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Black Arrow Admin 02/04/2023 Black Arrow Admin 02/04/2023

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 31 March 2023

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 31 March 2023:

-Phishing Emails Up a Whopping 569% in 2022

-The End User Password Mistakes Putting Your Organisation at Risk

-Millions of Penetration Tests Show Companies’ Security Postures are Getting Worse

-71% of Employees Keep Work Passwords on Personal Devices

-Cyber Crime Frontlines in Russia-Ukraine War Move to Eastern and Northern Europe

-Security Flaws Cost Fifth of Executive’s Businesses

-Companies Struggle to Build and Run Effective Programs to Protect Data from Insider Threats

-Only 10% of Workers Remember All Their Cyber Security Training

-Silence Gets You Nowhere in a Data Breach

-Just 1% of Cloud Permissions are Actively Used

-Dangerous Misconceptions About Emerging Cyber Threats

-‘Grim’ Criminal Abuse of ChatGPT is Coming, Europol Warns

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.

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 30 December 2022

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 30 December 2022:

-Cyber Attacks Set to Become ‘Uninsurable’, Says Zurich Chief

-Your Business Should Compensate for Modern Ransomware Capabilities Right Now

-Reported Phishing Attacks Have Quintupled

-Ransomware, DDoS See Major Upsurge Led by Upstart Hacker Group

-Videoconferencing Worries Grow, With SMBs in Cyber Attack Crosshairs

-Will the Crypto Crash Impact Cyber Security in 2023? Maybe.

-The Worst Hacks of 2022

-Geopolitical Tensions Expected to Further Impact Cyber Security in 2023

-Fraudsters’ Working Patterns Have Changed in Recent Years

-Hacktivism is Back and Messier Than Ever

Top Cyber Stories of the Last Week

Cyber Attacks Set to Become ‘Uninsurable’, Says Zurich Chief

The chief executive of one of Europe’s biggest insurance companies has warned that cyber attacks, rather than natural catastrophes, will become “uninsurable” as the disruption from hacks continues to grow.

Insurance executives have been increasingly vocal in recent years about systemic risks, such as pandemics and climate change, that test the sector’s ability to provide coverage. For the second year in a row, natural catastrophe-related claims are expected to top $100bn.

But Mario Greco, chief executive at insurer Zurich, told the Financial Times that cyber was the risk to watch. “What will become uninsurable is going to be cyber,” he said. “What if someone takes control of vital parts of our infrastructure, the consequences of that?” Recent attacks that have disrupted hospitals, shut down pipelines and targeted government departments have all fed concern about this expanding risk among industry executives. Focusing on the privacy risk to individuals was missing the bigger picture, Greco added: “First off, there must be a perception that this is not just data . . . this is about civilisation. These people can severely disrupt our lives.”

Spiralling cyber losses in recent years have prompted emergency measures by the sector’s underwriters to limit their exposure. As well as pushing up prices, some insurers have responded by tweaking policies so clients retain more losses. There are exemptions written into policies for certain types of attacks. In 2019, Zurich initially denied a $100mn claim from food company Mondelez, arising from the NotPetya attack, on the basis that the policy excluded a “warlike action”. The two sides later settled. In September, Lloyd’s of London defended a move to limit systemic risk from cyber attacks by requesting that insurance policies written in the market have an exemption for state-backed attacks.

https://www.ft.com/content/63ea94fa-c6fc-449f-b2b8-ea29cc83637d

Your Business Should Compensate for Modern Ransomware Capabilities Right Now

The “if, not when” mentality surrounding ransomware may be the biggest modern threat to business longevity. Companies of all sizes and across all industries are increasingly common targets for ransomware attacks, and we know that 94% of organisations experienced a cyber security incident last year alone. Yet, many enterprises continue to operate with decades-old security protocols that are unequipped to combat modern ransomware. Leaders have prioritised improving physical security measures in light of the pandemic — so why haven’t ransomware protections improved?

Maybe it’s the mistaken notion that ransomware attacks are declining. In reality, Q1 of 2022 saw a 200% YoY increase in ransomware incidents. Meanwhile, the rise in Ransomware as a Service (RaaS) offerings suggests that cyber threats have become a commodity for bad actors.

The RaaS market presents a new and troubling trend for business leaders and IT professionals. With RaaS — a subscription ransomware model that allows affiliates to deploy malware for a fee — the barrier to entry for hackers is lower than ever. The relatively unskilled nature of RaaS hackers may explain why the average ransomware downtime has plummeted to just 3.85 days (compared to an average attack duration of over two months in 2019).

While the decrease in attack duration is promising, the rise of RaaS still suggests an inconvenient truth for business leaders: All organisations are at risk. And in time, all organisations will become a target, which is why it’s time for IT and business leaders to implement tough cyber security protocols.

https://venturebeat.com/security/your-business-should-compensate-for-modern-ransomware-capabilities-right-now/

Reported Phishing Attacks Have Quintupled

In the third quarter of 2022, the international Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) consortium observed 1,270,883 total phishing attacks; the worst quarter for phishing that APWG has ever observed. The total for August 2022 was 430,141 phishing sites, the highest monthly total ever reported to APWG.

Over recent years, reported phishing attacks submitted to APWG have more than quintupled since the first quarter of 2020, when APWG observed 230,554 attacks. The rise in Q3 2022 was attributable, in part, to increasing numbers of attacks reported against several specific targeted brands. These target companies and their customers suffered from large numbers of attacks from persistent phishers.

