSpot
QNAP Warns of New Bugs in Its Network Attached Storage Devices – Naked Security (sophos.com)
Cisco Umbrella Default SSH Key Allows Theft of Admin Credentials (bleepingcomputer.com)
Researcher Releases PoC for Recent Java Cryptographic Vulnerability (thehackernews.com)
Critical Cryptographic Java Security Blunder Patched – Update Now! – Naked Security (sophos.com)
Atlassian Drops Patches for Critical Jira Authentication Bypass Vulnerability (thehackernews.com)
Unpatched Bug in RainLoop Webmail Could Give Hackers Access to all Emails (thehackernews.com)
Sector Specific
Financial Services Sector
Modern Bank Heists 5.0: The Escalation from Dwell to Destruction (vmware.com)
Two-Thirds of Global Banks Witness Surge in Destructive Attacks - Infosecurity Magazine
FinTech
Health/Medical/Pharma Sector
The New Cyberthreat To Healthcare: Killware - Information Security Buzz
Many Medical Device Makers Skimp on Security Practices (darkreading.com)
Transport and Aviation
Other News
Why Companies Should Make ERP Security a Top Priority (techtarget.com)
The Evolving Role of The Lawyer in Cyber Security - Help Net Security
Cyber Security Litigation Risks: 4 Top Concerns for CISOs | CSO Online
Ponemon Research - Businesses to Invest $172b On Cyber Security In 2022 - Information Security Buzz
Funkypigeon.com Suspends Orders After 'Cyber Security Incident' | Business News | Sky News
The SEC Is About To Force CISOs Into America’s Boardrooms (forbes.com)
Data Breaches, Ransomware Attacks Leave Security Teams “Exhausted” - MSSP Alert
When Attacks Surge, Turn to Data to Strengthen Detection and Response | SecurityWeek.Com
Attacker Accessed Dozens of Repositories After OAuth Token Theft - Information Security Buzz
7 Best Practices for Web3 Security Risk Mitigation (techtarget.com)
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Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 15 April 2022
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 15 April 2022:
-Cyber Security Is Getting Harder: More Threats, More Complexity, Fewer People
-Terrible Cloud Security Is Leaving the Door Open for Hackers. Here's What You're Doing Wrong
-More Organisations Are Paying the Ransom. Why?
-Cyber Attack Puts City Firms on High Alert To Bolster Defences
-More Than 60% of Organisations Suffered a Breach in the Past 12 Months
-Account Takeover Poised to Surpass Malware as The No. 1 Security Concern
-Security Research Reveals 42% Rise In New Ransomware Programs In 2021
-Fraudsters Stole £58m with Remote Access Trojans (RATs) in 2021
-As State-Backed Cyber Threats Grow, Here's How the World Is Reacting
-Q1 Reported Data Compromises Up 14% Over 2021
-Europol Announces Operation to Hit Russian Sanctions-Evaders
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
Cyber Security Is Getting Harder: More Threats, More Complexity, Fewer People
Splunk and Enterprise Strategy Group released a global research report that examines the security issues facing the modern enterprise. More than 1,200 security leaders participated in the survey, revealing they’ve seen an increase in cyber attacks while their teams are facing widening talent gaps.
According to the report, 65% of respondents say they have seen an increase in attempted cyber attacks. In addition, many have been directly impacted by data breaches and costly ransomware attacks, which have left security teams exhausted:
· 49% of organisations say they have suffered a data breach over the past two years, an increase from 39% a year earlier.
· 79% of respondents say they’ve encountered ransomware attacks, and 35% admit that one or more of those attacks led them to lose access to data and systems.
· 59% of security teams say they had to devote significant time and resources to remediation, an increase from 42% a year ago.
· 54% of respondents report that their business-critical applications have suffered from unplanned outages related to cyber security incidents on at least a monthly basis, with a median of 12 outages per year. The median time to recover from unplanned downtime tied to cyber security incidents is 14 hours. Respondents estimated the cost of this downtime averaged about $200,000 per hour.
· 64% of security professionals have stated that it’s challenging to keep up with new security requirements, up from 49% a year ago.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/04/13/modern-enterprise-security-issues/
Terrible Cloud Security Is Leaving the Door Open for Hackers. Here's What You're Doing Wrong
A rise in hybrid work and a shift to cloud platforms has changed how businesses operate - but it's also leaving them vulnerable to cyber attacks.
Cloud applications and services are a prime target for hackers because poor cyber security management and misconfigured services are leaving them exposed to the internet and vulnerable to simple cyber attacks.
Analysis of identity and access management (IAM) polices taking into account hundreds of thousands of users in 18,000 cloud environments across 200 organisations by cyber security researchers at Palo Alto Networks found that cloud accounts and services are leaving open doors for cyber criminals to exploit – and putting businesses and users at risk.
The global pandemic pushed organisations and employees towards new ways of remote and hybrid working, with the aid of cloud services and applications. While beneficial to businesses and employees, it also created additional cyber security risks – and malicious hackers know this.
More Organisations Are Paying the Ransom. Why?
Most organisations (71%) have been hit by ransomware in 2021, and most of those (63%) opted for paying the requested ransom, the 2022 Cyberthreat Defense Report (CDR) by the CyberEdge Group has shown.
The research company says that possible explanations for the steady yearly rise of the percentage of organisations that decided to pay the ransom may include: the threat of exposing exfiltrated data, increased confidence for data recovery, and the fact that many organisations find that paying a ransom is significantly less costly than system downtime, customer disruption, and potential lawsuits.
“72% of ransom-paying victims recovered their data [in 2021], up from 49% in 2017. This increased confidence for successful data recovery is often factored into the ransom-paying decision,” the company noted.
Similarly, BakerHostatler’s 2022 Data Security Incident Response Report says that in ransomware incidents the US-based law firm was called in to manage in 2021, ransomware groups provided decryptors and stuck to their promise to not publish stolen data 97% of the time.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/04/11/organizations-paying-ransom/
Cyber Attack Puts City Firms on High Alert to Bolster Defences
Experts warn a combination of 'ignorance and arrogance' makes City executives vulnerable to attacks.
City firms on high alert for cyber attacks were sent a clear warning recently, bolstering concerns of the potential for breaches from Russia.
Ince Group, the London-listed law firm, last month fell prey to hackers who infiltrated its computer systems and stole confidential data. The company's security systems detected the intrusion on March 13, prompting the IT team to shut down servers to try and prevent widespread damage.
But soon after, the hackers demanded a ransom for stolen data and threatened to publish it on the dark web if Ince Group, which has clients in the shipping, energy and healthcare sectors, didn't pay up.
The incident has intensified worries of possible breaches after warnings that City firms could be targeted by Russian hackers following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Julia O'Toole, chief executive of MyCena Security Solutions, says executives should be "very concerned" about any news of a cyber attack at a rival company.
More Than 60% of Organisations Suffered a Breach in the Past 12 Months
Firms focus too narrowly on external attackers when it's insiders, third parties, and stolen assets that cause many breaches, new study shows.
The majority of companies — 63% — have suffered at least one breach in the past 12 months. The global average breach cost $2.4 million — a price tag that increases to $3.0 million for companies unprepared to respond to compromises.
The new data from Forrester Research, released on April 8 in a report titled "The 2021 State Of Enterprise Breaches," found that the number of breaches and the cost of breaches varied widely depending on the geographic location of the business and to what degree the organisation is prepared to respond to breaches. Companies in North America had the largest disparity between the haves and have-nots: While the average organisation required 38 days to find, eradicate, and recover from a breach, companies that failed to adequately prepare for security challenges took 62 days.
The difference in response resulted in a large difference in cost as well, with the average North American company paying $3.0 million to recover from a breach, a bill that rises to $4.0 million if the company suffered from a lack of incident-response preparation.
"The misalignment between the expectation and the reality of breaches has become very important," says Allie Mellen, an analyst with Forrester's Security and Risk group. "On a global scale, there is a big disparity of about $600,000 between those who are prepared to respond to a breach and those who are not."
Account Takeover Poised to Surpass Malware as The No. 1 Security Concern
As most researchers and financial executives can attest, virtually all types of fraud have dramatically risen over the past two years. However, attackers taking over legitimate financial accounts have become even more of a favourite with cyber criminals than most fraud schemes.
Many major recent research reports have pointed out that account takeover (ATO), a form of identity theft where bad actors access legitimate bank accounts, change the account information and passwords, and hijack a real customer’s account, has skyrocketed since last year. According to Javelin Research’s annual "Identity Fraud Study: The Virtual Battleground" report, account takeover increased by 90% to an estimated $11.4 billion in 2021 when compared with 2020 — representing roughly one-quarter of all identity fraud losses last year.
Like many types of financial fraud, cyber thieves are betting on the fact that if they attempt to seize a large number of legitimate accounts, eventually they will get a payoff.
Account takeovers are a numbers game, the more accounts that an organisation has, the bigger their risk that some of them will be compromised.
Account takeovers often piggyback off of previous attacks, making these crimes a way for hackers to make the most out of stolen information. Diskin pointed out that account takeovers most commonly happen when a password is “taken from another data leak and reused for different accounts. But there are a variety of risky scenarios that can lead to compromise.”
Security Research Reveals 42% Rise in New Ransomware Programs In 2021
Critical infrastructure in the crosshairs: operational technology vulnerabilities jump 88% .
Threat intelligence analysts at Skybox Research Lab uncovered a 42% increase in new ransomware programs targeting known vulnerabilities in 2021. The Silicon Valley cyber security company released its annual 2022 Vulnerability and Threat Trends Report, revealing how quickly cyber criminals capitalise on new security weaknesses – shrinking the window that organisations have to remediate vulnerabilities ahead of an attack.
With 20,175 new vulnerabilities published in 2021, Skybox Research Lab witnessed the most vulnerabilities ever reported in a single year. And these new vulnerabilities are just the tip of the iceberg. The total number of vulnerabilities published over the last 10 years reached 166,938 in 2021 — a three-fold increase over a decade. These cumulative vulnerabilities, piling up year after year, represent an enormous aggregate risk, and they’ve left organisations struggling with a mountain of cyber security debt. As the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) highlights in its Top Routinely Exploited Vulnerabilities list, threat actors are routinely exploiting publicly disclosed vulnerabilities from years past.
The sheer volume of accumulated risks — hundreds of thousands or even millions of vulnerability instances within organisations — means they can’t possibly patch all of them. To prevent cyber security incidents, it is critical to prioritise exposed vulnerabilities that could cause the most significant disruption, then, apply appropriate remediation options including configuration changes or network segmentation to eliminate risk, even before patches are applied or in cases where patches aren’t available.
Fraudsters Stole £58m with Remote Access Trojans (RATs) in 2021
2021 saw victims of Remote Access Tool (RAT) scams lose £58m in 2021, official UK police figures show.
RAT scams involve scammers taking control of a victim’s device, typically in order to access bank accounts.
Some 20,144 victims fell for this type of scam in 2021, averaging around £2800 stolen per incident.
Typically, RAT attacks begin with a victim being inundated with pop-ups claiming there is a problem with the computer. Users are often then asked to call a “hotline” number, when a scammer will persuade them to download a RAT.
RAT scams are often compared to the classic “tech support” scams. Modern RAT scams are typically more devious, however, with scammers often cold-calling their victims pretending to work for their bank and claiming that they need computer access to investigate a fraudulent transaction.
https://www.itsecurityguru.org/2022/04/11/fraudsters-stole-58m-with-rats-in-2021/
As State-Backed Cyber Threats Grow, Here's How the World Is Reacting
With the ongoing conflict in Eurasia, cyber warfare is inevitably making its presence felt. The fight is not only being fought on the fields. There is also a big battle happening in cyberspace. Several cyber-attacks have been reported over the past months.
Notably, cyber attacks backed by state actors are becoming prominent. There have been reports of a rise of ransomware and other malware attacks such as Cyclops Blink, HermeticWiper, and BlackCat. These target businesses as well as government institutions and nonprofit organisations. There have been cases of several attempts to shut down online communications and IT infrastructure.
The ongoing list of significant cyber incidents curated by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) shows that the number of major incidents in January 2022 is 100% higher compared to the same period in the previous year. With the recent activities in cyberspace impacted by the emergence of the geopolitical tumult in February, it is not going to be surprising to see an even more dramatic rise in the number of significant incidents.
https://thehackernews.com/2022/04/as-state-backed-cyber-threats-grow.html
Q1 Reported Data Compromises Up 14% Over 2021
The Identity Theft Resource Center published a First Quarter 2022 Data Breach Analysis which found that Q1 of 2022 began with the highest number of publicly reported data compromises in the past three years.
Publicly reported data compromises totalled 404 through March 31, 2022, a 14 percent increase compared to Q1 2021.
This is the third consecutive year when the number of total data compromises increased compared to Q1 of the previous year. It also represents the highest number of Q1 data compromises since 2020.
https://informationsecuritybuzz.com/expert-comments/q1-reported-data-compromises-up-14-over-2021/
Europol Announces Operation to Hit Russian Sanctions-Evaders
European police have announced a major new operation designed to crack down on Russian oligarchs and businesses looking to circumvent sanctions.
Operation Oscar will run for at least a year as an umbrella initiative that will feature many separate investigations, Europol explained.
The policing organisation’s European Financial and Economic Crime Centre will work to exchange information and intelligence with partners and provide operational support in financial crime investigations.
A key focus appears to be on illicit flows of money, which Russian individuals and entities will be trying to move around the region in order to bypass sanctions imposed since President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Europol will centralise and analyse all information contributed under this operation to identify international links, criminal groups and suspects, as well as new criminal trends and patterns,” Europol said.
“Europol will further provide tailor-made analytical support to investigations, as well as operational coordination, forensics and technical expertise, and financial support to the relevant national authorities.”
