Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 24 May 2024

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

Human Error and AI Tops Cyber Threats as 70% of CISOs Worry About Risk

According to a survey of 1,600 CISOs, 70% worry about the risk of a material cyber attack over the next 12 months. Additionally, nearly 31% believe an attack is very likely, compared to 25% in 2023.  Amongst the largest concerns were human error, with 75% of CISOs identifying it as their most significant cyber vulnerability, up from 60% in 2023. Furthermore, 80% anticipate that human risk and employee negligence in particular will be major cyber security issues in the next two years.  Additionally, artificial intelligence was identified as an emerging concern for 54% of CISOs.

Sources: [The Register] [Infosecurity Magazine] [Cryptopolitan]

The State of Cyber Security: AI and Geopolitics Mean a Bigger Threat Than Ever

A recent report by Check Point reveals that global organisations faced an average of 1,158 weekly cyber attacks in 2023, an increase from 2022. In the UK, 50% of businesses experienced cyber attacks in the past year, with medium and large-sized businesses more affected at 70% and 74%, respectively. A ClubCISO survey found 62% of CISOs believe organisations are ill-equipped for AI-driven attacks, yet 77% haven't increased cyber security spending.

Additionally, a British Foreign Policy Group (BFPG) article highlights cyber threats from geopolitical tensions, with a recent attack on the Ministry of Defence exposing HR and payroll data. The National Cyber Security Centre attributes such attacks to state-affiliated actors like China and Russia. Despite efforts to establish international cyber norms, enforcement remains challenging. Businesses must recognise that cyber security is now deeply intertwined with geopolitics, affecting strategic partnerships and procurement.

Sources: [Verdict] [BFPG]

Threat Research Highlights Growing Mobile Security Risks

A recent report by a cloud security vendor focusing on the mobile threat landscape found that in the first quarter of 2024, the number of phishing, malicious, denylisted and offensive links delivered to their customers’ mobile devices tripled compared to Q1 2023. The report, which bases its data on 220 million devices, 325 million apps and billions of web items, found that the most common misconfiguration in mobiles was out of date operating systems (37%). When it came to the prevalence of attacks, 75% of organisations reported experiencing mobile phishing attempts targeting their employees.

This comes as a representative from the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency told the Federal Communications Commission earlier this year that there had been “numerous incidents of successful, unauthorised attempts” to steal location data, monitor voice and text messages, and deliver spyware.

Sources: [Economist] [Business Wire]

Family Offices Become Prime Targets for Cyber Hacks and Ransomware

A recent Dentons survey reveals that nearly 80% of family offices perceive a dramatic increase in cyber attack threats, with a quarter experiencing an attack in 2023, up from 17% in 2020. Despite their wealth, family offices often lack the staff and technology to manage these risks effectively. Less than a third report well-developed cyber risk management processes, and only 29% believe their cyber training programs are sufficient. This gap between awareness and action highlights the need for family offices to prioritise comprehensive cyber security measures, including better training, updated policies, and secure communication practices.

Source: [CNBC]

Ransomware Fallout: 94% Experience Downtime, 40% Face Work Stoppage

According to a report by cyber security provider Arctic Wolf, within the last 12 months 48% of organisations identified evidence of a successful breach within their environment and 70% of organisations were the targets of attempted Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks, with 29% of these targets becoming victims of one or more successful BEC occurrences.

In its survey, the company says “45% of the organizations we spoke with admitted to being the victim of a ransomware attack within the last 12 months”,  an increase from the prior year. Of those impacted by ransomware, 86% of attacks including successful data exfiltration and 94% of those impacted by a ransom event experienced a significant downtime and delays. 40% of victims stated they experienced a period of total work stoppage due to ransomware.

Source: [Help Net Security]

Employee Discontent: Insider Threat No. 1

Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) must integrate human factors into insider risk management (IRM), not just rely on detection technologies. IRM must consider factors such as those raised by recent research where only half of US workers are very satisfied with their jobs, and 28% feel their employers don't care about them. CISOs themselves are affected by job satisfaction; the 2024 IANS/Artico report shows three out of four CISOs are ready to leave their roles. DTEX Systems found 77% of malicious insiders concealed their activities, emphasising the importance of human engagement and feedback in mitigating risks.

Source: [CSO]

Report Reveals 341% Rise in Advanced Phishing Attacks

A recent report has revealed malicious emails increased by 341% over the past 6 months. This included a 217% increase in credential harvesting phishing attacks and a 29% increase in Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks. The report highlighted the impact of artificial intelligence, noting that since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, there has been a 4,151% surge in malicious phishing messages.

Source: [Security Magazine] [ Infosecurity Magazine]

Ransomware and GenAI Raise Security Challenges, Driving Cyber Investment

A recent study by Infosecurity Europe reveals that nearly 40% of cyber security leaders are increasing investments to combat the growing threats of ransomware and AI-generated attacks. A separate survey found 94% of organisations have or plan to implement generative AI use policies, and a third strictly forbid AI tech in their environment. This data highlights the ongoing effort to balance AI benefits with security risks, indicating that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all strategy for formalising AI adoption and usage policies.

Source: [Security Boulevard] [Infosecurity Magazine]

New Rules Prompt 93% of Organisations to Rethink Cyber Security Plans

A recent report reveals that 93% of organisations have re-evaluated their cyber security strategies due to new regulations, with 58% reconsidering their entire approach. The survey, which included 500 cyber security decision-makers from the US and UK, found that 92% reported increased security budgets, with 36% seeing rises of 20-49% and 23% experiencing over 50% increases. Despite this, only 40% feel confident in their resources to comply with regulations, and just one-third believe they can meet all requirements, highlighting significant gaps in preparedness.

Source: [security magazine]

HR and IT Related Phishing Scams Still Most Popular According to KnowBe4’s Latest Phishing Report

A recent KnowBe4 report reveals that HR-related phishing emails account for 42% of top-clicked phishing attempts, followed by IT-related emails at 30%. These phishing tactics exploit employees' trust and evoke immediate responses by mimicking legitimate business communications about dress code changes, tax updates, and training notifications. The report also highlights that nearly a third of users are vulnerable to phishing, emphasising the need for robust security awareness training. A well-trained workforce is essential in defending against increasingly sophisticated phishing attacks that leverage AI and emotional manipulation.

Source: [IT Security Guru]

80% of Exposures from Misconfigurations, as 15 Vendors Account for 62% of Global Attack Surface

A recent XM Cyber report highlights a significant gap in cyber security focus with identity and credential misconfigurations accounting for 80% of security exposures. The study, based on hundreds of thousands of attack path assessments, found that 62% of the global attack surface is concentrated in just 15 vendors. Furthermore, 41% of organisations had at least one compromised device, and 11% experienced ransomware incidents. The report underscores the need for a shift from patching all vulnerabilities to addressing high-impact exposures, especially those around identity management and critical asset protection.

Sources: [Security Magazine] [The Hacker News]

UK to Propose Mandatory Reporting for Ransomware Attacks and Licensing Regime for all Payments

A forthcoming proposal in Britain aims to overhaul the response to ransomware by mandating victims to report incidents and obtain a license before making extortion payments. This initiative, part of a public consultation, includes a ban on ransom payments for critical national infrastructure to deter attacks. The National Cyber Security Centre has highlighted concerns over underreporting, with a 2023 increase in ransomware-related data breaches. The plan’s success hinges on replacing the delayed Action Fraud reporting platform. This proposal marks a significant step in global ransomware policy, with Britain leading international efforts against cyber criminals.

Source: [The Record Media]

UK’s Legal Sector Needs to Improve its Cyber Security, Says Experts

One in ten UK data breaches in 2023 occurred in the legal sector, highlighting that UK law firms are attractive targets for cyber criminals. A recent analysis of the UK’s Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) data found that the legal sector is one of the worst performing sectors for data breaches, with nearly 86 per cent of the incidents within the legal sector involving breaches of personal identifiable information, including instances also affecting sensitive economic and financial data.

Sources [CITY AM]

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Governance, Risk and Compliance

• 70% of CISOs Expect Cyber Attacks in Next Year, Report Finds - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• UK's legal sector needs to improve its cyber security, say experts (cityam.com)

• How to stay on top of evolving cyber security legislation | RSM UK

• New rules prompt 93% of organisations to rethink cyber security plans | Security Magazine

• Ransomware and AI-Powered Hacks Drive Cyber Investment - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• One CISO Can’t Fill Your Board’s Cyber Security Gaps (mit.edu)

• Security Compliance 101: What It Is and How to Master It - Security Boulevard

• Family offices become prime targets for cyber hacks and ransomware (cnbc.com)

• Worried about job security, cyber teams hide security incidents - Help Net Security

• Law firms warn global risks on the rise (emergingrisks.co.uk)

• Financial companies must have data breach incident plans, SEC says | SC Media (scmagazine.com)

• Businesses must overcome security communication roadblocks – Channel EYE

• Why Culture is the Bedrock of Cyber Security - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• 10 Leadership Challenges For An AI World (forbes.com)

• IT Security Leaders Are Failing to Close a Boardroom Credibility Gap (prnewswire.com)

• Effective GRC programs rely on team collaboration - Help Net Security

• Are AI and Cyber Security the New Driving Forces Behind Mergers and Acquisitions in the Coming Years? - The Global Treasurerputty

• Understanding cyber risks beyond data breaches - Help Net Security

• De-risking the business - how to evolve your approach to security | TechRadar

• IT and security data is siloed in most organisations (betanews.com)

• Can Cyber Security Be a Unifying Factor in Digital Trade Negotiations? (darkreading.com)

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Threats

Ransomware, Extortion and Destructive Attacks

• Family offices become prime targets for cyber hacks and ransomware (cnbc.com)

• Ransomware fallout: 94% experience downtime, 40% face work stoppage - Help Net Security

• Ransomware Attacks Evolve as Average Ransom Demand Tops $1.26 Million - Security Boulevard

• UK to propose mandatory reporting for ransomware attacks and licensing regime for all payments (therecord.media)

• Ransomware gang targets Windows admins via PuTTy, WinSCP malvertising (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Cyber criminals shift tactics to pressure more victims into paying ransoms - Help Net Security

• Unpatched vulnerabilities making bad ransomware outcomes worse: What you need to know | SC Media (scmagazine.com)

• Cyber Attacks Over Work Email Most Used; Ransomware Hits Victims Hard: Artic Wolf (insurancejournal.com)

• This wiper malware takes data destruction to a whole new level | TechRadar

• A Surge in Ransomware: Insights from Our 2024 Cyber Threat Report | Huntress

• New ransomware group abusing BitLocker | Securelist

• Ransomware, BEC, GenAI Raise Security Challenges - Security Boulevard

• LockBit takedown taking toll as gang plummets down rankings • The Register

• First LockBit, now BreachForums: Are cops winning the war? • The Register

• 2024 sees continued increase in ransomware activity - Help Net Security

• Ransomware Attacks Exploit VMware ESXi Vulnerabilities in Alarming Pattern (thehackernews.com)

• What role does an initial access broker play in the RaaS model? | TechTarget

• Casino cyber attacks put a bullseye on Scattered Spider • The Register

• Ransomware innovation slowdown a product of crims' success • The Register

Ransomware Victims

• National Records of Scotland reveals its data stolen in 'distressing' NHS health board cyber attack (scotsman.com)

• OmniVision Says Personal Information Stolen in Ransomware Attack - Security Week

• Blackbasta group claims to have hacked Atlas, one of the largest US oil distributors (securityaffairs.com)

• LockBit says they stole data in London Drugs ransomware attack (bleepingcomputer.com)

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

• HR and IT related phishing scams still most popular according to KnowBe4’s latest Phishing Report - IT Security Guru

• Report Reveals 341% Rise in Advanced Phishing Attacks - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Grandoreiro Banking Trojan Resurfaces, Targeting Over 1,500 Banks Worldwide (thehackernews.com)

• Phishing statistics that will make you think twice before clicking - Help Net Security

• Cyber Attacks Over Work Email Most Used; Ransomware Hits Victims Hard: Artic Wolf (insurancejournal.com)

• Q1 2024 Global Phishing Report (knowbe4.com)

• Phishing, BEC, and Beyond: Tackling the Top Cyber Threats to UK Banks (prnewswire.co.uk)

• Two-stage Dropbox spear phishing | Kaspersky official blog

• Latrodectus Malware Loader Emerges as IcedID's Successor in Phishing Campaigns (thehackernews.com)

• Only 60 percent of brands can protect their customers from digital impersonation (betanews.com)

• A phish by any other name should still not be clicked – Computerworld

• Active Chinese Cyber espionage Campaign Rifling Email Servers (inforisktoday.com)

• YouTube has become a significant channel for cyber crime - Help Net Security

BEC

• The last six months shows a 341% increase in malicious emails | Security Magazine

• Phishing, BEC, and Beyond: Tackling the Top Cyber Threats to UK Banks (prnewswire.co.uk)

• Ransomware, BEC, GenAI Raise Security Challenges - Security Boulevard

• 10 Years in Prison for $4.5 million BEC Scammer Who Bought Ferrari to Launder Money | Tripwire

Other Social Engineering

• ‘Unblockable’ HMRC scam message on iPhones sparks warning (yahoo.com)

• Cyber criminals Exploit Cloud Storage For SMS Phishing Scams - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

Artificial Intelligence

• The state of cyber security: AI and geopolitics mean a bigger threat than ever - Verdict

• Three Questions Every Leader Needs To Ask About AI Cyber Security (forbes.com)

• Ransomware, BEC, GenAI Raise Security Challenges - Security Boulevard

• Beware – Your Customer Chatbot is Almost Certainly Insecure: Report - Security Week

• Human Error and AI Tops Cyber Security Threats in CISO Survey | Cryptopolitan

• Consumers continue to overestimate their ability to spot deepfakes - Help Net Security

• CIO’s 2024 Checklist: Generative AI, Digital Transformation And More (forbes.com)

• Are AI and Cyber Security the New Driving Forces Behind Mergers and Acquisitions in the Coming Years? - The Global Treasurer

• Deepfakes Rank As the Second Most Common Cyber Security Incident for US Businesses (darkreading.com)

• Data regulator looking into Microsoft’s AI Recall feature | The Independent

• New Microsoft Recall feature is a 'security nightmare' and could make Copilot+ PCs a top target for cyber criminals | ITPro

• Why We Need to Get a Handle on AI - Security Week

• CISOs pursuing AI readiness should start by updating the org’s email security policy - Help Net Security

• 10 Leadership Challenges For An AI World (forbes.com)

• US Intelligence Agencies’ Embrace of Generative AI Is at Once Wary and Urgent - Security Week

• User Outcry as Slack Scrapes Customer Data for AI Model Training - Security Week

• Balancing generative AI cyber security risks and rewards | TechTarget

• AI Is The Past, Present And Future Of Cyber Security (forbes.com)

• US AI Experts Targeted in SugarGh0st RAT Campaign (darkreading.com)

• The ‘dead internet theory’ makes eerie claims about an AI-run web. The truth is more sinister (theconversation.com)

• Transparency is sorely lacking amid growing AI interest | ZDNET

• UK Government in £8.5m Bid to Tackle AI Cyber Threats - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

2FA/MFA

• Microsoft to Mandate Multi-Factor Authentication for All Azure Users (cybersecuritynews.com)

• Here's why you should get a YubiKey (xda-developers.com)

• Zero-Day Attacks and Supply Chain Compromises Surge, MFA Remains Underutilized: Rapid7 Report - Security Week

Malware

• Grandoreiro Banking Trojan Resurfaces, Targeting Over 1,500 Banks Worldwide (thehackernews.com)

• Ukraine blackouts caused by malware attacks warn against evolving cyber security threats to the physical world (techxplore.com)

• 400K Linux Servers Recruited by Resurrected Ebury Botnet (darkreading.com)

• Another nasty Mac malware is spoofing legitimate software to target macOS users | TechRadar

• Foxit PDF Reader Flaw Exploited by Hackers to Deliver Diverse Malware Arsenal (thehackernews.com)

• What Does Malware Look Like? Check Out These Real-World Examples (pcmag.com)

• Cyber Criminals Exploit GitHub and FileZilla to Deliver Malware Cocktail (thehackernews.com)

• Dangerous nostalgia: Taking Windows XP online will result in auto-installed viruses in a matter of minutes | TechSpot

• Malware Delivery via Cloud Services Exploits Unicode Trick to Deceive Users (thehackernews.com)

• MS Exchange Server Flaws Exploited to Deploy Keylogger in Targeted Attacks (thehackernews.com)

• Keylogger Embedded Microsoft Exchange Server Steals Login Credentials (cybersecuritynews.com)

• Latrodectus Malware Loader Emerges as IcedID's Successor in Phishing Campaigns (thehackernews.com)

• Researchers spot cryptojacking attack that disables endpoint protections | Ars Technica

• US AI Experts Targeted in SugarGh0st RAT Campaign (darkreading.com)

• New BiBi Wiper version also destroys the disk partition table (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Novel EDR-Killing 'GhostEngine' Malware Is Built for Stealth (darkreading.com)

• Malicious actors are cat-phishing targets in order to spread malware | Security Magazine

Mobile

• It is dangerously easy to hack the world’s phones (economist.com)

• How often should you turn off your phone? Here's what the NSA says | PCWorld

• New Android Banking Trojan Mimics Google Play Update App - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• North Korea-linked Kimsuky APT attack targets victims via Messenger (securityaffairs.com)

• US Official Warns a Cell Network Flaw Is Being Exploited for Spying | WIRED

• How to recognise if the security of your work device has been breached (siliconrepublic.com)

• Vultur Malware Mimic As Mobile Antivirus Steals Login Credentials (cybersecuritynews.com)

• ‘Unblockable’ HMRC scam message on iPhones sparks warning (yahoo.com)

• Lookout Threat Research Highlights Growing Mobile Security Risks | Business Wire

Internet of Things – IoT

• Teslas Can Still Be Stolen With a Cheap Radio Hack—Despite New Keyless Tech | WIRED

Data Breaches/Leaks

• Aon reveals cyber attack/data breach as top risk for financial institutions - Reinsurance News

• PSNI Faces £750,000 Data Breach Fine After Spreadsheet Leak - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• NYSE parent fined $10M for breach reporting failure • The Register

• Were The Ashley Madison Hackers Ever Caught? (screenrant.com)

• 2.4 Million Impacted by WebTPA Data Breach - Security Week

• National Records of Scotland reveals its data stolen in 'distressing' NHS health board cyber attack (scotsman.com)

• 49 Million Customers Impacted by API Security Flaw - Security Boulevard

• Army personnel fear for their jobs after huge MoD cyber attack | The Independent

• Criminal record database of millions of Americans dumped online | Malwarebytes

• Optus denies claims of ‘cloaking’ Deloitte cyber attack report findings - Lawyers Weekly

• Record breaking number of data breaches reported | Bailiwick Express

• 400,000 Impacted by CentroMed Data Breach - Security Week

• 55,000 Impacted by Cyber Attack on California School Association  - Security Week

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

• Were The Ashley Madison Hackers Ever Caught? (screenrant.com)

• HP Catches Cyber Criminals 'Cat-Phishing' Users (darkreading.com)

• Cyber crime on the rise as account takeovers become leading method (investmentnews.com)

• Moroccan cyber crime group impersonates nonprofits and abuses cloud services to rake in gift card cash | CyberScoop

• YouTube has become a significant channel for cyber crime - Help Net Security

• Ransomware innovation slowdown a product of crims' success • The Register

Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking/NFTs/Blockchain

• Kinsing Hacker Group Exploits More Flaws to Expand Botnet for Cryptojacking (thehackernews.com)

• Chinese Nationals Arrested for Laundering $73 Million in Pig Butchering Crypto Scam (thehackernews.com)

• Researchers spot cryptojacking attack that disables endpoint protections | Ars Technica

• Dutch police tracked a crypto theft to one of world’s worst botnets (thenextweb.com)

• He Trained Cops to Fight Crypto Crime—and Allegedly Ran a $100M Dark-Web Drug Market | WIRED

Insider Risk and Insider Threats

• Human Error and AI Tops Cyber Security Threats in CISO Survey | Cryptopolitan

• Employee discontent: Insider threat No. 1 | CSO Online

• Can we fix the human error problem in cyber security? (siliconrepublic.com)

Insurance

• Cyber insurance Company Offers MDR to MSPs | MSSP Alert

• Should You Buy Cyber Insurance in 2024? Pros & Cons (techopedia.com)

• Cyber insurance trends: reshaping the industry - SiliconANGLE

Supply Chain and Third Parties

• Implementing Third-Party Risk Management Workflows | UpGuard

• Managing third-party risk with cyber security | RSM UK

• Zero-Day Attacks and Supply Chain Compromises Surge, MFA Remains Underutilized: Rapid7 Report - Security Week

• JAVS courtroom recording software backdoored in supply chain attack (bleepingcomputer.com)

Cloud/SaaS

• Critical Bug Allows DoS, RCE, Data Leaks in All Major Cloud Platforms (darkreading.com)

• Veeam 2024 Cloud Protection Trends Report Provides New Insight into Cloud‑Powered Data Protection Strategies | Business Wire

• Security concerns impeding cloud migration | SC Media (scmagazine.com)

• Malware Delivery via Cloud Services Exploits Unicode Trick to Deceive Users (thehackernews.com)

• Are Your SaaS Backups as Secure as Your Production Data? (thehackernews.com)

• Cyber Criminals Exploit Cloud Storage For SMS Phishing Scams - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

Identity and Access Management

• Report: Organisations Are Scrambling to Overhaul Their Identity Security Frameworks Amidst Surge in Recent Attacks (globenewswire.com)

• 77 percent of organisations suffer cyber attacks due to identity issues (betanews.com)

Encryption

• Yet more ransomware uses BitLocker to encrypt victims' files • The Register

Linux and Open Source

• The economic model that made the internet, and the hack that almost broke it : Planet Money : NPR

• 400K Linux Servers Recruited by Resurrected Ebury Botnet (darkreading.com)

• Are all Linux vendor kernels insecure? A new study says yes, but there's a fix | ZDNET

Passwords, Credential Stuffing & Brute Force Attacks

• Cyber crime on the rise as account takeovers become leading method (investmentnews.com)

Social Media

• YouTube has become a significant channel for cyber crime - Help Net Security

• How Secure Is The Metaverse? (A Look At Cyber Threats And Defences) (forbes.com)

• Russia’s DoppelGänger Campaign Manipulates Social Media - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

Malvertising

• Ransomware gang targets Windows admins via PuTTy, WinSCP malvertising (bleepingcomputer.com)

• The mystery of the targeted ad and the library patron • The Register

• Windows admins targeted with clever malvertising scam | TechRadar

Training, Education and Awareness

• Three Psychological Theories to Ensure Cyber Security Training Sticks - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

Regulations, Fines and Legislation

• PSNI Faces £750,000 Data Breach Fine After Spreadsheet Leak - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• NYSE parent fined $10M for breach reporting failure • The Register

• Intercontinental Exchange Will Pay $10 Million to Resolve SEC Cyber Probe (wsj.com)

• UK considering mandatory reporting for ransomware attacks (computing.co.uk)

• How to stay on top of evolving cyber security legislation | RSM UK

• SEC requires financial institutions to notify customers of breaches within 30 days - Help Net Security

• Security Compliance 101: What It Is and How to Master It - Security Boulevard

• Singapore updates cyber security law to expand regulatory oversight | ZDNET

• Avoiding Cyber Security Incident Overdisclosure:  Helpful Guidance | Mayer Brown Free Writings + Perspectives - JDSupra

• Counting Down to the EU NIS2 Directive - Security Boulevard

• The Dawn of DORA: Building a Resilient Financial Infrastructure (finextra.com)

• What American Enterprises Can Learn From Europe's GDPR Mistakes (darkreading.com)

• Preparing Your Organisation for Upcoming Cyber Security Deadlines (darkreading.com)

Backup and Recovery

• Are Your SaaS Backups as Secure as Your Production Data? (thehackernews.com)

Data Protection

• 87% of medical practice data is digital | Security Magazine

Careers, Working in Cyber and Information Security

• The IT skills shortage situation is not expected to get any better - Help Net Security

• UK Government ramps up efforts to bridge cyber security skills gap (holyrood.com)

• IT Essentials: Sun, stress and security (computing.co.uk)

• Persistent Burnout Is Still a Crisis in Cyber Security (darkreading.com)

• 5 Ways SMBs Can Bridge the Cyber Security Skills Gap | Mimecast

Law Enforcement Action and Take Downs

• Dutch police tracked a crypto theft to one of world’s worst botnets (thenextweb.com)

• Chinese Nationals Arrested for Laundering $73 Million in Pig Butchering Crypto Scam (thehackernews.com)

• Police caught circumventing city bans on face recognition • The Register

• 10 Years in Prison for $4.5 million BEC Scammer Who Bought Ferrari to Launder Money | Tripwire

• LockBit takedown taking toll as gang plummets down rankings • The Register

• He Trained Cops to Fight Crypto Crime—and Allegedly Ran a $100M Dark-Web Drug Market | WIRED

• Casino cyber attacks put a bullseye on Scattered Spider • The Register

• First LockBit, now BreachForums: Are cops winning the war? • The Register

• No time to take eye of the ball despite recent cyber success – report (emergingrisks.co.uk)

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Nation State Actors, Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs), Cyber Warfare, Cyber Espionage and Geopolitical Threats/Activity

Cyber Warfare and Cyber Espionage

• World War War III May Already Have Started—in the Shadows (reason.com)

• Britons should have three days' worth of tinned food and water, government says | Politics News | Sky News

• The Balance of Power in Cyber Space – What it Means for UK Business - British Foreign Policy Group (bfpg.co.uk)

• The state of cyber security: AI and geopolitics mean a bigger threat than ever - Verdict

Nation State Actors

China

• The Security Interviews: What is the real cyber threat from China? | Computer Weekly

• UK not heeding warning over China threat, says ex-cyber security chief (yahoo.com)

• Newly Detected Chinese Group Targeting Military, Government Entities - Security Week

• Escalating Chinese cyber threats drive US efforts to secure critical infrastructure | SC Media (scmagazine.com)

• Inside Operation Diplomatic Specter: Chinese APT Group's Stealthy Tactics Exposed (thehackernews.com)

• Spies, trade and tech: China’s relationship with Britain (economist.com)

• Chinese, Iranian, and Russian gangs are attacking the U.S's drinking water and officials are alarmed | Fortune

• Google, Meta warned that undersea internet cables at risk for Chinese espionage: report (nypost.com)

• UK military in data breach - and other cyber security news | World Economic Forum (weforum.org)

• Researchers Warn of Chinese-Aligned Hackers Targeting South China Sea Countries (thehackernews.com)

• Active Chinese Cyberespionage Campaign Rifling Email Servers (inforisktoday.com)

• State hackers turn to massive ORB proxy networks to evade detection (bleepingcomputer.com)

• New Frontiers, Old Tactics: Chinese Espionage Group Targets Africa & Caribbean Govts (thehackernews.com)

• Stronger critical infrastructure defence aimed by Army Cyber Command | SC Media (scmagazine.com)

• Chinese Nationals Arrested for Laundering $73 Million in Pig Butchering Crypto Scam (thehackernews.com)

• Former Royal Marine charged with spying for China found dead (thetimes.co.uk)

Russia

• Ukraine blackouts caused by malware attacks warn against evolving cyber security threats to the physical world (techxplore.com)

• Chinese, Iranian, and Russian gangs are attacking the U.S's drinking water and officials are alarmed | Fortune

• Russia’s DoppelGänger Campaign Manipulates Social Media - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• US says Russia likely launched space weapon - BBC News

• New Star Wars Plan: Pentagon Rushes to Counter Threats in Orbit - The New York Times

• British man, 64, charged with assisting Russian intelligence service | The Independent

Iran

• Chinese, Iranian, and Russian gangs are attacking the U.S's drinking water and officials are alarmed | Fortune

• Iranian MOIS-Linked Hackers Behind Destructive Attacks on Albania and Israel (thehackernews.com)

North Korea

• North Korea-linked Kimsuky APT attack targets victims via Messenger (securityaffairs.com)

• US Official Warns a Cell Network Flaw Is Being Exploited for Spying | WIRED

• North Korea-linked IT workers infiltrated hundreds of US firms (securityaffairs.com)

• High-ranking military officials' e-mail hacked, possibly by N. Korea (koreaherald.com)

Other Nation State Actors, Hacktivism, Extremism, Terrorism and Other Geopolitical Threat Intelligence

• The state of cyber security: AI and geopolitics mean a bigger threat than ever - Verdict

