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Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 01 December 2023

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Intelligence Briefing 01 December 2023:

-Law Firms Face Surge in Targeted Attacks as Hundreds Impacted by Single Attack

-Approach Cyber Security Awareness Training by Engaging People at All Levels

-Board Support Remains Critical as Majority of CISOs Experience Repeat Cyber Attacks

-Ransomware Attacks Surge 81% in October as New Threat Actors Emerge

-Hacked Microsoft Word Documents Being Used to Trick Windows Users

-Mitigating Deepfake Threats in The Corporate World

-Black Basta Ransomware Made Over $100 Million From Extortion Alone

-Long Recovery Times After Cyber Attacks Could Annihilate Your Organisation

-Booking.com Customers Scammed in Novel Social Engineering Campaign

-Stop Panic Buying Your Security Products and Start Prioritising

-A Fifth of UK SMBs Unable to Spot Scams

Welcome to this week’s Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing – a weekly digest, collated and curated by our cyber threat intelligence 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 Strategic Cyber Stories of the Last Week

Law Firms Face Surge in Targeted Attacks as Hundreds Impacted by Single Attack

An estimated 80 to 200 law firms across the UK were impacted by a cyber attack on a third party firm in their supply chain. The attack was on managed service supplier CTS, who provide services to hundreds of law firms across the UK, especially those with conveyancing departments, and many property sales were impacted nationwide as a result of the attack.

This is against a sharp increase in the number of law firms being singled out by cyber threat actors; only recently, magic circle firm Allen & Overy confirmed themselves as a victim of ransomware.

Sources: [SC Media] [Lawyer Monthly] [Scottish Legal News] [Law Gazette] [Dark Reading]

Approach Cyber Security Awareness Training by Engaging People at All Levels

In the cyber security landscape, human-related factors like social engineering, compromised credentials, and errors are the top causes of breaches. Increased investment in threat detection doesn't guarantee foolproof security. Organisations need a proactive strategy focusing on human risks, a security mindset in employees, and a security culture. According to IBM’s latest data security report, high levels of security training can significantly reduce the impact, cost, and frequency of data breaches.

However, most employee training programmes fail due to staff resistance and lack of management support. The key is convincing leadership of its value. To achieve a successful and impactful security awareness programme, it is important that security teams understand their audiences (leaders, managers, and employees), address their requirements, and effectively communicate the benefits of security training.

Source: [CPO Magazine]

Board Support Remains Critical as Majority of CISOs Experience Repeat Cyber Attacks

A recent report found that despite 95% of Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) receiving budgetary and other support from their organisation after a cyber attack, this largely fails to prevent future incidents, with over half admitting they have experienced multiple “major cyber security incidents” in the last five years.

The report revealed that after an attack 46% of CISOs were given a bigger tech budget, 42% revised their security strategy, 41% adopted new frameworks, and 38% created new roles. However, incidents come with hidden consequences such as revenue loss, rising insurance premiums and declining reputation. CISOs need to have support from the board and executives from the start so that investments can be made in the right technology, processes, and tools. In doing so, a culture of security and vigilance can be instilled from the top down to help protect organisations against evolving threats.

Sources: [Business Wire] [Silicon UK]

Ransomware Attacks Surge 81% in October as New Threat Actors Emerge

The NCC Group revealed that ransomware attacks have surged by 81% in October 2023, compared to the same period in the previous year. Ransomware gangs have already victimised over 50% more individuals and enterprises in 2023 than during the entirety of 2022. As artificial intelligence, phishing kits and ransomware-as-a-service has improved, so too has the number of threat actors; those who were previously stunted by their technical know-how are now able to gain access to sophisticated attacks.

Source: [Security Brief]

Hacked Microsoft Word Documents Being Used to Trick Windows Users

Active campaigns carried out by cyber criminals are again using macros within Word documents to deploy malware, in spite of Microsoft’s efforts to stop these types of attacks. Most of the time the actor delivers the Word document via phishing emails, with the aim of convincing the user to click and run the macro. Once run, the malware has then achieved its goal of establishing itself on the victims’ machine and executing its malicious payload.

Source: [TechRadar]

Mitigating Deepfake Threats in The Corporate World

Deepfakes are synthetic media that are created or manipulated with the desired outcome of convincing the recipient of their legitimacy; and it’s entering the corporate world. Deepfake technology has already been used to impersonate Presidents and financial experts, however there has been an uprise in the number of these attacks. This has left the corporate world questioning existing operational procedures such as callbacks and how they will need to adjust to encompass the changing landscape.

Some of the ways a corporation can mitigate this, is to promote awareness within the workplace, adjust operational procedures to reflect the current landscape, and utilise advanced detection tools.

Source: [MSSP Alert]

Black Basta Ransomware Made Over $100 Million From Extortion Alone

The cyber crime operator “Black Basta” has raked in at least $100 million in ransom payments from more than 90 victims since it first surfaced in April 2022. In total, 329 victims worldwide were targeted and research has estimated that at least 35% paid a ransom, with multiple payments over $1 million. Black Basta uses double extortion techniques, where data is both ransomed and exfiltrated. This way, victims are forced to pay to get their data back and not have it published online; the latter itself can lead to regulatory fines.

Source: [Bleeping Computer]

Long Recovery Times After Cyber Attacks Could Annihilate Your Organisation

In the evolving cyber security landscape, organisations are increasingly investing in detection and prevention measures. However, there's a growing trend of neglecting post-attack recovery. While advanced security tools and technologies are crucial, recent ransomware incidents have shown that recovery is equally vital. Organisations have faced substantial downtime and financial losses due to attacks. Cyber resilience, the ability to bounce back quickly after an attack, is crucial, especially with the rise of remote work.

Budgets often prioritise prevention, leaving organisations ill-prepared for recovery. In 2023, a significant number of companies paid ransoms to regain data. To achieve true cyber resilience, a rebalance in approach is essential, focusing on preparation, response, and recovery alongside detection and prevention, ensuring rapid recovery and safeguarding of valuable assets.

Source: [TechRadar]

Booking.com Customers Scammed in Novel Social Engineering Campaign

According to new research by SecureWorks, Booking.com customers are being targeted by a novel social engineering campaign that is “paying serious dividends” for cyber criminals. Researchers believe the campaign has gone on for at least a year and it begins by deploying the Vidar infostealer to gain access partner hotels’ Booking.com credentials. This information is then used to send phishing emails to Booking.com customers and trick them into handing over their payment details, in many cases leading to money being stolen. The scam is proving so fruitful that sales of Booking.com portal credentials are commanding sale prices of up to $2,000 in two cyber crime forums.

