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Black Arrow Admin 21/05/2023 Black Arrow Admin 21/05/2023

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 19 May 2023

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 19 May 2023:

-Triple Threat: Insecure Economy, Cyber Crime Recruitment and Insider Threats

-Insured Companies More Likely to be Ransomware Victims, Sometimes More Than Once

-Ensuring Security Remains/Becomes Everyone’s Responsibility

-Software Supply Chain Attacks Hit 61% of Firms

-More than 2.25 Million Exposed Assets on the Dark Web Tied to Fortune 1000 Employees

-Law Enforcement Crackdowns and New Techniques are Forcing Cyber Criminals to Pivot

-Talking Security Strategy: Why Cyber Security Requires a Seat at the Boardroom Table

-How Incident Response Rehearsals and Readiness Exercises Can Aid Incident Response

-Ransomware’s Real Goals are to Exploit Internet Facing Apps, Mine Intellectual Property and Grab Sensitive Information

-Organisations’ Cyber Resilience Efforts Fail to Keep Up with Evolving Threats

-Fraudsters Send Fake Invoice, Follow Up with Fake Executive Confirmation

-Capita Warns Customers They Should Assume Data was Stolen

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.

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 12 May 2023

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 12 May 2023:

-79% of Cyber Pros Make Decisions Without Threat Intelligence

-61% of Business Leadership Overlook the Role of Cyber Security as a Business Enabler and as being Key to Business Success

-Risk Managers Warn Cyber Insurance Could Become ‘Unviable Product’

-Small and Medium-Sized Businesses: Don’t Give up on Cyber Security

-AI Has Been Dubbed a 'Nuclear' Threat to Cyber Security, but It Can Also Be Used for Defence

-Paying Cyber Hijackers’ Ransoms Doubles Cost of Recovery, Sophos Study Shows

-Majority of US, UK CISOs Unable to Protect Company 'Secrets'

-Company Executives Can’t Afford to Ignore Cyber Security Anymore

-BEC Campaign via Israel Spotted Targeting Multinational Companies

-CISOs Worried About Personal Liability for Breaches

-UK, US and International Allies Uncover Russian Snake Malware Network in 50+ Countries

-Plug-and-Play Microsoft 365 Phishing Tool 'Democratizes' Attack Campaigns

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 18 November 2022

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 18 November 2022:

-Amid Legal Fallout, Cyber Insurers Redefine State-Sponsored Attacks as Act of War

-Supply Chains Need Shoring Up Against Cyber Attacks, C-Suite Executives Say

-Is Your Board Prepared for New Cyber Security Regulations?

-Unwanted Emails Steadily Creeping into Inboxes

-People Are Still Using the Dumbest Passwords Available

-Zero-Trust Initiatives Stall, as Cyber Attack Costs Rocket to $1M per Incident

-44% of Financial Institutions Believe Their Own IT Teams Are the Main Risk to Cloud Security

-MFA Fatigue Attacks Are Putting Your Organisation at Risk

-Cyber Security Training Boosts Risk Posture, Research Finds

-MI5 Chief: UK will have to tackle Russian Aggression ‘for Years to Come’

-Offboarding Processes Pose Security Risks as Job Turnover Increases: Report

-Do Companies Need Cyber Insurance?

Top Cyber Stories of the Last Week

Amid Legal Fallout, Cyber Insurers Redefine State-Sponsored Attacks as Act of War

As carriers rewrite their act-of-war exclusions following the NotPetya settlement between Mondelez and Zurich, organisations should read their cyber insurance policies carefully to see what is still covered.

The consequences from NotPetya, which the US government said was caused by a Russian cyber attack on Ukraine in 2017, continue to be felt as cyber insurers modify coverage exclusions, expanding the definition of an "act of war." Indeed, the 5-year-old cyber attack appears to be turning the cyber insurance market on its head.

Mondelez International, parent of such popular brands as Cadbury, Oreo, Ritz, and Triscuit, was hit hard by NotPetya, with factories and production disrupted. It took days for the company's staff to regain control of its computer systems. The company filed a claim with its property and casualty insurer, Zurich American, for $100 million in losses. After initially approving a fraction of the claim — $10 million — Zurich declined to pay, stating the attack was an act of war and thus excluded from the coverage. Mondelez filed a lawsuit.

Late last month Mondelez and Zurich American reportedly agreed to the original $100 million claim, but that wasn't until after Merck won its $1.4 billion lawsuit against Ace American Insurance Company in January 2022 for its NotPetya-related losses. Merck's claims also were against its property and casualty policy, not a cyber insurance policy.

Back in 2017, cyber insurance policies were still nascent, and so many large corporations filed claims for damages related to NotPetya — the scourge that caused an estimated $10 billion in damage worldwide — against corporate property and casualty policies.

What's Changed? The significance of these settlements illustrates an ongoing maturation of the cyber insurance market, says Forrester Research.

Until 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic, cyber insurance policies were sold in a fashion akin to traditional home or auto policies, with little concern for a company's cyber security profile, the tools it had in place to defend its networks and data, or its general cyber hygiene.

Once a large number of ransomware attacks occurred that built off of the lax cyber security many organisations demonstrated, insurance carriers began tightening the requirements for obtaining such policies.

https://www.darkreading.com/edge-articles/amid-notpetya-fallout-cyber-insurers-define-state-sponsored-attacks-as-act-of-war

Is Your Board Prepared For New Cyber Security Regulations?

Boards are now paying attention to the need to participate in cyber security oversight. Not only are the consequences sparking concern, but the new regulations are upping the ante and changing the game.

Boards have a particularly important role to ensure appropriate management of cyber risk as part of their fiduciary and oversight role. As cyber threats increase and companies worldwide bolster their cyber security budgets, the regulatory community, including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), is advancing new requirements that companies will need to know about as they reinforce their cyber strategy.