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/europol-hit-russian/
Threats
Ransomware
Ransomware: These Two Gangs Are Behind Half of All Attacks | ZDNet
Don't Let Ransomware Gangs Spend Months in Your Network • The Register
Karakurt Data Thieves Linked to Larger Conti Hacking Group | CSO Online
Conti Ransomware Gang Claims Responsibility for The Nordex Hack - Security Affairs
OldGremlin Ransomware Gang Targets Russia with New Malware (bleepingcomputer.com)
Conti Ransomware Offshoot Targets Russian Organisations | Malwarebytes Labs
Other Social Engineering
FBI: Payment App Users Targeted in Social Engineering Attacks (bleepingcomputer.com)
These Hackers Pretend to Poach, Recruit Rival Bank Staff In New Cyber Attacks | ZDNet
Malware
Microsoft Sounds The Alarm Over New Cunning Windows Malware | TechRadar
Spring4Shell Under Active Exploit by Mirai Botnet Herders • The Register
Haskers Gang Gives Away ZingoStealer Malware to Other Cyber Criminals for Free (thehackernews.com)
Hackers Hijack Adult Websites to Infect Victims With Malware | TechRadar
Qbot Malware Switches To New Windows Installer Infection Vector (bleepingcomputer.com)
Windows 11 tool to Add Google Play Secretly Installed Malware (bleepingcomputer.com)
Over 16,500 Sites Hacked to Distribute Malware via Web Redirect Service (thehackernews.com)
Enemybot: a New Mirai, Gafgyt Hybrid Botnet Joins The Scene | ZDNet
Mobile
Android Banking Malware Intercepts Calls to Customer Support (bleepingcomputer.com)
How to Stop Octo Malware From Remotely Accessing Your Android (lifehacker.com)
IoT
New EnemyBot DDoS Botnet Recruits Routers and IoTs Into Its Army (bleepingcomputer.com)
3 Reasons Connected Devices are More Vulnerable than Ever (bleepingcomputer.com)
Data Breaches/Leaks
Organised Crime & Criminal Actors
New Industrial Spy Stolen Data Market Promoted Through Cracks, Adware (bleepingcomputer.com)
Google Files Suit Against Cameroonian Cyber Criminal Who Used Puppies as Lures - CyberScoop
Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking
10 NFT and Cryptocurrency Security Risks That CISOs Must Navigate | CSO Online
A Practical Reason Why Crypto Might Not Work for Large-Scale Sanctions Evasion - CyberScoop
Insider Risk and Insider Threats
Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime
Denial of Service DoS/DDoS
New Fodcha DDoS Botnet Targets Over 100 Victims Every Day (bleepingcomputer.com)
New EnemyBot DDoS Botnet Borrows Exploit Code from Mirai and Gafgyt (thehackernews.com)
Cloud
99% Of Cloud Identities Are Overly Permissive, Opening Door to Attackers | CSO Online
Top Attack Techniques for Breaching Enterprise And Cloud Environments - Help Net Security
Finding Attack Paths in Cloud Environments (thehackernews.com)
The Two Words You Should Never Forget When You’re Securing a Cloud - Help Net Security
Privacy
Spyware, Espionage & Cyber Warfare, including Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Preparing for Armageddon: How Ukraine Battles Russian hackers | Ars Technica
Hackers Target Ukrainian Govt with IcedID Malware, Zimbra Exploits (bleepingcomputer.com)
Russia’s Sandworm Hackers Attempted a Third Blackout In Ukraine | Ars Technica
The Unceasing Action of Anonymous Against Russia - Security Affairs
European Officials Reportedly Targeted by NSO Spyware • The Register
Nation State Actors
Nation State Actors – Russia
Nation State Actors – China
Nation State Actors – North Korea
US Gov Believes Lazarus APT is Behind Ronin Validator Cyber Heist - Security Affairs
Feds Offer $5m Reward for Info on North Korean Cyber Crooks • The Register
FBI Links Largest Crypto Hack Ever to North Korean Hackers (bleepingcomputer.com)
Symantec: North Korea's Lazarus Targets Chemical Companies • The Register
Vulnerabilities
Microsoft Issues Patches for 2 Windows Zero-Days and 126 Other Vulnerabilities (thehackernews.com)
Google Issues Third Emergency Fix For Chrome This Year • The Register
Critical HP Teradici PCoIP Flaws Impact 15 Million Endpoints (bleepingcomputer.com)
Critical Windows RPC Vulnerability Raises Alarm (techtarget.com)
VMware Workspace One Flaw Actively Exploited in The Wild (techtarget.com)
Adobe Patches Gaping Security Holes in Acrobat, Reader, Photoshop | SecurityWeek.Com
Cisco Vulnerability Lets Hackers Craft Their Own Login Credentials (bleepingcomputer.com)
Several Vulnerabilities Allow Disabling of Palo Alto Networks Products | SecurityWeek.Com
Cisco Patches Critical Vulnerability in Wireless LAN Controller | SecurityWeek.Com
Critical Flaw in Elementor WordPress Plugin May Affect 500k Sites (bleepingcomputer.com)
Critical Apache Struts RCE Vulnerability Wasn't Fully Fixed, Patch Now (bleepingcomputer.com)
Attackers Are Exploiting VMware RCE to Deliver Malware (CVE-2022-22954) - Help Net Security
These D-Link Routers Are Vulnerable To Remote Hacks And Should Be Retired Immediately | HotHardware
Upgrades for Spring Framework Have Stalled (darkreading.com)
Sector Specific
CNI, OT, ICS, IIoT and SCADA
CISA Alert on ICS, SCADA Devices Highlights Growing Enterprise IoT Security Risks (darkreading.com)
Pipedream Malware: Feds Uncover 'Swiss Army Knife' for Industrial System Hacking | WIRED
New Malware Tools Pose 'Clear and Present Threat' to ICS Environments (darkreading.com)
US Warns of APT Hackers Targeting ICS/SCADA Systems with Specialized Malware (thehackernews.com)
Flaws in ABB Network Interface Modules Expose Industrial Systems to DoS Attacks | SecurityWeek.Com
Energy & Utilities
Reports Published in the Last Week
Other News
Singapore To License Infosec Service Providers • The Register
What Is the Cyber Kill Chain? A Model for Tracing Cyber Attacks | CSO Online
Cyber Defense: Prioritized By Real-World Threat Data - Help Net Security
The Cyber Criminal Isn’t Necessarily Who You Think… | Mind Matters
How Cryptocurrency Gave Birth to the Ransomware Epidemic (vice.com)
Dark Data Is a Pain Point For Many Security Leaders - Help Net Security
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.
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 08 April 2022
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 08 April 2022
-Nearly Two-Thirds of Ransomware Victims Paid Ransoms Last Year, Finds "2022 Cyberthreat Defense Report"
-New Android Banking Malware Remotely Takes Control of Your Device
-Network Intrusion Detections Skyrocketing
-Organisations Underestimating the Seriousness Of Insider Threats
-Watch Out For Phishing Emails From Genuine Mailing Lists, Following Mailchimp Hack
-SpringShell Attacks Target About One in Six Vulnerable Orgs
-New Threat Group Underscores Mounting Concerns Over Russian Cyber Threats
-Consumer Fraud Tripled in The Last Two Years
-Borat RAT: Multiple Threat of Ransomware, DDoS and Spyware
-Bank Had No Firewall License, Intrusion or Phishing Protection – Guess The Rest
-Global APT Groups Use Ukraine War for Phishing Lures
-Paying Ransom Doesn’t Guarantee Data Recovery
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
Nearly Two-Thirds of Ransomware Victims Paid Ransoms Last Year, Finds "2022 Cyberthreat Defense Report"
CyberEdge Group, a leading research and marketing firm serving the cyber security industry’s top vendors, announced the launch of its ninth annual Cyberthreat Defense Report (CDR). The award-winning CDR is the standard for assessing organisations’ security posture, gauging perceptions of information technology (IT) security professionals, and ascertaining current and planned investments in IT security infrastructure – across all industries and geographic regions.
A record 71% of organisations were impacted by successful ransomware attacks last year, according to the 2022 CDR, up from 55% in 2017. Of those that were victimised, nearly two-thirds (63%) paid the requested ransom, up from 39% in 2017.
New Android Banking Malware Remotely Takes Control of Your Device
A new Android banking malware named Octo has appeared in the wild, featuring remote access capabilities that allow malicious operators to perform on-device fraud.
Octo is an evolved Android malware based on ExoCompact, a malware variant based on the Exo trojan that quit the cyber crime space and had its source code leaked in 2018.
The new variant has been discovered by researchers at ThreatFabric, who observed several users looking to purchase it on darknet forums.
Network Intrusion Detections Skyrocketing
A WatchGuard report shows a record number of evasive network malware detections with advanced threats increasing by 33%, indicating a higher level of zero day threats than ever before.
Researchers detected malware threats in EMEA at a much higher rate than other regions of the world in Q4 2021, with malware detections per Firebox at 49%, compared to Americas at 23% and APAC at 29%. The trajectory of network intrusion detections also continued its upward climb with the largest total detections of any quarter in the last three years and a 39% increase quarter over quarter.
Researchers suggest that this may be due to the continued targeting of old vulnerabilities as well as the growth in organisations’ networks. As new devices come online and old vulnerabilities remain unpatched, network security is becoming more complex.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/04/08/network-malware-detections/
Organisations Underestimating the Seriousness of Insider Threats
Imperva releases data that shows organisations are failing to address the issue of insider threats during a time when the risk is at its greatest.
New research, conducted by Forrester, found that 59% of incidents in EMEA organisations that negatively impacted sensitive data in the last 12 months were caused by insider threats, and yet 59% do not prioritise insider threats the way they prioritise external threats. Despite the fact that insider events occur more often than external ones, they receive lower levels of investment.
This approach is at odds with today’s threat landscape where the risk of malicious insiders has never been higher. The rapid shift to remote working means many employees are now outside the typical security controls that organisations employ, making it harder to detect and prevent insider threats.
Further, the Great Resignation is creating an environment where there is a higher risk of employees stealing data. This data could be stolen intentionally by people looking to help themselves in future employment, because they are disgruntled and want revenge, or it could be taken unintentionally when a careless employee leaves the business with important information.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/04/08/organizations-insider-threats-issue/
Watch Out for Phishing Emails from Genuine Mailing Lists, Following Mailchimp Hack
A Mailchimp hack means that you’ll want to be even more vigilant than usual about phishing emails. Attackers have taken a clever approach to making their emails appear genuine …
When you subscribe to an email list, there’s a decent chance that the emails you received are actually sent by a company called Mailchimp, rather than directly by the company itself. Mailchimp offers companies a range of tools that make it easy to manage email databases, and send marketing emails and newsletters.
Hackers managed to gain access to more than 100 Mailchimp customer accounts, giving them the ability to send emails that would appear to have come from any one of those businesses.
Users will need to be more vigilant when receiving emails and avoid clicking on links in emails, even if they appear genuine.
https://9to5mac.com/2022/04/05/mailchimp-hack-phishing-alert/
SpringShell Attacks Target About One in Six Vulnerable Orgs
Roughly one out of six organisations worldwide that are impacted by the Spring4Shell zero-day vulnerability have already been targeted by threat actors, according to statistics from one cyber security company.
The exploitation attempts took place in the first four days since the disclosure of the severe remote code execution (RCE) flaw, tracked as CVE-2022-22965, and the associated exploit code.
According to Check Point, who compiled the report based on their telemetry data, 37,000 Spring4Shell attacks were detected over the past weekend alone.
New Threat Group Underscores Mounting Concerns Over Russian Cyber Threats
Crowdstrike says Ember Bear is likely responsible for the wiper attack against Ukrainian networks and that future Russian cyber attacks might target the West.
As fears mount over the prospects of a “cyberwar” initiated by the Russian government, the number of identified Russian threat actors also continues to climb. Last week CrowdStrike publicly revealed a Russia-nexus state-sponsored actor that it tracks as Ember Bear.
CrowdStrike says that Ember Bear (also known as UAC-0056, Lorec53, Lorec Bear, Bleeding Bear, Saint Bear) is likely an intelligence-gathering adversary group that has operated against government and military organisations in eastern Europe since early 2021. The group seems “motivated to weaponize the access and data obtained during their intrusions to support information operations (IO) aimed at creating public mistrust in targeted institutions and degrading government ability to counter Russian cyber operations,” according to CrowdStrike intelligence.
Despite its state-sponsored Russia nexus, Ember Bear differs from its better-known kin such as Fancy Bear or Voodoo Bear because CrowdStrike can’t tie it to a specific Russian organisation. Its target profile, assessed intent, and technical tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) are consistent with other Russian GRU cyber operations.
Consumer Fraud Tripled in The Last Two Years
Reported cases of consumer fraud more than tripled in the years 2020-2021 from prior years, finds a new report by Accenture, presenting a growing challenge for public safety agencies to find new strategies to counter the trend.
The report compiled data from eight developed nations (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States) on consumer fraud, defined as any fraud directly targeting citizens and excluding fraud targeting government agencies and companies. Reports of such fraud increased at an estimated 6.8% rate annually during 2013-2019 and then increased to a 22.5% annual growth rate yearly during 2020-2021 in parallel with the large shift of workers and consumers to digital channels and greater use of technology during the pandemic.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/04/08/consumer-fraud-tripled/
Borat RAT: Multiple Threat of Ransomware, DDoS and Spyware
A new remote access trojan (RAT) dubbed "Borat" doesn't come with many laughs but offers bad actors a menu of cyberthreats to choose from.
RATs are typically used by cyber criminals to get full control of a victim's system, enabling them to access files and network resources and manipulate the mouse and keyboard. Borat does all this and also delivers features to enable hackers to run ransomware, distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) and other online assaults and to install spyware, according to researchers at cyber security biz Cyble.
"The Borat RAT provides a dashboard to Threat Actors (TAs) to perform RAT activities and also has an option to compile the malware binary for performing DDoS and ransomware attacks on the victim's machine," the researchers wrote in a blog post, noting the malware is being made available for sale to hackers.
Borat – named after the character made famous by actor Sacha Baron Cohen in two comedy films – comes with the standard requisite of RAT features in a package that includes such functions as builder binary, server certificate and supporting modules.
https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/04/borat-rat-ransomware-ddos/
Bank Had No Firewall License, Intrusion or Phishing Protection – Guess the Rest
An Indian bank that did not have a valid firewall license, had not employed phishing protection, lacked an intrusion detection system and eschewed use of any intrusion prevention system has, shockingly, been compromised by criminals who made off with millions of rupees.
The unfortunate institution is called the Andra Pradesh Mahesh Co-Operative Urban Bank. Its 45 branches and just under $400 million of deposits make it one of India's smaller banks.
It certainly thinks small about security – at least according to Hyderabad City Police, which last week detailed an attack on the Bank that started with over 200 phishing emails being sent across three days in November 2021. At least one of those mails succeeded in fooling staff, resulting in the installation of a Remote Access Trojan (RAT).
Another technology the bank had chosen not to adopt was virtual LANs, so once the RAT went to work the attackers gained entry to the Bank's systems and were able to roam widely – even in its core banking application
https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/05/mahesh_bank_no_firewall_attack/
Global APT Groups Use Ukraine War for Phishing Lures
Security researchers have detected multiple APT campaigns leveraging Ukraine war-themed documents and news sources to lure victims into clicking on spear-phishing links.
Check Point Research said victim locations ranged from South America to the Middle East, with malware downloads designed to perform keylogging and screenshotting and execute commands.
The threat groups in question include El Machete, which is targeting the financial and government sectors in Nicaragua and Venezuela with malicious macro-laden Word documents containing articles on the war.
One of the docs was an article written by the Russian ambassador to Nicaragua titled: “Dark plans of the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine.”
Another is Lyceum, an Iranian state-linked group targeting the energy sector with emails about war crimes in Ukraine that link to a malicious document hosted elsewhere. Its victims so far have been in Israel and Saudi Arabia, according to Check Point.
One email contained a link to an article from The Guardian hosted on the news-spot[.]live domain, alongside several malicious docs about the war.
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/global-apt-ukraine-war-phishing/
Paying Ransom Doesn’t Guarantee Data Recovery
OwnBackup announced the findings of a global survey conducted by Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) that reveals a staggering 79% of respondent organisations have been targeted by ransomware within the past 12 months. Of those organisations, nearly three quarters said the attack was successful, meaning that it disrupted business operations.
Other key findings
· Of the respondents that said their organisation paid a cyber ransom to regain access to data, applications, and/or systems after an attack, only 14% were able to recover all of their data.
· 87% of respondents who made ransom payments said that they experienced additional extortion attempts beyond the initial ransomware demand.
· 31% of respondent organisations targeted by ransomware indicated that application user and permission misconfigurations were the initial point of compromise.
