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Before yesterdaySecurity

A Craving for Hummus - BSW #167

By paul@securityweekly.com

This week, we welcome Jeff Costlow, Deputy CISO at ExtraHop, to discuss Protect Your Assets According to Their Value! In the Leadership and Communications segment, Matt, Jason, and Paul discuss Real Leaders: Abraham Lincoln and the Power of Emotional Discipline, Social Distancing: 15 Ideas for How to Stay Sane, Rethink Your Relationship with Your Vendors, and more!

 

To learn more about ExtraHop, visit: https://securityweekly.com/extrahop

Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/BSWEpisode167

 

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  • March 24th 2020 at 23:00

Zoombombing, Signal Sciences, & Zero Days - SWN #21

By paul@securityweekly.com

This week, Doug White brings you the latest news for this week, including Zoombombing, Zero Days at Microsoft, AI Takes charge at Facebook, and COVID-19! In the Expert Commentary, we welcome Daniel Hampton, Sr. Technical Account Manager at Signal Sciences, to talk Working Smarter and Not Harder!

 

To learn more about Signal Sciences or to request a demo, visit: https://securityweekly.com/signalsciences

Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/SWNEpisode21

 

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  • March 24th 2020 at 19:54

The Wawa Breach: 30 Million Reasons to Try Dark Web Monitoring

By Trend Micro

We’re all getting a little more worldly wise to the dangers that lurk around every corner of our digital lives. We know that the flipside of being able to shop, chat, bank and share online at the push of a button is the risk of data theft, ransomware and identity fraud. That’s why we protect our families’ PCs and mobile devices with security solutions from proven providers like Trend Micro, and take extra care each time we fire up the internet.

But what about the firms that we entrust to handle our data securely?

Unfortunately, many of these organizations still aren’t doing enough to protect our personal and financial information. It could be data we enter online to pay for an item or open an account. Or it could be payment card details that we’ve used at a local outlet which are subsequently stored online. These companies are big targets for the bad guys, who only have to get lucky once to crack open an Aladdin’s Cave of lucrative customer data.

What does this mean? That data breaches are the new normal. Last year in the US there were a reported 1,473 of these incidents, exposing nearly 165 million customer records. The latest affected customers of convenience store and gas station chain Wawa — and it could be one of the biggest ever, affecting 30 million cards.

Let’s take a look at what happened, and what consumers can do to steal a march on the bad guys.

What happened this time?

Wawa first notified its customers of a payment card breach in December 2019. But although the firm discovered malware on its payment processing servers that month, it had actually been sitting there since March, potentially siphoning card data silently from every single Wawa location. That’s more than 850 stores, across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Florida, and Washington DC.

The company itself has so far declined to put a number on how many customers have been affected. However, while cardholders were still wondering whether they’ve been impacted or not, something else happened. At the end of January, a hacker began to upload the stolen cards to a notorious dark web marketplace, known as Joker’s Stash.

They are claiming to have 30 million stolen cards in total, which if accurate could make this one of the biggest card breaches of its kind, placing it alongside other incidents at Home Depot (2014) and Target (2013).

How does it affect me?

Once the data goes on sale on a dark web market like this, it is usually bought by scammers, who use it in follow-on identity fraud attacks. In this case, the stolen data includes debit and credit card numbers, expiration dates and cardholder names, but not PINs or CVV records. That means they can’t be used at ATMs and fraudsters will find it hard to use the cards online, as most merchants require the CVV number.

However, if the cards are of the old magstripe type, they could be cloned for use in face-to-face transactions.

Although Wawa said it has informed the relevant card issuers and brands, the cardholders themselves must monitor their cards for unusual transactions and then report to their issuer “in a timely manner” if they want to be reimbursed for any fraudulent usage. This can be a distressing, time-consuming process.

What should I do next?

This is by no means the first and it won’t be the last breach of this kind. In the past, data stolen from customers of Hilton Hotels, supermarket chain Hy-Vee, retailer Bebe Stores, and restaurant chains including Krystal, Moe’s and Schlotzsky’s has turned up for sale on Joker’s Stash. It can be dispiriting for consumers to see their personal data time and again compromised in this way by cyber-criminals.

