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Over third of large Dutch firms hit by cyberattack in 2016 – CBS

Large companies are hit by cyberattacks at an above average rate, according to the Cybersecurity Monitor of Dutch statistics bureau CBS for 2018. Among companies of 250+ employees, 39 percent were hit at least once by a cyberattack in 2016, such as a hack or DDoS attack. By contrast, around 9 percent of small companies (2-10 employees) were confronted with such an ICT incident. Of the larger companies, 23 percent suffered from failure of business processes due to the outside cyberattacks. This compares to 6 percent for the smaller companies. Of all ICT incidents, failures were most common, for all sizes, though again, the larger companies were more affected (55%) than the smaller ones (21%). The incidents led to costs for both groups of companies. Chance of incident bigger at large company CBS noted that ICT incidents can arise from both from an outside attack and from an internal cause, such as incorrectly installed software or hardware or from the unintentional disclosure of data by an employee. The fact that larger companies suffer more from ICT incidents can be related to the fact that more people work with computers; this increases the chance of incidents. In addition, larger companies often have a more complex ICT infrastructure, which can cause more problems. The number of ICT incidents also varies per industry. For example, small businesses in the ICT sector (12%) and industry (10%) often suffer from ICT incidents due to external attacks. Small companies in the hospitality sector (6%) and health and welfare care (5%) were less often confronted with cyberattacks. Internal cause more common at smaller companies Compared to larger companies, ICT incidents at small companies more often have an internal cause: 2 out 3, compared to 2 out of 5 for larger companies. ICT incidents at small companies in health and welfare care most often had an internal cause (84%). In the ICT sector, this share was 60 percent. About 7 percent of companies with an ICT incident report them to one or more authorities, including police, the Dutch Data Protection Authority AP, a security team or their bank. The largest companies report ICT incidents much more often (41%) than the smallest companies (6%). Large companies report these ICT incidents most frequently to the AP, complying with law. After that, most reports are made to the police. The smallest companies report incidents most often to their bank. Smaller: less safe Small businesses are less often confronted with ICT incidents and, in comparison with large companies, take fewer security measures. Around 60 percent of small companies take three or more measures. This goes to 98 percent for larger companies. Source: https://www.telecompaper.com/news/over-third-39-of-large-dutch-firms-hit-by-cyberattack-in-2016-cbs–1265851

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Over third of large Dutch firms hit by cyberattack in 2016 – CBS

The FBI Is Investigating More Cyberattacks in a California Congressional Race

The hacks — first reported by Rolling Stone — targeted a Democratic candidate in one of the country’s most competitive primary races WASHINGTON — The FBI has opened an investigation into cyberattacks that targeted a Democratic candidate in a highly competitive congressional primary in southern California. As Rolling Stone first reported in September, Democrat Bryan Caforio was the victim of what cybersecurity experts believe were distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attacks. The hacks crashed his campaign website on four separate occasions over a five-week span, including several hours before the biggest debate of the primary race and a week before the election itself, according to emails and other forensic data reviewed by Rolling Stone. They were the first reported instances of DDoS attacks on a congressional candidate in 2018. Caforio was running in the 25th congressional district represented by Republican Rep. Steve Knight, a vulnerable incumbent and a top target of the Democratic Party. Caforio ultimately finished third in the June primary, failing to move on to the general election by several thousand votes. “I’m glad the FBI has now launched an investigation into the hack,” Caforio tells Rolling Stone in a statement. “These attacks put our democracy at risk, and they’ll keep happening until we take them seriously and start to punish those responsible.” It was unclear from the campaign’s data who launched the attacks. But in early October, a few weeks after Rolling Stone’s report, Caforio says an FBI special agent based in southern California contacted one of his former campaign staffers about the DDoS attacks. The FBI has since spoken with several people who worked on the campaign, requested forensic data in connection with the attacks and tasked several specialists with investigating what happened, according to a source close to the campaign. According to the source, the FBI has expressed interest in several details of the DDoS attacks. The bureau asked about data showing that servers run by Amazon Web Services, the tech arm of the online retail giant, appear to have been used to carry out the attacks. The FBI employees also seemed to focus on the last of the four attacks on Caforio’s website, the one that came a week before the primary election. An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment for this story. A DDoS attack occurs when a flood of online traffic coming from multiple sources intentionally overwhelms a website and cripples it. The cybersecurity company Cloudflare compares DDoS to “a traffic jam clogging up a highway, preventing regular traffic from arriving at its desired destination.” Such attacks are becoming more common in American elections and civic life, according to experts who monitor and study cyberattacks. “DDoS attacks are being used to silence political speech and voters’ access to the information they need,” George Conard, a product manager at Jigsaw, a Google spin-off organization, wrote in May. “Political parties, campaigns and organizations are a growing target.” Matthew Prince, the CEO of Cloudflare, told Rolling Stone last month that his company had noticed an increase in such attacks after 2016 and the successful Russian operations on U.S. soil. “Our thesis is that, prior to 2016, U.S.-style democracy was seen as the shining city on the hill. The same things you could do to undermine a developing democracy wouldn’t work here,” Prince says. “But after 2016, the bloom’s off the rose.” The FBI has since created a foreign influence task force to combat future efforts to interfere and disrupt U.S. elections. Southern California, in particular, has seen multiple cyberattacks on Democratic congressional candidates during the 2018 midterms. Rolling Stone reported that Hans Keirstead, a Democratic candidate who had challenged Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), widely seen as the most pro-Russia and pro-Putin member of Congress, had been the victim of multiple hacking efforts, including a successful spear-phishing attempt on his private email account that resembled the 2016 hack of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman. Hackers also reportedly broke into the campaign computer of Dave Min, another Democratic challenger in a different southern California district, prompting the FBI to open an investigation. On Friday, the nation’s four top law enforcement and national security agencies — the FBI, Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — released a joint statement saying there were “ongoing campaigns by Russia, China and other foreign actors, including Iran” that include interference in the 2018 and 2020 elections. Cybersecurity experts and political consultants say there are many reports of hacking attempts on 2018 campaigns that have not been publicized. But the proximity of the attacks is significant because Democrats have a greater chance of taking back the House of Representatives if they can flip multiple seats in Southern California. Source: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/california-congressional-race-hack-745519/