Source: [Infosecurity Magazine]

Stop Panic Buying Your Security Products and Start Prioritising

In the cyber security landscape, impulse buying can lead to costly mistakes. Breaches are now more expensive than ever, underscoring the need to assess cyber security investments. Fear-driven tactics and the quest for a "silver bullet" solution can push organisations, especially smaller ones, into impulsive investments. These decisions may introduce even more risk by failing to integrate with existing systems, or buying systems but failing to configure them properly or utilising them to the fullest extent, leading to a false sense of security. The consequences can be severe, with breaches now costing organisations millions. To navigate this landscape, organisations must assess the real value of cyber security investments. Calculating risk by evaluating likelihood and impact can guide us in making informed decisions. Instead of impulse buying, assign a monetary value to cyber risks for strategic budget decisions in these economic times, ensuring investments align with security and business goals.

Source: [Help Net Security]

A Fifth of UK SMBs Unable to Spot Scams

New data from UK Finance reveals that 17% of UK small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) struggle to identify online fraud and scam indicators. This is particularly alarming given the rise in authorised push payment (APP) scams in the UK, where fraudsters impersonate trusted entities to deceive victims into transferring money to controlled accounts. In the first half of 2023 alone, criminals stole a reported £42.6 million through such scams, with total losses including consumer impacts reaching £239 million. SMBs are increasingly targeted due to typically fewer anti-fraud and other countermeasures and controls, compared to larger and better protected larger firms. It is important for SMBs to be vigilant and verify payment details directly with suppliers to help avoid these types of scams.

Source: [Infosecurity Magazine]

Threats

Ransomware, Extortion and Destructive Attacks

Ransomware Victims

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

Artificial Intelligence

Malware

Mobile

Denial of Service/DoS/DDOS

Internet of Things – IoT

Data Breaches/Leaks

Organised Crime & Criminal Actors

Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking/NFTs/Blockchain

Insurance

Supply Chain and Third Parties

Cloud/SaaS

Passwords, Credential Stuffing & Brute Force Attacks

Social Media

Training, Education and Awareness

Regulations, Fines and Legislation

Models, Frameworks and Standards

Data Protection

Careers, Working in Cyber and Information Security

Law Enforcement Action and Take Downs

Misinformation, Disinformation and Propaganda

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

Cyber Warfare and Cyber Espionage

Nation State Actors

China

Russia

Iran

North Korea

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

Tools and Controls

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.

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Black Arrow Admin Black Arrow Admin

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 18th August 2023

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Intelligence Briefing 18 August 2023:

-Ransomware Group Targeting MSPs Worldwide in New Campaign

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

-Business Email Compromise Attack Costs Far Exceeding Ransomware Losses

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

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

-LinkedIn Suffers Significant Wave of Account Hacks

-High Net-Worth Families are at Risk of Cyber Crime

-Cyber Attack Rule Raises Insurance Risks for Corporate Officers

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

-The Imperative of Cyber Preparedness: The Power of Tabletop Exercises

-Why Are Phones a Cyber Security Weak Spot?

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]

Governance, Risk and Compliance

Threats

Ransomware, Extortion and Destructive Attacks

Ransomware Victims

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

BEC – Business Email Compromise

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

Insurance

Dark Web

Supply Chain and Third Parties

Software Supply Chain

Cloud/SaaS

Containers

Encryption

API

Open Source

Passwords, Credential Stuffing & Brute Force Attacks

Social Media

Malvertising

Training, Education and Awareness

Cyber Bullying, Cyber Stalking and Sextortion

Regulations, Fines and Legislation

Models, Frameworks and Standards

Data Protection

Careers, Working in Cyber and Information Security

Law Enforcement Action and Take Downs

Privacy, Surveillance and Mass Monitoring

Misinformation, Disinformation and Propaganda

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

Russia

China

Iran

North Korea

Misc/Other/Unknown

Vulnerability Management

Vulnerabilities

Tools and Controls

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.

Read More
Black Arrow Admin Black Arrow Admin

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 28 April 2023

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 28 April 2023:

- Navigating The Future of Cyber: Business Strategy, Cyber Security Training, and Digital Transformation Are Key

- Shadow IT, SaaS Pose Security Liability for Enterprises

- The Strong Link Between Cyber Threat Intelligence and Digital Risk Protection

- Weak Credentials, Unpatched Vulnerabilities, Malicious Open Source Packages Causing Cloud Security Risks

- Over 70 billion Unprotected Files Available on Unsecured Web Servers

- Cyber Thieves Are Getting More Creative

- Modernising Vulnerability Management: The Move Toward Exposure Management

- Almost Three-quarters of Cyber Attacks Involve Ransomware

- Corporate Boards Pressure CISOs to Step Up Risk Mitigation Efforts

- NSA Sees ‘Significant’ Russian Intel Gathering on European, US Supply Chain Entities

- Email Threat Report 2023: Key Takeaways

- 5 Most Dangerous New Attack Techniques

- Many Public Salesforce Sites are Leaking Private Data

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

  • Navigating the Future of Cyber: Business Strategy, Cyber Security Training, and Digital Transformation are Key

Cyber investments have become table stakes for businesses around the world. Cyber crime is increasing, with 91% of organisations reporting at least one cyber incident in the past year. Not only are they growing in numbers, but they are becoming more sophisticated and diverse, with new threats constantly emerging. According to the 2023 Deloitte Global Future of Cyber survey, business leaders are changing how they think of cyber, and it’s emerging as a larger strategic discussion tied to an organisation’s long-term success.

Cyber is about more than protecting information—risk management, incident response planning, threat intelligence and training can often be directly correlated to increasing trust within businesses.

Cyber security training is essential for employees to ensure the safety and security of a business. Employees are often the first line of defence against cyber-attacks and frequently the weakest link in an organisation's security posture. Cyber security training can help employees recognise and avoid common cyber threats, such as phishing attacks, malware, and social engineering. 89% of organisations cited as high-performing cyber organisations have implemented annual cyber awareness training among all employees. With increased digital dependency year over year—effective employee training can raise awareness, reduce risk, improve security posture, and support compliance.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/deloitte/2023/04/20/navigating-the-future-of-cyber-business-strategy-cybersecurity-training-and-digital-transformation-are-key/?sh=1ab15c2c29c1

  • Shadow IT, SaaS Pose Security Liability for Enterprises

There's no denying that software-as-a-service (SaaS) has entered its golden age. Software tools have now become essential to modern business operations and continuity. However, not enough organisations have implemented the proper procurement processes to ensure they're protecting themselves from potential data breaches and reputational harm.