• Government tells Britons to stockpile as part of emergency planning

• Spyware found on US hotel check-in computers | TechCrunch

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Vulnerability Management

• New XM Cyber Research: 80% of Exposures from Misconfigurations, Less Than 1% from CVEs (thehackernews.com)

• Unpatched vulnerabilities making bad ransomware outcomes worse: What you need to know | SC Media (scmagazine.com)

• Over 60% of Network Security Appliance Flaws Exploited as Zero Days - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• 93% of vulnerabilities unanalysed by NVD since February | TechTarget

• Zero-Day Attacks and Supply Chain Compromises Surge, MFA Remains Underutilized: Rapid7 Report - Security Week

• How AI-driven patching could transform cyber security | TechTarget

Vulnerabilities

• Microsoft Edge gets fixes for five more security vulnerabilities - Neowin

• Over 60% of Network Security Appliance Flaws Exploited as Zero Days - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Critical Bug Allows DoS, RCE, Data Leaks in All Major Cloud Platforms (darkreading.com)

• Veeam warns of critical Backup Enterprise Manager auth bypass bug (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Microsoft Has Yet to Patch 7 Pwn2Own Zero-Days (darkreading.com)

• Critical Flaw in AI Python Package Can Lead to System and Data Compromise - Security Week

• This devious Wi-Fi security flaw could let hackers eavesdrop on your network with ease | TechRadar

• Foxit PDF Reader Flaw Exploited by Hackers to Deliver Diverse Malware Arsenal (thehackernews.com)

• Intel's Max Severity Flaw Affects AI Model Compressor Users (govinfosecurity.com)

• 15 QNAP NAS bugs and one PoC disclosed, update ASAP! (CVE-2024-27130) - Help Net Security

• Keylogger Embedded Microsoft Exchange Server Steals Login Credentials (cybersecuritynews.com)

• Chrome 125 Update Patches High-Severity Vulnerabilities - Security Week

• Ivanti Patches Critical Code Execution Vulnerabilities in Endpoint Manager - Security Week

• Unauthenticated RCE Vulnerability in Fortinet FortiSIEM: PoC Published (cybersecuritynews.com)

• Ransomware Attacks Exploit VMware ESXi Vulnerabilities in Alarming Pattern (thehackernews.com)

• VMware Abused in Recent MITRE Hack for Persistence, Evasion - Security Week

• High-severity GitLab flaw lets attackers take over accounts (bleepingcomputer.com)

• CISA Warns of Actively Exploited Apache Flink Security Vulnerability (thehackernews.com)

Tools and Controls

• Network Outages Hit 59% of Multi-Site Businesses Monthly - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• New rules prompt 93% of organisations to rethink cyber security plans | Security Magazine

• Ransomware and AI-Powered Hacks Drive Cyber Investment - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Microsoft to Mandate Multi-Factor Authentication for All Azure Users (cybersecuritynews.com)

• What is a Third-Party Risk Assessment in Cyber Security? | UpGuard

• Should You Buy Cyber Insurance in 2024? Pros & Cons (techopedia.com)

• The Critical Role Of Web Filtering To Secure A Modern Workplace (forbes.com)

• We put too much faith in our web browsers, here's why we shouldn't (xda-developers.com)

• Windows 11 to Deprecate NTLM, Add AI-Powered App Controls and Security Defences (thehackernews.com)

• Google says Microsoft can’t be trusted after email security blunders | ITPro

• CISOs pursuing AI readiness should start by updating the org’s email security policy - Help Net Security

• Fighting identity fraud? Here's why we need better tech - Help Net Security

• Report: Organisations Are Scrambling to Overhaul Their Identity Security Frameworks Amidst Surge in Recent Attacks (globenewswire.com)

• 77 percent of organisations suffer cyber attacks due to identity issues (betanews.com)

• Researchers spot cryptojacking attack that disables endpoint protections | Ars Technica

• Microsoft's latest Windows 11 security features aim to make it 'more secure out of the box' | ZDNET

• Are Your SaaS Backups as Secure as Your Production Data? (thehackernews.com)

• Cyber insurance trends: reshaping the industry - SiliconANGLE

• The Evolution of Security Operations Centres in the Past Decade | Information Security Buzz

• Incident response: a useful guide - Tech Monitor

• Here's why you should get a YubiKey (xda-developers.com)

• Mastercard Doubles Speed of Fraud Detection with Generative AI - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• When to Automate and When Not to Automate Security - Security Boulevard

• Critical Capabilities of Cyber Security Risk Assessment Tools (cybersaint.io)

• How AI-driven patching could transform cyber security | TechTarget

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Reports Published in the Last Week

• 2024 Cloud Protection Trends (veeam.com)

• Arctic Wolf Labs 2024 Threat Report | Arctic Wolf

• Q1 2024 Global Phishing Report (knowbe4.com)

• 2024 Cyber Threat Report | Huntress

• 2024 Q1 Mobile Landscape Threat Report (lookout.com)

• State of Cyber Security Trends Report 2024 | Ivanti

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Other News

• Aon reveals cyber attack/data breach as top risk for financial institutions - Reinsurance News

• 15 companies account for 62% of global attack surface | Security Magazine

• Google Deletes $125 Billion UniSuper Pension Fund Account; Impacts Over Half a Million Australians - Goodreturns

• Cyber attacks are soaring—treat them as an 'act of war', health care exec warns | Fortune Well

• If the Lights Went Out: Exploring a Power Grid Failure (greydynamics.com)

• Wars in Ukraine and Gaza raise UK infrastructure cyber threat level | New Civil Engineer

• Malware power threat real and growing – researchers (emergingrisks.co.uk)

• Microsoft’s President to Testify to House Panel on Cyber Security (bloomberglaw.com)

• Microsoft outage affects Bing, Copilot, DuckDuckGo and ChatGPT internet search (bleepingcomputer.com)

• 5 Ways SMBs Can Bridge the Cyber Security Skills Gap | Mimecast

• Why cyber security is front and centre for rail - Railway Technology (railway-technology.com)

• Mitigating cyber security risks in the technology sector | TechRadar

• New EU tool to counter hybrid threats - Ministry of Foreign Affairs Republic of Poland - Gov.pl website (www.gov.pl)

• Cyber attacks on construction firms jump, new report finds | News | Building

• FUD: How Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt can ruin your security program - Security Boulevard

• Cyber Security in the legal sector | Law Gazette

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Sector Specific

Industry specific threat intelligence reports are available.

Contact us to receive tailored reports specific to the industry/sector and geographies you operate in.

·         Automotive

·         Construction

·         Critical National Infrastructure (CNI)

·         Defence & Space

·         Education & Academia

·         Energy & Utilities

·         Estate Agencies

·         Financial Services

·         FinTech

·         Food & Agriculture

·         Gaming & Gambling

·         Government & Public Sector (including Law Enforcement)

·         Health/Medical/Pharma

·         Hotels & Hospitality

·         Insurance

·         Legal

·         Manufacturing

·         Maritime

·         Oil, Gas & Mining

·         OT, ICS, IIoT, SCADA & Cyber-Physical Systems

·         Retail & eCommerce

·         Small and Medium Sized Businesses (SMBs)

·         Startups

·         Telecoms

·         Third Sector & Charities

·         Transport & Aviation

·         Web3

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As usual, contact us to help assess where your risks lie and to ensure you are doing all you can do to keep you and your business secure.

Look out for our ‘Cyber Tip Tuesday’ video blog and on our YouTube channel.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Links to articles are for interest and awareness and linking to or reposting external content does not endorse any service or product, likewise we are not responsible for the security of external links.

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 08 March 2024

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

FBI Reports Cyber Crime Losses Reached $12.5 billion in 2023, Ransomware Losses Surged by 74%, Average Ransom Demand Reaching $600k

An FBI report into the cost of cyber crime has found that estimated losses in the US alone reached $12.5 billion in 2023. Ransomware accounted for $59.6 million, a 74% increase from the previous year’s report. Of note, the FBI report only deals with complaints made to the FBI; it therefore excludes other countries, and relies on the US organisations to identify that they have been impacted. It is therefore likely that the figure in the US, let alone globally, is significantly higher.

Sources: [Security Boulevard] [Security Week] [Infosecurity Magazine] [Tripwire] [Security Affairs]

Capita Plans £100 Million in Cost Cuts as it Continues to Grapple With 2023 Cyber Attack, Resulting in Significant Job Losses

In the aftermath of a significant cyber attack in 2023, Capita faces a steep financial hurdle with reported losses amounting to £106.6 million. Originally forecasted at £25 million, the revised figure underscores the substantial impact of the breach. Capita’s response strategy, including significant investments in recovery and cyber security bolstering, emphasises the escalating costs associated with data breaches. CEO Adolfo Hernandez announced plans for a substantial cost reduction of over £100 million, indicating the critical need for efficiency improvements to mitigate the financial strain. Capita’s experience serves as a potent reminder of the critical importance of robust cyber resilience strategies. These strategies are not just about preventing attacks, but also about mitigating the potentially devastating financial consequences should a breach occur.

Source: [ITPro]

Employment Law Firm Sues IT Company Over Ransomware Attack

A law firm in California has sued an IT solutions company, saying that after hiring the company to install a network system and server, the law firm suffered a ransomware attack. The law firm found that not long after the network was installed, they were unable to access their data, and when they had gone to retrieve a cloud backup, they had found this was already deleted, forcing them to pay the ransom to get their data back. The law firm is accusing the IT company of negligence and breach of contract and is seeking damages of at least $1 million.

Source: [Law360]

Stolen Passwords are a Hacker Goldmine

Passwords are not only crucial for organisational security, but they also come with significant costs and vulnerabilities. From the time spent by service desks on resets, to the expense of security incidents and breaches, the financial toll is substantial. Weak or reused passwords heighten the vulnerability, with breaches involving stolen credentials costing an average of $4.45 million. Cyber threats are evolving, with hackers increasingly favouring stolen user accounts over traditional malware. This shift, underscored by a notable 71% increase in attacks leveraging valid login credentials in 2023 as reported by CrowdStrike and IBM, highlights the repercussions of compromised credentials. Embracing technologies like multi-factor authentication (MFA) and single sign-on (SSO), along with employee education, can bolster security while alleviating financial strains. Robust identity management and zero-trust security frameworks are essential to mitigate risks further, especially in the face of rising cloud intrusions. Proactive investments in password security software such as password managers can help streamline operations and enhance overall organisational resilience against these evolving threats.

Sources: [Bleeping Computer] [Axios] 

Phishing Attacks Up 40 Percent in 2023; Attackers Leverage Social Engineering for Greater Success

Kaspersky recently released their annual spam and phishing report in which they identified over 709 million attempts to access phishing and scam websites, a 40% increase from the previous year. It should be noted that this number is just related to Kaspersky’s identification; the figure is likely far greater. With reports identifying that 90% of phishing involves social engineering, it is important to understand how it is leveraged.

Phishing attacks generally include an element of trust; for example, a bad actor impersonating a reputable brand or providing details about an individual that makes the attack more credible. Often, social engineering will rely on human characteristics, such as urgency, emotion and habit to try to manipulate the target to perform particular actions. Whilst the tools may change, the basis is the same; a successful phish requires user interaction. To mitigate the impact of phishing in corporate environments, organisations must stay informed about the latest adversarial activity and prioritise security measures such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) and providing employee awareness and education training that goes beyond ticking boxes.

Sources: [Beta News] [CSO Online] [Security Boulevard] [DarkReading]

Business Leaders Don’t Even Know They’ve Been Hacked

A survey of over 10,000 business leaders across various industries has found that a number of business leaders know little when it comes to their organisation’s cyber security landscape, with 1 in 10, “unsure” and unable to provide a definitive answer as to whether their organisation has had a data breach in 2023. The report highlights that there are a number of leadership positions that are not receiving sufficient information about their organisation’s data security situation.

Receiving regular reports with metrics about the organisation’s cyber security posture is key to organisations achieving and maintaining a solid level of governance, something that is required in various standards and regulations.

Source: [Tech.Co]

Rising Cyber Security Risks: Insider Threat Main Concern Among Mid-Market Firms

According to the 2023 CyberArk Identity Security Threat Landscape Report, insider threats are on the rise, with 68% of organisations reporting an increased frequency in the past year. These threats, considered one of the top concerns over the next 12 months, stem from within an organisation where authorised employees exploit their access to steal or leak sensitive data. Factors such as flexible working, an increase in job transitions, workforce reductions, third-party relationships, economic uncertainties, and employee stress levels further compound these challenges. Negligence, accounting for 62% of insider incidents, plays a significant role; these threats aren’t always malicious but can also be negligent or accidental. As these threats evolve, the potential consequences, including revenue loss and reputational damage, are becoming more apparent to business leaders. To mitigate risks, companies must prioritise improving identity security, particularly in controlling privileged access, and embrace a Zero Trust approach. This ensures full visibility and control over access to sensitive data, safeguarding critical assets and enhancing cyber resilience in an increasingly volatile landscape. Other key identified threats include AI-related risks, ransomware, deep fakes, and malware.

Sources: [TechRadar] [Comms Business]

C-Suite Executives: An Attacker’s Dream?

Cyber criminals are increasingly focusing on high-value targets, particularly C-suite executives who hold extensive organisational access. These executives, often overlooked in security practices and training, have become vulnerable links. The cyber security landscape of 2023 saw significant advancements but also revealed vulnerabilities, exacerbated by global conflicts and strategic cyber attacks. Cyber actors are now targeting entities with high return potential, with ransomware attackers tailoring their strikes to maximise revenues, often from smaller organisations. Interestingly, while automation is on the rise, cyber criminals are opting for a human touch, with human operatives often behind attacks. A report last year showed a nearly 30% spike in fraud specifically targeting senior executives, highlighting the vulnerability of the C-suite. This emphasises the need for robust cyber resilience strategies to safeguard these high-value targets.

Source: [SecurityBrief New Zealand]

Security Risks Plague SMEs in Shift to Remote Working

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, remote working surged, offering businesses newfound flexibility and cost efficiencies. However, this paradigm shift comes with its own set of security challenges, particularly impacting startups and small businesses. The inherent flexibility of remote work exposes companies to risks like unauthorised access, IP theft, and malware. These threats are especially potent for SMEs, jeopardising their financial stability and reputation. Robust security measures include VPNs, enforcing regular software updates, and employee training to mitigate these risks. By embracing these strategies, SMEs can navigate the remote work landscape securely, unlocking its benefits while safeguarding against potential threats.

Source: [SecurityBrief New Zealand]

After Collecting $22 Million, Ransomware Group Stages FBI Takedown

The ransomware group responsible for facilitating a huge attack against a US prescription drug company for $22 million has gone dark, days after receiving the payment and standing accused of scamming their own affiliate out of their share of the gains. Days after the payment was made, AlphV’s public website started displaying a message saying it had been seized by the FBI as part of an international law enforcement action. Ransomware researchers have since said that it has not actually been seized, but appears to be a ploy to exit scam affiliates of the ransomware group. This proves the old adage that there really is no honour among thieves.

Source: [Ars Technica]

Cyber Attacks Remain Chief Concern for Businesses

A recent report has underscored the growing concern among UK corporate businesses regarding cyber attacks as the primary fraud threat in the upcoming year, with 73% of respondents expressing worry. As businesses grapple with the shift to hybrid and remote work models, ensuring robust counter-fraud measures and internal controls is imperative to safeguarding workforces regardless of location. This situation emphasises the critical importance of investing in employee training to combat evolving fraud threats. It highlights the far-reaching consequences that fraud can have on organisations and underscores the necessity of fostering an anti-fraud culture across all levels of the enterprise.

Source: [TheHRDirector]

Two New Ransomware Groups Join Forces to Launch Joint Attacks

Two ransomware groups, Ghostsec and Stormous, have joined forces to conduct double extortion ransomware attacks on various businesses across multiple countries. As part of this, their new ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) program, STMX_GhostLocker, provides various options for their affiliates. GhostSec is already part of a coalition called the five families, involving 4 other entities. The group ventured into RaaS last year, offering services for as little as $269.99 per month.

Source: [The Hacker News]

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Governance, Risk and Compliance

• FBI: Cyber Crime Losses Exceeded $12.5 Billion in 2023 - Security Week

• 1 in 10 Business Leaders Don’t Even Know They’ve Been Hacked (tech.co)

• Cyber attacks remain chief concern for businesses | theHRD (thehrdirector.com)

• Companies Are Already Not Complying With The New SEC Cyber Security Incident Disclosure Rules (forbes.com)

• What Cyber Security Chiefs Need From Their CEOs (darkreading.com)

• Simply Human: Why HR Needs To Take The Lead In Cyber Security (forbes.com)

• The Security Interviews: Cyber security is about managing risk effectively | Computer Weekly

• NIST Cyber Framework 2.0: Doubling Down on Governance, Expanding Applicability | Law.com

• CISOs Tackle Compliance With Cyber Guidelines (informationweek.com)

• Are C-suite executives cyber security's weakest link? (securitybrief.co.nz

• 30 years of the CISO role – how things have changed since Steve Katz | CSO Online

• How to create an efficient governance control program - Help Net Security

• Demystifying the Maze: A Guide to Cyber Risk Quantification Methods (cybersaint.io)

• Resilience is built on a solid framework | Professional Security

• Cyber Insights 2024: A Dire Year for CISOs? - Security Week

• Cyber Pros’ Knowledge Gaps Lead to Errors | MSSP Alert

• Research finds that cyber security leaders are taking on multiple roles | Security Magazine

• How Security Leaders Can Break Down Barriers to Enable Digital Trust - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

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Threats

Ransomware, Extortion and Destructive Attacks

• ConnectWise ScreenConnect bug used in Play ransomware breach, MSP attack | SC Media (scmagazine.com)

• FBI: US Ransomware Losses Surge 74% to $59.6 Million in 2023 - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Employment Law Firm Sues IT Co. Over Ransomware Attack - Law360

• Report: Average Initial Ransomware Demand in 2023 Reached $600K - Security Boulevard

• What’s Fueling the Ransomware Epidemic? | Symantec Enterprise Blogs (security.com)

• Banning ransomware payments back on the agenda | Computer Weekly

• BlackCat Goes Dark After Ripping Off Change Healthcare Ransom (darkreading.com)

• Inside an Alphv/BlackCat ransomware attack | TechTarget

• Healthcare facing record ransom as cyber criminals continue to target sector - Emerging Risks Media Ltd

• Uncle Sam intervenes in Change Healthcare ransomware fiasco • The Register

• Alert: GhostSec and Stormous Launch Joint Ransomware Attacks in Over 15 Countries (thehackernews.com)

• Capita drops 18% on £107m loss as financial impact of cyber attack is revealed | LSE:CPI (proactiveinvestors.co.uk)

• US cyber and law enforcement agencies warn of Phobos ransomware attacks (securityaffairs.com)

• Experts echo calls for ransomware ban as LockBit rallies • The Register

• Government urged to ban ransom payments to cyber criminals (computing.co.uk)

• LockBit 3.0’s Bungled Comeback Highlights the Undying Risk of Torrent-Based (P2P) Data Leakage (securityaffairs.com)

• Ransomware spikes against critical infrastructure, says FBI • The Register

• Major shifts in identity, ransomware, and critical infrastructure threat trends - Help Net Security

• Government was third-largest ransomware target last year: FBI - Defense One

• JetBrains TeamCity under attack by ransomware thugs • The Register

Ransomware Victims

• A Deep Dive into the 2024 Prudential and LoanDepot Breaches - Security Boulevard

• Employment Law Firm Sues IT Co. Over Ransomware Attack - Law360

• After collecting $22 million, AlphV ransomware group stages FBI takedown | Ars Technica

• Change Healthcare hack cripples payment systems across health providers - The Washington Post

• Hackers Behind the Change Healthcare Ransomware Attack Just Received a $22 Million Payment | WIRED

• Capita raises threat of further job cuts under plans to save another £100m | BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

• Capita drops 18% on £107m loss as financial impact of cyber attack is revealed | LSE:CPI (proactiveinvestors.co.uk)

• Fidelity Investments Notifying 28,000 People of Data Breach - Fidelity Investments Notifying 28,000 People of Data Breach - Security Week

• First BofA, Now Fidelity: Same Vendor Behind Third-Party Breaches (darkreading.com)

• UnitedHealth's cyber attack should be a 'wake-up call' for healthcare (yahoo.com)

• Ransomware Attackers Leak Sensitive Swiss Government Documents, Login - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Security leaders weigh in on the recent UnitedHealth cyber attack | Security Magazine

• LockBit 3.0’s Bungled Comeback Highlights the Undying Risk of Torrent-Based (P2P) Data Leakage (securityaffairs.com)

• Canada's anti-money laundering agency offline after cyber attack (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Uncle Sam intervenes in Change Healthcare ransomware fiasco • The RegisterFidelity Investments Notifying 28,000 People of Data Breach - Security Week

• Duvel says it has "more than enough" beer after ransomware attack (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Thousands of Dutch passports stolen in ransomware attacks available on dark web | NL Times

• Corporate Greed Made the Change Healthcare Cyber attack Worse (nymag.com)

• Switzerland: Play ransomware leaked 65,000 government documents (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Possible China link to Change Healthcare ransomware attack • The Register

• Action needed to avoid repeat of Southern Water cyber attack - Utility Week

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

• Phishing attacks up 40 percent in 2023 (betanews.com)

• Jamf says 9% of smartphone have fallen for phishing attacks (appleinsider.com)

• How attackers leverage social engineering for greater scamming success | CSO Online

• Cyber Criminals Spoof US Government Organisations in BEC, Phishing Attacks - Security Week

• Annual State of Email Security by the Numbers - Security Boulevard

• New Phishing Kit Leverages SMS, Voice Calls to Target Cryptocurrency Users (thehackernews.com)

• Hackers target Coinbase, Binance staff with phishing clones of Gmail, iCloud (crypto.news)

• AI worm that infects computers and reads emails created by researchers | The Independent

• 95% believe LLMs making phishing detection more challenging - Help Net Security

• Hundreds of orgs targeted with emails aimed at stealing NTLM authentication hashes - Help Net Security

• Kaspersky spam and phishing report for 2023 | Securelist

Other Social Engineering

• How attackers leverage social engineering for greater scamming success | CSO Online

• New Phishing Kit Leverages SMS, Voice Calls to Target Cryptocurrency Users (thehackernews.com)

• The Rise of Social Engineering Fraud in Business Email Compromise (darkreading.com)

Artificial Intelligence

• Over 225,000 Compromised ChatGPT Credentials Up for Sale on Dark Web Markets (thehackernews.com)

• AI tools put companies at risk of data exfiltration - Help Net Security

• Don't Give Your Business Data to AI Companies (darkreading.com)

• Act now to stop WordPress and Tumblr selling your content to AI firms • Graham Cluley

• GTPDOOR backdoor is designed to target telecom carrier networks (securityaffairs.com)

• Political deepfakes are spreading like wildfire thanks to GenAI | TechCrunch

• Self-Propagating Worm Created to Target Generative AI Systems - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• The Future Of AI And ML In Cyber Security (forbes.com)

• AI worm that infects computers and reads emails created by researchers | The Independent

• 95% believe LLMs making phishing detection more challenging - Help Net Security

• Immediate AI risks and tomorrow's dangers - Help Net Security

• Defence: Leonardo CEO says stupidity poses a bigger threat than AI (cnbc.com)

2FA/MFA

• Google and Meta users see their 2FA security codes leaked online - Root-Nation.com

Malware

• No “Apple magic” as 11% of macOS detections last year came from malware | Malwarebytes

• Mobile banking malware growing rapidly, ThreatFabric warns | Biometric Update

• GTPDOOR backdoor is designed to target telecom carrier networks (securityaffairs.com)

• Watch Out for Spoofed Zoom, Skype, Google Meet Sites Delivering Malware (thehackernews.com)

• Linux variant of BIFROSE RAT uses deceptive domain strategies (securityaffairs.com)

• Self-Propagating Worm Created to Target Generative AI Systems - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• New Linux malware found targeting mobile networks across the world | TechRadar

• ScreenConnect flaws exploited to drop new ToddleShark malware (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Malware is coming for your ChatGPT credentials • The Register

• North Korea Hits ScreenConnect Bugs to Drop 'ToddleShark' Malware (darkreading.com)

• Linux Malware Campaign Targets Misconfigured Cloud Servers - Security Week

• Linux Malware Targets Docker, Apache Hadoop, Redis and Confluence - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• AI worm that infects computers and reads emails created by researchers | The Independent

• New WogRAT malware abuses online notepad service to store malware (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Snake, a new Info Stealer spreads through Facebook messages (securityaffairs.com)

• Linux Variants of Bifrost Trojan Evade Detection via Typosquatting (darkreading.com)

Mobile

• Jamf says 9% of smartphone have fallen for phishing attacks (appleinsider.com)

• Mobile banking malware growing rapidly, ThreatFabric warns | Biometric Update

• Apple warns of increased iPhone security risks | Computerworld

• The Privacy Danger Lurking in Push Notifications | WIRED

• Android's March 2024 Update Patches Critical Vulnerabilities - Security Week

• CISA Adds Android Pixel and Sunhillo Sureline Bugs to Its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog

• The Importance of Cyber security for Your Smart Devices | HackerNoon

• Phone hacking is a real danger. How to keep your data, location secure (usatoday.com)

Denial of Service/DoS/DDOS

• DDoS Attacks on Financial Services Industry Up 154%, According to New FS-ISAC/Akamai Report (prnewswire.com)

Internet of Things – IoT

• Someone is hacking 3D printers to warn owners of a security flaw (bitdefender.com)

• Popular doorbell camera brands contain security flaws, making them easy to hack: Report  | The Hill

• NCSC flags up cyber security for connected places | UKAuthority

• The Importance of Cyber Security for Your Smart Devices | HackerNoon

• This $4 Billion Car Surveillance Startup Says It Cuts Crime. But It Likely Broke The Law. (forbes.com)

• Flipper Zero WiFi phishing attack can unlock and steal Tesla cars (bleepingcomputer.com)

Data Breaches/Leaks

• The State Of Cyber Security (Part One): Why Are There Still So Many Data Breaches? (forbes.com)

• A leaky database spilled 2FA codes for the world’s tech giants | TechCrunch#

• American Express credit cards exposed in third-party data breach (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Fidelity Investments Notifying 28,000 People of Data Breach - Security Week

• AI tools put companies at risk of data exfiltration - Help Net Security

• 4 Instructive Postmortems on Data Downtime and Loss (thehackernews.com)

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

• FBI: Cyber Crime Losses Exceeded $12.5 Billion in 2023 - Security Week

• 2023 FBI Internet Crime Report reported cyber crime losses reached $12.5 billion in 2023 (securityaffairs.com)

• $12.5 billion lost to cyber crime, amid tidal wave of crypto investment fraud | Tripwire

• Germany takes down cyber crime market with over 180,000 users (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Poorly paid cyber security staff risk ‘breaking bad’ on the dark web (techinformed.com)

Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking/NFTs/Blockchain

• $12.5 billion lost to cyber crime, amid tidal wave of crypto investment fraud | Tripwire

• Hackers target FCC, crypto firms in advanced Okta phishing attacks (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Hackers target Coinbase, Binance staff with phishing clones of Gmail, iCloud (crypto.news)

• New Phishing Kit Leverages SMS, Voice Calls to Target Cryptocurrency Users (thehackernews.com)

• Crypto fraud in 2023: How can security teams fight (securityintelligence.com)

Insider Risk and Insider Threats

• Comms Business - Insider threat main concern among mid-market firms

• Current workforce trends feed into rising cyber security risks | TechRadar

• Pentagon Leaker Jack Teixeira Pleads Guilty Under a Deal That Calls for at Least 11 Years in Prison - Security Week

• Army Vet Spills National Secrets to Fake Ukrainian Girlfriend (darkreading.com)

• Chinese engineer accused of stealing Google's GPU and TPU secrets, transferring them to China-based startups | Tom's Hardware (tomshardware.com)

Supply Chain and Third Parties

• Employment Law Firm Sues IT Co. Over Ransomware Attack - Law360

• Capita plans £100 million in cost cuts as it continues to grapple with 2023 cyber attack | ITPro

• First BofA, Now Fidelity: Same Vendor Behind Third-Party Breaches (darkreading.com)

• American Express credit cards exposed in third-party data breach (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Hackers target FCC, crypto firms in advanced Okta phishing attacks (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Switzerland: Play ransomware leaked 65,000 government documents (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Chinese State Hackers Target Tibetans with Supply Chain, Watering Hole Attacks (thehackernews.com)

Cloud/SaaS

• 10 Essential Processes for Reducing the Top 11 Cloud Risks (darkreading.com)

• Human vs. Non-Human Identity in SaaS (thehackernews.com)

