Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 07 October 2022

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

• Russian Sanctions Instigator Lloyd's Possibly Hit by Cyber Attack

Lloyd’s of London, the London-based insurance market heavily involved in implementing sanctions against Russia, may have been hit by a cyber-attack. On Wednesday, October 5, 2022, the British insurance market revealed it had detected “unusual activity” on its systems and has turned off all external connectivity “as a precautionary measure.”

“We have informed market participants and relevant parties, and we will provide more information once our investigations have concluded,” said a Lloyd’s spokesperson.

The company did not comment on whether or not it has been contacted by hackers, if a ransom demand has been issued, or on the possible source of the attack.

However, the insurance market has been closely involved with the design and implementation of sanctions imposed on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine – a potential motive for the attack. Lloyd’s itself has confirmed it was working closely with British and international governments to implement such sanctions.

Around 100 insurance syndicates operate at Lloyd's.

Earlier in 2022, Lloyd’s instructed its 76 insurance syndicates to remove “nation-state-backed cyber attacks” from insurance policies by March 2023, as well as losses “arising from a war.”

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/lloyds-possibly-hit-by-cyberattack/

• Former Uber Security Chief Convicted of Covering Up Data Breach

Uber’s former head of security has been convicted of covering up a 2016 data breach at the rideshare giant, hiding details from US regulators and paying off a pair of hackers in return for their discretion.

The trial, closely watched in cyber security circles, is believed to be the first criminal prosecution of a company executive over the handling of a data breach.

Joe Sullivan, who was fired in 2017 over the incident, was found guilty by a San Francisco jury of obstructing an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission. At the time of the 2016 breach, the regulator had been investigating the car-booking service over a different cyber security lapse that had occurred two years earlier.

Jurors also convicted Sullivan of a second count related to having knowledge of but failing to report the 2016 breach to the appropriate government authorities. The incident eventually became public in 2017 when Dara Khosrowshahi, who had just taken over as chief executive, disclosed details of the attack.

Prosecutors said Sullivan had taken steps to make sure data compromised in the attack would not be revealed. According to court documents, two hackers approached Sullivan’s team to notify Uber of a security flaw that exposed the personal information of almost 60mn drivers and riders on the platform.

https://www.ft.com/content/051af6a1-41d1-4a6c-9e5a-d23d46b2a9c9

• First 72 Hours of Incident Response Critical to Taming Cyber Attack Chaos

Cyber security professionals tasked with responding to attacks experience stress, burnout, and mental health issues that are exacerbated by a lack of breach preparedness and sufficient incident response practice in their organisations.

A new IBM Security-sponsored survey published this week found that two-thirds (67%) of incident responders suffer stress and anxiety during at least some of their engagements, while 44% have sacrificed the well-being of their relationships, and 42% have suffered burnout, according to the survey conducted by Morning Consult. In addition, 68% of incidents responders often have to work on two or more incidents at the same time, increasing their stress, according to the survey's results.

Companies that plan and practice responding to a variety of incidents can lower the stress levels of their incident responders, employees, and executives, says John Dwyer, head of research for IBM Security's X-Force response team.

"Organisations are not effectively establishing their response strategies with the responders in mind — it does not need to be as stressful as it is," he says. "There is a lot of time when the responders are managing organisations during an incident, because those organisations were not prepared for the crisis that occurs. These attacks happen every day."

The IBM Security-funded study underscores why the cyber security community has focused increasingly on the mental health of its members. About half (51%) of cyber security defenders have suffered burnout or extreme stress in the past year, according to a VMware survey released in August 2021. Cyber security executives have also spotlighted the issue as one that affects the community and companies' ability to retain skilled workers.

https://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/incident-response-s-first-72-hours-critical-to-taming-chaos

• Email Defences Under Siege: Phishing Attacks Dramatically Improve

This week's report that cyber attackers are laser-focused on crafting attacks specialised to bypass Microsoft's default security showcases an alarming evolution in phishing tactics, security experts said this week.

Threat actors are getting better at slipping phishing attacks through the weak spots in platform email defences, using a variety of techniques, such as zero-point font obfuscation, hiding behind cloud-messaging services, and delaying payload activation, for instance. They're also doing more targeting and research on victims.