A critical component contributing to concerns around SaaS management is the rising trend of shadow IT, which is when employees download and use software tools without notifying their internal IT teams. A recent study shows that 77% of IT professionals believe that shadow IT is becoming a major concern in 2023, with more than 65% saying their SaaS tools aren't being approved. Organisations are beginning to struggle with maintaining security as their SaaS usage continues to sprawl.

To combat shadow IT and the high risks that come along with it, organisations must gain greater visibility over their SaaS stacks and institute an effective procurement process when bringing on new software solutions.

https://www.darkreading.com/edge-articles/shadow-it-saas-pose-security-liability-for-enterprises

  • The Strong Link Between Cyber Threat Intelligence and Digital Risk Protection

While indicators of compromise and attackers’ tactics, techniques, and processes (TTPs) remain central to threat intelligence, cyber threat intelligence needs have grown over the past few years, driven by things like digital transformation, cloud computing and remote working. In fact, these changes have led to a cyber threat intelligence (CTI) subcategory focused on digital risk protection (DRP). DRP is broadly defined as, “telemetry, analysis, processes, and technologies used to identify and mitigate risks associated with digital assets”.

According to research provider ESG, the most important functions of DRP as part of a mature CTI programme are: vulnerability exploit intelligence, takedown services, leaked data monitoring, malicious mobile application monitoring, brand protection and attack surface management. It should be noted that a mature CTI programme can utilise service providers to help carry out threat intelligence, it doesn’t have to be spun up by the organisation from nothing. Regardless, an organisation employing these DRP functions as part of a CTI programme will be increasing its cyber resilience and reducing the chance of a cyber incident.

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3693754/the-strong-link-between-cyber-threat-intelligence-and-digital-risk-protection.html

  • Weak Credentials, Unpatched Vulnerabilities, Malicious Open Source Packages Causing Cloud Security Risks

Threat actors are getting more adept at exploiting common everyday issues in the cloud, including misconfigurations, weak credentials, lack of authentication, unpatched vulnerabilities, and malicious open-source software (OSS) packages. Meanwhile, security teams take an average of 145 hours to solve alerts, with 80% of cloud alerts triggered by just 5% of security rules in most environments according to a recent report. The report, conducted by UNIT 42 analysed the workload of 210,000 cloud accounts across 1,300 organisations.

The report’s findings echoed similarities from the previous year, finding almost all cloud users, roles, services and resources grant excessive permissions. Some of the other key findings include as many as 83% of organisations having hard-coded credentials in their source control management systems, 53% of cloud accounts allowing weak password usage and 44% allowing password reuse and 71% of high or critical vulnerabilities exposed were at least two years old.

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3693260/weak-credentials-unpatched-vulnerabilities-malicious-oss-packages-causing-cloud-security-risks.html

  • Over 70 Billion Unprotected Files Available on Unsecured Web Servers

A recent report found that more than 70 billion files, including intellectual property and financial information, are freely available and unprotected on unsecured web servers. Other key findings of the report included almost 1 in 10 of all detected internet-facing assets having an unpatched vulnerability, with the top 10 vulnerabilities found unpatched at least 12 million times each.

The report predicted that there will be a significant rise in information stealing malware; the report had found that 50% of emails associated with customers were plaintext and unencrypted. Additionally, there will be more incidents due to an increase in assets which are not known to IT, known as shadow IT.

Organisations should look to employ efficient patch management, have an up to date asset register, and use encryption to better increase their cyber defences.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2023/04/24/critical-cybersecurity-exposures/

  • Cyber Thieves Are Getting More Creative

Cyber criminals are constantly changing their tactics and finding new ways to steal money from organisations. An example of this can be seen where criminals are breaking into systems to learn who is authorised to send payments and what the procedures are. Eventually, this leads to the criminal instructing payment to their own account.

Unfortunately, it is only after such events that some organisations are taking actions, such as verifying payments through phone calls. Whilst it is important for organisations to learn from attacks, it is beneficial to take a pro-active approach and employ procedures such as call back procedures before an incident has occurred.

https://hbr.org/2023/04/cyber-thieves-are-getting-more-creative

  • Modernising Vulnerability Management: The Move Toward Exposure Management

Managing vulnerabilities in the constantly evolving technological landscape is a difficult task. Although vulnerabilities emerge regularly, not all vulnerabilities present the same level of risk. Traditional metrics such as CVSS score or the number of vulnerabilities are insufficient for effective vulnerability management as they lack business context, prioritisation, and understanding of attackers' motivations, opportunities and means. Vulnerabilities only represent a small part of the attack surface that attackers can leverage.

Exposures are broader and can encompass more than just vulnerabilities. Exposures can result from various factors, such as human error, improperly defined security controls, and poorly designed and unsecured architecture. Organisations should consider that an attacker doesn’t just look at one exposure; attackers will often use a combination of vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, permissions and other exposures to move across systems and reach valuable assets.

As such, organisations looking to improve their cyber resiliency should consider their vulnerability management system and assess both whether it is taking into account exposures and the context in relation to the organisation.

https://thehackernews.com/2023/04/modernizing-vulnerability-management.html

  • Two-thirds of Cyber Attacks Involve Ransomware

A report from Sophos focusing on recent incident response cases, found that 68.4% of incidents resulted from ransomware. This was followed by network breaches, accounting for 18.4%. Regarding threat actor access, the report found that unpatched vulnerabilities were the single most common access method, followed by compromised credentials.

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/365535467/Almost-three-quarters-of-cyber-attacks-involve-ransomware

  • Corporate Boards Pressure CISOs to Step Up Risk Mitigation Efforts

A recent report found that the top challenges when implementing an effective cyber/IT risk management programme include an increase in the quantity (49%) and severity (49%) of cyber threats, a lack of funding (37%) and a lack of staffing/cyber risk talent (36%).

Cyber attacks have been increasing for several years now and resulting data breaches cost businesses an average of $4.35 million in 2022, according to the annual IBM ‘Cost of a Data Breach’ report. Given the financial and reputational consequences of cyber attacks, corporate board rooms are putting pressure on CISOs to identify and mitigate cyber/IT risk.

