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Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 10 June 2022

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 10 June 2022

-Business Email Compromise (BEC) Attacks Have Risen 53% Year-Over-Year

-Ransomware Attacks Setting New Records

-Hackers Are Now Hiding Inside Networks for Longer. That's Not a Good Sign

-Paying Ransomware Paints Bigger Bullseye on Target’s Back

-Organisations Fix Only 1 in 10 Vulnerabilities Monthly

-Cyber Attack Surface "Spiralling Out of Control"

-Phishing Hits All-Time High in Q1 2022

-Ransomware's ROI Retreat Will Drive More BEC Attacks

-The Real Cost of Cyber Attacks: What Organisations Should Be Prepared For

-Why Smishing and Vishing Attempts Surged In 2021?

-Know Your Enemy! Learn How Cyber Crime Adversaries Get In…

-Small Businesses Struggle with an Increase in Cyber Attacks

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

Top Cyber Stories of the Last Week

  • Business Email Compromise (BEC) Attacks Have Risen 53% Year-Over-Year

Armorblox released a report which highlights the use of language-based attacks that bypass existing email security controls. The report uncovers how the continued increase in remote working has made critical business workflows even more vulnerable to new forms of email-based attacks, often resulting in financial fraud or credential theft.

Language-based attacks have become the new normal for business email compromise (BEC) with 74% of these attacks using language as the main attack vector.

Security teams spend a massive amount of time configuring rules and exceptions in their email security solutions to block impersonation emails – both for executives and other employees. Despite all of that manual work and rule writing, 70% of impersonation emails evaded email security controls.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/06/06/language-based-attacks-email-video/

  • Ransomware Attacks Setting New Records

Zscaler released the findings of its annual ThreatLabz Ransomware Report, which revealed an 80 percent increase in ransomware attacks year-over-year.

In 2022, the most prevalent ransomware trends include double-extortion, supply chain attacks, ransomware-as-a-service, ransomware rebranding, and geo-political incited ransomware attacks. The report details which industries are being targeted the most by cyber criminals, explains the damage caused by double-extortion and supply chain attacks, and catalogues the most active ransomware groups operating today.

Modern ransomware attacks require a single successful asset compromise to gain initial entry, move laterally, and breach the entire environment, making legacy VPN and flat networks extremely vulnerable. Attackers are finding success exploiting weaknesses across businesses’ supply chains as well as critical vulnerabilities like Log4Shell, PrintNightmare, and others. And with ransomware-as-a-service available on the darkweb, more and more criminals are turning to ransomware, realising that the odds of receiving a big payday are high.

The tactics and scope of ransomware attacks have been steadily evolving, but the end goal continues to be a disruption of the target organisation and theft of sensitive information for the purposes of ransom. The size of the ransom often depends on the number of systems infected and the value of the data stolen: the higher the stakes, the higher the payment. In 2019, many ransomware groups updated their tactics to include data exfiltration, commonly referred to as a ‘double extortion’ ransomware.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/06/07/ransomware-attacks-increase/

  • Hackers Are Now Hiding Inside Networks for Longer. That's Not a Good Sign

Cyber criminals are spending more time inside networks before they're discovered, and that's allowing them to do more damage.

The amount of time cyber criminal intruders are spending inside victims' networks is increasing, providing them with the ability to carry out higher complexity campaigns and more damaging cyber attacks.

According to analysis by cyber security researchers at Sophos, who examined incidents targeting organisations around the world and across a wide range of industry sectors, the median dwell time that cyber criminals spend inside compromised networks is now 15 days, up from 11 days the previous year.

Dwell time is the amount of time hackers are inside the network before they're discovered or before they leave – and being able to spend an increased amount of time inside a compromised network undetected means they're able to more carefully conduct malicious activity, such as monitoring users, stealing data or laying the foundations for a malware or ransomware attack.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/hackers-are-now-hiding-inside-networks-for-longer-thats-not-a-good-sign/

  • Paying Ransomware Paints Bigger Bullseye on Target’s Back

Ransomware attackers often strike targets twice, regardless of whether the ransom was paid.

Paying ransomware attackers doesn’t pay off and often paints a bigger target on a victim’s back. Eighty percent of ransomware victims that paid their attackers were hit a second time by the malware scourge.

New ransomware numbers come from a Cybereason’s April ransomware survey of 1,456 cyber security professionals. According to the gated report (registration required), victims that were successfully extorted were not only targeted a second time, but frequently data encrypted by criminals later became unusable during the decryption process because of corruption issues.

The fact that ransomware gangs strike so quickly a second and third time isn’t surprising, because they will try to profit in any possible way so why not hit the same company, demand a higher ransom, and get paid again?

https://threatpost.com/paying-ransomware-bullseye-back/179915/

  • Organisations Fix Only 1 in 10 Vulnerabilities Monthly

New research from SecurityScorecard features a couple of eye-popping “only” findings: Only 10 percent of vulnerabilities are remediated each month, and only 60 percent of companies have improved their security profile despite a 15-fold increase in the number of cyber incidents in the last three years.

That’s not good. The research, which sought to measure how long it took the 1.6 million organisations assessed to remediate vulnerabilities in the three-year period from 2019 to 2022, also found the following:

·       53% had at least one exposed vulnerability to the internet, while 22% of organisations amassed more than 1,000 vulnerabilities each, confirming more progress is required to protect organisations’ critical assets.