· 87% of respondents are very or somewhat concerned about their backups being infected by ransomware attacks.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/04/07/organizations-targeted-by-ransomware/
Threats
Ransomware
March Ransomware Attacks Strike Finance, Government Targets (techtarget.com)
Why Paying The Ransom Isn’t The Answer For Ransomware Victims - Information Security Buzz
Companies Are More Prepared to Pay Ransoms Than Ever Before (tripwire.com)
Conti Ransomware Deployed in IcedID Banking Trojan Attack (techtarget.com)
Researchers Connect BlackCat Ransomware with Past BlackMatter Malware Activity (thehackernews.com)
Notorious Hacking Group FIN7 Adds Ransomware to Its Repertoire - CyberScoop
BlackCat Purveyor Shows Ransomware Operators Have 9 Lives (darkreading.com)
FIN7 Hackers Evolve Toolset, Work with Multiple Ransomware Gangs (bleepingcomputer.com)
LockBit Ransomware Attack Costs CRM Services Provider Over $42 Million - MSSP Alert
Snap-on Discloses Data Breach Claimed by Conti Ransomware Gang (bleepingcomputer.com)
Phishing & Email Based Attacks
Other Social Engineering
Malware
Borat RAT Malware: A 'Unique' Triple Threat That Is Far from Funny | ZDNet
Multiple Hacker Groups Capitalizing on Ukraine Conflict for Distributing Malware (thehackernews.com)
Malicious Web Redirect Service Infects 16,500 Sites to Push Malware (bleepingcomputer.com)
Researchers Uncover How Colibri Malware Stays Persistent on Hacked Systems (thehackernews.com)
Mobile
44 Vulnerabilities Patched in Android With April 2022 Security Updates | SecurityWeek.Com
Samsung Security Flaw Left Phones Exposed for Years (androidpolice.com)
SharkBot Android Malware Continues Popping Up on Google Play | SecurityWeek.Com
Android Apps With 45 Million Installs Used Data Harvesting SDK (bleepingcomputer.com)
New Android Spyware Uses Turla-Linked Infrastructure | SecurityWeek.Com
Organised Crime & Criminal Actors
Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking
Crypto 2022: Hackers Have Nabbed $1.22 Billion Already (yahoo.com)
Malicious Crypto Miners Can Make A Profit In A Few Hours - Help Net Security
Malicious Actors Targeting the Cloud For Cryptocurrency-Mining Activities - Help Net Security
Cryptocurrency-Mining AWS Lambda-Specific Malware Spotted • The Register
MailChimp Breached, Intruders Conducted Phishing Attacks Against Crypto Customers - Security Affairs
Turkey Seeks 40,000-Year Sentences for Alleged Cryptocurrency Exit Scammers | ZDNet
Insider Risk and Insider Threats
Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime
Traditional Identity Fraud Losses Soar, Totalling $52 Billion in 2021 - Help Net Security
South African and US Officers Swoop on Fraud Gang - Infosecurity Magazine
Insurance
Supply Chain
Cloud
The Importance of Understanding Cloud Native Security Risks - Help Net Security
15 Cyber Security Measures for the Cloud Era - Security Affairs
Privacy
How You’re Still Being Tracked on the Internet - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Using Google's Chrome Browser? This New Feature Will Help You Fix Your Security Settings | ZDNet
Passwords & Credential Stuffing
Travel
Spyware, Espionage & Cyber Warfare, including Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Nation State Actors
Nation State Actors – Russia
The Russian Cyber Attack Threat Might Force a New IT Stance | Computerworld
FBI Operation Aims to Take Down Massive Russian GRU Botnet | TechCrunch
Microsoft Sinkholes Russian Hacking Group's Domains Targeting Ukraine (darkreading.com)
FBI Disrupts Russian Military Hackers, Preventing Botnet Amid Ukraine War | Fox News
Russia (still) Trying To Weaponize Facebook Amid Ukraine War • The Register
Nation State Actors – China
Symantec: Chinese APT Group Targeting Global MSPs | SecurityWeek.Com
Chinese Hackers Are Using VLC Media Player to Launch Malware Attacks (androidpolice.com)
Hacked: Inside the US-China Cyberwar | Cybersecurity | Al Jazeera
China Uses AI Software to Improve Its Surveillance Capabilities | Reuters
Nation State Actors – Misc
Vulnerabilities
CISA Warns of Active Exploitation of Critical Spring4Shell Vulnerability (thehackernews.com)
Palo Alto Networks firewalls, VPNs vulnerable to OpenSSL bug (bleepingcomputer.com)
A Vulnerability in Zyxel Firewall Could Allow for Authentication Bypass (cisecurity.org)
Spring4Shell Patching Is Going Slow but Risk Not Comparable To Log4Shell | CSO Online
Apple Leaves Big Sur, Catalina Exposed to Critical Flaws: Intego | SecurityWeek.Com
A Mirai-Based Botnet Is Exploiting the Spring4Shell Vulnerability - Security Affairs
Steady Rise in Severe Web Vulnerabilities - Help Net Security
ACF WordPress Plugin Vulnerability Affects Up To +2 Million Sites (searchenginejournal.com)
Zero Days Are for Life, Not Just For Christmas. Here’s How to Deal With Them • The Register
Sector Specific
Financial Services Sector
FinTech
Health/Medical/Pharma Sector
Manufacturing
CNI, OT, ICS, IIoT and SCADA
Europe Warned About Cyber Threat to Industrial Infrastructure | SecurityWeek.Com
BlackCat Ransomware Targets Industrial Companies | SecurityWeek.Com
Energy & Utilities
Reports Published in the Last Week
Other News
Okta CEO Says Lapsus$ Hack is 'Big Deal,' Aims to Restore Trust (yahoo.com)
86% of Developers Don't Prioritise Application Security - Help Net Security
Digital Transformation Requires Security Intelligence - Help Net Security
Government Officials: AI Threat Detection Still Needs Humans (techtarget.com)
The Original APT: Advanced Persistent Teenagers – Krebs on Security
How Many Steps Does It Take for Attackers To Compromise Critical Assets? - Help Net Security
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.
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 01 April 2022
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 01 April 2022
-One Tenth of UK Staff Bypass Corporate Security
-Majority Of Data Security Incidents Caused by Insiders
-One-Third of UK Firms Suffer A Cyber Attack Every Week
-Russia's Cyber Criminals Fear Sanctions Will Erase Their Wealth
-86% Of Organisations Believe They Have Suffered a Nation-State Cyber Attack
-Multiple Hacking Groups Are Using the War in Ukraine As A Lure In Phishing Attempts
-4 Ways Attackers Target Humans to Gain Network Access
-Security Incidents Reported to FCA Surge 52% in 2021
-NCSC Suggests Rethinking Russian Supply Chain Risks
-25% Of Workers Lost Their Jobs In The Past 12 Months After Making Cyber Security Mistakes: Report
-Attackers Compromise 94% Of Critical Assets Within Four Steps Of Initial Breach
-UK Spy Chief Warns Russia Looking for Cyber Targets
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
One Tenth of UK Staff Bypass Corporate Security
A new study from Cisco has found that a tenth of UK employees actively circumvent their organisation’s security measures.
The network technology company polled over 1000 UK professionals working for organisations that allow hybrid working, in order to better understand the potential security risks of the modern, flexible workplace.
The research has revealed that many hybrid workers do not see cyber security as their responsibility, with many actively finding workarounds or engaging in risky behaviours such as password reuse.
19% of employees said they reuse passwords for multiple accounts and applications, with only 15% using password managers.
The problem seems to stem from user friction in existing security measures. Only 44% of survey participants said they found it easy to securely access their IT equipment.
A majority said they would be willing to use biometric authentication, a reflection of how enterprise security is still catching up to consumer functionality.
https://www.itsecurityguru.org/2022/03/28/one-tenth-of-uk-staff-bypass-corporate-security/
Majority Of Data Security Incidents Caused by Insiders
New research from Imperva has revealed that 70% of EMEA organisations have no insider risk strategy, despite 59% of data security incidents being caused by employees.
The shocking revelation comes as part of a wider study carried out by Forrester: Insider Threats Drive Data Protection Improvements. The study involved interviewing 150 security and IT professionals in EMEA.
An insider threat is defined by Imperva as originating from “inappropriate use of legitimate authorised user accounts” by either their rightful owner or a threat actor who has managed to compromise them.
The study found that insider threats were responsible for 59% of incidents impacting sensitive data in the past 12 months. This supports a previous Imperva analysis of the most significant breaches of the past five years, revealing that 24% were caused by either human error or compromised credentials.
https://www.itsecurityguru.org/2022/04/01/majority-of-data-security-incidents-caused-by-insiders/
One-Third of UK Firms Suffer a Cyber Attack Every Week
Cyber attacks and related incidents at UK organisations continue their seemingly unstoppable upward trajectory, with new statistics from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) revealing that 31% of businesses and 26% of charity organisations now experience incidents on a weekly basis.
The data, contained in the annual cyber security breaches survey report, paints a stark picture of the scale of the threat facing the average organisation, and the urgent need to boost standards and defences.
It is vital that every organisation takes cyber security seriously as more and more business is done online and we live in a time of increasing cyber risk. No matter how big or small your organisation is, you need to take steps to improve digital resilience.
Some 20% of businesses and 19% of charities said they had experienced a negative outcome as a direct consequence of an attack. The average cost of an attack, spread out across all organisations, now works out at £4,200, or £19,400 if only medium and large businesses are considered, although there is probably a vast amount of under-reporting, so the true figures are certainly higher.
Meanwhile, 35% of businesses and 38% of charities said they had experienced some kind of negative impact during the incident, such as service downtime.
https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252515288/One-third-of-UK-firms-suffer-a-cyber-attack-every-week
Russia's Cyber Criminals Fear Sanctions Will Erase Their Wealth
Punitive economic sanctions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine had crooks discussing the best ways to adapt to the new reality.
Members of Russian-language underground forums are not immune to the latest news. Russia's invasion of Ukraine and subsequent economic sanctions against Moscow got forum users to discuss how to live in this new world they find themselves in.
According to a report by the Digital Shadows Photon team, dark web forums are teeming with questions on how to ensure the safety of funds held in Russia-based accounts.
One user sought advice on what to do with dollars held in a Russian bank, with others suggesting converting dollars to rubles for a few months.
"I hope you were joking about [holding the funds in rubles for] half a year? After half a year, your rubles will only be good for lighting a fire, they will not be good for anything else," a forum user responded.
https://cybernews.com/news/russias-cybercriminals-fear-sanctions-will-erase-their-wealth/
86% Of Organisations Believe They Have Suffered a Nation-State Cyber Attack
A new study by Trellix and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has revealed that 86% of organisations believe they have fallen victim to a nation-state cyber attack.
The research surveyed 800 IT decision-makers in Australia, France, Germany, India, Japan, the UK and US.
It has also been revealed that 92% of respondents have faced, or suspect they have faced, a nation-state backed cyber attack in the past 18 months, or anticipate one in the future.
Russia and China were identified as the most likely suspects behind said attacks. 39% of organisations that believe they have been hit with a nation-state cyber attack believe Russia were the perpetrators.
Multiple Hacking Groups Are Using the War in Ukraine as A Lure in Phishing Attempts
Hostile hacking groups are exploiting Russia's invasion of Ukraine to carry out cyber attacks designed to steal login credentials, sensitive information, money and more from victims around the world.
According to cyber security researchers at Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG), government-backed hackers from Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, as well as various unattributed groups and cyber criminal gangs, are using various themes related to the war in Ukraine to lure people into becoming victims of cyber attacks.
In just the last two weeks alone, Google has seen several hacking groups looking to take advantage of the war to fulfil their malicious aims, whether that's stealing information, stealing money, or something else.
4 Ways Attackers Target Humans to Gain Network Access
Since the day we started receiving email, we hope that our antivirus or endpoint protection software alerts us to problems. In reality, it often does not. When technology fails, it’s likely because the attacker made an end run around it by targeting humans. Here are four ways they do it:
1. The targeted human attack
2. Fraudulent wire transfer email
3. Tricking users into handing over credentials
4. Bypassing multi-factor authentication
Security Incidents Reported to FCA Surge 52% in 2021
The number of cyber security incidents reported to the UK’s financial regulator surged by over 50% last year after a significant increase in cyber-attacks, according to new figures from Picus Security.
The security vendor submitted Freedom of Information (FoI) requests to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to compile its latest report, Cyber Security Incidents in the UK Financial Sector.
The 52% year-on-year increase in “material” security incidents reported to the FCA seems to have been driven by cyber-attacks, which comprised nearly two-thirds (65%) of these reports.
Picus Security claimed that the rest are likely explained by “system and process failures and employee errors.”
In addition, a third of incident reports were about corporate or personal data breaches, and a fifth involved ransomware.
Picus Security explained that to qualify as a material incident, there needs to have been a significant loss of data, operational IT outages, unauthorized IT access, and/or an impact on a large number of customers.
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/security-incidents-reported-fca/
NCSC Suggests Rethinking Russian Supply Chain Risks
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) of the UK has urged organisations to reconsider the risks associated with “Russian-controlled” parts of their supply chains.
Ian Levy, technical director of the NCSC argued that “Russian law already contains legal obligations on companies to assist the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), and the pressure to do so may increase in a time of war. We also have hacktivists on each side, further complicating matters, so the overall risk has materially changed.”
Levy has suggested that while there is currently nothing to suggest that the Russian state intends to force commercial providers to sabotage UK interests, that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.
https://www.itsecurityguru.org/2022/03/30/ncsc-suggests-rethinking-russian-supply-chain-risks/
25% Of Workers Lost Their Jobs in The Past 12 Months After Making Cyber Security Mistakes: Report
For business leaders, there is never a good time for their employees to make mistakes on the job. This is especially true now for workers who have anything to do with the cyber security of their companies and organisations. Given the growing risks of cyber attacks across the world and the increased threats posed by Russia in the aftermath of their invasion of Ukraine, these are certainly perilous times.
Indeed, a new study released by email security company Tessian found that one in four employees (26%) lost their job in the last 12 months after making a mistake that compromised their company’s security.
According to the second edition of Tessian’s Psychology of Human Error report, people are falling for more advanced phishing scams—and the business stakes for mistakes are much higher.
The study also found that:
Two-fifths (40%) of employees sent an email to the wrong person, with almost one-third (29%) saying their business lost a client or customer because of the error
Over one-third (36%) of employees have made a mistake at work that compromised security and fewer are reporting their mistakes to IT.
Attackers Compromise 94% of Critical Assets Within Four Steps of Initial Breach
New research from XM Cyber analysing the methods, attack paths, and impacts of cyber attacks has discovered that attackers can compromise 94% of critical assets within just four steps of initial breach points. The hybrid cloud security company’s Attack Path Management Impact Report incorporates insights from nearly two million endpoints, files, folders, and cloud resources throughout 2021, highlighting key findings on attack trends and techniques impacting critical assets across on-prem, multi-cloud, and hybrid environments.
The findings showed that 75% of an organisation’s critical assets are open to compromise in their current security state, while 73% of the top attack techniques used last year involved mismanaged or stolen credentials. Just over a quarter (27%) of most common attack techniques exploited a vulnerability or misconfiguration.
UK Spy Chief Warns Russia Looking for Cyber Targets
A UK intelligence chief warned that the Kremlin is hunting for cyber targets and bringing in mercenaries to shore up its stalled military campaign in Ukraine.
Jeremy Fleming, who heads the GCHQ electronic spy agency, praised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s “information operation” for being highly effective at countering Russia’s massive disinformation drive spreading propaganda about the war.
While there were expectations that Russia would launch a major cyber attack as part of its military campaign, Fleming said such a move was never a central part of Moscow’s standard playbook for war.
“That’s not to say that we haven’t seen cyber in this conflict. We have — and lots of it,” Fleming said in a speech in Canberra, Australia, according to a transcript released in London on Wednesday.
He said GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre has picked up signs of “sustained intent” by Russia to disrupt Ukrainian government and military systems.
“We’ve seen what looks like some spillover of activity affecting surrounding countries,” Fleming said. “And we’ve certainly seen indicators which suggest Russia’s cyber actors are looking for targets in the countries that oppose their actions.”
