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Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 26 February 2021
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 26 February 2021: Cyber Crime Could Cost The World $10.5 Trillion Annually By 2025; 119,000 Threats Per Minute Detected In 2020; 78% Of Top Security Leaders Say Their Organisations Are Unprepared For A Cyber Attack; Uk Faced Millions Of Cyber Attacks Last Year; New Tier Of APT Actors That Behave More Like Cyber Criminals; US Calls North Korean Hackers ‘World’s Leading Bank Robbers’; Sequoia Capital, One Of Silicon Valley's Most Notable VC Firms, Told Investors It Was Hacked; Poor Hardware Disposal Practices Posing A Risk To Data Security
Welcome to this week’s Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing – a weekly digest, collated and curated by our cyber experts to provide senior and middle management with an easy to digest round up of the most notable threats, vulnerabilities and cyber related news from the last week.
Top Cyber Stories of the Last Week
Cyber Crime Could Cost The World $10.5 Trillion Annually By 2025
In a world that is becoming increasingly reliant on technology, cyber security is an extremely important priority for entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized businesses. And it's become even more essential in the wake of the pandemic. In June 2020, a report revealed that small and medium-sized businesses were at an especially high risk of data breaches and cyber attacks during the pandemic.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/364015
119,000 Threats Per Minute Detected In 2020
The number of cyber-threats identified and blocked by Trend Micro rose by 20% in 2020 to more than 62.6 billion. Averaging out at 119,000 cyber-threats per minute, the huge figure was included in the company's annual roundup, Email-borne threats such as phishing attacks accounted for 91% of the 62.6 billion threats blocked by Trend Micro last year. Nearly 14 million unique phishing URLs were detected by the company in 2020, with home networks a primary target.
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/119k-threats-per-minute-detected/
78% Of Top Security Leaders Say Their Organisations Are Unprepared For A Cyber Attack
Seventy-eight percent of senior IT and security leaders believe their organizations lack sufficient protection against cyber attacks. The high level of concern expressed by these leaders resulted in 91% of organizations increasing their cyber security budgets in 2021 — a figure that nearly matches the 96% that boosted IT security spending in 2020.
UK Faced Millions Of Cyber Attacks Last Year
The UK faced millions of Covid-19-related cyber security threats last year, but generally managed to mitigate attacks effectively. A total of 16.4 million Covid-19-related threats were recorded last year, with four percent (563,571) identified in the UK. The US suffered the highest volume of attacks by a significant margin: more than 6.5 million. Germany was second with 2.3 million, and France rounded out the top three with just over one million attacks.
https://www.itproportal.com/news/uk-faced-millions-of-cyberattacks-last-year/
New Malformed URL Phishing Technique Can Make Attacks Harder To Spot
Warning of a new form of phishing attack that makes malicious messages more likely to get through filters and harder for the average person to detect by sight. By hiding phishing information in the prefixes of URLs, attackers can send what looks like a link to a legitimate website, free of misspellings and all, with a malicious address hidden in the prefix of the link.
Hackers Share Details Of Canadian Military Spy Plane On Dark Web
Hackers have shared details of a Canadian military spy plane after its manufacturers seemingly refused to pay a cyber ransom. Aerospace firm Bombardier, whose Global 6000 plane is used for Saab’s GlobalEye spy system, says it was the victim of a “limited cyber security breach.” That saw detailed plans of the airborne early warning system developed by the Swedish defence company Saab being dumped on the dark web site CLOP^_-LEAKS.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hackers-spy-plane-bombardier-saab-b1807037.html
Cisco Points To New Tier Of APT Actors That Behave More Like Cyber Criminals
Cisco Talos suggests that maybe it is time to start thinking of hacker groups as more than either advanced persistent threat or criminal attackers. It is already well established that some APTs operate as criminals. Several international governments, including the United States, have identified North Korean state-sponsored hackers as stealing on behalf of the government, and other groups have been identified by vendors as state-sponsored groups with actors who occasionally freelance as criminals.
These Hackers Sell Network Logins To The Highest Bidder. And Ransomware Gangs Are Buying
A growing class of cyber criminals are playing an important role on underground marketplaces by breaching corporate networks and selling access to the highest bidder to exploit however they please. The buying and selling of stolen login credentials and other forms of remote access to networks has long been a part of the dark web ecosystem, but according to analysis by cyber security researchers, there has been a notable increase in listings by 'Initial Access Brokers' over the course of the past year.
U.S. Calls North Korean Hackers ‘World’s Leading Bank Robbers’
North Korea was accused of being behind the 2014 hack of an internal computer network of Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., an audacious attack that exposed Hollywood secrets and destroyed company data.