·       The financial sector is among the slowest remediation rates (median to fix 50% = 426 days), while utilities ranked among the fastest (median = 270 days).

·       Despite a 15-fold increase in exploitation activity for vulnerabilities with published exploit code, there was little evidence that organisations in the financial sector fixed exploited flaws faster.

·       The IT sector (62.6%) and public sector (61.6%) had the highest prevalence of open vulnerabilities.

·       The financial sector (48.6%) exhibited the lowest proportion of open vulnerabilities; however, there is less than a 10% difference between this and other sectors in terms of industries with the most open vulnerabilities.

·       It typically takes organisations 12 months to remediate half of the vulnerabilities in their internet-facing infrastructure.

·       When firms have fewer than 10 open vulnerabilities, it can take about a month to close just half of them, but when the list grows into the hundreds, it takes up to a year to reach the halfway point.

https://www.msspalert.com/cybersecurity-research/organizations-fix-only-1-in-10-vulnerabilities-monthly/

  • Cyber Attack Surface "Spiralling Out of Control"

Global organisations are still beset with cyber visibility and control challenges, with two-fifths (43%) admitting their digital attack surface is out of control as a result, according to new Trend Micro research.

The security vendor polled over 6200 IT and business decision-makers to compile its new study, ‘Mapping the digital attack surface: Why global organisations are struggling to manage cyber risk’.

It revealed that nearly three-quarters (73%) are concerned about the increasing size of their attack surface. Over a third (37%) said it is “constantly evolving and messy,” and just half (51%) thought they were able to fully define its extent.

These visibility challenges are greatest in cloud environments, although problems persist across the board. The report highlights complex supply chains, tool bloat and home working-driven shadow IT as additional contributory factors.

On average, respondents estimated having just 62% visibility of their attack surface.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/cyberattack-surface-out-of-control/

  • Phishing Hits All-Time High in Q1 2022

The first quarter of 2022 saw phishing attacks hit a record high, topping one million for the first time, according to data from the Anti Phishing Working Group (APWG).

The industry, law enforcement and government coalition’s new Phishing Activity Trends Report also revealed that March was the worst month on record for phishing, with 384,291 attacks detected.

The financial sector was the worst hit, accounting for 24% of all detected attacks, although webmail and SaaS providers were also popular targets.

Attacks spoofing retailers dropped 17% from the previous quarter to 15% following the busy holiday shopping season, while those against social media services rose significantly, from nearly 9% percent of all attacks to 13% over the same period.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/phishing-hits-all-time-high-q1/

  • Ransomware's ROI Retreat Will Drive More BEC Attacks

Law enforcement crackdowns, tighter cryptocurrency regulations, and ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operator shutdowns are driving down the return on investment for ransomware operations across the globe.

A presentation at the RSA Conference last week laid out analysis of the ransomware threat landscape, predicting that there will be a pivot from ransomware toward renewed interest in basic business email compromise (BEC) attacks in the next 6 to 12 months.

Ransomware attacks grab headlines and have been supercharged by a few prolific RaaS operators, but crackdowns on just one group can make an enormous dent.

Ransomware is a centralised ecosystem with small numbers of operators responsible for the majority of attacks.

The recent disappearance of Pysa, left just two groups, Conti and Lockbit, with more than 50% of the share of the total ransomware attacks in the first half of 2022. BEC groups, on the other hand, are diffuse and scattered, making them much harder to eradicate.

Although they're not as quick to make the headlines, BEC attacks have cost business more than $43 billion since 2016, according to the FBI, and make up $1 out of every $3 lost to cyber attacks, far outpacing ransomware losses.

Ransomware has had a moment over the past couple of years, in part because once threat actors were able to abandon arcane wire transfers to collect ransoms and rely on cryptocurrency, caps on transactions were lifted and it became simple to collect much larger amounts. But new crypto regulations are chilling the ability of these cyber criminals to rely on its infrastructure to do business, adding "friction" to the transactions.

BEC attacks, by comparison, rely on social engineering to corrupt a business's financial supply chain to get employees to willingly part with the cash, making them exponentially harder to track and stop. 

https://www.darkreading.com/threat-intelligence/retreat-of-ransomware-roi-will-drive-bec-attacks-analyst-warns

  • The Real Cost of Cyber Attacks: What Organisations Should Be Prepared For

With each passing year, hackers and cyber criminals of all kinds are becoming more sophisticated, malicious, and greedy conducting brazen and often destructive cyber-attacks that can severely disrupt a company’s business operations. And this is a big problem, because, first and foremost, customers rely on a company’s ability to deliver services or products in a timely manner. Cyber attacks not only can affect customers’ data, but they can impact service delivery.

Data breaches and costs associated with them have been on the rise for the past few years, but, according to a 2021 report, the average cost per breach increased from $3.86 million in 2020 to $4.24 million in 2021. The report also identified four categories contributing most global data breach costs – Lost business cost (38%), Detection and escalation (29%), Post breach response (27%), and Notification (6%).

Ransomware attacks cost an average of $4.62 million (the cost of a ransom is not included), and destructive wiper-style attacks cost an average of $4.69 million, the report said.