Threat researchers at the cyber security solution provider Fortra noted a 488 percent increase in response-based email attacks in Q3 2022 compared to the prior quarter. While every subtype of these attacks increased compared to Q2, the largest increase was in Advance Fee Fraud schemes, which rose by a staggering 1,074 percent.

In the third quarter of 2022, APWG founding member OpSec Security found that phishing attacks against the financial sector, which includes banks, remained the largest set of attacks, accounting for 23.2 percent of all phishing. Attacks against webmail and software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers remained prevalent as well. Phishing against social media services fell to 11 percent of the total, down from 15.3 percent.

Phishing against cryptocurrency targets — such as cryptocurrency exchanges and wallet providers — fell from 4.5 percent of all phishing attacks in Q2 2022 to 2 percent in Q3. This mirrored the fall in value of many cryptocurrencies since mid-year.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/12/28/reported-phishing-attacks-quintupled/

Ransomware, DDoS See Major Upsurge Led by Upstart Hacker Group

Cyber threat actors Cuba and Royal are driving a 41% boom in ransomware and other attacks hitting industry and consumer goods and services.

According to the Global Threat Intelligence team of information assurance firm NCC Group, November saw a 41% increase in ransomware attacks from 188 incidents to 265. In its most recent Monthly Threat Pulse, the group reported that the month was the most active for ransomware attacks since April this year.

Key takeaways from the study:

Ransomware attacks rose by 41% in November.
Threat group Royal (16%) was the most active, replacing LockBit as the worst offender for the first time since September 2021.
Industrials (32%) and consumer cyclicals (44%) remain the top two most targeted sectors, but technology experienced a large 75% increase over the last month.
Regional data remains consistent with last month — North America (45%), Europe (25%) and Asia (14%)
DDoS attacks continue to increase.

Recent examples in the services sector include the Play ransomware group’s claimed attack of the German H-Hotels chain, resulting in communications outages. This attack reportedly uses a vulnerability in Microsoft Exchange called ProxyNotShell, which as the name implies, has similarities to the ProxyShell zero-day vulnerability revealed in 2021.

Also, back on the scene is the TrueBot malware downloader (a.k.a., the silence.downloader), which is showing up in an increasing number of devices. TrueBot Windows malware, designed by a Russian-speaking hacking group identified as Silence, has resurfaced bearing Ransom.Clop, which first appeared in 2019. Clop ransomware encrypts systems and exfiltrates data with the threat that if no ransom is forthcoming, the data will show up on a leak site.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/ransomware-ddos-major-upsurge-led-upstart-hacker-group/

Videoconferencing Worries Grow, With SMBs in Cyber Attack Crosshairs

Securing videoconferencing solutions is just one of many IT security challenges small businesses are facing, often with limited financial and human resources.

It's no secret that the acceleration of work-from-home and distributed workforce trends — infamously spurred on by the pandemic — has occurred in tandem with the rise of video communications and collaboration platforms, led by Zoom, Microsoft, and Cisco.

But given that videoconferencing now plays a critical role in how businesses interact with their employees, customers, clients, vendors, and others, these platforms carry significant potential security risks, researchers say.

Organisations use videoconferencing to discuss M&A, legal, military, healthcare, intellectual property and other topics, and even corporate strategies. A loss of that data could be catastrophic for a company, its employees, its clients, and its customers.

However, a recent report on videoconferencing security showed that 93% of IT professionals surveyed acknowledged security vulnerabilities and gaping risks in their videoconferencing solutions.

Among the most relevant risks is the lack of controlled access to conversations that could result in disruption, sabotage, compromise, or exposure of sensitive information, while use of nonsecure, outdated, or unpatched videoconferencing applications can expose security flaws.

The risks include the potential for interruptions, unauthorised access, and perhaps most concerning, the opportunity for a bad actor to acquire sensitive information.

https://www.darkreading.com/application-security/videoconferencing-worries-grow-with-smbs-in-cyberattack-crosshairs

Will the Crypto Crash Impact Cyber Security in 2023? Maybe.

With the implosion of the FTX exchange putting a punctuation mark on the cryptocurrency crash of 2022, one of the natural questions for those in the cyber security world is, how will this rapid decline of cryptocurrency valuations change the cyber crime economy?

Throughout the most recent crypto boom, and even before then, cyber criminals have used and abused cryptocurrency to build up their empires. The cryptocurrency market provides the extortionary medium for ransomware; it's a hotbed of scams against consumers to steal their wallets and accounts. Traditionally, it's provided a ton of anonymous cover for money laundering on the back end of a range of cyber criminal enterprises.

Even so, according to cyber security experts and intelligence analysts, while there certainly have been some shifts in trends and tactics that they believe are loosely tied to the crypto crash, the jury's still out on long-term impacts.

Regardless of crypto values, cyber criminals this year have definitely become more sophisticated in how they use cryptocurrencies to monetise their attacks including the use by some ransomware groups taking advantage of yield farming within decentralised finance (DeFi), as an example.

The concept of yield farming is the same as lending money, with a contract in place that clearly shows how much interest will need to be paid. The advantage for ransomware groups is that the 'interest' will be legitimate proceeds, so there will be no need to launder or hide it.

Threat actors are increasingly turning toward 'stablecoins,' which are usually tied to fiat currencies or gold to stem their volatility. In many ways, the downturn in crypto values has increased the risk appetite of cyber criminals and is spurring them into more investment fraud and cryptocurrency scams.

https://www.darkreading.com/threat-intelligence/crypto-crash-impact-cybersecurity-2023-maybe

The Worst Hacks of 2022

The year was marked by sinister new twists on cyber security classics, including phishing, breaches, and ransomware attacks.