• Hackers target Coinbase, Binance staff with phishing clones of Gmail, iCloud (crypto.news)

• Securing Perimeter Products Must Be a Priority, Says NCSC - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

Identity and Access Management

• Human vs. Non-Human Identity in SaaS (thehackernews.com)

• Major shifts in identity, ransomware, and critical infrastructure threat trends - Help Net Security

Encryption

• Preparing for the post-quantum cryptography environment today | CSO Online

Linux and Open Source

• Open source vulnerabilities dominated 2023, and this year looks no different | ITPro

• Linux Malware Campaign Targets Misconfigured Cloud Servers - Security Week

• Linux Variants of Bifrost Trojan Evade Detection via Typosquatting (darkreading.com)

• Linux Malware Targets Docker, Apache Hadoop, Redis and Confluence - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

Passwords, Credential Stuffing & Brute Force Attacks

• Hacked WordPress sites use visitors' browsers to hack other sites (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Over 225,000 Compromised ChatGPT Credentials Up for Sale on Dark Web Markets (thehackernews.com)

• Malware is coming for your ChatGPT credentials • The Register

• Stolen passwords are a hacker goldmine now, CrowdStrike and IBM find (axios.com)

• Passwords are Costing Your Organisation Money - How to Minimize Those Costs (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Poor Credential Hygiene - Security Boulevard

• US State AGs tell Meta to fix rampant account takeovers • The Register

Social Media

• Google and Meta users see their 2FA security codes leaked online - Root-Nation.com

• IP address X-posure now a feature on Twitter • The Register

• “Technical Issue” Takes Facebook Offline, Offers No Cyber Security Reassurance | MSSP Alert

• Facebook and Instagram Overrun by Account Hackers, States Warn (bloomberglaw.com)

• Snake, a new Info Stealer spreads through Facebook messages (securityaffairs.com)

• Meta Abandons Hacking Victims, Draining Law Enforcement Resources, Officials Say | WIRED

• US State AGs tell Meta to fix rampant account takeovers • The Register

Training, Education and Awareness

• In the News | Equip and Educate Students to Combat Cyberthreats - Security Boulevard

Regulations, Fines and Legislation

• Companies Are Already Not Complying With The New SEC Cyber Security Incident Disclosure Rules (forbes.com)

• EU council welcomes cyber solidarity act agreement (verdict.co.uk)

• The modern CISO's guide to navigating new SEC cyber regulations (betanews.com)

• Five Unintended Consequences of the New SEC Cyber Security Disclosure Rule - Security Boulevard

• Navigating regulation challenges for protecting sensitive healthcare data - Help Net Security

Models, Frameworks and Standards

• NIST Cyber Security Framework 2.0: 4 Steps to Get Started (darkreading.com)

• NIST Cyber Framework 2.0: Doubling Down on Governance, Expanding Applicability | Law.com

• CIS RAM (Risk Assessment Method) (cisecurity.org)

Data Protection

• Charity has 30 days to stop spamming thousands for donations • The Register

• This $4 Billion Car Surveillance Startup Says It Cuts Crime. But It Likely Broke The Law. (forbes.com)

Careers, Working in Cyber and Information Security

• 11 Top Cyber Security Certifications to Consider In 2024 (datamation.com)

• Cyber and gender | Professional Security

• Poorly paid cyber security staff risk ‘breaking bad’ on the dark web (techinformed.com)

Law Enforcement Action and Take Downs

• Germany takes down cyber crime market with over 180,000 users (bleepingcomputer.com)

• A cyber criminal is sentenced, will it make a difference? - Help Net Security

• Pentagon Leaker Jack Teixeira Pleads Guilty Under a Deal That Calls for at Least 11 Years in Prison - Security Week

• Nigerian National Pleads Guilty of Conspiracy in BEC Operation (darkreading.com)

Misinformation, Disinformation and Propaganda

• Content farm impersonates 60+ major news outlets, like BBC, CNN, CNBC (bleepingcomputer.com)

• The man who tricked Nazi Germany: lessons from the past on how to beat disinformation | Books | The Guardian

• Political deepfakes are spreading like wildfire thanks to GenAI | TechCrunch

• Russian Hackers Target Ukraine Via A Disinformation Campaign - Security Boulevard

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Nation State Actors, Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs), Cyber Warfare, Cyber Espionage and Geopolitical Threats/Activity

Cyber Warfare and Cyber Espionage

• Focus on cyber operations that cause physical damage is not enough | International Committee of the Red Cross (icrc.org)

• Cyber threats impacting the safety and dignity of civilians in conflict | International Committee of the Red Cross (icrc.org)

Nation State Actors

• Complete Guide to Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) Security - Security Boulevard

China

• Chinese nation state actors to ramp up cyber espionage attempts in 2024 - IT Security Guru

• We’re Slowly Learning About China’s Extensive Hacking Network | Mind Matters

• Taiwan's Biggest Telco Breached by Suspected Chinese Hackers (darkreading.com)

• Possible China link to Change Healthcare ransomware attack • The Register

• A New Wave of Cyber Attacks: Five Actions to Take Now | IndustryWeek

• Chinese State Hackers Target Tibetans with Supply Chain, Watering Hole Attacks (thehackernews.com)

• Behind the doors of a Chinese hacking company, a sordid culture fueled by influence, alcohol and sex | AP News

Russia

• The Five Bears: Russia's Offensive Cyber Capabilities (greydynamics.com)

• A Silent World War – Russia’s Cyberwar Against the West (kyivpost.com)

• Germany Urged to Tighten Security After Russia Leaked Classified Information - Bloomberg

• Germany to investigate Russia’s interception of military talks on Ukraine | Germany | The Guardian

• Ukraine intel says its hackers obtained Russian Defence Ministry's classified documents - Euromaidan Press

• Valuable Russian Military Documents Exposed: Report (newsweek.com)

• Focus on cyber operations that cause physical damage is not enough | International Committee of the Red Cross (icrc.org)

• Russian Hackers Target Ukraine Via A Disinformation Campaign - Security Boulevard

North Korea

• Lazarus Group observed exploiting an admin-to-kernel Windows zero-day | SC Media (scmagazine.com)

• North Korea Hits ScreenConnect Bugs to Drop 'ToddleShark' Malware (darkreading.com)

• North Korea’s Kimsuky gang joins rush to exploit new ScreenConnect bugs | SC Media (scmagazine.com)

• North Korea hacks two South Korean chip firms to steal engineering data (bleepingcomputer.com)

Other Nation State Actors, Hacktivism, Extremism, Terrorism and Other Geopolitical Threat Intelligence

• Banks face ‘hacktivist’ cyber attacks (fnlondon.com)

• Hacktivist Collective NoName057(16) Strikes European Targets - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• 'The Weirdest Trend in Cyber Security': Nation-States Returning to USBs (darkreading.com)

• Four internet cables cut in Red Sea in 'exceptionally rare' incident | Fortune

• Predator spyware endures even after widespread exposure, analysis shows | CyberScoop

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Vulnerability Management

• Firms Still Threatened by Old Vulnerabilities (govinfosecurity.com)

• Open source vulnerabilities dominated 2023, and this year looks no different | ITPro

• Organisations are knowingly releasing vulnerable applications - Help Net Security

• Securing Perimeter Products Must Be a Priority, Says NCSC - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Enhancing security through proactive patch management - Help Net Security

Vulnerabilities

• Five Eyes alliance warns of attacks exploiting known Ivanti Gateway flaws (securityaffairs.com)

• ConnectWise ScreenConnect bug used in Play ransomware breach, MSP attack | SC Media (scmagazine.com)

• North Korea’s Kimsuky gang joins rush to exploit new ScreenConnect bugs | SC Media (scmagazine.com)

• North Korea Hits ScreenConnect Bugs to Drop 'ToddleShark' Malware (darkreading.com)

• Hackers exploited Windows 0-day for 6 months after Microsoft knew of it | Ars Technica

• CISA adds Apple iOS and iPadOS memory corruption bugs to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog (securityaffairs.com)

• Urgent: Apple Issues Critical Updates for Actively Exploited Zero-Day Flaws (thehackernews.com)

• VMware sandbox escape bugs are so critical, patches are released for end-of-life products | Ars Technica

• VMware Issues Security Patches for ESXi, Workstation, and Fusion Flaws (thehackernews.com)

• VMWare Urges Users to Uninstall EAP Immediately - Security Boulevard

• Cisco Patches High-Severity Vulnerabilities in VPN Product - Security Week

• Critical TeamCity flaw now widely exploited to create admin accounts (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Critical TeamCity Bugs Endanger Software Supply Chain (darkreading.com)

• Android's March 2024 Update Patches Critical Vulnerabilities - Security Week

• CISA Warns of Pixel Phone Vulnerability Exploitation - Security Week

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Tools and Controls

• Why cyber maturity assessment should become standard practice - Help Net Security

• 1 in 10 Business Leaders Don’t Even Know They’ve Been Hacked (tech.co)

• The Ultimate Guide to Threat Detection, Investigation, and Response (TDIR) (govinfosecurity.com)

• The Future Of AI And ML In Cyber Security (forbes.com)

• The Security Interviews: Cyber security is about managing risk effectively | Computer Weekly

• What Is A Cyber Incident Response Policy? - Security Boulevard

• Cyber Criminals Using Novel DNS Hijacking Technique for Investment Scams (thehackernews.com)

• Demystifying the Maze: A Guide to Cyber Risk Quantification Methods (cybersaint.io)

• Resilience is built on a solid framework | Professional Security

• Simply Human: Why HR Needs To Take The Lead In Cyber Security (forbes.com)

• The critical role of DNS in cyber security and digital thriving | TechRadar

• 5 ways to keep API integrations secure - Help Net Security

• Reduce the Attack Surface | Dell USA

• What is Advanced Threat Protection and How to Use It in Your Business - Security Boulevard

• Human vs. Non-Human Identity in SaaS (thehackernews.com)

• How To Close The DevSecOps Cyber Security Skills Gap And Boost Security (forbes.com)

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Reports Published in the Last Week

• Kaspersky spam and phishing report for 2023 | Securelist

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Other News

• Banks face ‘hacktivist’ cyber attacks (fnlondon.com)

• White Hats on Offensive Against Black Hat Hackers: Report (technewsworld.com)

• UK altnets call for action after attacks on fibre infrastructure | Computer Weekly

• Securing the future: Addressing cyber security challenges in the education sector - Help Net Security

• The 3 most common post-compromise tactics on network infrastructure (talosintelligence.com)

• What is Micro Breaching? - Security Boulevard

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Sector Specific

Industry specific threat intelligence reports are available.

Contact us to receive tailored reports specific to the industry/sector and geographies you operate in.

·         Automotive

·         Construction

·         Critical National Infrastructure (CNI)

·         Defence & Space

·         Education & Academia

·         Energy & Utilities

·         Estate Agencies

·         Financial Services

·         FinTech

·         Food & Agriculture

·         Gaming & Gambling

·         Government & Public Sector (including Law Enforcement)

·         Health/Medical/Pharma

·         Hotels & Hospitality

·         Insurance

·         Legal

·         Manufacturing

·         Maritime

·         Oil, Gas & Mining

·         OT, ICS, IIoT, SCADA & Cyber-Physical Systems

·         Retail & eCommerce

·         Small and Medium Sized Businesses (SMBs)

·         Startups

·         Telecoms

·         Third Sector & Charities

·         Transport & Aviation

·         Web3

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As usual, contact us to help assess where your risks lie and to ensure you are doing all you can do to keep you and your business secure.

Look out for our ‘Cyber Tip Tuesday’ video blog and on our YouTube channel.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Links to articles are for interest and awareness and linking to or reposting external content does not endorse any service or product, likewise we are not responsible for the security of external links.

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 18th August 2023

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 Group Targeting MSPs Worldwide in New Campaign

Russia-based cyber attackers called Play are evolving, with the ransomware group now using remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools at outsourced IT providers or managed service providers (MSPs) to gain access and hit downstream customers. A significant number of eventual targets are medium sized business. The group is also utilising intermittent encryption, where files are only partly encrypted, to avoid detection.

The attacks highlight the need for organisations to be aware of where they are in the supply chain and how they can be targeted through their supplier. It is not enough for an organisation to focus on its own security in isolation; organisations also need to have a way of effectively assessing their supply chain risk which includes their MSP.

Source [Dark Reading]

As Ransomware Surges, A lack of Resources Makes SMBs Most Vulnerable

Ransomware attacks continue to increase, with 1500 victims confirmed this year. It is likely this figure will continue to rise. In parallel, criminals are evolving and with that comes a rise in triple extortion; attackers are not just encrypting and exfiltrating an organisation’s data, but also using this data to blackmail employees and target third parties, hitting the supply chain.

Unfortunately for SMBs, they do not have the resources to keep up with such attacks, making them the most vulnerable. A report found that organisations that had 51 to 200 employees were the most targeted, followed by organisations with 11 to 50 employees. When it came to the types of organisations, the Financial Services sector placed first.

This should not mean SMBs should just accept this and wait to be attacked; on the contrary, their increased vulnerability means that SMBs need to effectively prioritise and allocate resources, and if necessary getting in specialist external help, to ensure their protections are the best that resources allow.

Sources [WWD] [InfoSecurity Magazine] [CRN]

Business Email Compromise Attack Costs Far Exceeding Ransomware Losses

Cloudflare's 2023 Phishing Threats Report recorded a 17% spike in business email compromise (BEC) related financial losses between December 2021 and 2022, noting that threat actors are increasingly leaning on this attack method to target organisations. Additionally, across 2022 nearly three-quarters (71%) of respondents to the study said they experienced an attempted or successful BEC attack. The Cloudflare report found that the financial impact of BEC led to organisations suffering losses in excess of $2.7 billion, whereas ransomware caused losses of $34.3 million during the same period.

Source [ITPro]

Email Phishing Remains the Main Entry for Cyber Criminals; People with Six Personality Traits are More Susceptible

According to a report, phishing attacks were found to be the initial attack vector for nine in ten cyber attacks. The report found that the focus of a cyber criminal tended to be two objectives: achieving authenticity and getting victims to click. Worryingly, 89% of unwanted messages were found to have bypassed authentication checks, leaving people and procedures as the last line of defence in an organisation.

A separate study found that having the following traits made a user more susceptible to phishing: extroverted, agreeable, people-pleasing, quick to trust, fearful or respectful of authority, and poor self-control.

With employees playing such an important role in preventing phishing, organisations need to ensure that employees are aware of what to look for in a phishing email with regular training to account for evolving tactics. This training should be carried out by experts with experience of conducting phishing simulations, accompanied with the ability to educate users on how they can protect themselves from falling victim.

Sources [Tech Radar] [Makeuseof]

Gartner Study Finds Generative AI to be a Top Emerging Risk for Organisations

In a recent survey, Gartner found that generative AI models such as ChatGPT were the second greatest emerging risk, with concerns around data privacy. This has led to organisations looking to ban such AI, with a separate report by Blackberry finding that ChatGPT faced banning from 75% of organisations.

Banning AI in the organisation is a short-term solution. The benefits of AI are clear and its usefulness in an organisation is significant, with reports finding 75% of IT leaders in favour. Organisations should instead look at how they can govern the usage of AI in their organisation, to reduce the risk of AI-related incidents and improve the effectiveness of work.

Sources [Security Magazine] [Analytics Insight] [IT Security Guru] [Decrypt]

LinkedIn Suffers Significant Wave of Account Hacks

LinkedIn users are reporting losing access to their accounts, with some being pressured into paying a ransom to get back in or else face permanent account deletion. LinkedIn is no stranger to being a target of cyber criminals; last year, the platform was deemed the most abused brand in phishing attempts likely due to its recognisability and widespread use in the corporate world. This extended as far as threat actors using fake LinkedIn profiles.

With the number of accounts being compromised, users need to be vigilant in their use of LinkedIn and be on the lookout for suspicious messages. Black Arrow recommends that users ensure they are using strong and unique passwords, combined with multi-factor authentication (MFA) to protect themselves.

Source [Dark Reading]

High Net-Worth Families are at Risk of Cyber Crime

A report found that high net-worth families have prioritised cyber security with a notable 77% of respondents stating they had a cyber security plan; however, 55% said their plan “could be better”.

A cyber security plan is not optional anymore. High net-worth families are at increased risk, with criminals cottoning on to the amount of information that is out there and the financial gain that can be made if that information is used effectively. Social media is just one of the things increasing the risk of cyber crime; unbeknownst to some families, their social media may be providing criminals a treasure trove of insight into a family’s wealth, real-time location and habits. Such information can be used by a cyber criminal to employ attacks.

Source [Campdenfb]

Cyber Attack Rule Raises Insurance Risks for Corporate Officers

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently issued rules that formally outlined directors’ responsibilities in cyber security governance for the first time, laying the groundwork for potential enforcement actions. The recently issued rules bring potential regulatory probes and shareholder legal class action alleging senior executives failed to supervise their businesses’ cyber security practices.

Although the practice is not yet universal, a growing number of director and officer (D&O) policies are being drafted with cyber related exclusions. Meanwhile, most cyber insurance policies exempt SEC enforcement actions and investor claims, but some cover allegations against a company’s executives over their cyber security roles.

Whilst this is only in the US at the moment, other developed nations are likely to follow suit.

Source [Bloomberg Law]

PSNI and UK Voter Breaches Show Data Security Should be Taken More Seriously

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the UK Electoral Commission both suffered cyber incidents on the same day. Whilst both incidents were different in how they happened, the result was the same: sensitive information had been leaked. In the case of the PSNI, the data was leaked through a response to a freedom of information (FOI) request, in which an Excel sheet was accidentally included by the PSNI. The Electoral Commission incident resulted from a cyber attack.

The incidents are a wake-up call for organisations. If you have not already done so, you need to put things in place to help protect your data from ending up online. The PSNI incident in particular highlights the need to ensure that data does not leave the organisation by accident.

Source [The Guardian]

The Imperative of Cyber Preparedness: The Power of Tabletop Exercises

Cyber security has become an inescapable concern for organisations across industries. With cyber threats ranging from data breaches to ransomware attacks, it is paramount that companies remain vigilant and prepared.

A key way to be prepared is through a tabletop exercise that simulates a hypothetical cyber security incident and helps organisations to practice and evaluate their response. One example scenario can be responding to a ransomware attack blocking access to the organisation's computers for a ransom. These exercises serve as a practical, engaging, and low-risk way for teams to identify vulnerabilities in current plans, improve coordination, and evaluate the decision-making process during a crisis and this is something that we do with our clients on a regular basis.

Source [JDSupra]

Why Are Phones a Cyber Security Weak Spot?

Mobile phones are more interconnected than ever, with their usage extending to the workplace. Despite this, they often enter the corporate environment with a lack of protection and oversight. When laptops are in the corporate environment they are often secured through methods such as encryption and often the organisation has a clear oversight of the applications and activity on the laptop. Mobile phones on the other hand, are often left unmonitored, despite the fact they can and often do carry sensitive information.

Mobile phones also carry additional risks; for a start, they are easier to lose, due to their size difference and the fact they are often out more. In addition, they may have more entry points. Internet of things (IoT) devices, such as smart appliances, are often controlled by phones, making them another entry point for an attacker.

Source [Tech Shout]

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Governance, Risk and Compliance

• Hedge Fund Cyber security Trends Report says Majority Firms Report a Surge in Cyber Attacks - ITSecurityWire

• Lack of Resources Makes SMBs Most Vulnerable to Ransomware Attacks – WWD

• 1 in 5 CIOs Believe Cyber Security Ops Are Not An Immediate Priority - IT Security Guru

• Cyber threat risks reach three-year high – Avast (securitybrief.co.nz)

• Cyber Attack Rule Raises Insurance Risks for Corporate Officers (bloomberglaw.com)

• The Imperative of Cyber Preparedness: The Power of Tabletop Exercises | Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP - JDSupra

• Why Finance Leaders In Midsize Businesses Are Stepping Up Cyber security Efforts (forbes.com)

• Why are ultra-high-net-worth families at increased risk of cyber crime? | Campden FB

• Traditional vs. Enterprise Risk Management: How Do They Differ? (techtarget.com)

• 4 reasons to understand technology risks when buying a business (businessplus.ie)

• What did you say? Boards tackle corporate jargon | Fortune

• Boards Don't Want Security Promises — They Want Action (darkreading.com)

• Cyber attacks and data protection worries loom large | Natasha Doris | CDR Article (cdr-news.com)

• How threats to mid-sized businesses impact us all - Help Net Security

• 7 Reasons People Don't Understand What You Tell Them (darkreading.com)

• 6 Cyber Threat Areas for Companies and Organisations to Prioritize (forbes.com)

• How poor cyber security policies disrupt business continuity - IT Security Guru

• Cyber Prevention, Training Attract More Spend Than Remediation, Recovery, Execs Say - | MSSP Alert

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Threats

Ransomware, Extortion and Destructive Attacks

• Lack of Resources Makes SMBs Most Vulnerable to Ransomware Attacks – WWD

• Business email compromise attack costs far exceeding ransomware losses | ITPro

• Reported ransomware attacks doubled in key sectors (securitybrief.co.nz)

• Ransomware Surges With 1500 Confirmed Victims This Year - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• 'Play' Ransomware Group Targeting MSPs Worldwide in New Campaign (darkreading.com)

• As Ransomware Gangs Shift To Data Extortion, Some Adopt A New Tactic: ‘Customer Service’ | CRN

• Triple Extortion Ransomware and the Cyber Crime Supply Chain (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Companies are finding it harder to detect ransomware | TechRadar

• Top 3 Ransomware Attack Vectors And How To Avoid Them (techtarget.com)

• Ransomware: To pay or not to pay - Help Net Security

• Knight ransomware distributed in fake Tripadvisor complaint emails (bleepingcomputer.com)

• 'DoubleDrive' attack turns Microsoft OneDrive into ransomware | SC Media (scmagazine.com)

• Why Hospitals Are Being Increasingly Targeted by Cyber Attacks | Chicago News | WTTW

• 'Bulletproof' Lolekhosted ransomware hacker indicted (cnbc.com)

• LOLEKHosted admin arrested for aiding Netwalker ransomware gang (bleepingcomputer.com)

• It's time for companies to double down on cyber security measures as ransomware attacks rise, say experts | CBC News

• Monti ransomware targets VMware ESXi servers with new Linux locker (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Crimeware server used by NetWalker ransomware seized and shut down – Naked Security (sophos.com)

• Rapid7 Says ROI for Ransomware Remains High; Zero-Day Usage Expands - SecurityWeek

• Sophos: ‘Royal’ Is Trying to Make Itself the King of Ransomware (darkreading.com)

• Cuba Ransomware Deploys New Tools: Targets Critical Infrastructure Sector in the US and IT Integrator in Latin America (databreaches.net)

• Microsoft: BlackCat's Sphynx ransomware embeds Impacket, RemCom (bleepingcomputer.com)

• 3 strategies that can help stop ransomware before it becomes a crisis | CSO Online

• Latitude Financial takes profit hit from major cyber attack | The West Australian

• MOVEit cyber attack ignites worry about retirement plan fiduciary responsibility | Pensions & Investments (pionline.com)

• Ransomware down 57%, Secureworks warns against complacency (securitybrief.co.nz)

• Ransomware Diaries: Volume 3 – LockBit’s Secrets (databreaches.net)

• HHS Launches 'Digiheals' Project to Better Protect US Hospitals From Ransomware | WIRED

• Ransomware Renaissance 2023: The Definitive Guide to Stay Safer (securityintelligence.com)

• How to Create a Ransomware Incident Response Plan (techtarget.com)

Ransomware Victims

• Several hospitals still counting the cost of widespread ransomware attack (malwarebytes.com)

• Has leading UK jeweller been hit by BianLian ransomware gang? (techmonitor.ai)

• teiss - News - Ernst & Young says MOVEit Transfer hack impacted over 30,000 Bank of America customers

• Cyber attack on Bay area vendor cripples real estate industry (therealdeal.com)

• Colorado warns 4 million of data stolen in IBM MOVEit breach (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Millions of Americans’ health data stolen after MOVEit hackers targeted IBM | TechCrunch

• LockBit claims seven new victims in ransomware spree (techmonitor.ai)

• Cyber attack strikes Prince George's County schools, district says - The Washington Post

• Clorox Operations Disrupted By Cyber Attack - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Inside Housing - News - Hackney to procure new IT system after cyber attack

• Largest switching and terminal railroad in US investigating ransomware data theft (therecord.media)

• Honor Among Cyber Criminals? Why a Canadian Firm Paid Ransom (inforisktoday.com)

• Alberta dental benefits administrator hit by cyber attack | Edmonton Sun

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

• Phishing remains most dominant, fastest growing internet crime (securitybrief.co.nz)

• If You Have These 6 Personality Traits, You're More Vulnerable to Phishing Scams (makeuseof.com)

• Business email compromise attack costs far exceeding ransomware losses | ITPro

• Reports show 62% jump in phishing attacks last year - The Hindu BusinessLine

• Phishing Operators Make Ready Use of Abandoned Websites for Bait (darkreading.com)

• Email – The System Running Since 71’ - SecurityWeek

• 3 Major Email Security Standards Prove Too Porous for the Task (darkreading.com)

• Most consumers can't spot phishing scams | TechRadar

• Cyber Security Experts: AI Could Be Phishing Schemes’ Ultimate Weapon — Or Worse - The Messenger

• Spear Phishing vs Phishing: How to Tell the Difference (techrepublic.com)

• How to Prevent Phishing Attacks with Multi-Factor Authentication (techrepublic.com)

• As Phishing Gets Even Sneakier, Browser Security Needs to Step Up (darkreading.com)

• Email security vendor leaves 2M domains open to phishing hacks, study finds (axios.com)

• What Is a Blank Image Phishing Scam? (makeuseof.com)

• Cyber Criminals Abusing Cloudflare R2 for Hosting Phishing Pages, Experts Warn (thehackernews.com)

• 'Gold mine' phishing scams rob Main Street on social media like Meta (cnbc.com)

• Malicious QR code hacking campaign is targeting Microsoft credentials - SiliconANGLE

• Phishing campaign steals accounts for Zimbra email servers worlwide (bleepingcomputer.com)

• 30% of phishing threats involve newly registered domains - Help Net Security

• Russian Hackers Use Zulip Chat App for Covert C&C in Diplomatic Phishing Attacks (thehackernews.com)

• Gone Phishing: An Analysis of a Targeted User Attack (huntress.com)

BEC – Business Email Compromise

• Business email compromise attack costs far exceeding ransomware losses | ITPro

Artificial Intelligence

• Generative AI a Top Emerging Risk for Organisations: Gartner Survey - Decrypt

• 66% of Organisations in UK Set to Ban ChatGPT and Generative AI Apps on Work Devices - IT Security Guru

• ChatGPT Faces Ban from 75% of Organisations: Blackberry Report (analyticsinsight.net)

• AI Is Coming For Your Data: 6 Steps To Ensure Cyber Resilience (forbes.com)

• New study by AMD finds nearly half of organisations are not ready for AI - IT Security Guru

• Over 74% of organisations see a rise in AI use by cyber criminals | Security Magazine

• Navigating generative AI risks and regulatory challenges - Help Net Security

• Cyber security Experts: AI Could Be Phishing Schemes’ Ultimate Weapon — Or Worse - The Messenger

• Top 10 AI Security Risks According to OWASP (trendmicro.com)

• AI 'evil twins' may already be manipulating human nature | SC Media (scmagazine.com)

• Cyber security practitioners' generative AI dilemma (iapp.org)

• People Coaxed AI Into Giving Wrong Math Answers, System Prone to Flaws (businessinsider.com)

• Following Pushback, Zoom Says It Won't Use Customer Data to Train AI Models (darkreading.com)

• AI a Top Risk and the Preferred Solution to Financial Crime - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• AI Can Decipher Passwords by Listening to Keystrokes Over Zoom: Study (businessinsider.com)

• Why the “voluntary AI commitments” extracted by the White House are nowhere near enough - Help Net Security

• Fake Out: Disinformation Campaigns Get Generative AI Boost (inforisktoday.com)

• Insurance Regulators ‎Continue to ‎Grapple With the Rapid Development ‎and ‎Use of Artificial ‎Intelligence | Locke Lord LLP - JDSupra

2FA/MFA

• How to prevent multifactor authentication fatigue attacks - SiliconANGLE

• How to Prevent Phishing Attacks with Multi-Factor Authentication (techrepublic.com)

Malware

• Potent Trojans Targeting MacOS Users - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Approximately 2000 Citrix NetScaler servers were backdoored in massive campaign-Security Affairs

• Almost 2,000 Citrix NetScaler servers backdoored in hacking campaign (bleepingcomputer.com)

