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Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 07 January 2022
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 07 January 2022:
-Microsoft Sees Rampant Log4j Exploit Attempts, Testing
-Warning: Log4j Still Lurks Where Dependency Analysis Can’t Find It
-Hackers Sending Malware-Filled USB Sticks to Companies Disguised as Presents
-Patch Systems Vulnerable To Critical Log4j Flaws, UK And US Officials Warn
-‘Elephant Beetle’ Lurks For Months In Networks
-Sonicwall: Y2k22 Bug Hits Email Security, Firewall Products
-Hackers Use Video Player To Steal Credit Cards From Over 100 Sites
-Cyber World Is Starting 2022 In Crisis Mode With The Log4j Bug
-Everything You Need To Know About Ransomware Attacks and Gangs In 2022
-Why the Log4j Vulnerability Makes Endpoint Visibility and Zero Trust Security More Important Than Ever
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
Microsoft Sees Rampant Log4j Exploit Attempts, Testing
Microsoft says it’s only going to get worse: It’s seen state-sponsored and cyber-criminal attackers probing systems for the Log4Shell flaw through the end of December.
No surprise here: The holidays bought no Log4Shell relief.
Threat actors vigorously launched exploit attempts and testing during the last weeks of December, Microsoft said on Monday, in the latest update to its landing page and guidance around the flaws in Apache’s Log4j logging library.
“We have observed many existing attackers adding exploits of these vulnerabilities in their existing malware kits and tactics, from coin miners to hands-on-keyboard attacks,” according to Microsoft.
https://threatpost.com/microsoft-rampant-log4j-exploits-testing/177358/
Warning: Log4j Still Lurks Where Dependency Analysis Can’t Find It
The best programming practice to include a third-party library in source code is to use the import command. It is the easiest way to do it, and it is also the way that most dependency analysis programs work to determine if a vulnerable library is in play. But any time code is included without calling it as an external package, traditional dependency analysis might not be enough to find it — including when Java coders use a common trick to resolve conflicting dependencies during the design process.
A new study by jFrog found that 400 packages on repository Maven Central used Log4j code without calling it as an external package. Around a third of that came from fat jars — jar files that include all external dependencies to make a more efficient product. The remainder came from directly inserting Log4j code into the source code, including shading, a work-around used when two or more dependencies call different versions of the same library in a way that might conflict.
While 400 may not seem like a lot for Maven Central, where Google found 17,000 packages implementing the vulnerable Log4j library, some of the 400 packages unearthed by JFrog are widely used.
Hackers Sending Malware-Filled USB Sticks to Companies Disguised as Presents
The "malicious USB stick" trick is old but apparently it's still wildly popular with the crooks.
Word to the wise: If a stranger ever offers you a random USB stick as a gift, best not to take it.
On Thursday, the FBI warned that a hacker group has been using the US mail to send malware-laden USB drives to companies in the defence, transportation and insurance industries. The criminals’ hope is that employees will be gullible enough to stick them into their computers, thus creating the opportunity for ransomware attacks or the deployment of other malicious software, The Record reports.
The hacker group behind this bad behaviour—a group called FIN7—has gone to great lengths to make their parcels appear innocuous. In some cases, packages were dressed up as if they were sent by the US Department of Health and Human Services, with notes explaining that the drives contained important information about COVID-19 guidelines. In other cases, they were delivered as if they had been sent via Amazon, along with a “decorative gift box containing a fraudulent thank you letter, counterfeit gift card, and a USB,” according to the FBI warning.
https://gizmodo.com/hackers-have-been-sending-malware-filled-usb-sticks-to-1848323578
Patch Systems Vulnerable To Critical Log4j Flaws, UK And US Officials Warn
One of the highest-severity vulnerabilities in years, Log4Shell remains under attack.
Criminals are actively exploiting the high-severity Log4Shell vulnerability on servers running VMware Horizon in an attempt to install malware that allows them to gain full control of affected systems, the UK’s publicly funded healthcare system is warning.
CVE-2021-44228 is one of the most severe vulnerabilities to come to light in the past few years. It resides in Log4J, a system-logging code library used in thousands if not millions of third-party applications and websites. That means there is a huge base of vulnerable systems. Additionally, the vulnerability is extremely easy to exploit and allows attackers to install Web shells, which provide a command window for executing highly privileged commands on hacked servers.