For a business, a data breach is not just a loss of data, it can also have a long-lasting impact on operations and undermine customers’ trust in the company. In fact, a survey revealed that 87% of consumers are willing to take their business elsewhere if they don’t trust a company is handling their data responsibly. Therefore, the reputational damage might be detrimental to a business’ ability to attract new customers.

https://informationsecuritybuzz.com/articles/the-real-cost-of-cyber-attacks-what-organizations-should-be-prepared-for/

  • Why Smishing and Vishing Attempts Surged In 2021

In The Human Factor Report 2022, security vendor Proofpoint found that SMS phishing (smishing) attacks more than doubled year-on-year in 2021. The report is based on their analysis of over 2.6 billion email messages, 49 billion URLs, 1.9 billion attachments, 28 million cloud accounts and 1.7 billion mobile messages.

The study details the most common attack surfaces and methods including categories of risk, vulnerabilities, attacks, Russian Aligned APT’s, and Privilege as a vector.

Key Findings:

  • Managers and executives make up only 10% of users, but almost 50% of the most severe attack risk

  • Attackers attempt to initiate more than 100,000 telephone-oriented attacks every day.

  • Malicious URLS are 3-4x more common than malicious attachments.

  • Smishing attempts more than doubled in the US over the year, while in the UK over 50% of lures are themed around delivery notification.

  • More than 20 million messages attempted to deliver malware linked to eventual ransomware attack

  • Data loss prevention alerts have stabilised as businesses adopt permanent hybrid work models.

  • 80% of businesses are attacked by a compromised supplier account in any given month.

  • 35% of cloud tenants that received a suspicious login also saw suspicious post-access activity.

https://informationsecuritybuzz.com/expert-comments/why-smishing-and-vishing-attempts-surged-in-2021/

  • Know Your Enemy! Learn How Cyber Crime Adversaries Get In…

Cyber security vendor Sophos dug into the incident reports of 144 real-life cyber attacks investigated by its Rapid Response team during 2021.

What they found might not surprise you, but it’s vital information nevertheless, because it’s what really happened, not merely what might have.

Notably:

  • Unpatched vulnerabilities were the entry point for close to 50% of the attackers.

  • Attackers stuck around for more than a month on average when ransomware wasn’t their primary goal.

  • Attackers were known to have stolen data in about 40% of incidents. (Not all data thefts can be proved, of course, given that there isn’t a gaping hole where your copy of the data used to be, so the true number could be much higher.)

  • RDP was abused to circumnavigate the network by more than 80% of attackers once they’d broken in.

Intriguingly, if perhaps unsurprisingly, the smaller the organisation, the longer the crooks had generally been in the network before anyone noticed and decided it was time to kick them out.

In businesses with 250 staff and below, the crooks stuck around (in the jargon, this is known by the quaintly archaic automotive metaphor of dwell time) for more than seven weeks on average.

This compared with an average dwell time of just under three weeks for organisations with more than 3000 employees.

As you can imagine, however, ransomware criminals typically stayed hidden for much shorter periods (just under two weeks, instead of just over a month), not least because ransomware attacks are inherently self-limiting.

After all, once ransomware crooks have scrambled all your data, they’re out of hiding and straight into their in-your-face blackmail phase.

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2022/06/07/know-your-enemy-learn-how-cybercrime-adversaries-get-in/

  • Small Businesses Struggle with an Increase in Cyber Attacks

Part of the problem: They don’t believe they are targets, so they don’t make security a priority. Cyber attacks are becoming more common for small businesses, and many aren’t prepared to deal with an attack.

As small businesses have accelerated their adoption of new technologies for remote work, communication, production and sales during the pandemic, their expanded computer networks have created new vulnerabilities to phishing and ransomware attacks. But many small businesses still don’t expect to be targeted by hackers, so preparing for a cyber attack is well down their list of priorities.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/small-business-cyberattacks-increase-11654540786


Threats

Ransomware

BEC – Business Email Compromise

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

Other Social Engineering

Malware

Mobile

IoT

Data Breaches/Leaks

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking/NFTs

Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime

AML/CFT/Sanctions

Insurance

Dark Web

Software Supply Chain

Denial of Service DoS/DDoS

Cloud/SaaS

Attack Surface Management

Open Source

Privacy

Parental Controls and Child Safety

Law Enforcement Action and Take Downs

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.

Read More
Black Arrow Admin Black Arrow Admin

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 17 September 2021

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 17 September 2021

-Ransomware Preparedness Is Low Despite Executives’ Concerns

-MSPs That Cannot Modernize Will Find Themselves And Their Clients Falling Behind

-Two-Thirds Of Cloud Attacks Could Be Stopped By Checking Configurations, Research Finds

-Open Source Software Cyber Attacks Increasing By 650%, Popular Projects More Vulnerable

-Third-Party Cloud Providers: Expanding The Attack Surface

-Ransomware Encrypts South Africa's Entire Dept Of Justice Network

-2021’s Most Dangerous Software Weaknesses

-46% Of All On-Prem Databases Are Vulnerable To Attack, Breaches Expected To Grow

-Most Fortune 500 Companies’ External IT Infrastructure Considered At Risk

-Thousands Of Internet-Connected Databases Contain High Or Critical Vulnerabilities

-Only 30% Of Enterprises Use Cloud Services With End to End Encryption For External File Sharing

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


Top Cyber Stories of the Last Week

Ransomware Preparedness Is Low Despite Executives’ Concerns

86.7% of C-suite and other executives say they expect the number of cyber attacks targeting their organisations to increase over the next 12 months, according to a recent poll conducted by researchers. While 64.8% of polled executives say that ransomware is a cyber threat posing major concern to their organisations over the next 12 months, only 33.3% say that their organisations have simulated ransomware attacks to prepare for such an incident. https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/09/15/ransomware-preparedness/