• XWorm, Remcos RAT Evade EDRs to Infect Critical Infrastructure (darkreading.com)

• Malware could be hiding on your Mac thanks to faults in Apple’s Background Task Manager | Tom's Guide (tomsguide.com)

• An Apple Malware-Flagging Tool Is ‘Trivially’ Easy to Bypass | WIRED

• Macs are getting compromised to act as proxy exit nodes - Help Net Security

• Credentials for cyber crime forums found on roughly 120K computers infected with info stealers-Security Affairs

• Malware Dwell Time: Everything You Need to Know (makeuseof.com)

• Gootloader SEO watering hole malware targets law firms | SC Media (scmagazine.com)

• Security Researchers Publish Gigabud Banking Malware Analysis - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Raccoon Stealer malware returns with new stealthier version (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Beware! Subscription malware arms hackers with tools to steal your private data | Laptop Mag

• New Financial Malware 'JanelaRAT' Targets Latin American Users (thehackernews.com)

• Malware Unleashed: Public Sector Hit in Sudden Surge, Reveals New Report (thehackernews.com)

• North Korean Hackers Suspected in New Wave of Malicious npm Packages (thehackernews.com)

• Stories from the SOC - Unveiling the stealthy tactics of Aukill malware (att.com)

• Hackers are increasingly hiding within services such as Slack and Trello to deploy malware | Cyber scoop

• Massive 400,000 proxy botnet built with stealthy malware infections (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Users of cyber crime forums often fall victim to info-stealers, researchers find (therecord.media)

• 10 people, including 16-year-old youth arrested for suspected involvement in malware scams (databreaches.net)

• Turns out AI probably isn't very good at writing malware • The Register

• Malware Turning Windows Machines Into Proxies (databreachtoday.co.uk)

Mobile

• Why Are Phones A Cyber security Weak Spot? - TechShout

• Lapsus$ hackers took SIM-swapping attacks to the next level (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Does Turning Your Android Phone Off Protect You From Malware? (makeuseof.com)

• 3 Mobile or Client-Side Security Myths Debunked (darkreading.com)

• Cyber Criminals Targeting Victims through Mobile Beta-Testing Applications (ic3.gov)

• Threat actors use beta apps to bypass mobile app store security (bleepingcomputer.com)

• FBI warns of money-stealing fake beta-release mobile apps • The Register

• Three reasons why your smartphone needs security protection (securitybrief.co.nz)

• Unsupported Compression Methods Enable Android Malware to Bypass Detection (zimperium.com)

• This $70 device can spoof an Apple device and trick you into sharing your password | TechCrunch

Botnets

• Massive 400,000 proxy botnet built with stealthy malware infections (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Mirai Common Attack Methods Remain Consistent, Effective (darkreading.com)

Denial of Service/DoS/DDOS

• How the FBI goes after DDoS cyber attackers | TechCrunch

• Most DDoS attacks tied to gaming, business disputes, FBI and prosecutors say (therecord.media)

Internet of Things – IoT

• Runaway Charger: The Major Threat Of Hacking EV Stations (slashgear.com)

• Is YOUR electric car vulnerable to hackers? How cyber criminals could steal personal data because of weak security at charging hubs and 'flaws' in vehicles' outdated software | Daily Mail Online

• Ford says cars with WiFi vulnerability still safe to drive (bleepingcomputer.com)

Data Breaches/Leaks

• Electoral Commission had unpatched vulnerability on server • The Register

• PSNI and UK voter breaches show data security should be taken more seriously | Data and computer security | The Guardian

• UK Police Data Breach Exposes Victim Information - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• UK govt contractor MPD FM leaks employee passport data-Security Affairs

• Cumbria Police accidentally publish officers' names and salaries online (bitdefender.com)

• PSNI: Leaked Data Will be Used to Target Police Officers - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• LinkedIn hack: You need to check your LinkedIn account - gHacks Tech News

• ICO reprimands law firm over data breach that saw money stolen - Legal Futures

• Over 100 Court Service agency workers warned of payslip security breach after cyber attack | BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

• How & Why Cyber Criminals Fabricate Data Leaks (darkreading.com)

• Researchers find sensitive personal data in over 30% of cloud assets | SC Media (scmagazine.com)

• Web app warning: 74% of apps with PII are vulnerable to a 'major exploit', report | SC Media (scmagazine.com)

• Insurance Data Breach Victims File Class-Action Suit Against Law Firm (darkreading.com)

• Alberta Dental Services Security Breach Exposes 1.47M Records - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• The most notable data breaches of 2023… So far | IT Reseller Magazine (itrportal.com)

• Discord.io confirms breach after hacker steals data of 760K users (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Millions of Americans’ health data stolen after MOVEit hackers targeted IBM | TechCrunch

• teiss - News - Ernst & Young says MOVEit Transfer hack impacted over 30,000 Bank of America customers

• Man arrested in Northern Ireland police data leak • The Register

• teiss - News - PBI data breach impacted more than 1.2m customers of Wilton Reassurance Life Company

• Here’s what you need to do after your personal data is breached (telegraph.co.uk)

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

• Meet the Most (In)Famous Hacking Groups Active Today (makeuseof.com)

• Cyber security researchers become target of criminal hackers | Financial Times (ft.com)

• Credentials for cyber crime forums found on roughly 120K computers infected with info stealersSecurity Affairs

• Lapsus$ hackers took SIM-swapping attacks to the next level (bleepingcomputer.com)

• How & Why Cyber Criminals Fabricate Data Leaks (darkreading.com)

• Who Are Script Kiddies? Are They a Threat to Your Security? (makeuseof.com)

• Researchers Harvest, Analyse 100K Cyber Crime Forum Credentials (darkreading.com)

• File sharing site Anonfiles shuts down due to overwhelming abuse (bleepingcomputer.com)

• 5 Types of Cyber Crime Groups (trendmicro.com)

• How Innovation Accelerators Are at Work on the Dark Side (darkreading.com)

Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking/NFTs/Blockchain

• Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried sent to jail • The Register

• Web3 projects suffered from forty-two exploits within a week (coinpaper.com)

Insider Risk and Insider Threats

• The Data Behind Human Cyber Risk - GovInfoSecurity

Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime

• A Third of UK University Students Targeted By Fraud - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried sent to jail • The Register

• UK gov keeps repeating its voter registration website is NOT a scam (bleepingcomputer.com)

• “Grab hold and give it a wiggle” – ATM card skimming is still a thing – Naked Security (sophos.com)

• Latin Americans Fall Prey to More Online Scams, Cyber Attacks (insurancejournal.com)

• The road ahead for ecommerce fraud prevention - Help Net Security

• A Huge Scam Targeting Kids With Roblox and Fortnite 'Offers' Has Been Hiding in Plain Sight | WIRED

Insurance

• Cyber Attack Rule Raises Insurance Risks for Corporate Officers (bloomberglaw.com)

• Insurance Data Breach Victims File Class-Action Suit Against Law Firm (darkreading.com)

• The cyber security insurance market is estimated at USD 14.4 (globenewswire.com)

• Insurance Regulators ‎Continue to ‎Grapple With the Rapid Development ‎and ‎Use of Artificial ‎Intelligence | Locke Lord LLP - JDSupra

Dark Web

• Researchers Harvest, Analyse 100K Cyber Crime Forum Credentials (darkreading.com)

Supply Chain and Third Parties

• Building Cyber security into the supply chain is essential as threats mount (att.com)

• Why the public sector still loves Capita (even though it got hacked) - Tech Monitor

• How to Ensure Cyber Resilience Across the Supply Chain - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Experts Uncover Weaknesses in PowerShell Gallery Enabling Supply Chain Attacks (thehackernews.com)

• PowerShell Gallery Prone to Typosquatting, Other Supply Chain Attacks (darkreading.com)

Software Supply Chain

• Study reveals staggering cost of vulnerable software supply chains - Plant & Works Engineering (pwemag.co.uk)

• Why a Software Bill of Materials Is Business-Critical - The Futurum Group

Cloud/SaaS

• 'DoubleDrive' attack turns Microsoft OneDrive into ransomware | SC Media (scmagazine.com)

• Researchers find sensitive personal data in over 30% of cloud assets | SC Media (scmagazine.com)

• Web app warning: 74% of apps with PII are vulnerable to a 'major exploit', report | SC Media (scmagazine.com)

• Amazon AWS distances itself from Moq amid data collection controversy (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Adapting to the Cloud Era of Cyber security: How CISO’s Priorities Are Evolving | Network Computing

• Datacentre management vulnerabilities leave public clouds at risk | Computer Weekly

• Spear Phishing vs Phishing: How to Tell the Difference (techrepublic.com)

Containers

• Kubernetes clusters face widespread attacks across numerous organisations - Help Net Security

Encryption

• UK Government Slammed For Encryption Mistruths - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• WhatsApp is right to be angry about the UK’s encryption mess | The Spectator

• Google adds post-quantum encryption key protection to Chrome • The Register

API

• The Evolution of API: From Commerce to Cloud-Security Affairs

• How financial services cyber regulations are hotting up for API security (betanews.com)

Open Source

• Why a Software Bill of Materials Is Business-Critical - The Futurum Group

• Monti Ransomware Returns with New Linux Variant and Enhanced Evasion Tactics (thehackernews.com)

Passwords, Credential Stuffing & Brute Force Attacks

• 6 best practices to defend against corporate account takeover attacks | CSO Online

• What's the State of Credential theft in 2023? (thehackernews.com)

• Building a secure future without traditional passwords - Help Net Security

• Are browser-stored passwords secure? | Kaspersky official blog

• Passwordless is more than a buzzword among cyber security pros - Help Net Security

• More hardcoded credentials than ever, and sloppy coding is to blame | SC Media (scmagazine.com)

• AI Can Decipher Passwords by Listening to Keystrokes Over Zoom: Study (businessinsider.com)

Social Media

• LinkedIn hack: You need to check your LinkedIn account - gHacks Tech News

• LinkedIn accounts hacked in widespread hijacking campaign (bleepingcomputer.com)

• 'Gold mine' phishing scams rob Main Street on social media like Meta (cnbc.com)

Malvertising

• Adblock 360 Adware Extension: 3 Ways to Remove for Good - MSPoweruser

• Malvertisers up their game against researchers (malwarebytes.com)

Training, Education and Awareness

• Tips on employee cyber security training, risks and how to manage them - Albany Business Review (bizjournals.com)

Cyber Bullying, Cyber Stalking and Sextortion

• Sextortion suspects on trial after one victim dies • The Register

• Digital Safety Advice is Not Getting Through to Women - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

Regulations, Fines and Legislation

• Navigating generative AI risks and regulatory challenges - Help Net Security

• UK Government Slammed For Encryption Mistruths - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• ICO reprimands law firm over data breach that saw money stolen - Legal Futures

• Breaking Down the New SEC Cyber security Rules | Epiq - JDSupra

• Confusion Surrounds SEC's New Cyber security Material Rule (darkreading.com)

• How do we define “cyber worker”? The SEC’s rationale behind its new cyberincident disclosure rule. (thecyberwire.com)

• Why the “voluntary AI commitments” extracted by the White House are nowhere near enough - Help Net Security

• How financial services cyber regulations are hotting up for API security (betanews.com)

• A closer look at the new TSA oil and gas pipeline regulations - Help Net Security

• New York’s Department of Financial Services Moves to Further Bolster Cyber security Requirements | Jackson Lewis P.C. - JDSupra

Models, Frameworks and Standards

• Center for Internet Security announces secretive Microsoft partnership | StateScoop

• What's New in the NIST Cyber security Framework 2.0 (darkreading.com)

Data Protection

• Researchers find sensitive personal data in over 30% of cloud assets | SC Media (scmagazine.com)

• Amazon AWS distances itself from Moq amid data collection controversy (bleepingcomputer.com)

• India Passes New Digital Personal Data Protection Bill (DPDPB), Putting Users' Privacy First (thehackernews.com)

Careers, Working in Cyber and Information Security

• 650,000 cyber jobs are now vacant: How to tackle the risk (securityintelligence.com)

• Effectively upskilling cyber security professionals to help close the skills gap | CSO Online

• How to overcome the challenges of today's cyber security talent shortage - SiliconANGLE

• Army struggling to hire cyber staff as attacks on Britain ramp up (telegraph.co.uk)

• Vietnam admits massive shortage of infosec pros • The Register

• Heavy workloads driving IT professionals to resign - Help Net Security

• ISC2 Announces Major Milestone as Community Grows to Half a Million Strong (prnewswire.com)

Law Enforcement Action and Take Downs

• Polish police arrest five in swoop on Cyber Crime site - TVN24

• How the FBI goes after DDoS cyber attackers | TechCrunch

• Lapsus$ Report: Law Enforcement Battles Cyber Threats (beincrypto.com)

• LOLEKHosted admin arrested for aiding Netwalker ransomware gang (bleepingcomputer.com)

• 10 people, including 16-year-old youth arrested for suspected involvement in malware scams (databreaches.net)

• Sextortion suspects on trial after one victim dies • The Register

• Crimeware server used by NetWalker ransomware seized and shut down – Naked Security (sophos.com)

• Raccoon Stealer malware back with updated version following administrator arrest (therecord.media)

• Man arrested in Northern Ireland police data leak • The Register

• India Passes New Digital Personal Data Protection Bill (DPDPB), Putting Users' Privacy First (thehackernews.com)

Privacy, Surveillance and Mass Monitoring

• Amazon AWS distances itself from Moq amid data collection controversy (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Following Pushback, Zoom Says It Won't Use Customer Data to Train AI Models (darkreading.com)

Misinformation, Disinformation and Propaganda

• Fake Out: Disinformation Campaigns Get Generative AI Boost (inforisktoday.com)

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Nation State Actors, Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs), Cyber Warfare and Cyber Espionage

Russia

• Russian and Chinese hackers breached Foreign Office systems in cyber attack kept secret from public (inews.co.uk)

• Foreign Office cyber attacks may have risked safety of civil servants and UK's allies, Tory MPs say (inews.co.uk)

• APT29 is targeting Ministries of Foreign Affairs of NATO-aligned countries-Security Affairs

• Russian spy agencies targeting Starlink with custom malware, Ukraine warns (telegraph.co.uk)

• Russian-African Security Gathering Exposes Kremlin's Reduced Influence (darkreading.com)

• Hacked electronic sign declares “Putin is a dickhead” as Russian ruble slumps • Graham Cluley

• Russian Hackers Use Zulip Chat App for Covert C&C in Diplomatic Phishing Attacks (thehackernews.com)

• Suspected spies for Russia held in major UK security investigation - BBC News

• Russia turning to sleeper cells and unofficial agents | Espionage | The Guardian

China

• Russian and Chinese hackers breached Foreign Office systems in cyber attack kept secret from public (inews.co.uk)

• Researchers Shed Light on APT31's Advanced Backdoors and Data Exfiltration Tactics (thehackernews.com)

• DHS to Review Microsoft’s Security in Chinese Email Hack - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Top US cyber official warns of infrastructure attack risk if China tensions rise (nbcnews.com)

• New Zealand says it is aware of China-linked intelligence activity in country | Reuters

• China teases imminent exposé of seismic US spying scheme • The Register

• Wide-ranging cyberespionage campaign by China's Ministry of State Security. Vulnerabilities in CPUs. MacOS threat trends. (thecyberwire.com)

• Chinese Espionage Group Active Across Eastern Europe (inforisktoday.com)

• 15,000 cyber attacks detected per second in Taiwan: Software provider - Focus Taiwan

• China would consider attacks on US railroads, pipelines if it invades Taiwan, Easterly says (therecord.media)

• US lawmaker says FBI notified him of email breach linked to Microsoft cloud hack | TechCrunch

• China-Linked Bronze Starlight Group Targeting Gambling Sector with Cobalt Strike Beacons (thehackernews.com)

Iran

• German Intelligence Warns of Surge in Iranian Espionage (govinfosecurity.com)

• Charming Kitten Targets Iranian Dissidents with Advanced Cyber Attacks (thehackernews.com)

• Iran and the Rise of Cyber Enabled Influence Operations (darkreading.com)

North Korea

• North Korean Hackers Suspected in New Wave of Malicious npm Packages (thehackernews.com)

Misc/Other/Unknown

• APTs use of lesser-known TTPs are no less of a headache - Help Net Security

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Vulnerability Management

• Electoral Commission had unpatched vulnerability on server • The Register

• Web app warning: 74% of apps with PII are vulnerable to a 'major exploit', report | SC Media (scmagazine.com)

Vulnerabilities

• Almost 2,000 Citrix NetScaler servers backdoored in hacking campaign (bleepingcomputer.com)

• CISA Adds Citrix ShareFile Flaw to KEV Catalog Due to In-the-Wild Attacks (thehackernews.com)

• Patched Citrix NetScaler Devices Still Contain Backdoors (govinfosecurity.com)

• Critical Security Flaws Affect Ivanti Avalanche, Threatening 30,000 Organizations (thehackernews.com)

• Zoom ZTP & AudioCodes Phones Flaws Uncovered, Exposing Users to Eavesdropping (thehackernews.com)

• Magento shopping cart attack targets critical vulnerability • The Register

• New Python URL Parsing Flaw Enables Command Injection Attacks (thehackernews.com)

• Data centers at risk due to flaws in power management software | CyberScoop

• Bugs in transportation app Moovit gave hackers free rides | TechCrunch

• Ongoing Xurum Attacks on E-commerce Sites Exploiting Critical Magento 2 Vulnerability (thehackernews.com)

• Google Chrome 116: more Telemetry and 26 security patches - gHacks Tech News

• Google Fixes 26 Bugs Amid Fake Update Warning - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• AMD has fixed its latest security flaw - but at the cost of massive slowdowns | TechRadar

• Windows 11 update install failures are reportedly happening again – and it’s breaking the built-in antivirus | TechRadar

• Proxyjacking trend continues as attackers abuse years-old GitLab vulnerability | ITPro

• Multiple Flaws Found in the Avada WordPress Theme and Plugin - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Windows feature that resets system clocks based on random data is wreaking havoc | Ars Technica

Tools and Controls

• What is Cyber security Monitoring? - MSSP Alert

• XWorm, Remcos RAT Evade EDRs to Infect Critical Infrastructure (darkreading.com)

• AI-powered fraud detection: Strengthening security in fintech | The Financial Express

• Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows to enhance security with meeting ID and passcode requirement - OnMSFT.com

• MaginotDNS attacks exploit weak checks for DNS cache poisoning (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Evaluate the risks and benefits of AI in cyber security | TechTarget

• How to Choose a Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Solution (darkreading.com)

• Lock Down APIs to Prevent Breaches (darkreading.com)

• How to Prevent Phishing Attacks with Multi-Factor Authentication (techrepublic.com)

• Building a secure future without traditional passwords - Help Net Security

• Passwordless is more than a buzzword among cyber security pros - Help Net Security

• SEC cyber security rules shape the future of incident management - Help Net Security

• AI a Top Risk and the Preferred Solution to Financial Crime - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Traditional vs. Enterprise Risk Management: How Do They Differ? (techtarget.com)

• Endpoint Management Statistics, Trends And Facts 2023 - Abdalslam

• SASE and requirements of business | Professional Security

• Why You Need Continuous Network Monitoring? (thehackernews.com)

• CISA releases cyber defence plan for remote monitoring and management software - SiliconANGLE

• How poor cyber security policies disrupt business continuity - IT Security Guru

• Cyber Prevention, Training Attract More Spend Than Remediation, Recovery, Execs Say - | MSSP Alert

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Other News

• Cyber attacks against the UK Electoral Commission reveal an ongoing threat to democracy (techxplore.com)

• Healthcare incurs highest data breach costs – for the 13th year in a row | Healthcare IT News

• Here's Why You Should Never Accept Unsolicited Tech by Post (makeuseof.com)

• Government highlights cyber threat to health and social care | UKAuthority

• Why is the Education Sector a Target for Cyber Attacks? | UpGuard

• Cyber security in the Entertainment Industry: Risks and Solutions | UpGuard

• What would an OT cyber attack really cost your organisation? | CSO Online

• Education has had most cyber attacks, survey finds | Education Business (educationbusinessuk.net)

• Cyber attacks Are On The Up: What Are The Risks & Remedies For Aviation? (simpleflying.com)

• Bank of Ireland ATM Glitch Hands Out 'Free' Money (gizmodo.com)

• Exclusive: 300 independent retailers affected by cyber attack | News | Retail Week (retail-week.com)

• Documentary shines spotlight on a central bank heist and threats from cyber criminals - BNN Bloomberg

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Sector Specific

Industry specific threat intelligence reports are available.

Contact us to receive tailored reports specific to the industry/sector and geographies you operate in.

·       Automotive

·       Construction

·       Critical National Infrastructure (CNI)

·       Defence & Space

·       Education & Academia

·       Energy & Utilities

·       Estate Agencies

·       Financial Services

·       FinTech

·       Food & Agriculture

·       Gaming & Gambling

·       Government & Public Sector (including Law Enforcement)

·       Health/Medical/Pharma

·       Hotels & Hospitality

·       Insurance

·       Legal

·       Manufacturing

·       Maritime

·       Oil, Gas & Mining

·       OT, ICS, IIoT, SCADA & Cyber-Physical Systems

·       Retail & eCommerce

·       Small and Medium Sized Businesses (SMBs)

·       Startups

·       Telecoms

·       Third Sector & Charities

·       Transport & Aviation

·       Web3

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As usual, contact us to help assess where your risks lie and to ensure you are doing all you can do to keep you and your business secure.

Look out for our ‘Cyber Tip Tuesday’ video blog and on our YouTube channel.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Links to articles are for interest and awareness and linking to or reposting external content does not endorse any service or product, likewise we are not responsible for the security of external links.

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 14 April 2023

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

• Almost Half of Former Employees Say Their Passwords Still Work

An alarming number of organisations are not properly offboarding employees when they leave, especially in regard to passwords. In a new survey of 1,000 workers who had access to company passwords at their previous jobs, 47% admitted to using them after leaving the company.

According to the survey one in three respondents said they had been using the passwords for upwards of two years, which is a distressingly long time for organisations not to be aware of who is accessing those accounts and services.

When asked what they use the passwords for, 64% said to access their former email accounts and 44% to access company data. A concerning 10% of respondents said they were trying to disrupt company activities.

https://www.darkreading.com/edge-threat-monitor/almost-half-of-former-employees-say-their-passwords-still-work

• Efficient Risk Based Patch Management Means Eliminating Just 2% of Exposures Could Protect 90% of Critical Assets

A recent cyber security report analysed over 60 million security exposures, or weaknesses that could give an attacker access to systems. The report found that only 2% enabled attackers access to critical assets, while 75% of exposures along attack paths lead to “dead ends”. Further, the report shows that average organisations have 11,000 exploitable security exposures monthly, with techniques targeting credentials and permissions affecting 82% of organisations and exploits accounting for over 70% of all identified security exposures.

The report found that most security alerts were benign and did not lead to critical assets. By applying efficient risk based patch management and reducing unnecessary access to critical assets, organisations can mitigate a significant amount of risk. This isn’t a simple task however, for an organisation to be able to employ efficient risk based patch management it must have a sufficient level of cyber maturity and internal vulnerability scanning accompanied by a dynamic threat intelligence component.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/eliminating-2-exposures-protect-90/

• Printers Pose Persistent Yet Overlooked Threat

A rash of printer-related vulnerabilities in 2023 have punctuated security expert warnings that printers continue to be a significant vulnerability within companies — especially as remote workers require printing resources or access to corporate printers. So far in 2023, Lexmark advised that a publicly available remote exploit had already targeted a code execution flaw in its printers, HP warned of a vulnerable firmware version on some of its enterprise printers, and Microsoft fixed three remote code execution vulnerabilities in its printer drivers.

Printers remain a likely soft spot in most companies’ attack surface area, particularly because they are not always part of a company’s asset management process and are often left out of security assessments and risk registers. Many organisations don’t know where their printers are, their security status, configuration, monitoring or logging activity. Research has shown that 67% of companies are worried about the risk home printers may pose and only 26% of information technology and cyber security professionals are confident in their organisation’s printing infrastructure security.

https://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities-threats/printers-pose-persistent-yet-overlooked-threat

• Employees Are as Likely as Cyber Criminals to Cause Cyber Incidents

Employees and cyber criminals cause similar numbers of data leakages. Kaspersky’s 2022 IT Security Economics survey found cyber-attacks caused 23% of data leakages, while employees caused a similar proportion, at 22%. The rise in employees causing leakages may be linked with more remote working since the pandemic, with new staff laptops, tablets, and virtual private networks (VPNs) featuring among the extra endpoints and systems needing security. Although innocent mistakes or ignoring cyber-security policy were behind most leakages, security managers reported 36% of employee-triggered leakages were deliberate acts of sabotage or espionage. The high number of cyber-incidents stemming from employee action shows all organisations need thorough cyber-security awareness training to teach all staff how to avoid common security mistakes.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/business-reporter/employees-cyber-criminals-cyber-incidents-b2314225.html

• Over 90% of Organisations Find Threat Hunting a Challenge

Executing essential cyber security operations tasks during the threat hunting process is an increasingly challenging proposition to the vast majority of organisations, with 93% of those polled for a Sophos report saying they find basic security operations a chore.

In the report, “The state of cybersecurity 2023: The business impact of adversaries on defenders”, Sophos said these findings were likely the result of the ongoing cyber security skills shortage, which is creating a domino effect in security operations: a lack of skilled personnel makes investigating alerts take longer, which reduces the security team’s capacity and increases the organisation’s exposure to higher levels of risk.

Organisations that suffer the most are those with revenues of less than $10m (£8m), which are more likely to lack the necessary skillsets, followed by organisations with revenues of more than $5bn, where organisational and system complexity likely play a more prominent role.

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/365534612/Over-90-of-organisations-find-threat-hunting-a-challenge

• 75% of Organisations Have Suffered a Cyber Security Breach

Most organisations need stronger security controls to stop cyber security breaches and cyber attacks, according to “The Data Dilemma: Cloud Adoption and Risk Report” from security service edge (SSE) company Skyhigh Security. Key takeaways from the report include:

• 97% of organisations indicated they are experiencing private cloud problems.

• 75% have experienced a cyber security breach, threat and/or theft of data.

• 75% said shadow IT “impairs their ability to keep data secure.”

• 60% allow employees to download sensitive data to their personal devices.

• 52% noted their employees are using SaaS services that are commissioned by departments outside of IT and without direct involvement of their IT department.

• 37% said they do not trust the public cloud to secure their sensitive data.

https://www.msspalert.com/cybersecurity-research/skyhigh-security-report-75-of-organizations-have-suffered-a-cybersecurity-breach/

• Leak Shows Evolving Russian Cyber War Capabilities

The leak of thousands of pages of secret documentation related to the development of Moscow’s cyber and information operations capabilities paint a picture of a government obsessed with social control and committed to scaling their capacity for non-kinetic interference.

The leaked documents detail methods and training simulations intended to prepare an operator workforce for offensive operations against critical infrastructure targets. Tools revealed by these recent leaks suggest a desire and an ability to extensively map foreign vulnerabilities and make the job of Russia’s cyber conflict operators as accessible and scalable as possible.

This leak reinforces the significant concern regarding the threat posed by Russian cyber forces to firms across the globe.

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3692821/ntc-vulkan-leak-shows-evolving-russian-cyberwar-capabilities.html#tk.rss_news

• Outsourced Payroll and HR Services Firm Forced to Shut Down After Cyber Attack

Belgian headquartered HR and payroll giant SD Worx has suffered a cyber attack causing them to shut down all IT systems for their UK and Ireland services. While the login portals for other European countries are working correctly, the company's UK customer portal was not accessible. As a full-service human resources and payroll company, SD Worx manages a large amount of sensitive data for their client's employees.

According to the company's general conditions agreement, this data may include tax information, government ID numbers, addresses, full names, birth dates, phone numbers, bank account numbers, employee evaluations, and more.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/sd-worx-shuts-down-uk-payroll-hr-services-after-cyberattack/

• When a Cyber Criminal Steals Personal Data from Your Organisation What Do You Do and Who Do You Need to Inform?

If that happens it might be time for your management to clear their desks. The prospect of financial penalties and reputational damage is very real. You need to know your obligations — for instance, reporting the breach to applicable authorities and regulators within strict timeframes — understand the breach, and prioritise. Then you communicate and remedy. If you haven’t planned well, it’s going to be tough.

You need to understand the data breach. Who is affected — is it staff or customer data? What exactly have the cyber criminals accessed? Consider the type of information: salary details and passport copies, or customer payment information.