Most organisations focus on cyber protection rather than cyber resilience, and that could be a mistake. Resiliency is more than just protection; it’s a plan for recovery and business continuation. Being resilient means that you’ve done as much as you can to protect and detect a cyber incident, and you have also done as much as you can to make sure you can continue to operate when an incident occurs. A company who invests only in protection is not managing the risk associated with getting up and running again in the event of a cyber incident.

Research indicates that most board members believe it is not a matter of if, but when, their company will experience a cyber event. The ultimate goal of a cyber-resilient organisation would be zero disruption from a cyber breach. That makes the focus on resilience more important.

In March 2022, the SEC issued a proposed rule titled Cybersecurity Risk Management, Strategy, Governance, and Incident Disclosure. In it, the SEC describes its intention to require public companies to disclose whether their boards have members with cyber security expertise: “Cyber security is already among the top priorities of many boards of directors and cyber security incidents and other risks are considered one of the largest threats to companies. Accordingly, investors may find disclosure of whether any board members have cyber security expertise to be important as they consider their investment in the registrant as well as their votes on the election of directors of the registrant.”

The SEC will soon require companies to disclose their cyber security governance capabilities, including the board’s oversight of cyber risk, a description of management’s role in assessing and managing cyber risks, the relevant expertise of such management, and management’s role in implementing the registrant’s cyber security policies, procedures, and strategies. Specifically, where pertinent to board oversight, registrants will be required to disclose:

whether the entire board, a specific board member, or a board committee is responsible for the oversight of cyber risks,
the processes by which the board is informed about cyber risks, and the frequency of its discussions on this topic,
whether and how the board or specified board committee considers cyber risks as part of its business strategy, risk management, and financial oversight.

https://hbr.org/2022/11/is-your-board-prepared-for-new-cybersecurity-regulations

Unwanted Emails Steadily Creeping into Inboxes

A research from cloud security provider Hornetsecurity has revealed that 40.5% of work emails are unwanted. The Cyber Security Report 2023, which analysed more than 25 billion work emails, also reveals significant changes to the nature of cyber attacks in 2022 – indicating the constant, growing threats to email security, and need for caution in digital workplace communications.

Phishing remains the most common style of email attack, representing 39.6% of detected threats. Threat actors used the following file types sent via email to deliver payloads: Archive files (Zip, 7z, etc.) sent via email make up 28% of threats, down slightly from last year’s 33.6%, with HTML files increasing from 15.3% to 21%, and DOC(X) from 4.8% to 12.7%.

This year’s cyber security report shows the steady creep of threats into inboxes around the world. The rise in unwanted emails, now found to be nearly 41%, is putting email users and businesses at significant risk.

HornetSecurity’s analysis identified both the enduring risk and changing landscape of ransomware attacks – highlighting the need for businesses and their employees to be more vigilant than ever.

New cyber security trends and techniques for organisations to watch out for were also tracked. Since Microsoft disabled macros settings in Office 365, there has been a significant increase in HTML smuggling attacks using embedded LNK or ZIP files to deliver malware. Microsoft 365 makes it easy to share documents, and end users often overlook the ramifications of how files are shared, as well as the security implications. Hornetsecurity found 25% of respondents were either unsure or assumed that Microsoft 365 was immune to ransomware threats.

For these attackers, every industry is a target. Companies must therefore ensure comprehensive security awareness training while implementing next-generation preventative measures to ward off threats.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/11/14/email-security-threats/

People Are Still Using the Dumbest Passwords Available

If you were thinking that most people would have learned by now not to use “password” as the password for their sensitive systems, then you would be giving too much credit to the general scrolling public.

Cyber security researchers from Cybernews and password manager company NordPass both independently reported this week on data surrounding the most commonly-used passwords. Trying to discern the frequently used words, phrases, and numbers among the general public wouldn’t be simple if it weren’t for the troves of leaked passwords being sold on the dark web.

Cybernews said it based its data on a list of 56 million breached or leaked passwords in 2022 found via databases in darknet and clearnet hacker forums. Some of the most-used passwords were exactly what you expect, easy-to-remember junk passwords for company accounts, including “123456,” “root,” and “guest” all looking pretty in the top three.

NordPass, on the other hand, listed its top passwords by country and the supposed gender of the user. In their case, “password” sat in the number one spot for most-used password throughout the globe. Some countries had very specific passwords that were commonly used, such as “liverpool” being the number 4 most-used password in the UK despite it being 197 in the world. The number 2 most-used password for Brazil accounts is “Brasil” while in Germany, number 5 is “hallo.”

NordPass said the list of passwords was built by a team of independent researchers who compiled 3TB of data from listings on the dark web, including some data that was leaked in data breaches that occurred in 2022. The company noted that some data might be from late 2021, though the passwords were listed on the dark web in the new year.

https://gizmodo.com/passwords-hacker-best-passwords-cybersecurity-1849792818

Zero-Trust Initiatives Stall, as Cyber Attack Costs Rocket to $1M per Incident

Researchers find current data protection strategies are failing to get the job done, and IT leaders are concerned, while a lack of qualified IT security talent hampers cyber-defence initiatives.

Organisations are struggling with mounting data losses, increased downtime, and rising recovery costs due to cyber attacks — to the tune of $1.06 million in costs per incident. Meanwhile, IT security teams are stalled on getting defences up to speed.

That's according to the 2022 Dell Global Data Protection Index (GDPI) survey of 1,000 IT decision-makers across 15 countries and 14 industries, which found that organisations that experienced disruption have also suffered an average of 2TB data loss and 19 hours of downtime.

Most respondents (67%) said they lack confidence that their existing data protection measures are sufficient to cope with malware and ransomware threats. A full 63% said they are not very confident that all business-critical data can be reliably recovered in the event of a destructive cyber attack.

