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Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 26 May 2023
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 26 May 2023:
-50% of UK CEOs See Cyber as a Bigger Business Risk than the Economy
-Report Finds 78% of Organisations Felt Prepared for Ransomware Attacks, Yet Half Still Fell Victim
-SMBs and Regional MSPs are Increasingly Targeted by State-Sponsored APT Groups
-IT Employee Piggybacked on Cyber Attack for Personal Gain
-Ransomware Threats Are Growing, and Targeting Microsoft Devices More and More
-Microsoft Reports Jump in Business Email Compromise (BEC) Activity
-Forrester Predicts 2023’s Top Cyber security Threats: From Generative AI to Geopolitical Tensions
-Advanced Phishing Attacks Surge 356% in 2022
-Today’s Cyber Defence Challenges: Complexity and a False Sense of Security
-Almost All Ransomware Attacks Target Backups, Says Veeam
-NCSC Warns Against Chinese Cyber Attacks on Critical Infrastructure
-Half of all Companies were Impacted by Spearphishing in 2022
-Google's .zip, .mov Domains Give Social Engineers a Shiny New Tool
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
50% of UK CEOs see Cyber as a Bigger Business Risk than the Economy
Half of UK CEOs consider cyber security as a bigger risk to their organisation than economic uncertainty, a new study by Palo Alto Networks has found. The findings came from a survey of 2500 CEOs from the UK, Germany, France, Brazil and the UAE at large organisations (500+ employees).
Despite the recognition of the business threats posed by cyber attacks, UK CEOs have a lower level of understanding of cyber security risks than their international counterparts, with just 16% saying they have a complete understanding. This compares to 21% in Brazil, 21% in the UAE, 22% in France and 39% in Germany. Additionally, many UK CEOs feel detached from responsibility for cyber security at their organisations, instead leaving it to the responsibility of IT, although IT is only part of the solution.
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/uk-ceo-cyber-risk-economy/
Report Finds 78% of Organisations Felt Prepared for Ransomware Attacks, Yet Half Still Fell Victim
Fortinet has unveiled its 2023 Global Ransomware Report based on a recent global survey and explores cyber security leaders’ perspectives on ransomware, particularly how it impacted their organisations in the last year and their strategies to mitigate an attack. The report found that the global threat of ransomware remains at peak levels, with half of organisations across all sizes, regions and industries falling victim in the last year.
The top challenges to stopping a ransomware attack were people and process related, with many organisations lacking clarity on how to secure against the threat. Specifically, four out of the five top challenges to stopping ransomware were people or process related. The second largest challenge was a lack of clarity on how to secure against the threat as a result of a lack of user awareness and training and no clear chain-of-command strategy to deal with attacks.
Despite the global macroeconomic environment, security budgets will have to increase in the next year with a focus on AI/ML technologies to speed detection, centralised monitoring tools to speed response and better preparation of people and processes.
https://www.itweb.co.za/content/mYZRX79g8gRqOgA8
SMBs and Regional MSPs are Increasingly Targeted by State-Sponsored APT Groups
Advanced persistent threat (APT) attacks were once mainly a concern for large corporations in industries that presented cyber espionage interest. That's no longer the case and over the past year in particular, the number of such state-sponsored attacks against small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) has increased significantly.
Cyber security firm Proofpoint analysed its telemetry data more than 200,000 SMB customers over the past year and saw a rise in phishing campaigns originating from APT groups, particularly those serving Russian, Iranian, and North Korean interests.
SMBs are also targeted by APT groups indirectly, through the managed services providers (MSPs) that maintain their infrastructure. Proofpoint has seen an increase in attacks against regional MSPs because their cyber security defences could be weaker than larger MSPs yet they still serve hundreds of SMBs in local geographies.
IT Employee Piggybacked on Cyber Attack for Personal Gain
A 28-year-old former IT employee of an Oxford-based company has been convicted of blackmailing his employer and unauthorised access to a computer with intent to commit other offences.
The convicted employee was the one who began to investigate the incident and, along with colleagues and the police, tried to mitigate it and its fallout. But he also realized that he could take advantage of the breach to line his own pockets.
“He accessed a board member’s private emails over 300 times as well as altering the original blackmail email and changing the payment address provided by the original attacker. This was in the hope that if payment was made, it would be made to him rather than the original attacker,” the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit (SEROCU) revealed. He went as far as creating an almost identical email address to that of the original attacker, using it to pressure his employer into making the payment.
While some insider threats may stem from negligence or ignorance, this case highlights a more sinister scenario involving a malicious, opportunistic individual. Malicious insiders exploit their authorized access and privileges to engage in harmful, unethical, or illegal activities.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2023/05/24/it-employee-blackmailing-company/
Ransomware Threats Are Growing, and Targeting Microsoft Devices More and More
Ransomware attacks have never been this popular, a new report from cyber security researchers Securin, Ivanti, and Cyware has stated. New ransomware groups are emerging constantly, and new vulnerabilities being exploited are being discovered almost daily, but out of all the different hardware and software, Microsoft’s products are being targeted the most.
Attackers are now targeting more than 7,000 products built by 121 vendors, all used by businesses in their day-to-day operations. Most products belong to Microsoft, which has 135 vulnerabilities associated with ransomware. In just March 2023, there had been more breaches reported, than in all three previous years combined. Even though most cyber security incidents never get reported, too. In the first quarter of the year, the researchers discovered 12 new vulnerabilities used in ransomware attacks, three-quarters of which (73%) were trending in the dark web.
Microsoft Reports Jump in Business Email Compromise (BEC) Activity
Thirty-five million business email compromise (BEC) attempts were detected in the last year, according to the latest Microsoft Cyber Signals report. Activity around BEC spiked between April 2022 and April 2023, with over 150,000 daily attempts, on average, detected by Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit.
Rather than targeting unpatched devices for vulnerabilities, BEC operators focus on leveraging the vast volume of daily email and other message traffic to trick victims into sharing financial information or unknowingly transferring funds to money mule accounts. Their goal is to exploit the constant flow of communication to carry out fraudulent money transfers.