When it came to reporting to the board, 30% of CIO and CISO respondents say they do not communicate risk around specific business initiatives to other company leaders, indicating they may not know how to share that information in a constructive way.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2023/04/26/effective-it-risk-management/

  • NSA Sees ‘Significant’ Russian Intel Gathering on European, US Supply Chain Entities

According to the US National Security Agency (NSA), Russian hackers could be looking to attack logistics targets more broadly. The NSA have noted a significant amount of intelligence gathering into western countries, including the UK and the US.

Although there is no indication yet regarding attacks from Russia in connection with the logistics related to Ukraine, organisations should be aware and look to improve their cyber security practices to be best prepared.

https://cyberscoop.com/nsa-russian-ukraine-supply-chain-ransomware/

  • Email Threat Report 2023: Key Takeaways

According to a recent report, email phishing made up 24% of all spam types in 2022, a significant increase in proportion from 11% in 2021. The finance industry was the most targeted by far, accounting for 48% of phishing incidents. It is followed by the construction sector at 17%, overtaking 2021’s second-place industry, e-commerce. Both the finance and construction industries saw an increase in phishing since last year. Of all the emails analysed in 2022, an enormous 90% were spam emails.

With phishing as prevalent as ever, organisations should look to implement training for their staff to not only be able to spot phishing emails, but to be able to report these and aid in improving the cyber security culture of their organisation.

https://www.itsecurityguru.org/2023/04/27/email-threat-report-2023-key-takeaways/

  • 5 Most Dangerous New Attack Techniques

Experts from security training provider SANS Institute have revealed the 5 most dangerous new attack techniques: adversarial AI, ChatGPT-powered social engineering, third-party developer attacks (also known as software supply chain attacks), SEO, and paid advertising attacks.

The new techniques highlight the ever changing environment of the attack environment. SEO and paid advertising attacks are leveraging fundamental marketing strategies to gain initial access, heightening the importance for organisations to incorporate scalable user awareness training programmes, tailored to new threats.

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3694892/5-most-dangerous-new-attack-techniques.html  

  • Many Public Salesforce Sites are Leaking Private Data

A shocking number of organisations — including banks and healthcare providers — are leaking private and sensitive information from their public Salesforce Community websites. The data exposures all stem from a misconfiguration in Salesforce Community that allows an unauthenticated user to access records that should only be available after logging in.

This included the US State of Vermont who had at least five separate Salesforce Community sites that allowed guest access to sensitive data, including a Pandemic Unemployment Assistance programme that exposed the applicant’s full name, social security number, address, phone number, email, and bank account number. Similar information was leaked by TCF Bank on their Salesforce Community Website.

It's not just Salesforce though; misconfigurations in general are responsible for a number of leaked documents and or exposures relating to an organisation.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2023/04/many-public-salesforce-sites-are-leaking-private-data/

Threats

Ransomware, Extortion and Destructive Attacks

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

BEC – Business Email Compromise

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

Deepfakes

AML/CFT/Sanctions

Insurance

Dark Web

Supply Chain and Third Parties

Software Supply Chain

Cloud/SaaS

Containers

Attack Surface Management

Shadow IT

Identity and Access Management

Open Source

Passwords, Credential Stuffing & Brute Force Attacks

Social Media

Malvertising

Training, Education and Awareness

Digital Transformation

Parental Controls and Child Safety

Regulations, Fines and Legislation

Governance, Risk and Compliance

Models, Frameworks and Standards

Careers, Working in Cyber and Information Security

Law Enforcement Action and Take Downs

Privacy, Surveillance and Mass Monitoring

Artificial Intelligence

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

Nation State Actors

Tools and Controls

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.

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Black Arrow Admin Black Arrow Admin

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 17 March 2023

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 17 March 2023:

-Almost Half of IT Leaders Consider Security as an Afterthought

-Over $10bn Lost To Online Frauds, with Pig Butchering and Investment Scams Accounting for $3B, Overtaking BEC – FBI Report Says

-Over 721 Million Passwords Were Leaked in 2022

-How Much of a Cyber Security Risk are Suppliers?

-90% of £5m+ Businesses Hit by Cyber Attacks

-Rushed Cloud Migrations Result in Escalating Technical Debt

-17 European Nations Targeted by Russia in 2023 as Espionage Ramping Up

-Microsoft Warns of Large-Scale Use of Phishing Kits

-BEC Volumes Double on Phishing Surge

-The Risk of Pasting Confidential Company Data in ChatGPT

-Ransomware Attacks have Entered a New Phase

-MI5 Launches New Agency to Tackle State-Backed Attacks

-Why Cyber Awareness Training is an Ongoing Process

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 IT Leaders Consider Security as an Afterthought

A recent industry report found that security is an afterthought for almost half of UK IT leaders, despite 92% of respondents agreeing that security risks had risen in the last five years. Additionally, 48% of respondents felt that the rapid development of new tools had caused challenges around security. The concept of security as an afterthought is worrying when considering that 39% of UK businesses identified a cyber attack within the past 12 months.

https://www.itsecurityguru.org/2023/03/14/almost-half-of-it-leaders-consider-security-as-an-afterthought-research-reveals

  • Over $10bn Lost to Online Frauds, with Pig Butchering and Investment Scams Accounting for $3B, Overtaking BEC – FBI Report Says

According to the latest FBI crime report pig butchering now accounts for $3 billion of the $10 billion total lost to online fraud. Pig butchering is a rising investment scam that uses the promise of romance and the lure of making easy cryptocurrency profit against its unsuspecting targets. The concept of pig butchering is to “fatten up” the victim, with small returns on cryptocurrency and personal interactions, often with an element of romance; eventually, the victim is lured into making a larger investment with the scammer. In addition to pig butchering, other investment scams are growing in provenance and are set to overtake Business Email Compromise (BEC) as a major earner for cyber criminals.

https://www.darkreading.com/application-security/pig-butchering-investment-scams-3b-cybercrime-threat-overtaking-bec

  • Over 721 Million Passwords were Leaked in 2022

A report published this week discovered 721.5 million exposed credentials online in 2022. Additionally, the report identified 72% of users reusing previously compromised passwords. The study also uncovered 8.6 billion personally identifiable information assets, including 67 million credit card numbers which were publicly available.

https://www.neowin.net/news/study-over-721-million-passwords-were-leaked-in-2022/

  • How Much of a Cyber Security Risk are Suppliers?