As a result, nearly 1 in 5 phishing emails (18.8%) bypassed Microsoft's platform defences and landed in workers' inboxes in 2022, a rate that increased 74% compared to 2020, according to research published by cyber security firm Check Point Software. Attackers increasingly used techniques to pass security checks, such as Sender Policy Framework (SPF), and obfuscate functional components of an e-mail, such as using zero-size fonts or hiding malicious URLs from analysis.

The increasing capabilities of attackers is due to the better understanding of current defences, says Avanan, an email security firm acquired by Check Point in August 2021.

"It is a family of 10 to 20 techniques, but they all lead to the objective of deceiving a company's security layers," he says. "The end result is always an email that looks genuine to the recipient but looks different to the algorithm that analyses the content."

Microsoft declined to comment on the research. However, the company has warned of advanced techniques, such as adversary-in-the-middle phishing (AiTM), which uses a custom URL to place a proxy server between a victim and their desired site, allowing the attacker to capture sensitive data, such as usernames and passwords. In July, the company warned that more than 10,000 organisations had been targeted during one AiTM campaign.

https://www.darkreading.com/remote-workforce/email-defenses-under-siege-phishing-attacks-dramatically-improve

• Remote Services Are Becoming an Attractive Target for Ransomware

Stolen credentials are no longer the number one initial access vector for ransomware operators looking to infect a target network and its endpoints - instead, they’ve become more interested in exploiting vulnerabilities found in internet-facing systems.

A report from Secureworks claims ransomware-as-a-service developers are quick to add newly discovered vulnerabilities into their arsenals, allowing even less competent hackers to exploit them swiftly, and with relative ease.

In fact, the company's annual State of the Threat Report reveals that flaw exploitation in remote services accounted for 52% of all ransomware incidents the company analysed over the last 12 months.

Besides remote services, Secureworks also spotted a 150% increase in the use of infostealers, which became a “key precursor” to ransomware. Both these factors, the report stresses, kept ransomware as the number one threat for businesses of all sizes, “who must fight to stay abreast of the demands of new vulnerability prioritisation and patching”.

All things considered, ransomware is still the biggest threat for businesses. It takes up almost a quarter of all attacks that were reported in the last 12 months, Secureworks says, and despite law enforcement being actively involved, operators remained highly active.

https://www.techradar.com/news/remote-services-are-becoming-an-attractive-target-for-ransomware

• Growing Reliance on Cloud Brings New Security Challenges

There was a time when cloud was just a small subset of IT infrastructure, and cloud security referred to a very specific set of tasks. The current reality is very different, organisations are heavily dependent on cloud technologies and cloud security has become a much more complex endeavour.

Organisations increasingly rely on the cloud to deliver new applications, reduce costs, and support business operations. One in every four organisations already have majority workloads in the cloud, and 44% of workloads currently run in some form of public cloud, says Omdia, a research and advisory group.

Practically every midsize and large organisation now operates in some kind of a hybrid cloud environment, with a mix of cloud and on-premises systems. For most organisations, software-as-a-service constitute the bulk (80%) of their cloud environments, followed by infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service deployments.

In the past, cloud security conversations tended to focus on making sure cloud environments are being configured properly, but cloud security nowadays goes far beyond just configuration management. The sprawling cloud environment means security management has to be centralised, Omdia said. Security functions also need to be integrated into existing application deployment workflows.

On top of all of this, multicloud is becoming more common among organisations as they shift their workloads to avoid being dependent on a single platform. The three major cloud providers – Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform – account for 65% of the cloud market.

https://www.darkreading.com/dr-tech/growing-reliance-on-cloud-brings-new-security-challenges

• Many IT Pros Don’t Think a Ransomware Attack Can Impact Microsoft 365 Data

The 2022 Ransomware Report, which surveyed over 2,000 IT leaders, revealed that 24% have been victims of a ransomware attack, with 20% of attacks happening in the last year.

Cyber attacks are happening more frequently. Last year’s ransomware survey revealed that 21% of companies experienced an attack. This year it rose by three percent to 24%.

“Attacks on businesses are increasing, and there is a shocking lack of awareness and preparation by IT pros. Our survey shows that many in the IT community have a false sense of security. As bad actors develop new techniques, companies like ours have to do what it takes to come out ahead and protect businesses around the world,” said Hornetsecurity.