Their fears seem founded: Nearly half of respondents (48%) experienced a cyber attack in the past 12 months that prevented access to their data (a 23% increase from 2021) — and that's a trend that will likely continue.

The growth and increased distribution of data across edge, core data centre and multiple public cloud environments are making it exceedingly difficult for IT admins to protect their data.

On the protection front, most organisations are falling behind; for instance, 91% are aware of or planning to deploy a zero-trust architecture, but only 12% are fully deployed.

And it's not just advanced defence that's lacking: Keegan points out that 69% of respondents stated they simply cannot meet their backup windows to be prepared for a ransomware attack.

https://www.darkreading.com/endpoint/zero-trust-initiatives-stall-cyberattack-costs-1m-per-incident

44% of Financial Institutions Believe Their Own IT Teams Are the Main Risk to Cloud Security

Netwrix, a cyber security vendor, today announced additional findings for the financial and banking sector from its global 2022 Cloud Security Report.

Compared to other industries surveyed, financial institutions are much more concerned about users who have legitimate access to their cloud infrastructure. Indeed, 44% of respondents in this sector say their own IT staff poses the biggest risk to data security in the cloud and 47% worry about contractors and partners, compared to 30% and 36% respectively in other verticals surveyed.

Financial organisations experience accidental data leakage more often than companies in other verticals: 32% of them reported this type of security incident within the last 12 months, compared to the average of 25%. This is a good reason for them to be concerned about users who might unintentionally expose sensitive information. To address this threat, organisations need to implement a zero-standing privilege approach in which elevated access rights are granted only when they are needed and only for as long as needed. Cloud misconfigurations are another common reason for accidental data leakage. Therefore, security teams must continually monitor the integrity of their cloud configurations, ideally with a dedicated solution that automates the process.

All sectors say phishing is the most common type of attack they experience. However, 91% of financial institutions say they can spot phishing within minutes or hours, compared to 82% of respondents in other verticals.

Even though mature financial organisations detect phishing quickly, it is still crucial for them to keep educating their personnel on this threat because attacks are becoming more sophisticated. To increase the likelihood of a user clicking a malicious link, attackers are crafting custom spear phishing messages that are directed at the person responsible for a certain task in the organisation and that appear to come from an authority figure. Regular staff training, along with continuous activity monitoring, will help reduce the risk of infiltration.

https://www.darkreading.com/cloud/44-of-financial-institutions-believe-their-own-it-teams-are-the-main-risk-to-cloud-security

MFA Fatigue Attacks Are Putting Your Organisation at Risk

The rapid advancement of technology in all industries has led to the threat of ever-increasing cyber attacks that target businesses, governments, and individuals alike. A common threat targeting businesses is MFA Fatigue attacks—a technique where a cyber criminal attempts to gain access to a corporate network by bombarding a user with MFA prompts until they finally accept one.

MFA refers to multi-factor authentication, a layered end-user verification strategy to secure data and applications. For a user to log in, an MFA system needs them to submit various combinations of two or more credentials.

Using MFA Fatigue attacks, cyber criminals bombard their victims with repeated 2FA (two-factor authentication) push notifications to trick them into authenticating their login attempts, to increase their chances of gaining access to sensitive information. This attempt can be successful, especially when the target victim is distracted or overwhelmed by the notifications or misinterprets them as legitimate authentication requests.

One major MFA Fatigue attack, also known as MFA bombing, targeted the ride-sharing giant Uber in September 2022. Uber attributed the attack to Lapsus$, a hacking group that started by compromising an external contractor’s credentials.

Cyber criminals increasingly use social engineering attacks to access their targets’ sensitive credentials. Social engineering is a manipulative technique used by hackers to exploit human error to gain private information.

MFA Fatigue is a technique that has gained popularity among hackers in recent years as part of their social engineering attacks. This is a simple yet effective technique with destructive consequences as the hackers are banking on their targets’ lack of training and understanding of attack vectors. Since many MFA users are unfamiliar with this style of attack, they would not understand that they are approving a fraudulent notification.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/mfa-fatigue-attacks-are-putting-your-organization-at-risk/

Cyber Security Training Boosts Risk Posture, Research Finds

Business executives worldwide see the economic advantages of continuing professional cyber security education and the steep downside from a workforce of under-trained individuals, Cybrary, a training platform provider, said in a new report.

The survey of 275 executives, directors and security professionals in North America and the UK who either procure or influence professional cyber security training, was conducted by consultancy Omdia. The results showed that the benefits of professional training boost an employee’s impact on the organisation, the overall risk posture of the organisation, and in the costs associated with finding and retaining highly skilled employees, the analyst said.

The study’s key findings include:

73% of respondents said their team’s cyber security performance was more efficient because of ongoing professional cyber security training.
62% of respondents said that training improved their organisation’s cyber security effectiveness (which encompasses decreases in the number of breach attempts and overall security events).
79% of respondents ranked professional cyber security training at the top or near the top of importance for the organisation’s ability to prevent and rapidly remediate breaches and ensuing consequences such as reputational damage.
70% of companies reported a relationship between an incident and training, and two-thirds of respondents reported increased investments in ongoing cyber security training after a security incident.
Large enterprises are the least likely to delay upskilling until after an incident, indicating that companies with larger cyber security teams firmly understand the importance of ongoing professional training.
67% of surveyed SMBs invested in cyber security training after a security incident, which served as a call to action.
53% invested in professional cyber security training due to a cyber security insurance audit.
48% of organisations said that cyber security training drives retention and decreases the likelihood that a cyber security professional will leave the organisation that trains them.
41% said that ongoing cyber security training has no significant impact on if a cyber security professional leaves.