When your business is digitally connected to a service provider, you need to understand how a cyber security attack on their business can affect yours. You can have all the right measures in place to manage your own cyber risks, but this doesn’t matter if there are undiscovered vulnerabilities in your supply chain. Organisations need to audit the cyber security of suppliers at several stages of their relationship; you may benefit from specialist cyber security support if you can’t do this in-house. Ask hard questions and consider advising your suppliers that if their cyber security is not enough then you may take your business elsewhere. Many businesses now require suppliers to be certified to schemes such as ISO 27001; demonstrating your security posture to your customers is an important ticket to trade.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-much-of-a-cybersecurity-risk-are-my-suppliers-mqbwcf7p2

  • 90% of £5m+ Businesses Hit by Cyber Attacks

A study from Forbes found that 57% of small and medium-sized enterprises had suffered an online attack. Businesses with an annual turnover in excess of £5 million were even more likely to experience a cyber crime with the figure rising to nearly 90% of firms of this size suffering a cyber attack. To make matters worse, the study found that a significant proportion of British businesses are without any form of protection against online attacks.

https://www.itsecurityguru.org/2023/03/13/nine-in-10-5m-businesses-hit-by-cyber-attacks/

  • Rushed Cloud Migrations Result in Escalating Technical Debt

A cloud service provider found 83% of CIO’s are feeling pressured to stretch their budgets even further than before. 72% of CIOs admitted that they are behind in their digital transformation because of technical debt and 38% believed the accumulation of this debt is largely because of rushed cloud migrations. Respondents believed these rushed migrations caused for miscalculations in the cloud budget, which resulted in significant overspend.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2023/03/16/managing-cloud-costs/

  • Microsoft: 17 European Nations Targeted by Russia in 2023 as Espionage Ramping Up

According to an intelligence report from Microsoft, Russia has been ramping up its cyber espionage operations and this now includes 17 European nations. Of all 74 countries targeted, the UK ranked third, after the US and Poland.

https://www.securityweek.com/microsoft-17-european-nations-targeted-by-russia-in-2023-as-espionage-ramping-up/

  • Microsoft Warns of Large-Scale Use of Phishing Kits

Microsoft have found that phishing kits are being purchased and used to perform millions of phishing emails every day. In their report, Microsoft found the availability of purchasing such phishing kits was part of the industrialisation of the cyber criminal economy and lowered the barrier of entry for cyber crime. Microsoft identified phishing kits which had the capability to bypass multi factor authentication selling for as little as $300. The emergence of AI is only going to compound this.

https://thehackernews.com/2023/03/microsoft-warns-of-large-scale-use-of.html

  • BEC Volumes Double on Phishing Surge

The number of Business Email Compromise (BEC) incidents doubled last year according to security provider Secureworks. In their report, they found that the main initial access vectors for BEC were phishing and systems with known vulnerabilities, with each accounting for a third of initial accesses.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/bec-volumes-double-on-phishing/

  • The Risk of Pasting Confidential Company Data in ChatGPT

Researchers analysed the use of artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT and found that 4.9% of employees have provided company data to the tool; ChatGPT builds its knowledge on this and in turn, this knowledge is shared publicly. The risk is serious, with employees putting their organisation at risk of leaking sensitive and confidential information. The research found that 0.9% of employees are responsible for 80% of leaks caused by pasting company data into ChatGPT and this number is expected to rise.

https://securityaffairs.com/143394/security/company-data-chatgpt-risks.html

  • Ransomware Attacks have Entered a Heinous New Phase

With an increasing amount of victims refusing to pay, cyber criminal gangs are now resorting to new techniques; this includes the recent release of stolen naked photos of cancer patients and sensitive student records. Where encryption and a demand for payment were previously the de facto method for cyber criminals, this has now shifted to pure exfiltration. In a report, the FBI highlighted evolving and increasingly aggressive extortion behaviour, with actors increasingly threatening to release stolen data.

https://www.wired.com/story/ransomware-tactics-cancer-photos-student-records/

  • MI5 Launches New Agency to Tackle State-Backed Attacks

British intelligence agency MI5 have announced the creation of the National Protective Security Authority (NPSA), created as part of a major review of government defences. The NPSA is to operate out of MI5 and absorb and extend the responsibilities for the protection of national infrastructure. The NPSA will work with existing agencies such as the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the Counter Terrorism Security Office (CTSO) to provide defensive advice to UK organisations.

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/mi5-new-agency-tackle-statebacked/

  • Why Cyber Awareness Training is an Ongoing Process

A survey conducted by Hornetsecurity found that 80% of respondents believed remote working introduced extra cyber security risks and 75% were aware that personal devices are used to access sensitive data, fuelling the need for employees to be cyber aware. Where IT security training is only undertaken once, for example in block training, it is likely that participants will have forgotten a lot of the content after as little as a week; this means that for organisations to get the most out of training, they need to conduct frequent awareness training. By conducting frequent training there is more chance of trainees retaining the training content and allowing the organisation to shape a culture of cyber security.

https://www.hornetsecurity.com/en/security-information/why-cyber-awareness-training-is-an-ongoing-process/

Threats

Ransomware, Extortion and Destructive Attacks

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

BEC – Business Email Compromise

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

Impersonation Attacks

Deepfakes

AML/CFT/Sanctions

Dark Web

Supply Chain and Third Parties

Software Supply Chain

Cloud/SaaS

Hybrid/Remote Working

Attack Surface Management

Identity and Access Management

Encryption

Passwords, Credential Stuffing & Brute Force Attacks

Social Media

Malvertising

Training, Education and Awareness

Regulations, Fines and Legislation

Governance, Risk and Compliance

Models, Frameworks and Standards

Data Protection

Law Enforcement Action and Take Downs

Privacy, Surveillance and Mass Monitoring

Artificial Intelligence

Misinformation, Disinformation and Propaganda

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

Nation State Actors

Vulnerabilities

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.

Read More
Black Arrow Admin Black Arrow Admin

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 07 October 2022

Black Arrow Cyber Threat Briefing 07 October 2022:

-Russian Sanctions Instigator Lloyd's Possibly Hit by Cyber Attack

-Former Uber Security Chief Convicted of Covering Up Data Breach

-First 72 Hours of Incident Response Critical to Taming Cyber Attack Chaos

-Email Defences Under Siege: Phishing Attacks Dramatically Improve

-Remote Services Are Becoming an Attractive Target for Ransomware

-Growing Reliance on Cloud Brings New Security Challenges

-Many IT Pros Don’t Think a Ransomware Attack Can Impact Microsoft 365 Data

-Ransomware Group Bypasses "Enormous" Range of EDR Tools

-MS Exchange Zero-Days: The Calm Before the Storm?