Too often in the aftermath of such incidents, the customers themselves are left in the dark. There is no information on whether they’ve definitively had their personal or card data stolen, just an ominous sense that something bad may be about to happen. If the company itself doesn’t even know how many cards have been affected, how can you act decisively?

Credit monitoring is often provided by breached firms, but this is a less-than-perfect solution. For one thing, such services only alert the user if a new line of credit is being opened in their name — not if a stolen card is being used. And second, they only raise the alarm after the incident, by which time the fraudsters may already have made a serious dent in your finances.

Monitoring your bank account for fraudulent transactions is arguably more useful in cases like the Wawa breach, but it’s still too reactive. Here’s a handy 2-step plan which could provide better results:

Step 1: Dark web monitoring works

To get more proactive, consumers need Dark Web monitoring. These tools typically scour dark web sites like Joker’s Stash to look for your personal information. The beauty of this approach is that it can raise the alarm after a breach has occurred, when the data is posted to the Dark Web, but before a fraudster has had time to monetize your stolen details. With this information, you can proactively request that your lender block a particular card and issue a new one.

This approach works for all personal data you may want to keep protected, including email addresses, driver’s license, passport numbers and passwords.

Step 2: Password protection

Once you’ve determined that your data has been part of a breach and is being sold on the dark web, one of the most important things you can do is to change your passwords to any stolen accounts, in order to minimize the potential damage that fraudsters can do.

This is where password manager tools can come in very handy. They allow users to store and recall long, strong and unique credentials for each of the websites and apps they use. This means that if one password is compromised, as in a breach scenario, your other accounts will remain secure. It also makes passwords harder for hackers to guess, which they may try to do with automated tools if they already have your email address.

Following a breach, it also makes sense to look out for follow-on phishing attacks which may try to trick you into handing over more information to the fraudsters. Here are a few tips:

  • Be wary of any unsolicited email, even if it appears to come from a reputable vendor
  • Don’t click on links in unsolicited emails, or download attachments
  • If an email asks you for personal data, check directly with the source, rather than clicking through/replying
  • Invest in AV with anti-phishing from a trusted vendor, for all desktop and mobile devices
  • Ensure all operating systems and applications are on the latest version.

How Trend Micro can help

Fortunately, Trend Micro has several products that can help you, as a potential or actual victim of a data breach, to proactively mitigate the fallout from a serious security incident, or to foil the fraudsters:

Trend Micro ID Security: checks if your personal information has been uploaded to Dark Web sites by hackers. This highly secure service, available in apps for Android and iOS mobile devices, uses data hashing and an encrypted connected to keep your details safe, alerting when it has found a match on the Dark Web so you can take action. Use it to protect your emails, credit card numbers, passwords, bank accounts, passport details and more.

Trend Micro Password Manager: provides a secure place to store, manage and update your passwords. It remembers your log-ins, so you can create secure and unique credentials for each website/app you need to sign-in to. This means if one site is breached, hackers will not be able to use that password to open your other accounts. Password Manager is available for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android, synchronizing your passwords across all four platforms.

Trend Micro Fraud Buster: is a free online service you can use to check suspicious emails It uses advanced machine learning technology to identify scam emails that don’t contain malicious URLs or attachments but still pose a risk to the user, because the email (which may be extortionist) reflects the fact that the fraudster probably got your email address from the Dark Web in the first place. Users can then decide to report the scam, get more details, or proceed as before.

Fraud Buster is also now integrated into Trend Micro Security for Windows, protecting Gmail and Outlook webmail in Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Firefox. It’s also integrated in Trend Micro Antivirus for Mac, where it does the same for Gmail webmail in Safari, Chrome and Firefox on the Mac.

In the end, only you can guard your identity credentials with vigilance.

The post The Wawa Breach: 30 Million Reasons to Try Dark Web Monitoring appeared first on .

Another Critical COVID-19 Shortage: Digital Security, (Tue, Mar 24th)

Following is a guest cross-post from John Scott-Railton, a Senior Researcher at The Citizen Lab. His work focuses on technological threats to civil society.
  • March 24th 2020 at 04:14

Syncing of the Minds - ASW #101

By paul@securityweekly.com

This week, we welcome Adam Hughes, Chief Software Architect at Sylabs Inc., to discuss Singularity: A Different Take on Container Security! In the second segment, we welcome Utsav Sanghani, Senior Product Manager at Synopsys, to discuss Why combining SAST and SCA in your IDE produces higher quality, secure software faster!