Using secure email applications, securing identities to block lateral movement, adopting a secure payment platform and training employees are a few effective methods, according to the report.
Forrester Predicts 2023’s Top Cyber security Threats: From Generative AI to Geopolitical Tensions
The nature of cyber attacks is changing fast. Generative AI, cloud complexity and geopolitical tensions are among the latest weapons and facilitators in attackers’ arsenals. Three-quarters (74%) of security decision-makers say their organisations’ sensitive data was “potentially compromised or breached in the past 12 months” alone. Forrester’s Top Cyber security Threats in 2023 report provides a stark warning about the top cyber security threats this year, along with prescriptive advice to CISOs and their teams on countering them. By weaponising generative AI and using ChatGPT, attackers are fine-tuning their ransomware and social engineering techniques.
Perimeter-based legacy systems not designed with an AI-based upgrade path are the most vulnerable. With a new wave of cyber attacks coming that seek to capitalise on any given business’ weakest links, including complex cloud configurations, the gap between reported and actual breaches will grow.
Forrester cites Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its relentless cyber attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure as examples of geopolitical cyber attacks with immediate global implications. Forrester advises that nation-state actors continue to use cyber attacks on private companies for geopolitical purposes like espionage, negotiation leverage, resource control and intellectual property theft to gain technological superiority.
Advanced Phishing Attacks Surge 356% in 2022
A new report published this week observed a 356% growth in the number of advanced phishing attacks attempted by threat actors in 2022, with the total number of attacks having increased by 87%. Among the reasons behind this growth is the fact that malicious actors continue to gain widespread access to new tools, including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)-powered tools. These have automated the process of generating sophisticated attacks, including those characterized by social engineering as well as evasion techniques.
The global threat landscape continues to evolve with a meteoric rise in the number of attacks, combined with increasingly sophisticated attack techniques designed to breach and damage organisations.
Additionally, the report highlighted that the changing threat landscape has resulted from the swift adoption of new cloud collaboration apps, cloud storage and productivity services for external collaboration.
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/advanced-phishing-attacks-surge/
Today’s Cyber Defence Challenges: Complexity and a False Sense of Security
Organisations can mistakenly believe that deploying more security solutions will result in greater protection against threats. However, the truth of the matter can be very different. Gartner estimates that global spending on IT security and risk management solutions will exceed $189.7 billion annually in 2023, yet the breaches keep on coming. Blindly purchasing more security tools can add to complexity in enterprise environments and creates a false sense of security that contributes to today’s cyber security challenges.
To add to the dilemma, the new work-from-anywhere model is putting a strain on IT and security teams. Employees shifting between corporate and off-corporate networks are creating visibility and control challenges, which are impacting those teams’ ability to diagnose and remediate end user issues and minimize cyber security risks. In addition, they have to deal with a broad mix of networks, hardware, business and security applications, operating system (OS) versions, and patches.
Almost All Ransomware Attacks Target Backups
Data stored in backups is the most common target for ransomware attackers. Almost all intrusions (93%) target backups and in 75% of cases succeed in taking out victims’ ability to recover. In addition, 85% of global organisations suffered at least one cyber attack in the past year according to the Veeam 2023 Ransomware trends report. Only 16% of organisations avoided paying ransom because they were able to recover from backups, down from 19% in last year’s survey.
According to the survey, criminals attempt to attack backup repositories in almost all (93%) cyber events in EMEA, with 75% losing at least some of their backups and more than one-third (39%) of backup repositories being completely lost.
Other key findings included that 21% said ransomware is now specifically excluded from insurance policies; and of those with cyber insurance, 74% saw increased premiums since their last policy renewal.
With most ransomware actors moving to double and triple extortion the days of a backup being all you need to keep you safe are far behind and firms should do more to prevent being the victim of ransomware in the first place.
NCSC Warns Against Chinese Cyber Attacks on Critical Infrastructure
The UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and several other international security agencies have issued a new advisory warning the public against Chinese cyber activity targeting critical national infrastructure networks. According to the document, the People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s associated threat actors employed sophisticated tactics to evade detection while conducting malicious activities against targets in the US and Guam. These tactics are expected to be used on critical infrastructure targets outside the US, including the UK.
The document further added that the threat actors mainly focused on credential access theft via brute force and password spraying techniques. The NCSC advisory provides network defenders with technical indicators and examples of techniques used by the attacker to help identify any malicious activity.
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/ncsc-warns-chinese-cyber-attacks/
Half of All Companies were Impacted by Spearphishing in 2022
Spearphishing is a sliver of all email exploits but the extent to which it succeeds is revealed in a new study from cyber security firm Barracuda Networks, which analysed 50 billion emails across 3.5 million mailboxes in 2022, unearthing around 30 million spearphishing emails and affecting 50% of all companies.
The report identified the top prevalent spearphishing emails were Scamming (47%) used to trick victims into disclosing sensitive information and the other being brand impersonation (42%) attacks mimicking a brand familiar with the victim to harvest credentials.
The report found that remote work is increasing risks. Users at companies with more than a 50% remote workforce report higher levels of suspicious emails — 12 per day on average, compared to 9 per day for those with less than a 50% remote workforce.
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/barracuda-networks-spearphishing-study/
Google's .zip, .mov Domains Give Social Engineers a Shiny New Tool
Two new top-level domain names (.zip and .mov) have caused concern among security researchers, who say they allow for the construction of malicious URLs that even tech-savvy users are likely to miss. While a top-level domain (TLD) that mimics a file extension is only one component in the lookalike attack, the overall combination is much more effective with the .zip or .mov extension.