The report highlighted a lack of knowledge on the security available to businesses. 25% of IT professionals either don’t know or don’t think that Microsoft 365 data can be impacted by a ransomware attack.

Just as worryingly, 40% of IT professionals that use Microsoft 365 in their organisation admitted they do not have a recovery plan in case their Microsoft 365 data was compromised by a ransomware attack.

“Microsoft 365 is vulnerable to phishing attacks and ransomware attacks, but with the help of third-party tools, IT admins can backup their Microsoft 365 data securely and protect themselves from such attacks,” said Hofmann.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/10/03/ransomware-attack-impact-microsoft-365-data/

• Ransomware Group Bypasses "Enormous" Range of EDR Tools

A notorious ransomware group has been spotted leveraging sophisticated techniques to bypass endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools.

BlackByte, which the US government has said poses a serious threat to critical infrastructure, used a “Bring Your Own Driver” technique to circumvent over 1000 drivers used by commercially available EDR products, according to Sophos. The UK cyber security vendor explained in a new report that the group had exploited a known vulnerability, CVE-2019-16098, in Windows graphics utility driver RTCorec6.sys. This enabled it to communicate directly with a victim system’s kernel and issue commands to disable callback routines used by EDR tools.

The group also used EDR bypass techniques borrowed from open source tool EDRSandblast to deactivate the Microsoft-Windows-Threat-Intelligence ETW (Event Tracing for Windows) provider. This is a Windows feature “that provides logs about the use of commonly maliciously abused API calls such as NtReadVirtualMemory to inject into another process’s memory,” explained Sophos. Neutralising it in this way renders any security tool relying on the feature also useless, the firm argued.

“If you think of computers as a fortress, for many EDR providers, ETW is the guard at the front gate,” said Sophos. “If the guard goes down, then that leaves the rest of the system extremely vulnerable. And, because ETW is used by so many different providers, BlackByte’s pool of potential targets for deploying this EDR bypass is enormous.”

BlackByte is not the only ransomware group using these advanced techniques to get around existing detection tools, illustrating the continued arms race between attackers and defenders. AvosLocker used a similar method in May, Sophos said. “Anecdotally, from what we’re seeing in the field, it does appear that EDR bypass is becoming a more popular technique for ransomware threat groups,” the firm confirmed. “This is not surprising. Threat actors often leverage tools and techniques developed by the ‘offensive security’ industry to launch attacks faster and with minimal effort.”

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/ransomware-bypasses-enormous-range/

• MS Exchange Zero-Days: The Calm Before the Storm?

Two exploited MS Exchange zero-days that still have no official fix, have been added to CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog.

But mitigating the risk of exploitation until patches are ready will require patience and doggedness, as Microsoft is still revising its advice to admins and network defenders, and still working on the patches.

The two vulnerabilities were publicly documented last Wednesday, by researchers with Vietnamese company GTSC, and Microsoft soon after sprung into (discernible) action by offering customer guidance, followed by an analysis of the attacks exploiting the two vulnerabilities. Several changes have been made to the documents since then, after the company found and other researchers pointed out several shortcomings.

Microsoft says its threat analysts observed “activity related to a single activity group in August 2022 that achieved initial access and compromised Exchange servers by chaining CVE-2022-41040 and CVE-2022-41082 in a small number of targeted attacks,” and that the attackers breached fewer than 10 organisations globally. “MSTIC assesses with medium confidence that the single activity group is likely to be a state-sponsored organisation,” they added.

The other good news is there are still no public exploits for the two vulnerabilities. But, Microsoft says, “Prior Exchange vulnerabilities that require authentication have been adopted into the toolkits of attackers who deploy ransomware, and these vulnerabilities are likely to be included in similar attacks due to the highly privileged access Exchange systems confer onto an attacker.”

Enterprise defenders should expect trouble via this attack path in the near future, it seems, so keeping abreast of the changing situation and springing into action as quickly as possible once the patches are made available is advised. Scammers have since started impersonating security researchers and offering non-existing PoC exploits for CVE-2022-41082 for sale via GitHub

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/10/03/ms-exchange-cve-2022-41040-cve-2022-41082/

• Average Company with Data in the Cloud Faces $28 Million in Data-Breach Risk

Hard-to-control collaboration, complex SaaS permissions, and risky misconfigurations — such as admin accounts without multi-factor authentication (MFA) — have left a dangerous amount of cloud data exposed to insider threats and cyber attacks, according to Varonis.