MSPs That Cannot Modernize Will Find Themselves And Their Clients Falling Behind

Researchers sought feedback from IT professionals to explore the performance of modern (and not-so-modern) managed service providers (MSPs). The survey found that even satisfactory MSPs are falling short in certain key areas: cloud strategy, security, and IT spending. https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/09/16/msps-falling-behind/

Two-Thirds Of Cloud Attacks Could Be Stopped By Checking Configurations, Research Finds

On Wednesday, researchers published its latest Cloud Security Threat Landscape report, spanning Q2 2020 through Q2 2021. According to the research, two out of three breached cloud environments observed by the tech giant "would likely have been prevented by more robust hardening of systems, such as properly implementing security policies and patching systems." https://www.zdnet.com/article/two-thirds-of-cloud-attacks-could-be-stopped-by-checking-configurations-research-finds/

Open Source Software Cyber Attacks Increasing By 650%, Popular Projects More Vulnerable

Researchers released a report that revealed continued strong growth in open source supply and demand dynamics. Further, with regard to open source security risks, the report reveals a 650% year over year increase in supply chain attacks aimed at upstream public repositories, and a fascinating dichotomy pertaining to the level of known vulnerabilities present in popular and non-popular project versions. https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/09/17/open-source-cyberattacks/

Third-Party Cloud Providers: Expanding The Attack Surface

In the era of digital transformation, which is essentially an organisation’s way of stating they are increasing their reliance on cloud-based services—enterprises’, digital landscapes are more interconnected than ever before. This means that the company you buy a technology function from may have downstream third-party providers that enable plumbing, infrastructure and development technology that drive their business. With modern computing environments moving further away from the enterprise, the safety assumption paradigm is shifting. This has impacted the threat landscape because as organisations increase migration to the cloud (a third party), they must now consider that these newly onboarded third parties may have serious security issues that could present adversaries with opportunities to infiltrate your network. https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/09/13/third-party-cloud-providers/

Ransomware Encrypts South Africa's Entire Dept Of Justice Network

The justice ministry of the South African government is working on restoring its operations after a recent ransomware attack encrypted all its systems, making all electronic services unavailable both internally and to the public. As a consequence of the attack, the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development said that child maintenance payments are now on hold until systems are back online. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/ransomware-encrypts-south-africas-entire-dept-of-justice-network/

2021’s Most Dangerous Software Weaknesses

Researchers recently updated a list of the top 25 most dangerous software bugs, and it’s little surprise that a number of them have been on that list for years. The Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) list represents vulnerabilities that have been widely known for years, yet are still being coded into software and being bypassed by testing. Both developers and testers presumably know better by now, but keep making the same mistakes in building applications. https://threatpost.com/2021-angerous-software-weaknesses/169458/

46% Of All On-Prem Databases Are Vulnerable To Attack, Breaches Expected To Grow

A five-year longitudinal study comprising nearly 27,000 scanned databases discovered that the average database contains 26 existing vulnerabilities. 56% of the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) found were ranked as ‘High’ or ‘Critical’ severity, aligned with guidelines from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This indicates that many organisations are not prioritizing the security of their data and neglecting routine patching exercises. Based on Imperva scans, some CVEs have gone unaddressed for three or more years. https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/09/15/on-prem-databases-vulnerable/

Most Fortune 500 Companies’ External IT Infrastructure Considered At Risk

Nearly three quarters of Fortune 500 companies’ IT infrastructure exists outside their organisation, a quarter of which was found to have a known vulnerability that threat actors could infiltrate to access sensitive employee or customer data, as research reveal. https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/09/15/external-it-infrastructure-risk/

Thousands Of Internet-Connected Databases Contain High Or Critical Vulnerabilities

After spending five years poring over port scan results, researchers reckon there's about 12,000 vulnerability-containing databases accessible through the internet. The study also found that of the 46 per cent of 27,000 databases scanned, just over half that number contained "high" or "critical" vulns as defined by their CVE score. https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/14/imperva_12k_database_vuln_report/

Only 30% Of Enterprises Use Cloud Services With End to End Encryption For External File Sharing

A recent study of enterprise IT security decision makers conducted by researchers shows that majority of enterprises use additional encryption methods to boost the security of cloud collaboration and file transfer, however, tools with built-in end-to-end encryption are still less frequent despite the growing popularity of this privacy and security enhancing technology. https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/09/13/external-file-sharing/


Threats

Ransomware

BEC

Phishing

Other Social Engineering

Malware

Mobile

IOT

Vulnerabilities

Data Breaches/Leaks

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

Cryptocurrency/Cryptojacking

DoS/DDoS

Nation State Actors

Cloud



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 16 July 2021

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 16 July 2021: 84% Of Orgs Experienced Phishing Or Ransomware Attacks In The Last Year; Phishing continues to be one of the easiest paths for ransomware; Only Half Of Orgs Can Defend Against Ransomware; MI5 Chief Warns Public Of Cyber-Threat From Hostile States Such As China & Russia; Almost All Orgs Suffered Insider Data Breaches; Cyber Crime Costs Orgs Nearly $1.79 Million Per Minute; Sonicwall Releases Urgent Notice About 'Imminent' Ransomware Targeting Firmware; Google Finds Zero-Day Security Flaws In All Your Favourite Browsers

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

 84% Of Organisations Experienced Phishing Or Ransomware Attacks In The Last Year

A new report from Trend Micro has found that 84% of organisations have reported phishing or ransomware security incidents in the last 12 months.