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The FBI Is Investigating More Cyberattacks in a California Congressional Race

The Haunting Horror Story Of Cybercrime

As the old saying goes, “darkness falls across the land, the midnight hour is close at hand.” Halloween is upon the scene and frightening things are unforeseen. Imagine watching a chilling movie depicting a zombie apocalypse or a deadly virus spreading fast across a metropolis, infecting everything in its wake. Sounds like a monstrous scenario? Sounds analogous to a cyber-attack? You could be onto something. Strap yourself in. It’s going to be a bumpy ride. According to recent F5 Labs threat analysis, the top application breaches haunting companies right now with rapidly mutating sophistication include payment card theft via web injection (70%), website hacking (26%), and app database hacking (4%). Frighteningly, further analysis shows that 13% of all web application breaches in 2017 and Q1 2018 were access related. This bloodcurdling discovery can be dissected as follows: credentials stolen via compromised email (34.29%), access control misconfiguration (22.86%); credential stuffing from stolen passwords (8.57%), brute force attacks to crack passwords (5.71%), and social engineering theft (2.76). The eerie evidence also shows that applications and identities are the initial targets in 86% of breaches. Businesses worldwide now face a sense of creeping dread and imminent disruption. Nowadays, they are more prone than ever to terrors such as malware hijacking browsers to sniff or intercept application authentication credentials. Then there are the strains of malware that target financial logins to menace both browser and mobile clients. There’s no way around it. Getting your cybersecurity posture right is the only way to stay safe. Get it wrong, however, and you’ll get the fright of your life in the shape of EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) enforcement. There is definitively nowhere to hide this Halloween if you’re breached or fall short of tightening compliance expectations. Yet, if scary movies have taught us anything about horror stories, it is to never to scream and run away. As this ghoulish season can overshadow any organisation, it’s imperative that preventative measures are in place to protect vital assets. Yes, the findings from F5 Labs may paint a bleak picture but there are plenty of preventative measures you can take to improve your security posture and safeguard your employees’ applications and sensitive data: Understand your threat environment and prioritise defences against grave risk concerns. Know which applications are important and minimise your attack surface. Remember, an app’s surface is broadening all the time, encompassing multiple tiers and the ever-increasing use of application programming interfaces (APIs) to share data with third parties. Use data to drive your risk strategy and identify what attackers would typically target. Beware that any part of an application service visible on the Internet will be probed by fiendish hackers for possible exploitation. Configure your network systems properly or suffer the consequences of applications leaking internal and infrastructure information, including server names, private network addresses, email addresses, and even usernames. This is all valuable ammunition for a horrible hacker to carry out an attack. Be aware of common threats including DDoS attacks, ransomware, malware, phishing, and botnets. Ensure your IT response strategies are built to adapt and update in line with new vulnerabilities and threats will invariably improve survival rates. Implement a strong set of easily manageable and powerful security solutions such as an advanced web application firewall (AWAF). This type of technology is extremely scalable and can protect against the latest wave of attacks using behavioural analytics, proactive bot defence, and application-layer encryption of sensitive data like personal credentials. Ensure the company enforces a proactive culture of security and educates employees on policy, device management, as well as safe internet and cloud usage. When travelling on business, ensure staff never conduct financial transactions requiring a debit or credit card when using public or free Wi-Fi services. Never assume mobiles and laptop devices are safe, even at the local coffee bar. Change your passwords regularly (i.e. every month). This is especially important after travel. Devices may have been compromised during transit. Always perform regular data backups on approved devices and/or secure cloud platforms to ensure sensitive information is not lost or stolen and can be quickly recovered in the event of an attack. Remember, careless employees who feel they are unaccountable for the loss of work devices can damage business reputations. The grim reality Remember this is the time of year when “creatures crawl in search of blood to terrorize the neighbourhood”. Whether you’re expecting a trick or treat this Halloween, neglecting cybersecurity is certain to have ghastly consequences. The business world is littered with victims of cybercrime, so don’t get consigned to the grievous graveyard of cyber fraud. Know what makes your apps vulnerable and how they can be attacked. Makes sure you put the right solutions in place to lower your risk. Now is the time to stop being haunted by cybercriminals draining the lifeblood out of your business. Source: https://www.informationsecuritybuzz.com/articles/the-haunting-horror-story-of-cybercrime/