With the pandemic evolving into an amorphous new phase and political polarisation on the rise around the world, 2022 was an uneasy and often perplexing year in digital security. And while hackers frequently leaned on old chestnuts like phishing and ransomware attacks, they still found vicious new variations to subvert defences.

Technology magazine Wired looked back on the year's worst breaches, leaks, ransomware attacks, state-sponsored hacking campaigns, and digital takeovers. If the first years of the 2020s are any indication, the digital security field in 2023 will be more bizarre and unpredictable than ever. Stay alert, and stay safe out there.

Russia Hacking Ukraine

For years, Russia has pummelled Ukraine with brutal digital attacks causing blackouts, stealing and destroying data, meddling in elections, and releasing destructive malware to ravage the country's networks. Since invading Ukraine in February, though, times have changed for some of Russia's most prominent and most dangerous military hackers. Shrewd long-term campaigns and grimly ingenious hacks have largely given way to a stricter and more regimented clip of quick intrusions into Ukrainian institutions, reconnaissance, and widespread destruction on the network—and then repeated access over and over again, whether through a new breach or by maintaining the old access.

Twilio and the 0ktapus Phishing Spree

Over the summer, a group of researchers dubbed 0ktapus went on a massive phishing bender, compromising nearly 10,000 accounts within more than 130 organisations. The majority of the victim institutions were US-based, but there were dozens in other countries as well.

Ransomware Still Hitting the Most Vulnerable Targets

In recent years, countries around the world and the cyber security industry have increasingly focused on countering ransomware attacks. While there has been some progress on deterrence, ransomware gangs were still on a rampage in 2022 and continued to target vulnerable and vital social institutions, including health care providers and schools. The Russian-speaking group Vice Society, for example, has long specialised in targeting both categories, and it focused its attacks on the education sector this year.

The Lapsus$ Rampage Continues

The digital extortion gang Lapsus$ was on an intense hacking spree at the beginning of 2022, stealing source code and other sensitive information from companies like Nvidia, Samsung, Ubisoft, and Microsoft and then leaking samples as part of apparent extortion attempts. Lapsus$ has a sinister talent for phishing, and in March, it compromised a contractor with access to the ubiquitous authentication service Okta.

LastPass

The beleaguered password manager giant LastPass, which has repeatedly dealt with data breaches and security incidents over the years, said at the end of December that a breach of its cloud storage in August led to a further incident in which hackers targeted a LastPass employee to compromise credentials and cloud storage keys.

Vanuatu

At the beginning of November, Vanuatu, an island nation in the Pacific, was hit by a cyber attack that took down virtually all of the government's digital networks. Agencies had to move to conducting their work on paper because emergency systems, medical records, vehicle registrations, driver's license databases, and tax systems were all down.

Honourable Mention: Twitter-Related Bedlam

Twitter has been in chaos mode for months following Elon Musk's acquisition of the company earlier this year. Amidst the tumult, reports surfaced in July and then again in November of a trove of 5.4 million Twitter users' data that has been circulating on criminal forums since at least July, if not earlier. The data was stolen by exploiting a vulnerability in a Twitter application programming interface, or API.

https://www.wired.com/story/worst-hacks-2022/

Geopolitical Tensions Expected to Further Impact Cyber Security in 2023

Geopolitics will continue to have an impact on cyber security and the security posture of organisations long into 2023.

The impact of global conflicts on cyber security was thrust into the spotlight when Russia made moves to invade Ukraine in February 2022. Ukraine’s Western allies were quick to recognise that with this came the threat of Russian-backed cyber-attacks against critical national infrastructure (CNI), especially in retaliation to hefty sanctions. While this may not have materialised in the way many expected, geopolitics is still front of mind for many cyber security experts looking to 2023.

Russia has always been among a handful of states recognised for their cyber prowess and being the source of many cyber criminal gangs. As previously mentioned, we have failed to see a significant cyber-attack, at least one comparable to the Colonial Pipeline incident, in 2022. However the cyber security services provider, e2e-assure, warned: “We have underestimated Russia’s cyber capability. There is a wide view that Russian cyber activity leading up to and during their invasion of Ukraine indicated that they aren’t the cyber power we once thought. Patterns and evidence will emerge in 2023 that shows this wasn’t the case, instead Russia was directing its cyber efforts elsewhere, with non-military goals (financial and political).”

NordVPN, the virtual private network (VPN) provider, warns that the cyber-war is only just starting: “With China’s leader securing his third term and Russia’s war in Ukraine, many experts predict an increase in state-sponsored cyber-attacks. China may increase cyber-attacks on Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other countries opposing the regime. Meanwhile, Russia is predicted to sponsor attacks on countries supporting Ukraine.”

We are used to seeing cyber-attacks that encrypt data and ask for ransom, but it is likely in this era of nation-state sponsored attacks we could experience attacks for the sake of disruption.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/geopolitical-tensions-impact/

Fraudsters’ Working Patterns Have Changed in Recent Years

Less sophisticated fraud — in which doctored identity documents are readily spotted — has jumped 37% in 2022, according to the identify verfication provider Onfido. Fraudsters can scale these attacks on an organisation’s systems around the clock.

It is estimated that the current global financial cost of fraud is $5.38 trillion (£4.37 trillion), which is 6.4% of the world’s GDP. With most fraud now happening online (80% of reported fraud is cyber-enabled), Onfido’s Identity Fraud Report uncovers patterns of fraudster behaviour, attack techniques, and emerging tactics.