The findings come from an Osterman Research study commissioned by Trend Micro that was compiled from interviews with cyber security professionals in midsize and large organisations nationwide. The research also found that half of organisations are not effective at countering phishing and ransomware threats.

https://www.itpro.co.uk/security/ransomware/360191/84-of-organizations-experienced-phishing-or-ransomware-attacks-in-last

 

Phishing continues to be one of the easiest paths for ransomware

Ransomware gangs are still using phishing as one of the main ways to attack an organisation, according to a new survey from Cloudian featuring the insights of 200 IT decision-makers who experienced a ransomware attack over the last two years.

More than half of all respondents have held anti-phishing training among employees, and 49% had perimeter defenses in place when they were attacked.

Nearly 25% of all survey respondents said their ransomware attacks started through phishing, and of those victims, 65% had conducted anti-phishing training sessions. For enterprises with fewer than 500 employees, 41% said their attacks started with phishing. About one-third of all victims said their public cloud was the entry point ransomware groups used to attack them.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/phishing-continues-to-be-one-of-the-easiest-paths-for-ransomware-report/

Ransomware: Only Half Of Organisations Can Effectively Defend Against Attacks, Warns Report

Around half of firms don't have the technology to prevent or detect ransomware attacks, according to research by cybersecurity company Trend Micro. It suggests that many organisations don't have the cybersecurity capabilities required to prevent ransomware attacks, such as the ability to detect phishing emails, remote desktop protocol (RDP) compromise or other common techniques deployed by cyber attackers during ransomware campaigns. 

For example, the report warns that many organisations struggle with detecting the suspicious activity associated with ransomware and attacks that could provide early evidence that cyber criminals have compromised the network. That includes failing to identify unusual lateral movement across corporate networks, or being able to spot unauthorised users gaining access to corporate data.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/ransomware-only-half-of-organisations-can-effectively-defend-against-attacks-warns-report/

MI5 Chief Warns Public Of Cyber-Threat From Hostile States Such As China & Russia

Head of Britain's MI5, Ken McCallum, is urging the public to be as vigilant about threats from "hostile states" as from terrorism.

These include disruptive cyber-attacks, misinformation, espionage and interference in politics - and are usually linked to Russia and China.

McCallum is warning that "less visible threats... have the potential to affect us all," affecting UK jobs and public services and could even lead to a loss of life.

The head of the Security Service wants to challenge the idea that activity by so-called "hostile states", usually taken to mean primarily Russia and China, only affects governments or certain institutions.

Instead, he is to argue in an annual threat update, that the British public are not immune to the "tentacles" of covert action by other states.

In the speech at MI5's Thames House headquarters, Mr McCallum will warn the "consequences range from frustration and inconvenience, through loss of livelihood, potentially up to loss of life".

https://eutoday.net/news/security-defence/2021/uk-mi5-chief-ken-mccallum-warns-public-of-cyber-threat-from-hostile-states-such-as-china-russia

Almost All Organisations Have Suffered Insider Data Breaches

Egress’ Insider Data Breach Survey 2021 claims that 94 percent of organisations have experienced insider data breaches in the last year. Human error was the top cause of serious incidents, according to 84 percent of IT leaders surveyed.

However, IT leaders are more concerned about malicious insiders, with 28 percent indicating that intentionally malicious behaviour is their biggest fear. Despite causing the most incidents, human error came bottom of the list, with just over one-fifth (21 percent) saying that it’s their biggest concern.

Additionally, almost three-quarters (74 percent) of organisations have been breached because of employees breaking security rules, and 73 percent have been the victim of phishing attacks.

The survey, independently conducted by Arlington Research on behalf of Egress, surveyed 500 IT leaders and 3,000 employees in the US and UK across vertical sectors including financial services, healthcare and legal.

https://workplaceinsight.net/almost-all-organisations-have-suffered-insider-data-breaches/

Cyber Crime Costs Organisations Nearly $1.79 Million Per Minute

Cybercrime costs organisations an incredible $1.79m every minute, according to RiskIQ’s 2021 Evil Internet Minute Report.

The study, which analysed the volume of malicious activity on the internet, laid bare the scale and damage of cyber-attacks in the past year, finding that 648 cyber-threats occurred every minute.

The researchers calculated that the average cost of a breach is $7.2 per minute, while the overall predicted cybersecurity spend is $280,060 every minute.

E-commerce has been heavily hit by online payment fraud in the past year, with cyber-criminals taking advantage of the shift to online shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the e-commerce industry saw a record $861.1bn in sales, it lost $38,052 to online payment fraud every minute.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/cybercrime-costs-orgs-per-minute/

Phishing, Ransomware Driving Wave of Data Breaches

Data compromises have increased every month this year except May.

If that trend continues, or even if there is only an average of 141 new compromises per month for the next six months, the total will still exceed the previous high of 1,632 breaches set in 2017.

These were among the findings of the nonprofit organization Identity Theft Resource Center’s (ITRC) latest data breach analysis report, which revealed publicly reported U.S. data breaches are up 38% in the second quarter of 2021, for a total of 491 compromises, compared to Q1.

https://securityboulevard.com/2021/07/phishing-ransomware-driving-wave-of-data-breaches/

Top CVEs Trending with Cybercriminals

An analysis of criminal forums reveal what publicly known vulnerabilities attackers are most interested in.