For the report, researchers analysed nearly 10 billion cloud objects (more than 15 petabytes of data) across a random sample of data risk assessments performed at more than 700 companies worldwide. In the average company, 157,000 sensitive records are exposed to everyone on the internet by SaaS sharing features, representing $28 million in data-breach risk, Varonis researchers have found.

One out of every 10 records in the cloud is exposed to all employees — creating an impossibly large internal blast radius, which maximises damage during a ransomware attack. The average company has 4,468 user accounts without MFA enabled, making it easier for attackers to compromise internally exposed data.

Out of 33 super admin accounts in the average organisation, more than half did not have MFA enabled. This makes it easier for attackers to compromise these powerful accounts, steal more data, and create backdoors. Companies have more than 40 million unique permissions across SaaS applications, creating a nightmare for IT and security teams responsible for managing and reducing cloud data risk.

“Cloud security shouldn’t be taken for granted. When security teams lack critical visibility to manage and protect SaaS and IaaS apps and services, it’s nearly impossible to ensure your data isn’t walking out the door,” said Varonis. “This report is a true-to-life picture of over 700 real-world risk assessments of production SaaS environments. The results underscore the urgent need for CISOs to uncover and remediate their cloud risk as quickly as possible.”

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/10/05/company-data-breach-risk/

• Secureworks Finds Network Intruders See Little Resistance

Attackers who break into networks only need to take a few basic measures in order to avoid detection.

Security vendor Secureworks said in its annual State of the Threat report that it observed several data breaches between June 2021 and June 2022 and found that, by and large, once network intruders gained a foothold on the targets' environment, they had to do relatively little to stay concealed.

"One thing that is notable about them is that none of these techniques are particularly sophisticated," the vendor said. "That is because threat actors do not need them to be; the adversary will only innovate enough to achieve their objectives. So there is a direct relationship between the maturity of the controls in a target environment and the techniques they employ to bypass those controls."

Among the more basic measures taken by the attackers was coding their tools in newer languages such as Go or Rust. This tweak created enough of a difference in the software to evade signature-checking tools, according to Secureworks' report. In other cases, the network intruders hid their activity by packing their malware within a trusted Windows installer or by sneaking it into the Authenticode signature of a trusted DLL. In another case, a malware infection was seen moving data out of the victim's network via TOR nodes. While effective, Secureworks said the techniques are hardly innovative. Rather, they indicate that threat actors find themselves only needing to do the bare minimum to conceal themselves from detection.

https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/news/252525696/Secureworks-finds-network-intruders-see-little-resistance

• Regulations, Laws and Accountability are Changing the Cyber Security Landscape

As cyber criminals continue to develop new ways to wreak havoc, regulators have been working to catch up. They aim to protect data and consumers while avoiding nation-state attacks that are a risk to national and economic security. But some of these regulations may provide an opportunity for MSSPs.

Some of these regulations are a response to what’s generally been a hands-off approach to telling organisations what to do. Unfortunately, cyber security isn’t always prioritised when budgets and resources are allocated. The result is a steadily rising tide of breaches and exploits that have held organisations hostage and made private information available on the dark web.

The new regulations are coming from all directions: at the state and federal levels in the US and around the world. While many of these regulations aren’t yet final, there’s no reason not to start aligning with where trends will ease the impact of changing rules. At the same time, many organisations want to hold the government responsible for some kinds of attacks. It will be interesting to see how regulating works, as most politicians and bureaucrats aren’t known for their technological savvy.

In the US, for example, new regulations are in development in the Federal Trade Commission, Food and Drug Administration, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Transportation, Department of Energy, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Thirty-six states have enacted cyber security legislation, and the count increases as other countries join.

One of the motivating factors for all these new regulations is that most cyber attacks aren’t reported. Lawmakers realise cyber security threats continue to be one of the top national security and economic risks. In the last year and a half (2020-2022), there have been attacks on America’s gas supply, meat supply, and various other companies, courts, and government agencies. One FBI cyber security official estimated the government only learns about 20% to 25% of intrusions at US business and academic institutions.