 

To learn more about Synopsys, visit: https://securityweekly.com/synopsys

Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/ASWEpisode101

 

Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes!

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  • March 23rd 2020 at 22:00

KPOT Deployed via AutoIt Script, (Mon, Mar 23rd)

I have other samples like the malware I covered in yesterday's diary entry.
  • March 23rd 2020 at 18:31

More COVID-19 Themed Malware, (Sun, Mar 22nd)

Reader Andrew received a COVID-19 themed email with malicious attachment, and submitted the complete email.
  • March 22nd 2020 at 20:30


Honeypot - Scanning and Targeting Devices & Services, (Sat, Mar 21st)

I was curious this week to see if my honeypot traffic would increase since a large portion of the world is working from home. Reviewing my honeypot logs, I decided to check what type of filename was mostly targeted (GET/POST/HEAD) by scanners  this past week on any web supported ports (i.e. 80, 81, 8000, etc). This first graph shows overall activity for the past 7 days.
  • March 21st 2020 at 20:28

The Idaho Experience - PSW #644

By paul@securityweekly.com

This week, we welcome back Corey Thuen, Founder and CEO of Gravwell, to discuss Zen and The Art of Logs In the Cloud! In our second segment, we welcome back Peter Smith, Founder and CEO of Edgewise, to discuss How remote users and administrators can work securely from home! In the Security News, Authorities Helpless as Crypto-Currency Scams Rock Nigeria, C.S. Lewis on the Coronavirus, Microsoft SMBv3.11 Vulnerability and Patch CVE-20200796 Explained, Drobo 5N2 4.1.1 - Remote Command Injection, DDoS attack on US Health agency part of coordinated campaign, A cyberattack hits the US Department of Health and Human Services, and more!

 

Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/PSWEpisode644

To learn more about Gravwell, visit: https://securityweekly.com/gravwell

To learn more about Edgewise, visit: https://securityweekly.com/edgewise

 

Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/psw for all the latest episodes!

Visit https://securityweekly.com/acm to sign up for a demo or buy our AI Hunter!

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  • March 20th 2020 at 21:00

SMBv3.11, COVID-19, & Drobo Exploit - Wrap Up - SWN #20

By paul@securityweekly.com

This week, Doug White brings to you the Security Weekly News Wrap Up, with the hot topics across all of our shows, including, Pornhub has Italians singing from balconies, The Senate renews surveillance rules, Drobo hacks, Google Cloud bug bounties, all the show wrapups, and COVID-19

 

Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/SWNEpisode20

Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/swn for all the latest episodes!

 

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  • March 20th 2020 at 20:02

This Week in Security News: How to Stay Safe as Online Coronavirus Scams Spread and Magecart Cyberattack Targets NutriBullet Website

By Jon Clay (Global Threat Communications)
week in security

Welcome to our weekly roundup, where we share what you need to know about the cybersecurity news and events that happened over the past few days. This week, learn about tips you can use to secure your home office. Also, read about how Magecart Group 8 targeted the website of the blender manufacturer, NutriBullet, in an attempt to steal the payment-card data of its online customers.

 

Read on:

A Message from Our COO Regarding Trend Micro’s Customer Commitment During the Global Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19)

As COVID-19 continues to impact individuals, families, communities and businesses around the world, Trend Micro has taken action to ensure that the COVID-19 crisis does not impact the customer experience of its products or services. In this blog from Trend Micro’s chief operating officer, Kevin Simzer, learn about the steps that Trend Micro is taking to not only ensure employee safety, but to continue to deliver exceptional customer service.

RDP-Capable TrickBot Targets Telecoms Sectors in U.S. and Hong Kong

A recently discovered TrickBot variant targeting organizations in telecoms, education and financial services in the United States and Hong Kong includes a module for remote desktop protocol (RDP) brute-forcing, Bitdefender reports. The malware has mostly been distributed through spam emails but was also linked to infections with other malware.