Cybrary said the research shows the rewards that organisations enjoy by investing in training and upskilling their security professionals. The data “codifies the fiscal and reputational paybacks in proactively improving cyber security defences versus responding to attacks. It also codifies an often-underrecognised benefit of cyber security upskilling: helping the organisation retain invaluable security talent despite market and organisational uncertainty”.

https://www.msspalert.com/cybersecurity-research/cybersecurity-training-boosts-risk-posture-research-finds/

MI5 Chief: UK Will Have to Tackle Russian Aggression ‘for Years to Come’

Britain will have to tackle Russian aggression for years to come, said the MI5’s chief on Wednesday, adding that his agency had blocked more than 100 attempts by the Kremlin to insert suspected spies into the UK since the Salisbury poisonings.

Ken McCallum, giving an annual threat update, said state-based threats were increasing and said the UK also faced a heightened direct threat from Iran, which had threatened “to kidnap or even kill” 10 people based in Britain in the past year.

The spy chief said Russia had suffered a “strategic blow” after 400 spies were expelled from around Europe following the start of the war in Ukraine, but he said the Kremlin was actively trying to rebuild its espionage network.

Britain had expelled 23 Russian spies posing as diplomats after the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury in 2018, yet since then “over 100 Russian diplomatic visa applications” had been rejected on national security grounds.

McCallum accused Russia of making “silly claims” about British activities without evidence, such as that UK was involved in attacking the Nord Stream gas pipelines. But the head of MI5 said “the serious point” was that “the UK must be ready for Russian aggression for years to come”.

Iran’s “aggressive intelligence services” were actively targeting Britain and had made “at least 10” attempts to “kidnap or even kill” British or UK-based individuals since January as the regime felt greater pressure than ever before.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/16/mi5-chief-uk-will-have-to-tackle-russian-aggression-for-years-to-come

Offboarding Processes Pose Security Risks as Job Turnover Increases: Report

Research from YouGov finds that poor offboarding practices across industries including healthcare and tech are putting companies at risk, including for loss of end-user devices and unauthorised SaaS application use.

Organisations across multiple industries are struggling to mitigate potential risks, including loss of end-user and storage devices as well as unauthorised use of SaaS applications, during their offboarding process, according to new research conducted by YouGov in partnership with Enterprise Technology Management (ETM) firm Oomnitza.

Over the last 18 months, employee turnover has increased, with the US Department of Labor estimating that by the end of 2021, a total of 69 million people, more than 20% of Americans, had either lost or changed their job. Although these figures could initially be attributed to the so-called Great Resignation, this figure is likely to increase due to the numerous job cuts that are now being reported, including layoffs at major technology companies, as organisations look to reduce operational costs.

Although the circumstances of an employee’s departure can sometimes make the offboarding process more complex, ultimately offboarding should aim to prevent disruption and mitigate any potential risks.

However, in YouGov’s 2022 State of Corporate Offboarding Process Automation report, the research found that although implementing a secure offboarding processes is now seen as a business imperative for enterprises, 48% of the survey’s respondents expressed deficiencies in or lack of automated workflows across departments and IT tools to facilitate the secure offboarding of employees.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3680368/offboarding-processes-pose-security-risks-as-job-turnover-increases-report.html#tk.rss_news

Supply Chains Need Shoring Up Against Cyber Attacks, C-Suite Executives Say

Nearly every organisation (98%) in a new survey of some 2,100 C-suite executives has been hit by a supply chain cyber attack in the last year, security provider BlueVoyant said in a newly released study.

The study gleaned data from interviews with chief technology officers (CTOs), chief security officers (CSOs), chief operating officers (COOs), chief information officers (CIOs), chief information security officers (CISOs), and chief procurement officers (CPOs) responsible for supply chain and cyber risk management in organisations of more than 1,000 employees across business services, financial services, healthcare and pharmaceutical, manufacturing, utilities and energy, and defence industries.

While the number of companies experiencing digital supply chain attacks has stayed relatively static year-over-year, the attention paid by organisations to that attack vector has increased, BlueVoyant said. Still, the New York-based cyber defender said, there’s a lot of room for organisations to better monitor suppliers and “work with them to remediate issues to reduce their supply chain risks.”

Here are some macro highlights from the survey:

40% of respondents rely on the third-party vendor or supplier to ensure adequate security.
In 2021, 53% of companies said they audited or reported on supplier security more than twice per year. That number has improved to 67% in 2022. These numbers include enterprises monitoring in real time.
Budgets for supply chain defence are increasing, with 84% of respondents saying their budget has increased in the past 12 months.
The top pain points reported are internal understanding across the enterprise that suppliers are part of their cyber security posture, meeting regulatory requirements, and working with suppliers to improve their security.

https://www.msspalert.com/cybersecurity-research/supply-chains-need-shoring-up-against-cyberattacks-c-suite-executives-say/

Do Companies Need Cyber Insurance?

Companies are increasingly seeking to transfer risk with cyber insurance. This trend has been influenced by a greater severity in cyber attacks and the resulting skyrocketing costs of incident response, business disruption and recovery.

Companies struggle to afford the high prices of cyber insurance, however. One market index reported the price of cyber insurance increased 79% in the second quarter of 2022. Without it, however, companies risk shouldering the full cost of any resulting harm. Furthermore, insurance companies that lack traditional decades of actuarial data must consider whether to provide cyber insurance to clients unable or unwilling to show their cyber security maturity through independent risk analysis.

This combination of circumstances leaves businesses vulnerable, financially drained and facing potential reputational damage. But does it have to be this way? And is cyber insurance truly necessary? For the majority of organisations, the answer is that cyber insurance is a worthwhile investment as part of their overall risk treatment plans. There are a number of activities, however, that should be undertaken to optimise the benefits and reduce the costs of cyber-risk insurance.