The remote-code execution flaw in Log4J came to light in December after exploit code was released before a patch was available. Malicious hackers quickly began actively exploiting CVE-2021-44228 to compromise sensitive systems.
‘Elephant Beetle’ Lurks For Months In Networks
The group blends into an environment before loading up trivial, thickly stacked, fraudulent financial transactions too tiny to be noticed but adding up to millions of dollars.
Researchers have identified a threat group that’s been quietly siphoning off millions of dollars from financial- and commerce-sector companies, spending months patiently studying their targets’ financial systems and slipping in fraudulent transactions amongst regular activity.
The Sygnia Incident Response team has been tracking the group, which it named Elephant Beetle, aka TG2003, for two years.
In a Wednesday report, the researchers called Elephant Beetle’s attack relentless, as the group has hidden “in plain sight” without the need to develop exploits.
https://threatpost.com/elephant-beetle-months-networks-financial/177393/
Sonicwall: Y2k22 Bug Hits Email Security, Firewall Products
SonicWall has confirmed today that some of its Email Security and firewall products have been hit by the Y2K22 bug, causing message log updates and junk box failures starting with January 1st, 2022.
The company says that email users and administrators will no longer be able to access the junk box or un-junk newly received emails on affected systems.
They will also no longer be able to trace incoming/outgoing emails using the message logs because they're no longer updated.
On January 2nd, SonicWall deployed updates to North American and European instances of Hosted Email Security, the company's cloud email security service.
It also released fixes for its on-premises Email Security Appliance (ES 10.0.15) and customers using firewalls with the Anti-Spam Junk Store functionality toggled on (Junk Store 7.6.9).
Hackers Use Video Player To Steal Credit Cards From Over 100 Sites
Hackers used a cloud video hosting service to perform a supply chain attack on over one hundred real estate sites that injected malicious scripts to steal information inputted in website forms.
These scripts are known as skimmers or formjackers and are commonly injected into hacked websites to steal sensitive information entered into forms. Skimmers are commonly used on checkout pages for online stores to steal payment information.
In a new supply chain attack discovered by Palo Alto Networks Unit42, threat actors abused a cloud video hosting feature to inject skimmer code into a video player. When a website embeds that player, it embeds the malicious script, causing the site to become infected.
Cyber World Is Starting 2022 In Crisis Mode With The Log4j Bug
The cyber security world is starting off 2022 in crisis mode.
The newest culprit is the log4j software bug, which cyber security and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Jen Easterly called “the most serious vulnerability I have seen in my decades-long career.” It forced many cyber security pros to work through the holidays to protect computer systems at Big Tech firms, large and small companies and government agencies.
But crises like log4j have become the norm rather than the exception during the past few years.
Last year kicked off with the SolarWinds hack — a Russian government operation that compromised reams of sensitive information from U.S. government agencies and corporations.
Digital threats of all sorts are growing far faster than the capability to defend against them. If past is prologue, 2022 is likely to be a year of big hacks, big threats and plenty more crises.
“We’re always in crisis is the long and short of it,” Jake Williams, a former National Security Agency (NSA) cyber operator and founder of the firm Rendition Infosec, told me. “Anyone looking for calm rather than the storm in cyber is in the wrong field.”
Everything You Need To Know About Ransomware Attacks and Gangs In 2022
Ransomware is a lucrative business for criminals. It is paying off, and it is working.
According to a recent Trend Micro report, a staggering 84% of US organisations experienced either a phishing or ransomware attack in the last year. The average ransomware payment was over $500,000.
Bad actors want to keep cashing in. So they’re going as far as creating ransomware kits as a service (Ransomware as a Service) to be sold on the dark web and even setting up fake companies to recruit potential employees.
Many ransomware gangs function like real companies — with marketing teams, websites, software development, user documentation, support forums and media relations.
If the “companies” run by ransomware gangs can operate with minimal expenses and mind-blowing revenues, what’s stopping them from growing in number and size?
https://securityintelligence.com/articles/ransomware-attacks-gangs-2022/
Why the Log4j Vulnerability Makes Endpoint Visibility and Zero Trust Security More Important Than Ever
The Apache Log4j vulnerability is one of the most serious vulnerabilities in recent years—putting millions of devices at risk.