He provided no further details. He said the UK and other Western allies will continue to support Ukraine in beefing up its cyber security defences.
https://www.securityweek.com/uk-spy-chief-warns-russia-looking-cyber-targets
Threats
Ransomware
Ransomware Payments Hitting New Records In 2021 - Help Net Security
UK Ransomware Attacks Double In Past Year, Expert Insight - Information Security Buzz
Ransomware, Endpoint Risks Are Top Concerns for DFIR Professionals | CSO Online
Not Enough Businesses Have A Formal Ransomware Plan In Place - Help Net Security
Ukraine, Conti, and the law of unintended consequences | CSO Online
FBI Investigating More than 100 Ransomware Variants - Infosecurity Magazine
Precursor Malware Is an Early Warning Sign for Ransomware (darkreading.com)
Cyber Blackmail Gains Traction in Ransomware Hijackers' Tool Set - MSSP Alert
Services Giant Admits $42m Fallout from Ransomware Attack - Infosecurity Magazine
Hive Ransomware Uses New 'IPfuscation' Trick to Hide Payload (bleepingcomputer.com)
Shutterfly, Hit By Conti Ransomware Group, Warns Staff Their Data Has Been Stolen • Graham Cluley
FBI: Ransomware Attacks Are Piling Up The Pressure On Public Services | ZDNet
BEC – Business Email Compromise
Phishing & Email Based Attacks
Calendly Actively Abused in Microsoft Credentials Phishing (bleepingcomputer.com)
Phishing Attacks: Malicious URLs May Outpace Email Attachment Risks - MSSP Alert
Phishing uses Azure Static Web Pages to impersonate Microsoft (bleepingcomputer.com)
Other Social Engineering
5 Old Social Engineering Tricks Employees Still Fall For, And 4 New Gotchas | CSO Online
Fraudsters Use 'Fake Emergency Data Requests' To Steal Info • The Register
Malware
Mobile
IoT
Organised Crime & Criminal Actors
Sanctions Hitting Russian Cyber-Criminals Hard - Infosecurity Magazine
Secret World of Pro-Russia Hacking Group Exposed in Leak - WSJ
UK Police Charges Two Teenagers for Their Alleged Role in Lapsus$ Group - Security Affairs
LAPSUS$ Hacks Globant. 70GB of Data Leaked from IT Firm (bitdefender.com)
Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking
How CISOs can Mitigate Cryptomining Malware (trendmicro.com)
Ronin Blockchain Hit With $620 Million Crypto Heist - IT Security Guru
Insider Risk and Insider Threats
Yale Finance Director Stole $40m In Computers to Resell • The Register
Making Security Mistakes May Come With A High Price For Employees - Help Net Security
Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime
Europol Dismantles Massive Call Centre Investment Scam Operation (bleepingcomputer.com)
Emily Maitlis Opens Up About Terrifying Bank Scam: ‘I Feel Sick’ | The Independent
Supply Chain
Denial of Service DoS/DDoS
DDoS Attacks Becoming Larger And More Complex, Finance Most Targeted Sector - Help Net Security
Number of DDoS Attacks in 2021 Reached 9.75 Million - Help Net Security
Beastmode Botnet Boosts DDoS Power With New Router Exploits (bleepingcomputer.com)
Passwords & Credential Stuffing
Spyware, Espionage & Cyber Warfare
Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Anonymous Targets Oligarchs' Russian Businesses - Security Affairs
With War Next Door, EU is Warned on Cyber Security Gaps | SecurityWeek.Com
Ukraine Intelligence Leaks Names of 620 Alleged Russian FSB Agents - Security Affairs
Russian Credential Thieves Target NATO, European Military • The Register
Viasat Confirms Satellite Modems Were Wiped with AcidRain Malware (bleepingcomputer.com)
Internet Provider to Ukrainian Military Hit With Major Cyber Attack - WSJ
GhostWriter APT Targets State Entities of Ukraine with Cobalt Strike Beacon - Security Affairs
Hacked WordPress Sites Force Visitors to DDoS Ukrainian Targets (bleepingcomputer.com)
Russia Facing Internet Outages Due to Equipment Shortage (bleepingcomputer.com)
Anonymous Is Working On A Huge Data Dump That Will Blow Russia Away - Security Affairs
Phishing Campaign Targets Russian Govt Dissidents With Cobalt Strike (bleepingcomputer.com)
Leaked Hacker Logs Show Weaknesses of Russia’s Cyber Proxy Ecosystem | CSO Online
Russian Aviation Authority Switches to Paper After Losing 65TB of Data | CyberNews
Anonymous Hacked Russian Thozis Corp, But Denies Attacks on Rosaviatsia - Security Affairs
ZTE Whistleblower: Chinese Companies Will Sell to Russia • The Register
Nation State Actors
Nation State Actors – Russia
UK Spy Boss Warns About Russia-China Tech Collaboration • The Register
UK Cyber Security Centre Advises Review of Russian Tech • The Register
Russia Ranks Top For State-Linked Online Misinformation • The Register
Google: Russian phishing attacks target NATO, European military (bleepingcomputer.com)
Russian Spies Unmasked In Embarrassing Blow For Vladimir Putin (telegraph.co.uk)
Nation State Actors – China
Vulnerabilities
CISA Adds 66 Vulnerabilities to 'Must Patch' List | SecurityWeek.Com
Apple Rushes Out Patches for Two 0-days Threatening iOS and macOS Users | Ars Technica
Chrome Browser Gets Major Security Update | SecurityWeek.Com
Critical SonicOS Vulnerability Affects SonicWall Firewall Appliances (thehackernews.com)
Log4JShell Used to Swarm VMware Servers with Miners, Backdoors | Threatpost
Experts Warn Defenders: Don't Relax on Log4j | SecurityWeek.Com
Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge Updated to Close Security Hole • The Register
RCE Bug in Spring Cloud Could Be the Next Log4Shell, Researchers Warn | Threatpost
Spring4Shell: No need To Panic, But Mitigations Are Advised - Help Net Security
Sophos Firewall Affected by A Critical Authentication Bypass Flaw - Security Affairs
CVE-2022-1162 Flaw in GitLab Allowed Threat Actors To Take Over Accounts - Security Affairs
Trend Micro Fixed High Severity Flaw In Apex Central Product Console - Security Affairs
Zyxel Urges Customers To Patch Critical Firewall Bypass Vulnerability | ZDNet
QNAP Warns of OpenSSL Infinite Loop Vulnerability Affecting NAS Devices (thehackernews.com)
Sector Specific
Health/Medical/Pharma Sector
Hive Ransomware Group Claims Partnership HealthPlan of California Data Breach | CSO Online
LockBit Victim Estimates Cost of Ransomware Attack To Be $42 Million (bleepingcomputer.com)
Retail/eCommerce
Shopping Trap: The Online Stores’ Scam That Hits Users Worldwide - Security Affairs
Automotive
Automaker Cyber Security Lagging Behind Tech Adoption, Experts Warn | Threatpost
CNI, OT, ICS, IIoT and SCADA
The Spectre of Stuxnet: CISA Issues Alert on Rockwell Automation ICS Vulnerabilities | ZDNet
Other News
Protecting Your Organisation Against a New Class of Cyber Threats: HEAT (darkreading.com)
Why Do Organisations Need To Prioritize Cyber Resiliency? - Help Net Security
How Security Complexity Is Being Weaponized (darkreading.com)
In Charts: Cyber Security Risks And Companies’ Readiness | Financial Times (ft.com)
CISA Warns of Attacks Against Internet-Connected UPS Devices | CSO Online
Hackers Posing as Police Convinced Apple and Meta to Share Basic Subscriber Info (softpedia.com)
Exploring the Intersection of Physical Security and Cyber Security (darkreading.com)
The Current State Of Enterprise Backup And Recovery - Help Net Security
Why Metrics Are Crucial To Proving Cyber Security Programs’ Value | CSO Online
COVID Bounce: A Massive 2021 Resurgence of Cyber Threats - Help Net Security
Rapid7 Finds Zero-Day Attacks Surged In 2021 (techtarget.com)
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Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 18 March 2022
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 18 March 2022
-Guernsey Cyber Security Warning For Islanders And Businesses
-CISOs Face 'Perfect Storm' Of Ransomware And State-Supported Cyber Crime
-Four Key Risks Exacerbated By Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine
-These Four Types Of Ransomware Make Up Nearly Three-Quarters Of Reported Incidents
-Critical Infrastructure Threat as Ransomware Groups Target 'Enemies of Russia'
-Cyber Insurance War Exclusions Loom Amid Ukraine Crisis
-Zelenskyy Deepfake Crude, But Still Might Be A Harbinger Of Dangers Ahead
-Cyber Crooks’ Political In-Fighting Threatens the West
-Cloud-Based Email Threats Surge 50% in 2021
-Millions of New Mobile Malware Strains Blitzed Enterprise in 2021
-UK Criminal Defence Lawyer Hadn't Patched When Ransomware Hit
-Russian Ransomware Gang Retool Custom Hacking Tools Of Other APT Groups
-The Massive Impact of Vulnerabilities In Critical Infrastructure
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
Guernsey Cyber Security Warning for Islanders and Businesses
There has been a rise in cyber-attacks since the war in Ukraine began, according to the States of Guernsey and a cyber-security firm.
The States said: "We have seen a noticeable increase in the number of phishing emails since the war began."
The Channel Islands see more than 10 million cyber attacks every month, according to research by Guernsey firm Black Arrow Cyber Consulting.
It encouraged vigilance, as the islands are not immune to these attacks.
A States spokesman said: "The whole community needs to remain vigilant against such emails, which are designed to appear to be from reputable sources in order to dupe people into providing personal information or access to their device via the clicking of a link."
Bruce McDougall, from Black Arrow Cyber Consulting, said: "Criminals don't let a good opportunity go to waste. So they're conducting scams encouraging people to make false payments in the belief they're collecting for charities."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-guernsey-60763398
CISOs Face 'Perfect Storm' Of Ransomware and State-Supported Cyber Crime
As some nations turn a blind eye, defence becomes life-or-death matter
With ransomware gangs raiding network after network, and nation states consciously turning a blind eye to it, today's chief information security officers are caught in a "perfect storm," says Cybereason CSO Sam Curry.
"There's this marriage right now of financially motivated cyber crime that can have a critical infrastructure and economic impact," Curry said during a CISO roundtable hosted by his endpoint security shop. "And there are some nation states that do what we call state-ignored sanctioning," he continued, using Russia-based REvil and Conti ransomware groups as examples of criminal operations that benefit from their home governments looking the other way.
"You get the umbrella of sovereignty, and you get the free license to be a privateer in essence," Curry said. "It's not just an economic threat. It's not just a geopolitical threat. It's a perfect storm."
It's probably not a huge surprise to anyone that destructive cyber attacks keep CISOs awake at night. But as chief information security officers across industries — in addition to Curry, the four others on the roundtable spanned retail, biopharmaceuticals, electronics manufacturing, and a cruise line — have watched threats evolve and criminal gangs mature, it becomes a battle to see who can innovate faster; the attackers or the defenders.
https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/18/ciso_security_storm/
Four Key Risks Exacerbated by Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has altered the emerging risk landscape, and it requires enterprise risk management (ERM) leaders to reassess previously established organisational risk profiles in at least four key areas, according to Gartner.
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has increased the velocity of many risks we have tracked on a quarterly basis in our Emerging Risks survey,” said Matt Shinkman, VP with the Gartner Risk and Audit Practice.
“As ERM leaders reassess their organisational risk models, they must also ensure a high frequency of communication with the C-Suite as to the critical changes that require attention now.”
There are four major areas of risk that ERM leaders should continually monitor and examine their mitigation strategies as part of a broader aligned assurance approach as the war continues: Talent Risk, Cyber Security Risk, Financial Risk and Supply Chain Risk
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/03/17/erm-leaders-risk/
These Four Types of Ransomware Make Up Nearly Three-Quarters of Reported Incidents
Any ransomware is a cyber security issue, but some strains are having more of an impact than others.
Ransomware causes problems no matter what brand it is, but some forms are noticeably more prolific than others, with four strains of the malware accounting for a combined total of almost 70% of all attacks.
According to analysis by cyber security company Intel 471, the most prevalent ransomware threat towards the end of 2021 was LockBit 2.0, which accounted for 29.7% of all reported incidents. Recent victims of LockBit have included Accenture and the French Ministry of Justice.
Almost one in five reported incidents involved Conti ransomware, famous for several incidents over the past year, including an attack against the Irish Healthcare Executive. The group recently had chat logs leaked, providing insights into how a ransomware gang works. PYSA and Hive account for one in 10 reported ransomware attacks each.
"The most prevalent ransomware strain in the fourth quarter of 2021 was LockBit 2.0, which was responsible for 29.7% of all reported incidents, followed by Conti at 19%, PYSA at 10.5% and Hive at 10.1%," said the researchers.
Critical Infrastructure Threat as Ransomware Groups Target 'Enemies of Russia'
The cyber crime underground has fractured into pro-Ukraine and pro-Russia camps, with the latter increasingly focused on critical national infrastructure (CNI) targets in the West, according to a new report from Accenture.
The consulting giant’s Accenture Cyber Threat Intelligence (ACTI) arm warned that the ideological schism could spell mounting risk for Western organisations as pro-Kremlin criminal groups adopt quasi-hacktivist tactics to choose their next victims.
Organisations in the government, media, finance, insurance, utilities and resources sectors should be braced for more attacks, said ACTI.
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/critical-infrastructure-threat/
Cyber Insurance War Exclusions Loom Amid Ukraine Crisis
An expanding threat landscape is testing the limits of cyber insurance coverage.
The industry experienced a rapid maturation over the past three years as enterprises required a broader umbrella of insurance coverage to combat increasing cyber risks. While demands and premiums continue to rise, one recent area of contention involves war and hostile acts, an exclusion that's becoming harder to categorize.
A judgment in December, coupled with the Russian invasion last month that posed potential cyber retaliations to Ukraine allies, highlighted shortcomings in insurance policies when it comes to cyber conflicts.
Zelenskyy Deepfake Crude, But Still Might Be a Harbinger of Dangers Ahead
Several deepfake video experts called a doctored video of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that went viral this week before social media platforms removed it a poorly executed example of the form, but nonetheless damaging.
Elements of the Zelenskyy deepfake — which purported to show him calling for surrender — made it easy to debunk, they said. But that won’t always be the case.
https://www.cyberscoop.com/zelenskyy-deepfake-troubles-experts/
Cyber Crooks’ Political In-Fighting Threatens the West
They’re choosing sides in the Russia-Ukraine war, beckoning previously shunned ransomware groups and thereby reinvigorating those groups’ once-diminished power.
A rift has formed in the cyber crime underground: one that could strengthen, rather than cripple, the cyber-onslaught of ransomware.
According to a report, ever since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, “previously coexisting, financially motivated threat actors divided along ideological factions.”
“Pro-Ukrainian actors are refusing to sell, buy, or collaborate with Russian-aligned actors, and are increasingly attempting to target Russian entities in support of Ukraine,” wrote researchers from Accenture’s Cyber Threat Intelligence (ACTI). “However, pro-Russian actors are increasingly aligning with hacktivist-like activity targeting ‘enemies of Russia,’ especially Western entities due to their claims of Western warmongering.”
What might otherwise seem like a good thing – bad guys fighting bad guys – may in fact pose an increased threat to the West.
https://threatpost.com/cybercrooks-political-in-fighting-threatens-the-west/178899/
Cloud-Based Email Threats Surge 50% in 2021
There was a 50% year-on-year surge in cloud-based email threats in 2021, but a drop in ransomware and business email compromise (BEC) detections as attacks became more targeted, according to Trend Micro.
The security vendor’s 2021 roundup report, Navigating New Frontiers, was compiled from data collected by customer-installed products and cloud-based threat intelligence.
It revealed that Trend Micro blocked 25.7 million email threats targeting Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 users last year, versus 16.7 million in 2020.
The number of phishing attempts almost doubled during the period, as threat actors continued to target home workers. Of these, 38% were focused on stealing credentials, the report claimed.