If personal data has been lost or compromised, you will likely have an obligation under data protection regulations to report the breach to your applicable data protection authority within 72 hours, and if you are a regulated business there will likely be similar requirements to report to your regulator within a similar timeframe. Knowing your obligations — ideally before any hack takes place — will guide how well you respond.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/who-should-i-inform-after-a-data-hack-dcrzvgp2x

• Insider Threat and Ransomware: A Growing Issue

Ransomware is a growing epidemic. 2022 saw a slew of high-profile attacks leading to massive paydays for cyber criminals. Cyber criminals work just as hard to conceal their identities and location as they do to exploit weaknesses and capture valuable data to hold hostage. Organisations not only stand to lose money in this scenario, but the damage to their reputation and trustworthiness in the market can be challenging to recover from. Customers place high trust in the safety of their personal information, and it’s the company they hold accountable – not the thieves – if it slips into the wrong hands.

Even if you have good technical controls, the low-hanging fruit is capitalising on the human element and gaining entrance through a person within your organisation. Insider threats come in all shapes and sizes and roles, including employees, executives, former employees, board members, contractors, and service providers. Insider threats, by their very nature, pose a unique challenge for organisations.

https://informationsecuritybuzz.com/insider-threat-and-ransomware-a-growing-issue/

• How LockBit Changed Cyber Security Forever

LockBit are one of the most prolific ransomware gangs globally, accounting for almost half of ransomware attacks in 2022. They not only maintain a high profile, but they’ve also turned ransom monetisation upside down. Thanks to their innovative approach, the group has claimed 44% of total ransomware attacks launched in 2022. LockBit made history by launching the industry’s first bug bounty program initiated by a ransomware group. The operation invites security experts to uncover vulnerabilities and report them for rewards ranging from $1,000 to a staggering $1 million. This has since been expanded and now offers bounties for creative ways to enhance ransomware operations.

https://securityintelligence.com/articles/how-lockbit-changed-cybersecurity/

• Hybrid Work Environments Are Stressing CISOs

The impact of the hybrid workforce on security posture, as well as the risks introduced by this way of working, are posing concerns for CISOs and driving them to develop new strategies for hybrid work security, according to a new report.

Among the report’s most critical findings is the revelation that browsing-based threats ranked as CISOs’ number one concern, regardless of whether their organisation was operating primarily in an in-office, hybrid, or remote setting.

And as for the risks posed by hybrid and remote workers specifically, insecure browsing also topped the list of CISOs’ concerns.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2023/04/12/hybrid-work-environments-stressing-cisos/

• Protect Your Data with a USB Condom

USB isn't just a charging protocol, it also allows data to flow back and forth, and while most of the time this data flow is safe, it is possible to create a malicious charging port that can do bad things, such as plant malware on your device or steal your data. Equally, an employee plugging their personal phone into a corporate USB port may present a danger to the corporate network through the phone. A USB condom is a small dongle that adds a layer of protection between your device and the charging point you're attaching it to by blocking the data being transferred through the port. If you must use a charger, cable, or charging port that isn't under your control, it makes sense to use a USB condom.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/protect-your-data-with-a-usb-condom/

• Strategising Cyber Security: Why a Risk-based Approach is Key

By 2027, cyber crime could cost the global economy nearly $24 trillion. Businesses often find themselves at the sharp end of this challenge, and, as such, cyber security is a critical aspect of the modern business landscape. Cyber threats are multiplying and pose serious financial, legal and reputational challenges to organisations.

Modern and effective cyber security management entails more than managing technology risk; it encompasses managing business risk. Organisations must recognise cyber security as a strategic imperative integrated into their overall risk management framework — and this starts at the board level.  In some cases, board members may find it beneficial to seek help in assessing appropriate levels of control.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/04/strategizing-cybersecurity-why-a-risk-based-approach-is-key/

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Threats

Ransomware, Extortion and Destructive Attacks

• Microsoft Issues Patches for 97 Flaws, Including Active Ransomware Exploit (thehackernews.com)

• Microsoft patches vulnerability used in Nokoyawa ransomware attacks | CSO Online

• How LockBit Changed Cyber security Forever (securityintelligence.com)

• Iran-Based Hackers Caught Carrying Out Destructive Attacks Under Ransomware Guise (thehackernews.com)

• Insider Threat And Ransomware: A Growing Issue (informationsecuritybuzz.com)

• Rorschach ransomware deployed by misusing a security tool - Help Net Security

• Medusa ransomware claims attack on Open University of Cyprus (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Cyble — New Cylance Ransomware with Power-Packed CommandLine Options

• Taiwanese PC Company MSI Falls Victim to Ransomware Attack (thehackernews.com)

• KFC, Pizza Hut owner discloses data breach after ransomware attack (bleepingcomputer.com)

• 7 Things Your Ransomware Response Playbook Is Likely Missing (darkreading.com)

• Cyber crime group exploits Windows zero-day in ransomware attacks-Security Affairs

• Windows zero-day vulnerability exploited in ransomware attacks (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Ransomware gangs increasingly deploy zero-days to maximize attacks | CyberScoop

• Latitude Financial Refuses to Pay Ransom - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Superyacht-Maker Hit by Easter Ransomware Attack - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

• Microsoft: Phishing attack targets accountants as Tax Day approaches (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Researchers Uncover Thriving Phishing Kit Market on Telegram Channels (thehackernews.com)

• Phishing Campaign Targeting YouTube Content Creators, Malware Hitting Charging Stations - MSSP Alert

BEC – Business Email Compromise

• 'BEC 3.0' Is Here with Tax-Season QuickBooks Cyber attacks (darkreading.com)

Other Social Engineering; Smishing, Vishing, etc

• Simple psychology is the most dangerous form of cyber attack (thetimes.co.uk)

2FA/MFA

• Comparing enabled and enforced MFA in Microsoft 365 | TechTarget

• Rilide browser extension steals MFA codes - Help Net Security

Malware

• New Mirai Variant Employs Uncommon Tactics to Distribute Malware (darkreading.com)

• Typhon Reborn Stealer Malware Resurfaces with Advanced Evasion Techniques (thehackernews.com)

• BlackGuard Stealer Extends its Capabilities in New Variant - MSSP Alert

• Check Point Software Technologies: Qbot Top Malware in March 2023 - MSSP Alert

• Cryptocurrency Stealer Malware Distributed via 13 NuGet Packages (thehackernews.com)

• DEV-0196: QuaDream’s “KingsPawn” malware used to target civil society in Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia - Microsoft Security Blog

• Attackers Hide RedLine Stealer Behind ChatGPT, Google Bard Facebook Ads (darkreading.com)

• Microsoft shares guidance to detect BlackLotus UEFI bootkit attacks (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Researchers Uncover 7000 Malicious Open Source Packages - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Microsoft, Fortra Gains Legal Rights Against Cobalt Strike Abuse (informationsecuritybuzz.com)

• Emotet Climbs March 2023's Most Wanted Malware List With OneNote Campaign - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Legion Malware Marches onto Web Servers to Steal Credentials, Spam Mobile Users (darkreading.com)

• WhatsApp boosts defence against account takeover via malware (bleepingcomputer.com)

Mobile

• Protect your data with a USB condom | ZDNET

• FBI warns about dangers of public USB charging ports | Popular Science (popsci.com)

• Researchers Uncover Thriving Phishing Kit Market on Telegram Channels (thehackernews.com)

• Android phones vulnerable to remote hacking — update right now | Tom's Guide (tomsguide.com)

• Burglars tunnel through Apple Store’s neighbour, allegedly steal $500K in iPhones | Ars Technica

• 5G connections set to rise past 5.9 billion by 2027 - Help Net Security

• Cyber criminals To Add Android Malware On Google Play Up To $20,000 (informationsecuritybuzz.com)

• Cyber criminals Turn to Android Loaders on Dark Web to Evade Google Play Security (thehackernews.com)

• Israel-based Spyware Firm QuaDream Targets High-Risk iPhones with Zero-Click Exploit (thehackernews.com)

• WhatsApp boosts defence against account takeover via malware (bleepingcomputer.com)

Denial of Service/DoS/DDOS

• Hackers Flood NPM with Bogus Packages Causing a DoS Attack (thehackernews.com)

• DDoS attacks shifting to VPS infrastructure for increased power (bleepingcomputer.com)

• DDoS threat report for 2023 Q1 (cloudflare.com)

• DDoS alert traffic reaches record-breaking level of 436 petabits in one day - Help Net Security

• DDoS attacks rise as pro-Russia groups attack Finland, Israel (techrepublic.com)

Internet of Things – IoT

• Printers Pose Persistent Yet Overlooked Threat (darkreading.com)

• There’s a new form of keyless car theft that works in under 2 minutes | Ars Technica

• Special Report: Tesla workers shared sensitive images recorded by customer cars | Reuters

• Default static key in ThingsBoard IoT platform can give attackers admin access | CSO Online

• 5G connections set to rise past 5.9 billion by 2027 - Help Net Security

• New Ultrasonic Acoustic Attack Targeting Microphones and Voice Assistants Gives Remote Access to Most Smart Devices - The Debrief

• Zigbee PRO 2023 introduces new security mechanisms, feature enhancements - Help Net Security

• Critical Vulnerability in Hikvision Storage Solutions Exposes Video Security Data - SecurityWeek

Data Breaches/Leaks

• Samsung employees unwittingly leaked company secret data by using ChatGPT-Security Affairs

• Cloud accounting firm in a pickle after researchers find admin login data | TechRadar

• Service NSW breach exposes personal data affecting thousands of customers | 7NEWS

• Leaked n documents provide rare window into depth of US intelligence on allies and foes | CNN Politics

• Military Intel Leak Investigated By US Officials (informationsecuritybuzz.com)

• Hyundai data breach exposes owner details in France and Italy (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Over 20,000 Iowa Medicaid Members Affected By Data Breach - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

• Criminal businesses adopt corporate behaviour as they grow - Help Net Security

• Seized Genesis malware market's infostealers infected 1.5 million computers | CSO Online

• Breached shutdown sparks migration to ARES data leak forums (bleepingcomputer.com)

• FBI: Crooks posing as PRC agents prey on Chinese in the US • The Register

• 5 Types of Cyber Crime Groups (trendmicro.com)

Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking/NFTs/Blockchain

• Sentiment DeFi Hacker Makes Amends by Returning 90% of Funds (beincrypto.com)

• Cryptocurrency Stealer Malware Distributed via 13 NuGet Packages (thehackernews.com)

• EU-Funded Report Calls for Crypto ID Checks, Police Training to Combat Darknet Markets (coindesk.com)

Insider Risk and Insider Threats

• Employees are as likely as cyber-criminals to cause cyber-incidents | The Independent

• Cyber criminals use simple trick to obtain personal data - Help Net Security

• Nearly Half of Workers Pilfer Former Employers’ Passwords to Access Accounts, Study Says - MSSP Alert

• Insider Threat And Ransomware: A Growing Issue (informationsecuritybuzz.com)

• Building a human firewall to block cyber attacks | McKinsey

• How to Combat Insider Threats-Security Affairs

Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime

• FBI warns of companies exploiting sextortion victims for profit (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Cambodia deports 19 Japanese cyber crime scam suspects | News | Al Jazeera

• ‘Overemployed’ Hustlers Exploit ChatGPT To Take On Even More Full-Time Jobs (vice.com)

• When Banking Laws Don't Protect Consumers From Cybertheft (darkreading.com)

• AI clones child’s voice in fake kidnapping scam | The Independent

• Five arrested after 33,000 victims lose $98M to online investment fraud (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Stolen Card Numbers Plummet 94% Globally - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

Supply Chain and Third Parties

• 3CX confirms North Korean hackers behind supply chain attack (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Capita: IT outsourcer reels from being locked out of its own IT (thetimes.co.uk)

Cloud/SaaS

• Western Digital struggles to fix massive My Cloud outage, offers workaround (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Nation-state actors are taking advantage of weak passwords to go after cloud customers, Google says | CyberScoop

• Microsoft Azure Users Warned of Potential Shared Key Authorization Abuse - SecurityWeek

• How and Why to Put Multicloud to Work (darkreading.com)

• Iranian APT group launches destructive attacks in hybrid Azure AD environments | CSO Online

• Cloud accounting firm in a pickle after researchers find admin login data | TechRadar

• Securing the Chaos – Harnessing Dispersed Multi-Cloud, Hybrid Environments - SecurityWeek

Hybrid/Remote Working

• 4 ways to secure your remote work setup | ZDNET

• Hybrid work environments are stressing CISOs - Help Net Security

• ‘Overemployed’ Hustlers Exploit ChatGPT To Take On Even More Full-Time Jobs (vice.com)

Attack Surface Management

• How to Secure Web Applications in a Growing Digital Attack Surface (bleepingcomputer.com)

• The new weakest link in the cyber security chain - Help Net Security

Shadow IT

• How to use a CASB to manage shadow IT | TechTarget

Identity and Access Management

• Identity Management Day: 3 Things MSSPs Need to Know - MSSP Alert

• Centralized vs. decentralized identity management explained | TechTarget

• The Service Accounts Challenge: Can't See or Secure Them Until It's Too Late (thehackernews.com)

Encryption

• The UK government has sparked an encryption row over powers it might never use | Financial Times (ft.com)

• Why the US Needs Quantum-Safe Cryptography Deployed Now (darkreading.com)

API

• How to fix the top 5 API vulnerabilities | TechTarget

• Google launches dependency API and curated package repository with security metadata | CSO Online

• Why Shadow APIs are More Dangerous than You Think (thehackernews.com)

Open Source

• Researchers Uncover 7000 Malicious Open Source Packages - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

Passwords, Credential Stuffing & Brute Force Attacks

• Almost Half of Former Employees Say Their Passwords Still Work (darkreading.com)

• LastPass Breach Reveals Important Lessons (darkreading.com)

• Why it's time to move towards a passwordless future - Help Net Security

• AI can crack most password in less than a minute | TechRadar

• How an AI tool could crack your passwords in seconds | ZDNET

• Meet PassGAN, the supposedly “terrifying” AI password cracker that’s mostly hype | Ars Technica

Social Media

• Tech layoffs raise new alarms about how platforms protect users | CNN Business

Malvertising

• Attackers Hide RedLine Stealer Behind ChatGPT, Google Bard Facebook Ads (darkreading.com)

Training, Education and Awareness

• How to transform cyber security learning and make content more engaging - Help Net Security

Regulations, Fines and Legislation

• Lagging regulations frustrate protecting data from cyber attacks (themandarin.com.au)

• The UK government has sparked an encryption row over powers it might never use | Financial Times (ft.com)

• Battle could be brewing over new FCC data breach reporting rules | CSO Online

• When Banking Laws Don't Protect Consumers From Cyber Theft (darkreading.com)

Governance, Risk and Compliance

• Employees are as likely as cyber-criminals to cause cyber-incidents | The Independent

• Skyhigh Security Report: 75% of Organizations Have Suffered a Cyber security Breach - MSSP Alert

• Strategising cyber security: Why a risk-based approach is key | World Economic Forum (weforum.org)

• Who should I inform after a data hack? (thetimes.co.uk)

• Two-Fifths of IT Pros Told to Keep Breaches Quiet - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Outcome-based cyber security paves way for organizational goals - Help Net Security

• Why reporting an incident only makes the cyber security community stronger | CSO Online

• 6 common challenges facing cyber security teams and how to overcome them | TechCrunch

• Top 10 Cyber security Trends for 2023: From Zero Trust to Cyber Insurance (thehackernews.com)

• Most Security Exposures Do Not Put Organizations' Critical Assets At Risk, Study Shows - MSSP Alert

• Threat hunting programs can save organizations from costly security breaches - Help Net Security

• LastPass Breach Reveals Important Lessons (darkreading.com)

• Gartner: Human-Centric Design Is Top Cyber Security Trend for 2023 (darkreading.com)

Law Enforcement Action and Take Downs

• Seized Genesis malware market's infostealers infected 1.5 million computers | CSO Online

• Spanish cops arrest teenage 'Robin Hood hacker' • The Register

• Australia Is Scouring the Earth for Cyber criminals — the US Should Too (darkreading.com)

• Cambodia deports 19 Japanese cyber crime scam suspects | News | Al Jazeera

• Dutch Police mails RaidForums members to warn they’re being watched (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Five arrested after 33,000 victims lose $98M to online investment fraud (bleepingcomputer.com)

Privacy, Surveillance and Mass Monitoring

• Tesla Sued Over Workers' Alleged Access to Car Video Imagery - SecurityWeek

• Consumers take data control into their own hands amid rising privacy concerns - Help Net Security

Artificial Intelligence

• 5 ChatGPT security risks in the enterprise | TechTarget

• Samsung employees unwittingly leaked company secret data by using ChatGPT - Security Affairs

• Cyber crime: be careful what you tell your chatbot helper… | Chatbots | The Guardian

• US cyber chiefs warn of threats from China and AI • The Register

• When you're talking to a chatbot, who's listening? | CNN Business

• Bad Actors Will Use Large Language Models — but Defenders Can, Too (darkreading.com)

• Fight AI With AI (darkreading.com)

• American investors shouldn’t be ‘arming the enemy’ by helping China create its own version of OpenAI, warns top VC Keith Rabois (yahoo.com)

• GPT-4 tried to escape into the internet today and it ‘almost worked’ | by Cezary Gesikowski | Mar, 2023 | Bootcamp (uxdesign.cc)

• It sounds like science fiction but it’s not: AI can financially destroy your business | Gene Marks | The Guardian

• AI can crack most password in less than a minute | TechRadar

• ‘Overemployed’ Hustlers Exploit ChatGPT To Take On Even More Full-Time Jobs (vice.com)

• AI clones child’s voice in fake kidnapping scam | The Independent

• European privacy watchdog creates ChatGPT task force | Reuters

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

• Russian hackers linked to widespread attacks targeting NATO and EU (bleepingcomputer.com)

• NTC Vulkan leak shows evolving Russian cyberwar capabilities | CSO Online

• What we know about Russian hackers — and how to stop them — after a year of cyberwar in Ukraine | CyberScoop

• The Discord servers at the center of a massive US intelligence leak | CyberScoop

• Cisco trashed offices and destroyed spares as it quit Russia • The Register

• Another zero-click Apple spyware biz shows up in town again • The Register

• Ukrainian hackers spend $25,000 of pro-Russian blogger's money on sex toys (bitdefender.com)

• DDoS attacks rise as pro-Russia groups attack Finland, Israel (techrepublic.com)

• Russian Hacker Group Zarya Hit Canadian Pipeline—Leaked Docs (gizmodo.com)

• Experts warn of new spyware threat targeting journalists and political figures | Hacking | The Guardian

• Russia's Joker DPR Claims Access to Ukraine Troop Movement Data (darkreading.com)

• Spyware Offered to Cyber attackers via PyPI Python Repository (darkreading.com)

• Russian hackers ‘target security cameras inside Ukraine coffee shops’ | Ukraine | The Guardian

• Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure cause internet outages, cutting off a valuable wartime tool | CyberScoop

• Israel-based Spyware Firm QuaDream Targets High-Risk iPhones with Zero-Click Exploit (thehackernews.com)

Nation State Actors

• Russia-linked APT29 is behind recent attacks targeting NATO and EU-Security Affairs

• North Korean Hackers Uncovered as Mastermind in 3CX Supply Chain Attack (thehackernews.com)

• Nation-state actors are taking advantage of weak passwords to go after cloud customers, Google says | CyberScoop

• Iran-Based Hackers Caught Carrying Out Destructive Attacks Under Ransomware Guise (thehackernews.com)

• US cyber chiefs warn of threats from China and AI • The Register

• Ukrainian hackers spend $25,000 of pro-Russian blogger's money on sex toys (bitdefender.com)

• American investors shouldn’t be ‘arming the enemy’ by helping China create its own version of OpenAI, warns top VC Keith Rabois (yahoo.com)

• Google is on a crusade against cyber security threats from North Korea | TechRadar

• Russian Hacker Group Zarya Hit Canadian Pipeline—Leaked Docs (gizmodo.com)

• Iranian APT group launches destructive attacks in hybrid Azure AD environments | CSO Online

• Leaked US. assessment includes warning about Russian hackers accessing sensitive infrastructure (nbcnews.com)

• FBI: Crooks posing as PRC agents prey on Chinese in the US • The Register

• Lazarus Group's DeathNote Campaign Reveals Shift in Targets - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

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Vulnerability Management

• Eliminating 2% of Exposures Could Protect 90% of Critical Assets - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Most Security Exposures Do Not Put Organizations' Critical Assets At Risk, Study Shows - MSSP Alert

• Ransomware gangs increasingly deploy zero-days to maximize attacks | CyberScoop

• Google Launches New Cyber security Initiatives to Strengthen Vulnerability Management (thehackernews.com)

Vulnerabilities

• Microsoft Issues Patches for 97 Flaws, Including Active Ransomware Exploit (thehackernews.com)

• Windows admins warned to patch critical MSMQ QueueJumper bug (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Nokoyawa ransomware attacks with Windows zero-day | Securelist

• Thousands at risk from critical RCE bug in legacy MS service | Computer Weekly

• Apple issues emergency patches for spyware-style 0-day exploits – update now! – Naked Security (sophos.com)

• 1M+ WordPress Sites Hacked via Zero-Day Plug-in Bugs (darkreading.com)

• Sophos Patches Critical Code Execution Vulnerability in Web Security Appliance - SecurityWeek

• Cisco Patches Code and Command Execution Vulnerabilities in Several Products - SecurityWeek

• CISA orders agencies to patch Backup Exec bugs used by ransomware gang (bleepingcomputer.com)

• CISA Adds Two Known Exploited Vulnerabilities to Catalog | CISA

• Data-leak flaw in Qualcomm, HiSilicon-based Wi-Fi AP chips • The Register

• Twitter 'Shadow Ban' Bug Gets Official CVE (darkreading.com)

• Exploit available for critical bug in VM2 JavaScript sandbox library (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Microsoft finally gets around to fixing half-decade-old Firefox CPU bug | TechRadar

• SAP releases security updates for two critical-severity flaws (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Adobe Plugs Gaping Security Holes in Reader, Acrobat - SecurityWeek

• Limit Login Attempts Plugin Patches Severe Unauthenticated Stored XSS Vulnerability – WP Tavern

• Fortinet Patches Critical Vulnerability in Data Analytics Solution - SecurityWeek

• How Microsoft’s Shared Key authorization can be abused and how to fix it | CSO Online

• Microsoft shares fix for Outlook issue blocking access to emails (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Critical Vulnerability in Hikvision Storage Solutions Exposes Video Security Data - SecurityWeek

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Tools and Controls

• Threat hunting programs can save organizations from costly security breaches - Help Net Security

• Stopping criminals from abusing security tools - Microsoft On the Issues

• Most Security Exposures Do Not Put Organizations' Critical Assets At Risk, Study Shows - MSSP Alert

• LastPass Breach Reveals Important Lessons (darkreading.com)

• The Pope's Security Gets a Boost With Vatican's MDM Move (darkreading.com)

• Bad Actors Will Use Large Language Models — but Defenders Can, Too (darkreading.com)

• Fight AI With AI (darkreading.com)

• Cyber crime: be careful what you tell your chatbot helper… | Chatbots | The Guardian

• Detailed Analysis Of The Best Password Managers In 2023 (informationsecuritybuzz.com)

• How CIEM Can Improve Identity, Permissions Management for Multicloud Deployments (darkreading.com)

• SD-WAN vs. VPN: How do they compare? | TechTarget

• Centralized vs. decentralized identity management explained | TechTarget

• The Service Accounts Challenge: Can't See or Secure Them Until It's Too Late (thehackernews.com)

• What is an Intrusion Prevention System (IPS)? (techtarget.com)

• Securing the Chaos – Harnessing Dispersed Multi-Cloud, Hybrid Environments - SecurityWeek

• How to Secure Web Applications in a Growing Digital Attack Surface (bleepingcomputer.com)

• 4 strategies to help reduce the risk of DNS tunnelling | CSO Online

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Reports Published in the Last Week

• DDoS threat report for 2023 Q1 (cloudflare.com)

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Other News

• MSI Confirms Cyber Attack, Issues Firmware Download Guidance - SecurityWeek

• Guidance for investigating attacks using CVE-2022-21894: The BlackLotus campaign - Microsoft Security Blog

• 1M+ WordPress Sites Hacked via Zero-Day Plug-in Bugs (darkreading.com)

• Western Digital restores service; attack details remain unclear | TechTarget

• 5 tips for tackling technical debt | CIO

• The Internet Reform Trilemma (darkreading.com)

• Rapid7 Has Good News for UK Security Posture - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

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Sector Specific

Industry specific threat intelligence reports are available.

Contact us to receive tailored reports specific to the industry/sector and geographies you operate in.

·       Automotive

·       Construction

·       Critical National Infrastructure (CNI)

·       Defence & Space

·       Education & Academia

·       Energy & Utilities

·       Estate Agencies

·       Financial Services

·       FinTech

·       Food & Agriculture

·       Gaming & Gambling

·       Government & Public Sector (including Law Enforcement)

·       Health/Medical/Pharma

·       Hotels & Hospitality

·       Insurance

·       Legal

·       Manufacturing

·       Maritime

·       Oil, Gas & Mining

·       OT, ICS, IIoT, SCADA & Cyber-Physical Systems

·       Retail & eCommerce

·       Small and Medium Sized Businesses (SMBs)

·       Startups

·       Telecoms

·       Third Sector & Charities

·       Transport & Aviation

·       Web3

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As usual, contact us to help assess where your risks lie and to ensure you are doing all you can do to keep you and your business secure.

Look out for our ‘Cyber Tip Tuesday’ video blog and on our YouTube channel.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Links to articles are for interest and awareness and linking to or reposting external content does not endorse any service or product, likewise we are not responsible for the security of external links.

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 03 March 2023

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

• It’s Time to Evaluate Your Security Education Plan with the Rise in Social Engineering Attacks

Security provider Purplesec found 98% of attacks in 2022 involved an element of social engineering. Social engineering attacks can take many forms including phishing, smishing, vishing and quishing and it’s vital to educate your organisation on how to best prepare for these. Education plans should focusing on educating all levels of users, including those at the top. These plans should also be tested to allow organisations to assess where they are at and identify where they can improve.

https://www.darkreading.com/endpoint/as-social-engineering-attacks-skyrocket-evaluate-your-security-education-plan

• Mobile Users are More Susceptible to Phishing Attacks

A report conducted by mobile security provider Lookout focused on the impact of mobile phishing. Some of the key findings from the report included that more than 50% of personal devices were exposed to a mobile phishing attack every quarter, the percentage of users falling for multiple mobile phishing links increasing and an increased targeting of highly regulated industries such as insurance, banking and financial services. It is likely that this has resulted from the increase in relaxed bring your own device (BYOD) policies.

https://www.msspalert.com/cybersecurity-research/mobile-users-more-susceptible-to-phishing-attacks-than-two-years-ago/

• Phishing as a Service Stimulates Cyber Crime

Phishing attacks are at an all-time high and the usage of Phishing as a Service (PaaS) opens this attack technique to virtually anyone. The sale of “phishing kits” and usage of artificial intelligence has further increased the availability of this attack technique. In response, organisations should look to improve their email security, cloud security and education programs for employees.

https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/ciso/23/c/phishing-as-a-service-phaas.html

• Attacker Breakout Time Drops to Just 84 Minutes

The average time it takes for a threat actor to move laterally from a compromised host within an organisation dropped 14% between 2012 and 2022 down to 84 minutes, according to a report by security provider Crowdstrike. With the reduction in time it takes a threat actor to move across systems, organisations have even less time to enact their incident response plans and contain breaches effectively, putting further pressure on the incident response team. By responding quickly, organisations can minimise the cost and damage of a breach. The report from Crowdstrike found that organisations were facing increasing difficulty in detecting suspicious activity as attackers are choosing to use valid organisation credentials rather than malware, to gain access to an organisation’s systems.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/attacker-breakout-time-drops-just/

• Attackers are Developing and Deploying Exploits Faster Than Ever

A report from security provider Rapid7 found that over 56% of vulnerabilities were exploited within seven days of public disclosure. Worryingly, the median time for exploitation in 2022 was just one day. The finding from the report highlights the need for organisations to not only conduct threat intelligence to be aware of vulnerabilities but to also look to employ patches where possible in a timely manner.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2023/03/03/attackers-developing-deploying-exploits/

• Old Vulnerabilities are Haunting Organisations and Aiding Attackers

Known vulnerabilities, vulnerabilities for which patches have already been made available, are one of the primary attack vectors for threat actors. Vulnerability management vendor Tenable found that the top exploited vulnerabilities were originally disclosed as far back as 2017 and organisations that had not applied these patches were at increased risks of attack.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2023/03/03/known-exploitable-vulnerabilities/

• Scams Drive Nearly $9bn Fraud Surge in 2022

Americans lost $8.8 billion to fraud last year, with imposter scams responsible for $2.8 billion of that amount, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Losses to business imposters were particularly damaging, climbing to $660 million from the previous year. Interestingly, the FTC found that younger people reported losing money to fraud the most often.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/investment-scams-drive-9bn-in/

• Economic Pressure are Increasing Cyber Security Risks and a Recession Would Only Further This

The World Economic Forum’s recent report found that 93% of cyber security leaders and 86% of business leaders think it is moderately or very likely that global geopolitical instability will lead to a catastrophic cyber event in the next two years. Reinforcing this, a report from (ISC)² found that 80% of business executives believe a weakening economy will increase cyber threats and a recession will only amplify this.