How to Stay Safe as Online Coronavirus Scams Spread

Unfortunately, it’s extraordinary global events like COVID-19 that cyber-criminals look for in order to make their schemes more successful. As organizations enforce remote working to reduce the impact of the virus, many will be logging-on from home or mobile computing devices, which may have fewer built-in protections from such threats. This makes it more important than ever to know how the bad guys are trying to cash in on COVID-19 and what you can do to stay safe.

DDoS Attack Targets German Food Delivery Service

Cybercriminals have launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack against German food delivery service Takeaway.com (Liefrando.de), demanding two bitcoins (about $11,000) to stop the flood of traffic. Liefrando delivers food from more than 15,000 restaurants in Germany, where people under COVID-19 restrictions depend on the service. The attack has now stopped, according to a report from BleepingComputer. 

Suddenly Teleworking, Securely

Telework is not a new idea and a good percentage of the workforce already does so. But the companies who have a distributed workforce had time to plan for it, and to plan for it securely. This event can’t be treated like a quick rollout of an application: there are business, infrastructure, and customer security impacts. In this blog from Trend Micro’s vice president of cybersecurity, Greg Young, learn how to set yourself up for secure remote work success.

COVID-19: With Everyone Working from Home, VPN Security Has Now Become Paramount

With most employees working from home amid today’s COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak, enterprise VPN servers have now become paramount to a company’s backbone, and their security and availability must be the focus going forward for IT teams.

New Ursnif Campaign Targets Users in Japan

Trend Micro researchers recently detected a new Ursnif campaign targeting users in Japan. The malware is distributed through infected Microsoft Word documents coming from spam emails. Ursnif, also known as Gozi, is an information stealer that collects login credentials from browsers and email applications. It has capabilities for monitoring network traffic, screen capturing, and keylogging.

Trend Micro’s David Sancho on Criminals’ Favorite IoT Targets

In this video, Trend Micro Senior Researcher David Sancho speaks with CyberScoop Editor-in-Chief Greg Otto about his 2020 RSA Conference presentation, which looked at where criminals are infecting Internet of Things targets.

New Variant of Paradise Ransomware Spreads Through IQY Files

Internet Query Files (IQY) were used to deliver a new variant of Paradise ransomware, as reported by Last Line. The said file type has not been associated with this ransomware family before. In the past, IQY files were typically used in other malware campaigns, such as the Necurs botnet that distributes IQY files to deliver FlawedAmmy RAT.

Magecart Cyberattack Targets NutriBullet Website

Magecart Group 8 targeted the website of the blender manufacturer, NutriBullet, in an attempt to steal the payment-card data of its online customers. Yonathan Klijnsma, threat researcher with RiskIQ, said in a post that a JavaScript web skimmer code was first inserted on the website of the blender retailer on Feb. 20, specifically targeting the website’s checkout page.

The IIoT Threat Landscape: Securing Connected Industries

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) provides bridges of connectedness that enable seamless IT and OT convergence. However, threat actors can cross these bridges to compromise systems. As the use of IoT extends beyond the home and goes into the vast industrial landscape, the scale of threats likewise grows for smart factories, smart cities, connected cars, and other smart environments.

What are you doing to secure your home office devices? Share your thoughts in the comments below or follow me on Twitter to continue the conversation: @JonLClay.

The post This Week in Security News: How to Stay Safe as Online Coronavirus Scams Spread and Magecart Cyberattack Targets NutriBullet Website appeared first on .

Pulling Pieces Together - ESW #176

By paul@securityweekly.com

This week, we talk Enterprise News, to talk about Fortinet Introducing Self-Learning AI Appliance for Sub-Second Threat Detection Enterprise IT World, GreatHorn Offers Free Email Protection for 60 Days, ZeroNorth raises $10M to further expand engineering, customer support and sales, WordPress to get automatic updates for plugins and themes, and more!! In our second segment, we air two pre recorded interviews with Mehul Revanker of SaltStack and Utsav Sanghani of Synopsys from RSAC 2020! In our final segment, we air two more pre recorded interviews from the RSAC2020, with Kevin Gallagher of Netsparker and Mark Ralls of Acunetix!