Over the last four years, fraudsters’ working patterns have dramatically changed. In 2019, attacks mirrored a typical working week, peaking Monday to Friday and dropping off during the weekends. Yet over the last three years, fraudulent activity started to shift so that levels of fraud span every day of the week.

In 2022, fraud levels were consistent across 24 hours, seven days a week. With technology, fraudsters are more connected across the globe and are able to traverse regions and time zones, and can easily take advantage of businesses’ closed hours when staff are likely offline. This hyperconnectivity means there are no more ‘business hours’ for fraudsters and sophisticated fraud rings — they will scam and defraud 24/7.

“As criminals look to take advantage of digitisation processes, they’re able to commit financial crimes with increasing efficiency and sophistication, to the extent that financial crime and cyber crime are now invariably linked,” said Interpol. “A significant amount of financial fraud takes place through digital technologies, and the pandemic has only hastened the emergence of digital money laundering tools and other cyber-enabled financial crimes.”

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/12/29/less-sophisticated-fraud/

Hacktivism is Back and Messier Than Ever

Throughout 2022, geopolitics has given rise to a new wave of politically motivated attacks with an undercurrent of state-sponsored meddling.

During its brutal war in Ukraine, Russian troops have burnt cities to the ground, raped and tortured civilians, and committed scores of potential war crimes. On November 23, lawmakers across Europe overwhelmingly labelled Russia a “state sponsor” of terrorism and called for ties with the country to be reduced further. The response to the declaration was instant. The European Parliament’s website was knocked offline by a DDoS attack.

The unsophisticated attack—which involves flooding a website with traffic to make it inaccessible—disrupted the Parliament’s website offline for several hours. Pro-Russian hacktivist group Killnet claimed responsibility for the attack. The hacktivist group has targeted hundreds of organisations around the world this year, having some limited small-scale successes knocking websites offline for short periods of time. It’s been one player in a bigger hacktivism surge.

Following years of sporadic hacktivist activity, 2022 has seen the re-emergence of hacktivism on a large scale. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine spawned scores of hacktivist groups on both sides of the conflict, while in Iran and Israel, so-called hacktivist groups are launching increasingly destructive attacks. This new wave of hacktivism, which varies between groups and countries, comes with new tactics and approaches and, increasingly, is blurring lines between hacktivism and government-sponsored attacks.

https://www.wired.com/story/hacktivism-russia-ukraine-ddos/

Threats

Ransomware, Extortion and Destructive Attacks

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

Other Social Engineering; Smishing, Vishing, etc

Linkedin Is Full Of Job Scams – Be Careful Out There (informationsecuritybuzz.com)

Malware

Mobile

Denial of Service/DoS/DDOS

Cyber criminals create new methods to evade legacy DDoS defences - Help Net Security

Internet of Things – IoT

Data Breaches/Leaks

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking/NFTs/Blockchain

Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime

Insurance

Zurich chief warned that cyber attacks will become uninsurable - Security Affairs

Supply Chain and Third Parties

2023 Predictions: Expect More Supply Chain Attacks, Ransomware-as-a-Service Kits in 2023 - MSSP Alert

Software Supply Chain

Cloud/SaaS

Google: With Cloud Comes APIs & Security Headaches (darkreading.com)

Identity and Access Management

Encryption

US passes the Quantum Computing Cybersecurity Preparedness Act – and why not? – Naked Security (sophos.com)

API

Passwords, Credential Stuffing & Brute Force Attacks

Extracting Encrypted Credentials From Common Tools (darkreading.com)

Biometrics

Military device with biometric database of 2K people sold on eBay for $68 | Ars Technica

Social Media

Malvertising

Privacy

The Threat of Predictive Policing to Data Privacy and Personal Liberty (darkreading.com)

Regulations, Fines and Legislation

Governance, Risk and Compliance

Secure Disposal

For Sale on eBay: A Military Database of Fingerprints and Iris Scans - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Careers, Working in Cyber and Information Security

Law Enforcement Action and Take Downs

Ukraine shuts down fraudulent call centre claiming 18,000 victims (bleepingcomputer.com)

Privacy, Surveillance and Mass Monitoring

Artificial Intelligence

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

Nation State Actors

Nation State Actors – Russia

Nation State Actors – China

Nation State Actors – North Korea

Nation State Actors – Iran

An Iranian group hacked Israeli CCTV cameras, defence was aware but didn’t block it - Security Affairs

Nation State Actors – Misc

APT Hackers Turn to Malicious Excel Add-ins as Initial Intrusion Vector (thehackernews.com)

Vulnerability Management

Vulnerabilities

Tools and Controls

Understanding current XDR elements and options | TechTarget

Other News

Sector Specific

Industry specific threat intelligence reports are available.

