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Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 22 October 2021

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 22 October 2021

-Many Organisations Lack Basic Cyber Hygiene Despite High Confidence In Their Cyber Defences

-83% Of Ransomware Victims Paid Ransom: Survey

-Report: Ransomware Affected 72% Of Organizations In Past Year

-Ransomware: Looking For Weaknesses In Your Own Network Is Key To Stopping Attacks

-A Hacker Warns: Give Up Trying To Keep Me Out — And Focus On Your Data

-Cyber Risk Trends Driving The Surge In Ransomware Incidents

-US Ransomware Victims Paid $600 Million to Hackers in 1H of 2021

-Hacking Group Created Fake Cyber Security Companies To Hire Experts And Involve Them In Ransomware Attacks Tricking Them Of Conducting A Pentest

-Nearly Three-Quarters of Organizations Victimized by DNS Attacks in Past 12 Months

-Cyber Crime Matures As Hackers Are Forced To Work Smarter

-Hackers Stealing Browser Cookies to Hijack High-Profile YouTube Accounts

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

Many Organisations Lack Basic Cyber Hygiene Despite High Confidence In Their Cyber Defences

A new report released this week analysed IT security leaders’ perceived threat of ransomware attacks and the maturity of their cyber security defences. The report found that while 81% of those surveyed consider their security to be above average or exceptional, many lack basic cyber hygiene – 41% lack a password complexity requirement, one of the cheapest, easiest forms of protection, and only 55.6% have implemented multi-factor authentication (MFA). https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/10/21/organizations-cyber-hygiene/

83% Of Ransomware Victims Paid Ransom

A new survey of 300 US-based IT decision-makers found that 64% have been victims of a ransomware attack in the last 12 months, and 83% of those attack victims paid the ransom demand.

Cybersecurity company ThycoticCentrify released its "2021 State of Ransomware Survey & Report" on Tuesday, featuring the insights of IT leaders who have dealt with ransomware attacks over the last year. https://www.zdnet.com/article/83-of-ransomware-victims-paid-ransom-survey/

Ransomware Affected 72% Of Organisations In Past Year

72% of organisations were affected by ransomware at least once within the past twelve months, with 18% impacted more than six times in the past year. Organizations of all sizes were affected nearly to the same extent, with the exception of those with more than 25,000 employees. https://venturebeat.com/2021/10/20/report-ransomware-affected-72-of-organizations-in-past-year/

Ransomware: Looking For Weaknesses In Your Own Network Is Key To Stopping Attacks

Ransomware is a major cybersecurity threat to organisations around the world, but it's possible to reduce the impact of an attack if you have a thorough understanding of your own network and the correct protections are in place.

While the best form of defence is to stop ransomware infiltrating the network in the first place, thinking about how the network is put together can help slow down or stop the spread of an attack, even if the intruders have successfully breached the perimeter. https://www.zdnet.com/article/ransomware-looking-for-weaknesses-in-your-own-network-is-key-to-stopping-attacks/

A Hacker Warns: Give Up Trying To Keep Me Out — And Focus On Your Data

There is a misconceived notion that the security arena is a battlefield. It is not. It is a chess board and requires foresight and calculated pawn placement to protect the king — your data. If your main focus lies on keeping hackers out of your environment, then it’s already check mate. Your mission should be to buy time, slow hackers down and ultimately contain an attack.

Businesses must therefore make it as hard as possible for adversaries to exploit the relationships that allow them to move laterally through the corporate network. They can do this by distrusting anyone within their data’s environment and repeatedly corroborating that all users are who they say they are, and that they act like it too. That last part is crucial, because while identities are easy to compromise and imitate, behaviours are not. https://www.ft.com/content/93cec8b6-3fe9-4e9e-800a-62e13a0e2eac

Cyber Risk Trends Driving The Surge In Ransomware Incidents

During the COVID-19 crisis, another outbreak took place in the cyber space: a digital pandemic driven by ransomware. In a recent report, Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS) analyzes the latest risk developments around ransomware and outlines how companies can strengthen their defenses with good cyber hygiene and IT security practices

The increasing frequency and severity of ransomware incidents is driven by several factors:

·         Growing number of different attack patterns such as double and triple extortion campaigns

·         Criminal business model around ‘ransomware as a service’ and cryptocurrencies

·         Recent skyrocketing of ransom demands

·         Rise of supply chain attacks.

Not all attacks are targeted. Criminals also adopt a scattergun approach to exploit those businesses that aren’t addressing or understanding the vulnerabilities they may have. Businesses must understand the need to strengthen their controls.