Six Lessons From Boston Children’s ‘Hacktivist’ Attack

CIO Daniel Nigrin, M.D., says hospitals must prepare for DDoS and ransomware Most health system CIOs have heard about the 2014 attack on Boston Children’s Hospital by a member or members of the activist hacker group Anonymous. The hospital was forced to deal with a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack as well as a spear phishing campaign. Yesterday, as part of the Harvard Medical School Clinical Informatics Lecture Series, the hospital’s senior vice president and CIO Daniel Nigrin, M.D., discussed six lessons learned from the attack. Although the cyber-attack took place four years ago, there have been some recent developments. The attack was undertaken to protest the treatment of a teenager, Justina Pelletier, in a dispute over her diagnosis and custody between her parents and the hospital. In August 2018 Martin Gottesfeld, 32, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to damage protected computers and one count of damaging protected computers. U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel Gorton scheduled sentencing for Nov. 14, 2018. Gottesfeld was charged in February 2016. According the U.S. Department of Justice, Gottesfeld launched a massive DDOS attack against the computer network of the Boston Children’s Hospital. He customized malicious software that he installed on 40,000 network routers that he was then able to control from his home computer. After spending more than a week preparing his methods, on April 19, 2014, he unleashed a DDOS attack that directed so much hostile traffic at the Children’s Hospital computer network that he temporarily knocked Boston Children’s Hospital off the Internet. In his Oct. 17 talk, Nigrin said cyber criminals still see healthcare as a soft target compared to other industries. “The bottom line is that in healthcare, we have not paid attention to cybersecurity,” he said. “In the years since this attack, we have seen ransomware attacks that have brought hospital systems to their knees. We have to pay more attention and invest more in terms of dollars and technical people, but it really does extend to entire organizations — educating people about what a phishing attack is, what a social engineering attack is. These need to be made a priority.” He offered six lessons learned from Boston Children’s experience: 1. DDoS countermeasures are critical. No longer can healthcare organizations assume that a DDoS attacks are things that only occur against corporate entities, he said. “Prior to this event, I had never thought about the need to protect our organization against a DDoS attack,” he said. “I will submit that the vast majority of my CIO colleagues were in the same boat. And that was wrong. I think now we have gotten this understanding.” 2. Know what depends on the internet. Having a really detailed understanding of what systems and processes in your organization depend on internet access is critical, Nigrin stressed. You also mush have good mitigation strategies in place to know what to do if you lose internet access — whether it is because you have a network outage due to a technical issue or a malicious issue. “As healthcare has become more automated and dependent on technology, these things are crippling events. You have got to know how you are going to deal with it ahead of time. Figuring it out on the fly is not going to work.” 3. Recognize the importance of email. Email may be seen as old-school, Nigrin noted, but it is still the primary method to communicate, so you have to think about how you can communicate and get the word out in scenarios where you don’t have email or lose voice communication. “In our case, we were super-lucky because we had just deployed a secure texting platform, so we could do HIPAA-compliant texting, and when our email was down, that was how we communicated, and it was very effective,” he explained. 4. Push through security initiatives – no excuses anymore. Because he is a doctor himself, Nigrin feels OK picking on doctors about security. Historically they have always pushed back on security measures such as dual-factor authentication. He paraphrases them saying “Come on, Dan, that is an extra 10 seconds; I have to carry a secure ID, or you have to send me a text message on my phone. It is a pain. I don’t want to do it. I am the highest-paid employee in your organization and that is time better spend on something else.” But Nigrin argues that we can’t afford to think like that anymore. He used the Anonymous attack as an opportunity to push through four or five security initiatives within the next two to three months when he had everyone’s attention. “The platform was burning, and the board of trustees was willing to expend the money to pay for it all. They all of a sudden recognized the risk.” 5. Securing audio- and teleconference meetings. Nigrin said this topic wouldn’t have occurred to Boston Children’s until they were warned by the FBI. “The FBI told us about an attack that affected them when they were dealing with Anonymous. When Anonymous was attacking the FBI, the FBI convened internal conference calls on how to deal with it. Anonymous had already breached their messaging platform and intercepted the calendar invites that invited everyone to dial in. Anonymous basically was called into the meeting. Within 30 minutes of one of those meetings, the entire audio transcript of the conference call was posted to YouTube. “So we took heed of that and made sure that when we had conference calls, we sent out PINs over our secure texting platform,” he said. 6. Separating signal from noise. During the attack, Boston Children’s set up a command center and told employees: if you see something, say something. “We didn’t know what attack was coming next. We were flying blind,” Nigrin said. “We started to get lots of calls into our command center with reports of things that seemed somewhat suspicious,” he remembers. People got calls on their cell phone with a recorded message saying your bank account has been compromised. Press 1 to talk to someone to deal with it. “Today we would recognize this as some type of phishing scam and hang up,” he said, “but at the time it was sort of new. People started calling us and we didn’t know if this was Anonymous trying to get into the bank accounts of our senior clinicians. Was it part of the attack? It was tough for us to detect signal from noise.” In the Q&A after his presentation, listeners were curious about how much the incident cost the hospital. Nigrin said there two big costs incurred: One was the technology it had to deploy in an emergent way to do DDOS protection and penetration testing. The other was revenue lost from philanthropic donations. Together they were close to $1 million. Another person asked if the hospital had cyber insurance. Nigrin said they did, but when they read the fine print it said they were covered only if they were breached and technically they were never breached, so the insurance company was reluctant to pay. Although they eventually got compensated for a good share of it, the hospital also made sure to update its policy. Still another attendee asked Nigrin if ransomware attacks were still targeting hospitals. He said they definitely were. “Think about community hospitals just squeaking by on their budgets,” he said. “They don’t have millions to spend, yet their data is valuable on the black market. Attackers recognize we are dead in the water as entities if we don’t have these systems. We have important data and will do anything to get our systems back up and running.” Nigrin said even large health systems can be vulnerable because some technology they deploy is run by third-party vendors who haven’t upgraded their systems. An example, he said, might be technology to record videos in the operating room setting. Some vendors, he said, are not accustomed to thinking about security. They are unable to update their software so it works on more modern operating systems. That leaves CIOs with a tough choice. “We can shut off the functionality or take the risk of continuing to use outdated and unpatched operating systems. Those vendors now have woken up and realize they have to pay more attention.” Source: https://www.healthcare-informatics.com/article/cybersecurity/six-lessons-boston-children-s-hacktivist-attack