In March, Congress passed legislation requiring critical infrastructure operators to report significant cyber attacks to CISA within 72 hours of learning about the attack. It also required them to report a ransomware payment within 24 hours. These regulations will also consider reporting “near misses” so that this data can also be studied and tracked. The problem is, how does one define a “near miss”?

https://www.msspalert.com/cybersecurity-guests/regulations-laws-and-accountability-are-changing-the-cybersecurity-landscape/

• This Year’s Biggest Cyber Threats

OpenText announced the Nastiest Malware of 2022, a ranking of the year’s biggest cyber threats. For the fifth year running, experts combed through the data, analysed different behaviours, and determined which malicious payloads are the nastiest.

Emotet regained its place at the top, reminding the world that while affiliates may be taken down, the masterminds are resilient. LockBit evolved its tactics into something never seen before: triple extortion. Analysis also revealed an almost 1100% increase in phishing during the first four months of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021, indicating a possible end to the “hacker holiday,” a hacker rest period following the busy holiday season.

“The key takeaway from this year’s findings is that malware remains centre stage in the threats posed towards individuals, businesses, and governments,” said OpenText.

“Cyber criminals continue to evolve their tactics, leaving the infosec community in a constant state of catch-up. With the mainstream adoption of ransomware payloads and cryptocurrency facilitating payments, the battle will continue. No person, no business—regardless of size—is immune to these threats.”

While this year’s list may designate payloads into different categories of malware, it’s important to note many of these bad actor groups contract work from others. This allows each group to specialise in their respective payload and perfect it.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/10/06/2022-nastiest-malware/

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Threats

Ransomware and Extortion

• Ransomware Attacks On The Rise, Secureworks Reveals in its State of the Threat Report - MSSP Alert

• Ransomware: This is how half of attacks begin, and this is how you can stop them | ZDNET

• Fake adult sites push data wipers disguised as ransomware (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Ferrari Hit By Ransomware Attack: 7 GB Of Data Published Online – Expert (informationsecuritybuzz.com)

• BlackByte Ransomware Abuses Vulnerable Windows Driver to Disable Security Solutions (thehackernews.com)

• BlackByte ransomware abuses legit driver to disable security products (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Ransomware attacks ravage schools, municipal governments (techtarget.com)

• Ransomware 3.0: The Next Frontier (darkreading.com)

• More and more ransomware is just data theft, no encryption • The Register

• Netwalker ransomware affiliate sentenced to 20 years in prison (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Cheerscrypt ransomware is linked to Chinese DEV-0401 APT group - Security Affairs

• ADATA denies RansomHouse cyber attack, says leaked data from 2021 breach (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Avast releases a free decryptor for some Hades ransomware variants - Security Affairs

• Cyber criminals Leak LA School Data After It Refuses to Ransom (vice.com)

• How Ransomware Is Causing Chaos in American Schools (vice.com)

• Ransomware hunters: the self-taught tech geniuses fighting cyber crime | Cyber crime | The Guardian

BEC – Business Email Compromise

• BEC fraudster and romance scammer sent to prison for 25 years – Naked Security (sophos.com)

• Hackers Target Homebuyers’ Life Savings in Real Estate Scam - Bloomberg

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

• Hackers Can Use 'App Mode' in Chromium Browsers' for Stealth Phishing Attacks (thehackernews.com)

• Phishing Campaigns Target KFC, McDonald's in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Singapore - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

Other Social Engineering; Smishing, Vishing, etc

• Callback phishing attacks evolve their social engineering tactics (bleepingcomputer.com)

• 3 ways enterprises can mitigate social engineering risks - Help Net Security

Malware

• OpenText Releases List Of The Year’s “Nastiest” Malware - MSSP Alert

• This devious malware is able to disable your antivirus | TechRadar

• Bumblebee Malware Loader's Payloads Significantly Vary by Victim System (darkreading.com)

• Eternity Group Hackers Offering New LilithBot Malware-as-a-Service to Cyber criminals (thehackernews.com)

• Live support service hacked to spread malware in supply chain attack (bleepingcomputer.com)

• NullMixer Dropper Delivers a Multimalware Code Bomb (darkreading.com)