Cyber intrusion activity globally jumped 125% in the first half of 2021 compared to the previous year, according to Accenture, with ransomware and extortion operations one of the major contributors behind this increase. According to the FBI, there was a 62% increase in ransomware incidents in the US in the same period that followed an increase of 20% for the full year 2020. https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/10/18/five-ransomware-trends/

US Ransomware Victims Paid $600 Million to Hackers in 1H of 2021

US Ransomware victims coughed up nearly $600 million to cyber hijackers in the first six months of 2021, further stamping cyber extortionists as an “increasing threat” to the U.S. financial, business and public sectors, a recent report released by the Treasury Department said.

Data gathered by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) derived from financial institutions’ Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) revealed that the 635 reports filed for the first six months of this year is already 30 percent greater than the 487 filed for all of last year. Some 458 financial transitions have been reported as of June 30, 2021 with the total value of suspicious activity reported in ransomware-related SARs during the first six months of 2021 amounting to $590 million, or 42 percent more than the $416 million filed for all of 2020. https://www.msspalert.com/cybersecurity-research/victims-paid-600-millon-1h-2021/

Hacking Group Created Fake Cyber Security Companies To Hire Experts And Involve Them In Ransomware Attacks Tricking Them Of Conducting A Pentest

The FIN7 hacking group is attempting to enter in the ransomware business and is doing it with an interesting technique. The gang is creating fake cyber security companies that hire experts requesting them to carry out pen testing attacks under the guise of pentesting activities.

FIN7 is a Russian criminal group that has been active since mid-2015, it focuses on restaurants, gambling, and hospitality industries in the US to harvest financial information that was used in attacks or sold in cybercrime marketplaces.

One of the companies created by the cyber criminal organizations with this purpose is Combi Security, but researchers from Gemini Advisory discovered other similar organizations by analyzing the site of another fake cybersecurity company named Bastion Security. https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/123673/cyber-crime/fin7-fake-cybersecurity-firm.html

Nearly Three-Quarters of Organisations Victimized by DNS Attacks in Past 12 Months

Domain name system (DNS) attacks are impacting organizations at worrisome rates. According to a new survey from the Neustar International Security Council (NISC) conducted in September 2021, 72% of study participants reported experiencing a DNS attack within the last 12 months. Among those targeted, 61% have seen multiple attacks and 11% said they have been victimized regularly. While one-third of respondents recovered within minutes, 58% saw their businesses disrupted for more than an hour, and 14% took several hours to recover. https://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/nearly-three-quarters-of-organizations-victimized-by-dns-attacks-in-past-12-months

Cyber Crime Matures As Hackers Are Forced To Work Smarter

An analysis of 500 hacking incidents across a wide range of industries has revealed trends that characterize a maturity in the way hacking groups operate today.

Researchers at Kaspersky have focused on the Russian cybercrime underground, which is currently one of the most prolific ecosystems, but many elements in their findings are common denominators for all hackers groups worldwide.

One key finding of the study is that the level of security on office software, web services, email platforms, etc., is getting better, browser vulnerabilities have reduced in numbers, and websites are not as easy to compromise and use as infection vectors today.

This has resulted in making web infections too difficult to pursue for non-sophisticated threat groups.

The case is similar with vulnerabilities, which are fewer and more expensive to discover.

Instead, hacking groups are waiting for a PoC or patch to be released, and then use that information to create their own exploits. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/cybercrime-matures-as-hackers-are-forced-to-work-smarter/

Hackers Stealing Browser Cookies to Hijack High-Profile YouTube Accounts

Since at least late 2019, a network of hackers-for-hire have been hijacking the channels of YouTube creators, luring them with bogus collaboration opportunities to broadcast cryptocurrency scams or sell the accounts to the highest bidder.

That's according to a new report published by Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG), which said it disrupted financially motivated phishing campaigns targeting the video platform with cookie theft malware. The actors behind the infiltration have been attributed to a group of hackers recruited in a Russian-speaking forum. https://thehackernews.com/2021/10/hackers-stealing-browser-cookies-to.html


Threats

Ransomware

BEC

Phishing

Malware

Mobile

Vulnerabilities

Data Breaches/Leaks

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

Insider Threats

Dark Web

Supply Chain

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
Black Arrow Admin Black Arrow Admin

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 11 June 2021

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 11 June 2021: World’s Biggest Meat Producer JBS Pays $11m Ransom; New Type Of Ransomware Could Be 10 Times As Dangerous; Lewd Phishing Lures Aimed At Business Explode; UK Schools Forced To Shut Following Ransomware; COVID-19 Has Transformed Work, But Cyber Security Is Not Keeping Pace; Colonial Pipeline Ransomware Attack Stemmed From Old VPN Password; Evil Corp Rebrands Ransomware To Escape Sanctions; Billions Of Passwords Leaked Online From Past Data Breaches

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

World’s Biggest Meat Producer JBS Pays $11m Cyber Crime Ransom

JBS, the world’s biggest meat processor, has paid an $11m (£7.8m) ransom after a cyber attack shut down operations, including abattoirs in the US, Australia and Canada. While most of its operations have been restored, the Brazilian-headquartered company said it hoped the payment would head off any further complications including data theft. JBS, which supplies more than a fifth of all beef in the US, reportedly made the payment in bitcoin.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/10/worlds-biggest-meat-producer-jbs-pays-11m-cybercrime-ransom