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Six Lessons From Boston Children’s ‘Hacktivist’ Attack

Ireland vulnerable to cybersecurity attack, says industry leader

The Government has been urged to appoint a cybersecurity “tsar” to ensure the State is adequately prepared to deal with potential attacks. The call by one of the State’s leading IT security experts comes amid growing concern Ireland could be caught off-guard by a cybersecurity attack, due to a lack of joined-up thinking on the issue and a failure to take threats seriously. Currently the response to cyber threats lies across a number of bodies, with the Department of Communications, An Garda Síochána, the Defence Forces and the Department of Defence among those involved. Brian Honan, an independent security consultant who has also served as a special adviser to Europol’s Cybercrime Centre (EC3), said a tsar with the authority and autonomy to ensure an effective cybersecurity strategy should be appointed as a matter of urgency. “We need a coherent and centralised approach to protecting our nation rather than having responsibilities for various aspects of cybersecurity spread throughout different departments and agencies,” he said. Mr Honan warned that cybersecurity was becoming more of an issue globally with data breaches, DDoS and ransomware attacks, financial scams and state-sponsored hacking incidents all on the rise. As well as domestic considerations, the State is also responsible for the security of services provided across the EU by multinational companies who have their European headquarters located here. Mr Honan said that, given this, a cybersecurity attack could not only cause widespread disruption for businesses and public agencies, but would also lead to serious reputational damage. “It is too critical for us as a nation, both from an economic and national security point of view, for [cybersecurity] to be left to individual government departments or businesses to look after,” said Mr Honan. Funding review Mr Honan’s comments come just weeks after a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General revealed that a dedicated cybersecurity unit established to protect government and industry networks has no strategic plan and requires a review of its funding. The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), based in UCD, was established in 2011 with a view to “securing critical national infrastructure”. However, the C&AG report into its operations found an oversight body set up to monitor its performance had not met since 2015. Fianna Fáil has also recently urged the Government to take a more proactive approach to cybersecurity. Its defence spokesman, Jack Chambers, recently called for responsibility for the NCSC to be reassigned away from the Department of Communications. “The Department of Defence should take ownership and control of this so it can develop a proper whole-of-government response to the area of cybersecurity as it becomes a serious national threat. It would compromise foreign direct investment if our national infrastructure were to be seriously undermined and there were to be an attack,” Mr Chambers. Source: https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/ireland-vulnerable-to-cybersecurity-attack-says-industry-leader-1.3666946