There's no question that phishing links that involve these TLDs can be used to lure unsuspecting users into accidentally downloading malware. Unlike other kinds of phishing URLs that are intended to lure the user to enter credentials into a phony login page, the lures with the .zip or .mov domains are more suited to drive-by download types of attacks.
https://www.darkreading.com/endpoint/google-zip-mov-domains-social-engineers-shiny-new-tool
Governance, Risk and Compliance
Security Pros: Before You Do Anything, Understand Your Threat Landscape - SecurityWeek
The Rising Threat of Secrets Sprawl and the Need for Action (thehackernews.com)
Mass resignations, layoffs seen as major threat to corporate cyber security - The Korea Times
Improving Cyber security Requires Building Better Public-Private Cooperation (darkreading.com)
5 Cyber security Woes That Threaten Digital Growth (analyticsinsight.net)
Cyber Warfare Lessons From the Russia-Ukraine Conflict (darkreading.com)
What Security Professionals Need to Know About Aggregate Cyber Risk (darkreading.com)
Where to Focus Your Company’s Limited Cyber security Budget (hbr.org)
Former Uber CSO Joe Sullivan and lessons learned from the infamous 2016 Uber breach | CSO Online
CISO Criminalization, Vague Cyber Disclosure Rules Create Angst for Security Teams (darkreading.com)
Today’s Cyber Defence Challenges: Complexity and a False Sense of Security - SecurityWeek
The biggest threats are always those we fail to predict - Big Think
How continuous security monitoring is changing the compliance game - Help Net Security
Defining CISOs, CTOs, and CIOs' Roles in Cyber security (analyticsinsight.net)
Threats
Ransomware, Extortion and Destructive Attacks
3 Common Initial Attack Vectors Account for Most Ransomware Campaigns (darkreading.com)
12 vulnerabilities newly associated with ransomware - Help Net Security
IT employee impersonates ransomware gang to extort employer (bleepingcomputer.com)
Ransomware threats are growing, and targeting Microsoft devices more and more | TechRadar
Microsoft: Notorious FIN7 hackers return in Clop ransomware attacks (bleepingcomputer.com)
FIN7 gang returned and was spotted delivering Clop ransomware - Security Affairs
Bridgestone CISO: Lessons From Ransomware Attack Include Acting, Not Thinking (darkreading.com)
Cyble — New Ransomware Wave Engulfs over 200 Corporate Victims
Updated 'StopRansomware Guide' warns of shifting tactics | TechTarget
The Week in Ransomware - May 19th 2023 - A Shifting Landscape (bleepingcomputer.com)
US saw 45% fewer ransomware victims posted on the dark web | Security Magazine
Judge Throws Out Ransomware Class-Action Suit Against Rackspace - MSSP Alert
Ransomware tales: The MitM attack that really had a Man in the Middle – Naked Security (sophos.com)
Here's another great reason to make sure your enterprises is safeguarded from ransomware | TechRadar
Inside Qilin Ransomware: Affiliates Take Home 85% of Ransom Payouts (thehackernews.com)
Buhti Ransomware Gang Switches Tactics, Utilizes Leaked LockBit and Babuk Code (thehackernews.com)
Ransomware Victims
Food Distributor Sysco Says Cyber Attack Exposed 126,000 Individuals - SecurityWeek
Suzuki motorcycle plant shut down by cyber attack (bitdefender.com)
Iowa hospital discloses breach following Royal ransomware leak | TechTarget
Arms maker Rheinmetall confirms BlackBasta ransomware attack (bleepingcomputer.com)
Dish Network says February ransomware attack impacted +300K - Security Affairs
Philly Inquirer disputes Cuba ransomware gang's leak claims • The Register
Dorchester school IT system held to ransom in cyber attack - BBC News
BlackByte lists city of Augusta after cyber 'incident' • The Register
Phishing & Email Based Attacks
Advanced Phishing Attacks Surge 356% in 2022 - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)
50% of companies had spearphishing puncture wounds in 2022 (techrepublic.com)
Microsoft 365 phishing attacks use encrypted RPMSG messages (bleepingcomputer.com)
Threat actors exploit new channels for advanced phishing attacks - Help Net Security
Malicious links and misaddressed emails slip past security controls - Help Net Security
CopperStealer Malware Crew Resurfaces with New Rootkit and Phishing Kit Modules (thehackernews.com)
Crypto phishing service Inferno Drainer defrauds thousands of victims (bleepingcomputer.com)
BEC – Business Email Compromise
Cyber Signals: Shifting tactics show surge in business email compromise | Microsoft Security Blog
Microsoft reports jump in business email compromise activity | CSO Online
Other Social Engineering; Smishing, Vishing, etc
Artificial Intelligence
Employees are banned from using ChatGPT at these companies | Fortune
BatLoader campaign impersonates ChatGPT and Midjourney to deliver Redline Stealer - Security Affairs
6 ChatGPT risks for legal and compliance leaders - Help Net Security
5 Ways Hackers Will Use ChatGPT For Cyber attacks (informationsecuritybuzz.com)
Simple OSINT techniques to spot AI-fueled disinformation, fake reviews - Help Net Security
Microsoft urges lawmakers to adopt new guidelines for responsible AI | CyberScoop
AI Used to Create Malware, WithSecure Observes - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)
The Security Hole at the Heart of ChatGPT and Bing | WIRED UK
2FA/MFA
Malware
New PowerExchange malware backdoors Microsoft Exchange servers (bleepingcomputer.com)
Hackers Use Weaponised DOCX File to Deploy Stealthy Malware (gbhackers.com)
Meet 'Jack' from Romania! Mastermind Behind Golden Chickens Malware (thehackernews.com)
Developer Alert: NPM Packages for Node.js Hiding Dangerous TurkoRat Malware (thehackernews.com)
CopperStealer Malware Crew Resurfaces with New Rootkit and Phishing Kit Modules (thehackernews.com)
Threat actors leverage kernel drivers in new attacks | TechTarget
BatLoader campaign impersonates ChatGPT and Midjourney to deliver Redline Stealer - Security Affairs