Jackware: A New Type Of Ransomware Could Be 10 Times As Dangerous

Between the attacks on Colonial Pipeline and JBS, which disrupted nearly half of the East Coast’s gasoline supply for a week and threatened 20% of the U.S. meat market, respectively, consumers are finally experiencing the first physical impacts to their daily lives from cyber attacks. As bad as these attacks are, they could get a lot worse. Cyber criminals are constantly evolving, and what is keeping many security professionals up at night is the growing risk of “jackware” — a new type of ransomware that could be 10 times more dangerous because instead of encrypting Windows computers and servers. Jackware hijacks the actual physical devices and machines that make modern life possible. It’s only a matter of when we will see these attacks happen

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ransomware-jackware-115229732.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw&tsrc=twtr

Lewd Phishing Lures Aimed At Business Explode

Attackers have amped up their use of X-rated phishing lures in business email compromise (BEC) attacks. A new report found a stunning 974-percent spike in social-engineering scams involving suggestive materials, usually aimed at male-sounding names within a company. The Threat Intelligence team with GreatHorn made the discovery and explained it’s not simply libido driving users to click on these suggestive scams. Instead, these emails popping up on people’s screens at work are intended to shock the user, opening the door for them to make a reckless decision to click. It’s a tactic GreatHorn called “dynamite phishing.”

https://threatpost.com/lewd-phishing-lures-business-explode/166734/

UK Schools Forced To Shut Following Critical Ransomware Attack

Two schools in the south of England have been forced to temporarily close their doors after a ransomware attack that encrypted and stole sensitive data. The Skinners' Kent Academy and Skinners' Kent Primary School were attacked on June 2, according to a statement on the trust’s website which said it is currently working with third-party security experts, the police, and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). It revealed that on-premises servers were targeted at the Tunbridge Well-based schools. As student and staff emergency contact details, medical records, timetables, and registers were encrypted by the attackers, the decision was taken to close on Monday.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/schools-shut-ransomware-attacl/

Emerging Ransomware Targets Dozens Of Businesses Worldwide

An emerging ransomware strain in the threat landscape claims to have breached 30 organisations in just four months since it went operational by riding on the coattails of a notorious ransomware syndicate. First observed in February 2021, "Prometheus" is an offshoot of another well-known ransomware variant called Thanos, which was previously deployed against state-run organisations in the Middle East and North Africa last year. The affected entities are believed to be government, financial services, manufacturing, logistics, consulting, agriculture, healthcare services, insurance agencies, energy and law firms in the U.S., U.K., and a dozen more countries in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and South America.

https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/emerging-ransomware-targets-dozens-of.html

COVID-19 Has Transformed Work, But Cyber Security Is Not Keeping Pace, Report Finds

An international survey of tech professionals from the Thales Group finds some bleak news for the current state of data security: the COVID-19 pandemic has upended cyber security norms, and security teams are struggling to keep up. The problems appear to be snowballing; lack of preparation has led to a scramble resulting in poor data protection practices, outdated security infrastructure not receiving needed overhauls, a jumble of new systems that only make matters worse and priority misalignment between security teams and leadership.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/covid-19-has-transformed-work-but-cybersecurity-isnt-keeping-pace-report-finds/

Colonial Pipeline Ransomware Attack Was The Result Of An Old VPN Password

It took only one dusty, no-longer-used password for the DarkSide cyber criminals to breach the network of Colonial Pipeline Co. last month, resulting in a ransomware attack that caused significant disruption and remains under investigation by the U.S. government and cyber security experts. Attackers used the password to a VPN account that was no longer in use but still allowed them to remotely access Colonial Pipeline’s network, Charles Carmakal, senior vice president at FireEye’s cyber security consulting firm Mandiant, told Bloomberg in an interview, according to a published report on the news outlet’s website.

https://threatpost.com/darkside-pwned-colonial-with-old-vpn-password/166743/

Evil Corp Rebrands Ransomware To Escape Sanctions

Threat actors behind a notorious Russian cyber crime group appear to have rebranded their ransomware once again in a bid to escape US sanctions prohibiting victims from paying them. Experts took to Twitter to point out that a leak site previously run by the Babuk group, which famously attacked Washington DC’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), had rebranded to “PayloadBin.” The Babuk group claimed that it was shutting down its affiliate model for encrypting victims and moving to a new model back in April. A ‘new’ ransomware variant with the same name has also been doing the rounds of late, but according to CTO of Emsisoft, Fabian Wosar, it’s nothing more than a copycat effort by Evil Corp.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/evil-corp-rebrands-ransomware/