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Ireland vulnerable to cybersecurity attack, says industry leader

Cybercrime-as-a-Service: No End in Sight

Cybercrime is easy and rewarding, making it a perfect arena for criminals everywhere. Over the past 20 years, cybercrime has become a mature industry estimated to produce more than $1 trillion in annual revenues. From products like exploit kits and custom malware to services like botnet rentals and ransomware distribution, the breadth of cybercrime offerings has never been greater. The result: more, and more serious, forms of cybercrime. New tools and platforms are more accessible than ever before to those who lack advanced technical skills, enabling scores of new actors to hop aboard the cybercrime bandwagon. Meanwhile, more experienced criminals can develop more specialized skills in the knowledge that they can locate others on the darknet who can complement their services and work together with them to come up with new and better criminal tools and techniques. Line Between Illicit and Legitimate E-Commerce Is Blurring The cybercrime ecosystem has evolved to welcome both new actors and new scrutiny. The threat of prosecution has pushed most cybercrime activities onto the darknet, where the anonymity of Tor and Bitcoin protects the bad guys from being easily identified. Trust is rare in these communities, so some markets are implementing escrow payments to make high-risk transactions easier; some sellers even offer support services and money-back guarantees on their work and products. The markets have also become fractured, as the pro criminals restrict themselves to highly selective discussion boards to limit the threat from police and fraudsters. Nevertheless, a burgeoning cybercrime market has sprung from these hidden places to offer everything from product development to technical support, distribution, quality assurance, and even help desks. Many cybercriminals rely on the Tor network to stay hidden. Tor — The Onion Router — allows users to cruise the Internet anonymously by encrypting their activities and then routing it through multiple random relays on its way to its destination. This circuitous process renders it nearly impossible for law enforcement to track users or determine the identities of visitors to certain black-market sites. From Niche to Mass Market In 2015, the UK National Cyber Crime Unit’s deputy director stated during a panel discussion that investigators believed that the bulk of the cybercrime-as-a-service economy was based on the efforts of only 100 to 200 people who profit handsomely from their involvement. Carbon Black’s research discovered that the darknet’s marketplace for ransomware is growing at a staggering 2,500% per annum, and that some of the criminals can generate over $100,000 a year selling ransomware kits alone. That’s more than twice the annual salary of a software developer in Eastern Europe, where many of these criminals operate. There are plenty of ways for a cybercriminal to rake in the cash without ever perpetrating “traditional” cybercrime like financial fraud or identity theft. The first way is something called research-as-a-service, where individuals work to provide the “raw materials” — such as selling knowledge of system vulnerabilities to malware developers — for future criminal activities. The sale of software exploits has captured much attention recently, as the ShadowBrokers and other groups have introduced controversial subscription programs that give clients access to unpatched system vulnerabilities. Zero-Day Exploits, Ransomware, and DDoS Extortion Are Bestsellers The number of discovered zero-day exploits — weaknesses in code that had been previously undetected by the product’s vendor — has dropped steadily since 2014, according to Symantec’s 2018 Internet Security Threat Report, thanks in part to an increase in “bug bounty” programs that encourage and incentivize the legal disclosure of vulnerabilities. In turn, this has led to an increase in price for the vulnerabilities that do get discovered, with some of the most valuable being sold for more than $100,000 in one of the many darknet marketplaces catering to exploit sales, as highlighted in related a blog post on TechRepublic. Other cybercrime actors sell email databases to simplify future cybercrime campaigns, as was the case in 2016 when 3 billion Yahoo accounts were sold to a handful of spammers for $300,000 each. Exploit kits are another popular product on the darknet. They provide inexperienced cybercriminals with the tools they need to break into a wide range of systems. However, Europol suggests that the popularity of exploit kits has fallen over the past 12 months as the top products have been eliminated and their replacements have failed to offer a comparable sophistication or popularity. Europol also notes that theft through malware was generally becoming less of a threat; instead, today’s cybercriminals prefer ransomware and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) extortion, which are easier to monetize. Cybercrime Infrastructure-as-a-Service The third way hackers can profit from more sophisticated cybercrime is by providing cybercrime infrastructure-as-a-service. Those in this field are provide the services and infrastructure — including bulletproof hosting and botnet rentals — on which other bad actors rely to do their dirty work. The former helps cybercriminals to put web pages and servers on the Internet without having to worry about takedowns by law enforcement. And cybercriminals can pay for botnet rentals that give them temporary access to a network of infected computers they can use for spam distribution or DDoS attacks, for example. Researchers estimate that a $60-a-day botnet can cause up to $720,000 in damages on victim organizations. The numbers for hackers who control the botnets are also big: the bad guys can produce significant profit margins when they rent their services out to other criminals, as highlighted in a related post. The New Reality Digital services are often the backbone of small and large organizations alike. Whether it’s a small online shop or a behemoth operating a global digital platform, if services are slow or down for hours, the company’s revenue and reputation may be on the line. In the old days, word of mouth circulated slowly, but today bad news can reach millions of people instantly. Using botnets for DDoS attacks is a moneymaker for cybercriminals who extort money from website proprietors by threatening an attack that would destroy their services. The danger posed by Internet of Things (IoT) botnets was shown in 2016 when the massive Mirai IoT botnet attacked the domain name provider Dyn and took down websites like Twitter, Netflix, and CNN in the largest such attack ever seen. Botnet use will probably expand in the coming years as cybercriminals continue to exploit vulnerabilities in IoT devices to create even larger networks. Get used to it: Cybercrime is here to stay. Source: https://www.darkreading.com/endpoint/cybercrime-as-a-service-no-end-in-sight/a/d-id/1333033