Criminal small talk in underground forums offer critical clues about which known Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) threat actors are most focused on. This, in turn, offers defenders clues on what to watch out for.

An analysis of such chatter, by Cognyte, examined 15 cybercrime forums between Jan. 2020 and March 2021. In its report, researchers highlight what CVEs are the most frequently mentioned and try to determine where attackers might strike next.

“Our findings revealed that there is no 100 percent correlation between the two parameters, since the top five CVEs that received the highest number of posts are not exactly the ones that were mentioned on the highest number of Dark Web forums examined,” the report said. “However, it is still enough to understand which CVEs were popular among threat actors on the Dark Web during the time examined.”

https://threatpost.com/top-cves-trending-with-cybercriminals/167889/

Sonicwall Releases Urgent Notice About 'Imminent' Ransomware Targeting Firmware

Networking device maker SonicWall sent out an urgent notice to its customers about "an imminent ransomware campaign using stolen credentials" that is targeting Secure Mobile Access (SMA) 100 series and Secure Remote Access (SRA) products running unpatched and end-of-life 8.x firmware.

In addition to the notice posted to its website, SonicWall sent an email to anyone using SMA and SRA devices, urging some to disconnect their devices immediately. They worked with Mandiant and other security companies on the issue, according to the release.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/sonicwall-releases-urgent-notice-about-imminent-ransomware-targeting-firmware/

Google Finds Zero-Day Security Flaws In All Your Favourite Browsers

Researchers at Google have shared insight into four zero-day security vulnerabilities in popular web browsers which were exploited in the wild earlier this year.

DIscovered by Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG), the four vulnerabilities in Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, and WebKit, the browser engine used by Apple's Safari, were used as a part of three different campaigns.

https://www.techradar.com/news/google-finds-zero-day-security-flaws-in-all-your-favorite-browsers


Threats

Ransomware

BEC

Phishing

Other Social Engineering

Malware

Mobile

Vulnerabilities

Data Breaches

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

Cryptocurrency/Cryptojacking

Insider Threats

Dark Web

Supply Chain

OT, ICS, IIoT and SCADA

Nation State Actors

Privacy

User Education, Awareness and Training



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 09 July 2021

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 09 July 2021: Hackers Demand $70 Million To End Biggest Ransomware Attack On Record; Zero Day Malware Reached An All-Time High In Q1 2021; New Trojan Malware Steals Millions Of Login Credentials; MacOS Targeted In WildPressure APT Malware Campaign; The Cost Of Cyber Insurance Increased 32% Last Year And Shows No Signs Of Easing; Critical Flaws In Windows Print Spooler Service Could Allow For Remote Attacks; British Airways Settles Over Record Claim For Data Breach; Hackers On Loose As 9,000 Data Leaks A Year Recorded

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

Hackers Demand $70 Million To End Biggest Ransomware Attack On Record

An affiliate of the notorious REvil gang, best known for extorting $11 million from the meat-processor JBS after a Memorial Day attack, infected thousands of victims in at least 17 countries on Friday, largely through firms that remotely manage IT infrastructure for multiple customers. REvil was demanding ransoms of up to $5 million, the researchers said. But late Sunday it offered in a posting on its dark web site a universal decryptor software key that would unscramble all affected machines in exchange for $70 million in crypto currency.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ransomware-attack-revil-hackers-demand-70-million/


Zero Day Malware Reached An All-Time High Of 74% In Q1 2021

74% of threats detected in Q1 2021 were zero day malware – or those for which a signature-based antivirus solution did not detect at the time of the malware release – capable of circumventing conventional antivirus solutions. The report also covers new threat intelligence on rising network attack rates, how attackers are trying to disguise and repurpose old exploits, the quarter’s top malware attacks, and more.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/06/29/zero-day-malware-q1-2021/


New Trojan Malware Steals Millions Of Login Credentials

There is a new custom Trojan-type malware that managed to infiltrate over three million Windows computers and steal nearly 26 million login credentials for about a million websites. The findings suggest that the Trojan classifies the websites into a dozen categories, which include virtually all popular email services, social media platforms, file storage and sharing services, ecommerce platforms, financial platforms, and more. In all, the unnamed malware managed to siphon away 1.2 terabytes of personal data including over a million unique email addresses, over two billion cookies, and more than six million other files.

https://www.techradar.com/news/malware-steals-millions-of-login-credentials-for-popular-websites


Ransomware As A Service: Negotiators Are Now In High Demand

The Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) ecosystem is evolving into something akin to a corporate structure, with new openings available for "negotiators" -- a role focused on extorting victims to pay a ransom. A study in RaaS trends has recently come out saying that one-man-band operations have almost "completely dissolved" due to the lucrative nature of the criminal ransomware business. Showing the potential financial gains squeezed from companies desperate to unlock their systems have given rise to specialists in cyber crime and extortion and have also led to a high demand for individuals to take over the negotiation part of an attack chain.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/ransomware-as-a-service-negotiators-between-hackers-and-victims-are-now-in-high-demand/


MacOS Targeted In WildPressure APT Malware Campaign

Recently, threat actors known as WildPressure have added a MacOS malware variant to their latest campaign targeting energy sector businesses, while enlisting compromised WordPress websites to carry out attacks. Furthermore, known novel malware, initially identified in March 2020 and dubbed Milum, has now been retooled with a PyInstaller bundle containing a trojan dropper compatible with Windows and MacOS systems, according to researchers. Compromised endpoints allow the advanced persistent threat (APT) group to download and upload files and executing commands.