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/cloudbased-email-threats-surge-2021/
Millions of New Mobile Malware Strains Blitzed Enterprise in 2021
Researchers uncovered more than two million new mobile malware samples in the wild last year, Zimperium said in a new report.
Those threats spanned some 10 million mobile devices in at least 214 countries, the Dallas, Texas-based solution provider said in its newly released 2022 Global Mobile Threat Report. Indeed, mobile malware proved in 2021 to be the most prevalent security threat to enterprises, encountered by nearly 25 percent mobile endpoints among Zimperium’s customers worldwide. The 2.3 million new mobile strains Zimperium’s researchers located amount to nearly 36,000 new strains of malware weekly and roughly 5,000 each day.
UK Criminal Defence Lawyer Hadn't Patched When Ransomware Hit
Criminal defence law firm Tuckers Solicitors is facing a fine from the UK's data watchdog for failing to properly secure data that included information on case proceedings which was scooped up in a ransomware attack in 2020.
The London-based business was handed a £98,000 penalty notice by the Information Commissioner's Office under Article 83 of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation 2018.
The breach was first noted by Tuckers on August 23 2020 when part of its IT system became unavailable. On closer inspection, resident techies found a note from the attackers confirming they had compromised part of the infrastructure. The Microsoft Exchange server was out of action and two days' worth of emails were lost, as detailed by the company blog at the time.
https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/15/brit_solicitor_fined_for_failing/
Russian Ransomware Gang Retool Custom Hacking Tools of Other APT Groups
A Russian-speaking ransomware outfit likely targeted an unnamed entity in the gambling and gaming sector in Europe and Central America by repurposing custom tools developed by other APT groups like Iran's MuddyWater, new research has found.
The unusual attack chain involved the abuse of stolen credentials to gain unauthorized access to the victim network, ultimately leading to the deployment of Cobalt Strike payloads on compromised assets, said Felipe Duarte and Ido Naor, researchers at Israeli incident response firm Security Joes, in a report published last week.
Although the infection was contained at this stage, the researchers characterized the compromise as a case of a suspected ransomware attack.
The intrusion is said to have taken place in February 2022, with the attackers making use of post-exploitation tools such as ADFind, NetScan, SoftPerfect, and LaZagne. Also employed is an AccountRestore executable to brute-force administrator credentials and a forked version of a reverse tunneling tool called Ligolo.
https://thehackernews.com/2022/03/russian-ransomware-gang-retool-custom.html
The Massive Impact of Vulnerabilities in Critical Infrastructure
Recent cyber events have shown how extremely vulnerable critical infrastructure is. What are the biggest security concerns?
In any world conflict, one of the primary threats posed is cyber actors disabling or destroying the core infrastructure of the adversary. Based on the global reaction to the current world conflict, countries fear reprisals. The worry is that there will be collateral damage to the critical infrastructure of other countries not directly involved in the current conflict.
Today, services such as healthcare systems, power grids, transportation and other critical industries are increasingly integrating their operational technology with traditional IT systems in order to modernize their infrastructure, and this has opened up a new wave of cyber attacks. Though businesses are ramping up their security initiatives and investments to defend and protect, their efforts have largely been siloed, reactive, and lack business context. Lack of visibility of risk across the estate is a huge problem for this sector.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/03/15/critical-infrastructure-security/
Threats
Ransomware
Nearly 34 Ransomware Variants Observed in Hundreds of Cyber Attacks in Q4 2021 (thehackernews.com)
Franchises, Partnerships Emerge in Ransomware-as-a-Service Operations | ZDNet
Dozens of Ransomware Variants Used In 722 Attacks Over 3 Months (bleepingcomputer.com)
Conti Leak: A Ransomware Gang's Chats Expose Its Crypto Plans | WIRED
Google Blows Lid Off Conti, Diavol Ransomware Access-Broker Ops | Threatpost
SEC Filings Show Hidden Ransomware Costs And Losses | CSO Online
Exotic Lily Sells Ransomware Groups Access To Targets • The Register
New "Initial Access Broker" Working with Conti gang - IT Security Guru
Google Exposes Tactics Of A Conti Ransomware Access Broker (bleepingcomputer.com)
Avoslocker Ransomware Gang Targets US Critical Infrastructure - Security Affairs
How Prepared Are Organisations To Face A Ransomware Attack On Kubernetes? - Help Net Security
Experts Find Some Affiliates of BlackMatter Now Spreading BlackCat Ransomware (thehackernews.com)
Bridgestone Cyber Attack Timeline and Ransomware Recovery Details - MSSP Alert
Automotive Giant Denso Confirms Hack, Pandora Ransomware Group Takes Credit | ZDNet
Phishing & Email
Massive Phishing Campaign Uses 500+ Domains To Steal Credentials (bleepingcomputer.com)
How CAPTCHA Puzzles Cloak Phishing Page URLs In Emails • The Register
Microsoft the No. 1 Most-Spoofed Brand in Phishing Attacks (darkreading.com)
76,000 Scams Taken Down Through Email Reporting - IT Security Guru
Phony Instagram ‘Support Staff’ Emails Hit Insurance Company | Threatpost
This Browser-In-The-Browser Attack Is Perfect For Phishing • The Register
Malware
New "B1txor20" Linux Botnet Uses DNS Tunnel and Exploits Log4J Flaw (thehackernews.com)
Attacker Uses Websites' Contact Forms To Spread BazarLoader Malware | TechRepublic
Gh0stCringe RAT Targeting Database Servers in Recent Attacks | SecurityWeek.Com
Cyclops Blink Malware Sets Up Shop in ASUS Routers • The Register
DirtyMoe Botnet Gains New Exploits in Wormable Module to Spread Rapidly (thehackernews.com)
Linux Botnet Exploits Log4j Flaw To Hijack Arm, x86 Systems • The Register
New Threat: B1txor20, A Linux Backdoor Using DNS Tunnel (360.com)
Russian Cyclops Blink Botnet Launches Assault Against Asus Routers | ZDNet
TrickBot Malware Abusing MikroTik Routers as Proxies for Command-and-Control (thehackernews.com)
Mobile
2021 Mobile Security: Android More Vulnerabilities, iOS More Zero-Days (bleepingcomputer.com)
Thousands of Secret Keys Found in Leaked Samsung Source Code | SecurityWeek.Com
Scammers Have 2 Clever New Ways To Install Malicious Apps on iOS Devices | Ars Technica
Threat Intel Report: Who Is Behind Staggering 190GB Samsung Galaxy Hack? (forbes.com)
Android Trojan Persists On The Google Play Store Since January (bleepingcomputer.com)
IoT
Organised Crime & Criminal Actors
Financially Motivated Threat Actors Willing To Go After Russian Targets - Help Net Security
A Third of Malicious Logins Originate in Nigeria - Infosecurity Magazine
Phishers Exploit Ukraine Conflict To Solicit Crypto - IT Security Guru
Insider Risk and Insider Threats
Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime
Supply Chain
DoS/DDoS
Cloud
How Cloud Services Become Weapons In Russia-Ukraine Cyber Conflict | ZDNet
The Next Big Cyber Security Threat Is Connected SaaS Platforms (thenextweb.com)
Privacy
Passwords & Credential Stuffing
Regulations, Fines and Legislation
CafePress Fined For Covering Up Customer Info Leak • The Register
Meta Fined €17 Million by Irish Regulator for GDPR Violations | CSO Online
Spyware, Espionage & Cyber Warfare
Nation State Actors
Nation State Actors – Russia
Conti Leaks Reveal the Ransomware Group’s Links to Russia | WIRED
How The Cyber World Can Support Ukraine | World Economic Forum (weforum.org)
FBI Warns of MFA Flaw Used By State Hackers For Lateral Movement (bleepingcomputer.com)
Ukraine Secret Service Arrests Hacker Helping Russian Invaders (thehackernews.com)
Open Source Maintainer Sabotages Code to Wipe Russian, Belarusian Computers (vice.com)
German Government Advises Against Using Kaspersky Antivirus (bleepingcomputer.com)
Ukraine's "IT Army" Hit With Info-Stealing Malware- IT Security Guru
Mozilla Firefox Removes Russian Search Providers Over Misinformation Concerns (bleepingcomputer.com)
Fake Antivirus Updates Used To Deploy Cobalt Strike in Ukraine (bleepingcomputer.com)
Ukrainian Hacktivists Allegedly Dumps Kaspersky Product Source Code Online (Updated) - Lowyat.NET
New CaddyWiper Data Wiping Malware Hits Ukrainian Networks (bleepingcomputer.com)
Top Ukrainian Cyber Official Praises Volunteer Hacks On Russian Targets, Offers Updates - CyberScoop
Anonymous Sent A Message To Russians: "Remove Putin" - Security Affairs
Cyber Attacks Cripple Russian Websites After Ukraine Invasion (gizmodo.com)
Russia Faces IT Crisis With Just Two Months Of Data Storage Left (bleepingcomputer.com)
Russia Labels Meta 'Extremist Organisation, Bans Instagram • The Register
Nation State Actors – China
China-Linked Threat Actors Are Targeting The Government Of Ukraine - Security Affairs
China Claims It Captured NSA Spy Tool That Already Leaked • The Register
Nation State Actors – Iran
Vulnerabilities
CISA Adds 15 Vulnerabilities To List Of Flaws Exploited In Attacks (bleepingcomputer.com)
New Linux Bug in Netfilter Firewall Module Lets Attackers Gain Root Access (thehackernews.com)
Apple Patch Day: Gaping Security Holes in iOS, macOS, iPadOS | SecurityWeek.Com
OpenSSL Patches Denial-Of-Service Certificate Flaw • The Register
OpenSSL Patches Infinite-Loop DoS Bug In Certificate Verification – Naked Security (sophos.com)
SolarWinds Warns Of Attacks Targeting Web Help Desk Instances (bleepingcomputer.com)
High-Severity Vulnerabilities Patched in BIND Server | SecurityWeek.Com
QNAP Warns Severe Linux Bug Affects Most Of Its NAS Devices (bleepingcomputer.com)
Sector Specific
Financial Services Sector
Hackers Target Bank Networks with new Rootkit to Steal Money from ATM Machines (thehackernews.com)
Banks on Alert For Russian Reprisal Cyber Attacks on Swift | Ars Technica
Fraudsters Use Intelligent Bots To Attack Financial Institutions (scmagazine.com)
70% of Financial Service Providers Are Implementing API Security - Help Net Security
Health/Medical/Pharma Sector
Transport and Aviation
Reports Published in the Last Week
Other News
Does the Free World Need a Global Cyber Alliance? | SecurityWeek.Com
Why EDR Is Not Sufficient To Protect Your Organisation - Help Net Security
Public and Private Sector Security: Better Protection by Collaboration | SecurityWeek.Com
The Importance Of Building In Security During Software Development - Help Net Security
How Fast Can Organisations Respond To A Cyber Security Crisis? - Help Net Security
Researcher Uses 379-Year-Old Algorithm To Crack Crypto Keys Found In The Wild | Ars Technica
How Pen Testing Gains Critical Security Buy-in and Defence Insight (darkreading.com)
DarkHotel APT Targets Wynn, Macao Hotels to Rip Off Guest Data | Threatpost
When IT Spending Plans Don't Reflect Security Priorities (darkreading.com)
Half of People Accept All Cookies Despite The Security Risk | TechRadar
Business Is At Last Collaborating On Cyber Security | Financial Times (ft.com)
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.
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 11 March 2022
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 11 March 2022
-Sharp Rise in SMB Cyberattacks By Russia And China
-We're Seeing An 800% Increase in Cyber Attacks, Says One MSP
-Internet Warfare: How The Russians Could Paralyse Britain
-Just 3% Of Employees Cause 92% Of Malware Events
-70% Of Breached Passwords Are Still in Use
-Organisations Taking Nearly Two Months To Remediate Critical Risk Vulnerabilities
-Android Malware Escobar Steals Your Google Authenticator MFA Codes
-Smartphone Malware Is On The Rise - Here's How To Stay Safe
-Russia May Use Ransomware Payouts to Avoid Sanctions’ Financial Harm
-How An 8-Character Password Could Be Cracked in Less Than An Hour
-Cyber Insurance and Business Risk: How the Relationship Is Changing Reinsurance & Policy Guidance
-Security Teams Prep Too Slowly for Cyber Attacks
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
Sharp Rise in SMB Cyber Attacks by Russia and China
SaaS Alerts, a cloud security company, unveiled the findings of its latest report which analysed approximately 136 million security events across 2,100 small and medium businesses (SMBs) globally and identified cyber trends negatively impacting businesses.
The findings of the report take into account security events occurring across more than 120,000 user accounts during the period of January 1st to December 31st, 2021 and shows that the vast majority of attacks on top SaaS platforms such as Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Slack and Dropbox are originating from Russia and China. The data set is statistically significant and enables solution providers managing a portfolio of SaaS applications with pertinent data and trends to support defensive IT security re-alignments as required.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/03/09/saas-security-events-smbs/
We're Seeing An 800% Increase in Cyber Attacks, Says One Managed Service Provider
Revenge and inflation are believed to be key drivers behind an 800 percent increase in cyber attacks seen by a single managed services provider since the days before the onset of Russia's invasion of Ukraine last month.
The attacks are coming not only from groups inside of Russia but also from elsewhere within the region as well from Russia allies like North Korea and Iran, historically sources of global cyber-threats.
The MSP serves about 2,400 companies around the world, most of them small businesses and midsize enterprises and most in North America. The MSP said it has seen the spike in cyber attacks throughout its customer base.
The sharp rise has been attributed to pro-Russian cyber criminal groups linked to nation states lashing out at countries – first Ukraine and then Western countries – angry at the sanctions being levelled against Russia. At the same time, the sharp inflation that is spreading around the world is also hitting hackers, who need to make money to keep up with rising costs.
https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/11/russia-invasion-cyber-war-rages/
Internet Warfare: How the Russians Could Paralyse Britain
The collapse of critical national infrastructure is a science fiction staple. Fifty years ago, actively switching off a country’s water and power networks would have required huge physical damage to power stations and the sources of those services. Today, however, many of the tools we use every day are connected to the internet.
All of those things now have remote access — and therefore, all of them could be vulnerable.
Ukraine has been blitzed by cyber attacks since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and they have increased in the lead-up to the invasion. As Russia marched into Ukraine, British officials were concerned about “spillover” from any cyber offensives targeted thousands of miles away.
In today’s interconnected digital world, the reality is that distance from the conflict zone makes no difference.
As the West fears a cyber-reprisal, what would a successful attack look like in Britain — and how likely is a complete “network failure”?
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russia-cyberattack-uk-what-would-happen-l3dt98dmb
Just 3% Of Employees Cause 92% Of Malware Events
A small group of employees is typically responsible for most of the digital risk in an organisation, according to new research.
The report, from cybersecurity company Elevate Security and cyber security research organisation Cyentia, also found that those putting their companies at risk from phishing, malware, and insecure browsing are often repeat offenders.
The research found that 4% of employees clicked 80% of phishing links, and 3% were responsible for 92% of malware events.
Four in five employees have never clicked on a phishing email, according to the research. In fact, it asserts that half of them never see one, highlighting the need to focus anti-phishing efforts on at-risk workers.
The malware that phishing and other attack vectors deliver also affects a small group of employees. The research found that 96% of users have never suffered from a malware event. Most malware events revolve around the 3% of users who suffered from two malware events or more, reinforcing the notion that security awareness messages just aren't getting through to some.
https://www.itpro.co.uk/security/malware/366011/just-3-of-employees-cause-92-of-malware-events
70% Of Breached Passwords Are Still in Use
A new report examines trends related to exposed data. Researchers identified 1.7 billion exposed credentials, a 15% increase from 2020, and 13.8 billion recaptured Personally Identifiable Information (PII) records obtained from breaches in 2021.