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Cybercrime-as-a-Service: No End in Sight

Has a BOT Network Compromised Your Systems?

BOT networks have surprisingly penetrated many corporate networks around the world. Yet many of the information technology and security operations teams often have difficulty identifying their activity and eliminating them from the network. The term botnet is derived from the combination of the words robot and network. A cybercriminal creates a network of these robots connected together for the purposes of coordinating some large-scale activity, most often to function as a cyberattack tool for cybercriminals. These activities often include the propagation of attacker malware tools, economic gain, or perhaps targeting a debilitating attack upon one or more websites on the internet, effectively harming revenue and reputation for enterprise organizations and online e-tailers. The larger the botnet, the more effective it can be in achieving the desired goal. Botnets spread via malware, often distributed through malicious email, and may also be self-propagating so that they move laterally from your laptop to other workstations and network devices within the network. Alternately, they can infect your laptop when you visit a compromised website, setting in motion a series of malicious events that result in a compromised system (drive-by download) and automatically installing the botnet software unbeknownst to the owner of that system. Very typically, due to a lack of effective cyber defense for both detection and remediation, cybercriminals find undefended internet of things (IoT) devices to be ideal hosts to harbor and hide their botnet malware. These IoT hosts can include the new generation of IoT enabled devices such as smart refrigerators, security cameras, digital video records, network connected access management systems, thermostats, and much more. Enterprise security departments are often surprised to find that their access management systems and security cameras are completely compromised by such botnets. The most common indicator is users complaining that computer programs are running much more slowly. This is an often key warning sign that hidden botnets or other malware are using your computing resources. More subtly, you may notice that your cooling fans are running when you are not actively using your computers or servers. This may be symptomatic of the considerable computational overhead created by botnets heating up the processor boards. Finally, on your Windows endpoint platforms, failure to shut down properly, or at all, or failure to download updates are other key indicators, any of which by themselves may not confirm the presence of a botnet, but together raise the suspicions to a high level. Some of your employees might also see unknown posts placed on their Facebook accounts. This might also be directly related to botnet activity. Cybercriminals can use social media accounts to easily disseminate malicious content. Conceptually, this social media botnet attack is very different than infecting your computer. By infecting your social media account, the botnet can propagate more rapidly across your entire social media account and never has to physically sit on your laptop or other home computers. Botnets usually work through automation set up, of course, by cybercriminals you don’t know. Key symptoms are almost always technology related – not related to insider activity or insider malicious threats. Beyond the symptoms already mentioned above, there are also technical indicators, such as strange processes running under windows, but these are very hard to detect. As quickly as cyber defense automation and tools evolve, so do the tactics, techniques, and procedures of the botnet cyberthieves. Most botnets don’t damage the host computers – most of what they do is degrade your performance and effectively “steal” your computer resources. More dangerous is the damage the cyberattackers can cause by using the botnet to maliciously target other websites. For example, when they launch a denial of service (DDOS) attack. Several best practices can help cut down or eliminate botnet infections and the secondary attacks that may be launched once an attacker has access to your networks through a botnet. These include: Utilize software that filters or cuts down on suspicious email attachments and don’t click on any links which are suspicious; Make sure your operating systems have all patches and updates installed; Keep your antivirus protection up to date – these often have the signatures of known and recent botnet malware components; and Encrypt your data end-to-end (at rest, in use, and in transit) so that an attacker in your network will be unable to make use of it. Source: https://securityboulevard.com/2018/10/has-a-bot-network-compromised-your-systems/