A rise in high-profile attacks, in tandem with increased regulation and compliance surrounding cyber security and privacy, has shifted the conversation around digital safety. No longer is cyber security an optional aspect of the business model with a fixed, stagnant cost. Businesses today have become too digitally dependent to ignore cyber security, with classified, internal information stored online; communication largely conducted via email or another platform; and the workforce transitioned to hybrid and remote work environments. Effective cyber security and privacy, as well as mitigating financial and operational risks, can be strategic enablers to modern digital business.

Cyber insurance is not a solution -- it's a piece of the puzzle. Regardless of industry or company size, all businesses should conduct an independent cyber audit prior to committing to cyber insurance. In doing so, organisations can determine the need for cyber insurance and better understand their organisations' risk posture and weak points.

Even if insurance is needed, the audit further adds value as it lets insurance companies support the company specific to its digital landscape and help it become more digitally strong. Additionally, the existence of an independent audit and risk review may indeed enable the insurance company to offer higher levels of coverage without the need for excessive premiums.

https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/post/Do-companies-need-cyber-insurance

Threats

Ransomware and Extortion

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

Malware

Mobile

Android malware: A million people downloaded these malicious apps before they were finally removed from Google Play | ZDNET

Internet of Things – IoT

Data Breaches/Leaks

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking/NFTs/Blockchain

Insider Risk and Insider Threats

Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime

Impersonation Attacks

Denial of Service DoS/DDoS

Cloud/SaaS

Encryption

Open Source

It's official - open source software has never been more important | TechRadar

Passwords, Credential Stuffing & Brute Force Attacks

Top passwords used in RDP brute-force attacks - Help Net Security

Social Media

Privacy, Surveillance and Mass Monitoring

Governance, Risk and Compliance

Careers, Working in Cyber and Information Security

Law Enforcement Action and Take Downs

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

Nation State Actors

Nation State Actors – Russia

Nation State Actors – China

Nation State Actors – North Korea

Nation State Actors – Iran

Nation State Actors – Misc

Vulnerability Management

Misconfigurations, Vulnerabilities Found in 95% of Applications (darkreading.com)

Vulnerabilities

Tools and Controls

Reports Published in the Last Week

Other News

Sector Specific

Industry specific threat intelligence reports are available.

· 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.

Black Arrow Admin 07/08/2022 Black Arrow Admin 07/08/2022

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 05 August 2022

-Average Cost of Data Breaches Hits Record High of $4.35 Million: IBM

-Researchers Warns of Large-Scale Adversary-in-the-Middle (AiTM) Attacks Targeting Enterprise Users

-UK NHS Suffers Outage After Cyber Attack on Managed Service Provider

-A Third of Organisations Experience a Ransomware Attack Once a Week

-Ransomware Products, Services Ads on Dark Web Show Clues to Danger

-Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing, How Malware Tricks Users and Antivirus

-Microsoft Accounts Targeted with New MFA-Bypassing Phishing Kit

-Cyber Attack Prevention Is Cost-Effective, So Why Aren’t Businesses Investing to Protect?

-Securing Your Move to the Hybrid Cloud

-Lessons from the Russian Cyber Warfare Attacks

-Four Sneaky Attacker Evasion Techniques You Should Know About

-Zero-Day Defence: Tips for Defusing the Threat

Top Cyber Stories of the Last Week

Average Cost of Data Breaches Hits Record High of $4.35 Million: IBM

The global average cost of data breaches reached an all-time high of $4.35 million in 2022 compared with $4.24 million in 2021, according to a new IBM Security report. About 60% of the breached organisations raised product and services prices due to the breaches.

The annual report, conducted by Ponemon Institute and analysed and sponsored by IBM Security, is based on the analysis of real-world data breaches experienced by 550 organisations globally between March 2021 and March 2022.

According to the report, about 83% of the organisations have experienced more than one breach in their lifetime, with nearly half of the costs reported to be incurred more than a year after the breach.

The report revealed that ransomware and destructive attacks represented 28% of breaches among the critical infrastructure organisations studied, indicating that threat actors are specifically targeting the sector to disrupt global supply chains. The critical infrastructure sector includes financial services, industrial, transportation, and healthcare companies.

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3668655/average-cost-of-data-breaches-hits-record-high-of-435-million-ibm.html#tk.rss_news

Researchers Warns of Large-Scale Adversary-in-the-Middle (AiTM) Attacks Targeting Enterprise Users

A new, large-scale phishing campaign has been observed using adversary-in-the-middle (AitM) techniques to get around security protections and compromise enterprise email accounts.

It uses a technique capable of bypassing multi-factor authentication. The campaign is specifically designed to reach end users in enterprises that use Microsoft's email services.

Prominent targets include fintech, lending, insurance, energy, manufacturing, and federal credit union verticals located in the US, UK, New Zealand, and Australia.

This is not the first time such a phishing attack has come to light. Last month, Microsoft disclosed that over 10,000 organisations had been targeted since September 2021 by means of AitM techniques to breach accounts secured with multi-factor authentication (MFA).

The ongoing campaign, effective June 2022, commences with an invoice-themed email sent to targets containing an HTML attachment, which includes a phishing URL embedded within it.

https://thehackernews.com/2022/08/researchers-warns-of-large-scale-aitm.html

UK NHS Suffers Outage After Cyber Attack on Managed Service Provider

The UK National Health Service (NHS) 111 emergency services were affected by a significant and ongoing outage triggered by a cyber attack that hit the systems of British managed service provider (MSP) Advanced.

Advanced's Adastra client patient management solution, which is used by 85% of NHS 111 services, was hit by a major outage together with several other services provided by the MSP, according to a status page.

"There was a major outage of a computer system that is used to refer patients from NHS 111 Wales to out-of-hours GP providers," the Welsh Ambulance Services said. "This system is used by Local Health Boards to coordinate these services for patients. The ongoing outage is significant and has been far-reaching, impacting each of the four nations in the UK."