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3689008/economic-pressures-are-increasing-cybersecurity-risks-a-recession-would-amp-them-up-more.html

• Cyber Security in this Era of Polycrisis

A year since Russia invaded Ukraine, the geopolitical context is increasingly tense and volatile. The world faces several major crises in what has been coined a 'polycrisis,' a cluster of global shocks with compounding effects. This, along with increasing geopolitical tensions causes a rise in risk from cyber attacks. In fact, the European Union Agency for Cyber Security (ENISA) recently issued an alert regarding actors conducting malicious cyber activities against businesses and governments in the European Union and findings from Google show a 300% increase in state-sponsored cyber attacks targeting users in NATO countries.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/02/cybersecurity-in-an-era-of-polycrisis/

• Russian Ransomware Projects Rebranded to Avoid Western Sanctions

Research provider TRM labs found that some major Russian-linked ransomware crime gangs have rebranded their activities in 2022 to avoid sanctions. To strengthen their anonymity, two major ransomware crime gangs LockBit and Conti restructured their activities. Conti is reported to have restructured into three smaller groups named Black Besta, BlackByte, Karakurt. LockBit on the other hand launched LockBit 3.0, which is focused on monetary gain. Additionally, the report found that Russian-speaking darknet markets had amassed over $130 million in sales.

https://cryptopotato.com/russian-ransomware-projects-rebranded-to-avoid-western-sanctions-report/

• Ransomware Attacks Ravaged Big Names in February

Despite the apparent slight drop in ransomware activity last month, several high profile targets of various industries were hit; this ranges from the likes of the US Marshal Service, retailer WH Smith, satellite provider Dish and many more. These attacks reinforce the concept that any organisation can be a victim, regardless of industry.

https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/news/365532056/Ransomware-attacks-ravaged-big-names-in-February

• Firms Who Pay Ransoms Subsidise New Attacks

A report from security provider Trend Micro found that whilst only a relatively small number of ransomware victims pay their extorters, those that do pay are effectively funding 6-10 new attacks. The report also found that attackers are aware of which industries and countries pay ransoms more often, so organisations belonging to those industries and countries may find themselves an even more attractive target.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/firms-pay-ransom-subsidise-10/

• How the Ukraine War Opened a Fault Line in Cyber Crime

A report from threat intelligence provider Recorded Future has highlighted the impact that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has had on cyber. Recorded Future explain how a number of threat actor groups fled during the war and in addition to differing political views between groups, there has been a disruption to the cyber environment. In fact, Recorded Future found that Russian-language dark web marketplaces have taken a major hit and the prediction is that the epicentre of cyber crime may shift to English-speaking dark web forums, shops and marketplaces.

https://www.darkreading.com/analytics/ukraine-war-fault-line-cybercrime-forever

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Threats

Ransomware, Extortion and Destructive Attacks

• Firms Who Pay Ransom Subsidise 10 New Attacks: Report - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Well-funded security systems fail to prevent cyber attacks in US and Europe: Report | CSO Online

• Russian Ransomware Projects Rebranded to Avoid Western Sanctions: Report (cryptopotato.com)

• New cyber attack tactics rise up as ransomware payouts increase | CSO Online

• Ransomware Attacks: Don’t Let Your Guard Down - SecurityWeek

• Ransomware attacks ravaged big names in February | TechTarget

• Cyber Insurance Market Back From Brink After Onslaught of Ransomware Attacks (insurancejournal.com)

• Royal Mail schools LockBit in leaked negotiation (malwarebytes.com)

• 'Ethical hacker' among ransomware suspects arrested • The Register

• Wiper malware goes global, destructive attacks surge - Help Net Security

• A Deep Dive into the Evolution of Ransomware Part 3 (trendmicro.com)

• New Exfiltrator-22 post-exploitation kit linked to LockBit ransomware (bleepingcomputer.com)

• PureCrypter malware hits govt orgs with ransomware, info-stealers (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Bitdefender Releases Free Decryptor for MortalKombat Ransomware Strain (thehackernews.com)

• Dish Network confirms ransomware attack behind multi-day outage (bleepingcomputer.com)

• US Marshals Ransomware Hit Is 'Major' Incident (darkreading.com)

• The DoJ Disruption of the Hive Ransomware Group Is a Short-Lived Win (darkreading.com)

• Vice Society publishes data stolen during Vesuvius ransomware attack • Graham Cluley

• US Cybersecurity Agency Raises Alarm Over Royal Ransomware's Deadly Capabilities (thehackernews.com)

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

• New cyber attack tactics rise up as ransomware payouts increase | CSO Online

• Mobile Users More Susceptible to Phishing Attacks than Two Years Ago - MSSP Alert

• Phishing as a Service Stimulates Cyber crime (trendmicro.com)

• Phone Attacks and MFA Bypass Drive Phishing to New Heights - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Managed XDR Exposes Spear-Phishing Campaign Targeting Hospitality Industry Using RedLine Stealer (trendmicro.com)

BEC – Business Email Compromise

• New cyber attack tactics rise up as ransomware payouts increase | CSO Online

• Expert strategies for defending against multilingual email-based attacks - Help Net Security

• Hackers Target Young Gamers: How Your Child Can Cause Business Compromise (darkreading.com)

Other Social Engineering; Smishing, Vishing, etc

• As Social Engineering Attacks Skyrocket, Evaluate Your Security Education Plan (darkreading.com)

• The Top 5 New Social Engineering Attacks in 2023 - (ISC)² Blog (isc2.org)

• How to Prevent Callback Phishing Attacks on Your Organization (bleepingcomputer.com)

2FA/MFA

• Phone Attacks and MFA Bypass Drive Phishing to New Heights - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

Malware

• RIG Exploit Kit still infects enterprise users via Internet Explorer (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Exfiltrator-22 Post-Exploitation Toolkit Nips At Cobalt Strike's Heels (darkreading.com)

• Malicious package flood on PyPI might be sign of new attacks to come | CSO Online

• Iron Tiger hackers create Linux version of their custom malware (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Parallax RAT Targeting Cryptocurrency Firms with Sophisticated Injection Techniques (thehackernews.com)

• It's official: BlackLotus malware can bypass secure boot • The Register

• Threat actors target law firms with GootLoader and SocGholish--Security Affairs

• Managed XDR Exposes Spear-Phishing Campaign Targeting Hospitality Industry Using RedLine Stealer (trendmicro.com)

Mobile

• Mobile Users More Susceptible to Phishing Attacks than Two Years Ago - MSSP Alert

• Mobile Banking Trojans Surge, Doubling in Volume (darkreading.com)

• Privacy Concerns Raised Over Android Apps' Data Safety Labels - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Signal would 'walk' from UK if Online Safety Bill undermined encryption - BBC News

• Phone Attacks and MFA Bypass Drive Phishing to New Heights - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Don't be fooled by a pretty icon, malicious apps hide in plain sight - Help Net Security

Denial of Service/DoS/DDOS

• Danish Hospitals Struck By Cyber attack From ‘Anonymous Sudan’ (informationsecuritybuzz.com)

Data Breaches/Leaks

• LastPass Says DevOps Engineer Home Computer Hacked - SecurityWeek

• LastPass Reveals Second Attack Resulting in Breach of Encrypted Password Vaults (thehackernews.com)

• Stanford University discloses data breach affecting PhD applicants (bleepingcomputer.com)

• More than 200 cyber attacks with theft of personal data reported to Irish authorities in a year (thejournal.ie)

• Threat actors leak Activision employee data on hacking forum--Security Affairs

• 10 US states that suffered the most devastating data breaches in 2022 - Help Net Security

• Australian orgs lodged 497 data breach notices in back half of 2022 - Security - iTnews

• WH Smith targeted by cyber attack with hackers accessing data on current and former employees | Business News | Sky News

• API Security Flaw Found in Booking.com Allowed Full Account Takeover - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Hatch Bank discloses data breach after GoAnywhere MFT hack (bleepingcomputer.com)

• GunAuction site was hacked and data of 565k accounts were exposed--Security Affairs

• Chick-fil-A confirms accounts hacked in months-long "automated" attack (bleepingcomputer.com)

• What GoDaddy's Years-Long Breach Means for Millions of Clients (darkreading.com)

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

• Russian Ransomware Projects Rebranded to Avoid Western Sanctions: Report (cryptopotato.com)

• Russian IT “Brain Drain” Decentralizes Cyber crime - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Economic pressures are increasing cybersecurity risks; a recession would amp them up more | CSO Online

Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking/NFTs/Blockchain

• Cryptocurrency Bitcoin mining rig found in school crawlspace • The Register

• Highly evasive cryptocurrency miner targets macOS--Security Affairs

• Parallax RAT Targeting Cryptocurrency Firms with Sophisticated Injection Techniques (thehackernews.com)

Insider Risk and Insider Threats

• Economic pressures are increasing cybersecurity risks; a recession would amp them up more | CSO Online

Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime

• Investment Scams Drive $9bn Fraud Surge in 2022 - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Economic pressures are increasing cybersecurity risks; a recession would amp them up more | CSO Online

• How I Broke Into a Bank Account With an AI-Generated Voice (vice.com)

• FTC reveals alarming increase in scam activity, costing consumers billions - Help Net Security

• Resecurity identified the investment scam network Digital Smoke - Help Net Security

• Pig butchering scam explained: Everything you need to know (techtarget.com)

AML/CFT/Sanctions

• Russian Ransomware Projects Rebranded to Avoid Western Sanctions: Report (cryptopotato.com)

Insurance

• Cyber Insurance Market Back From Brink After Onslaught of Ransomware Attacks (insurancejournal.com)

• The future of cyber insurance - IT Security Guru

Dark Web

• Sale of Stolen Credentials and Initial Access Dominate Dark Web Markets (darkreading.com)

Supply Chain and Third Parties

• Third-party risks overwhelm traditional ERM setups - Help Net Security

• Third-Party Risks: Challenges for MSSPs and How to Overcome Them - MSSP Alert

• Shocking Findings from the 2023 Third-Party App Access Report (thehackernews.com)

Software Supply Chain

• Shocking Findings from the 2023 Third-Party App Access Report (thehackernews.com)

• SBOM is a 'massive galaxy of mess' for supply chain security • The Register

• IBM Contributes Supply Chain Security Tools to OWASP (darkreading.com)

Cloud/SaaS

• How to Tackle the Top SaaS Challenges of 2023 (thehackernews.com)

• Cloud incident response: Frameworks and best practices | TechTarget

• Security teams have no control over risky SaaS-to-SaaS connections - Help Net Security

• It only takes one over-privileged identity to do major damage to a cloud - Help Net Security

• SCARLETEEL hackers use advanced cloud skills to steal source code, data (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Shocking Findings from the 2023 Third-Party App Access Report (thehackernews.com)

• Google Cloud Platform allows data exfiltration without a (forensic) trace - Help Net Security

• What Happened in That Cyber attack? With Some Cloud Services, You May Never Know (darkreading.com)

• Public SaaS Assets Are a Major Risk For Medium, Large Firms - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• New Report: Inside the High Risk of Third-Party SaaS Apps (darkreading.com)

Containers

• Hackers Exploit Containerized Environments to Steals Proprietary Data and Software (thehackernews.com)

Hybrid/Remote Working

• Work-From-Home Regulations Are Coming. Companies Aren’t Ready. (mit.edu)

• How to work from home securely, the NSA way (malwarebytes.com)

Encryption

• Signal would 'walk' from UK if Online Safety Bill undermined encryption - BBC News

API

• Application Security vs. API Security: What is the difference? (thehackernews.com)

• API Security Flaw Found in Booking.com Allowed Full Account Takeover - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

Open Source

• Iron Tiger hackers create Linux version of their custom malware (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Should organisations swear off open-source software altogether? | VentureBeat

• Top 10 open source software risks for 2023 | CSO Online

• IBM Contributes Supply Chain Security Tools to OWASP (darkreading.com)

Passwords, Credential Stuffing & Brute Force Attacks

• LastPass Says DevOps Engineer Home Computer Hacked - SecurityWeek

• Critical Vulnerabilities Allowed Booking.com Account Takeover - SecurityWeek

• Sale of Stolen Credentials and Initial Access Dominate Dark Web Markets (darkreading.com)

Social Media

• White House: No More TikTok on Gov't Devices Within 30 Days - SecurityWeek

• EU Parliament bans staff from using TikTok over ‘cybersecurity concerns’ – POLITICO

• TikTok answers three big cyber-security fears about the app - BBC News

• Meta says $725M deal ends all Cambridge Analytica claims; one state disagrees | Ars Technica

Training, Education and Awareness

• As Social Engineering Attacks Skyrocket, Evaluate Your Security Education Plan (darkreading.com)

Parental Controls and Child Safety

• Hackers Target Young Gamers: How Your Child Can Cause Business Compromise (darkreading.com)

Regulations, Fines and Legislation

• UK seeks to ‘focus’ espionage bill to head off Lords rebellion | Financial Times (ft.com)

• Cyber resilience in focus: EU act to set strict standards - Help Net Security

• Work-From-Home Regulations Are Coming. Companies Aren’t Ready. (mit.edu)

• White House to Take Aggressive Stance Mandating Private Industry Make Systems Cyber Safe - MSSP Alert

• ML practitioners push for mandatory AI Bill of Rights - Help Net Security

Governance, Risk and Compliance

• Third-party risks overwhelm traditional ERM setups - Help Net Security

• Economic pressures are increasing cybersecurity risks; a recession would amp them up more | CSO Online

• CISOs Share Their 3 Top Challenges for Cybersecurity Management (darkreading.com)

• The Importance of Recession-Proofing Security Operations (darkreading.com)

• Third-Party Risks: Challenges for MSSPs and How to Overcome Them - MSSP Alert

• Decrypting Cyber Risk Quantification (trendmicro.com)

• How to de-risk your digital ecosystem | CSO Online

• CISO Conversations: Code42, BreachQuest Leaders Discuss Combining CISO and CIO Roles - SecurityWeek

Models, Frameworks and Standards

• CISA releases free ‘Decider’ tool to help with MITRE ATT&CK mapping (bleepingcomputer.com)

Careers, Working in Cyber and Information Security

• Gartner Prediction: Nearly Half of Cybersecurity Pros Will Change Jobs by 2025 - MSSP Alert

• Top 7 cybersecurity jobs in high demand (cointelegraph.com)

• Growing Demand For Skilled Cybersecurity Workforce In Digital Age (informationsecuritybuzz.com)

• Dutch cyber security professionals experience stress akin to soldiers in war zone, claims expert | Computer Weekly

• Partnering With a Cybersecurity Vendor Can Help You Recruit Top Talent - MSSP Alert

• CISOs Are Stressed Out and It's Putting Companies at Risk (thehackernews.com)

Law Enforcement Action and Take Downs

• 'Ethical hacker' among ransomware suspects arrested • The Register

• The DoJ Disruption of the Hive Ransomware Group Is a Short-Lived Win (darkreading.com)

Privacy, Surveillance and Mass Monitoring

• UK seeks to ‘focus’ espionage bill to head off Lords rebellion | Financial Times (ft.com)

• Press greets Home Office redraft of national security bill with scepticism | Media | The Guardian

• Privacy Concerns Raised Over Android Apps' Data Safety Labels - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• The Air Force Is Now Using Facial Recognition Drones (gizmodo.com)

• How dog tracker apps are snooping on humans, according to cyber security experts (telegraph.co.uk)

Artificial Intelligence

• Generative AI Changes Everything We Know About Cyber attacks (darkreading.com)

• ChatGPT is bringing advancements and challenges for cybersecurity - Help Net Security

• How I Broke Into a Bank Account With an AI-Generated Voice (vice.com)

• ML practitioners push for mandatory AI Bill of Rights - Help Net Security

Misinformation, Disinformation and Propaganda

• China spends billions on pro-Russia disinformation, US special envoy says | China | The Guardian

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

• Cyber security must be tightened up in this era of polycrisis | World Economic Forum (weforum.org)

• Russian IT “Brain Drain” Decentralizes Cyber crime - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• How the Ukraine War Opened a Fault Line in Cyber crime, Possibly Forever (darkreading.com)

• Russia-Ukraine War: A Year of Cyber Shortfalls (foreignpolicy.com)

• 'A year of cyberwar' with Russia: An inside look from a top Ukrainian cybersecurity official | CyberScoop

• Evaluating the Cyberwar Set Off by Russian Invasion of Ukraine (darkreading.com)

• CISA Calls For Increased Vigilance One Year After Ukraine's Russian Invasion - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• CERT of Ukraine: Russia-linked APT backdoored multiple govt sites-Security Affairs

• White House: No More TikTok on Gov't Devices Within 30 Days - SecurityWeek

• Russian charged with smuggling US counterintel tech • The Register

• Cyber security in wartime: how Ukraine's infosec community is coping | CSO Online

• China's BlackFly Targets Materials Sector in 'Relentless' Quest for IP (darkreading.com)

• 'Hackers' Behind Air Raid Alerts Across Russia: Official - SecurityWeek

• Belgium’s cyber security agency links China to spear phishing attack on MP | Financial Times (ft.com)

• China spends billions on pro-Russia disinformation, US special envoy says | China | The Guardian

• China Is Relentlessly Hacking Its Neighbors | WIRED

Nation State Actors

• Cyber security must be tightened up in this era of polycrisis | World Economic Forum (weforum.org)

• Russian IT “Brain Drain” Decentralizes Cyber crime - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• How the Ukraine War Opened a Fault Line in Cyber crime, Possibly Forever (darkreading.com)

• Hacker group defaces Russian websites to display the Kremlin on fire | TechCrunch

• Russia-Ukraine War: A Year of Cyber Shortfalls (foreignpolicy.com)

• CISA Calls For Increased Vigilance One Year After Ukraine's Russian Invasion - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• CERT of Ukraine: Russia-linked APT backdoored multiple govt sites-Security Affairs

• Evaluating the Cyberwar Set Off by Russian Invasion of Ukraine (darkreading.com)

• White House: No More TikTok on Gov't Devices Within 30 Days - SecurityWeek

• Russian charged with smuggling US counterintel tech • The Register

• Cyber security in wartime: how Ukraine's infosec community is coping | CSO Online

• EU Parliament bans staff from using TikTok over ‘cybersecurity concerns’ – POLITICO

• China's BlackFly Targets Materials Sector in 'Relentless' Quest for IP (darkreading.com)

• 'Hackers' Behind Air Raid Alerts Across Russia: Official - SecurityWeek

• Belgium’s cyber security agency links China to spear phishing attack on MP | Financial Times (ft.com)

• 'A year of cyberwar' with Russia: An inside look from a top Ukrainian cybersecurity official | CyberScoop

• China spends billions on pro-Russia disinformation, US special envoy says | China | The Guardian

• China Is Relentlessly Hacking Its Neighbors | WIRED

• TikTok answers three big cyber-security fears about the app - BBC News

• Russia bans foreign messaging apps in government organisations (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Chinese hackers use new custom backdoor to evade detection (bleepingcomputer.com)

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Vulnerability Management

• Unpatched old vulnerabilities continue to be exploited: Report | CSO Online

• All CVEs Are Not Created Equal (darkreading.com)

Vulnerabilities

• A world of hurt for Fortinet and ManageEngine after users fail to install patches | Ars Technica

• Cisco ClamAV anti-malware scanner vulnerable to serious security flaw | The Daily Swig (portswigger.net)

• Popular IBM file transfer tool vulnerable to cyber attacks, CISA says - The Record from Recorded Future News

• Hackers are actively exploiting Zoho ManageEngine flaw-Security Affairs

• All In One SEO WordPress Plugin Vulnerability Affects Up To 3+ Million (searchenginejournal.com)

• CISA warns of hackers exploiting ZK Java Framework RCE flaw (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Security Defects in TPM 2.0 Spec Raise Alarm - SecurityWeek

• Cisco patches critical Web UI RCE flaw in multiple IP phones (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Aruba Networks fixes six critical vulnerabilities in ArubaOS (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Microsoft releases Windows security updates for Intel CPU flaws (bleepingcomputer.com)

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Tools and Controls

• LastPass Reveals Second Attack Resulting in Breach of Encrypted Password Vaults (thehackernews.com)

• Well-funded security systems fail to prevent cyber attacks in US and Europe: Report | CSO Online

• The Future of Network Security: Predictive Analytics and ML-Driven Solutions (thehackernews.com)

• Microsoft announces automatic BEC, ransomware attack disruption capabilities - Help Net Security

• How to use zero trust and IAM to defend against cyber attacks in an economic downturn | VentureBeat

• Zero trust: building a mixed estate - NCSC.GOV.UK

• Pentesting No Longer Driven by Regulatory Compliance, New Study Finds - MSSP Alert

• Application Security vs. API Security: What is the difference? (thehackernews.com)

• A new AI-based tool to detect DDoS attacks

• CISA Shares Advice to Improve Networks' Monitoring and Hardening - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Microsoft a Leader in the 2022 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Endpoint Protection Platforms - Microsoft Security Blog

• Accurately assessing the success of zero-trust initiatives | TechTarget

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Other News

• Attackers are developing and deploying exploits faster than ever - Help Net Security

• Attacker Breakout Time Drops to Just 84 Minutes - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Moving target defence must keep cyber attackers guessing - Help Net Security

• Covert cyber attacks on the rise as attackers shift tactics for maximum impact - Help Net Security

• Dormant accounts are a low-hanging fruit for attackers - Help Net Security

• Dish Network goes offline after likely cyber attack, employees cut off (bleepingcomputer.com)

• News Corp says state hackers were on its network for two years (bleepingcomputer.com)

• UK won the Military Cyberwarfare exercise Defence Cyber Marvel-Security Affairs

• To Safeguard Critical Infrastructure, Go Back to Basics (darkreading.com)

• Feds accuse Google of destroying evidence in antitrust case • The Register

• Microsoft recommending you scan more Exchange server files • The Register

• CISA director urges tech sector to stop shipping unsafe products | CyberScoop

• Developers can make a great extension of your security team - Help Net Security

• 2023 Browser Security Report Uncovers Major Browsing Risks and Blind Spots (thehackernews.com)

• Uncovering the most pressing cybersecurity concerns for SMBs - Help Net Security

• Wiz execs: Most overhyped security tool is technology itself • The Register

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Sector Specific

Industry specific threat intelligence reports are available.

Contact us to receive tailored reports specific to the industry/sector and geographies you operate in.

·       Automotive

·       Construction

·       Critical National Infrastructure (CNI)

·       Defence & Space

·       Education & Academia

·       Energy & Utilities

·       Estate Agencies

·       Financial Services

·       FinTech

·       Food & Agriculture

·       Gaming & Gambling

·       Government & Public Sector (including Law Enforcement)

·       Health/Medical/Pharma

·       Hotels & Hospitality

·       Insurance

·       Legal

·       Manufacturing

·       Maritime

·       Oil, Gas & Mining

·       OT, ICS, IIoT, SCADA & Cyber-Physical Systems

·       Retail & eCommerce

·       Small and Medium Sized Businesses (SMBs)

·       Startups

·       Telecoms

·       Third Sector & Charities

·       Transport & Aviation

·       Web3

As usual, contact us to help assess where your risks lie and to ensure you are doing all you can do to keep you and your business secure.

Look out for our ‘Cyber Tip Tuesday’ video blog and on our YouTube channel.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Links to articles are for interest and awareness and linking to or reposting external content does not endorse any service or product, likewise we are not responsible for the security of external links.

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 01 April 2022

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

Top Cyber Stories of the Last Week

• One Tenth of UK Staff Bypass Corporate Security

A new study from Cisco has found that a tenth of UK employees actively circumvent their organisation’s security measures.

The network technology company polled over 1000 UK professionals working for organisations that allow hybrid working, in order to better understand the potential security risks of the modern, flexible workplace.

The research has revealed that many hybrid workers do not see cyber security as their responsibility, with many actively finding workarounds or engaging in risky behaviours such as password reuse.

19% of employees said they reuse passwords for multiple accounts and applications, with only 15% using password managers.

The problem seems to stem from user friction in existing security measures. Only 44% of survey participants said they found it easy to securely access their IT equipment.

A majority said they would be willing to use biometric authentication, a reflection of how enterprise security is still catching up to consumer functionality.

https://www.itsecurityguru.org/2022/03/28/one-tenth-of-uk-staff-bypass-corporate-security/

• Majority Of Data Security Incidents Caused by Insiders

New research from Imperva has revealed that 70% of EMEA organisations have no insider risk strategy, despite 59% of data security incidents being caused by employees.

The shocking revelation comes as part of a wider study carried out by Forrester: Insider Threats Drive Data Protection Improvements. The study involved interviewing 150 security and IT professionals in EMEA.

An insider threat is defined by Imperva as originating from “inappropriate use of legitimate authorised user accounts” by either their rightful owner or a threat actor who has managed to compromise them.

The study found that insider threats were responsible for 59% of incidents impacting sensitive data in the past 12 months. This supports a previous Imperva analysis of the most significant breaches of the past five years, revealing that 24% were caused by either human error or compromised credentials.

https://www.itsecurityguru.org/2022/04/01/majority-of-data-security-incidents-caused-by-insiders/

• One-Third of UK Firms Suffer a Cyber Attack Every Week

Cyber attacks and related incidents at UK organisations continue their seemingly unstoppable upward trajectory, with new statistics from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) revealing that 31% of businesses and 26% of charity organisations now experience incidents on a weekly basis.

The data, contained in the annual cyber security breaches survey report, paints a stark picture of the scale of the threat facing the average organisation, and the urgent need to boost standards and defences.

It is vital that every organisation takes cyber security seriously as more and more business is done online and we live in a time of increasing cyber risk.  No matter how big or small your organisation is, you need to take steps to improve digital resilience.

Some 20% of businesses and 19% of charities said they had experienced a negative outcome as a direct consequence of an attack. The average cost of an attack, spread out across all organisations, now works out at £4,200, or £19,400 if only medium and large businesses are considered, although there is probably a vast amount of under-reporting, so the true figures are certainly higher.

Meanwhile, 35% of businesses and 38% of charities said they had experienced some kind of negative impact during the incident, such as service downtime.

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252515288/One-third-of-UK-firms-suffer-a-cyber-attack-every-week

• Russia's Cyber Criminals Fear Sanctions Will Erase Their Wealth

Punitive economic sanctions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine had crooks discussing the best ways to adapt to the new reality.

Members of Russian-language underground forums are not immune to the latest news. Russia's invasion of Ukraine and subsequent economic sanctions against Moscow got forum users to discuss how to live in this new world they find themselves in.

According to a report by the Digital Shadows Photon team, dark web forums are teeming with questions on how to ensure the safety of funds held in Russia-based accounts.

One user sought advice on what to do with dollars held in a Russian bank, with others suggesting converting dollars to rubles for a few months.

"I hope you were joking about [holding the funds in rubles for] half a year? After half a year, your rubles will only be good for lighting a fire, they will not be good for anything else," a forum user responded.

https://cybernews.com/news/russias-cybercriminals-fear-sanctions-will-erase-their-wealth/

• 86% Of Organisations Believe They Have Suffered a Nation-State Cyber Attack

A new study by Trellix and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has revealed that 86% of organisations believe they have fallen victim to a nation-state cyber attack.

The research surveyed 800 IT decision-makers in Australia, France, Germany, India, Japan, the UK and US.

It has also been revealed that 92% of respondents have faced, or suspect they have faced, a nation-state backed cyber attack in the past 18 months, or anticipate one in the future.

Russia and China were identified as the most likely suspects behind said attacks. 39% of organisations that believe they have been hit with a nation-state cyber attack believe Russia were the perpetrators.

https://www.itsecurityguru.org/2022/03/29/86-of-organisations-believe-they-have-suffered-a-nation-state-cyberattack/

• Multiple Hacking Groups Are Using the War in Ukraine as A Lure in Phishing Attempts

Hostile hacking groups are exploiting Russia's invasion of Ukraine to carry out cyber attacks designed to steal login credentials, sensitive information, money and more from victims around the world.