Through its analysis of this data, it was found that despite increasingly sophisticated and targeted cyber attacks, consumers continue to engage in poor cyber practices regarding passwords, including the use of similar passwords for multiple accounts, weak or common passwords and passwords containing easy-to-guess words or phrases connected to pop culture.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/03/08/exposed-data-trends/
Organisations Taking Nearly Two Months to Remediate Critical Risk Vulnerabilities
Edgescan announces the findings of a report which offers a comprehensive view of the state of vulnerability management globally. This year’s report takes a more granular look at the trends by industry, and provides details on which of the known, patchable vulnerabilities are currently being exploited by threat actors.
The report reveals that organisations are still taking nearly two months to remediate critical risk vulnerabilities, with the average mean time to remediate (MTTR) across the full stack set at 60 days.
High rates of “known” (i.e. patchable) vulnerabilities which have working exploits in the wild, used by known nation state and cybercriminal groups are not uncommon.
Crucially, 57% of all observed vulnerabilities are more than two years old, with as many as 17% being more than five years old. These are all vulnerabilities that have working exploits in the wild, used by known nation state and cybercriminal groups. Edgescan also observed a concerning 1.5% of known, unpatched vulnerabilities that are over 20 years old, dating back to 1999.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/03/10/state-of-vulnerability-management/
Android Malware Escobar Steals Your Google Authenticator MFA Codes
The Aberebot Android banking trojan has returned under the name 'Escobar' with new features, including stealing Google Authenticator multi-factor authentication codes.
The new features in the latest Aberebot version also include taking control of the infected Android devices using VNC, recording audio, and taking photos, while also expanding the set of targeted apps for credential theft.
The main goal of the trojan is to steal enough information to allow the threat actors to take over victims' bank accounts, siphon available balances, and perform unauthorised transactions.
Like most banking trojans, Escobar displays overlay login forms to hijack user interactions with e-banking apps and websites and steal credentials from victims.
The malware also packs several other features that make it potent against any Android version, even if the overlay injections are blocked in some manner.
The authors have expanded the set of targeted banks and financial institutions to a whopping 190 entities from 18 countries in the latest version.
Smartphone Malware Is on The Rise - Here's How to Stay Safe
The volume of malware attacks targeting mobile devices has skyrocketed so far this year, cyber security researchers are saying.
A new report from security company Proofpoint claims that the number of detected mobile malware attacks has spiked 500% in the first few months of 2022, with peaks at the beginning and end of February.
Much of this malware aims to steal usernames and passwords from mobile banking applications, Proofpoint says. But some strains are even more sinister, recording audio and video from infected devices, tracking the victim's location, or exfiltrating and deleting data.
https://www.techradar.com/nz/news/smartphone-malware-is-coming-for-more-and-more-of-us
Russia May Use Ransomware Payouts to Avoid Sanctions’ Financial Harm
FinCEN warns financial institutions to be wary of unusual cryptocurrency payments or illegal transactions Russia may use to ease financial hurt from Ukraine-linked sanctions.
Russia may ramp up ransomware attacks against the United States as a way to ease the financial hurt it’s under due to sanctions, U.S. federal authorities are warning. Those sanctions have been levied against the nation and Vladimir Putin’s government due to its invasion of Ukraine.
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a FinCEN Alert (PDF) on Wednesday advising all financial institutions to remain vigilant against potential efforts to evade the expansive sanctions and other U.S.-imposed restrictions related to the current conflict. One way this may be done is to move cryptocurrency funds through ransomware payments collected after Russian state-sponsored actors carry out cyberattacks.
“In the face of mounting economic pressure on Russia, it is vitally important for financial institutions to be vigilant about potential Russian sanctions evasion, including by both state actors and oligarchs,” said FinCEN Acting Director Him Das in a press statement.
https://threatpost.com/russia-ransomware-payouts-avoid-sanctions/178854/
How An 8-Character Password Could Be Cracked in Less Than an Hour
Security experts keep advising us to create strong and complex passwords to protect our online accounts and data from savvy cybercriminals. And “complex” typically means using lowercase and uppercase characters, numbers and even special symbols. But complexity by itself can still open your password to cracking if it doesn’t contain enough characters, according to research by security firm Hive Systems.
As described in a recent report, Hive found that an 8-character complex password could be cracked in just 39 minutes if the attacker were to take advantage of the latest graphics processing technology. A seven-character complex password could be cracked in 31 seconds, while one with six or fewer characters could be cracked instantly. Shorter passwords with only one or two character types, such as only numbers or lowercase letters, or only numbers and letters, would take just minutes to crack.
Cyber Insurance and Business Risk: How the Relationship Is Changing Reinsurance & Policy Guidance
Cyber insurance is a significant industry and growing fast — according to GlobalData, it was worth $7 billion in gross written premiums in 2020. The cyber-insurance market is expected to reach $20.6 billion by 2025. Over the past few years, the cyber-insurance market was competitive, so premiums were low and policies were comprehensive. Over the past year, that has changed — the volume of claims has gone up and led to more payouts, which affected the insurance companies' profitability.
The recent Log4j issue will affect how insurance and reinsurance companies write their policies in future. Already, we're seeing discussions about Log4j-related issues being excluded from reinsurance policies in 2022, as many policies came up for renewal on Dec. 31, 2021. This will affect the policies that insurance companies can offer to their customers.
What does this mean for IT security teams? For practitioners, it will make their work more important than before, as preventing possible issues would be more valuable to the business. Carrying out standard security practices like asset inventory and vulnerability management will be needed, while examining software bills of materials for those same issues will help on the software supply chain security side. These practices will also need to be highly automated, as business must be able to gain accurate insights within hours, not months, to deal with future threats while reducing the cost impact.
For those responsible for wider business risk, these developments around cyber insurance will present a more significant problem. Cyber-insurance policies will still be available — and necessary where needed — but the policies themselves will cover less ground. While the past few years had pretty wide-ranging policies that would pay out on a range of issues, future policies will deliver less coverage.
Security Teams Prep Too Slowly for Cyber Attacks
Attackers typically take days or weeks to exploit new vulnerabilities, but defenders are slow to learn about critical issues and take action, requiring 96 days on average to learn to identify and block current cyber threats, according to a new report analysing training and crisis scenarios.
The report, Cyber Workforce Benchmark 2022, found that cybersecurity professionals are much more likely to focus on vulnerabilities that have garnered media attention, such as Log4j, than more understated issues, and that different industries develop their security capabilities at widely different rates. Security professionals in some of the most crucial industries, such as transport and critical infrastructure, are twice as slow to learn skills compare to their colleagues in the leisure, entertainment, and retail sectors.
The amount of time it takes for security professionals to get up to speed on new threats matters. CISA says that patches should be applied within 15 days, sooner than that if the vulnerability is being exploited, says Kevin Breen, director of cyber threat research at Immersive Labs.
https://www.darkreading.com/risk/security-teams-prep-too-slowly-for-cyberattacks
Threats
Ransomware
Inside Conti leaks: The Panama Papers of Ransomware - The Record by Recorded Future
CISA Added 98 Domains To The Joint Alert Related To Conti Ransomware Gang - Security Affairs
Ragnar Locker Ransomware - What You Need To Know (tripwire.com)
Conti Ransomware Group Spent Millions In 2021 - IT Security Guru
Ragnar Locker Ransomware Hits Critical Infrastructure • The Register
Ukrainian Man Arrested for Alleged Role in Ransomware Attack on Kaseya, Others (darkreading.com)
FBI: Ransomware Gang Breached 52 US Critical Infrastructure Orgs (bleepingcomputer.com)
Alleged REvil Ransomware Hacker Extradited And Arraigned In Texas | CSO Online
Bridgestone Americas Confirms Ransomware Attack, LockBit Leaks Data (bleepingcomputer.com)
Phishing & Email
Watch Out For This Phishing Attack That Hijacks Your Email Chats To Spread Malware | ZDNet
The Most Impersonated Brands In Phishing Attacks - Help Net Security
Malware
Nvidia's Stolen Data Is Being Used To Disguise Malware As GPU Drivers | PC Gamer
Qakbot Botnet Sprouts Fangs, Injects Malware into Email Threads | Threatpost
Emotet Botnet Is Rapidly Growing, +130K Bots Spread Across 179 Countries - Security Affairs
All About the Bots: What Botnet Trends Portend for Security Pros | SecurityWeek.Com
Mobile
Smartphone malware is on the rise, here's what to watch out for | ZDNet
Samsung Confirms Hackers Stole Galaxy Devices Source Code (bleepingcomputer.com)
Organised Crime & Criminal Actors
Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking
Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime
Consumers Worried About Digital Banking Security - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)
Shipping Fraud Quickly Emerging As One Of The Top Fraud Types - Help Net Security
Insurance
Supply Chain
DoS/DDoS
Mitel VoIP Systems Used In Staggering DDoS Attacks • The Register
In-The-Wild DDoS Attack Can Be Launched From A Single Packet To Create Terabytes Of Traffic | ZDNet
Malware Posing as Russia DDoS Tool Bites Pro-Ukraine Hackers | Threatpost
The Fight Against the Hydra: New DDoS Report from Link11 (darkreading.com)
Imperva Thwarts 2.5 Million RPS Ransom DDoS Extortion Attacks (thehackernews.com)
Parental Controls and Child Safety
Spyware, Espionage & Cyber Warfare
Nation State Actors
Nation State Actors - Russia
Jump In Cyber Attacks Since Start Of Ukraine Invasion (rte.ie)
Will Russian Oil Ban Spur Increased Cyber-Attacks (trendmicro.com)
Russia to Create Its Own Security Certificate Authority, Alarming Experts - CyberScoop
Russia Mulls Legalizing Software Piracy As It’s Cut Off From Western Tech | Ars Technica
Google: Russian Hackers Target Ukrainians, European Allies via Phishing Attacks (thehackernews.com)
French Bank Denies Access to Russian Workforce - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)
Anonymous & its Affiliates Hacked 90% of Russian Misconfigured Databases (hackread.com)
Nation State Actors - China
Chinese Phishing Actors Consistently Targeting EU Diplomats (bleepingcomputer.com)
Chinese APT41 Hackers Broke into at Least 6 U.S. State Governments: Mandiant (thehackernews.com)
Nation State Actors – North Korea
Nation State Actors - Iran
Vulnerabilities
Linux Has Been Bitten By Its Most High-Severity Vulnerability In Years | Ars Technica
Microsoft Addresses 3 Zero-Days & 3 Critical Bugs for March Patch Tuesday | Threatpost
New Exploit Bypasses Existing Spectre-V2 Mitigations in Intel, AMD, Arm CPUs (thehackernews.com)
Google Attempts to Explain Surge in Chrome Zero-Day Exploitation | SecurityWeek.Com
“Dirty Pipe” Linux Kernel Bug Lets Anyone Write To Any File – Naked Security (sophos.com)
Microsoft Azure Flaw Allowed Unauthorized Account Access • The Register
Intel, AMD, Arm Warn Of New Speculative Execution CPU Bugs (bleepingcomputer.com)
Adobe Patches 'Critical' Security Flaws in Illustrator, After Effects | SecurityWeek.Com
Up to 30% of WordPress Plugin Bugs Don't Get Patched - IT Security Guru
Within Hours of the Log4j Flaw Being Revealed, These Hackers Were Using It | ZDNet
Critical Firefox Zero-Day Bugs Allow RCE, Sandbox Escape | Threatpost
Microsoft Warns of Spoofing Vulnerability in Defender for Endpoint | SecurityWeek.Com
Microsoft Fixes Critical Azure Bug That Exposed Customer Data (bleepingcomputer.com)
Researchers Disclose New Spectre V2 Vulnerabilities (techtarget.com)
Critical Bugs Could Let Attackers Remotely Hack, Damage APC Smart-UPS Devices (thehackernews.com)
Over 40% of Log4j Downloads Are Vulnerable Versions of the Software (darkreading.com)
HP Patches 16 UEFI Firmware Bugs Allowing Stealthy Malware Infections (bleepingcomputer.com)
Critical RCE Bugs Found in Pascom Cloud Phone System Used by Businesses (thehackernews.com)
Sector Specific
Health/Medical/Pharma Sector
Medical and IoT Devices From More Than 100 Vendors Vulnerable to Attack (darkreading.com)
Oklahoma Hospital Data Breach Impacts 92,000 People - Infosecurity Magazine
Transport and Aviation
Automotive
CNI, OT, ICS, IIoT and SCADA
Reports Published in the Last Week
Other News
Why You Should Be Using CISA's Catalog of Exploited Vulns (darkreading.com)
How to Combat the No. 1 Cause of Security Breaches: Complexity (darkreading.com)
Every Business Is A Cyber Security Business - Help Net Security
Operationalising a “Think Like The Enemy” Strategy | CSO Online
SpaceX Shifts Resources To Cyber Security To Address Starlink Jamming - SpaceNews
Report: Cyber Security Teams Need Nearly 100 Days To Develop Threat Defenses | VentureBeat
6 Potential Enterprise Security Risks With NFC Technology (techtarget.com)
BBC Targeted With 383,278 Spam, Phishing And Malware Attacks Every Day - Help Net Security
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.
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 25 February 2022
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 25 February 2022
-Britain Warns of Cyber Attacks as Russia-Ukraine Crisis Escalates
-Ransomware Extortion Doesn't Stop After Paying The Ransom
-Ukraine Calls For Volunteer Hackers To Protect Its Critical Infrastructure And Spy On Russian Forces
-Study: UK Firms Most Likely To Pay Ransomware Hackers
-Conti Ransomware Group Announces Support of Russia, Threatens Retaliatory Attacks
-91% of UK Organisations Compromised by an Email Phishing Attack in 2021
-Almost 100,000 New Mobile Banking Trojan Strains Detected In 2021
-Anonymous Collective Has Hacked The Russian Defence Ministry And Leaked The Data Of Its Employees In Response To The Ukraine Invasion
-Email Remains Go-To Method for Cyber Attacks, Phishing Research Report Finds
-The Future of Cyber Insurance
-Businesses Are at Significant Risk of Cyber Security Breaches Due to Immature Security Hygiene and Posture Management Practices
-Microsoft Teams Is The New Frontier For Phishing Attacks
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
Britain Warns of Cyber Attacks as Russia-Ukraine Crisis Escalates
Britain warned of potential cyber attacks with "international consequences" this week after Russian President Vladimir Puitin ordered troops to two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine.
Britain's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), a part of the GCHQ eavesdropping intelligence agency, called on British organisations to "bolster their online defences" following the developments.
"While the NCSC is not aware of any current specific threats to UK organisations in relation to events in and around Ukraine, there has been an historical pattern of cyber attacks on Ukraine with international consequences," it said in a statement.
Last week, Ukranian banking and government websites were briefly knocked offline by a spate of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks which the United States and Britain said were carried out by Russian military hackers.
Ransomware Extortion Doesn't Stop After Paying The Ransom
A global survey that looked into the experience of ransomware victims highlights the lack of trustworthiness of ransomware actors, as in most cases of paying the ransom, the extortion simply continues.
This is not a surprising or new discovery, but when seeing it reflected in actual statistics, one can appreciate the scale of the problem in full.
The survey was conducted by cyber security specialist Venafi, and the most important findings that emerge from the respondents are the following:
18% of victims who paid the ransom still had their data exposed on the dark web.
8% refused to pay the ransom, and the attackers tried to extort their customers.
35% of victims paid the ransom but were still unable to retrieve their data.
As for the ransomware actor extortion tactics, these are summarized as follows:
83% of all successful ransomware attacks featured double and triple extortion.
38% of ransomware attacks threatened to use stolen data to extort customers.
35% of ransomware attacks threatened to expose stolen data on the dark web.