 

To request a demo with SaltStack, visit: https://securityweekly.com/saltstack

To get a demo of Synopsys, please visit: https://securityweekly.com/synopsys

To schedule a demo with Acunetix, visit: https://securityweekly.com/acunetix

To get a demo of NetSparker, please visit: https://securityweekly.com/netsparker

 

Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes!

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  • March 19th 2020 at 21:00

COVID-19 Themed Multistage Malware, (Thu, Mar 19th)

More and more countries are closing their borders and ask citizens to stay at home. The COVID-19 virus is everywhere and also used in campaigns to lure more victims who are looking for information about the pandemic. I found a malicious email that delivers a multi-stage malware.
  • March 19th 2020 at 06:41

More Comfy Clothes - BSW #166

By paul@securityweekly.com

This week, we welcome Stephen Black, InfoSecWorld 2020 Speaker and Visiting Professor of Cyberlaw at the University of Houston, to discuss Where the Law Thinks Your Data Lives! In the Leadership and Communications segment, Drowning in a Sea of Alerts, Boeing taps Qantas exec Susan Doniz as CIO, CIO interview: Ian Cohen, chief product and technology officer, at Addison Lee, and more!

 

Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/BSWEpisode166

Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/bsw for all the latest episodes!

 

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  • March 18th 2020 at 21:00

The Artifacts - SCW #21

By paul@securityweekly.com

This week, we welcome Matt Allen from VIAVI Solutions! The SCW crew discusses compliance requirements and SecOps frameworks like NIST - checking boxes rather than a holistic view? The vendor eco-system feeding on checking boxes (of which we are one, we HAVE to be.) RSA s theme this year: the human factor . Are CFOs driving technical decisions that put SecOps teams underwater? Investing in Protect vs. Detect vs. Responding tools/resources.

 

Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/SCWEpisode21

To learn more about VIAVI Solutions, visit: https://securityweekly.com/viavi

 

Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/scw for all the latest episodes!

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  • March 18th 2020 at 13:31

How to Stay Safe as Online Coronavirus Scams Spread

By Trend Micro
Here, we'll take a look at several best practices for protecting kids on the Internet, and how, as a parent or guardian, you can do your part to help safeguard young users' online activities.

Few national emergencies have the ability to strike panic into the populace quite like a virus pandemic. It’s fortunately something most of us have never had to experience, until now. At the time of writing, the number of global confirmed cases of Coronavirus infection, or COVID-19, has reached nearly 174,000 worldwide. Although the official US total currently remains a fraction of that (around 4,000), problems with testing mean many cases are likely to be going unreported here.

This is a difficult time for many Americans, as it is for citizens all over the world. But unfortunately it’s extraordinary global events like this that cyber-criminals look for in order to make their schemes more successful. True to form, they’re using mass awareness of the outbreak and a popular desire for more information on the virus, to trick users into giving away personal information and log-ins, or to unwittingly install malware on their devices.

As organizations enforce remote working to reduce the impact of the virus, many of you will be logging-on from home or your mobile computing devices, which may have fewer built-in protections from such threats. This makes it more important than ever to know how the bad guys are trying to cash in on COVID-19 and what you can do to stay safe.

Here’s a quick guide to the key online threats and security tips:

Phishing for trouble

Decades before COVID-19 burst onto the scene, a different kind of pandemic was spreading across the globe. Phishing messages have been one of the most popular tools in the hackers’ arsenal for years. In fact, Trend Micro blocked nearly 48 billion email-borne threats in 2019, 91% of the total we detected. Phishing is designed to trick the user into handing over their log-ins or personal and financial details, or persuading them to unwittingly download malware. Cyber-criminals typically achieve this by spoofing an email to make it appear as if sent from a legitimate and trustworthy source.

Once a user has been hooked, they are enticed into clicking on a malicious link or opening a malware-laden attachment. This could be anything from a banking trojan designed to steal online banking log-ins, to a piece of ransomware which will lock the user out of their PC until they pay a fee. It could even be cryptojacking malware which sits on the infected machine, quietly mining for Bitcoin while running up large energy bills and slowing down your PC.