According to cyber security researchers at Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG), government-backed hackers from Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, as well as various unattributed groups and cyber criminal gangs, are using various themes related to the war in Ukraine to lure people into becoming victims of cyber attacks.

In just the last two weeks alone, Google has seen several hacking groups looking to take advantage of the war to fulfil their malicious aims, whether that's stealing information, stealing money, or something else.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-multiple-hacking-groups-are-using-the-war-in-ukraine-as-a-lure-in-phishing-attempts/

• 4 Ways Attackers Target Humans to Gain Network Access

Since the day we started receiving email, we hope that our antivirus or endpoint protection software alerts us to problems. In reality, it often does not. When technology fails, it’s likely because the attacker made an end run around it by targeting humans. Here are four ways they do it:

1. The targeted human attack

2. Fraudulent wire transfer email

3. Tricking users into handing over credentials

4. Bypassing multi-factor authentication

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3654850/4-ways-attackers-target-humans-to-gain-network-access.html#tk.rss_news

• Security Incidents Reported to FCA Surge 52% in 2021

The number of cyber security incidents reported to the UK’s financial regulator surged by over 50% last year after a significant increase in cyber-attacks, according to new figures from Picus Security.

The security vendor submitted Freedom of Information (FoI) requests to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to compile its latest report, Cyber Security Incidents in the UK Financial Sector.

The 52% year-on-year increase in “material” security incidents reported to the FCA seems to have been driven by cyber-attacks, which comprised nearly two-thirds (65%) of these reports.

Picus Security claimed that the rest are likely explained by “system and process failures and employee errors.”

In addition, a third of incident reports were about corporate or personal data breaches, and a fifth involved ransomware.

Picus Security explained that to qualify as a material incident, there needs to have been a significant loss of data, operational IT outages, unauthorized IT access, and/or an impact on a large number of customers.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/security-incidents-reported-fca/

• NCSC Suggests Rethinking Russian Supply Chain Risks

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) of the UK has urged organisations to reconsider the risks associated with “Russian-controlled” parts of their supply chains.

Ian Levy, technical director of the NCSC argued that “Russian law already contains legal obligations on companies to assist the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), and the pressure to do so may increase in a time of war. We also have hacktivists on each side, further complicating matters, so the overall risk has materially changed.”

Levy has suggested that while there is currently nothing to suggest that the Russian state intends to force commercial providers to sabotage UK interests, that doesn’t mean it will not happen in the future.

https://www.itsecurityguru.org/2022/03/30/ncsc-suggests-rethinking-russian-supply-chain-risks/

• 25% Of Workers Lost Their Jobs in The Past 12 Months After Making Cyber Security Mistakes: Report

For business leaders, there is never a good time for their employees to make mistakes on the job. This is especially true now for workers who have anything to do with the cyber security of their companies and organisations. Given the growing risks of cyber attacks across the world and the increased threats posed by Russia in the aftermath of their invasion of Ukraine, these are certainly perilous times.

Indeed, a new study released by email security company Tessian found that one in four employees (26%) lost their job in the last 12 months after making a mistake that compromised their company’s security.

According to the second edition of Tessian’s Psychology of Human Error report, people are falling for more advanced phishing scams—and the business stakes for mistakes are much higher.

The study also found that:

• Two-fifths (40%) of employees sent an email to the wrong person, with almost one-third (29%) saying their business lost a client or customer because of the error

• Over one-third (36%) of employees have made a mistake at work that compromised security and fewer are reporting their mistakes to IT.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsegal/2022/03/29/25-of-workers-lost-their-jobs-in-the-past-12-months-after-making-cybersecurity-mistakes-report/?sh=d47cdfa49b26

• Attackers Compromise 94% of Critical Assets Within Four Steps of Initial Breach

New research from XM Cyber analysing the methods, attack paths, and impacts of cyber attacks has discovered that attackers can compromise 94% of critical assets within just four steps of initial breach points. The hybrid cloud security company’s Attack Path Management Impact Report incorporates insights from nearly two million endpoints, files, folders, and cloud resources throughout 2021, highlighting key findings on attack trends and techniques impacting critical assets across on-prem, multi-cloud, and hybrid environments.

The findings showed that 75% of an organisation’s critical assets are open to compromise in their current security state, while 73% of the top attack techniques used last year involved mismanaged or stolen credentials. Just over a quarter (27%) of most common attack techniques exploited a vulnerability or misconfiguration.

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3655633/attackers-compromise-94-of-critical-assets-within-four-steps-of-initial-breach.html

• UK Spy Chief Warns Russia Looking for Cyber Targets

A UK intelligence chief warned that the Kremlin is hunting for cyber targets and bringing in mercenaries to shore up its stalled military campaign in Ukraine.

Jeremy Fleming, who heads the GCHQ electronic spy agency, praised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s “information operation” for being highly effective at countering Russia’s massive disinformation drive spreading propaganda about the war.

While there were expectations that Russia would launch a major cyber attack as part of its military campaign, Fleming said such a move was never a central part of Moscow’s standard playbook for war.

“That’s not to say that we haven’t seen cyber in this conflict. We have — and lots of it,” Fleming said in a speech in Canberra, Australia, according to a transcript released in London on Wednesday.

He said GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre has picked up signs of “sustained intent” by Russia to disrupt Ukrainian government and military systems.

“We’ve seen what looks like some spillover of activity affecting surrounding countries,” Fleming said. “And we’ve certainly seen indicators which suggest Russia’s cyber actors are looking for targets in the countries that oppose their actions.”

He provided no further details. He said the UK and other Western allies will continue to support Ukraine in beefing up its cyber security defences.

https://www.securityweek.com/uk-spy-chief-warns-russia-looking-cyber-targets

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Threats

Ransomware

• Ransomware Payments Hitting New Records In 2021 - Help Net Security

• UK Ransomware Attacks Double In Past Year, Expert Insight - Information Security Buzz

• Ransomware, Endpoint Risks Are Top Concerns for DFIR Professionals | CSO Online

• Not Enough Businesses Have A Formal Ransomware Plan In Place - Help Net Security

• Ukraine, Conti, and the law of unintended consequences | CSO Online

• FBI Investigating More than 100 Ransomware Variants - Infosecurity Magazine

• Precursor Malware Is an Early Warning Sign for Ransomware (darkreading.com)

• Cyber Blackmail Gains Traction in Ransomware Hijackers' Tool Set - MSSP Alert

• Services Giant Admits $42m Fallout from Ransomware Attack - Infosecurity Magazine

• Hive Ransomware Uses New 'IPfuscation' Trick to Hide Payload (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Shutterfly, Hit By Conti Ransomware Group, Warns Staff Their Data Has Been Stolen • Graham Cluley

• FBI: Ransomware Attacks Are Piling Up The Pressure On Public Services | ZDNet

BEC – Business Email Compromise

• FBI Disrupts BEC Cyber Crime Gangs Targeting Victims Worldwide (bleepingcomputer.com)

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

• Calendly Actively Abused in Microsoft Credentials Phishing (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Phishing Attacks: Malicious URLs May Outpace Email Attachment Risks - MSSP Alert

• Hackers Hijack Email Reply Chains on Unpatched Exchange Servers to Spread Malware (thehackernews.com)

• Phishing uses Azure Static Web Pages to impersonate Microsoft (bleepingcomputer.com)

Other Social Engineering

• 5 Old Social Engineering Tricks Employees Still Fall For, And 4 New Gotchas | CSO Online

• Fraudsters Use 'Fake Emergency Data Requests' To Steal Info • The Register

Malware

• A Third of Malware Infections Used Log4Shell- IT Security Guru

Mobile

• Russian-Linked Android Malware Records Audio, Tracks Your Location (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Malware Disguised As Cryptocurrency Wallets Used To Steal From iOS and Android Users (androidpolice.com)

IoT

• Wyze Cam Flaw Lets Hackers Remotely Access Your Saved Videos (bleepingcomputer.com)

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

• Sanctions Hitting Russian Cyber-Criminals Hard - Infosecurity Magazine

• Secret World of Pro-Russia Hacking Group Exposed in Leak - WSJ

• UK Police Charges Two Teenagers for Their Alleged Role in Lapsus$ Group - Security Affairs

• LAPSUS$ Hacks Globant. 70GB of Data Leaked from IT Firm (bitdefender.com)

• Man Linked to Multi-Million Dollar Ransomware Attacks Gets 66 Months In Prison For Online Fraud | ZDNet

Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking

• How CISOs can Mitigate Cryptomining Malware (trendmicro.com)

• Ronin Blockchain Hit With $620 Million Crypto Heist - IT Security Guru

Insider Risk and Insider Threats

• Yale Finance Director Stole $40m In Computers to Resell • The Register

• Making Security Mistakes May Come With A High Price For Employees - Help Net Security

Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime

• How To Avoid Investment Scams On Social Media, As 25% Of UK Victims Are Youths Online - Information Security Buzz

• Europol Dismantles Massive Call Centre Investment Scam Operation (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Scammers Turn Attention to Hard-Up Students • The Register

• Emily Maitlis Opens Up About Terrifying Bank Scam: ‘I Feel Sick’ | The Independent

Supply Chain

• A Large-Scale Supply Chain Attack Distributed Over 800 Malicious NPM Packages (thehackernews.com)

Denial of Service DoS/DDoS

• DDoS Attacks Becoming Larger And More Complex, Finance Most Targeted Sector - Help Net Security

• Number of DDoS Attacks in 2021 Reached 9.75 Million - Help Net Security

• Beastmode Botnet Boosts DDoS Power With New Router Exploits (bleepingcomputer.com)

Passwords & Credential Stuffing

• What Is Credential Stuffing? And How To Prevent It? Security Affairs

Spyware, Espionage & Cyber Warfare

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Russian Invasion of Ukraine

• Anonymous Targets Oligarchs' Russian Businesses - Security Affairs

• With War Next Door, EU is Warned on Cyber Security Gaps | SecurityWeek.Com

• Ukraine Intelligence Leaks Names of 620 Alleged Russian FSB Agents - Security Affairs

• Russian Credential Thieves Target NATO, European Military • The Register

• Viasat Confirms Satellite Modems Were Wiped with AcidRain Malware (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Internet Provider to Ukrainian Military Hit With Major Cyber Attack - WSJ

• GhostWriter APT Targets State Entities of Ukraine with Cobalt Strike Beacon - Security Affairs

• Hacked WordPress Sites Force Visitors to DDoS Ukrainian Targets (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Russia Facing Internet Outages Due to Equipment Shortage (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Anonymous Is Working On A Huge Data Dump That Will Blow Russia Away - Security Affairs

• Phishing Campaign Targets Russian Govt Dissidents With Cobalt Strike (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Leaked Hacker Logs Show Weaknesses of Russia’s Cyber Proxy Ecosystem | CSO Online

• Russian Aviation Authority Switches to Paper After Losing 65TB of Data | CyberNews

• Anonymous Hacked Russian Thozis Corp, But Denies Attacks on Rosaviatsia - Security Affairs

• ZTE Whistleblower: Chinese Companies Will Sell to Russia • The Register

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Nation State Actors

Nation State Actors – Russia

• UK Spy Boss Warns About Russia-China Tech Collaboration • The Register

• UK Cyber Security Centre Advises Review of Russian Tech • The Register

• You're Going To See Russian Activity Directed Against Government And Military Capabilities: Fmr. NSA director (cnbc.com)

• Russia Ranks Top For State-Linked Online Misinformation • The Register

• Google: Russian phishing attacks target NATO, European military (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Russian Spies Unmasked In Embarrassing Blow For Vladimir Putin (telegraph.co.uk)

Nation State Actors – China

• Chinese Hackers Deep Panda Return With Log4Shell Exploits, New Fire Chili Rootkit | ZDNet

• China APT Group Uses COVID-19, Russia in Phishing Scams • The Register

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Vulnerabilities

• CISA Adds 66 Vulnerabilities to 'Must Patch' List | SecurityWeek.Com

• Apple Rushes Out Patches for Two 0-days Threatening iOS and macOS Users | Ars Technica

• Zero-day Attacks Doubled in 2021 - Infosecurity Magazine

• Chrome Browser Gets Major Security Update | SecurityWeek.Com

• Critical SonicOS Vulnerability Affects SonicWall Firewall Appliances (thehackernews.com)

• Log4JShell Used to Swarm VMware Servers with Miners, Backdoors | Threatpost

• Experts Warn Defenders: Don't Relax on Log4j | SecurityWeek.Com

• Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge Updated to Close Security Hole • The Register

• RCE Bug in Spring Cloud Could Be the Next Log4Shell, Researchers Warn | Threatpost

• Spring4Shell: No need To Panic, But Mitigations Are Advised - Help Net Security

• Sophos Firewall Affected by A Critical Authentication Bypass Flaw - Security Affairs

• CVE-2022-1162 Flaw in GitLab Allowed Threat Actors To Take Over Accounts - Security Affairs

• Trend Micro Fixed High Severity Flaw In Apex Central Product Console - Security Affairs

• Zyxel Urges Customers To Patch Critical Firewall Bypass Vulnerability | ZDNet

• QNAP Warns of OpenSSL Infinite Loop Vulnerability Affecting NAS Devices (thehackernews.com)

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Sector Specific

Health/Medical/Pharma Sector

Washington Health District Suffers Another Data Breach - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

Hive Ransomware Group Claims Partnership HealthPlan of California Data Breach | CSO Online

LockBit Victim Estimates Cost of Ransomware Attack To Be $42 Million (bleepingcomputer.com)

Retail/eCommerce

Shopping Trap: The Online Stores’ Scam That Hits Users Worldwide - Security Affairs

Automotive

Automaker Cyber Security Lagging Behind Tech Adoption, Experts Warn | Threatpost

CNI, OT, ICS, IIoT and SCADA

The Spectre of Stuxnet: CISA Issues Alert on Rockwell Automation ICS Vulnerabilities | ZDNet

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Reports Published in the Last Week

• Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

• Psychology of Human Error 2022 | Research Report | Tessian

• 2022 Attack Path Management Impact Report (xmcyber.com)

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Other News

• Protecting Your Organisation Against a New Class of Cyber Threats: HEAT (darkreading.com)

• Why Do Organisations Need To Prioritize Cyber Resiliency? - Help Net Security

• How Security Complexity Is Being Weaponized (darkreading.com)

• In Charts: Cyber Security Risks And Companies’ Readiness | Financial Times (ft.com)

• CISA Warns of Attacks Against Internet-Connected UPS Devices | CSO Online

• New UK Study Shows Just 1/3rd Of Orgs Use MFA Auth, Practice Cyber Compliance - Information Security Buzz

• Hackers Posing as Police Convinced Apple and Meta to Share Basic Subscriber Info (softpedia.com)

• Exploring the Intersection of Physical Security and Cyber Security (darkreading.com)

• The Current State Of Enterprise Backup And Recovery - Help Net Security

• Why Metrics Are Crucial To Proving Cyber Security Programs’ Value | CSO Online

• COVID Bounce: A Massive 2021 Resurgence of Cyber Threats - Help Net Security

• Rapid7 Finds Zero-Day Attacks Surged In 2021 (techtarget.com)

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As usual, contact us to help assess where your risks lie and to ensure you are doing all you can do to keep you and your business secure.

Look out for our ‘Cyber Tip Tuesday’ video blog and on our YouTube channel.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Links to articles are for interest and awareness and linking to or reposting external content does not endorse any service or product, likewise we are not responsible for the security of external links.

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 25 March 2022

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

Top Cyber Stories of the Last Week

• Morgan Stanley Client Accounts Breached in Social Engineering Attacks

Morgan Stanley Wealth Management says some of its customers had their accounts compromised in social engineering attacks.

The account breaches were the result of vishing (aka voice phishing), a social engineering attack where scammers impersonate a trusted entity (in this case Morgan Stanley) during a voice call to convince their targets into revealing sensitive information such as banking or login credentials.

The company said in a notice sent to affected clients that, "on or around February 11, 2022," a threat actor impersonating Morgan Stanley gained access to their accounts after tricking them into providing their Morgan Stanley Online account info.

After successfully breaching their accounts, the attacker also electronically transferred money to their own bank account by initiating payments using the Zelle payment service.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/morgan-stanley-client-accounts-breached-in-social-engineering-attacks/

• Ransomware Is Scary, But Another Scam Is Costing Victims Much, Much More

Business email compromise (BEC) remains the biggest source of financial losses, which totalled $2.4 billion in 2021, up from an estimated $1.8 billion in 2020, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Internet Crime Center (IC3).

The FBI says in its 2021 annual report that Americans last year lost $6.9 billion to scammers and cyber criminals through ransomware, BEC, and cryptocurrency theft related to financial and romance scams. In 2020, that figure stood at $4.2 billion.

Last year, FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received 847,376 complaints about cybercrime losses, up 7% from 791,790 complaints in 2020.

BEC has been the largest source of fraud for several years despite ransomware attacks grabbing most headlines.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/ransomware-is-scary-but-another-scam-is-costing-victims-much-much-more-says-fbi/#ftag=RSSbaffb68

• Phishing Kits Constantly Evolve to Evade Security Software

Modern phishing kits sold on cybercrime forums as off-the-shelf packages feature multiple, sophisticated detection avoidance and traffic filtering systems to ensure that internet security solutions won’t mark them as a threat.

Fake websites that mimic well-known brands are abundant on the internet to lure victims and steal their payment details or account credentials.

Most of these websites are built using phishing kits that feature brand logos, realistic login pages, and in cases of advanced offerings, dynamic webpages assembled from a set of basic elements.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/phishing-kits-constantly-evolve-to-evade-security-software/

• Ransomware Payment Demands Rose Dramatically in 2021

Ransomware attackers demanded dramatically higher ransom fees last year, and the average ransom payment rose by 78% to $541,010, according to data from incident response (IR) cases investigated by Palo Alto Networks Unit 42.

IR cases by Unit 42 also saw a whopping 144% increase in ransom demands, to $2.2 million. According to the report, the most victimised sectors were professional and legal services, construction, wholesale and retail, healthcare, and manufacturing.

Cyber extortion spiked, with 85% of ransomware victims — some 2, 556 organisations — having their data dumped and exposed on leak sites, according to the "2022 Unit 42 Ransomware Threat Report."

Conti led the ransomware attack volume, representing some one in five cases Unit 42 investigated, followed by REvil, Hello Kitty, and Phobos.

https://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/ransomware-payments-demands-rose-dramatically-in-2021

• 7 Suspected Members of LAPSUS$ Hacker Gang, aged 16 to 21, Arrested in UK

The City of London Police has arrested seven teenagers between the ages of 16 and 21 for their alleged connections to the prolific LAPSUS$ extortion gang that's linked to a recent burst of attacks targeting NVIDIA, Samsung, Ubisoft, LG, Microsoft, and Okta.

"The City of London Police has been conducting an investigation with its partners into members of a hacking group," Detective Inspector, Michael O'Sullivan, said in a statement shared with The Hacker News. "Seven people between the ages of 16 and 21 have been arrested in connection with this investigation and have all been released under investigation. Our enquiries remain ongoing."

The development, which was first disclosed by BBC News, comes after a report from Bloomberg revealed that a 16-year-old Oxford-based teenager is the mastermind of the group. It's not immediately clear if the minor is one among the arrested individuals. The said teen, under the online alias White or Breachbase, is alleged to have accumulated about $14 million in Bitcoin from hacking.

https://thehackernews.com/2022/03/7-suspected-members-of-lapsus-hacker.html

• Here's How Fast Ransomware Encrypts Files

Forty-two minutes and 54 seconds: that's how quickly the median ransomware variant can encrypt and lock out a victim from 100,000 of their files.

The data point came from Splunk's SURGe team, which analysed in its lab how quickly the 10 biggest ransomware strains — Lockbit, REvil, Blackmatter, Conti, Ryuk, Avaddon, Babuk, Darkside, Maize, and Mespinoza — could encrypt 100,000 files consisting of some 53.93 gigabytes of data. Lockbit won the race, with speeds of 86% faster than the median. One Lockbit sample was clocked at encrypting 25,000 files per minute.

Splunk's team found that ransomware variants are all over the map speed-wise, and the underlying hardware can dictate their encryption speeds.

https://www.darkreading.com/application-security/here-s-how-fast-ransomware-encrypts-files

• HEAT Attacks: A New Class of Cyber Threats Organisations Are Not Prepared For

Web malware (47%) and ransomware (42%) now top the list of security threats that organisations are most concerned about. Yet despite the growing risks, just 27% have advanced threat protection in place on every endpoint device that can access corporate applications and resources.

This is according to research published by Menlo Security, exploring what steps organisations are taking to secure themselves in the wake of a new class of cyber threats – known as Highly Evasive Adaptive Threats (HEAT).

As employees spend more time working in the browser and accessing cloud-based applications, the risk of HEAT attacks increases. Almost two-thirds of organisations have had a device compromised by a browser-based attack in the last 12 months. The report suggests that organisations are not being proactive enough in mitigating the risk of these threats, with 45% failing to add strength to their network security stack over the past year. There are also conflicting views on the most effective place to deploy security to prevent advanced threats, with 43% citing the network, and 37% the cloud.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/03/22/web-security-threats/

• The Cyber Warfare Predicted in Ukraine May Be Yet to Come

In the build-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the national security community braced for a campaign combining military combat, disinformation, electronic warfare and cyber attacks. Vladimir Putin would deploy devastating cyber operations, the thinking went, to disable government and critical infrastructure, blind Ukrainian surveillance capabilities and limit lines of communications to help invading forces. But that’s not how it has played out. At least, not yet.

The danger is that as political and economic conditions deteriorate, the red lines and escalation judgments that kept Moscow’s most potent cyber capabilities in check may adjust. Western sanctions and lethal aid support to Ukraine may prompt Russian hackers to lash out against the west. Russian ransomware actors may also take advantage of the situation, possibly resorting to cyber crime as one of the few means of revenue generation.

https://www.ft.com/content/2938a3cd-1825-4013-8219-4ee6342e20ca

• The Three Russian Cyber Attacks the West Most Fears

The UK's cyber authorities are supporting the White House's calls for "increased cyber-security precautions", though neither has given any evidence that Russia is planning a cyber-attack.

Russia has previously stated that such accusations are "Russophobic".

However, Russia is a cyber-superpower with a serious arsenal of cyber-tools, and hackers capable of disruptive and potentially destructive cyber-attacks.

Ukraine has remained relatively untroubled by Russian cyber-offensives but experts now fear that Russia may go on a cyber-offensive against Ukraine's allies.

"Biden's warnings seem plausible, particularly as the West introduced more sanctions, hacktivists continue to join the fray, and the kinetic aspects of the invasion seemingly don't go to plan," says Jen Ellis, from cyber-security firm Rapid7.

This article from the BCC outlines the hacks that experts most fear, and they are repeats of things we have already seen coming out of Russia, only potentially a lot more destructive this time around.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60841924

• Do These 8 Things Now to Boost Your Security Ahead of Potential Russian Cyber Attacks

The message comes as the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) ramp up warnings about Russian hacking of everything from online accounts to satellite broadband networks. CISA's current campaign is called Shields Up, which urges all organisations to patch immediately and secure network boundaries. This messaging is being echoed by UK and other Western Cyber authorities:

The use of Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is being very strongly advocated. The White House and other agencies both sides of the Atlantic also urged companies to take seven other steps:

• Deploy modern security tools on your computers and devices to continuously look for and mitigate threats

• Make sure that your systems are patched and protected against all known vulnerabilities, and change passwords across your networks so that previously stolen credentials are useless to malicious actors

• Back up your data and ensure you have offline backups beyond the reach of malicious actors

• Run exercises and drill your emergency plans so that you are prepared to respond quickly to minimize the impact of any attack

• Encrypt your data so it cannot be used if it is stolen

• Educate your employees to common tactics that attackers will use over email or through websites

• Work with specialists to establish relationships in advance of any cyber incidents.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/white-house-warns-do-these-8-things-now-to-boost-your-security-ahead-of-potential-russian-cyberattacks/

• Cyber Crime Victims Suffered Losses of Over $6.9B in 2021 in the US Alone

The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reported a record-breaking year for 2021 in the number of complaints it received, among which business email compromise (BEC) attacks made up the majority of incidents.

IC3 handled 847,376 complaint reports last year — an increase of 7% over 2020 — which mainly revolved around phishing attacks, nonpayment/nondelivery scams, and personal data breaches. Overall, losses amounted to more than $6.9 billion.

BEC and email account compromises ranked as the No. 1 attack, accounting for 19,954 complaints and losses of around $2.4 billion.

"In 2021, heightened attention was brought to the urgent need for more cyber incident reporting to the federal government. Cyber incidents are in fact crimes deserving of an investigation, leading to judicial repercussions for the perpetrators who commit them," Paul Abbate, deputy director of the FBI wrote in the IC3's newly published annual report.

https://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/fbi-cybercrime-victims-suffered-losses-of-over-6-9b-in-2021

• Expanding Threat Landscape: Cyber Criminals Attacking from All Sides

Research from Trend Micro warns of spiralling risk to digital infrastructure and remote workers as threat actors increase their rate of attack on organisations and individuals.

“Attackers are always working to increase their victim count and profit, whether through quantity or effectiveness of attacks,” said Jon Clay, VP of threat intelligence at Trend Micro.

“Our latest research shows that while Trend Micro threat detections rose 42% year-on-year in 2021 to over 94 billion, they shrank in some areas as attacks became more precisely targeted.”

Ransomware attackers are shifting their focus to critical businesses and industries more likely to pay, and double extortion tactics ensure that they are able to profit. Ransomware-as-a-service offerings have opened the market to attackers with limited technical knowledge – but also given rise to more specialisation, such as initial access brokers who are now an essential part of the cybercrime supply chain.