Malicious links and misaddressed emails slip past security controls - Help Net Security
Potentially millions of Android TVs and phones come with malware preinstalled | Ars Technica
New AhRat Android malware hidden in app with 50,000 installs (bleepingcomputer.com)
Malware turns home routers into proxies for Chinese state-sponsored hackers | Ars Technica
PyPI open-source code repository deals with manic malware maelstrom – Naked Security (sophos.com)
Legion Malware Upgraded to Target SSH Servers and AWS Credentials (thehackernews.com)
AI Used to Create Malware, WithSecure Observes - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)
Mobile
Warning: Samsung Devices Under Attack! New Security Flaw Exposed (thehackernews.com)
Android phones are vulnerable to fingerprint brute-force attacks (bleepingcomputer.com)
New AhRat Android malware hidden in app with 50,000 installs (bleepingcomputer.com)
Predator: Looking under the hood of Intellexa’s Android spyware (bleepingcomputer.com)
Botnets
How smart bots are infecting and exploiting the internet - Help Net Security
The Dark Frost Enigma: An Unexpectedly Prevalent Botnet Author Profile | Akamai
Denial of Service/DoS/DDOS
Internet of Things – IoT
Potentially millions of Android TVs and phones come with malware preinstalled | Ars Technica
Malware turns home routers into proxies for Chinese state-sponsored hackers | Ars Technica
Data Breaches/Leaks
Capita under fire after ‘confidential’ files published online (thetimes.co.uk)
Luxottica confirms 2021 data breach after info of 70M leaks online (bleepingcomputer.com)
Hackers steal the SSN of nearly 6 million people (pandasecurity.com)
Food Distributor Sysco Says Cyber attack Exposed 126,000 Individuals - SecurityWeek
Organised Crime & Criminal Actors
IT employee piggybacked on cyber attack for personal gain - Help Net Security
Child hackers: How are kids becoming sophisticated cyber criminals? | Euronews
UK Fraudster Behind iSpoof Scam Receives 13-Year Jail Term for Cyber Crimes (thehackernews.com)
The Strange Story of the Teens Behind the Mirai Botnet - IEEE Spectrum
FBI: Human Trafficking Rings Force Job Seekers Into Cryptojacking Schemes (darkreading.com)
'Operation Magalenha' Attacks Gives Window Into Brazil's Cyber crime Ecosystem (darkreading.com)
Cyber criminals masquerading as MFA vendors - Help Net Security
The Dark Frost Enigma: An Unexpectedly Prevalent Botnet Author Profile | Akamai
Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking/NFTs/Blockchain
Crypto phishing service Inferno Drainer defrauds thousands of victims (bleepingcomputer.com)
Forex boss Anthony Constantinou guilty of £70m ‘Ponzi’ fraud (thetimes.co.uk)
FBI: Human Trafficking Rings Force Job Seekers Into Cryptojacking Schemes (darkreading.com)
Insider Risk and Insider Threats
How to prevent against the 5 main types of insider threats - IT Security Guru
IT employee impersonates ransomware gang to extort employer (bleepingcomputer.com)
Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime
Get-rich-quick schemes, pyramids and ponzis: five signs you're being scammed (theconversation.com)
Scammers Using ChatGPT "Fleeceware" Apps to Cash In on AI Hype, Sophos Report - MSSP Alert
Online scams target bargain-hunting holiday travelers - Help Net Security
Ads for lucrative jobs in Asia may be tech slavery scams • The Register
Crypto phishing service Inferno Drainer defrauds thousands of victims (bleepingcomputer.com)
79-year-old woman tricks German scammers into getting arrested (iamexpat.de)
Forex boss Anthony Constantinou guilty of £70m ‘Ponzi’ fraud (thetimes.co.uk)
IT employee impersonates ransomware gang to extort employer (bleepingcomputer.com)
Supply Chain and Third Parties
Capita under fire after ‘confidential’ files published online (thetimes.co.uk)
UK councils caught in Capita unsecured AWS bucket data leak • The Register
New Cyber Security Training Packages Launched to Manage Supply Chain Risk - NCSC
Software Supply Chain
GUAC 0.1 Beta: Google's Breakthrough Framework for Secure Software Supply Chains (thehackernews.com)
Cloud/SaaS
UK councils caught in Capita unsecured AWS bucket data leak • The Register
CISO-level tips for securing corporate data in the cloud - Help Net Security
Google Cloud Bug Allows Server Takeover From CloudSQL Service (darkreading.com)
Attack Surface Management
Identity and Access Management
7 access management challenges during M&A - Help Net Security
Think security first when switching from traditional Active Directory to Azure AD | CSO Online
Encryption
API
API bug in OAuth dev tool opened websites, apps to account hijacking | SC Media (scmagazine.com)
The fragmented nature of API security ownership - Help Net Security
Open Source
Passwords, Credential Stuffing & Brute Force Attacks
Inactive accounts pose significant account takeover security risks | CSO Online
What’s a Double-Blind Password Strategy and When Should It Be Used (bleepingcomputer.com)
Netflix's Password-Sharing Ban Offers Security Upsides (darkreading.com)
Biometrics
Social Media
Meta Hit With $1.3B Record-Breaking Fine for GDPR Violations (darkreading.com)
Pentagon explosion hoax goes viral after verified Twitter accounts push (bleepingcomputer.com)
Training, Education and Awareness
Travel
Online scams target bargain-hunting holiday travelers - Help Net Security
Four ways your devices can be hacked in hotels and how to stay safe | This is Money
Tips to Protect Against Holiday and Airline Scams - IT Security Guru
Parental Controls and Child Safety
Regulations, Fines and Legislation
Meta Hit With $1.3B Record-Breaking Fine for GDPR Violations (darkreading.com)
Microsoft urges lawmakers to adopt new guidelines for responsible AI | CyberScoop
Models, Frameworks and Standards
NIST Launches Cyber security Initiative for Small Businesses (securityintelligence.com)
New security model launched to eliminate 95% of cyber breaches - IT Security Guru
Backup and Recovery