Billions Of Passwords Leaked Online From Past Data Breaches

A list of leaked passwords discovered on a hacker forum may be one of the largest such collections of all time. A 100GB text file leaked by a user on a popular hacker forum contains 8.4 billion passwords, likely gathered from past data breaches.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/billions-of-passwords-leaked-online-from-past-data-breaches/


Threats

Ransomware

Phishing

Other Social Engineering

Malware

Mobile

Vulnerabilities

Data Breaches

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

Cryptocurrency

Nation State Actors

Denial of Service

Charities



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
Black Arrow Admin Black Arrow Admin

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 04 June 2021

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 04 June 2021: Cyber Insurers Recoil As Ransomware Attacks ‘Skyrocket’; US Puts Cyber Crime On Par With Terror After Ransomware Attacks; Cyber Attack Leaves 7,000 Out Of Work; Irish Health Service Patient Data Leaked Online; Enterprise Networks Vulnerable To 20-Year-Old Exploits; US Seize Domains Used By SolarWinds Intruders For Spear-Phishing; Hacker Group DarkSide Operates Like A Franchise; Interpol Intercepts $83M Fighting Financial Cyber Crime

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 Insurers Recoil As Ransomware Attacks ‘Skyrocket’

The Great Fire of London helped forge the property insurance market, as residents feared a repeat of the savage destruction of 1666. In the absence of a state-backed fire service, some insurers even employed their own brigades, betting that limiting the damage to a property would be cheaper than rebuilding it. After a wave of high-profile cyber assaults, Graeme Newman, chief innovation officer at London-based insurance provider CFC, draws a parallel with today’s rapidly evolving market for cyber coverage. Insurance companies now provide emergency support services as well as financial compensation, so “the insurers own the digital fire trucks”, he said.

https://www.ft.com/content/4f91c4e7-973b-4c1a-91c2-7742c3aa9922

US Puts Cyber Crime On Par With Terror After Ransomware Attacks

The US government is raising the fight against cyber criminals to the same level as the battle against terrorists after a surge of ransomware attacks on large corporations. Internal guidance circulated by the Department of Justice instructs prosecutors to pool their information about hackers. The idea, said John Carlin, of the attorney-general’s office, is to “make the connections between actors and work your way up to disrupt the whole chain”.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/us-cybercrime-terror-ransomware-attacks-joe-biden-pzrqbkfwt

Russia Under Fire As Cyber Attack Leaves 7,000 Out Of Work

An attack this week on JBS meatworks in North America and Australia brought the firm to a standstill, and now threatens to turn into a diplomatic row with Russia. JBS are reported to supply 20% of the world meat market and the ransomware attack has left 7,000 workers unable to do their jobs.

https://www.afr.com/politics/russia-under-fire-as-ransomware-attack-leaves-7000-out-of-work-20210602-p57xha

Irish Health Service Confirms Data Of Nearly 520 Patients Is Online After Cyber Attack

The Health Service Executive (HSE) has confirmed the data of nearly 520 patients is online after media reports of their publication. In a statement, the HSE said the data contains correspondence with patients, minutes of meetings and includes sensitive patient data. The HSE also confirmed corporate documents are among the HSE data illegally accessed.  Confirmation of the authenticity of this data follows an analysis carried out by the agency and comments from the Minister for Communications, Eamon Ryan, that reports of patient data being shared online are "very credible".

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40301054.html

Enterprise Networks Vulnerable To 20-Year-Old Exploits

While the industry focuses on exotic attacks – like the SolarWinds incident — the real risk to enterprises comes from older exploits, some as much as 20-years old. “While organisations always need to keep up with the latest security patches, it is also vital to ensure older system and well-known vulnerabilities from years past are monitored and patched as well,” says Etay Maor, senior director of security strategy at Cato Networks. “Threat actors are attempting to take advantage of overlooked, vulnerable systems.” Our research showed that attackers often scanned for end-of-life and unsupported systems. Common Vulnerability and Exposures (CVE) identified were exploits targeting software, namely vSphere, Oracle WebLogic, and Big-IP, as well as routers with remote administration vulnerabilities.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/05/27/enterprise-networks-vulnerable/

US Authorities Seize Two Domains Used By SolarWinds Intruders For Malware Spear-Phishing Operation

Uncle Sam on Tuesday said it had seized two web domains used to foist malware on victims using spoofed emails from the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The domain takeovers, which occurred on Friday, followed a court order issued in the wake of a Microsoft report warning about the spear-phishing campaign. The phishing effort relied on malware-laden messages sent via marketing service Constant Contact. "Cyber intrusions and spear-phishing email attacks can cause widespread damage throughout affected computer networks, and can result in significant harm to individual victims, government agencies, NGOs, and private businesses,” said Acting US Attorney Raj Parekh for the Eastern District of Virginia, in a statement. "As demonstrated by the court-authorized seizure of these malicious domains, we are committed to using all available tools to protect the public and our government from these worldwide hacking threats."

