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Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 08 April 2022

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 08 April 2022

-Nearly Two-Thirds of Ransomware Victims Paid Ransoms Last Year, Finds "2022 Cyberthreat Defense Report"

-New Android Banking Malware Remotely Takes Control of Your Device

-Network Intrusion Detections Skyrocketing

-Organisations Underestimating the Seriousness Of Insider Threats

-Watch Out For Phishing Emails From Genuine Mailing Lists, Following Mailchimp Hack

-SpringShell Attacks Target About One in Six Vulnerable Orgs

-New Threat Group Underscores Mounting Concerns Over Russian Cyber Threats

-Consumer Fraud Tripled in The Last Two Years

-Borat RAT: Multiple Threat of Ransomware, DDoS and Spyware

-Bank Had No Firewall License, Intrusion or Phishing Protection – Guess The Rest

-Global APT Groups Use Ukraine War for Phishing Lures

-Paying Ransom Doesn’t Guarantee Data Recovery

Welcome to this week’s Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing – a weekly digest, collated and curated by our cyber experts to provide senior and middle management with an easy to digest round up of the most notable threats, vulnerabilities, and cyber related news from the last week.

Top Cyber Stories of the Last Week

  • Nearly Two-Thirds of Ransomware Victims Paid Ransoms Last Year, Finds "2022 Cyberthreat Defense Report"

CyberEdge Group, a leading research and marketing firm serving the cyber security industry’s top vendors, announced the launch of its ninth annual Cyberthreat Defense Report (CDR). The award-winning CDR is the standard for assessing organisations’ security posture, gauging perceptions of information technology (IT) security professionals, and ascertaining current and planned investments in IT security infrastructure – across all industries and geographic regions.

A record 71% of organisations were impacted by successful ransomware attacks last year, according to the 2022 CDR, up from 55% in 2017. Of those that were victimised, nearly two-thirds (63%) paid the requested ransom, up from 39% in 2017.

https://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/nearly-two-thirds-of-ransomware-victims-paid-ransoms-last-year-finds-2022-cyberthreat-defense-report-

  • New Android Banking Malware Remotely Takes Control of Your Device

A new Android banking malware named Octo has appeared in the wild, featuring remote access capabilities that allow malicious operators to perform on-device fraud.

Octo is an evolved Android malware based on ExoCompact, a malware variant based on the Exo trojan that quit the cyber crime space and had its source code leaked in 2018.

The new variant has been discovered by researchers at ThreatFabric, who observed several users looking to purchase it on darknet forums.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-android-banking-malware-remotely-takes-control-of-your-device/

  • Network Intrusion Detections Skyrocketing

A WatchGuard report shows a record number of evasive network malware detections with advanced threats increasing by 33%, indicating a higher level of zero day threats than ever before.

Researchers detected malware threats in EMEA at a much higher rate than other regions of the world in Q4 2021, with malware detections per Firebox at 49%, compared to Americas at 23% and APAC at 29%. The trajectory of network intrusion detections also continued its upward climb with the largest total detections of any quarter in the last three years and a 39% increase quarter over quarter.

Researchers suggest that this may be due to the continued targeting of old vulnerabilities as well as the growth in organisations’ networks. As new devices come online and old vulnerabilities remain unpatched, network security is becoming more complex.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/04/08/network-malware-detections/

  • Organisations Underestimating the Seriousness of Insider Threats

Imperva releases data that shows organisations are failing to address the issue of insider threats during a time when the risk is at its greatest.

New research, conducted by Forrester, found that 59% of incidents in EMEA organisations that negatively impacted sensitive data in the last 12 months were caused by insider threats, and yet 59% do not prioritise insider threats the way they prioritise external threats. Despite the fact that insider events occur more often than external ones, they receive lower levels of investment.

This approach is at odds with today’s threat landscape where the risk of malicious insiders has never been higher. The rapid shift to remote working means many employees are now outside the typical security controls that organisations employ, making it harder to detect and prevent insider threats.