Threat actors are also getting better at exploiting human error to compromise cloud infrastructure and remote workers. Trend Micro detected and prevented 25.7 million email threats in 2021 compared to 16.7 million in 2020, with the volume of blocked phishing attempts nearly doubling over the period. Research shows home workers are often prone to take more risks than those in the office, which makes phishing a particular risk.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/03/22/threat-actors-increase-attack/

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Threats

Ransomware

• Ransomware Infections Follow Precursor Malware – Lumu • The Register

• Ransomware, Malware-as-a-Service Dominate Threat Landscape | SecurityWeek.Com

• Serious Security: DEADBOLT – The Ransomware That Goes Straight For Your Backups – Naked Security (sophos.com)

• AvosLocker Ransomware - What You Need To Know | The State of Security (tripwire.com)

• What the Conti Ransomware Group Data Leak Tells Us (darkreading.com)

• Ransomware Demands And Payments Increase With Use Of Leak Sites (computerweekly.com)

• Ten Notorious Ransomware Strains Put to The Encryption Speed Test (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Lockbit Wins Ransomware Speed Test, Encrypts 25k Files/Min • The Register

• Talos warns of BlackMatter-linked BlackCat Ransomware • The Register

• Report: 89% of Organizations Say Kubernetes Ransomware Is A Problem Today | VentureBeat

• Top Russian Meat Producer Hit with Windows BitLocker Encryption Attack (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Greece's Public Postal Service Offline Due To Ransomware Attack (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Hackers Demand $15 Million Ransom from TransUnion After Cracking "password" Password (bitdefender.com)

• Lawsuit Claims Kronos Breach Exposed Data For 'Millions' (techtarget.com)

• Estonian Man Sentenced To Prison For Role In Cyber Intrusions, Ransomware Attacks - CyberScoop

Phishing & Email

• New Phishing Toolkit Lets Anyone Create Fake Chrome Browser Windows (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Browser-in-the-Browser Attack Makes Phishing Nearly Invisible | Threatpost

• 'Unique Attack Chain' Drops Backdoor in New Phishing Campaign (darkreading.com)

Other Social Engineering

• Social Engineering Attacks To Dominate Web3, The Metaverse | ZDNet

Malware

• Malicious Microsoft Excel Add-Ins Used to Deliver RAT Malware (bleepingcomputer.com)

• BitRAT Malware Now Spreading As A Windows 10 License Activator (bleepingcomputer.com)

Mobile

• URL Rendering Trick Enabled WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage Phishing (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Downloaders Currently the Most Prevalent Android Malware (darkreading.com)

• Experts Uncover Campaign Stealing Cryptocurrency from Android and iPhone Users (thehackernews.com)

• Android Password-Stealing Malware Infects 100,000 Google Play Users (bleepingcomputer.com)

IoT

• Botnet of Thousands of MikroTik Routers Abused in Glupteba, TrickBot Campaigns (thehackernews.com)

• Honda Civics Vulnerable To Remote Unlock, Start Hack • The Register

• How to Secure Your Home WiFi Router - The Washington Post

Data Breaches/Leaks

• UK MoD's Capita-Run Recruitment Portal Support Offline • The Register

• Background Check Company Sued Over Data Breach - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• Over 40,000 London Voters Have Data Leaked to Strangers - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

• Who is LAPSUS$, the Gang Hacking Microsoft, Samsung, and Okta? (gizmodo.com)

• Hackers Are Targeting European Refugee Charities -Ukrainian Official | Reuters

• Hackers Steal From Hackers By Pushing Fake Malware On Forums (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Oxford Teen Accused Of Making More Than £10m As A Leader Of International Cyber Gang (telegraph.co.uk)

Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking

• An Investigation of Cryptocurrency Scams and Schemes (trendmicro.com)

• Global Regulators Monitor Crypto Use in Ukraine War | Reuters

• Cryptocurrency Companies Impacted by HubSpot Breach (techtarget.com)

Insider Risk and Insider Threats

• 6 Types Of Insider Threats And How To Prevent Them (techtarget.com)

• HP Staffer Blew $5m On Personal Expenses With Company Card • The Register

Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime

• Internet Crime in 2021: Investment Fraud Losses Soar - Help Net Security

• NFT Fraud in the UK Soars 400% in 2021 - Infosecurity Magazine (infosecurity-magazine.com)

• DeFiance Capital Founder Loses $1.7M in NFTs To Phishing Scam - Decrypt

Insurance

• How The Increase in Ransomware Has Impacted The Cyber Insurance Market - Help Net Security

• Cyber Insurance and War Exclusions (darkreading.com)

Dark Web

• Dark Web Drug Peddler Gets Nine Years - Infosecurity Magazine

Supply Chain

• 'Secrets Sprawl' Haunts Software Supply Chain Security | SecurityWeek.Com

Cloud

• As Breaches Soar, Companies Must Turn to Cloud-Native Security Solutions For Protection - Help Net Security

Passwords & Credential Stuffing

• The Top 5 Things the 2022 Weak Password Report Means for IT Security (bleepingcomputer.com)

Spyware, Espionage & Cyber Warfare

• Russia Preparing To Conduct Cyber Attacks, White House warns - IT Security Guru

• New Mustang Panda Hacking Campaign Targets Diplomats, ISPs (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Vidar Spyware Is Now Hidden in Microsoft Help Files | ZDNet

• FCC Adds Kaspersky To Covered List Due To Unacceptable Risks To Security - Security Affairs

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Nation State Actors

Nation State Actors – Russia

• Internet Sanctions Against Russia Pose Risks, Challenges For Businesses | CSO Online

• Is It Safe To Use Russian-Based Kaspersky Antivirus? No, And Here's Why (komando.com)

• Anonymous Leaked 28gb of Data Stolen from The Central Bank of Russia - Security Affairs

• President Biden Says Russia Exploring Revenge Cyber Attacks • The Register

• Analysis: Putin's next escalation could be a direct cyberattack on the West - CNNPolitics

• Russia-backed Hackers Bypassed MFA, Exploited Print Vulnerability - MSSP Alert

• Hackers Around The World Deluge Russia's Internet With Simple, Effective Cyber Attacks (nbcnews.com)

• Anonymous Targets Western Companies Still Active in Russia - Security Affairs

• Ukrainian Enterprises Hit with the DoubleZero Wiper - Security Affairs

• NATO, G-7 Leaders Promise Bulwark Against Retaliatory Russian Cyber Attacks (cyberscoop.com)

• Russia Hacked Ukrainian Satellite Communications, Officials Believe - BBC News

• Russia-linked InvisiMole APT Targets State Organizations Of Ukraine - Security Affairs

• Corrupted Open-Source Software Enters the Russian Battlefield | ZDNet

• Nestlé Says 'Anonymous' Data Leak Actually A Self-Own • The Register

Nation State Actors – China

• Another Chinese Hacking Group Spotted Targeting Ukraine Amid Russia Invasion (thehackernews.com)

• Chinese APT Combines Fresh Hodur RAT with Complex Anti-Detection | Threatpost

• Mustang Panda Hacking Group Takes Advantage Of Ukraine Crisis In New Attacks | ZDNet

Nation State Actors – North Korea

• Dual North Korean Hacking Efforts Found Attacking Google Chrome Vulnerability for 6 Weeks - CyberScoop

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Vulnerabilities

• CISA Adds 66 Vulnerabilities To List Of Bugs Exploited In Attacks (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Google Issues Urgent Chrome Update to Patch Actively Exploited Zero-Day Vulnerability (thehackernews.com)

• Three Critical RCE Flaws Affect Hundreds of HP Printer Models - Security Affairs

• Critical Sophos Firewall vulnerability allows remote code execution (bleepingcomputer.com)

• Vulnerabilities Found in 250 HP Printer Models | CSO Online

• VMware Fixes Carbon Black Command Injection, Upload Bugs • The Register

• Western Digital Fixes Critical Bug Giving Root On My Cloud NAS Devices (bleepingcomputer.com)

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Sector Specific

Health/Medical/Pharma Sector

• Scottish Mental Health Charity SAMH Targeted In Cyber Attack - BBC News

• 12,000 Sensitive Patient Images Leaked - IT Security Guru

• Over 1 Million Impacted in Data Breach at Texas Dental Services Provider | SecurityWeek.Com

Retail/eCommerce

• For Magecart groups and other credit-card skimmers, old and new opportunities abound - CyberScoop

Transport and Aviation

• SATCOM Networks on High Alert After US Govt Warning • The Register

Energy & Utilities

• US Charges Four Russians Over Hacking Campaign on Energy Sector - BBC News

Education and Academia

• Heriot-Watt University in Second Week of Outage • The Register

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Reports Published in the Last Week

• The 2022 State of Cyber Assets Report (jupiterone.com)

• 2022 Weak Password Report - Specops Software

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Other News

• A Better Grasp of Cyber Attack Tactics Can Stop Criminals Faster (bleepingcomputer.com)

• The Chaos (and Cost) of the Lapsus$ Hacking Carnage | SecurityWeek.Com

• Soldiers told to use Signal instead of WhatsApp for security | The Times

• Cyber Security Compliance: Start With Proven Best Practices - Help Net Security

• Only 27% of Orgs Have Advanced Threat Protection on Endpoints | VentureBeat

• Okta Breach Leads To Questions On Disclosure, Reliance On Third-Party Vendors - CyberScoop

• The Challenges Audit Leaders Need To Look Out For This Year - Help Net Security

• South Korean DarkHotel Hackers Targeted Luxury Hotels in Macau (thehackernews.com)

• ISACA: Two-Thirds of Cybersecurity Teams Are Understaffed - Infosecurity Magazine

• Security Teams are Responsible for Over 165k Assets - Infosecurity Magazine

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As usual, contact us to help assess where your risks lie and to ensure you are doing all you can do to keep you and your business secure.

Look out for our ‘Cyber Tip Tuesday’ video blog and on our YouTube channel.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Links to articles are for interest and awareness and linking to or reposting external content does not endorse any service or product, likewise we are not responsible for the security of external links.

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 21 May 2021

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

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Top Cyber Stories of the Last Week

5 Reasons Why Enterprises Need Cyber Security Awareness And Training

Research shows that most cyber attacks rely on exploiting the human factor with the help of creative and innovative phishing techniques and other attack vectors. Almost 90% of all data breaches are caused due to human error. Therefore, even if an organisation has a robust cyber security infrastructure in place, the absence of cyber security awareness among employees can leave a huge gap in its cyber security framework. This gap can be easily exploited by cyber criminals to launch various types of cyber attacks. Hence, cyber security awareness and training are very much needed for any enterprise to secure it against cyber attacks.

https://securityboulevard.com/2021/04/5-reasons-why-enterprises-need-cyber-security-awareness-and-training/

Ban Ransom Payments To Hackers, Urges Ex-GCHQ Boss

Britain’s former cyber security chief has called for a ban on ransomware payments after the Irish health service became the latest to be hit by a major attack from international criminals. Ciaran Martin, the founding chief executive of GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), said that making payments illegal would help to break the lucrative global hacking business model. Martin said that businesses were helping to fund the organised criminals who locked and stole their data. “At the moment you can pay to make it quietly go away. There’s no legal obligations involved,” he said. “There’s no obligation to report to anybody, there’s no traceability of payment of crypto currency. We have allowed this to spiral in an invisible way.”

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/stop-paying-hackers-ransom-demands-ex-gchq-cybersecurity-chief-warns-323fqg8zt

Ransomware’s New Swindle: Triple Extortion

Ransomware attacks are exploding at a staggering rate, and so are the ransoms being demanded. Now experts are warning against a new threat — triple extortion — which means that attackers are expanding out to demand payments from customers, partners and other third parties related to the initial breach to grab even more cash for their crimes. Check Point’s latest ransomware report found that over the past year, ransomware payments have spiked by 171 percent, averaging about $310,000 — and that globally, the number of attacks has surged by 102 percent.

https://threatpost.com/ransomwares-swindle-triple-extortion/166149/

‘It’s A Battle, It’s Warfare’: Experts Seek To Defeat Ransomware Attackers

Cyber security experts like to joke that the hackers who have turned ransomware attacks into a multibillion-dollar industry are often more professional than even their biggest victims. Ransomware attacks — when cyber attackers lock up their target’s computer systems or data until a ransom is paid — returned to the spotlight this week after attacks hit one of the biggest petroleum pipelines in the US, Toshiba’s European business, and Ireland’s health service. While governments have pledged to tackle the problem, experts said the criminal gangs have become more enterprising and continue to have the upper hand. For businesses, they said, there is more pain to come. “This is probably the biggest conundrum in security because companies have to decide how far they participate in this cat-and-mouse game,” said Myrna Soto, former chief strategy and trust officer at Forcepoint and current board member of gas and electricity group Consumers Energy. “It’s a battle, it’s warfare, to be honest.”

https://www.ft.com/content/b48a2d70-4a8c-4407-83a2-59cd055068f8

Colonial Pipeline Boss Confirms $4.4M Ransom Payment

Its boss told the Wall Street Journal he authorised the payment on 7 May because of uncertainty over how long the shutdown would continue. "I know that's a highly controversial decision," Joseph Blount said in his first interview since the hack. The 5,500-mile (8,900-km) pipeline carries 2.5 million barrels a day. According to the firm, it carries 45% of the East Coast's supply of diesel, petrol and jet fuel. Chief executive Mr Blount told the newspaper that the firm decided to pay the ransom after discussions with experts who had previously dealt with DarkSide, the criminal organisation behind the attack.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57178503

10 Emerging Cyber Security Trends To Watch In 2021

A flurry of new threats, technologies and business models have emerged in the cyber security space as the world shifted to a remote work model in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The lack of a network perimeter in this new world accelerated the adoption of SASE (secure access service edge), zero trust and XDR (extended detection and response) to ensure remote users and their data are protected. Adversaries have taken advantage of the complexity introduced by newly remote workforces to falsely impersonate legitimate users through credential theft and have upped the ante by targeting customers in the victim’s supply chain. The ability to monetize ransomware attacks by threatening to publicly leak victim data has made it more lucrative, while employers continue to fend off insiders with an agenda.

https://www.crn.com/news/security/10-emerging-cybersecurity-trends-to-watch-in-2021

How Penetration Testing Can Promote A False Sense Of Security

Rob Gurzeev is concerned about blind spots—past and present. In his DarkReading article Defending the Castle: How World History Can Teach Cyber security a Lesson, Gurzeev mentioned, "Military battles bring direct lessons and, I find, often serve as a reminder that attack surface blind spots have been an Achilles' heel for defenders for a long time." "Cyber security attackers follow this same principle today," wrote Gurzeev. "Companies typically have a sizable number of IT assets within their external attack surface they neither monitor nor defend and probably do not know about in the first place."

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-penetration-testing-can-promote-a-false-sense-of-security/

Ransomware Attacks Are Only Getting Worse, Darkside Group "Quits," But That May Just Be A Strategy

Earlier this month, a hacker group named DarkSide launched a ransomware attack against the business network of the Colonial Pipeline, forcing the company to shut down the 5,500-mile main pipeline and leading to fuel shortages in 17 states and Washington DC last week. According to a Bloomberg report, Colonial paid 75 Bitcoin (around $5 million on the day of the transaction) in ransom to the Eastern European hackers, but officially the company has maintained a different narrative of not having any intention of paying the extortion fee in crypto currency, as the DarkSide group had demanded. However, the Georgia-based company is said to have made the payment within hours of the attack, possibly using a cyber insurance policy to cover it.

https://www.techspot.com/news/89689-ransomware-attacks-only-getting-worse-darkside-group-quits.html

Learning From Cyber Attacks Could Be The Key To Stopping Them

Organisations should use major cyber incidents as a way to think through the core of their security strategies in order to prevent or recover better from similar attacks. "A significant cyber incident is really an opportunity; because it's an opportunity to focus on the core issues that led to these cyber incidents," said Anne Neuberger, deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology at the White House, speaking at the UK National Cyber Security Centre's (NCSC) CYBERUK 21 virtual conference. Neuberger said that whether it's something like the SolarWinds sophisticated supply chain attack or the Colonial Pipeline ransomware incident, "we know that vulnerabilities across software and hardware can bring on larger concerns", but that looking at the core issues can help everyone improve their security.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/learning-from-cyber-attacks-could-be-the-key-to-stopping-them/

Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Allegedly Has An Alarming Active Vulnerability

The Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is an incredibly useful feature used by likely millions of people every day. Considering it is free and preinstalled from Microsoft, it beats out most other Windows-based remote desktop software with ease. This, however, does not give it a free pass from having flaws; however, as a security researcher has discovered his password in cleartext within the RDP service’s memory. Researcher Jonas Lykkegård of the Secret Club, a group of hackers, seems to stumble across interesting things from time to time. He recently posted to Twitter about finding a password in cleartext in memory after using the RDP service. It seems he could not believe what he had found, as he tested it again and produced the same results using a new local account.

https://hothardware.com/news/remote-desktop-protocol-storing-passwords-in-cleartext-in-accessible-memory

Amazon’s Ring Is The Largest Civilian Surveillance Network The US Has Ever Seen

In a 2020 letter to management, Max Eliaser, an Amazon software engineer, said Ring is “simply not compatible with a free society”. We should take his claim seriously. Ring video doorbells, Amazon’s signature home security product, pose a serious threat to a free and democratic society. Not only is Ring’s surveillance network spreading rapidly, it is extending the reach of law enforcement into private property and expanding the surveillance of everyday life. What’s more, once Ring users agree to release video content to law enforcement, there is no way to revoke access and few limitations on how that content can be used, stored, and with whom it can be shared.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/18/amazon-ring-largest-civilian-surveillance-network-us

Ransomware Attacks Are Spiking. Is Your Company Prepared?

With the migration to remote work over the last year, cyber attacks have increased exponentially. We saw more attacks of every kind, but the headline for 2020 was ransom attacks, which were up 150% over the previous year. The amount paid by victims of these attacks increased more than 300% in 2020. Already 2021 has seen a dramatic increase in this activity, with high-profile ransom attacks against critical infrastructure, private companies, and municipalities grabbing headlines on a daily basis. The amount of ransom demanded also has significantly increased this year, with some demands reaching tens of millions of dollars. And the attacks have become more sophisticated, with threat actors seizing sensitive company data and holding it hostage for payment.

https://hbr.org/2021/05/ransomware-attacks-are-spiking-is-your-company-prepared

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Threats

Ransomware

• Insurer AXA Hit By Ransomware After Dropping Support For Ransom Payments

• The Bizarre Story Of The Inventor Of Ransomware

• One Of The US’s Largest Insurance Companies Reportedly Paid $40 Million To Ransomware Hackers

• Cyber Attack 'Most Significant On Irish State'

• Double-Extortion Ransomware Attacks On The Rise

• Darkside Ransomware Made $90 Million In Just Nine Months

• Ransomware’s Dangerous New Trick Is Double-Encrypting Your Data

Phishing

• Microsoft, Google Clouds Hijacked For Gobs Of Phishing

• Ofwat Reveals It Has Received 20,000 Spam And Phishing Emails So Far This Year

Other Social Engineering

• Fraudsters Employ Amazon ‘Vishing’ Attacks In Fake Order Scams

Malware

• Experts Warn About Ongoing AutoHotKey-Based Malware Attacks

• Microsoft Warns: Watch Out For This New Malware That Steals Passwords, Webcam And Browser Data

• FIN7 Backdoor Masquerades As Ethical Hacking Tool

Mobile

• 4 Vulnerabilities Under Attack Give Hackers Full Control Of Android Devices

• Take Action Now – Flubot Malware May Be On Its Way

• Bizarro Banking Trojan Sports Sophisticated Backdoor

• 100M Android Users Hit By Rampant Cloud Leaks

IoT

• Four New Video Doorbells And Home Security Cameras Are Vulnerable To Hacking

• EufyCam Users Should Turn Off Their Security Cams Immediately

Vulnerabilities

• Windows PoC Exploit Released For Wormable RCE

• Windows 10 Security Targeted Via New Critical Vulnerability

• Exploit Released For Wormable Windows HTTP Vulnerability

• QNAP Warns Of eCh0raix Ransomware Attacks, Roon Server Zero-Day

• Cross-Browser Tracking Vulnerability Tracks You Via Installed Apps

• More Security Flaws Found In Apple Airtags

Cryptocurrency

• Elon Musk Impersonators Stole More Than $2M In Crypto Currency Scams

Supply Chain

• Rapid7 Is The Latest Victim Of A Software Supply Chain Breach

Nation State Actors

• Ireland’s Health Service: Russian Hackers Made Their First Attack Two Weeks Ago

Denial of Service

• Keksec Cyber Gang Debuts Simps Botnet for Gaming DDoS

Cloud

• Cloud Compromise Now The Biggest Cyber Security Issue For Financial Institutions

• Privacy Regulations Making Cloud Migration Complex

Governance, Risk and Compliance

• Cyber Security Spending To Hit $150 Billion This Year

Reports Published in the Last Week

• DDoS Attacks Up 31% In Q1 2021: Report

Other News

• Hackers Used To Be Humans. Soon, AIs Will Hack Humanity

• Solarwinds CEO Reveals Much Earlier Hack Timeline, Regrets Company Blaming Intern

• Cyber Criminals Scanned For Vulnerable Microsoft Exchange Servers Within Five Minutes Of News Going Public

• The Moral Underground? Ransomware Operators Retreat

• Verizon: Pandemic Ushers In ⅓ More Cyber Misery

• The Bizarre Story Of The Inventor Of Ransomware

• Should Encryption Be Curbed To Combat Child Abuse?

• 5 Ways Hackers Hide Their Tracks

• The Next Big Gasoline Shortage Is Coming

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As usual, contact us to help assess where your risks lie and to ensure you are doing all you can do to keep you and your business secure.

Look out for our weekly ‘Cyber Tip Tuesday’ video blog and on our YouTube channel.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Links to articles are for interest and awareness and linking to or reposting external content does not endorse any service or product, likewise we are not responsible for the security of external links.

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 14 May 2021

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

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Top Cyber Stories of the Last Week

Two Thirds Of CISOs Across World Expect Damaging Cyber Attack In Next 12 Months

More than 1,000 CISOs around the world have expressed concerns about the security ramifications of the massive shift to remote work since the beginning of the pandemic. One hundred CISOs from the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Japan, and Singapore were interviewed for the report, with many highlighting significant problems in the current cyber security landscape.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/two-thirds-of-cisos-across-world-expect-damaging-cyberattack-in-next-12-months/

Ransomware: Don't Pay Up, It Just Shows Cyber Criminals That Attacks Work, Warns Home Secretary

For victims of ransomware attacks, paying the ransom does not guarantee that their network will be restored – and handing money to criminals only encourages them to try their luck infecting more companies with the file-encrypting malware. The impact of ransomware attacks continues to rise as cyber criminals encrypt networks, while also blackmailing victims with the prospect of stolen data being published, to generate as much money as possible from extortion.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/ransomware-dont-pay-the-ransom-it-just-encourage-cyber-criminals-that-attacks-work-warns-home-secretary/

The Most Significant Cyber Attacks From 2006-2020, By Country

Committing a cyber crime can have serious consequences. In the US, a cyber criminal can receive up to 20 years in prison for hacking into a government institution if it compromises national security. Yet, despite the consequences, cyber criminals continue to wreak havoc across the globe. But some countries seem to be targeted more than others. Using data from SpecOps Software, this graphic looks at the countries that have experienced the most significant cyber attacks over the last two decades.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cyber-attacks-worldwide-2006-2020/

The Shape Of Fraud And Cyber Crime: 10 Things We Learned From 2020

While it remains true that the older you are, the greater the financial loss, why would fraudsters target the young, who are arguably less well off? The answer lies in volume. Criminals have been offsetting higher monetary gain for higher attack rates, capitalising on the fact that the young are perhaps both more liberal with personal information (and privacy in general) and, at the same time, heavy digital users (social media, surveys, games, and so on). In fact, it is scary to see how much value the humble email address can have for criminals. We often forget that once obtained, it can be used further down the line to commit more fraud.

https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/The-shape-of-fraud-and-cyber-crime-10-things-we-learned-from-2020

Is Third-Party Software Leaving You Vulnerable To Cyber Attacks?

When companies buy digital products, they expect them to be secure. In most cases, they do not test for vulnerabilities down the digital supply chain — and do not even have adequate processes or tools to do so. Hackers have taken note, and incidents of supply chain cyber attacks, which exploit weaknesses within the digital supply chain to break into organisations’ internal networks, are on the rise. As a result, there have been many headline incidents that not only bring shame to the companies involved, but rachet up the visibility of these threats to top executives who want to know their offerings are secure.

https://hbr.org/2021/05/is-third-party-software-leaving-you-vulnerable-to-cyberattacks

US Pipeline Ransomware Attack Serves As Fair Warning To Persistent Corporate Inertia Over Security

Organisations that continue to disregard the need to ensure they have adopted basic cyber security hygiene practices should be taken to task. This will be critical, especially as cyber criminals turn their attention to sectors where cyber threats can result in real-world risks, as demonstrated in the US Colonial Pipeline attack. In many of my conversations with cyber security experts, there is a shared sense of frustration that businesses still are failing to get some of the most basic things right. Default passwords are left unchanged, frontline staff and employees are still falling for common scams and phishing attacks, and major businesses think nothing of using technology that are decades old.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/us-pipeline-ransomware-attack-serves-as-fair-warning-to-persistent-corporate-inertia-over-security/

Ransomware Attackers Are Now Using Triple Extortion Tactics

The number of organisations affected by ransomware so far this year has more than doubled, compared with the same period in 2020, according to the report. Since April, Check Point researchers have observed an average of 1,000 organisations impacted by ransomware every week. For all of 2020, ransomware cost businesses worldwide around $20 billion, more than 75% higher than the amount in 2019. The healthcare sector has been seeing the highest volume of ransomware with around 109 attacks per organization each week. Amid news of a ransomware attack against gas pipeline company Colonial Pipeline, the utilities sector has experienced 59 attacks per organization per week. Organisations in the insurance and legal sector have been affected by 34 such attacks each week.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/ransomware-attackers-are-now-using-triple-extortion-tactics/

AXA Pledges To Stop Reimbursing Ransom Payments For French Ransomware Victims

Insurance company AXA has revealed that, at the request of French government officials, it will end cyber insurance policies in France that pay ransomware victims back for ransoms paid out to cyber criminals. While unconfirmed, the Associated Press reported that the move was an industry first. AXA is one of the five biggest insurers in Europe and made the decision as ransomware attacks become a daily occurrence for organisations across the world.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/axa-pledges-to-stop-reimbursing-ransom-payments-for-french-ransomware-victims/

The Dystopic Future Of Cyber Security And The Importance Of Empowering CISOs

Over a decade ago, in 2007, the first iPhone was released and with it emerged an ecosystem of apps that continues to expand to this day. This was a watershed moment, not solely for the technology industry, but civilization. It was a catalyst for what was to come. Suddenly, every consumer could access the internet at a touch of a button, and the accumulation of their data by private companies began en masse. It was at this point that data was established as an increasingly valuable commodity, and in turn, became a heightened exploitation risk. It also instigated a wave of innovation that has yet to break and is only growing rapidly in pace. In this state, technology providers, users, and manufacturers get excited about new functionalities, new features, new developments, while little thought is given to the negative consequences that could arise as a result. Indeed, fear has no place in the state of innovation as it is this primal thinking that inhibits creativity.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/blogs/the-dystopic-future-of/

Cyber Security Experts Warn Over Online Wine Scams

Online wine scams became a bigger threat as cyber criminals sought to take advantage of more people and businesses organising virtual drinks and ordering bottles on the internet in the wake of Covid-19 restrictions, suggests the report. So-called ‘phishing emails’ were a particular concern, according to findings published in April by US-based group Recorded Future in partnership with Area 1 Security. From January 2020 onwards, the authors found a significant rise in legitimate wine-themed web domain registrations using terms like Merlot, Pinot, Chardonnay or Vino.

https://www.decanter.com/wine-news/cyber-security-experts-warn-over-online-wine-scams-457647/

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Threats

Ransomware

• New Ransomware: CISA Warns Over Fivehands File-Encrypting Malware Variant

• Energy Companies Are The Firms Most Likely To Pay Cyber Attack Ransoms

• A Student Pirating Software Led To A Full-Blown Ryuk Ransomware Attack

• MTR In Real Time: Pirates Pave Way For Ryuk Ransomware

• Ransomware Going For $4K On The Cyber Underground

• Foreign Secretary Issues Warning To Russia On Ransomware

• Anatomy Of A $2 Million Darkside Ransomware Breach

BEC

• Business Email Compromise Attack Targeted Dozens Of Orgs

Phishing

• Phishing Attacks Exploit Cognitive Biases, Research Finds

• AI Discovers A Complex Phishing Crypto Currency Scam Campaign

Other Social Engineering

• Coronavirus-Related Cyber Crime Contributes To 15-Fold Surge In Scam Takedowns

• She Responded To A Smishing Scam. Then The Spam Texts Got Worse.

Malware

• Emails Reveal 128 Million iOS Users Were Affected By ‘Xcodeghost’ Malware

Mobile

• A New Smishing Trojan Is Out And About

• New Android Malware Targeting Banks In Italy, Spain, Germany, Belgium, And The Netherlands

IOT

• How To Apply A Zero Trust Approach To Your IoT Solutions

• Troy Hunt At Black Hat Asia: ‘We’re Making It Very Difficult For People To Make Good Security Decisions’

Vulnerabilities

• Don’t Delay Installing Your Windows 10 May Patch Tuesday Update – It Fixes 3 Zero-Day Exploits

• Patch Adobe Reader Now Or Risk A Major Security Attack

• WiFi Vulnerability May Leave Millions Of Devices Open To 'Frag Attacks'

• Remote Mouse Mobile App Contains Raft Of Zero-Day RCE Vulnerabilities

• Lemon Duck Hacking Group Adopts Microsoft Exchange Server Vulnerabilities In New Attacks

Data Breaches

• Hackers release personal info of 22 DC Police officers

• Anatomy Of A $2 Million Darkside Ransomware Breach

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

• Bulletproof Hosting Admins Plead Guilty To Running Cyber Crime Safe Haven

Supply Chain

• Rapid7 Source Code, Credentials Accessed In Codecov Supply-Chain Attack

Nation State Actors

• Russian Hackers Are Targeting These Vulnerabilities, So Patch Now

• NCSC Warns British Start-Ups Of Threat From Chinese And Russian Hackers

• NCSC, CISA publish new information on Russia’s Cozy Bear

Privacy

• Your Employer May Be Spying On You — Here Are 3 Ways To Stop It

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Reports Published in the Last Week

• DDOS Attacks In Q1 2021

• Verizon 2021 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR)

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Other News

• University Cancels Exams After Cyber Attack

• Your Old Mobile Phone Number Could Compromise Your Cyber Security

• Microsoft's New Security Feature Locks Hackers Out With GPS

• Biden Signs Executive Order Aiming To Prevent Future Cyber Security Disasters

• Cyber Security And Compliance For Healthcare Organizations

• Train Firm’s ‘Worker Bonus’ Email Is Actually Cyber Security Test

• Half Of Government Security Incidents Caused By Missing Patches

• 90% Of Security Leaders View Bot Management As A Top Priority

• 'Everyone Had To Rethink Security': What Microsoft Learned In Last Year

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As usual, contact us to help assess where your risks lie and to ensure you are doing all you can do to keep you and your business secure.

Look out for our weekly ‘Cyber Tip Tuesday’ video blog and on our YouTube channel.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Links to articles are for interest and awareness and linking to or reposting external content does not endorse any service or product, likewise we are not responsible for the security of external links.