Almost all ransomware attacks target backups, says Veeam | Computer Weekly
'Operation Magalenha' Attacks Gives Window Into Brazil's Cyber crime Ecosystem (darkreading.com)
Here's another great reason to make sure your enterprises is safeguarded from ransomware | TechRadar
Data Protection
Careers, Working in Cyber and Information Security
Law Enforcement Action and Take Downs
UK Fraudster Behind iSpoof Scam Receives 13-Year Jail Term for Cyber Crimes (thehackernews.com)
79-year-old woman tricks German scammers into getting arrested (iamexpat.de)
Privacy, Surveillance and Mass Monitoring
UK police to 'embed' facial recog but oversight is at risk • The Register
Abuse of government spying powers: What's to worry about? • The Register
Reflections on Ten Years Past The Snowden Revelations (ietf.org)
Misinformation, Disinformation and Propaganda
Spyware, Cyber Espionage & Cyber Warfare, including Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Cyber Warfare Lessons From the Russia-Ukraine Conflict (darkreading.com)
Russia's War in Ukraine Shows Cyber attacks Can Be War Crimes (darkreading.com)
The Underground History of Turla, Russia's Most Ingenious Hacker Group | WIRED
Bad Magic's Extended Reign in Cyber Espionage Goes Back Over a Decade (thehackernews.com)
North Korean Kimsuky Hackers Strike Again with Advanced Reconnaissance Malware (thehackernews.com)
Cyber Attacks Strike Ukraine's State Bodies in Espionage Operation (thehackernews.com)
Mysterious malware designed to cripple industrial systems linked to Russia | CyberScoop
New Russian-linked CosmicEnergy malware targets industrial systems (bleepingcomputer.com)
United Nations official and others in Armenia hacked by NSO Group spyware | Hacking | The Guardian
Predator: Looking under the hood of Intellexa’s Android spyware (bleepingcomputer.com)
Nation State Actors
APT attacks: Exploring Advanced Persistent Threats and their evasive techniques (malwarebytes.com)
SMBs and regional MSPs are increasingly targeted by state-sponsored APT groups | CSO Online
The Underground History of Turla, Russia's Most Ingenious Hacker Group | WIRED
Malware turns home routers into proxies for Chinese state-sponsored hackers | Ars Technica
North Korean Kimsuky Hackers Strike Again with Advanced Reconnaissance Malware (thehackernews.com)
Five Eyes and Microsoft accuse China US infrastructure raids • The Register
Iranian hackers use new Moneybird ransomware to attack Israeli orgs (bleepingcomputer.com)
Mysterious malware designed to cripple industrial systems linked to Russia | CyberScoop
GCHQ warns of fresh threat from Chinese state-sponsored hackers | Hacking | The Guardian
New Russian-linked CosmicEnergy malware targets industrial systems (bleepingcomputer.com)
Five Eyes agencies detail how Chinese hackers breached US infrastructure - Help Net Security
Lazarus Group Striking Vulnerable Windows IIS Web Servers (darkreading.com)
'Volt Typhoon' Breaks Fresh Ground for China-Backed Cyber Campaigns (darkreading.com)
Vulnerability Management
12 vulnerabilities newly associated with ransomware - Help Net Security
Fresh perspectives needed to manage growing vulnerabilities - Help Net Security
Judge Throws Out Ransomware Class-Action Suit Against Rackspace - MSSP Alert
How to check for new exploits in real time? VulnCheck has an answer | CSO Online
Vulnerabilities
12 vulnerabilities newly associated with ransomware - Help Net Security
Hackers target 1.5M WordPress sites with cookie consent plugin exploit (bleepingcomputer.com)
Barracuda Alerts Of Breaches In Email Gateways From Zero-Day Flaws (informationsecuritybuzz.com)
Threat Actors Compromise Barracuda Email Security Appliances (darkreading.com)
Microsoft: Windows issue causes file copying, saving failures (bleepingcomputer.com)
GitLab 'strongly recommends' patching max severity flaw ASAP (bleepingcomputer.com)
83C0000B: The error code that means a software update bricked your HP printer (bitdefender.com)
CISA adds iPhone bugs to Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog - Security Affairs
Vulnerability in Zyxel firewalls may soon be widely exploited (CVE-2023-28771) - Help Net Security
Zyxel warns of critical vulnerabilities in firewall and VPN devices (bleepingcomputer.com)
Warning: Samsung Devices Under Attack! New Security Flaw Exposed (thehackernews.com)
Tools and Controls
Security Pros: Before You Do Anything, Understand Your Threat Landscape - SecurityWeek
Malicious links and misaddressed emails slip past security controls - Help Net Security
Making The Most Of A Penetration Test: The Organisational Perspective (forbes.com)
Against the Clock: Cyber Incident Response Plan (trendmicro.com)
Investigating Risks Through Threat Hunting Capability Guide (informationsecuritybuzz.com)
Almost all ransomware attacks target backups, says Veeam | Computer Weekly
How continuous security monitoring is changing the compliance game - Help Net Security
Blacklist untrustworthy apps that peek behind your firewall - Help Net Security
How generative AI is reshaping the identity verification landscape - Help Net Security
The fragmented nature of API security ownership - Help Net Security
Enterprises Must Prepare Now for Shorter TLS Certificate Lifespans (darkreading.com)
Cutting Through the Noise: What is Zero Trust Security? - SecurityWeek
CISO-level tips for securing corporate data in the cloud - Help Net Security
6 ways generative AI chatbots and LLMs can enhance cyber security | CSO Online
'Operation Magalenha' Attacks Gives Window Into Brazil's Cyber crime Ecosystem (darkreading.com)
Here's another great reason to make sure your enterprises is safeguarded from ransomware | TechRadar
Attributes of a mature cyber-threat intelligence program | CSO Online
Sector Specific
Industry specific threat intelligence reports are available.
Contact us to receive tailored reports specific to the industry/sector and geographies you operate in.