Further, the Great Resignation is creating an environment where there is a higher risk of employees stealing data. This data could be stolen intentionally by people looking to help themselves in future employment, because they are disgruntled and want revenge, or it could be taken unintentionally when a careless employee leaves the business with important information.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/04/08/organizations-insider-threats-issue/

  • Watch Out for Phishing Emails from Genuine Mailing Lists, Following Mailchimp Hack

A Mailchimp hack means that you’ll want to be even more vigilant than usual about phishing emails. Attackers have taken a clever approach to making their emails appear genuine …

When you subscribe to an email list, there’s a decent chance that the emails you received are actually sent by a company called Mailchimp, rather than directly by the company itself. Mailchimp offers companies a range of tools that make it easy to manage email databases, and send marketing emails and newsletters.

Hackers managed to gain access to more than 100 Mailchimp customer accounts, giving them the ability to send emails that would appear to have come from any one of those businesses.

Users will need to be more vigilant when receiving emails and avoid clicking on links in emails, even if they appear genuine.

https://9to5mac.com/2022/04/05/mailchimp-hack-phishing-alert/

  • SpringShell Attacks Target About One in Six Vulnerable Orgs

Roughly one out of six organisations worldwide that are impacted by the Spring4Shell zero-day vulnerability have already been targeted by threat actors, according to statistics from one cyber security company.

The exploitation attempts took place in the first four days since the disclosure of the severe remote code execution (RCE) flaw, tracked as CVE-2022-22965, and the associated exploit code.

According to Check Point, who compiled the report based on their telemetry data, 37,000 Spring4Shell attacks were detected over the past weekend alone.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/springshell-attacks-target-about-one-in-six-vulnerable-orgs/

  • New Threat Group Underscores Mounting Concerns Over Russian Cyber Threats

Crowdstrike says Ember Bear is likely responsible for the wiper attack against Ukrainian networks and that future Russian cyber attacks might target the West.

As fears mount over the prospects of a “cyberwar” initiated by the Russian government, the number of identified Russian threat actors also continues to climb. Last week CrowdStrike publicly revealed a Russia-nexus state-sponsored actor that it tracks as Ember Bear.

CrowdStrike says that Ember Bear (also known as UAC-0056, Lorec53, Lorec Bear, Bleeding Bear, Saint Bear) is likely an intelligence-gathering adversary group that has operated against government and military organisations in eastern Europe since early 2021. The group seems “motivated to weaponize the access and data obtained during their intrusions to support information operations (IO) aimed at creating public mistrust in targeted institutions and degrading government ability to counter Russian cyber operations,” according to CrowdStrike intelligence.

Despite its state-sponsored Russia nexus, Ember Bear differs from its better-known kin such as Fancy Bear or Voodoo Bear because CrowdStrike can’t tie it to a specific Russian organisation. Its target profile, assessed intent, and technical tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) are consistent with other Russian GRU cyber operations.

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3655976/new-threat-group-underscores-mounting-concerns-over-russian-cyber-threats.html

  • Consumer Fraud Tripled in The Last Two Years

Reported cases of consumer fraud more than tripled in the years 2020-2021 from prior years, finds a new report by Accenture, presenting a growing challenge for public safety agencies to find new strategies to counter the trend.

The report compiled data from eight developed nations (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States) on consumer fraud, defined as any fraud directly targeting citizens and excluding fraud targeting government agencies and companies. Reports of such fraud increased at an estimated 6.8% rate annually during 2013-2019 and then increased to a 22.5% annual growth rate yearly during 2020-2021 in parallel with the large shift of workers and consumers to digital channels and greater use of technology during the pandemic.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/04/08/consumer-fraud-tripled/

  • Borat RAT: Multiple Threat of Ransomware, DDoS and Spyware

A new remote access trojan (RAT) dubbed "Borat" doesn't come with many laughs but offers bad actors a menu of cyberthreats to choose from.