The UK public was advised to access the NHS 111 emergency services using the online platform until the incident is resolved.

While no details were provided regarding the nature of the cyber attack, based on the wording, it is likely that this was a ransomware or data extortion attack.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/uk-nhs-suffers-outage-after-cyberattack-on-managed-service-provider/

A Third of Organisations Experience a Ransomware Attack Once a Week

Ransomware attacks show no sign of slowing. According to new research published by Menlo Security, a third of organisations experience a ransomware attack at least once a week, with one in 10 experiencing them more than once a day.

The research, conducted among 500+ IT security decision makers at US and UK organisations with more than 1,000 employees, highlights the impact this is having on security professionals’ own wellbeing. When asked what keeps them awake at night, 41% of respondents say they worry about ransomware attacks evolving beyond their team’s knowledge and skillset, while 39% worry about them evolving beyond their company’s security capabilities.

Their biggest concern, however, is the risk of employees ignoring corporate security advice and clicking on links or attachments containing malware (46%). Respondents worry more about this than they do their own job security, with just a quarter (26%) of respondents worried about losing their job.

According to the report, around half of organisations (61% US and 44% UK) have been the victim of a successful ransomware attack in the last 18 months, with customers and prospects the most likely entry point for an attack.

Partners/suppliers and employees/contractors are also seen as serious security risks, although one in 10 admit they are unable to identify how the attacks got in. The top three ransomware attack vectors are email (54%), web browsers via a desktop or laptop (49%) and mobile devices (39%).

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/08/04/organizations-experience-ransomware-attack/

Ransomware Products and Services Ads on Dark Web Show Clues to Danger

Why is ransomware’s destructive potential so daunting? Some clues are in the “for sale” ads. In an examination of some 35 million dark web URLs, a provider of machine identity management and a forensic specialist found some 475 web pages peddling sophisticated ransomware products and services with a number of high profile crews hawking ransomware-as-a-service.

The work is a joint effort between the Salt Lake City-based Venafi and Forensic Pathways, which took place between November 2021 and March 2022. Researchers used Forensic’s Dark Search Engine to carry out the investigation.

Here are some of the research findings:

87% of the ransomware found on the dark web has been delivered via malicious macros to infect targeted systems.
30 different “brands” of ransomware were identified within marketplace listings and forum discussions.
Many strains of ransomware being sold — such as Babuk, GoldenEye, Darkside/BlackCat, Egregor, HiddenTear and WannaCry — have been successfully used in high-profile attacks.
Ransomware strains used in high-profile attacks command a higher price for associated services. For example, the most expensive listing was $1,262 for a customised version of Darkside ransomware, which was used in the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack.
Source code listings for well-known ransomware generally command higher price points. For example, Babuk source code is listed for $950 and Paradise source code is selling for $593.

Ransomware Sold for as Little as $1: In addition to a variety of ransomware at various price points, a wide range of services and tools that help make it easier for attackers with minimal technical skills to launch ransomware attacks are for sale on the dark web, Venafi said. Services with the greatest number of listings include those offering source code, build services, custom development services and ransomware packages that include step-by-step tutorials.

https://www.msspalert.com/cybersecurity-breaches-and-attacks/ransomware/ransomware-products-services-ads-on-dark-web-show-clues-to-danger/

Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing: How Malware Tricks Users and Antivirus

One of the primary methods used by malware distributors to infect devices is by deceiving people into downloading and running malicious files, and to achieve this deception, malware authors are using a variety of tricks.

Some of these tricks include masquerading malware executables as legitimate applications, signing them with valid certificates, or compromising trustworthy sites to use them as distribution points.

According to VirusTotal, a security platform for scanning uploaded files for malware, some of these tricks are happening on a much larger scale than initially thought.

The platform has compiled a report presenting stats from January 2021 until July 2022, based on the submission of two million files daily, illustrating trends in how malware is distributed.

Abusing legitimate domains: Distributing malware through legitimate, popular, and high-ranking websites allows threat actors to evade IP-based blocklists, enjoy high availability, and provide a greater level of trust.
Using stolen code-signing certificates: Signing malware samples with valid certificates stolen from companies is a reliable way to evade AV detection and security warnings on the host. Of all the malicious samples uploaded to VirusTotal between January 2021 and April 2022, over a million were signed, and 87% used a valid certificate.
Disguised as popular software: Masquerading a malware executable as a legitimate, popular application has seen an upward trend in 2022. Victims download these files thinking they’re getting the applications they need, but upon running the installers, they infect their systems with malware. The most mimicked applications are Skype, Adobe Acrobat, VLC, and 7zip.
Lacing legitimate installers - Finally, there’s the trick of hiding malware inside legitimate application installers and running the infection process in the background while the real apps execute in the foreground. Based on VirusTotal stats, this practice also appears to be on the rise this year, using Google Chrome, Malwarebytes, Windows Updates, Zoom, Brave, Firefox, ProtonVPN, and Telegram as lures.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/wolf-in-sheep-s-clothing-how-malware-tricks-users-and-antivirus/

Microsoft Accounts Targeted with New MFA-Bypassing Phishing Kit

A new large-scale phishing campaign targeting credentials for Microsoft email services use a custom proxy-based phishing kit to bypass multi-factor authentication.

Researchers believe the campaign's goal is to breach corporate accounts to conduct BEC (business email compromise) attacks, diverting payments to bank accounts under their control using falsified documents.

The phishing campaign's targets include fin-tech, lending, accounting, insurance, and Federal Credit Union organisations in the US, UK, New Zealand, and Australia.

The campaign was discovered by Zscaler's ThreatLabz researchers, who report that the operation is still ongoing, and the phishing actors register new phishing domains almost daily.