https://threatpost.com/macos-wildpressure-apt/167606/


The Cost Of Cyber Insurance Increased 32% Last Year And Shows No Signs Of Easing

The cost of insurance to protect businesses and organisations against the ever-increasing threat of cyber crimes has soared by a third in the last year. Also adding that global cyber insurance pricing has increased by an average of 32 percent in the year to June. Not only are premiums going through the roof, insurers are also attaching more strings to their policies, demanding ever more assurances that firms taking out cover have the necessary systems and processes in place to prevent a cyber mishap. Previous research also suggests that the upward squeeze on premiums shows no sign of easing, which, in turn, is putting more strain on the sector.

https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/05/cyber_insurance_report/


Critical Flaws In Windows Print Spooler Service Could Allow For Remote Attacks

Administrators are urged to apply the latest patches from Microsoft and disable the Windows Print spooler service in domain controllers and systems not used for printing. This is because Microsoft is currently grappling with a couple of security holes in its Windows Print spooler service that could allow attackers to remotely control an affected system. Anyone able to exploit the more recent vulnerability of the two would be able to run code on the compromised computer with full system privileges. That attacker could then install software, modify data and create new user accounts.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/critical-flaws-in-windows-print-spooler-service-could-allow-for-remote-attacks/


End Users In The Dark About Latest Cyber Threats, Attacks

According to a recent survey, which polled consumers and end users, high-profile incidents such as the ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline Co. and the breach of a Florida city's water utilities were either overlooked or ignored by many outside the IT and information security fields. As a result, the responsibility for keeping users informed and aware of the need for heightened security appears to fall on administrators and IT staff.

https://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/news/252503223/End-users-in-the-dark-about-latest-cyber-threats-attacks


British Airways Settles Over Record Claim For Data Breach

British Airways has settled what is thought to be the biggest claim for a data breach in British legal history, involving 16,000 victims. However, the amount was not disclosed. When The breach took place three years ago, multiple data sources and customer data was leaked, including the leakage of names, addresses and card payment details which affected 420,000 customers and staff. As a result, in 2019 the Information Commissioner’s Office hit BA with its largest ever fine at £20 million.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/british-airways-settles-over-record-claim-for-data-breach-g0f63dnst


Hackers On Loose As 9,000 Data Leaks A Year Recorded

Public bodies and the private sector suffered nearly 9,000 data security incidents in 12 months with sensitive and private information hacked, lost or accidentally given to the wrong people. This Data was seen to lists more than 500 organisations hit by ransomware attacks and a further 562 incidents of hacking. There was also a total of 8,815 data security incidents in 2020/21 with the most breaches in the health and education sectors. Furthermore, over the past three years, police forces across England and Wales suffered an average eight breaches a week. Even security experts announced that these figures were “alarming” and that the public would be “disturbed” to learn how often important information/data was being lost.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hackers-9000-data-leaks-recorded-cyber-crime-56nvs7t6w


Threats

Ransomware

Phishing

Malware

Vulnerabilities

Data Breaches

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

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 02 July 2021

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 02 July 2021: Russian Hackers Target IT Supply Chain In Ransomware Attack Leading To Hundreds Of Firms Being Hit; 71% Of Orgs Experienced BEC Attacks Over The Past Year; Cyber Insurance Making Ransomware Crisis Worse; Breach Exposes 92% Of LinkedIn Users; Users Clueless About Cyber Security Risks; Paying Ransoms Make You A Bigger Target; Cyber Crime Never Sleeps; Classified MOD Docs Found At Bus Stop; Don’t Leave Your Cyber IR Plan To IT, It’s An Organisational Risk

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


Top Cyber Stories of the Last Week


Russian Hackers Target IT Supply Chain In Ransomware Attack Leading To Hundreds Of Firms Being Hit

Hackers began a ransomware attack on Friday, hitting at least 200 companies, according to cyber security researchers. 

In what appears to be one of the largest supply chain attacks to date, hackers compromised Kaseya, an IT management software supplier, in order to spread ransomware to the managed service providers that use its technology, as well as to their clients in turn. 

The attacks have been attributed t=to REvil, the notorious Russia-linked ransomware cartel that the FBI claimed was behind recent crippling attack on beef supplier JBS. 

The attack is the latest example of hackers weaponising the IT supply chain in order to attack victims at scale, by breaching just one provider. Last year, it emerged that Russian state-backed hackers had hijacked the SolarWinds IT software group in order to penetrate the email networks of US federal agencies and corporations, for example. 

Late on Friday, Kaseya urged those using the compromised “VSA server” tool, which provides remote monitoring and patching capabilities, to shut it down immediately. 

https://www.ft.com/content/a8e7c9a2-5819-424f-b087-c6f2e8f0c7a1


71% Of Organisations Experienced BEC Attacks Over The Past Year

Business email compromise (BEC) attacks are one of the most financially damaging cyber crimes and have been on the rise over the past year. This is according to a new report which revealed that spoofed email accounts or websites accounted for the highest number of BEC attack as 71% of organisations acknowledged they had seen one over the past year. This is followed by spear phishing (69%) and malware (24%). Data from 270 IT and cyber security professionals were collected to identify the latest enterprise adoption trends, gaps and solution preferences related to phishing attacks.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/06/25/bec-attacks-past-year/


Cyber Insurance Isn't Helping With Cyber Security, And It Might Be Making The Ransomware Crisis Worse, Say Researchers