• Maggie malware already infected over 250 Microsoft SQL servers - Security Affairs

Mobile

• Android Spyware 'RatMilad' Targets Enterprise Devices in Iran - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

Internet of Things – IoT

• 7 IoT Devices That Make Security Pros Cringe (darkreading.com)

• Ikea Smart Light System Flaw Lets Attackers Turn Bulbs on Full Blast (darkreading.com)

• Acronis founder is afraid of his own vacuum cleaner • The Register

Data Breaches/Leaks

• “Egypt Leaks” – Hacktivists are Leaking Financial Data - Security Affairs

• No Shangri-La for you: Top hotel chain confirms data leak • The Register

• Home Office reprimanded after sensitive counter-terror documents left at London venue | The Independent

• NSA: Someone hacked military contractor and stole data • The Register

• City of Tucson discloses data breach affecting over 123,000 people (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Optus Says ID Numbers of 2.1 Million Compromised in Data Breach | SecurityWeek.Com

• Aussie Telco Telstra Breached, Reportedly Exposing 30,000 Employees' Data (darkreading.com)

• 2K warns users their info has been stolen following breach of its help desk | Ars Technica

• Russian retail chain 'DNS' confirms hack after data leaked online (bleepingcomputer.com)

Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking/NFTs/Blockchain

• Breaking: Scams Linked To Crypto Soared By 335% (informationsecuritybuzz.com)

• Hacker steals $566 million worth of crypto from Binance Bridge (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Hackers are breaching scam sites to hijack crypto transactions (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Binance Says $100 Million Stolen in Latest Crypto Hack (gizmodo.com)

• Hackers are breaching scam sites to hijack crypto transactions (bleepingcomputer.com)

Insider Risk and Insider Threats

• Why Don't CISOs Trust Their Employees? (darkreading.com)

• Meta sues app dev for stealing over 1 million WhatsApp accounts (bleepingcomputer.com)

• To avoid insider threats, try empathy - Help Net Security

• Microsoft publishes report on holistic insider risk management - Microsoft Security Blog

• Unearth offboarding risks before your employees say goodbye - Help Net Security

• Splunk alleges source code theft by former employee • The Register

• Ex-NSA Employee Arrested for Trying to Sell U.S. Secrets to a Foreign Government (thehackernews.com)

Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime

• ICO Fines Four "Predatory" Privacy-Invading Firms - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Consumers Feel Hopeless in Protecting Themselves Against Cyber crime, ISACA Reports - MSSP Alert

• BEC fraudster and romance scammer sent to prison for 25 years – Naked Security (sophos.com)

• Hackers Target Homebuyers’ Life Savings in Real Estate Scam - Bloomberg

• Russians dodging mobilization behind flourishing scam market (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Scammers and rogue callers – can anything ever stop them? – Naked Security (sophos.com)

• Healthcare Company Owners Get Jail Time for $7m Fraud Scheme - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Online romance scam boss netted $9.5m, jailed for 25 years • The Register

Deepfakes

• How a deepfake Mark Ruffalo scammed half a million dollars from a lonely heart • Graham Cluley

Supply Chain and Third Parties

• Live support service hacked to spread malware in supply chain attack (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Supply Chain Attack Targets Customer Engagement Firm Comm100 | SecurityWeek.Com

Denial of Service DoS/DDoS

• DDoS Attacks Spike in First Half of 2022 to Highest Levels in Four Years - MSSP Alert

Cloud/SaaS

• How Will the Metaverse Affect Cloud Security? (trendmicro.com)

• Hardening data security in the cloud • The Register

• Monitoring Your Cloud And Hybrid IT Infrastructure: How To Find The Right Monitoring Solution (informationsecuritybuzz.com)

Encryption

• Loads of connected PostgreSQL systems do not use SSL • The Register

API

• More Than 30% of All Malicious Attacks Target Shadow APIs (darkreading.com)

• APIs are quickly becoming the most popular attack vector - Help Net Security

• The Problem of API Security and How To Fix It (informationsecuritybuzz.com)

• API authentication failures demonstrate the need for zero trust - Help Net Security

• Shadow APIs hit with 5 billion malicious requests - Help Net Security

Open Source

• When transparency is also obscurity: The conundrum that is open-source security - Help Net Security