· Automotive

· Construction

· Critical National Infrastructure (CNI)

· Defence & Space

· Education & Academia

· Energy & Utilities

· Estate Agencies

· Financial Services

· FinTech

· Food & Agriculture

· Gaming & Gambling

· Government & Public Sector (including Law Enforcement)

· Health/Medical/Pharma

· Hotels & Hospitality

· Insurance

· Legal

· Manufacturing

· Maritime

· Oil, Gas & Mining

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

· Retail & eCommerce

· Small and Medium Sized Businesses (SMBs)

· Startups

· Telecoms

· Third Sector & Charities

· Transport & Aviation

· Web3

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

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

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

Black Arrow Admin 27/11/2022 Black Arrow Admin 27/11/2022

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 25 November 2022

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 25 November 2022:

-Hackers Hit One Third of Organisations Worldwide Multiple Times

-Firms Spend $1,197 Per Employee Yearly to Address Cyber Attacks

-90% of Organisations have Microsoft 365 Security Gaps

-Luna Moth Phishing Extortion Campaign Targets Businesses in Multiple Sectors

-The Real Cost of Cyber Attacks: What Organisations Should Be Prepared For

-34 Russian Cyber Crime Groups Stole Over 50 Million Passwords with Stealer Malware

-“Password” Continues to Be the Most Common Password in 2022

-Lasts Year’s Massive Twitter Data Breach Was Far Worse Than Reported, Reveal Security Researchers

-European Parliament Declares Russia to be a State Sponsor of Terrorism – then Gets Attacked

-The Changing Nature of Nation-State Cyber Warfare

-Is Your Company Covered for a Cyber Security Attack? That’s the £2 Million Question

Top Cyber Stories of the Last Week

Hackers Hit One Third of Organisations Worldwide Multiple Times

Hackers have stolen customer records multiple times from nearly a third of organisations worldwide in the past 12 months, security provider Trend Micro said in its newly released, twice-yearly Cyber Risk Index (CRI) report.

The report features interviews with some 4,100 organisations across North America, Europe, Latin/South America and Asia-Pacific. Respondents stressed that customer records are at increased risk as organisations struggle to profile and defend an expanding attack surface.

Overall, respondents rated the following as the top cyber threats in 1H 2022:

Business Email Compromise (BEC)
Clickjacking
Fileless attacks
Ransomware
Login attacks (Credential Theft)

Here are some key findings from the study:

The CRI calculates the gap between organisational preparedness and the likelihood of being attacked, with -10 representing the highest level of risk. The global CRI index moved from –0.04 in 2H 2021 to –0.15 in 1H 2022, indicating a surging level of risk over the past six months.
This is a slight increase in risk from the second half of 2021, when it was -0.04. Organisations in North America and Asia-Pacific saw an increase in their cyber risk from that period while Europe and Latin/South America’s risk decreased in comparison.
The number of global organisations experiencing a “successful” cyber-attack increased from 84% to 90% over the same period.
The number now expected to be compromised over the coming year has also increased from 76% to 85%.

From the business perspective, the biggest concern is the misalignment between CISOs and business executives, Trend Micro said. The answers given by respondents to the question: “My organisation’s IT security objectives are aligned with business objectives,” only made a score of 4.79 out of 10.0

By addressing the shortage of cyber security professionals and improving security processes and technology, organisations will significantly reduce their vulnerability to attacks.

You can’t protect what you can’t see. But with hybrid working ushering in a new era of complex, distributed IT environments, many organisations are finding it difficult to eradicate growing security coverage and visibility gaps. To avoid the attack surface spiraling out of control, they need to combine asset discovery and monitoring with threat detection and response on a single platform.

https://www.msspalert.com/cybersecurity-research/hackers-hit-one-third-of-organizations-worldwide-multiple-times/

Firms Spend $1,197 Per Employee Yearly to Address Cyber Attacks

Companies pay an average of $1,197 per employee yearly to address successful cyber incidents against email services, cloud collaboration apps or services and browsers.

Security researchers at Perception Point shared the findings with Infosecurity before publishing them in a new white paper this month.

According to the new data, the above figures exclude compliance fines, ransomware mitigation costs and losses from non-operational processes, all of which can cause further spending.

The survey, conducted in conjunction with Osterman Research in June, considers the responses of 250 security and IT decision-makers at various enterprises and reveals additional discoveries regarding today’s enterprise threat landscape.

These findings demonstrate the urgent need for organisations to find the most accurate and efficient cyber security solutions which provide the necessary protection with streamlined processes and managed services.

Among the findings is that malicious incidents against new cloud-based apps and services occur at 60% of the frequency with which they take place on email-based services.

Additionally, some attacks, like those involving malware installed on an endpoint, happen on cloud collaboration apps at a much higher rate (87%) when compared to email-based services.

The Perception Point report also shows that a successful email-based cyber incident takes security staff an average of 86 hours to address.

In light of these figures, the security company added that one security professional with no additional support can only handle 23 email incidents annually, representing a direct cost of $6452 per incident alone.

Conversely, incidents detected on cloud collaboration apps or services take, on average, 71 hours to resolve. In these cases, one professional can handle just 28 incidents yearly at an average cost of $5305 per incident.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/firms-dollar1197-per-employee/

90% of Organisations have Microsoft 365 Security Gaps

A recently published study evaluated 1.6 million Microsoft 365 users across three continents, finding that 90% of organisations had gaps in essential security protections. Managing Microsoft 365 (M365) is complicated. How can IT teams avoid management headaches, stay 100% compliant, and truly take control of their M365 instance?

Research from the study reveals that many common security procedures are not being followed 100% of the time. This leaves gaping holes in most organisations’ security defences. While most companies have strong documented security policies, the research uncovered that most aren’t being implemented consistently due to difficulties in reporting and limited IT resources:

90% of companies had gaps across all four key areas studied – multi-factor authentication (MFA), email security, password policies, and failed logins
87% of companies have MFA disabled for some or all their admins (which are the most critical accounts to protect, due to their higher access levels)
Only 17% of companies had strong password requirements that were being consistently followed.

Overall, nearly every organisation is leaving the door open for cyber security threats due to weak credentials, particularly for administrator accounts.