IT organisations worldwide are still reeling from the discovery of a major security vulnerability in Apache Log4j, an open-source logging utility embedded in countless internal and commercial applications.
By submitting a carefully constructed variable string to log4j, attackers can take control of any application that includes log4j. Suddenly, cyber criminals around the world have a blueprint for launching attacks on everything from retail store kiosks to mission-critical applications in hospitals.
If security teams overlook even one instance of log4j in their software, they give attackers an opportunity to issue system commands at will. Attackers can use those commands to install ransomware, exfiltrate data, shut down operations — the list goes on.
How should enterprises respond to this pervasive threat?
Threats
Ransomware
Night Sky Is The Latest Ransomware Targeting Corporate Networks (bleepingcomputer.com)
Counties In New Mexico, Arkansas Begin 2022 With Ransomware Attacks | ZDNet
Ransomware Attack Affects The Websites Of 5,000 Schools - CNNPolitics
Phishing
Google Docs Comments Weaponized in New Phishing Campaign (darkreading.com)
US Arrests Suspect Who Stole Unpublished Books In Phishing Attacks (bleepingcomputer.com)
Malware
FluBot Malware Now Targets Europe Posing As Flash Player App (bleepingcomputer.com)
New Mac Malware Samples Underscore Growing Threat (darkreading.com)
Purple Fox Rootkit Now Bundled With Telegram Installer | Malwarebytes Labs
‘Malsmoke’ Exploits Microsoft’s E-Signature Verification | Threatpost
Mobile
IoT
Data Breaches/Leaks
List Of Data Breaches And Cyber Attacks In December 2021 | 219M records (itgovernance.co.uk)
Have I Been Pwned Warns Of DatPiff Data Breach Impacting Millions (bleepingcomputer.com)
Morgan Stanley To Pay $60 Million To Resolve Data Security Lawsuit (Yahoo.Com)
Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking
Report: $2.2 Billion In Cryptocurrency Stolen From DeFi Platforms In 2021 | ZDNet
UK Police Seize £322m of Cryptocurrency in Past Five Years - Infosecurity Magazine
Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime
DoS/DDoS
OT, ICS, IIoT and SCADA
Nation State Actors
Should Businesses Be Concerned About APT-Style Attacks? - Help Net Security
MI6 Chief Thanks China For ‘Free Publicity’ After James Bond Spoof | China | The Guardian
Log4j Vulnerabilities: New Patches And Nation-State Exploitation. (thecyberwire.com)
North Korea-Linked Konni APT Targets Russian Diplomatic Bodies - Security Affairs
Privacy
Passwords & Credential Stuffing
Spyware and Espionage
Vulnerabilities
Emergency Windows Server Update Fixes Remote Desktop Issues (bleepingcomputer.com)
Microsoft Rolled Out Emergency Fix For Y2k22 Bug In Exchange Servers - Security Affairs
VMware Fixed CVE-2021-22045 Heap-Overflow In Workstation, Fusion and ESXi - Security Affairs
Latest WordPress Security Release Fixes XSS, SQL Injection Bugs | The Daily Swig (portswigger.net)
New Ubuntu Linux Kernel Security Updates Fix 9 Vulnerabilities, Patch Now - 9to5Linux
JFrog Researchers Find JNDI Vulnerability In H2 Database Consoles Similar To Log4Shell | ZDNet
Unpatched HomeKit Vulnerability Exposes iPhones, iPads to DoS Attacks | SecurityWeek.Com
Sector Specific
Defence
Health/Medical/Pharma Sector
Estate Agents
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 18 June 2021
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 18 June 2021: Ransomware Now Ranks As UK’s Top Cyber Security Danger; 54% of all employees reuse passwords across accounts; Most Firms Face Second Ransomware Attack After Paying Off First; Bad Cyber Security Behaviours Plaguing The Remote Workforce; VPN Attacks Up Nearly 2000% As Companies Embrace A Hybrid Workplace; Over 65,000 Ransomware Attacks Expected In 2021; Business Leaders Now Feel More Vulnerable To 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
Ransomware Now Ranks As UK’s Top Cyber Security Danger
Ransomware hackers are now the biggest cyber security threat in the UK for the majority of individuals and businesses in the region, Lindy Cameron, chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), said in a speech. “For the vast majority of UK citizens and businesses, and indeed for the vast majority of critical national infrastructure providers and government service providers, the primary key threat is not state actors but cyber criminals,” Cameron said in the speech at the second annual cyber security meeting at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), the oldest independent defense and security think tank worldwide.