Sequoia Capital, One Of Silicon Valley's Most Notable VC Firms, Told Investors It Was Hacked
One of Silicon Valley's oldest and most venerable VC firms was hacked. Sequoia Capital told its investors on Friday that some personal and financial information may have been accessed by a third party after one of its employees fell victim to a successful. Phishing attack, according to a report in Axios Friday. Sequoia told investors that it has not yet seen any indication that compromised information is being traded or otherwise exploited on the dark web, Axios reported.
Poor Hardware Disposal Practices Posing A Risk To Data Security
Many business leaders are not paying much attention to the way they dispose of old and obsolete hardware, opening their organizations up to possible data breaches. Of the 1,029 people polled for the report, a fifth said their employer disposed of various IT hardware over the last 12 months. However, less than half (40 percent) thought this hardware did not contain confidential data when it was disposed of.
https://www.itproportal.com/news/poor-hardware-disposal-pratice-posing-a-risk-to-data-security/
Threats
Ransomware
Underwriters Laboratories (UL) certification giant hit by ransomware
Ransomware Gang Says It's Selling Data from Cyber attack That California DMV Warned About
Phishing
Malware
Mobile
Vulnerabilities
Critical RCE Flaws Affect VMware ESXi and vSphere Client — Patch Now
Code-execution flaw in VMware has a severity rating of 9.8 out of 10
Shadow Attacks Let Attackers Replace Content in Digitally Signed PDFs
Recently fixed Windows zero-day actively exploited since mid-2020
Clubhouse Chats Are Breached, Raising Concerns Over Security
Organised Crime
The bitcoin blockchain is helping keep a botnet from being taken down
New Hack Lets Attackers Bypass Mastercard Pin by Using Them As Visa Card
Dark Web
OT, ICS, IIoT and SCADA
Hackers Tied to Russia's GRU Targeted the US Grid for Years, Researchers Warn
The U.S. Has Released the Most Comprehensive Catalog of North Korean Cyber Crimes Ever Made Public
Nation-State Actors
Denial of Service
Privacy
Reports Published in the Last Week
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.
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 19 February 2021
Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 19 February 2021: Masslogger Swipes Outlook & Chrome Credentials; Phishers trick LinkedIn users; Solarwinds Attack ‘Largest And Most Sophisticated Attack’ Ever; Ransomware gangs are running riot, paying them off doesn’t help; Most security bugs in the wild are years old; Hacker Claims Files Stolen from Prominent Law Firm; 100+ Financial Services Firms Targeted in Ransom DDoS Attacks in 2020; 14 million alleged Amazon and eBay account details sold online; Think backups will protect you from ransomware? What do you think gets attacked first?
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.
Image by Lukas Bieri from Pixabay
Top Cyber Stories of the Last Week
Masslogger Swipes Microsoft Outlook, Google Chrome Credentials
Cyber Criminals are targeting Windows users with a new variant of the Masslogger trojan, which is spyware designed to swipe victims’ credentials from Microsoft Outlook, Google Chrome and various instant-messenger accounts. Researchers uncovered the campaign targeting users in Italy, Latvia and Turkey starting in mid-January. When the Masslogger variant launched its infection chain, it disguised its malicious RAR files as Compiled HTML (CHM) files. This is a new move for Masslogger, and helps the malware sidestep potential defensive programs, which would otherwise block the email attachment based on its RAR file extension, said researchers on Wednesday.
https://threatpost.com/masslogger-microsoft-outlook-google-chrome/164011/
Phishers tricking users via fake LinkedIn Private Shared Document
The phishing message is delivered via LinkedIn’s internal messaging system and looks like it has been sent by one of the victim’s contacts. The message urges the recipient to follow a third-party link to view a document. If they fail to find this suspicious, they’ll be redirected to a convincingly spoofed LinkedIn login page, and if they enter their login credentials, their account will probably soon be sending out phishing messages to their contacts.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/02/18/linkedin-private-shared-document/
Solarwinds Attack Hit 100 Companies And Took Months Of Planning’; ‘Largest And Most Sophisticated Attack’ Ever Seen According To Microsoft; Hackers Downloaded Some Azure, Exchange, And Intune Source Code
A hacking campaign that used a tech company as a springboard to compromise a raft of US government agencies has been called “the largest and most sophisticated attack the world has ever seen”, according to Microsoft. Nine US governmental agencies were breached along with 100 different private sector companies , many of which were technology companies, including products that could be used to launch additional intrusions. Microsoft said it has formally completed its investigation into the SolarWinds-related breach and found no evidence that hackers abused its internal systems or official products to pivot and attack end-users and business customers, though it did state that it had discovered that hackers used the access they gained through the SolarWinds Orion app to pivot to Microsoft's internal network, where they accessed the source code of several internal projects.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/solarwinds-attack-hit-100-companies-and-took-months-of-planning-says-white-house/ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/solarwinds-us-russia-hacking-b1802299.html https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-says-solarwinds-hackers-downloaded-some-azure-exchange-and-intune-source-code/
Ransomware gangs are running riot – paying them off doesn’t help
In the past five years, ransomware attacks have evolved from rare misfortunes into common and disruptive threats. Hijacking the IT systems of organisations and forcing them to pay a ransom in order to reclaim them, cyber criminals are freely extorting millions of pounds from companies – and they’re enjoying a remarkably low risk of arrest as they do it.