In addition to security challenges, the study identified key areas for improvement in managing Microsoft 365 licences as well, such as:

The average company had 21.6% of their licenses unassigned or “sitting on the shelf.” Another 10.2% of licenses were inactive, for an average of 31.9% unused licenses.
17% of companies had over 10,000 licenses unassigned or inactive. These cases represent big opportunities to optimise licence spend with better tools.

Overall, the study reveals that reporting challenges make security and licence management incredibly difficult, leading to unnecessary risks and costs.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/11/22/microsoft-365-security-protections/

Luna Moth Phishing Extortion Campaign Targets Businesses in Multiple Sectors

A callback phishing extortion campaign by Luna Moth (aka Silent Ransom Group) has targeted businesses in multiple sectors, including legal and retail.

The findings come from Palo Alto Network’s security team Unit 42, which described the campaign in a new advisory.

“This campaign leverages extortion without encryption, has cost victims hundreds of thousands of dollars and is expanding in scope,” reads the technical write-up. At the same time, Unit 42 said that this type of social engineering attack leaves very few artifacts because it relies on legitimate technology tools to carry out attacks. In fact, callback phishing, also known as telephone-oriented attack delivery (TOAD), is a social engineering method that requires a threat actor to interact with the victim to accomplish their goals.

“This attack style is more resource intensive but less complex than script-based attacks, and it tends to have a much higher success rate,” reads the advisory. According to Unit 42, threat actors associated with the Conti group have extensively used this attack style in BazarCall campaigns. “Early iterations of this attack focused on tricking the victim into downloading the BazarLoader malware using documents with malicious macros,” explained the researchers.

As for the new campaign, which Sygnia security researchers first unveiled in July, it removes the malware portion of the attack. “In this campaign, attackers use legitimate and trusted systems management tools to interact directly with a victim’s computer to manually exfiltrate data [...] As these tools are not malicious, they’re not likely to be flagged by traditional antivirus products,” Unit 42 wrote.

The researchers also said that they expect callback phishing attacks to increase in popularity because of low per-target cost, low risk of detection and fast monetisation factors.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/luna-moth-phishing-target-multiple/

The Real Cost of Cyber Attacks: What Organisations Should Be Prepared For

With each passing year, hackers and cyber criminals of all kinds are becoming more sophisticated, malicious, and greedy conducting brazen and often destructive cyber-attacks that can severely disrupt a company’s business operations. And this is a big problem, because, first and foremost, customers rely on a company’s ability to deliver services or products in a timely manner. Cyber-attacks not only can affect customers’ data, but they can impact service delivery.

In one of the recent incidents, the UK’s discount retailer The Works has been forced to temporarily shut down some of its stores after a ransomware attack. While the tech team quickly shut down the company’s computers after being alerted to the security breach by the firewall system, the attack caused disruption to deliveries and store functionality including till operations.

A cyber security incident can greatly affect a business due to the consequences associated with cyber-attacks like potential lawsuits, hefty fines and damage payments, insurance rate hikes, criminal investigations and bad publicity. For example, shares of Okta, a major provider of authentication services, fell 9% after the company revealed it was a victim of a major supply chain incident via an attack on a third-party contractor’s laptop, which affected some of its customers.

Another glaring example is a 2021 cyber-attack launched by the Russian-speaking ransomware gang called DarkSide against the operator of one of the US’ largest fuel pipelines Colonial Pipeline, which crippled fuel delivery across the Southeastern United States impacting lives of millions due to supply shortages. Colonial paid the DarkSide hackers a $4.4 million ransom soon after the incident. The attackers also stole nearly 100GB of data from Colonial Pipeline and threatened to leak it if the ransom wasn’t paid. It’s also worth noting that the company is now facing a nearly $1 million penalty for failure “to plan and prepare for a manual restart and shutdown operation, which contributed to the national impacts after the cyber-attack.”

Data breaches and costs associated with them have been on the rise for the past few years, but, according to a 2021 report, the average cost per breach increased from $3.86 million in 2020 to $4.24 million in 2021. The report also identified four categories contributing most global data breach costs – Lost business cost (38%), Detection and escalation (29%), Post breach response (27%), and Notification (6%).

Ransomware attacks cost an average of $4.62 million (the cost of a ransom is not included), and destructive wiper-style attacks cost an average of $4.69 million, the report said.

For a business, a data breach is not just a loss of data, it can also have a long-lasting impact on operations and undermine customers’ trust in the company. In fact, a survey revealed that 87% of consumers are willing to take their business elsewhere if they don’t trust a company is handling their data responsibly. Therefore, the reputational damage might be detrimental to a business’ ability to attract new customers.

https://informationsecuritybuzz.com/the-real-cost-of-cyber-attacks-what-organizations-should-be-prepared-for-2/

34 Russian Cyber Crime Groups Stole Over 50 Million Passwords with Stealer Malware

As many as 34 Russian-speaking gangs, distributing information-stealing malware under the stealer-as-a-service model, stole no fewer than 50 million passwords in the first seven months of 2022.

"The underground market value of stolen logs and compromised card details is estimated around $5.8 million" Singapore-headquartered Group-IB said in a report shared with The Hacker News.

Aside from looting passwords, the stealers also harvested 2.11 billion cookie files, 113,204 crypto wallets, and 103,150 payment cards.

A majority of the victims were located in the US, followed by Brazil, India, Germany, Indonesia, the Philippines, France, Turkey, Vietnam, and Italy. In total, over 890,000 devices in 111 countries were infected during the time frame.