Cyber insurance is designed to protect organisations against the fallout of cyber attacks, including covering the financial costs of dealing with incidents. However, some critics argue that insurance encourages ransomware victims to simply pay the ransom demand that will then be covered by the insurers, rather than have adequate security to deter hackers in the first place. Insurers argue that it's the customer that makes any decision to pay the ransom, not the insurer.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/ransomware-has-become-anc`-existential-threat-that-means-cyber-insurance-is-about-to-change/


LinkedIn Breach Reportedly Exposes Data Of 92% Of Users, Including Inferred Salaries

A second massive LinkedIn breach reportedly exposes the data of 700M users, which is more than 92% of the total 756M users. The database is for sale on the dark web, with records including phone numbers, physical addresses, geolocation data, and inferred salaries. The hacker who obtained the data has posted a sample of 1M records, and checks confirm that the data is both genuine and up to date. No passwords are included, but as the site notes, this is still valuable data that can be used for identity theft and convincing-looking phishing attempts that can themselves be used to obtain login credentials for LinkedIn and other sites. https://9to5mac.com/2021/06/29/linkedin-breach/


Users Clueless About Cyber Security Risks

Organisations are facing yet another unprecedented threat to their cyber security now that employees are headed back into offices with their personal devices, lax security hygiene and no clue about some of the most catastrophic attacks in history, such as the Colonial Pipeline shutdown. A new survey shows the mountains of work ahead for security teams in not just locking down their organisations’ systems but also in keeping users from getting duped into handing over the keys to the kingdom. 2,000 end users were surveyed in the U.S. and found the dangers to critical infrastructure, utilities and food supplies are not sinking in with the public, despite the deluge of headlines.

https://threatpost.com/users-clueless-cybersecurity-risks-study/167404/


Ransomware: Paying Up Won't Stop You From Getting Hit Again, Says Cyber Security Chief

Ireland's Health Service Executive (HSE) has been praised for its response after falling victim to a major ransomware attack and for not giving into cyber criminals and paying a ransom. HSE was hit with Conti ransomware in May, significantly impacting frontline health services. The attackers initially demanded a ransom of $20 million in bitcoin for the decryption key to restore the network. While the gang eventually handed over a decryption key without receiving a ransom, they still published stolen patient data – a common technique by ransomware attackers, designed to pressure victims into paying.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/ransomware-paying-up-wont-stop-you-from-getting-hit-again-says-cybersecurity-chief/


Don’t Leave Your Cyber IR Plan To IT, It’s An Organisational Risk

Phishing attacks, insider threats, denial of service disruptions, malware and ransomware — cyber security incidents like these happen on a daily basis. For most of these incidents, the onsite IT team will remediate based on a pre-developed plan and process. And for many of these incidents, that’s a solid approach. But those incident response plans and strategies are IT oriented and geared toward short-term fixes and single incident responses. Meaning, if an incident accelerates beyond a handful of infected laptops or a compromised server and begins to affect operations of all or even part of the organisation, business itself can be disrupted — or even shut down entirely.

https://securityintelligence.com/posts/incident-response-vs-cyber-crisis-management-plan/


Cyber Crime Never Sleeps

When the Colonial Pipeline fell victim to a ransomware attack, people across the United States were shocked to find that a single episode of cyber crime could lead to widespread delays, gas shortages and soaring prices at the pump. But disruptive ransomware attacks like these are far from rare; in fact, they are becoming more and more frequent. Cyber crime is on the rise, and our cyber security infrastructure desperately needs to keep up. A quick look at the data from the last year confirms that cyber crime is a growing threat. Identity theft doubled in 2020 over 2019.

https://www.newsweek.com/cybercrime-never-sleeps-opinion-1603901


IT, Healthcare And Manufacturing Facing Most Phishing Attacks

Researchers examined more than 905 million emails for the H1 2021 Global Phish Cyber Attack Report, finding that the IT industry specifically saw 9,000 phishing emails in a one month span out of almost 400,000 total emails. Their healthcare industry customers saw more than 6,000 phishing emails in one month out of an average of over 450,000 emails and manufacturing saw a bit less than 6,000 phishing emails out of about 330,000 total emails. Researchers said these industries are ripe targets because of the massive amount of personal data they collect and because they are often stocked with outdated technology that can be easily attacked.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/it-healthcare-and-manufacturing-facing-most-phishing-attacks-report/


Classified Ministry Of Defence Documents Found At Bus Stop

Classified Ministry of Defence documents containing details about HMS Defender and the British military have been found at a bus stop in Kent. One set of documents discusses the likely Russian reaction to the ship's passage through Ukrainian waters off the Crimea coast on Wednesday. Another details plans for a possible UK military presence in Afghanistan after the US-led NATO operation there ends. The government said an investigation had been launched.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57624942


Cabinet Office Increases Cyber Security Training Budget By Almost 500%

The UK’s Cabinet Office increased its cyber security training budget to £274,142.85 in the fiscal year 2021 – a 483% increase from the £47,018 spent in the previous year. In its FOI response, the Cabinet Office detailed the cyber security courses attended by its staff, revealing that the number of booked courses grew from 35 in 2019-20 to 428 in the current fiscal year.

https://www.itpro.co.uk/security/cyber-security/360039/cabinet-office-increases-cyber-spending-by-almost-500-amid-cctv


Threats

Ransomware

Phishing

Malware

Mobile

IoT

Data Breaches

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

 Cryptocurrency/Cryptojacking

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