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Businesses are becoming main target for cybercriminals, report finds

Cybercrime activity continues to expand in scope and complexity, according to the latest report by cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes, as businesses become the preferred target for crooks throughout Q3. Malware detection on businesses shot up 55% between Q2 and Q3, with the biggest attack vector coming from information-stealing trojans such as the self-propagating Emotet and infamous LokiBot. Criminals have likely ramped up attacks on organizations in an attempt to maximize returns, while consumers have seen significantly less action in Q3, with a mere 5% detection increase over the period. This incline toward a more streamlined campaign, as opposed to the wide nets cast in previous quarters, is due to numerous reasons including businesses failing to patch vulnerabilities, weaponized exploits, and possibly even the implementation of privacy-protective legislation such as GDPR. “There was a very long period where ransomware was the dominant malware against everybody,” said Adam Kujawa, director of Malwarebytes Labs, speaking to The Daily Swig about the quarterly report, Cybercrime tactics and techniques: Q3 2018. “We’ve seen the complete evolution of ransomware to what is really just a few families, and whether we’ll see the same distribution and exposure [of ransomware] that we’ve seen in the past few years is unlikely in my opinion.” GandCrab ransomware, however, which first appeared at the beginning of this year, has matured. New versions were discovered during Q3 as the ransomware variant is expected to remain a viable threat to both consumers and to businesses, which are at higher risk due to GandCrab’s advanced ability to encrypt network drives. But despite a recent report by Europol that highlighted ransomware as the biggest threat in 2018, Kujawa isn’t convinced that these campaigns will stick around in the quarters to come. “There are so many solutions out there that can protect users from ransomware, and there are more people that know what to do if you get hit with it,” he said. “When you compare that to is it a good return investment [for cybercriminals], we don’t think it is anymore. Most of what we’ve seen [in Q3] is information-stealers.” Kujawa points to the banking trojan Emotet, that can spread easily and with a primary intent to steal financial data and carry out disturbed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on infected machines. Businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises with less money invested in cyber defenses, have become valuable targets due to the ease in which trojans like Emotet can spread throughout their networks. Changes in global information systems may also be a contributing factor in the revival of data-theft. “That may very well in part play to things like GDPR where you’ve got this data that is no longer legally allowed to be on a server somewhere protected in Europe,” said Kujawa. “Cybercriminals may be more interested in stealing data like they used to because this stuff is no longer as easy to obtain as it was.” While information-stealers hogged the spotlight, the threat landscape remains diverse – targets are predominately concentrated within Western countries, while the use of exploit kits were found mostly in Asian countries including South Korea. Kujawa also noted that social engineering, such as phishing attacks, remains a successful technique for malicious hackers. He said: “Almost all attacks are distributed through social engineering, that’s still the number one way to get past things like security software, firewalls, and things like that.” “The biggest problem in our industry right now is people not taking it [cybersecurity] seriously enough,” Kujawa added. “At the end of the day we’re never going to win the war on cybercrime with just technology because that’s exactly what the bad guys are using against us.” Source: https://portswigger.net/daily-swig/businesses-are-becoming-main-target-for-cybercriminals-report-finds

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Businesses are becoming main target for cybercriminals, report finds

Central planning bureau finds Dutch cybersecurity at high level

Dutch businesses and the public sector are well protected against cybersecurity threats compared to other countries, according to a report from the Central Planning Bureau on the risks for cybersecurity. Dutch websites employ encryption techniques relatively often, and the ISPs take measures to limit the impact of DDoS attacks, the report said. Small and medium-sized businesses are less active than large companies in protecting their activities, employing techniques such as data encryption less often, the CPB found. This creates risks for small business and consumers that could be avoided. The report also found that the Dutch are more often victims of cybercrime than other forms of crime. This implies a high cost for society to ensure cybersecurity. In 2016, already 11 percent of businesses incurred costs due to a hacking attempt. The threat of DDoS attacks will only increase in the coming years due to the growing number of IoT devices. This was already evident in the attacks against Dutch bank websites earlier this year. A further risk is that over half the most important banks in the world use the same DDoS protection service. According to the paper Financieele Dagblad, this supplier is Akamai. The company provides DDoS protection for 16 of the 30 largest banks worldwide. The Dutch banks ABN Amro, ING and Rabobank said they were not dependent on a single provider. The CPB report also found that the often reported shortage of qualified ICT staff is less of a threat than thought. The number of ICT students has risen 50 percent in four years and around 100,000 ICT jobs have been added in the country since 2008. Already 5 percent of all jobs are in ICT. This puts the Netherlands at the top of the pack in Europe, alongside the Nordic countries. Source: https://www.telecompaper.com/news/central-planning-bureau-finds-dutch-cybersecurity-at-high-level–1264818