Group-IB said the members of several scam groups who are propagating the information stealers previously participated in the Classiscam operation. These groups, which are active on Telegram and have around 200 members on average, are hierarchical, consisting of administrators and workers (or traffers), the latter of whom are responsible for driving unsuspecting users to info-stealers like RedLine and Raccoon. This is achieved by setting up bait websites that impersonate well-known companies and luring victims into downloading malicious files. Links to such websites are, in turn, embedded into YouTube video reviews for popular games and lotteries on social media, or shared directly with non-fungible token (NFT) artists.

https://thehackernews.com/2022/11/34-russian-hacker-groups-stole-over-50.html

“Password” Continues to Be the Most Common Password in 2022

You would think the time spent working from home in the last two years or so helped netizens across the planet figure out how to master the world of WWW in a more efficient manner.

But new research from NordPass shows that despite so many people relying on an Internet connection for their daily activities, few actually care about the security of their data when they go online.

As a result, “password” continues to be the number one password out there, with the aforementioned company claiming that this particular keyword was detected close to 5 million times in a 3TB database. It takes less than one second to crack this password, the company says.

“123456” is currently the second most-used password worldwide, followed by its longer sibling known as “123456789” because, you know, hackers don’t know how to count to 10.

“There’s more than one way to get swindled on Tinder: using “tinder” as your password is more risky than swiping right on a billionaire. In total, this password was used 36,384 times” NordPass says. “The glitziest film industry event of the year – the Oscars ceremony – inspired many to use not-so-glitzy passwords: the password “Oscars” was used 62,983 times.”

Of course, it’s no surprise that Internet users out there turn to movies to get inspiration for their passwords, so unfortunately, “batman” is currently one of the most used keywords supposed to secure Internet accounts.

“Films and shows like Batman, Euphoria, and Encanto were among the most popular releases in 2021/2022. All are also popular passwords: “batman” was used 2,562,776 times, “euphoria” 53,993, and “encanto” 10,808 times,” the company says.

The most common password in the United States is “guest,” while in the United Kingdom, quite a lot of people go for “liverpool” (despite hackers needing just 1 second to crack it).

https://news.softpedia.com/news/password-continues-to-be-the-most-common-password-in-2022-as-well-536503.shtml

Lasts Year’s Massive Twitter Data Breach Was Far Worse Than Reported, Reveal Security Researchers

A massive Twitter data breach last year, exposing more than five million phone numbers and email addresses, was worse than initially reported. The same security vulnerability appears to have been exploited by multiple bad actors, and the hacked data has been offered for sale on the dark web by several sources.

It had previously been thought that only one hacker gained access to the data, and Twitter’s belated admission reinforced this impression. HackerOne first reported the vulnerability back in January, which allowed anyone to enter a phone number or email address, and then find the associated twitterID. This is an internal identifier used by Twitter, but can be readily converted to a Twitter handle. A bad actor would be able to put together a single database which combined Twitter handles, email addresses, and phone numbers.

At the time, Twitter admitted that the vulnerability had existed, and subsequently been patched, but said nothing about anyone exploiting it. Restore Privacy subsequently reported that a hacker had indeed used the vulnerability to obtain personal data from millions of accounts.

https://9to5mac.com/2022/11/25/massive-twitter-data-breach/

European Parliament Declares Russia to be a State Sponsor of Terrorism – Then Gets Attacked

On Wednesday, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the latest developments in Russia’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine. MEPs highlight that the deliberate attacks and atrocities committed by Russian forces and their proxies against civilians in Ukraine, the destruction of civilian infrastructure and other serious violations of international and humanitarian law amount to acts of terror and constitute war crimes. In light of this, they recognise Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism and as a state that “uses means of terrorism”.

As the EU currently cannot officially designate states as sponsors of terrorism, the European Parliament calls on the EU and its member states to put in place the proper legal framework and consider adding Russia to such a list. This would trigger a number of significant restrictive measures against Moscow and have profound restrictive implications for EU relations with Russia.

In the meantime, MEPs call on the Council to include the Russian paramilitary organisation ‘the Wagner Group’, the 141st Special Motorized Regiment, also known as the “Kadyrovites”, and other Russian-funded armed groups, militias and proxies, on the EU’s terrorist list.

Almost immediately after the vote the European Parliament suffered a sustained denial of service attack that shut down email services and disrupted internet access for more than an hour. A pro-Russian group called KILLNET then claimed responsibility in a Telegram post.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20221118IPR55707/european-parliament-declares-russia-to-be-a-state-sponsor-of-terrorism

https://informationsecuritybuzz.com/comment-european-parliament-hit-by-cyberattack-after-vote-on-russia/

The Changing Nature of Nation-State Cyber Warfare

Military conflict is ever shifting from beyond the battlefield and into cyber space. Ever more sophisticated and ruthless groups of nation-state actors and their proxies continue to target critical systems and infrastructure for political and ideological leverage. These criminals’ far-reaching objectives include intelligence gathering, financial gain, destabilising other nations, hindering communications, and the theft of intellectual property.

The risks to individuals and society are clear. Due to its importance to daily life and the economy, the UK’s critical national infrastructure (CNI) is a natural target for malicious nation-state cyber-attacks. We only need look at the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack in the US – at the hands of the Russia-affiliated DarkSide group – to appreciate the potential for one criminal act to escalate and cause large-scale societal impact: panic and disruption. Even though the pipeline was shut down for less than a week, the havoc caused by suspending fuel supplies gave CNI operators everywhere a worrying taste of things to come.