The bad news is that phishing messages — whether sent by email, social media, text or messaging app — are getting harder to spot. Many now feature perfect English, and official logos and sender domains. They also often use current newsworthy events to trick the user into clicking. And they don’t get more high-profile than the COVID-19 pandemic.

Depending on how well protected your computing devices are, you may be more likely to receive one of these scam messages than be exposed to the virus itself. So, it pays to know what’s out there.

Watch out for these scams

The phishing landscape is evolving all the time. But here is a selection of some of the most common scams doing the rounds at the moment:

‘Official’ updates

Many of these emails purport to come from official organizations such as the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), or the World Health Organization (WHO). They claim to contain key updates on the spread of the virus and must-read recommendations on how to avoid infection. Booby-trapped links and attachments carry malware and/or could redirect users to phishing sites.

Coronavirus map

Sometimes legitimate tools can be hijacked to spread malware. Researchers have spotted a version of the interactive Coronavirus dashboard created by Johns Hopkins University which was altered to contain information-stealing malware known as AZORult. If emails arrive with links to such sites, users should exercise extreme caution.

Corporate updates

Many big brands are proactively contacting their customer base to reassure them of the steps they are taking to keep staff and customers safe from the virus. But here too, the hackers are jumping in with spoof messages of their own purporting to come from the companies you may do business with. FedEx is one such global brand that has been spoofed in this way.

Donations

Another trick is to send phishing emails calling for donations to help fund research into the virus. One, claiming to come from the “Department of Health” has a subject line, “URGENT: Coronavirus, Can we count on your support today?” A key tactic in phishing emails is to create a sense of urgency like this to rush the reader into making hasty decisions.

Click here for a cure

One scam email claims to come from a medical professional and contains details about a vaccine for COVID-19 which has been “hushed up” by global governments. Of course, clicking through to find the non-existent ‘cure’ will bring the recipient nothing but trouble.

Tax refunds

In the UK, users have received emails spoofed to appear as if sent from the government, and promising a tax refund to help citizens cope with the financial shock of the pandemic. As governments in the US and elsewhere start to take more interventionist measures to prop up their economies, we can expect more of these types of phishing email.

How to stay safe

The good news is that there’s plenty you can do to protect you and your family from phishing emails like these. A blend of the following technical and human fixes will go a long way to minimizing the threat:

  • Be cautious of any unsolicited emails/social media messages etc, even if they appear to come from a reputable organization or a known contact.
  • Don’t click through on any links/buttons in unsolicited emails, or download attachments.
  • If an email asks you for personal data, check directly with the sender rather than clicking through and entering those details.
  • Invest in cybersecurity tools from a trusted vendor like Trend Micro, to spot and block scam emails and block malicious downloads and websites.
  • Disable macros in Office files – these are often used by hackers to run malware.

How Trend Micro can help

Fortunately, Trend Micro Security can also help. Among its anti-phishing features are the following:

Antispam for Outlook: includes checks on email sender reputation, employs web threat protection to block malicious URLs in messages, and scans for threats in files attached to email messages.

Fraud Buster: uses leading-edge AI technology to detect fake emails in Gmail and Outlook webmail that don’t contain malicious URLs or attachments, but still pose a risk to the user.

To find out more about how Trend Micro can help keep your family safe from online threats and phishing, go to our Trend Micro Security homepage, or watch our video series: How to Prevent Phishing, Part 1 and Part 2.

The post How to Stay Safe as Online Coronavirus Scams Spread appeared first on .

COVIDLock, HHS, & Android Stalkerware - SWN #19

By paul@securityweekly.com

This week, Doug White talks Plague surveillance coming soon, the US government is worried about cryptocurrency, dbags attack the HHS, and new attacks on Android phones! Jason Wood delivers the Expert Commentary on Coronavirus Phishing Scams!

 

Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/SWNEpisode19

Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/swn for all the latest episodes!