· Automotive
· Construction
· Critical National Infrastructure (CNI)
· Defence & Space
· Education & Academia
· Energy & Utilities
· Estate Agencies
· Financial Services
· FinTech
· Food & Agriculture
· Gaming & Gambling
· Government & Public Sector (including Law Enforcement)
· Health/Medical/Pharma
· Hotels & Hospitality
· Insurance
· Legal
· Manufacturing
· Maritime
· Oil, Gas & Mining
· OT, ICS, IIoT, SCADA & Cyber-Physical Systems
· Retail & eCommerce
· Small and Medium Sized Businesses (SMBs)
· Startups
· Telecoms
· Third Sector & Charities
· Transport & Aviation
· Web3
As usual, contact us to help assess where your risks lie and to ensure you are doing all you can do to keep you and your business secure.
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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)
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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 04 March 2022
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 04 March 2022
-Cyber Criminals Exploit Invasion of Ukraine
-UK Data Watchdog Urges Vigilance Amid Heightened Cyber Threat
-Phishing - Still a Problem, Despite All The Work
-Phishing Attacks Hit All-Time High In December 2021
-Ransomware Infections Top List Of The Most Common Results Of Phishing Attacks
-Social Media Phishing Attacks Are at An All Time High
-Insurance Giant AON Hit by a Cyber Attack
-How Prepared Are Organisations To Face Email-Based Ransomware Attacks?
-The Most Impersonated Brands in Phishing Attacks
-As War Escalates In Europe, It’s ‘Shields Up’ For The Cyber Security Industry
-2022 May Be The Year Cyber Crime Returns Its Focus To Consumers
-Kaspersky Neutral Stance In Doubt As It Shields Kremlin
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 Criminals Exploit Invasion of Ukraine
Cyber criminals are exploiting Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine to commit digital fraud.
In a blog, researchers at Bitdefender Labs said they had witnessed “waves of fraudulent and malicious emails,” some of which were engineered to exploit the charitable intentions of global citizens towards the people of Ukraine.
Since March 1, researchers have been tracking two specific phishing campaigns designed to infect victims with Agent Tesla and Remcos remote access Trojans.
Agent Tesla is a malware-as-a-service (MaaS) Remote Access Trojan (RAT) and data stealer that can be used to exfiltrate sensitive information, including credentials, keystrokes and clipboard data from victims.
Remcos RAT is typically deployed via malicious documents or archives to give the attacker full control over their victims’ systems. Once inside, attackers can capture keystrokes, screenshots, credentials and other sensitive system data and exfiltrate it.
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/cyber-criminals-invasion-ukraine/
UK Data Watchdog Urges Vigilance Amid Heightened Cyber Threat
The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) reports a ‘steady and significant’ increase in cyber-attacks against UK firms over the past two years.
Employees should report any suspicious emails rather than delete them and firms must step up their vigilance against cyber-attacks in the face of a heightened threat from Russian hackers, the UK’s data watchdog has said.
John Edwards, the Information Commissioner, said a new era of security had begun where instead of blacking out windows, people needed to maintain vigilance over their inboxes.
Experts including the UK’s cyber security agency have said Russian hackers could target Britain, and the imposition of sanctions by London on Moscow has increased those fears.
Asked about the potential for a Russia-Ukraine cyber conflict spreading to the UK, Edwards said: “We have picked up on that heightened threat environment and we think it’s really important to take the opportunity to remind businesses of the importance of security over the data that they hold. This is a different era from blacking out the windows and keeping the lights off. The threats are going to come in through your inbox.”
Phishing - Still a Problem, Despite All The Work
Phishing is a threat that most people know about. Emails designed to trick you into clicking a malicious link or divulge passwords and other credentials have become an everyday occurrence. Despite this familiarity, and the multitude of tools and techniques which purport to stop it, phishing remains the number one initial attack vector affecting organisations and individuals.
Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet. Phishing can only be dealt with using multiple complementary measures. This fact leads to some questions: Which measures are most (cost) effective? How should they be implemented? Can they be automated?
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/blog-post/phishing-still-a-problem-despite-the-work
Phishing Attacks Hit All-Time High in December 2021
The Anti-Phishing Working Group international consortium (APWG) saw 316,747 phishing attacks in December 2021 — the highest monthly total observed since it began its reporting program in 2004. Overall, the number of phishing attacks has tripled from early 2020.
In the fourth quarter of 2021, the financial sector, which includes banks, became the most frequently attacked cohort, accounting for 23.2 percent of all phishing. Attacks against webmail and software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers remained prevalent as well. Phishing against cryptocurrency targets — such as cryptocurrency exchanges and wallet providers — inched up to represent 6.5 percent of attacks.
Overall, the number of brands that were attacked in 4Q descended from a record 715 in September 2021, cresting at 682 in November for the Q4 period.
The solution provider Abnormal Security observed 4,200 companies, organisations, and government institutions falling victim to ransomware in Q4 2021, some 36 percent higher than in Q3 2021 and the highest number the company has witnessed over the past two years.
“The overall distribution of ransomware victims indicates that ransomware attacks are industry-agnostic,” said Crane Hassold, Director of Threat Intelligence at Abnormal Security.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/03/03/phishing-attacks-december-2021/
Ransomware Infections Top List of The Most Common Results of Phishing Attacks
A report from insider threat management software company Egress found some startling conclusions when it spoke to IT leadership: Despite the pervasive and very serious threat of ransomware, very few boards of directors consider it a top priority.
Eighty-four percent of organisations reported falling victim to a phishing attack last year, Egress said, and of those 59% were infected with ransomware as a result. If you add in the 14% of businesses that said they weren’t hit with a phishing attack, and you still end up at around 50% of all organisations having been hit with ransomware in 2021.
Egress said that its data shows there has been a 15% increase in successful phishing attacks over the past 12 months, with the bulk of the attacks utilising malicious links and attachments. Those methods aren’t new, but a 15% increase in successful attacks means that something isn’t working.