32% of attacks threatened to directly inform the victim's customers of the data breach incident.
Ukraine Calls For Volunteer Hackers To Protect Its Critical Infrastructure And Spy On Russian Forces
The government of Ukraine is calling on the hacking community to volunteer its expertise and capabilities, following the invasion of the country by Russian forces.
Reuters reports that Yegor Aushev, the CEO of Kyiv-based Cyber Unit Technologies which has worked with Ukraine's government on the defence of critical infrastructure, claims to have been asked to post a digital call-to-arms after being asked by "a senior Defence Ministry official."
The message, which was posted on hacking forums by Aushev on Thursday, begins "Ukrainian cybercommunity! It’s time to get involved in the cyber defense of our country," and calls for cybersecurity experts and hackers to apply as a volunteer via a Google Docs link. The page volunteers are directed to asks applicants to list their specialities, such as if they have developed malware, and professional references.
According to Aushev, volunteers will be divided into two groups - tasked with offensive and defensive cyber operations.
Study: UK Firms Most Likely To Pay Ransomware Hackers
Some 82% of British firms which have been victims of ransomware attacks paid the hackers in order to get back their data, a new report suggests.
The global average was 58%, making the UK the most likely country to pay cyber-criminals.
Security firm Proofpoint's research also found that more than three-quarters of UK businesses were affected by ransomware in 2021.
Phishing attacks remain the key way criminals access networks, it found.
Phishing happens when someone in a firm is lured into clicking on a link in an email that contains malware, which in turn can help cyber-criminals access company networks.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60478725
Conti Ransomware Group Announces Support of Russia, Threatens Retaliatory Attacks
An infamous ransomware group with potential ties to Russian intelligence and known for attacking health care providers and hundreds of other targets posted a warning Friday saying it was “officially announcing a full support of Russian government.”
The gang said that it would use “all possible resources to strike back at the critical infrastructures” of any entity that organises a cyberattack “or any war activities against Russia.” The message appeared Friday on the dark-web site used by ransomware group Conti to post threats and its victims’ data. Security researchers believe the gang to be Russia-based.
Conti ransomware was part of more than 400 attacks against mostly U.S. targets between spring 2020 and spring 2021, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the FBI reported in September.
https://www.cyberscoop.com/conti-ransomware-russia-ukraine-critical-infrastructure/
91% of UK Organisations Compromised by an Email Phishing Attack in 2021
More than nine in 10 (91%) UK organizations were successfully compromised by an email phishing attack last year, according to Proofpoint’s 2022 State of the Phish report.
The study observed a significant rise in email-based attacks globally in 2021 compared to 2020. Over three-quarters (78%) of organizations were targeted by email-based ransomware attacks last year and 77% faced business email compromise (BEC) attacks, the latter an 18% year-on-year increase from 2020.
The survey of 600 information and IT security professionals and 3500 workers in the US, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Spain and the UK also found that attacks in 2021 were more likely to be successful than in 2020. More than four in five (83%) respondents said their organization experienced at least one successful email-based phishing attack last year, up from 57% in 2020. In addition, 68% of organizations admitted they had to deal with at least one ransomware infection stemming from a direct email payload, second-stage malware delivery or other exploit.
Worryingly, 60% of organizations infected with ransomware admitted to paying a ransom, with around a third (32%) paying additional sums to regain access to data and systems.
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/uk-organizations-email-phishing/
Almost 100,000 New Mobile Banking Trojan Strains Detected In 2021
Researchers have found almost 100,000 new variants of mobile banking Trojans in just a year.
As our digital lives have begun to centre more on handsets rather than just desktop PCs, many malware developers have shifted part of their focus to the creation of mobile threats.
Many of the traditional infection routes are still workable -- including phishing and the download and execution of suspicious software -- but cyber attackers are also known to infiltrate official app stores, including Google Play, to lure handset owners into downloading software that appears to be trustworthy.
This technique is often associated with the distribution of Remote Access Trojans (RATs). While Google maintains security barriers to stop malicious apps from being hosted in its store, there are methods to circumvent these controls quietly.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/almost-100000-new-mobile-banking-trojans-detected-in-2021/
Anonymous Collective Has Hacked The Russian Defence Ministry And Leaked The Data Of Its Employees In Response To The Ukraine Invasion
A few hours after the Anonymous collective has called to action against Russia following the illegitimate invasion of Ukraine its members have taken down the website of the Russian propaganda station RT News and news of the day is the attack against the servers of the Russian Defense Ministry.
“Anonymous, a group of hacktivists, successfully hacked and leaked the database of the website of the Ministry of Defense of Russia.” reported the Pravda agency.
The website of the Kremlin (Kremlin.ru) is also unreachable, but it is unclear if it is the result of the Anonymous attack or if the government has taken offline it to prevent disruptive attacks.
The Russian Government’s portal, and the websites of other ministries are running very slow.
The collective is also threatening the Russian Federation and private organizations of attacks, it is a retaliation against Putin’s tyranny.
Anonymous pointed out that it is not targeting Russian citizens, but only their government.
“We want the Russian people to understand that we know it’s hard for them to speak out against their dictator for fear of reprisals.”
https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/128428/hacking/anonymous-russian-defense-ministry.html
Email Remains Go-To Method for Cyber Attacks, Phishing Research Report Finds
If you don’t know what it is, if you can’t identify it and if you can’t make sure you don’t topple into its traps, then you can’t fight it, suggests a new report by security provider Proofpoint in its eighth annual State of the Phish report.
The “it” is email-based malware attacks, the kingpin of all hacking methods, that victims often fall for out of a lack of awareness, inadequate training or risky behaviours, such as using a company mobile device for home use.
Proofpoint’s report takes an in-depth look at user phishing awareness, vulnerability and resilience and comes away with some startling numbers: More than three-quarters of organizations associated with the 4,100 IT security professionals and staffers in the worldwide study were hit by email-based ransomware attacks in 2021 and an equal number were victimized by business email compromise attacks, an 18 percent spike from 2020.
What explains the year-over-year climb? Answer: Cyber criminals continue to focus on compromising people, not necessarily systems, Proofpoint said. Email remains cyber criminals’ go-to attack strategy, said Alan Lefort, Proofpoint security awareness training senior vice president and general manager. “Infosec and IT survey participants experienced an increase in targeted attacks in 2021 compared to 2020, yet our analysis showed the recognition of key security terminology such as phishing, malware, smishing (text-based ruse), and vishing (telephone trickery) dropped significantly,” said Lefort. “The awareness gaps and lax security behaviors demonstrated by workers creates substantial risk for organizations and their bottom line.”
The Future of Cyber Insurance
In 2016, just 26% of insurance clients had cyber coverage. That number rose to 47% in 2020, according to a US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. But the demand for cyber coverage isn't the only thing soaring.
At the end of 2020, insurance prices jumped anywhere from 10% to 30%. In the third quarter of 2021, the average cost of cyber insurance premiums climbed a record 27.6%.
If the rates continue to rise, companies might decide it's not worth the cost. That is, if insurers continue to cover their industry.
https://www.darkreading.com/risk/the-future-of-cyber-insurance
Businesses Are at Significant Risk of Cyber Security Breaches Due to Immature Security Hygiene and Posture Management Practices
Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), a leading IT analyst, research, and strategy firm, and a division of TechTarget, Inc., today announced new research into security hygiene and posture management – a foundational part of a strong security program. The study reveals that many aspects of cyber security are managed independently and with antiquated tools, leaving organisations with limited visibility and weak defenses against an ever-evolving threat landscape. Since strong cybersecurity starts with the basics, like knowing about all IT assets deployed, this situation makes organisations vulnerable to advanced threats among strategic, yet often hurried, cloud and digital transformation initiatives.
The new report, Security Hygiene and Posture Management, summarizes a survey of 398 IT and cyber security professionals responsible for evaluating, purchasing, and utilizing products and services for security hygiene and posture management, including vulnerability management, asset management, attack surface management, and security testing tools. The data reveals that organisations must aim to further assess security posture management processes, examine vendor risk management requirements, and test security tool and processes more frequently.
Microsoft Teams Is The New Frontier For Phishing Attacks
Even with email-based phishing attacks proving to be more successful than ever, cyberattackers are ramping up their efforts to target employees on additional platforms, such as Microsoft Teams and Slack.
One advantage is that in those applications, most employees still assume that they’re actually talking to their boss or coworker when they receive a message.
“The scary part is that we trust these programs implicitly — unlike our email inboxes, where we’ve learned to be suspicious of messages where we don’t recognize the sender’s address,” said anti-fraud technology firm Outseer.
Notably, traditional phishing has seen no slowdown: Proofpoint reported that 83% of organizations experienced a successful email-based phishing attack in 2021 — a massive jump from 57% in 2020. And outside of email, SMS attacks (smishing) and voice-based attacks (vishing) both grew in 2021, as well, according to the email security vendor.
However, it appears that attackers now view widely used collaboration platforms, such as Microsoft Teams and Slack, as another growing opportunity for targeting workers, security researchers and executives say. For some threat actors, it’s also a chance to leverage the additional capabilities of collaboration apps as part of the trickery.
https://venturebeat.com/2022/02/23/microsoft-teams-is-the-new-frontier-for-phishing-attacks/
Threats
Ransomware
Russia-Based Ransomware Group Conti Issues Warning To Kremlin Foes | Reuters
Conti Ransomware 'Acquires' TrickBot as It Thrives Amid Crackdowns | SecurityWeek.Com
Ransomware Is Top Attack Vector On Critical Infrastructure | CSO Online
TrickBot Malware Operation Shuts Down, Devs Move To Stealthier Malware (bleepingcomputer.com)
Microsoft Exchange Servers Hacked To Deploy Cuba Ransomware (bleepingcomputer.com)
Attackers Used Dridex To Deliver Entropy Ransomware, Code Resemblance Uncovered - Help Net Security
Expeditors Shuts Down Global Operations After Likely Ransomware Attack (bleepingcomputer.com)
Chipmaker Giant Nvidia Hit By A Ransomware Attack - Security Affairs
Backups ‘No Longer Effective’ For Stopping Ransomware Attacks (computerweekly.com)
BEC – Business Email Compromise
Phishing & Email
Cyber Attackers Leverage DocuSign to Steal Microsoft Outlook Logins | Threatpost
New Phishing Campaign Targets Monzo Online-Banking Customers (bleepingcomputer.com)
Devious Phishing Method Bypasses MFA Using Remote Access Software (bleepingcomputer.com)
Other Social Engineering
Malware
Over 2.7 Million Cases Of Emotet Malware Detected Globally - Japan Today
Jester Stealer Malware Adds More Capabilities To Entice Hackers (bleepingcomputer.com)
Beware: New Kraken Botnet Easily Fools Windows Defender And Steals Crypto Wallet Data - Neowin
Threat Actors Target Poorly Protected Microsoft SQL Servers - Security Affairs
New Golang Botnet Empties Windows Users’ Cryptocurrency Wallets (bleepingcomputer.com)
Revamped CryptBot Malware Spread By Pirated Software Sites (bleepingcomputer.com)
Social Media Hijacking Malware Spreading Through Gaming Apps on Microsoft Store (thehackernews.com)
Mobile
New Xenomorph Android Malware Targets Customers Of 56 Banks (bleepingcomputer.com)
Gaming, Banking Trojans Dominate Mobile Malware Scene | Threatpost
Samsung Shipped '100m' Android Phones With Flawed Encryption • The Register
Data Breaches/Leaks
Organised Crime & Criminal Actors
Police Dismantled Gang That Used Phishing Sites To Steal Credit Cards - Security Affairs
Nigerian Hacker Pleads Guilty To Stealing Payroll Deposits (bleepingcomputer.com)
Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking
Insider Risk and Insider Threats
Employees Are Often Using Devices In Seriously Risky Ways - Help Net Security
Insider Threats Are More Than Just Malicious Employees (darkreading.com)
83% Of Employees Continue Accessing Old Employer's Accounts - Help Net Security
Motorola Case Shows Importance Of Detecting Insider IP Theft Quickly | CSO Online
Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime
Think You Couldn't Be Duped By a Con Artist? Think Again | Psychology Today
French Speakers Blasted By Sextortion Scams With No Text Or Links – Naked Security (sophos.com)
Digital Ad Fraud Set to Hit $68bn in 2022 - Infosecurity Magazine
Supply Chain
Nation State Actors
Russia-Backed Hackers Behind Powerful New Malware, UK and US Say | Russia | The Guardian
Ransomware Used as Decoy in Destructive Cyber Attacks on Ukraine | SecurityWeek.Com
Data Wiper Attacks On Ukraine Were Planned At Least In November - Security Affairs
Russia’s Sandworm Hackers Have Built a Botnet of Firewalls | WIRED
China-linked APT10 Target Taiwan's Financial Trading Industry - Security Affairs
US and UK Details a New Python Backdoor Used by MuddyWater APT - Security Affairs
Privacy
Spyware, Espionage & Cyber Warfare
Sector Specific
Financial Services Sector
Defence
Health/Medical/Pharma Sector
Construction
Reports Published in the Last Week
Other News
War in Ukraine Risks Scrambling the Logic of Cyber Security | Financial Times (ft.com)
Russia-Ukraine War: Phishing, Malware and Hacker Groups Taking Sides (thehackernews.com)
22 Very Bad Stats On The Growth Of Phishing, Ransomware | VentureBeat
Data Leaks And Shadow Assets Greatly Exposing Organisations To Cyber Attacks - Help Net Security
50% of Websites Vulnerable to Hacking All Year in 2021, New Report Says - MSSP Alert
Is Multifactor Authentication Less Effective Than It Used To Be? (slate.com)
How To Keep Pace With Rising Data Protection Demands - Help Net Security
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.