https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/02/feds_seize_nobelium/

Hacker Group DarkSide Operates In A Similar Way To A Franchise

DarkSide, the hacker group behind the recent Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, has a business model that’s more familiar than people think, according to New York Times correspondent Andrew Kramer, “It operates something like a franchise, where individual hackers can come and receive the ransomware software and use it, as well as, use DarkSide’s reputation, as it were, to extract money from their targets, mostly in the United States,” Kramer said in an interview that aired Wednesday night.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/02/hacker-group-darksides-operates-in-a-similar-way-to-a-franchise-new-york-times-reporter-says.html?__source=sharebar|twitter&par=sharebar

Interpol Intercepts $83 Million Fighting Financial Cyber Crime

The Interpol (short for International Criminal Police Organisation) has intercepted $83 million belonging to victims of online financial crime from being transferred to the accounts of their attackers. Over 40 law enforcement officers specialized in fighting cyber crime across the Asia Pacific region took part in the Interpol-coordinated Operation HAECHI-I spanning more than six months. Between September 2020 and March 2021, law enforcement focused on battling five types of online financial crimes: investment fraud, romance scams, money laundering associated with illegal online gambling, online sextortion, and voice phishing.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/interpol-intercepts-83-million-fighting-financial-cyber-crime/

Is It Really The Wild West In Cyber Crime? Why We Need To Re-Examine Our Approach To Ransomware

Once again, cyber security has become a headline topic within and well outside technology circles, along with the little-known operator of a significant fuel pipeline: Colonial Pipeline. A ransomware attack, and ensuing panic buying of gasoline, resulted in widespread fuel shortages on the east coast, thrusting the issue of cyber security into the lives of everyday Americans. Colonial Pipeline CEO Joseph Blount later acknowledged that his company ultimately paid the cybercriminals $4.4 million to unlock company systems, generating a great deal of controversy around the simple question (and associated complex potential answers), of whether companies should pay when their systems are held hostage by ransomware.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/is-it-really-the-wild-west-in-cybercrime-why-we-need-to-re-examine-our-approach-to-ransomware/


Threats

Ransomware

Phishing

Other Social Engineering

Malware

Mobile

IOT

 Vulnerabilities

Data Breaches

Supply Chain

Nation State Actors

Privacy


Other News

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
Black Arrow Admin Black Arrow Admin

Cyber Briefing 23 October 2020: Ransomware Continues to Evolve; Infected IoT Up 100%; Brute Force Attacks Up with more Open RDP Ports; 40% Unsure on Mobile Phishing; Most Imitated Phishing Brands

Cyber Briefing 23 October 2020: Ransomware Variants Evolve as Crooks Chase Bigger Paydays; Infected IoT Surges 100% in a Year; Brute Force Attacks Up Due To More Open RDP Ports; 40% of Users Not Sure What Mobile Phishing Is; Microsoft Most Imitated Phishing Brand Q3 2020; DDoS Triples as Ransoms Re-Emerge; Exploited Chrome Bug Fixed; WordPress Forces Security Update; The Most Worrying Vulns Around Today

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.

Threats

Ransomware

This week has been busy with ransomware related news, including new charges against Russian state-sponsored hackers and numerous attacks against well-known organisations.

In 2017, there was an attack utilizing the NotPetya ransomware to destroy data on systems worldwide. This week, the US govt indicted six Russian intelligence operatives [source], known to be part of the notorious 'Sandworm' group, for hacking operations, including NotPetya.

Ransomware variants continue to evolve as crooks chase bigger paydays

The number of ransomware attacks which threaten to leak stolen data if the victim doesn't pay a ransom to get their encrypted files and servers back is growing – and this is being reflected in the changing nature of the cyber criminal market.

Analysis by cyber security researchers found that over the last three months – between July and September - 80 percent of ransomware attacks combined with data dumps were associated with four families of ransomware – Maze, Sodinokibi, Conti and Netwalker.

The period from April to June saw just three ransomware families account for 80 percent of alerts – DoppelPaymer, Maze and Sodinokibi.

The way DoppelPayer has dropped off and how Conti and NetWalker have suddenly emerged some of the most prolific threats shows how the ransomware space continues to evolve, partly because of how successful it has already become for the crooks behind it. [source]

Why this matters:

Maze was the first major family of ransomware to add threats of data breaches to their ransom demands and other ransomware operators have taken note – and stolen the additional extortion tactic.

There is an inherent competitive nature that has befallen the ransomware landscape. The saturated ransomware market pushes ransomware developers to cut through the noise and gain the best ransomware title and this drives more affiliates to carry out their work and, thus, more successful attacks to reach their goal: to make as much money as possible.

DoppelPaymer's activity has dropped over the last few months – although it still remains active - enabling Conti and NetWalker to grab a larger slice of the pie.