https://theconversation.com/ransomware-gangs-are-running-riot-paying-them-off-doesnt-help-155254
Most security bugs in the wild are years old
Most vulnerabilities exploited in the wild are years old and some could be remedied easily with a readily available patch. This is one of the findings of a new report, which states that two thirds (65 percent) of CVEs found in 2020 were more than three years old, while a third of those (32 percent) were originally identified in 2015 or earlier.
https://www.itproportal.com/news/most-security-bugs-in-the-wild-are-multiple-years-old/
Hacker Claims to Have Stolen Files Belonging to Prominent Law Firm Jones Day
A hacker claims to have stolen files belonging to the global law firm Jones Day and posted many of them on the dark web. Jones Day has many prominent clients, including former President Donald Trump and major corporations. Jones Day, in a statement, disputed that its network has been breached. The statement said that a file-sharing company that it has used was recently compromised and had information taken. Jones Day said it continues to investigate the breach and will continue to be in discussion with affected clients and appropriate authorities.
Former Spy Chief Calls For Military Cyber Attacks On Ransomware Hackers
The state should launch military cyber attacks to shut down ransomware gangs that have extorted millions of pounds from British businesses, a former spy chief has said.
Ciaran Martin, who previously led the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, said the problem of criminal gangs locking and stealing files has become so serious that Government should now seek to disrupt the operations of prolific criminals.
The plans would mark a major change of tack for the UK authorities, who have long downplayed the idea they could routinely use offensive hacking as well as cyber defence.
Think your backups will protect you from ransomware? What do you think the malware attacked first?
If you think your backup strategy means you’re protected from the worst that cyber criminals can throw at you, we’ve got some bad news. Ransomware creators know all about backups, too. So, if you are unlucky enough to get a “pay up or else” notice, there’s a very good chance that the attacker in question has already been stealthily working their way through your systems for some time, ensuring your recovery data has already been comprehensively trashed.
https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/17/protect_yourself_from_ransomware_webcast/
100+ Financial Services Firms Targeted in Ransom DDoS Attacks in 2020
More than 100 financial services firms across multiple countries were targeted in a wave of ransom distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks conducted by the same threat actor in 2020. The attacks moved in methodical fashion across Europe, North America, Latin America, and Asia, hitting dozens of organizations in the financial sector in each region, the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) disclosed this week. Among those targeted were banks, exchanges, payments companies, card issuers, payroll companies, insurance firms, and money transfer services.
14 million alleged Amazon and eBay account details sold online
An unknown user was offering the data of 14 million Amazon and eBay customers’ accounts for sale on a popular hacking forum. The data appears to come from users who had Amazon or eBay accounts from 2014-2021 in 18 different countries. The database was being sold for $800 and the accounts are divided into their respective countries. The leaked data includes the customer’s full name, postal code, delivery address, and shop name, as well 1.6 million phone records.
https://cybernews.com/security/14-million-amazon-and-ebay-accounts-sold-online-in-new-leak/
Threats
Ransomware
BEC
Phishing
This phishing email promises you a bonus - but actually delivers this Windows trojan malware
How Hackers use Phishing to Hijack Sites through Hosting Provider
Malware
Windows and Linux servers targeted by new WatchDog botnet for almost two years
TrickBot's BazarBackdoor malware is now coded in Nim to evade antivirus
Mobile
IOT
Vulnerabilities
WordPress plugin exploit puts more than one million sites at risk
Bug in shared SDK can let attackers join calls undetected across multiple apps
Malvertisers Exploited WebKit 0-Day to Redirect Browser Users to Scam Sites
Microsoft Pulls Bad Windows Update After Patch Tuesday Headaches
Telegram privacy feature failed to delete self-destructing video files
Data Breaches
Organised Crime
Insider Threats
Supply Chain
OT, ICS, IIoT and SCADA
Nation-State Actors
Russian state hackers targeted Centreon servers in years-long campaign
Feds Indict North Korean Hackers for Years of Heists and Scams
MPs sign up to Clubhouse app despite Chinese security concerns
Privacy
Reports Published in the Last Week
Other News
Most businesses plan to move away from VPNs, adopt a zero-trust access model
20 Common Tools & Techniques Used by macOS Threat Actors & Malware
Discord is fast becoming a favourite tool among cyber criminals
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.