Social Media Phishing Attacks Are at An All Time High
Phishing campaigns continue to focus on social media, ramping up efforts to target users for the third consecutive year as the medium becomes increasingly used worldwide for communication, news, and entertainment.
The targeting of social media is the highlighted finding in the 2021 Phishing report by cybersecurity firm Vade, who analysed phishing attack patterns that unfolded throughout 2021.
As part of their report, Vade analysed 184,977 phishing pages to create stats based on a billion corporate and consumer mailboxes that the cyber security firm protects.
Vade also recorded a rise in the sophistication of phishing attacks, especially those targeting Microsoft 365 credentials, an evolution in the tech support scams, and the inevitable dominance of COVID-19 and item shipping lures.
Insurance Giant AON Hit by a Cyber Attack
Professional services and insurance giant AON has suffered a cyberattack that impacted a "limited" number of systems.
AON is a multinational professional services firm offering a wide array of solutions, including business insurance, reinsurance, cyber security consulting, risk solutions, healthcare insurance, and wealth management products.
AON generated $12.2 billion of revenue in 2021 and has approximately 50,000 employees spread throughout 120 countries.
In a filing with the US SEC, AON has disclosed that they suffered a cyberattack on February 25th, 2022.
AON has not provided any details of the attack other than that it occurred and affected a limited number of systems.
The company stated that although in the early stages of assessing the incident, based on the information currently known, the company did not expect the incident to have a material impact on its business, operations or financial condition.
In addition to being an insurance broker, AON is also a leading reinsurance company, meaning that they insure the insurance companies.
How Prepared Are Organisations to Face Email-Based Ransomware Attacks?
Proofpoint released a report which provides an in-depth look at user phishing awareness, vulnerability, and resilience. The report reveals that attackers were more active in 2021 than 2020, with findings uncovering that 78% of organisations saw email-based ransomware attacks in 2021, while 77% faced business email compromise attacks (BEC) (18% YoY increase of BEC attacks from 2020), reflecting cyber criminals’ continued focus on compromising people, as opposed to gaining access to systems through technical vulnerabilities
This year’s report examines responses from commissioned surveys of 600 information and IT security professionals and 3,500 workers in the U.S., Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, and the UK. The report also analyses data from nearly 100 million simulated phishing attacks sent by customers to their employees over a one-year period, along with more than 15 million emails reported via the user-activated PhishAlarm reporting button.
Attacks in 2021 also had a much wider impact than in 2020, with 83% of survey respondents revealing their organisation experienced at least one successful email-based phishing attack, up from 57% in 2020. In line with this, 68% of organisations said they dealt with at least one ransomware infection stemming from a direct email payload, second-stage malware delivery, or other exploit. The year-over-year increase remains steady but representative of the challenges organisations faced as ransomware attacks surged in 2021.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/02/28/email-based-ransomware-attacks/
The Most Impersonated Brands in Phishing Attacks
Vade announced its annual ranking of the top 20 most impersonated brands in phishing. Facebook, which was in the second spot in 2020, rose to the top spot for 2021, representing 14% of phishing pages, followed by Microsoft, with 13%.
The report analysed 184,977 phishing pages linked from unique phishing emails between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2021.
Key findings:
· Financial services is the most impersonated industry
· Microsoft is the most impersonated cloud brand and the top corporate brand
· Facebook dominates social media phishing
· 35% of all phishing pages impersonated financial services brands
· Mondays and Tuesdays are the top days for phishing
· 78% of phishing attacks occur on weekdays
· Monday and Thursday are the top days for Facebook phishing
· Thursday and Friday are the top days for Microsoft phishing
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/03/04/most-impersonated-brands-phishing/
As War Escalates in Europe, It’s ‘Shields Up’ For The Cyber Security Industry
In unprecedented times, even government bureaucracy moves quickly. As a result of the heightened likelihood of cyberthreat from Russian malactor groups, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) — part of the Department of Homeland Security — issued an unprecedented warning recommending that “all organisations — regardless of size — adopt a heightened posture when it comes to cyber security and protecting their most critical assets.”
The blanket warning is for all industries to take notice. Indeed, it’s a juxtaposition of sorts to think the cyber security industry is vulnerable to cyber attack, but for many nation state groups, this is their first port of call.
Inspired by the spike in attacks on cyber security agencies globally, a report from Reposify assessed the state of the cyber security industry’s external attack surface (EAS). It coincides with CISA’s warning, and highlights critical areas of concern for the sector and how they mirror trends amongst pharmaceutical and financial companies, providing vital insight into where organisations can focus their efforts, and reinforce the digital perimeter.
2022 May Be The Year Cyber Crime Returns Its Focus to Consumers
Threat analysts expect 2022 to be the tipping point for a shift in the focus of hackers from large companies back to consumers.
This prediction is the result of several factors that make consumers a lot more lucrative to threat actors today than in previous years.
ReasonLabs has compiled a detailed report on the status of consumer-level cyber security and what trends are most likely to emerge this year.
Kaspersky Neutral Stance in Doubt As It Shields Kremlin
Kaspersky Lab is protecting the resources of the Russian Ministry of Defence and other high-value domains that are instrumental to the Russian propaganda machine – Russia Today, TASS news agency, Gazprom bank.
The company insists that they ‘never provide any law enforcement or government organisation with access to user data or the company's infrastructure.”
Eugene Kaspersky's refusal to condemn the Kremlin for its invasion of Ukraine set the cyber security community on fire. His company has tried to shake ties to the Russian government for years but hasn't succeeded quite yet. And recent events, it seems, only made things worse.