• How Secure is Using Open Source Components? - IT Security Guru

Passwords, Credential Stuffing & Brute Force Attacks

• Microsoft warns Basic Auth users over password spray attacks • The Register

• Is mandatory password expiration helping or hurting your password security? - Help Net Security

• Detecting and preventing LSASS credential dumping attacks - Microsoft Security Blog

• Meta Says It Has Busted More Than 400 Login-Stealing Apps This Year | WIRED

Privacy, Surveillance and Mass Monitoring

• The gap between security and privacy, and what it will take to bridge it - Help Net Security

• ICO Fines Four "Predatory" Privacy-Invading Firms - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

Regulations, Fines and Legislation

• New Telecoms Security Framework Comes Into Force (informationsecuritybuzz.com)

Models, Frameworks and Standards

• CIS Controls v8: Safeguards to mitigate the most prevalent cyber-attacks - Help Net Security

Secure Disposal

• The astronomical costs of an asset disposal program gone wrong | CSO Online

• New forensic analysis of electronical devices unveils dangers of inadequate data disposal for individuals and businesses - Business in the News

Backup and Recovery

• Giving Away the Keys to Your Backups? Here’s How to Keep Out Hackers (darkreading.com)

Law Enforcement Action and Take Downs

• Police arrest teen for using leaked Optus data to extort victims (bleepingcomputer.com)

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

• Relentless Russian Cyber attacks on Ukraine Raise Important Policy Questions (darkreading.com)

• Finnish intelligence warns of Russia's cyber espionage activities - Security Affairs

• Kazakhstan Pins Wave Of Cyber attacks On Foreign Actors | OilPrice.com

• Albania weighed invoking NATO’s Article 5 over Iranian cyber attack - POLITICO

• Russian Hackers Take Aim at Kremlin Targets: Report - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• We breached Russian satellite network, say pro-Ukraine partisans | Cybernews

• Ukrainian forces report Starlink outages during push against Russia | Financial Times (ft.com)

• Android Spyware 'RatMilad' Targets Enterprise Devices in Iran - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Report: Mexico Continued to Use Spyware Against Activists | SecurityWeek.Com

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Nation State Actors

Nation State Actors – China

• US authorities name China's 20 favourite vulns to exploit • The Register

• Cheerscrypt ransomware is linked to Chinese DEV-0401 APT group - Security Affairs

Nation State Actors – North Korea

• Lazarus employed an exploit in a Dell firmware driver in recent attacks - Security Affairs

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Vulnerability Management

• CISA mandates vulnerability detection and reporting rules • The Register

• The Zero Day Dilemma | SecurityWeek.Com

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Vulnerabilities

• Microsoft Issues Improved Mitigations for Unpatched Exchange Server Vulnerabilities (thehackernews.com)

• Fortinet warns admins to patch critical auth bypass bug immediately (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Cisco Patches High-Severity Vulnerabilities in Communications, Networking Products | SecurityWeek.Com

• Atlassian, Microsoft bugs make CISA’s must-patch list • The Register

• US authorities name China's 20 favourite vulns to exploit • The Register

• October 2022 Patch Tuesday forecast: Looking for treats, not more tricks - Help Net Security

• Fake Microsoft Exchange ProxyNotShell exploits for sale on GitHub (bleepingcomputer.com)

• CISA Warns of Attacks Exploiting Recent Atlassian Bitbucket Vulnerability | SecurityWeek.Com

• No fix in sight for mile-wide loophole plaguing a key Windows defence for years | Ars Technica

• Hackers Exploiting Unpatched RCE Flaw in Zimbra Collaboration Suite (thehackernews.com)

• Lazarus employed an exploit in a Dell firmware driver in recent attacks - Security Affairs

• Unpatched Zimbra flaw under attack is letting hackers backdoor servers | Ars Technica

• macOS Archive Utility Bug Lets Malicious Apps Bypass Security Checks (darkreading.com)

• Fortinet Warns of New Auth Bypass Flaw Affecting FortiGate and FortiProxy (thehackernews.com)

• VMware fixed a high-severity bug in vCenter Server - Security Affairs

• BlackByte Ransomware Abuses Vulnerable Windows Driver to Disable Security Solutions (thehackernews.com)

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Reports Published in the Last Week