Starting in June 2022, Zscaler's analysts noticed a spike in sophisticated phishing attempts against specific sectors and users of Microsoft email services.

Some of the newly registered domains used in the campaign are typo-squatted versions of legitimate domains.

Notably, many phishing emails originated from the accounts of executives working in these organisations, whom the threat actors most likely compromised earlier.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/microsoft-accounts-targeted-with-new-mfa-bypassing-phishing-kit/

Cyber Attack Prevention Is Cost-Effective, So Why Aren’t Businesses Investing to Protect?

Cyber attacks like ransomware, BEC scams and data breaches are some of the key issues businesses are facing today, but despite the number of high-profile incidents, many boardrooms are reluctant to free up budget to invest in the cyber security measures necessary to avoid becoming the next victim.

In a Help Net Security interview, Former Pentagon Chief Strategy Officer Jonathan Reiber, VP Cyber security Strategy and Policy, AttackIQ, discusses how now, more than ever, companies need to protect themselves from cyber threat actors. He offers insight for CISOs, from talking to the Board to proper budget allocation.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/08/01/cyberattack-prevention-investing/

Securing Your Move to the Hybrid Cloud

The combination of private and public cloud infrastructure, which most organisations are already using, poses unique security challenges. There are many reasons why organisations adopt the public cloud, from enabling rapid growth without the burden of capacity planning to leveraging flexibility and agility in delivering customer-centric services. However, this use can leave companies open to threats.

Since regulatory requirements or other preferences dictate that certain applications remain on private (on-prem) infrastructure, many organisations choose to maintain a mix of private and public infrastructure. Additionally, organisations typically use multiple cloud providers simultaneously or preserve the option to move between providers. However, this hybrid approach presents unique and diverse security challenges. Different cloud providers and private cloud platforms may offer similar capabilities but different ways of implementing security controls, along with disparate management tools.

The question then becomes: How can an organisation maintain consistent governance, policy enforcement and controls across different clouds? And how can it ensure that it maintains its security posture when moving between them? Fortunately, there are steps professionals can take to ensure that applications are continuously secure, starting from the early stages of development and extending throughout the lifecycle.

https://threatpost.com/secure-move-cloud/180335/

Lessons from the Russian Cyber Warfare Attacks

Cyber warfare tactics may not involve tanks and bombs, but they often go hand-in-hand with real combat.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a prime example. Before Russian troops crossed the border, Russian hackers had already taken down Ukrainian government websites. And after the conflict started, the hacktivist group Anonymous turned the tables by hacking Russian media to shut down propaganda about the war.

In these unprecedented times of targeted attacks against governments and financial institutions, every organisation should be on heightened alert about protecting their critical infrastructure and digital attack surface.

With the Russia-Ukraine conflict as a backdrop, two Trend Micro security experts recently discussed cyber warfare techniques and how they’re an important reminder for every business to proactively manage cyber risk.

https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/ciso/22/h/russian-cyber-warfare-attacks.html

Four Sneaky Attacker Evasion Techniques You Should Know About

Remember those portrayals of hackers in the 80s and 90s where you just knew when you got pwned? A blue screen of death, a scary message, a back-and-forth text exchange with a hacker—if you got pwned in a movie in the 80s and 90s, you knew it right off the bat.

What a shame that today’s hackers have learned to be quiet when infiltrating an environment. Sure, “loud” attacks like ransomware still exist, but threat actors have learned that if they keep themselves hidden, they can usually do far more damage. For hackers, a little stealth can go a long way. Some attack tactics are inherently quiet, making them arguably more dangerous as they can be harder to detect. Here are four of these attack tactics you should know about.

Trusted Application Abuse: Attackers know that many people have applications that they inherently trust, making those trusted applications the perfect launchpad for cyber attacks. Threat actors know that defenders and the tools they use are often on the hunt for new malware presenting itself in environments. What isn’t so easy to detect is when the malware masquerades under legitimate applications.
Trusted Infrastructure Abuse: Much like trusted application abuse, trusted infrastructure abuse is the act of using legitimate, publicly hosted services and toolsets (such as Dropbox or Google Drive) as part of the attack infrastructure. Threat actors know that people tend to trust Dropbox and Google Drive. As a result, this makes these tools a prime means for threat actors to carry out malicious activity. Threat actors often find trusted infrastructure abuse easy because these services aren’t usually blocked at an enterprise’s gateway. In turn, outbound communications can hide in plain sight.
Obfuscation: Although cyber security has more than its fair share of tedious acronyms, the good news is that many terms can be broken down by their generic dictionary definitions. According to dictionary.com, this is what obfuscate means: “To make something unclear, obscure or difficult to understand.” And that’s exactly what it means in cyber security: finding ways to conceal malicious behaviour. In turn, this makes it more difficult for analysts and the tools they use to flag suspicious or malicious activity.
Persistence: Imagine writing up documentation using your computer, something you may well do in your role. You’ve spent a ton of time doing the research required, finding the right sources and compiling all your information into a document. Now, imagine not hitting save on that document and losing it as soon as you reboot your computer. Sound like a nightmare—or perhaps a real anxiety-inducing experience you’ve been through before? Threat actors agree. And that’s why they establish persistence. They don’t want all of their hard work to get into your systems in the first place to be in vain just because you restart your computer. They establish persistence to make sure they can still hang around even after you reboot.

https://www.msspalert.com/cybersecurity-guests/four-sneaky-attacker-evasion-techniques-you-should-know-about/

Zero-Day Defence: Tips for Defusing the Threat

Because they leave so little time to patch and defuse, zero-day threats require a proactive, multi-layered approach based on zero trust.

The recent Atlassian Confluence remote code execution bug is just the latest example of zero-day threats targeting critical vulnerabilities within major infrastructure providers. The specific threat, an Object-Graph Navigation Language (OGNL) injection, has been around for years but took on new significance given the scope of the Atlassian exploit. And OGNL attacks are on the rise.