Closer to home, the recent cyber attack on South Staffordshire Water highlights the need for all utilities providers to take proactive measures and precautions to better secure essential human sustenance supplies. With the risk of coordinated attacks by criminals backed by nation states rising, the potential for human casualties if attacks against CNI go unchecked is becoming starkly clear.

The Russia-Ukraine war has heightened awareness of the cyber threats posed by all nation-state adversaries. Unsurprisingly, challenges and conflicts in the physical world tend to bleed through into the cyber domain. And with relations between Western nations and Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea more fraught than ever, UK organisations can expect to see further increases in cyber threats at the hands of hostile nation-state actors.

https://informationsecuritybuzz.com/the-changing-nature-of-nation-state-cyber-warfare/

Is Your Company Covered for a Cyber Security Attack? That’s the £2 Million Question

Cyber crime continues to be a persistent and pressing issue for all sized businesses, particularly smaller organisations. In fact, according to the National Cyber Security Alliance, nearly 60% of small businesses that experience a cyber attack shut their doors within six months.

Despite the continuing rise in risk, many small businesses remain vulnerable to cyber attacks due to a lack of resources and – surprisingly – a lack of knowledge of the existing threats. Moreover, companies are now being exposed to cyber risks even further as they struggle to get appropriate cyber insurance, which, if needed, can be devastating should bad actors circumvent your company’s defences.

Cyber insurance is a policy that helps an organisation pay for any financial losses incurred following a data breach or cyber attack. It also helps cover any costs related to the remediation process, such as paying for the investigation, crisis communication, legal services, and customer refunds.

With the constant – and ever-increasing – threat of potential cyber attacks and the need to protect their assets, many companies are applying for cyber insurance, which generally covers a variety of different types of cyber-attacks, including data breaches; business email compromises; cyber extortion demands; malware infections and ransomware.

But, despite the benefits of cyber insurance, it remains surprisingly undervalued. The UK government’s Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2022 found that only 43% of businesses have a cyber insurance policy in place.

Organisations must always seek cost-effective ways to address the cyber security risks they face – as no business is safe in the modern security landscape from a cyber threat. One of the most common ways to mitigate the risk of a cyber security incident is cyber insurance. While all-sized businesses can benefit from having cyber insurance, small businesses frequently lack the knowledge and importance of securing it. This is usually because of the cost, the time involved in finding a provider, and a lack of understanding of the importance of a cyber insurance policy.

https://informationsecuritybuzz.com/is-your-company-covered-for-a-cybersecurity-attack-thats-the-2-million-question/

Threats

Ransomware and Extortion

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

BEC – Business Email Compromise

Ten Charged in $11m Healthcare BEC Plots - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

Malware

Mobile

Internet of Things – IoT

Vulnerable SDK components lead to supply chain risks in IoT and OT environments - Microsoft Security Blog

Data Breaches/Leaks

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking/NFTs/Blockchain

Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime

API

Passwords, Credential Stuffing & Brute Force Attacks

Social Media

Cyber Bullying, Cyber Stalking and Sextortion

Musk to abused Twitter users: Your tormentors will return • The Register

Regulations, Fines and Legislation

Law Enforcement Action and Take Downs

Privacy, Surveillance and Mass Monitoring

Misinformation, Disinformation and Propaganda

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

Nation State Actors

Nation State Actors – Russia

Nation State Actors – China

Vulnerability Management

EPSS explained: How does it compare to CVSS? | CSO Online

Vulnerabilities

Tools and Controls

Reports Published in the Last Week

Threat actors extend attack techniques to new enterprise apps and services - Help Net Security

Other News

Sector Specific

Industry specific threat intelligence reports are available.

· Automotive

· Construction

· Critical National Infrastructure (CNI)

· Defence & Space

· Education & Academia

· Energy & Utilities

· Estate Agencies

· Financial Services

· FinTech

· Food & Agriculture

· Gaming & Gambling

· Government & Public Sector (including Law Enforcement)

· Health/Medical/Pharma

· Hotels & Hospitality

· Insurance

· Legal

· Manufacturing

· Maritime

· Oil, Gas & Mining

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

· Retail & eCommerce

· Small and Medium Sized Businesses (SMBs)

· Startups

· Telecoms

· Third Sector & Charities

· Transport & Aviation

· Web3

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

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

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Threats

Ransomware, Extortion and Destructive Attacks

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

BEC – Business Email Compromise

Other Social Engineering; Smishing, Vishing, etc

2FA/MFA

Malware

Mobile

Botnets

Denial of Service/DoS/DDOS

Internet of Things – IoT

Data Breaches/Leaks

Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking/NFTs/Blockchain

Insider Risk and Insider Threats

Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime

Deepfakes

AML/CFT/Sanctions

Insurance

Supply Chain and Third Parties

Cloud/SaaS

Hybrid/Remote Working

Shadow IT

Identity and Access Management

Encryption

API

Passwords, Credential Stuffing & Brute Force Attacks

Social Media

Training, Education and Awareness

Parental Controls and Child Safety

Regulations, Fines and Legislation

Governance, Risk and Compliance

Models, Frameworks and Standards

Backup and Recovery

Law Enforcement Action and Take Downs

Privacy, Surveillance and Mass Monitoring

Artificial Intelligence

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

Nation State Actors

Vulnerability Management

Vulnerabilities

Tools and Controls

Reports Published in the Last Week

Other News

Sector Specific

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Threats

Ransomware, Extortion and Destructive Attacks

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

Other Social Engineering; Smishing, Vishing, etc

Malware

Mobile

Denial of Service/DoS/DDOS

Internet of Things – IoT

Data Breaches/Leaks