-Average Company with Data in the Cloud Faces $28 Million in Data-Breach Risk

-Secureworks Finds Network Intruders See Little Resistance

-Regulations, Laws and Accountability are Changing the Cyber Security Landscape

-This Year’s Biggest Cyber Threats

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

Top Cyber Stories of the Last Week

  • Russian Sanctions Instigator Lloyd's Possibly Hit by Cyber Attack

Lloyd’s of London, the London-based insurance market heavily involved in implementing sanctions against Russia, may have been hit by a cyber-attack. On Wednesday, October 5, 2022, the British insurance market revealed it had detected “unusual activity” on its systems and has turned off all external connectivity “as a precautionary measure.”

“We have informed market participants and relevant parties, and we will provide more information once our investigations have concluded,” said a Lloyd’s spokesperson.

The company did not comment on whether or not it has been contacted by hackers, if a ransom demand has been issued, or on the possible source of the attack.

However, the insurance market has been closely involved with the design and implementation of sanctions imposed on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine – a potential motive for the attack. Lloyd’s itself has confirmed it was working closely with British and international governments to implement such sanctions.

Around 100 insurance syndicates operate at Lloyd's.

Earlier in 2022, Lloyd’s instructed its 76 insurance syndicates to remove “nation-state-backed cyber attacks” from insurance policies by March 2023, as well as losses “arising from a war.”

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/lloyds-possibly-hit-by-cyberattack/

  • Former Uber Security Chief Convicted of Covering Up Data Breach

Uber’s former head of security has been convicted of covering up a 2016 data breach at the rideshare giant, hiding details from US regulators and paying off a pair of hackers in return for their discretion.

The trial, closely watched in cyber security circles, is believed to be the first criminal prosecution of a company executive over the handling of a data breach.

Joe Sullivan, who was fired in 2017 over the incident, was found guilty by a San Francisco jury of obstructing an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission. At the time of the 2016 breach, the regulator had been investigating the car-booking service over a different cyber security lapse that had occurred two years earlier.

Jurors also convicted Sullivan of a second count related to having knowledge of but failing to report the 2016 breach to the appropriate government authorities. The incident eventually became public in 2017 when Dara Khosrowshahi, who had just taken over as chief executive, disclosed details of the attack.

Prosecutors said Sullivan had taken steps to make sure data compromised in the attack would not be revealed. According to court documents, two hackers approached Sullivan’s team to notify Uber of a security flaw that exposed the personal information of almost 60mn drivers and riders on the platform.

https://www.ft.com/content/051af6a1-41d1-4a6c-9e5a-d23d46b2a9c9

  • First 72 Hours of Incident Response Critical to Taming Cyber Attack Chaos

Cyber security professionals tasked with responding to attacks experience stress, burnout, and mental health issues that are exacerbated by a lack of breach preparedness and sufficient incident response practice in their organisations.

A new IBM Security-sponsored survey published this week found that two-thirds (67%) of incident responders suffer stress and anxiety during at least some of their engagements, while 44% have sacrificed the well-being of their relationships, and 42% have suffered burnout, according to the survey conducted by Morning Consult. In addition, 68% of incidents responders often have to work on two or more incidents at the same time, increasing their stress, according to the survey's results.

Companies that plan and practice responding to a variety of incidents can lower the stress levels of their incident responders, employees, and executives, says John Dwyer, head of research for IBM Security's X-Force response team.

"Organisations are not effectively establishing their response strategies with the responders in mind — it does not need to be as stressful as it is," he says. "There is a lot of time when the responders are managing organisations during an incident, because those organisations were not prepared for the crisis that occurs. These attacks happen every day."

The IBM Security-funded study underscores why the cyber security community has focused increasingly on the mental health of its members. About half (51%) of cyber security defenders have suffered burnout or extreme stress in the past year, according to a VMware survey released in August 2021. Cyber security executives have also spotlighted the issue as one that affects the community and companies' ability to retain skilled workers.

https://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/incident-response-s-first-72-hours-critical-to-taming-chaos

  • Email Defences Under Siege: Phishing Attacks Dramatically Improve

This week's report that cyber attackers are laser-focused on crafting attacks specialised to bypass Microsoft's default security showcases an alarming evolution in phishing tactics, security experts said this week.

Threat actors are getting better at slipping phishing attacks through the weak spots in platform email defences, using a variety of techniques, such as zero-point font obfuscation, hiding behind cloud-messaging services, and delaying payload activation, for instance. They're also doing more targeting and research on victims.

As a result, nearly 1 in 5 phishing emails (18.8%) bypassed Microsoft's platform defences and landed in workers' inboxes in 2022, a rate that increased 74% compared to 2020, according to research published by cyber security firm Check Point Software. Attackers increasingly used techniques to pass security checks, such as Sender Policy Framework (SPF), and obfuscate functional components of an e-mail, such as using zero-size fonts or hiding malicious URLs from analysis.

The increasing capabilities of attackers is due to the better understanding of current defences, says Avanan, an email security firm acquired by Check Point in August 2021.

"It is a family of 10 to 20 techniques, but they all lead to the objective of deceiving a company's security layers," he says. "The end result is always an email that looks genuine to the recipient but looks different to the algorithm that analyses the content."

Microsoft declined to comment on the research. However, the company has warned of advanced techniques, such as adversary-in-the-middle phishing (AiTM), which uses a custom URL to place a proxy server between a victim and their desired site, allowing the attacker to capture sensitive data, such as usernames and passwords. In July, the company warned that more than 10,000 organisations had been targeted during one AiTM campaign.

https://www.darkreading.com/remote-workforce/email-defenses-under-siege-phishing-attacks-dramatically-improve

  • Remote Services Are Becoming an Attractive Target for Ransomware

Stolen credentials are no longer the number one initial access vector for ransomware operators looking to infect a target network and its endpoints - instead, they’ve become more interested in exploiting vulnerabilities found in internet-facing systems.

A report from Secureworks claims ransomware-as-a-service developers are quick to add newly discovered vulnerabilities into their arsenals, allowing even less competent hackers to exploit them swiftly, and with relative ease.

In fact, the company's annual State of the Threat Report reveals that flaw exploitation in remote services accounted for 52% of all ransomware incidents the company analysed over the last 12 months.

Besides remote services, Secureworks also spotted a 150% increase in the use of infostealers, which became a “key precursor” to ransomware. Both these factors, the report stresses, kept ransomware as the number one threat for businesses of all sizes, “who must fight to stay abreast of the demands of new vulnerability prioritisation and patching”.