Once bad actors find such a vulnerability, proof-of-concept exploits start knocking at the door, seeking unauthenticated access to create new admin accounts, execute remote commands, and take over servers. In the Atlassian case, Akamai's threat research team identified that the number of unique IP addresses attempting these exploits grew to more than 200 within just 24 hours.

Defending against these exploits becomes a race against time worthy of a 007 movie. The clock is ticking and you don't have much time to implement a patch and "defuse" the threat before it's too late. But first you need to know that an exploit is underway. That requires a proactive, multi-layered approach to online security based on zero trust.

What do these layers look like? There are a number of different practices that security teams — and their third-party Web application and infrastructure partners — should be aware of.

https://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/zero-day-defense-tips-for-defusing-the-threat

Threats

Ransomware

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

Other Social Engineering; SMishing, Vishing, etc

US FCC warns of the rise of smishing attacks - Security Affairs

Malware

Mobile

Internet of Things – IoT

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

Thousands of hackers flock to 'Dark Utilities' C2-as-a-Service (bleepingcomputer.com)

Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking/NFTs/Blockchain

Insider Risk and Insider Threats

T-Mobile Store Owner Made $25M Using Stolen Employee Credentials (darkreading.com)

Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime

AML/CFT/Sanctions

Robinhood Crypto Penalized $30M for Violating NY Cybersecurity Regulations | SecurityWeek.Com

Dark Web

Software Supply Chain

Now is the time to focus on software supply chain security improvements - Help Net Security

Cloud/SaaS

Open Source

New Linux malware brute-forces SSH servers to breach networks (bleepingcomputer.com)

Passwords, Credential Stuffing & Brute Force Attacks

Social Media

Privacy

DuckDuckGo browser now blocks all Microsoft trackers, most of the time (bleepingcomputer.com)

Cyber Bullying and Cyber Stalking

Australia charges dev of Imminent Monitor RAT used by domestic abusers (bleepingcomputer.com)

Regulations, Fines and Legislation

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

Nation State Actors

Nation State Actors – Russia

Nation State Actors – China

Nation State Actors – North Korea

Nation State Actors – Iran

Nation State Actors – Misc APT

Twitter breach exposes anonymous accounts to nation state hackers - CyberScoop

Vulnerabilities

Sector Specific

Industry specific threat intelligence reports are available.

· 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

Other News

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

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

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Threat Intelligence Blog

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 19 May 2023

Top Cyber Stories of the Last Week

Triple Threat: Insecure Economy, Cyber Crime Recruitment and Insider Threats

Ensuring Security Remains/Becomes Everyone’s Responsibility

Insured Companies More Likely to be Ransomware Victims, Sometimes More Than Once

Software Supply Chain Attacks Hit 61% of Firms

More than 2.25 Million Exposed Assets on the Dark Web Tied to Fortune 1000 Employees

Law Enforcement Crackdowns and New Techniques are Forcing Cyber Criminals to Pivot

Talking Security Strategy: Why Cyber Security Requires a Seat at the Boardroom Table

How Incident Response Rehearsals and Readiness Exercises Can Aid Incident Response

Ransomware’s Real Goals are to Exploit Internet Facing Apps, Mine Intellectual Property and Grab Sensitive Information

Organisations’ Cyber Resilience Efforts Fail to Keep Up with Evolving Threats

Fraudsters Send Fake Invoice, Follow Up with Fake Executive Confirmation

Capita Warns Customers They Should Assume Data was Stolen

Governance, Risk and Compliance

Threats

Ransomware, Extortion and Destructive Attacks

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

Other Social Engineering; Smishing, Vishing, etc

Artificial Intelligence

2FA/MFA

Malware

Mobile

Botnets

Denial of Service/DoS/DDOS

Internet of Things – IoT

Data Breaches/Leaks

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking/NFTs/Blockchain

Insider Risk and Insider Threats

Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime

AML/CFT/Sanctions

Insurance

Dark Web

Supply Chain and Third Parties

Software Supply Chain

Cloud/SaaS

Encryption

API

Open Source

Passwords, Credential Stuffing & Brute Force Attacks

Social Media

Training, Education and Awareness

Parental Controls and Child Safety

Regulations, Fines and Legislation

Secure Disposal

Careers, Working in Cyber and Information Security

Law Enforcement Action and Take Downs

Privacy, Surveillance and Mass Monitoring

Misinformation, Disinformation and Propaganda

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

Nation State Actors

Vulnerability Management

Vulnerabilities

Tools and Controls

Reports Published in the Last Week

Other News

Sector Specific

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 12 May 2023

Top Cyber Stories of the Last Week

79% of Cyber Pros Make Decisions Without Threat Intelligence

61% of Business Leadership Overlook the Role of Cyber Security as a Business Enabler and as being Key to Business Success

Risk Managers Warn Cyber Insurance Could Become ‘Unviable Product’

Small and Medium-Sized Businesses: Don’t Give up on Cyber Security

AI Has Been Dubbed a 'Nuclear' Threat to Cyber Security, but It Can Also Be Used for Defence

Paying Cyber Hijackers’ Ransoms Doubles Cost of Recovery, Sophos Study Shows

Majority of US, UK CISOs Unable to Protect Company 'Secrets'

Company Executives Can’t Afford to Ignore Cyber Security Anymore

BEC Campaign via Israel Spotted Targeting Multinational Companies

CISOs Worried About Personal Liability for Breaches

UK, US and International Allies Uncover Russian Snake Malware Network in 50+ Countries

Plug-and-Play Microsoft 365 Phishing Tool 'Democratizes' Attack Campaigns

Threats

Ransomware, Extortion and Destructive Attacks

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

BEC – Business Email Compromise

2FA/MFA

Malware

Mobile