RATs are typically used by cyber criminals to get full control of a victim's system, enabling them to access files and network resources and manipulate the mouse and keyboard. Borat does all this and also delivers features to enable hackers to run ransomware, distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) and other online assaults and to install spyware, according to researchers at cyber security biz Cyble.

"The Borat RAT provides a dashboard to Threat Actors (TAs) to perform RAT activities and also has an option to compile the malware binary for performing DDoS and ransomware attacks on the victim's machine," the researchers wrote in a blog post, noting the malware is being made available for sale to hackers.

Borat – named after the character made famous by actor Sacha Baron Cohen in two comedy films – comes with the standard requisite of RAT features in a package that includes such functions as builder binary, server certificate and supporting modules.

https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/04/borat-rat-ransomware-ddos/

  • Bank Had No Firewall License, Intrusion or Phishing Protection – Guess the Rest

An Indian bank that did not have a valid firewall license, had not employed phishing protection, lacked an intrusion detection system and eschewed use of any intrusion prevention system has, shockingly, been compromised by criminals who made off with millions of rupees.

The unfortunate institution is called the Andra Pradesh Mahesh Co-Operative Urban Bank. Its 45 branches and just under $400 million of deposits make it one of India's smaller banks.

It certainly thinks small about security – at least according to Hyderabad City Police, which last week detailed an attack on the Bank that started with over 200 phishing emails being sent across three days in November 2021. At least one of those mails succeeded in fooling staff, resulting in the installation of a Remote Access Trojan (RAT).

Another technology the bank had chosen not to adopt was virtual LANs, so once the RAT went to work the attackers gained entry to the Bank's systems and were able to roam widely – even in its core banking application

https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/05/mahesh_bank_no_firewall_attack/

  • Global APT Groups Use Ukraine War for Phishing Lures

Security researchers have detected multiple APT campaigns leveraging Ukraine war-themed documents and news sources to lure victims into clicking on spear-phishing links.

Check Point Research said victim locations ranged from South America to the Middle East, with malware downloads designed to perform keylogging and screenshotting and execute commands.

The threat groups in question include El Machete, which is targeting the financial and government sectors in Nicaragua and Venezuela with malicious macro-laden Word documents containing articles on the war.

One of the docs was an article written by the Russian ambassador to Nicaragua titled: “Dark plans of the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine.”

Another is Lyceum, an Iranian state-linked group targeting the energy sector with emails about war crimes in Ukraine that link to a malicious document hosted elsewhere. Its victims so far have been in Israel and Saudi Arabia, according to Check Point.

One email contained a link to an article from The Guardian hosted on the news-spot[.]live domain, alongside several malicious docs about the war.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/global-apt-ukraine-war-phishing/

  • Paying Ransom Doesn’t Guarantee Data Recovery

OwnBackup announced the findings of a global survey conducted by Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) that reveals a staggering 79% of respondent organisations have been targeted by ransomware within the past 12 months. Of those organisations, nearly three quarters said the attack was successful, meaning that it disrupted business operations.

Other key findings

·       Of the respondents that said their organisation paid a cyber ransom to regain access to data, applications, and/or systems after an attack, only 14% were able to recover all of their data.

·       87% of respondents who made ransom payments said that they experienced additional extortion attempts beyond the initial ransomware demand.

·       31% of respondent organisations targeted by ransomware indicated that application user and permission misconfigurations were the initial point of compromise.

·       87% of respondents are very or somewhat concerned about their backups being infected by ransomware attacks.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/04/07/organizations-targeted-by-ransomware/

Threats

Ransomware

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

Other Social Engineering

Malware

Mobile

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking

Insider Risk and Insider Threats

Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime

Insurance

Supply Chain

Cloud

Privacy

Passwords & Credential Stuffing

Travel

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

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.