54% of all employees reuse passwords across multiple work accounts
Results of a study into current attitudes and adaptability to at-home corporate cyber security, employee training, and support in the current global hybrid working era revealed some interesting results. The report surveyed 3,006 employees, business owners, and C-suite executives at large organisations (250+ employees), who have worked from home and use work issued devices in the UK, France and Germany.
According to the findings 54% of all employees use the same passwords across multiple work accounts. 22% of respondents still keep track of passwords by writing them down, including 41% of business owners and 32% of C-level executives.
42% of respondents admit to using work-issued devices for personal reasons daily while working from home. Of these, 29% are using work devices for banking and shopping, and 7% admit to watching illegal streaming services. Senior workers are among the biggest offenders, as 44% of business owners and 39% of C-level executives admit to performing personal tasks on work-issued devices every day since working from home, with 23% of business owners and 15% of C-level respondents using them for illegal streaming/watching TV.
A year after the pandemic began and work-from-home policies were implemented, 37% of all employees across all sectors are yet to receive cyber security training to work from home, leaving businesses largely exposed to evolving risks. 43% of all employees suggest that cyber security isn’t the responsibility of the workforce, with 60% believing this should be handled by IT teams.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/06/10/employees-reuse-passwords-across-multiple-work-accounts/
VPN Attacks Up Nearly 2000% As Companies Embrace A Hybrid Workplace
In Q1 2021, there was a 1,916% increase in attacks against Fortinet’s SSL-VPN and a 1,527% increase in Pulse Connect Secure VPN. These vulnerabilities allow a threat actor to gain access to a network. Once they are in, they can exfiltrate information and deploy ransomware. “2020 was the era of remote work and as the workforce adjusted, information technology professionals scrambled to support this level of remote activity by enabling a wide variety of remote connectivity methods,” said J.R. Cunningham, CSO at Nuspire. “This added multiple new attack vectors that enabled threat actors to prey on organisations, which is what we started to see in Q1 and are continuing to see today.”
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/06/15/vpn-attacks-up/
Most Firms Face Second Ransomware Attack After Paying Off First
Most businesses that choose to pay to regain access to their encrypted systems experience a subsequent ransomware attack. And almost half of those that pay up say some or all their data retrieved were corrupted. Some 80% of organisations that paid ransom demands experienced a second attack, of which 46% believed the subsequent ransomware to be caused by the same hackers. Amongst those that paid to regain access to their systems, 46% said at least some of their data was corrupted, according to a survey released Wednesday. The study polled 1,263 security professionals in seven markets worldwide, including 100 in Singapore, as well as respondents in Germany, France, the US, and UK.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/most-firms-face-second-ransomware-attack-after-paying-off-first/
Over 65,000 Ransomware Attacks Expected In 2021: Former Cisco CEO
U.S. companies are expected to endure over 65,000 ransomware attacks this year — and that's “a conservative number,” according to John Chambers, former CEO of Cisco Systems. With McDonald’s, JBS, and Colonial Pipeline Co. all recently coming under cyber attacks, Chambers does not foresee an end to the onslaught of cyber security threats anytime soon. He estimated that the number of ransomware attacks in 2021 could end up being as high as 100,000, with each one costing companies an average of $170,000. In the case of Colonial, just one password was needed for hackers to compromise the entire company’s IT infrastructure. This led to Colonial and JBS paying a combined $15 million in ransom against FBI advice.
Business Leaders Now Feel More Vulnerable To Cyber Attacks
Geographically speaking, 55% of US and 49% of UK respondents have experienced the most severe impact to their network security due to these attacks (suggesting that their businesses are more of a target than those in continental Europe) which, in turn, has resulted in a clear majority of respondents (60%) increasing their investment in this area. A sizeable 68% of leaders said their company has experienced a DDoS attack in the last 12 months with the UK (76%) and the US (73%) experiencing a significantly higher proportion compared to 59% of their German and 56% French counterparts. Additionally, over half of the leaders who participated in the survey confirmed that they specifically experienced a DDoS ransom or extortion attack in that time, with a large number of them (65%) targeted at UK companies, compared with the relatively low number in France (38%).