 

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  • March 17th 2020 at 21:37

A Quick Summary of Current Reflective DNS DDoS Attacks, (Tue, Mar 17th)

DNS is still a popular protocol to amplify denial of service attacks. A rather small DNS query, sent to an open recursive resolver, can be used to trigger a large response. Over the last few years, DNS servers implemented many countermeasures to make it more difficult to launch these attacks and easier to mitigate them. It also has become easier (but not trivial) to defend against these attacks. But in the end, you still have to "buy your way out" of a denial of service attacks. For smaller organizations, even an average attack can be devastating.
  • March 17th 2020 at 15:25

100 Years - ASW #100

By paul@securityweekly.com

This week, we welcome Clint Gibler, Research Director at NCC Group, to discuss DevSecOps and Scaling Security! In the Application Security News, Data of millions of eBay and Amazon shoppers exposed as another supply chain casualty, Announcing Bottlerocket, a new open-source Linux-based operating system purpose-built to run containers, and The DevOps Sweet Spot: Inserting Security at Pull Requests (Part 1)!

 

Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/ASWEpisode100

Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes!

 

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  • March 17th 2020 at 15:20

A message from our COO regarding Trend Micro’s Customer commitment during the global Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19)

By Trend Micro

The recent outbreak of COVID-19 has affected peoples’ lives across the globe and has quickly swept through and impacted individuals, families, communities, and businesses around the world. At Trend Micro, our number one priority is to ensure that our employees and their families are as safe as possible, and our thoughts are with those who have been affected by the virus.

Our team has spent a great deal of time reviewing options to ensure both the continued protection of our customers and partners, as well as the physical safety of our employees. We realize this situation remains very dynamic, as information continues to change day-to-day, and as such we will continue to provide updates as we learn more, but in the meantime we remain committed to providing the superior service and support that our customers, partners and suppliers have come to expect of our company throughout this situation.

We know the critical role that Trend Micro plays in your organization to keep your company and employees protected. We have taken several measures to ensure that the COVID-19 crisis does not impact your experience with Trend Micro products or services.

Listed below are several actions that the team has taken to date to not only ensure that our employees are safe, but to continue to deliver business “as usual” during this time:

Safety of Employees
Our number one priority is the health and safety of our employees around the globe. To that measure, we have:

  • Abided by local government guidelines: All of our global offices are adhering to guidelines and best practices from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), other global health organizations and local government guidelines.
  • Ability to work from remote locations: Many teams at Trend Micro have worked remotely from all corners of the globe for over a decade. This practice has enabled us to provide you with world-class products and service even in a time of social distancing. With the COVID-19 situation, we have shifted our workforce to virtual/remote wherever it is feasible, and we are maintaining critical onsite operations as needed.  At this time, we have not experienced any major impact to our business operations as a result of this temporary shift, and we will continue to closely monitor and adjust as appropriate to ensure we are continuing to deliver world class security protection and service for our customers and partners.
  • Travel restrictions: We have suspended all international travel, with only essential domestic travel permitted where still allowed (and if the employee is comfortable doing so).  As new restrictions are being placed daily, we will continue to closely monitor this situation and react appropriately.
  • Ongoing Vigilance: A cross-functional team within Trend Micro is closely monitoring all aspects of the crisis and will take prudent, agile, and swift action necessary to ensure the safety of our employees.  We are committed to doing our part to minimize the spread of COVID-19 while ensuring service continuity for you.

 

Continuity of Service
We are committed to ensuring that we continue to support the security needs of your organization, including but not limited to:

  • Product Infrastructure: All Trend products are built upon a highly reliable commercial cloud infrastructure and delivered through a variety of content delivery networks. This includes our ISO 27001-certified SaaS offerings.
  • Support Infrastructure: Our major global support centers have already shifted to remote/virtual operations and are working to ensure the customer experience is as seamless as possible.
  • Flexibility: As with any best-in-class SaaS organization, we are able to perform all systems monitoring and product development remotely.
  • Supply Chain: We are working very closely with our global suppliers and technical content providers/partners to ensure that availability and normal operations of our technology and services are not adversely impacted due to measures that they will have to put into place for combating this issue as well.
  • Resilience: Our R&D, Support and other technology teams are globally dispersed and able to provide you with around the clock access. Though geographically spread out, we are one global, highly coordinated team, dedicated to supporting your business needs. We have been operating in this model for decades, and we consider this to be one of Trend Micro’s inherent strengths for continuing to have a strong operational model in times of crisis such as this.