Notable ransomware victims of the last week

French IT giant Sopra Steria hit by Ryuk ransomware

French IT services giant Sopra Steria suffered a cyber attack on October 20th, 2020, that reportedly encrypted portions of their network with the Ryuk ransomware.

Sopra Steria is a European information technology company with 46,000 employees in 25 countries worldwide. The company provides a wide range of IT services, including consulting, systems integration, and software development.

The firm has said that the attack has hit all geographies where they operate and have said it will take them several weeks to recover.

Numerous sources have confirmed that it was Ryuk ransomware threat actors who were behind the attack. This hacking group is known for its TrickBot and BazarLoader infections that allow threat actors to access a compromised network and deploy the Ryuk or Conti ransomware infections.

BazarLoader is increasingly being used in Ryuk attacks against high-value targets due to its stealthy nature and is less detected than TrickBot by security software.

When installed, BazarLoader will allow threat actors to remotely access the victim's computer and use it to compromise the rest of the network.

After gaining access to a Windows domain controller, the attackers then deploy the Ryuk ransomware on the network to encrypt all of its devices, as illustrated in the diagram above. [Source1] [source2]

The Nefilim ransomware operators have posted a long list of files that appear to belong to Italian eyewear and eyecare giant Luxottica.

Luxottica Group S.p.A. is an Italian eyewear conglomerate and the world’s largest company in the eyewear industry (which owns brands including LensCrafters, Sunglass Hut, Apex by Sunglass Hut, Pearle Vision, Target Optical, Eyemed vision care plan, and Glasses.com. Its best known brands are Ray-Ban, Persol, and Oakley) and employs over 80,000 people and generated 9.4 billion in revenue for 2019.

The company was hit by a cyber attack and some of the web sites operated by the company were not reachable, including Ray-Ban, Sunglass Hut, LensCrafters, EyeMed, and Pearle Vision.

Reports indicate that the firm was using a Citrix ADX controller device vulnerable to a critical vulnerability and it is believed that a threat actor or actors exploited the above flaw to infect the systems at the company with ransomware. This appears to have subsequently confirmed with Nefilim ransomware operators having posted a long list of files that appear to belong to Luxottica. [source]

Why this matters:

The analysis of the leaked files revealed that they contain confidential information regarding the recruitment process, professional resumes, and info about the internal structures of the Group’s human resource department. The ransomware operators also published a message which accuses Luxottica of having failed the properly manage the attack.

In the past months, the number of ransomware attacks surged, numerous ransomware gangs made the headlines targeting organisations worldwide and threatening victims with releasing the stolen data if the ransom was not paid.

Extortion is the new thing in cyber crime right now, more so than in the past. Companies cannot hide the cyber attack anymore. Now it’s more about how to manage the breach from the communication perspective. Defending companies from these types of attacks becomes even more strategic: data leak damages can generate tremendous amount of costs for companies worldwide.

Other notable ransomware victims this week include:

  • Barnes & Noble hit by Egregor ransomware, strange data leaked [source]

  • Montreal's STM public transport system hit by ransomware attack [source]

  • WastedLocker ransomware hits US-based ski and golf resort operator Boyne Resorts (WastedLocker was the same one used in the attack on Garmin in July) [source]

Other Threats

Infected IoT Device Numbers Surge 100% in a Year

The volume of infected Internet of Things (IoT) devices globally has soared by 100% over the past year, according to new data from Nokia.

It revealed that infected IoT devices now comprise nearly a third (32.7%) of the total number of devices, up from 16.2% in the 2019 report.

Nokia argued that infection rates for connected devices depend dramatically upon the visibility of the devices on the internet.

In networks where devices are routinely assigned public facing internet IP addresses there is a higher infection rate. In networks where carrier grade NAT is used, the infection rate is considerably reduced, because the vulnerable devices are not visible to network scanning.

With the introduction of 5G well underway, it is expected that not only the number of IoT devices will increase dramatically, but also the share of IoT devices accessible directly from the internet will increase as well, and rates of infection rising accordingly. [source]

Brute force attacks increase due to more open RDP ports

While leaving your back door open while you are working from home may be something you do without giving it a second thought, having unnecessary ports open on your computer or on your corporate network is a security risk that is sometimes underestimated. That’s because an open port can be subject to brute force attacks.

A brute force attack is where an attacker tries every way he can think of to get in. Including throwing the kitchen sink at it. In cases where the method they are trying is to get logged in to your system, they will try endless combinations of usernames and passwords until a combination works.

Brute force attacks are usually automated, so it doesn’t cost the attacker a lot of time or energy. Certainly not as much as individually trying to figure out how to access a remote system. Based on a port number or another system specific property, the attacker picks the target and the method and then sets his brute force application in motion. He can then move on to the next target and will get notified when one of the systems has swallowed the hook.