All things considered, ransomware is still the biggest threat for businesses. It takes up almost a quarter of all attacks that were reported in the last 12 months, Secureworks says, and despite law enforcement being actively involved, operators remained highly active.

https://www.techradar.com/news/remote-services-are-becoming-an-attractive-target-for-ransomware

  • Growing Reliance on Cloud Brings New Security Challenges

There was a time when cloud was just a small subset of IT infrastructure, and cloud security referred to a very specific set of tasks. The current reality is very different, organisations are heavily dependent on cloud technologies and cloud security has become a much more complex endeavour.

Organisations increasingly rely on the cloud to deliver new applications, reduce costs, and support business operations. One in every four organisations already have majority workloads in the cloud, and 44% of workloads currently run in some form of public cloud, says Omdia, a research and advisory group.

Practically every midsize and large organisation now operates in some kind of a hybrid cloud environment, with a mix of cloud and on-premises systems. For most organisations, software-as-a-service constitute the bulk (80%) of their cloud environments, followed by infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service deployments.

In the past, cloud security conversations tended to focus on making sure cloud environments are being configured properly, but cloud security nowadays goes far beyond just configuration management. The sprawling cloud environment means security management has to be centralised, Omdia said. Security functions also need to be integrated into existing application deployment workflows.

On top of all of this, multicloud is becoming more common among organisations as they shift their workloads to avoid being dependent on a single platform. The three major cloud providers – Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform – account for 65% of the cloud market.

https://www.darkreading.com/dr-tech/growing-reliance-on-cloud-brings-new-security-challenges

  • Many IT Pros Don’t Think a Ransomware Attack Can Impact Microsoft 365 Data

The 2022 Ransomware Report, which surveyed over 2,000 IT leaders, revealed that 24% have been victims of a ransomware attack, with 20% of attacks happening in the last year.

Cyber attacks are happening more frequently. Last year’s ransomware survey revealed that 21% of companies experienced an attack. This year it rose by three percent to 24%.

“Attacks on businesses are increasing, and there is a shocking lack of awareness and preparation by IT pros. Our survey shows that many in the IT community have a false sense of security. As bad actors develop new techniques, companies like ours have to do what it takes to come out ahead and protect businesses around the world,” said Hornetsecurity.

The report highlighted a lack of knowledge on the security available to businesses. 25% of IT professionals either don’t know or don’t think that Microsoft 365 data can be impacted by a ransomware attack.

Just as worryingly, 40% of IT professionals that use Microsoft 365 in their organisation admitted they do not have a recovery plan in case their Microsoft 365 data was compromised by a ransomware attack.

“Microsoft 365 is vulnerable to phishing attacks and ransomware attacks, but with the help of third-party tools, IT admins can backup their Microsoft 365 data securely and protect themselves from such attacks,” said Hofmann.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/10/03/ransomware-attack-impact-microsoft-365-data/

  • Ransomware Group Bypasses "Enormous" Range of EDR Tools

A notorious ransomware group has been spotted leveraging sophisticated techniques to bypass endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools.

BlackByte, which the US government has said poses a serious threat to critical infrastructure, used a “Bring Your Own Driver” technique to circumvent over 1000 drivers used by commercially available EDR products, according to Sophos. The UK cyber security vendor explained in a new report that the group had exploited a known vulnerability, CVE-2019-16098, in Windows graphics utility driver RTCorec6.sys. This enabled it to communicate directly with a victim system’s kernel and issue commands to disable callback routines used by EDR tools.

The group also used EDR bypass techniques borrowed from open source tool EDRSandblast to deactivate the Microsoft-Windows-Threat-Intelligence ETW (Event Tracing for Windows) provider. This is a Windows feature “that provides logs about the use of commonly maliciously abused API calls such as NtReadVirtualMemory to inject into another process’s memory,” explained Sophos. Neutralising it in this way renders any security tool relying on the feature also useless, the firm argued.

“If you think of computers as a fortress, for many EDR providers, ETW is the guard at the front gate,” said Sophos. “If the guard goes down, then that leaves the rest of the system extremely vulnerable. And, because ETW is used by so many different providers, BlackByte’s pool of potential targets for deploying this EDR bypass is enormous.”

BlackByte is not the only ransomware group using these advanced techniques to get around existing detection tools, illustrating the continued arms race between attackers and defenders. AvosLocker used a similar method in May, Sophos said. “Anecdotally, from what we’re seeing in the field, it does appear that EDR bypass is becoming a more popular technique for ransomware threat groups,” the firm confirmed. “This is not surprising. Threat actors often leverage tools and techniques developed by the ‘offensive security’ industry to launch attacks faster and with minimal effort.”

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/ransomware-bypasses-enormous-range/

  • MS Exchange Zero-Days: The Calm Before the Storm?

Two exploited MS Exchange zero-days that still have no official fix, have been added to CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog.

But mitigating the risk of exploitation until patches are ready will require patience and doggedness, as Microsoft is still revising its advice to admins and network defenders, and still working on the patches.

The two vulnerabilities were publicly documented last Wednesday, by researchers with Vietnamese company GTSC, and Microsoft soon after sprung into (discernible) action by offering customer guidance, followed by an analysis of the attacks exploiting the two vulnerabilities. Several changes have been made to the documents since then, after the company found and other researchers pointed out several shortcomings.

Microsoft says its threat analysts observed “activity related to a single activity group in August 2022 that achieved initial access and compromised Exchange servers by chaining CVE-2022-41040 and CVE-2022-41082 in a small number of targeted attacks,” and that the attackers breached fewer than 10 organisations globally. “MSTIC assesses with medium confidence that the single activity group is likely to be a state-sponsored organisation,” they added.

The other good news is there are still no public exploits for the two vulnerabilities. But, Microsoft says, “Prior Exchange vulnerabilities that require authentication have been adopted into the toolkits of attackers who deploy ransomware, and these vulnerabilities are likely to be included in similar attacks due to the highly privileged access Exchange systems confer onto an attacker.”

Enterprise defenders should expect trouble via this attack path in the near future, it seems, so keeping abreast of the changing situation and springing into action as quickly as possible once the patches are made available is advised. Scammers have since started impersonating security researchers and offering non-existing PoC exploits for CVE-2022-41082 for sale via GitHub

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/10/03/ms-exchange-cve-2022-41040-cve-2022-41082/

  • Average Company with Data in the Cloud Faces $28 Million in Data-Breach Risk

Hard-to-control collaboration, complex SaaS permissions, and risky misconfigurations — such as admin accounts without multi-factor authentication (MFA) — have left a dangerous amount of cloud data exposed to insider threats and cyber attacks, according to Varonis.