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/06/14/business-leaders-feel-vulnerable-cyber-attacks/
Ransomware Gang Turns To Revenge Porn
At least one ransomware gang has taken a rare and highly invasive step in order to convince its victims to pay: leaking nude images allegedly uncovered as part of their hack of a target company. The news presents an escalation in the world of ransomware and digital extortion, and comes as the U.S. government and other countries discuss new measures to curb the spike in ransomware incidents. Ransomware groups have recently targeted, and in some cases extracted payment from, the Colonial Pipeline Company, meat producer JBS, and the Irish healthcare system. Locking down computers with ransomware can already have a substantial impact on business operations; leaking information on top of that can present victims with another risk. But posting nude images publicly on the internet threatens to make extortion of organisations a much more personal matter.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xzby/ransomware-gang-revenge-porn-leaks-nude-images
Bank Of America Spends Over $1 Billion Per Year On Cyber Security
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said Monday that the company has ramped its cyber security spending to over $1 billion a year. “I became CEO 11 and a half years ago, and we probably spent three to $400 million [per year] and we’re up over a billion now,” Moynihan said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “The institutions around us, other institutions and my peers, spend like amounts, and our contracting parties spend like amounts,” he added. “In other words, we cause spending in third parties that provide services to us to protect us in the same way. So there’s a lot of money being spend on this, and I think one of the things our industry has done a great job of is work together.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/14/bank-of-america-spends-over-1-billion-per-year-on-cybersecurity.html
Bad Cyber Security Behaviours Plaguing The Remote Workforce
According to the report, younger employees are most likely to admit they cut cyber security corners, with 51% of 16-24 year olds and 46% of 25-34 year olds reporting they’ve used security workarounds. In addition, 39% say the cyber security behaviours they practice while working from home differ from those practiced in the office, with half admitting it’s because they feel they were being watched by IT departments. IT leaders are optimistic about the return to office, with 70% believing staff will more likely follow company security policies around data protection and privacy. However, only 57% of employees think the same.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/06/16/cybersecurity-behaviors/
Threats
Ransomware
Why Backups Are Not The Panacea For Recovery From A Ransomware Attack
Ryuk Ransomware Recovery Cost Us $8.1m And Counting, Says Baltimore School Authority
Experts Shed Light On Distinctive Tactics Used By Hades Ransomware
The latest Revil Ransomware Victim? Sol Oriens. Oh, A US Nuclear Weapons Contractor
BEC
Phishing
Malware
Vulnerabilities
Update Your Chrome Browser To Patch Yet Another 0-Day Exploited In-The-Wild
Vulnerability In Microsoft Teams Granted Attackers Access To Emails, Messages, And Personal Files
Critical Remote Code Execution Flaw In Thousands Of VMWare vCenter Servers Remains Unpatched
Data Breaches
UK Listed Law Firm Gateley Admits Client Data Lost Through Cyber Attack
Alibaba Suffers Billion-Item Data Leak Of Usernames And Mobile Numbers
Maritime Firm HMM Suffers Security Breach And Cyber Attack On Its Email Systems
Mensa Data Spillage Was Due to 'Unauthorised Internal Download'
Volkswagen, Audi Disclose Data Breach Impacting Over 3.3 Million Customers, Interested Buyers
Organised Crime & Criminal Actors
Cryptocurrency
Supply Chain
OT, ICS, IIoT and SCADA
Nation State Actors
Biden Says He Told Putin U.S. Will Hack Back Against Future Russian Cyber Attacks
Little-Noticed Cyber Spying Campaign Blamed On China Was Much Wider Than Thought
Denial of Service
Cloud
Privacy
As usual, contact us to help assess where your risks lie and to ensure you are doing all you can do to keep you and your business secure.
Look out for our weekly ‘Cyber Tip Tuesday’ video blog and on our YouTube channel.
You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Links to articles are for interest and awareness and linking to or reposting external content does not endorse any service or product, likewise we are not responsible for the security of external links.