RDP attacks are one of the main entry points when it comes to targeted ransomware operations. To increase effectiveness, ransomware attacks are getting more targeted and one of the primary attack vectors is the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). Remote desktop is exactly what the name implies, an option to remotely control a computer system. It almost feels as if you were actually sitting behind that computer. Which is exactly what makes an attacker with RDP access so dangerous. [source]

Why this matters:

Because of the current pandemic, many people are working from home and may be doing so for a while to come. Working from home has the side effect of more RDP ports being opened. Not only to enable the workforce to access company resources from home, but also to enable IT staff to troubleshoot problems on the workers’ devices. A lot of enterprises rely on tech support teams using RDP to troubleshoot problems on employee’s systems.

But ransomware, although prevalent, is not the only reason for these types of attacks. Cyber criminals can also install keyloggers or other spyware on target systems to learn more about the organization they have breached. Other possible objectives might be data theft, espionage, or extortion.


Phishing

Two in five employees are not sure what a mobile phishing attack is

The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly changed the way people work and accelerated the already growing remote work trend. This has also created new security challenges for IT departments, as employees increasingly use their own personal devices to access corporate data and services.

These changes, where employees, IT infrastructures, and customers are everywhere – has led to employees not prioritising security in their new world of work, and the current distributed remote work environment has also triggered a new threat landscape, with malicious actors increasingly targeting mobile devices with phishing attacks.

A new study looking at the impact that lockdown has had on employees working habits polled 1,200 workers across the US, UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Australia, and New Zealand showed that many employees were unaware of how to identify and avoid a phishing attack, and over two in five (43%) of employees are not even sure what a phishing attack is. [source]

Microsoft is Most Imitated Brand for Phishing Attempts in Q3 2020

The latest Check Point ‘Q3 Brand Phishing Report’, highlighting the brands that hackers imitated the most to lure people into giving up personal data, reveals the brands which were most frequently imitated by criminals in their attempts to steal individuals’ personal information or payment credentials during July, August and September.

In Q3, Microsoft was the most frequently targeted brand by cyber criminals, soaring from fifth place (relating to 7% of all brand phishing attempted globally in Q2 of 2020) to the top of the ranking. 19% of all brand phishing attempts related to the technology giant, as threat actors sought to capitalise on large numbers of employees still working remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic. For the first time in 2020, DHL entered the top 10 rankings, taking the second spot with 9% of all phishing attempts related to the company. [source]

Top phishing brands in Q3 2020

  • Microsoft (19%)

  • DHL (9%)

  • Google (9%)

  • PayPal (6%)

  • Netflix (6%)

  • Facebook (5%)

  • Apple (5%)

  • Whatsapp (5%)

  • Amazon (4%)

  • Instagram (4%)

Phishing Lures Shifting from COVID-19 updates to Job Opportunities

Researchers are seeing a pivot in the spear-phishing and phishing lures used by cybercriminals, to entice potential job candidates as businesses start to open up following the pandemic.

Cyber criminals cashed in on the surge of COVID-19 earlier this year, with email lures purporting to be from healthcare professionals offering more information about the pandemic. However, as the year moves forward, bad actors are continuing to swap up their attacks and researchers are now seeing ongoing email based attacks that tap into new job opportunities as businesses start to open up. [source]

Denial of Service Attacks

DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) Attacks Triple in Size as Ransom Demands Re-Emerge

The last quarter of 2020 has seen a wave of web application attacks which have used ransom letters to target businesses across a number of industries.

According to research from Akamai, the largest of these attacks sent over 200Gbps of traffic at their targets as part of a sustained campaign of higher Bits Per Second (BPS) and Packets Per Second (PPS) than similar attacks had displayed a few weeks prior.

Prior to August most of these attacks were targeting the gaming industry but since then these attacks abruptly swung to financial organisations, and later in the cycle, multiple other verticals.

Akamai explained that none of the vectors involved in these series of attacks were new, as most of the traffic was generated by reflectors and systems that were used to amplify traffic. However, multiple organisations began to receive targeted emails with threats of DDoS attacks, where this would be launched unless a ransom amount was paid. A small DDoS would be made against the company to show that the attackers were serious, and then there was a threat of a 1Tbps attack if payment was not made.

Many extortion DDoS campaigns start as a threat letter, and never progress beyond that point but this this campaign has seen frequent ‘sample’ attacks that prove to the target that criminals have the capability to make life difficult.

Many of the extortion emails ended up being caught by spam filters, and not all targets are willing to admit they’ve received an email from the attackers.

Why this matters:

This extortion DDoS campaign is not over and the criminals behind this campaign are changing and evolving their attacks in order to throw off defenders and the law enforcement agencies that are working to track them down.


Vulnerabilities

New Google Chrome version fixes actively exploited zero-day bug

Google released Chrome 86.0.4240.111 this week to address five security vulnerabilities, one of which is being actively exploited.