For the report, researchers analysed nearly 10 billion cloud objects (more than 15 petabytes of data) across a random sample of data risk assessments performed at more than 700 companies worldwide. In the average company, 157,000 sensitive records are exposed to everyone on the internet by SaaS sharing features, representing $28 million in data-breach risk, Varonis researchers have found.

One out of every 10 records in the cloud is exposed to all employees — creating an impossibly large internal blast radius, which maximises damage during a ransomware attack. The average company has 4,468 user accounts without MFA enabled, making it easier for attackers to compromise internally exposed data.

Out of 33 super admin accounts in the average organisation, more than half did not have MFA enabled. This makes it easier for attackers to compromise these powerful accounts, steal more data, and create backdoors. Companies have more than 40 million unique permissions across SaaS applications, creating a nightmare for IT and security teams responsible for managing and reducing cloud data risk.

“Cloud security shouldn’t be taken for granted. When security teams lack critical visibility to manage and protect SaaS and IaaS apps and services, it’s nearly impossible to ensure your data isn’t walking out the door,” said Varonis. “This report is a true-to-life picture of over 700 real-world risk assessments of production SaaS environments. The results underscore the urgent need for CISOs to uncover and remediate their cloud risk as quickly as possible.”

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/10/05/company-data-breach-risk/

  • Secureworks Finds Network Intruders See Little Resistance

Attackers who break into networks only need to take a few basic measures in order to avoid detection.

Security vendor Secureworks said in its annual State of the Threat report that it observed several data breaches between June 2021 and June 2022 and found that, by and large, once network intruders gained a foothold on the targets' environment, they had to do relatively little to stay concealed.

"One thing that is notable about them is that none of these techniques are particularly sophisticated," the vendor said. "That is because threat actors do not need them to be; the adversary will only innovate enough to achieve their objectives. So there is a direct relationship between the maturity of the controls in a target environment and the techniques they employ to bypass those controls."

Among the more basic measures taken by the attackers was coding their tools in newer languages such as Go or Rust. This tweak created enough of a difference in the software to evade signature-checking tools, according to Secureworks' report. In other cases, the network intruders hid their activity by packing their malware within a trusted Windows installer or by sneaking it into the Authenticode signature of a trusted DLL. In another case, a malware infection was seen moving data out of the victim's network via TOR nodes. While effective, Secureworks said the techniques are hardly innovative. Rather, they indicate that threat actors find themselves only needing to do the bare minimum to conceal themselves from detection.

https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/news/252525696/Secureworks-finds-network-intruders-see-little-resistance

  • Regulations, Laws and Accountability are Changing the Cyber Security Landscape

As cyber criminals continue to develop new ways to wreak havoc, regulators have been working to catch up. They aim to protect data and consumers while avoiding nation-state attacks that are a risk to national and economic security. But some of these regulations may provide an opportunity for MSSPs.

Some of these regulations are a response to what’s generally been a hands-off approach to telling organisations what to do. Unfortunately, cyber security isn’t always prioritised when budgets and resources are allocated. The result is a steadily rising tide of breaches and exploits that have held organisations hostage and made private information available on the dark web.

The new regulations are coming from all directions: at the state and federal levels in the US and around the world. While many of these regulations aren’t yet final, there’s no reason not to start aligning with where trends will ease the impact of changing rules. At the same time, many organisations want to hold the government responsible for some kinds of attacks. It will be interesting to see how regulating works, as most politicians and bureaucrats aren’t known for their technological savvy.

In the US, for example, new regulations are in development in the Federal Trade Commission, Food and Drug Administration, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Transportation, Department of Energy, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Thirty-six states have enacted cyber security legislation, and the count increases as other countries join.

One of the motivating factors for all these new regulations is that most cyber attacks aren’t reported. Lawmakers realise cyber security threats continue to be one of the top national security and economic risks. In the last year and a half (2020-2022), there have been attacks on America’s gas supply, meat supply, and various other companies, courts, and government agencies. One FBI cyber security official estimated the government only learns about 20% to 25% of intrusions at US business and academic institutions.

In March, Congress passed legislation requiring critical infrastructure operators to report significant cyber attacks to CISA within 72 hours of learning about the attack. It also required them to report a ransomware payment within 24 hours. These regulations will also consider reporting “near misses” so that this data can also be studied and tracked. The problem is, how does one define a “near miss”?

https://www.msspalert.com/cybersecurity-guests/regulations-laws-and-accountability-are-changing-the-cybersecurity-landscape/

  • This Year’s Biggest Cyber Threats

OpenText announced the Nastiest Malware of 2022, a ranking of the year’s biggest cyber threats. For the fifth year running, experts combed through the data, analysed different behaviours, and determined which malicious payloads are the nastiest.

Emotet regained its place at the top, reminding the world that while affiliates may be taken down, the masterminds are resilient. LockBit evolved its tactics into something never seen before: triple extortion. Analysis also revealed an almost 1100% increase in phishing during the first four months of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021, indicating a possible end to the “hacker holiday,” a hacker rest period following the busy holiday season.

“The key takeaway from this year’s findings is that malware remains centre stage in the threats posed towards individuals, businesses, and governments,” said OpenText.

“Cyber criminals continue to evolve their tactics, leaving the infosec community in a constant state of catch-up. With the mainstream adoption of ransomware payloads and cryptocurrency facilitating payments, the battle will continue. No person, no business—regardless of size—is immune to these threats.”

While this year’s list may designate payloads into different categories of malware, it’s important to note many of these bad actor groups contract work from others. This allows each group to specialise in their respective payload and perfect it.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/10/06/2022-nastiest-malware/

Threats

Ransomware and Extortion

BEC – Business Email Compromise

Phishing & Email Based Attacks

Other Social Engineering; Smishing, Vishing, etc

Malware

Mobile

Internet of Things – IoT

Data Breaches/Leaks

Cryptocurrency/Cryptomining/Cryptojacking/NFTs/Blockchain

Insider Risk and Insider Threats

Fraud, Scams & Financial Crime

Deepfakes

Supply Chain and Third Parties

Denial of Service DoS/DDoS

Cloud/SaaS

Encryption

API

Open Source

Passwords, Credential Stuffing & Brute Force Attacks

Privacy, Surveillance and Mass Monitoring

Regulations, Fines and Legislation

Models, Frameworks and Standards

Secure Disposal

Backup and Recovery

Law Enforcement Action and Take Downs

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

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.

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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.

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