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Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 12 November 2021

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 12 November 2021:

-Covid Impact Heightens Risk Of Cyber Security Breaches

-81% of Organisations Experienced Increased Cyber-Threats During COVID-19

-Phishing Attacks Grow 31.5% Over 2020, Social Media Attacks Continue To Climb

-Threat from Organised Cybercrime Syndicates Is Rising

-Ransomware Gangs Are Using These 'Ruthless' Tactics As They Aim For Bigger Payouts

-Firms Will Struggle to Secure Extended Attack Surface in 2022

-Millions Of Home Wi-Fi Routers Threatened By Malware — What To Do

-Vulnerabilities Associated With Ransomware Increased 4.5% In Q3 2021

-80% Of Organisations Experienced Employees Misusing And Abusing Access To Business Apps

-Gen Z Is Behaving Recklessly Online - And Will Live To Regret It

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

Covid Impact Heightens Risk Of Cyber Security Breaches

CYBER SECURITY breaches are the biggest staff-related risk as Covid-19 and recruitment difficulties continue to impact workplaces, according to a survey of Channel Island employers.

Seven out of ten senior HR professionals and business leaders saw a cyber security breach as the greatest staff-related risk for a regulated financial services business – way ahead of employees leaving (16%) and employees working from home (10%). Some 57% of employers said Covid-19 had changed their policies, procedures and systems ‘moderately’, with 29.5% reporting ‘significant’ changes, according to the research undertaken at a virtual employment conference organised by Walkers last month.

https://guernseypress.com/news/2021/11/12/covid-impact-heightens-risk-of-cyber-security-breaches/

81% of Organisations Experienced Increased Cyber Threats During COVID-19

More than four in five (81%) organisations experienced increased cyber-threats during the COVD-19 pandemic, according to a new study by McAfee and FireEye.

The global survey of 1451 IT and line of business decision-makers found that close to half (43%) have suffered from downtime due to a cyber concern. This resulted in costs of $100,000 for some organisations.

Despite the increased threat landscape and the fact that over half (57%) of organisations saw a rise in online/web activity, 24% of respondents revealed they have had their technology and security budgets reduced over this period.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/81-orgs-cyber-threats-covid19/

Phishing Attacks Grow 31.5% Over 2020, Social Media Attacks Continue To Climb

Phishing remains the dominant attack vector for bad actors, growing 31.5 percent over 2020, according to a PhishLabs report. Notably, attacks in September 2021 were more than twice as high as the previous year.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/11/11/phishing-attacks-grow-2020/

Threat from Organised Cyber Crime Syndicates Is Rising

Europol reports that criminal groups are undermining the EU’s economy and its society, offering everything from murder-for-hire to kidnapping, torture and mutilation.

From encrypting communications to fencing ill-gotten gains on underground sites, organised crime is cashing in on the digital revolution.

The latest organised crime threat assessment from Europol issues a dire warning about the corrosive effect the rising influence of criminal syndicates is having on both the economy and society of the European Union. And it’s all happening online.

https://threatpost.com/organised-cybercrime-syndicates-europol/176326/

Ransomware Gangs Are Using These 'Ruthless' Tactics As They Aim For Bigger Payouts

More sophisticated ransomware attacks are on the way as cyber criminals tailor campaigns to raise the chances of a ransom payment.

Ransomware attacks are becoming more sophisticated as cyber criminals continue to develop new techniques to make campaigns more effective and increase their chances of successfully demanding a ransom payment.

According to the European law enforcement agency Europol there was a 300% increase in the number of ransom payments between 2019 and 2020 alone – and that doesn't account for 2021 being another bumper year for cyber criminals launching ransomware attacks, as they've taken advantage of security vulnerabilities presented by the rise in remote working. 