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 01 October 2021
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 01 October 2021:
-Cyber Second Only To Climate Change As Biggest Global Risk
-Businesses Unsure Which Tech Is Essential Against Ransomware
-Cyber Crime Awareness Heightened, Yet People Still Engage In Risky Online Behaviours
-Attacks Against Remote Desktop Protocol Endpoints Have Exploded This Year
-Ransomware Attacks Up 1,070% Year Over Year
-Baby’s Death Alleged To Be Linked To Ransomware
-Ransomware Shame: More Than Half Of Business Owners Conceal Cyber-Breach
-More Than 90% Of Q2 Malware Was Hidden In Encrypted Traffic
-Cyber Attack Floors British Payroll Firm
-GriftHorse Malware Infected More Than 10 Million Android Phones From 70 Countries
-50% Of Servers Have Weak Security Long After Patches Are Released
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
Cyber Second Only To Climate Change As Biggest Global Risk
Cyber security has been ranked as the second largest threat to our way of life in a major new survey of 23,000 people, comprised of both experts and members of the public. Cyber came second only to climate change on the world stage, but was ranked as the number one risk in the Americas and second in Asia, Africa, and Europe. https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/cyber-second-biggest-global-risk/
Businesses Unsure Which Tech Is Essential Against Ransomware
As ransomware attacks grow in number, a new report finds that many organisations are under the impression they have things in hand but most are unsure what protections they should have in place. The report, based on a survey of 455 business leaders and cyber security professionals, claims businesses are on top of employee training, risk assessments and cyber insurance. Where firms fall flat however is their “clear gap” in thinking, in what many respondents see as “essential tech” in the fight against ransomware – nearly half of respondents (49%) thought paying up was their best option. https://www.techradar.com/news/businesses-unsure-which-tech-is-essential-against-ransomware
Cyber Crime Awareness Heightened, Yet People Still Engage In Risky Online Behaviours
A survey of over 2,000 adults suggests that 76% of respondents recognise the severity of data breaches. This heightened awareness may be driven by constant news of major consumer, enterprise and infrastructural breaches over the last year alone. https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/10/01/risky-online-behaviors/
Attacks Against Remote Desktop Protocol Endpoints Have Exploded This Year
A recent report warns of a huge increase in attacks on the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), an almost universal protocol used by nearly every business in operation today. The figures show attacks on RDP have jumped 103.9% since its T1 report in June and represents around 55 billion devices. The RDP protocol is leveraged by threat actors to deploy ransomware and has become a popular target due to both heavy use by IT service providers and common misconfigurations. https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/30/eset_threat_report/
Ransomware Attacks Up 1,070% Year Over Year
The prevalence of ransomware is growing rapidly, according to the 2021 Ransomware Survey Report. The report shockingly found many of the ransom demands are paid, and comes as a result in the rise of “ransomware as-a-service”. The report found 94% of businesses are concerned about ransomware, with 49% stating they would simply pay the ransom outright. Respondents in Europe were more concerned than those in North America, and around 67% felt they had already been the target of ransomware. https://www.msspalert.com/cybersecurity-research/fortinet-report-ransomware-attacks-up-1070-year-over-year/
Baby’s Death Alleged To Be Linked To Ransomware
A US hospital paralyzed by ransomware in 2019 will be defending itself in court this November over the death of a newborn. The baby was born amid the hospital’s eighth day of fending off the attack. Court filings show the hospital – Springhill Medical Center in Alabama – believes wireless tracking systems and heartbeat monitoring equipment were compromised by the ransomware, leading to the death.
https://threatpost.com/babys-death-linked-ransomware/175232/
Ransomware Shame: More Than Half Of Business Owners Conceal Cyber-Breach
Around a third (32%) of enterprises experienced a six-figure breach last year, but well over half (61%) admitted to concealing it. The findings come as a global survey of 1,400 decision makers in cyber is released. https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/ransomware-cyber-breach-concealed
More Than 90% Of Q2 Malware Was Hidden In Encrypted Traffic
Around 91.5% of malware detections in Q1 2021 were concealed in HTTPS-encrypted connections. A ubiquitous protocol – used to secure traffic any time you open a web page – only 20% of organisations have mechanisms in place to scan the arriving HTTPS traffic. The terrifying result found that most firms are missing over nine-tenths of malware hitting their networks every day. https://www.darkreading.com/perimeter/more-than-90-of-q2-malware-was-hidden-in-encrypted-traffic
Cyber Attack Floors British Payroll Firm
A "sophisticated" cyber attack has forced a British payroll company to shut down its entire network, leaving some contractors without pay. Giant Group confirmed on September 24 that it had taken its network, fully integrated IT infrastructure, phone, and email systems offline last Wednesday after detecting suspicious activity. https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/cyberattack-floors-british-payroll/#.YVQiuXlCjOA.twitter
GriftHorse Malware Infected More Than 10 Million Android Phones From 70 Countries
A malicious trojan has been making its way through the Google Play Store since at least November of 2020. The app, purportedly harmless on the surface, hijacks payments on the victim device, resulting in a series of hidden charges and a nasty surprise at the end of the month. Researchers who discovered the malware estimate its impact to be over 10 million victims in 70 countries, and several hundreds of millions of Euros in losses. https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/122730/malware/grifthorse-malware-campaign.html
50% Of Servers Have Weak Security Long After Patches Are Released
Over 50% of servers scanned still have weak security, a new study suggests, even after patches have been issued. Researchers found that servers were still vulnerable weeks and even months after critical updates, leaving many businesses wide open to attack. https://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities-threats/50-of-servers-have-weak-security-long-after-patches-are-released
Threats
Ransomware
United Health Centres Reportedly Compromised By Ransomware Attack
JVCKenwood Hit By Conti Ransomware Claiming Theft Of 1.5TB Data
Ransomware Gangs Are Complaining That Other Crooks Are Stealing Their Ransoms
United Health Centers Reportedly Compromised By Ransomware Attack
REvil Customers Complain Ransomware Gang Uses Backdoors To Filch Ransoms
The Biggest Problem With Ransomware Is Not Encryption, But Credentials
Phishing
Other Social Engineering
Malware
Thousands Of Online Gaming Accounts Hit In Major Cyber Attack
Microsoft Warns of FoggyWeb Malware Targeting Active Directory FS Servers
New Malware Steals Steam, Epic Games Store, And EA Origin Accounts
Vulnerabilities
Threat Actors Use Recently Discovered CVE-2021-26084 Atlassian Confluence
New Azure AD Bug Lets Hackers Brute-Force Passwords Without Getting Caught
Thousands of University Wi-Fi Networks Expose Log-In Credentials
Exploit Released For VMware Vulnerability After CISA Warning
Outsourced Software Poses Greater Risks to Enterprise Application Security
Working Exploit Is Out for VMware vCenter CVE-2021-22005 Flaw
Apple Responds To Security Researcher Who Found Multiple iOS 15 Zero-Day Flaws
Windows 10 Emergency Update Resolves KB5005565 App Freezes, Crashes
Cyber Security Vulnerability Could Affect Millions Of Hikvision Cameras
Data Breaches/Leaks
Anonymous: We've Leaked Disk Images Stolen From Far-Right-Friendly Web Host Epik
3.8 Billion Users’ Combined Clubhouse, Facebook Data Up for Sale
Emails, Chat Logs, More Leaked Online From Far-Right Militia Linked To US Capitol Riot
Cryptocurrency/Cryptojacking
Ethereum Dev Admits Helping North Korea Mine Crypto-Bucks, Faces 20 Years Jail
China Says All Crypto Currency-Related Transactions Are Illegal And Must Be Banned
Insider Threats
Dark Web
DoS/DDoS
Nation State Actors
APT Focus: ‘Noisy’ Russian Hacking Crews Are Among The World’s Most Sophisticated
APT29 Targets Active Directory Federation Services With Stealthy Backdoor
Nation-State Attacks Fears Grow, Execs Don’t Trust Governments To Protect Them From Cyber Threats
APT focus: ‘Noisy’ Russian hacking crews are among the world’s most sophisticated
Cloud
Huawei Cloud Services: U.S. Lawmakers Express Security Concerns
Why CEOs Should Absolutely Concern Themselves With Cloud Security
Cloud Security: Report Finds 68% of Malware Delivered From Cloud Apps
Privacy
Reports Published in the Last Week
Other News
Revealed: How To Steal Money From Victims' Contactless Apple Pay Wallets
Threat Actors Weaponize Telegram Bots to Compromise PayPal Accounts
Report Highlights Cyber Security Dangers Of Elastic Stack Implementation Mistakes
Russian Authorities Arrest Cyber Security Giant Group-IB’s CEO On Treason Charges
Corporate Attack Surface Exploding As A Result Of Remote Work
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 weekly ‘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.
Cyber Weekly Flash Briefing 05 June 2020: half of WFH staff cutting security corners, C-Level weak link in security, 80% of firms suffer cloud breach, NSA warn of Kremlin attacks, malware-laced CVs
Cyber Weekly Flash Briefing 05 June 2020: half of WFH staff cutting security corners, C-Level weak link in security, 80% of firms suffer cloud breach, NSA warn of Kremlin attacks, malware-laced CVs
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.
If you’re pressed for time watch the 60 second quick fire video summary of the top cyber and infosec stories from the last week:
Half of employees admit they are cutting corners when working from home
Half of employees are cutting corners with regards to cyber security while working from home – and could be putting their organisation at risk of cyber attacks or data breaches as a result.
The coronavirus pandemic has forced both employers and employees to quickly adjust to remote working – and, often without the watchful eyes of IT and information security teams, workers are taking more risks online and with data than they would at the office.
Analysis by researchers reveals that 52% of employees believe they can get away with riskier behaviour when working from home, such as sharing confidential files via email instead of more trusted mechanisms.
Some of the top reasons employees aren't completely following the same safe data practices as usual include working from their own device, rather than a company issued one, as well as feeling as if they can take additional risks because they're not being watched by IT and security.
In some cases, employees aren't purposefully ignoring security practices, but distractions while working from home are having an impact on how people operate.
Meanwhile, some employees say they're being forced to cut security corners because they're under pressure to get work done quickly.
Half of those surveyed said they've had to find workarounds for security policies in order to efficiently do the work they're required to do – suggesting that in some cases, security policies are too much of a barrier for employees working from home to adapt to.
Read more here: https://www.zdnet.com/article/cybersecurity-half-of-employees-admit-they-are-cutting-corners-when-working-from-home/
C-Level Executives the Weakest Link in Organisations’ Mobile Security
C-suite executives are the people most susceptible to mobile-based cyber-attacks in businesses, according to a new study. The report found that while these executives are highly targeted by cyber-criminals in attacks on organisations, they are also more likely than anyone else to have a relaxed attitude to mobile security.
In the analysis, research from 300 enterprise IT decision makers across Benelux, France, Germany, the UK and the US was combined with findings from 50 C-level executives from the UK and the US. It revealed that many C-level executives find mobile security protocols frustrating, with 68% feeling IT security compromises their personal privacy, 62% stating it limits the usability of their device and 58% finding it too complex to understand.
As a result of these issues, 76% of C-suite executives had asked to bypass one or more of their organisation’s security protocols last year. This included requests to: gain network access to an unsupported device (47%), bypass multi-factor authentication (45%) and obtain access to business data on an unsupported app (37%).
These findings are concerning because all of these C-suite exemptions drastically increase the risk of a data breach. Accessing business data on a personal device or app takes data outside of the protected environment, leaving critical business information exposed for malicious users to take advantage of. Meanwhile, multi-factor identification – designed to protect businesses from the leading cause of data breaches, stolen credentials – is being side-stepped by C-suite execs.
To exacerbate this issue, IT decision makers included in the study overwhelmingly stated that C-suite is the group most likely to both be targeted by (78%), and fall victim to (71%), phishing attacks.
These findings highlight a point of tension between business leaders and IT departments. IT views the C-suite as the weak link when it comes to cyber security, while execs often see themselves as above security protocols.
Read more: https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/executives-weakest-link-mobile/
Majority of companies suffered a cloud data breach in the past 18 months
Nearly 80% of companies have experienced at least one cloud data breach in the past 18 months, and 43% reported 10 or more breaches, a new survey reveals.
According to the 300 CISOs that participated in the survey, security misconfiguration (67%), lack of adequate visibility into access settings and activities (64%) and identity and access management (IAM) permission errors (61%) were their top concerns associated with cloud production environments.
Meanwhile, 80% reported they are unable to identify excessive access to sensitive data in IaaS/PaaS environments. Only hacking ranked higher than misconfiguration errors as a source of data breaches.
Even though most of the companies surveyed are already using IAM, data loss prevention, data classification and privileged account management products, more than half claimed these were not adequate for protecting cloud environments.
Read the original article here: https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2020/06/03/cloud-data-breach/
NSA and NCSC publicly warn of attacks by Kremlin hackers – so take this critical Exim flaw seriously
The NSA has raised the alarm over what it says is Russia's active exploitation of a remote-code execution flaw in Exim for which a patch exists.
The American surveillance agency said last week that the Kremlin's military intelligence hackers are actively targeting some systems vulnerable to CVE-2019-10149, a security hole in the widely used Exim mail transfer agent (MTA) that was fixed last June.
Because Exim is widely used on millions of Linux and Unix servers for mail, bugs in the MTA are by nature public-facing and pose an attractive target for hackers of all nations.
Read more here: https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/29/nsa_warns_of_gru/
Cisco's warning: Critical flaw in IOS routers allows 'complete system compromise’
Cisco has disclosed four critical security flaws affecting router equipment that uses its IOS XE and IOS software.
The four critical flaws are part of Cisco's June 3 semi-annual advisory bundle for IOS XE and IOS networking software, which includes 23 advisories describing 25 vulnerabilities.
Malware-laced CVs steal banking credentials from users' PCs
If you work for a financial institution that happens to be hiring, be extra careful when downloading and opening CVs - many could be carrying a password-stealing banking malware.
This is according to a new report which identified the new malware distribution campaign in the wild.
According to the report, criminals are sending out emails with the subject lines “applying for a job” and “regarding job”, containing an Excel attachment with a malicious macro. Once the file is opened, the victim is prompted to “enable content”, which triggers the download of ZLoader malware.
ZLoader is capable of stealing credentials from the infected PC, as well as passwords and cookies stored in the target’s browser. With the stolen intel, the attacker could also use the victim’s device to make illicit financial transactions.
Read more: https://www.itproportal.com/news/malware-laced-cvs-steal-banking-credentials-from-users-pcs/
Hackers are targeting your smartphone as way into the company network, mobile phishing up a third in a few months
The number of phishing attacks targeting smartphones as the entry point for attempting to compromise enterprise networks has risen by more than a third over the course of just a few months.
Analysis by cyber security company Lookout found that there's been a 37% increase in mobile phishing attacks worldwide between the last three months of 2019 and the first few months of 2020 alone.
Phishing emails have long been a problem for desktop and laptop users, but the increased use of mobile devices – especially as more people are working remotely – has created an additional attack vector for cyber criminals who are targeting both Android and IOS phones.
Attacks targeting desktop email applications can leave tell-tale signs that something might not be quite right, such as being able to preview links and attachments, or see email addresses and URLs that might look suspicious.
However, this is harder to spot on mobile email, social media and messaging applications because the way they're designed for smaller screens.
Read more here: https://www.zdnet.com/article/cybersecurity-warning-hackers-are-targeting-your-smartphone-as-way-into-the-company-network/
Tens of thousands of malicious Android apps flooding user devices
Tens of thousands of dangerous Android apps are putting mobile users at heightened risk of fraud and cyber attack, a report has claimed.
A mobile security firm identified over 29,000 malicious Android apps in active use during Q1 2020, double the number logged in the same quarter last year (just over 14,500).
The investigation also showed that almost all (90%) of the ten most malicious apps were - or are still - present on the official Google Play Store. This suggests that hackers consistently found ways to dance their way through Google’s vetting system.
In line with this trend, this time period also saw a 55% rise in fraudulent transactions on Android platforms, as well as a spike in the number of malware-infected devices.
Read more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/tens-of-thousands-of-malicious-android-apps-flooding-google-play-store
George Floyd: Anonymous hackers re-emerge amid US unrest
As the United States deals with widespread civil unrest across dozens of cities, "hacktivist" group Anonymous has returned from the shadows.
The hacker collective was once a regular fixture in the news, targeting those it accused of injustice with cyber-attacks.
After years of relative quiet, it appears to have re-emerged in the wake of violent protests in Minneapolis over the death of George Floyd, promising to expose the "many crimes" of the city's police to the world.
However, it's not easy to pin down what, if anything, is genuinely the mysterious group's work.
The "hacktivist" collective has no face, and no leadership. Its tagline is simply "we are legion", referring to its allegedly large numbers of individuals.
Without any central command structure, anyone can claim to be a part of the group.
This also means that members can have wildly different priorities, and there is no single agenda.
But generally, they are activists, taking aim at those they accuse of misusing power. They do so in very public ways, such as hijacking websites or forcing them offline.
Their symbol is a Guy Fawkes mask, made famous by Alan Moore's graphic novel V for Vendetta, in which an anarchist revolutionary dons the mask to topple a corrupt fascist government.
Read the original article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52879000
EasyJet Cyber Attack Likely the Work of Chinese Hackers
The recent high-profile cyber attack that struck British budget airline easyJet may have been carried out by Chinese hackers, new research and multiple sources have suggested.
The cyber attack, which saw the email addresses and travel details of millions of passengers being robbed—as well as the credit card details of some 2,000—was reportedly conducted by the very same group of Chinese hackers responsible for other attacks on a number of airlines in recent months.
Read more: https://www.cpomagazine.com/cyber-security/easyjet-cyber-attack-likely-the-work-of-chinese-hackers/