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Central planning bureau finds Dutch cybersecurity at high level

Security automation can help IT teams limit cyberattack risks

Attacks are becoming largely automated forcing security solutions to provide multiple layers of defence. Basic forms of automatioorks and infrastructure secure. Cybersecurity threats have become a grim reality for businesses today. Due to wide-scale digitisation efforts, companies now store customers’ personal and financial information making their systems prime targets for cybercriminals to breach. These kinds of data can easily be sold on the black market. Their rising prices make cyberattacks quite profitable. Companies are also subject to other types of attacks such as ransomware and extortion. Unlike ordinary users, they are the ones likely to spend and pay the ransom in order to avoid downtime or recover critical work products. The FBI estimates an average of 4,000 ransomware attacks daily since 2016. Many of these threats are automated. Malware like Mirai and Reaper have hijacked hundreds of thousands of devices to make them part of botnets capable of carrying out massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on other networks. These malware run using pre-programmed rules that exploit the most common vulnerabilities of network devices. Companies are now under pressure to cope with these threats. Each stolen record costs companies $148 to deal with. A data breach, even to a company holding a few thousand records, can mean a total loss worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Falling victim to a DDoS attack could also cost larger enterprises at least $2.5 million in damages or downtime. IT teams now have their work cut out for them. Most are already feeling the strain of having to implement further digitisation in the workplace including the adoption of new technologies such as cloud computing, Internet-of-Things (IoT), and big data. Managing security is an added responsibility for them. Fortunately, there are also developments in cybersecurity and IT management automation that could help ease the pressure. Automating security Attacks are becoming largely automated forcing security solutions to provide multiple layers of defence. Basic forms of automation in IT management could already greatly help in keeping networks and infrastructure secure. For example, automated payload deployment and software patching could help keep endpoint software and firmware up-to-date. Outdated software continues to be one of the leading causes of breaches as attackers exploit known vulnerabilities of older software. Patches and updates are designed to plug these holes. Services that provide basic layers of defence such as Cloud Management Suite (CMS) can be used to automate updates and patching. Automation tools can significant boost IT teams’ efficiency and decrease risks especially if enterprises have hundreds of devices connected to their networks. For instance, CMS automatically scans developer releases for software and firmware updates and deploys them to target machines. IT teams can also remotely administer devices over the cloud. They can even secure IoT devices which have now become fashionable in a number of workplaces. The use of cloud-based security services can also automate certain security tasks. Security platforms like Akamai and Imperva, for instance, constantly update their rules and blacklists to mitigate emerging threats. Once these services are integrated to their respective networks, companies are immediately protected from both new and known sources of malicious traffic thanks to updated threat databases. Benefits of automation Here are some of the common benefits of automation. Augments IT teams’ capacity. There is a shortage of capable IT talent in the job market right now which forces companies to make do with limited IT team personnel. Automated solutions help IT teams operate more efficiently and effectively by taking over time-consuming tasks. Using cloud-based services also essentially allow companies to outsource their work and expertise requirement, filling the skills gap in case it exists. Allows IT teams to focus on high-value activities. The time saved through these automation efforts could free up IT teams to allocate their energies to monitoring and other threat mitigation and response tasks. Threats could come from various sources including internal lapses so IT teams even have to take on the task of educating fellow staff concerning best practices in security. Minimises risk of human error. Automation can also help minimise the possibility of injecting human error into security tasks. Phishing emails, which try to trick recipients into clicking links to malware, are among the common ways office networks get compromised. Phishing emails are becoming more sophisticated making manual reviews more challenging. Automated tools could easily weed out such emails from company servers. Improvements needed Unlike in other areas, security automation is only starting to gain traction meaning there are still kinks that have to be ironed out. For instance, it is possible for automated solutions to be too stringent. Firewalls might block legitimate traffic and threat detection mechanisms might report back false positives. Such episodes could hamper user experience and productivity. Tasks such as endpoint management, monitoring, and response could also benefit from orchestration. Many of the available services are currently offered by different providers. Integrations across these services are limited. Having an orchestration layer that could merge these services into customisable workflows would be ideal since companies and organisations typically have their own way of doing things. Giving IT teams a fighting chance IT teams must be able to hold their ground against the rampant threats they face. Most threats are now automated, so automating security would give IT teams a fighting chance to cope with these challenges. While no system is full-proof yet, automation frees IT teams from typical tedious tasks so they can then refocus their energies towards other high-value activities. Having more ways to mitigate risks empowers IT teams to be better guardians of companies’ IT data and resources. Source: https://www.itproportal.com/features/security-automation-can-help-it-teams-limit-cyberattack-risks/