Europol's Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment (IOCT) shows that while cybercrime, including malware and DDoS attacks, continues to evolve, it's ransomware attacks that have been a significant amount of disruption over the course of the past year.

https://www.ZDNet.com/article/ransomware-gangs-are-now-using-ruthless-tactics-as-they-aim-for-bigger-payouts/

Firms Will Struggle to Secure Extended Attack Surface in 2022

Companies are relying more heavily on third parties, remote employees, and partners, expanding their attack surface area beyond traditional boundaries.

In 2022, much of cybersecurity will boil down to managing the security of relationships, as companies adapt to the post-pandemic remote workforce and the increased use of third-party providers, a panel of analysts stated at the Forrester Research Security & Risk 2021 Conference.

Among five predictions for the coming year, the analysts argued that companies' attempts to manage remote employees would stray into intrusive territory, causing workers to push back and hampering security-focused monitoring, such as that for insider threats. Other predictions maintain that 60% of security incidents in the next year will come from issues with third parties, while the cybersecurity workforce will suffer from burnout and join what's been called the "Great Resignation," the recent trend of workers leaving the workforce.

https://www.darkreading.com/risk/firms-will-struggle-to-secure-extended-attack-surface-in-2022

Millions Of Home Wi-Fi Routers Threatened By Malware — What To Do

Netgear, Linksys, D-Link routers among those targeted

There's a nasty new piece of malware out there targeting Wi-Fi routers, and you'll want to make sure yours is fully updated so it doesn't get infected.

The AT&T researchers who discovered the malware are calling it BotenaGo, and it's apparently different from the Mirai botnet malware that's been attacking routers since 2016. BotenaGo packs in exploits for 33 different known vulnerabilities in 12 different router brands, including D-Link, Linksys, Netgear, Tenda, Totolink, Zyxel and ZTE. A full list is on the AT&T Cybersecurity blog post.

To avoid infection, ensure you update your router with the latest firmware.

https://www.tomsguide.com/uk/news/botenago-router-malware

Vulnerabilities Associated With Ransomware Increased 4.5% In Q3 2021

Ransomware groups are continuing to grow in sophistication, boldness, and volume, with numbers up across the board since Q2 2021, a report by Ivanti, Cyber Security Works and Cyware reveals.

This last quarter saw a 4.5% increase in CVEs associated with ransomware, a 4.5% increase in actively exploited and trending vulnerabilities, a 3.4% increase in ransomware families, and a 1.2% increase in older vulnerabilities tied to ransomware compared to Q2 2021.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/11/10/vulnerabilities-associated-with-ransomware/

80% Of Organisations Experienced Employees Misusing And Abusing Access To Business Apps

Organisations continue to operate with limited visibility into user activity and sessions associated with web applications, despite the ever-present risk of insider threats and credential theft, a CyberArk research reveals.

While the adoption of web applications has brought flexibility and increased productivity, organisations often lag in implementing the security controls necessary to mitigate risk of human error or malicious intent.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/11/08/user-activity-visibility/

Gen Z Is Behaving Recklessly Online - And Will Live To Regret It

Handing out personal information could be a slippery slope

Members of Generation Z, the cohort of people born in the first decade of the 21st century, care about digital privacy, but their desire for online fame and popularity is greater, a new study from ExpressVPN suggests.

The VPN provider surveyed 1,500 young adults from the US to evaluate their online habits and attitudes towards social media, and identified a troubling pattern that could have dire consequences.

The survey found that Generation Z isn’t trusting of the social media platforms they frequent, expressing concern that platforms may be using their images for facial recognition (67%) and wariness about oversharing personal information (66%).

https://www.techradar.com/news/gen-z-is-behaving-recklessly-online-and-will-live-to-regret-it

Threats

Ransomware

BEC

Phishing

Other Social Engineering

Malware

Mobile

IOT

Vulnerabilities

Data Breaches/Leaks

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

Cryptocurrency/Cryptojacking

Insider Threats

DoS/DDoS

OT, ICS, IIoT and SCADA

Nation State Actors

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.

Read More