The announcement from Google stated they they were aware of reports that an exploit for CVE-2020-15999 exists in the wild.

This new version of Chrome started rolling out to the entire userbase. Users on Windows, Mac, and Linux desktop users can upgrade to Chrome 86 by going to Settings -> Help -> About Google Chrome.

The Google Chrome web browser will then automatically check for the new update and install it when available.

Adobe releases another out-of-band patch, squashing critical bugs across creative software

Adobe has released a second out-of-band security update to patch critical vulnerabilities across numerous software products.

The patch, released outside of the tech giant's typical monthly security cycle, impacts Adobe Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Marketo, Animate, After Effects, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Media Encoder, InDesign, and the Creative Cloud desktop application on Windows and macOS machines.

The vulnerabilities across the different products variously could result in privilege escalation, cross-site scripting (XSS), which could be weaponised to deploy malicious JavaScript in a browser session, or otherwise could result in arbitrary code execution.

Last week, Adobe released a separate set of out-of-band security fixes impacting the Magento platform. On October 15, Adobe said the patch resolved nine vulnerabilities, eight of which are critical -- including a bug that could be abused to tamper with Magento customer lists. [source]

WordPress deploys forced security update for dangerous bug in popular plugin

The WordPress security team has taken a rare step last week and used a lesser-known internal capability to forcibly push a security update for a popular plugin called Loginizer, which provides security enhancements for the WordPress login page, but that was found to contain a dangerous SQL injection bug that could have allowed hackers to take over WordPress sites running older versions of the plugin. [source]

Why this matters:

Remote attackers to run code against the WordPress database — in what is referred to as an unauthenticated SQL injection attack.

These are the most worrying vulnerabilities around today

Failure to patch once again leaves organisations open to attacks

The US National Security Agency (NSA) has published a new cyber security advisory in which it details 25 of the most dangerous vulnerabilities actively being exploited in the wild by Chinese state-sponsored hackers and other cyber criminals.

Unlike zero-day vulnerabilities where hardware and software makers have yet to release a patch, all of the vulnerabilities in the NSA's advisory are well-known and patches have been made available to download from their vendors. However, the problem lies in the fact that organisations have yet to patch their systems, leaving them vulnerable to potential exploits and attacks.

The NSA provided further details on the nature of the vulnerabilities in its advisory while urging organisations to patch them immediately.

Most of the vulnerabilities listed below can be exploited to gain initial access to victim networks using products that are directly accessible from the Internet and act as gateways to internal networks. The majority of the products are either for remote access or for external web services and should be prioritised for immediate patching. The full list can be found here.

The first bug in the list, tracked as CVE-2019-11510, relates to Pulse Secure VPN servers and how an unauthenticated remote attacker can expose keys or passwords by sending a specially crafted URI to perform an arbitrary file reading vulnerability.

Another notable bug from the list, tracked as CVE-2020-5902, affects the Traffic Management User Interface (TMUI) of F5 BIG-IP proxies and load balancers and it is vulnerable to a Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability that if exploited, could allow a remote attacker to take over an entire BIG-IP device.

The Citrix Application Delivery Controller (ADC) and Gateway systems are vulnerable to a directory traversal bug, tracked as CVE-2019-19781, that can lead to remote code execution where an attacker does not need to possess valid credentials for the device.

The advisory also mentions BlueKeep, SigRed, Netlogon, CurveBall and other more well-known vulnerabilities.

To avoid falling victim to any potential attacks exploiting these vulnerabilities, the NSA recommends that organisations keep their systems and products updated and patched as soon as possible after vendors release them. [source]


Miscellaneous Cyber News of the Weeks

Hackers Can Clone Millions of Toyota, Hyundai, and Kia Keys

Owners of cars with keyless start systems have learned to worry about so-called relay attacks, in which hackers exploit radio-enabled keys to steal vehicles without leaving a trace. Now it turns out that many millions of other cars that use chip-enabled mechanical keys are also vulnerable to high-tech theft. A few cryptographic flaws combined with a little old-fashioned hot-wiring—or even a well-placed screwdriver—lets hackers clone those keys and drive away in seconds.

Researchers this week revealed new vulnerabilities in the encryption systems used by immobilisers, the radio-enabled devices inside of cars that communicate at close range with a key fob to unlock the car's ignition and allow it to start. Specifically, they found problems in how Toyota, Hyundai, and Kia implement their encryption system. A hacker who swipes a relatively inexpensive RFID reader/transmitter device near the key fob of any affected car can gain enough information to derive its secret cryptographic value. That, in turn, would allow the attacker to spoof the device to impersonate the key inside the car, disabling the immobiliser and letting them start the engine.

The researchers say the affected car models include the Toyota Camry, Corolla, and RAV4; the Kia Optima, Soul, and Rio; and the Hyundai I10, I20, and I40, amongst others. [source]


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