• 2022 State of the Threat Report | Secureworks

• Building a Holistic Insider Risk Management Program

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Other News

• Guilty verdict in the Uber breach case makes personal liability real for CISOs | CSO Online

• Cyber attackers view smaller organisations as easier targets - Help Net Security

• Moody's turns up the heat on 'riskiest' sectors for attacks • The Register

• 5 reasons why security operations are getting harder | CSO Online

• Former NSA Employee Faces Death Penalty for Selling Secrets (darkreading.com)

• Fast Company Is Back From the Dead After Being Hacked (gizmodo.com)

• Ready Or Not, Web 3 Is Coming And With It Comes Cybersquatting 2.0 (informationsecuritybuzz.com)

• Cyber Hygiene: 5 Best Practices for Company Buy-In (trendmicro.com)

• School Is in Session: 5 Lessons for Future Cyber Security Pros (darkreading.com)

• Want More Secure Software? Start Recognizing Security-Skilled Developers (thehackernews.com)

• Incident responders increasingly seek out mental health assistance - Help Net Security

• You Are Not Alone If You're Unclear About Extended Detection and Response (XDR) - MSSP Alert

• Why digital trust is the bedrock of business relationships - Help Net Security

• Incident Responders Driven by Sense of Duty, Handcuffed by Volume of Cyber attacks, IBM Reports - MSSP Alert

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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

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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

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.

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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.

https://www.pymnts.com/news/security-and-risk/2021/ransomware-now-ranks-as-uks-top-cybersecurity-danger/

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.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/over-65000-ransomware-attacks-expected-in-2021-former-cisco-ceo-125100793.html

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/

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Threats

Ransomware

• Why Backups Are Not The Panacea For Recovery From A Ransomware Attack

• Microsoft Systems Targeted By 'Black Kingdom' Ransomware

• Takeaways From The Colonial Pipeline Ransomware Attack

• Police Bust Major Ransomware Gang Cl0p

• Ryuk Ransomware Recovery Cost Us $8.1m And Counting, Says Baltimore School Authority

• Paradise Ransomware Source Code Released On A Hacking Forum

• Experts Shed Light On Distinctive Tactics Used By Hades Ransomware

• How Remote Work Opened The Floodgates To Ransomware

• The latest Revil Ransomware Victim? Sol Oriens. Oh, A US Nuclear Weapons Contractor

• Ransomware Attackers Are Leveraging Old SonicWall SRA Flaw

BEC

• Microsoft Takes Down Large‑Scale BEC Operation

• Behind The Scenes Of Business Email Compromise: Using Cross-Domain Threat Data To Disrupt A Large BEC Campaign

• Microsoft: Scammers Bypass Office 365 MFA In BEC Attacks

Phishing

• Threat Actors Use Google Docs To Host Phishing Attacks

Malware

• Malicious PDFs Flood the Web, Lead To Password-Snarfing

• Alarming Malware Discovery Reveals 1.2 TB Data Theft From Millions Of Windows PCs

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

• McAfee Finds Security Vulnerability In Peloton Products

• 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

• Police Grab Slilpp, Biggest Stolen-Logins Market

Cryptocurrency

• Criminals Are Mailing Altered Ledger Devices To Steal Crypto Currency

Supply Chain

• NoxPlayer Supply-Chain Attack Is Likely The Work Of Gelsemium Hackers

OT, ICS, IIoT and SCADA

• Utilities ‘Concerningly’ At Risk from Active Exploits

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

• 100% Increase In Daily DDoS Traffic In 2020 As Potential Grows For 10 TBPS Attack

Cloud

• Unsecured Servers And Cloud Services: How Remote Work Has Increased The Attack Surface That Hackers Can Target

• Complexity Is The Biggest Threat To Cloud Success And Security

Privacy

• Amazon To Let Customers Sue After Thousands Of Alexa Complaints

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Other News

• Airline And Bank Websites Go Down In Another Major Internet Failure

• Corporate Attack Surfaces Growing Concurrently With A Dispersed Workforce

• This Secretive Firm Has Powerful New Hacking Tools

• Vigilante Malware Rats Out Software Pirates While Blocking The Pirate Bay

• Fallout Of EA Source Code Breach Could Be Severe, Cyber Security Experts Say

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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.