"We welcome the start of negotiations to resolve the current situation in Ukraine and hope that they will lead to a cessation of hostilities and a compromise. We believe that peaceful dialogue is the only possible instrument for resolving conflicts. War isn't good for anyone," Eugene Kaspersky tweeted when Russian and Ukrainian delegations met for peace talks near Ukraine's border with Belarus.
https://cybernews.com/security/kaspersky-neutral-stance-in-doubt-as-it-shields-kremlin/
Threats
Ransomware
Accelerated Ransomware Attacks Pressure Targeted Companies to Speed Response (darkreading.com)
Toyota Japan Shutters 14 Plants After Probable Cyber Attack • The Register
Bridgestone Still Struggling With Plant Closures Across North America After Cyber Attack | ZDNet
Cyber Criminals Who Breached Nvidia Issue One Of The Most Unusual Demands Ever | Ars Technica
Conti Ransomware's Internal Chats Leaked After Siding With Russia (bleepingcomputer.com)
Conti Group Encrypts Karma Ransomware Extortion Notes - Infosecurity Magazine
Phishing & Email
Other Social Engineering
'Several Combinations Of Social Engineering' Used During Cyber Attack On Camera Maker Axis | ZDNet
Instagram Scammers As Busy As Ever: Passwords And 2FA Codes At Risk – Naked Security (sophos.com)
Malware
TrickBot Malware Gang Upgrades its AnchorDNS Backdoor to AnchorMail (thehackernews.com)
Rebirth of Emotet: New Features of the Botnet and How to Detect it (thehackernews.com)
Mobile
How Much Do Different Generations Trust Their Mobile Devices' Security? - Help Net Security
TeaBot Android Banking Trojan Continues Its Global Conquest With New Upgrades | ZDNet
SharkBot Malware Hides As Android Antivirus In Google Play (bleepingcomputer.com)
Data Breaches/Leaks
Hackers Leak 190GB Of Alleged Samsung Data, Source Code (bleepingcomputer.com)
NVIDIA Data Breach Exposed Credentials Of Over 71,000 Employees (bleepingcomputer.com)
250,000-Plus Lawyer Disciplinary Records Leak • The Register
Swiss Bank Requests Destruction of Documents - Infosecurity Magazine
Organised Crime & Criminal Actors
Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking
Hackers Threaten To Turn Every Nvidia GPU Into A Bitcoin Mining Machine | TechRadar
Beware of Ongoing Crypto Cyber War Amidst the Ukraine Russian War in 2022 (analyticsinsight.net)
Log4shell Exploits Now Used Mostly For DDoS Botnets, Cryptominers (bleepingcomputer.com)
Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime
DoS/DDoS
DDoSers Are Using A Potent New Method To Deliver Attacks Of Unthinkable Size | Ars Technica
DDoS Attackers Have Found This New Trick To Knock Over Websites | ZDNet
Hackers Begin Weaponizing TCP Middlebox Reflection for Amplified DDoS Attacks (thehackernews.com)
Log4shell Exploits Now Used Mostly For DDoS Botnets, Cryptominers (bleepingcomputer.com)
Nation State Actors
Responses to Russia's Invasion of Ukraine Likely to Spur Retaliation | Mandiant
Charities, Aid Orgs In Ukraine Attacked With Malware (bleepingcomputer.com)
Cyber Attacks In Ukraine Could Reach Other Countries - IT Security Guru
Microsoft Finds FoxBlade Malware Hit Ukraine Hours Before Russian Invasion (thehackernews.com)
Ukraine Digital Army Brews Cyberattacks, Intel and Infowar | SecurityWeek.Com
Ukraine Security Agencies Warn Of Ghostwriter Threat Activity, Phishing Campaigns | ZDNet
Ukraine Asks ICANN To Revoke Russian Domains And Shut Down DNS Root Servers | Ars Technica
IsaacWiper, The Third Wiper Spotted Since The Beginning Of Russian Invasion - Security Affairs
Ukrainian Sites Saw A 10x Increase In Attacks When Invasion Started (bleepingcomputer.com)
Chinese Malware Targeted Multiple Governments • The Register
Iranian Hackers Using New Spying Malware That Abuses Telegram Messenger API (thehackernews.com)
Passwords & Credential Stuffing
Spyware, Espionage & Cyber Warfare
Cyber Attack on NATO Could Trigger Collective Defence Clause - Official | Reuters
Ukraine Conflict Spurs Questions Of How To Define Cyberwar - CyberScoop
How China Built A One-Of-A-Kind Cyber-Espionage Behemoth To Last | MIT Technology Review
Russia's Space Chief Says Hacking Satellites 'A Cause For War' - POLITICO
Ukraine Is Building An 'It Army' Of Volunteers, Something That's Never Been Tried Before | ZDNet
China-linked Daxin Malware Targeted Multiple Governments in Espionage Attacks (thehackernews.com)
Vulnerabilities
Get Patching Now: CISA Adds Another 95 Flaws To Its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities List | ZDNet
Cisco Patches Critical Vulnerabilities in Expressway, TelePresence VCS Products | SecurityWeek.Com
Firefox Patches Two In-The-Wild Exploits – Update Now! – Naked Security (sophos.com)
New Linux Kernel cgroups Vulnerability Could Let Attackers Escape Container (thehackernews.com)
Critical Security Bugs Uncovered in VoIPmonitor Monitoring Software (thehackernews.com)
New Security Vulnerability Affects Thousands of Self-Managed GitLab Instances (thehackernews.com)
Sector Specific
Financial Services Sector
Health/Medical/Pharma Sector
CNI, OT, ICS, IIoT and SCADA
Reports Published in the Last Week
Other News
Ukraine Conflict Puts Organisations’ Cyber-resilience To The Test - Information Security Buzz
The Cyber Security Implications Of The Russia-Ukraine Conflict (forbes.com)
Multifactor Authentication Is Being Targeted by Hackers – The New Stack
Attacks Abusing Programming APIs Grew Over 600% In 2021 (bleepingcomputer.com)
Soaring Cyber Attacks On BBC – ‘No Industry Is Untouchable’ - Information Security Buzz
Bad Actors Are Becoming More Successful At Evading AI/ML Technologies - Help Net Security
Why the Shifting Nature of Endpoints Requires a New Approach to Security (darkreading.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.