As an optimistic organization, we believe that because of this unfortunate situation, new ways to work together and incredible innovation will occur and will make us all stronger in the future.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to your local account representative or Trend Micro authorized support contact.   We will continue to watch this situation closely, react accordingly and communicate any substantial changes with our customers and partners.

On behalf of everyone at Trend Micro, thank you for trusting us with your business. We wish health and safety to you and your families, employees, and customers.

 

Sincerely,

Kevin Simzer

Chief Operating Officer

Trend Micro Incorporated

 

The post A message from our COO regarding Trend Micro’s Customer commitment during the global Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) appeared first on .

COVID-19, ShmooCon, & FIDO - Wrap Up - SWN #18

By paul@securityweekly.com

This week, Doug White brings you the Security Weekly News Wrap up, discussing Biting other passengers on EU flights, Everyone is going to telecommute, NSO argues with Facebook in court of phone bugging, the return of FIDO, and more!

 

Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/SWNEpisode18

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  • March 16th 2020 at 20:17

Desktop.ini as a post-exploitation tool, (Mon, Mar 16th)

Desktop.ini files have been part of Windows operating systems for a long time. They provide users with the option to customize the appearance of specific folders in File Explorer, such as changing their icons[1]. That is not all they are good for, however.
  • March 16th 2020 at 07:15

VPN Access and Activity Monitoring, (Sun, Mar 15th)

Because most individuals are going to have to work remotely from home, the activity that should be scrutinized over the coming weeks would be ports associated with VPN like OpenVPN (1194) or SSL VPN (TCP/UDP 443, IPsec/IKEv2 UDP 500/4500) with their associated logs to ensure these services are accessed by the right individuals and are not abused, exploited or compromised. It will be very important the VPN service is patched and up-to-date because there will be way more scrutiny (scanning) against these services. Capturing metrics about performance and availability will be very important to ensure mission critical systems and applications can be accessed to avoid downtime.
  • March 15th 2020 at 22:39

A Bunch of Old Farts - PSW #643

By paul@securityweekly.com

This week, we welcome back Gabe Gumbs, Chief Innovation Officer at Spirion, to discuss How attackers will change their strategy to target those working from home! In our second segment, we welcome Bianca Lewis, Founder, and CEO of Girls Who Hack, to discuss Girls Who Hack, teaching classes to middle school girls on hacking, and Secure Open Vote, open-source election system that is in the design stages! In the final segment, we air a pre-recorded interview with Dorit Naparstek, director of R&D at NanoLock Security, to discuss Hacks performed on connected & IoT devices, and revealing major vulnerabilities in existing security measures!

 

Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/PSWEpisode643

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  • March 15th 2020 at 14:49

Phishing PDF With Incremental Updates., (Sat, Mar 14th)

Someone asked me for help with this phishing PDF.
  • March 14th 2020 at 21:54

Suddenly Teleworking, Securely

By Greg Young (Vice President for Cybersecurity)

So you suddenly have a lot of staff working remotely. Telework is not new and a good percentage of the workforce already does so. But the companies who have a distributed workforce had time to plan for it, and to plan for it securely.

A Lot of New Teleworkers All At Once

This event can’t be treated like a quick rollout of an application: there are business, infrastructure, and customer security impacts. There will be an increase of work for help desks as new teleworkers wrestle with remote working.

Additionally, don’t compound the problem. There is advice circulating to reset all passwords for remote workers. This opens the door for increased social engineering to attempt to lure overworked help desk staff into doing password resets that don’t comply with policy. Set expectations for staff that policy must be complied with, and to expect some delays while the help desk is overloaded.

Business continuity issues will arise as limited planning for remote workers could max out VPN licenses, firewall capacity, and application timeouts as many people attempt to use the same apps through a narrower network pipe.

Help Staff Make A Secure Home Office

In the best of times, remote workers are often left to their own devices (pun intended) for securing their work at home experience. Home offices are already usually much less secure than corporate offices: weak routers, unmanaged PCs, and multiple users means home offices become an easier attack path into the enterprise.

It doesn’t make sense to have workers operate in a less secure environment in this context. Give them the necessary security tools and operational tools to do their business. Teleworkers, even with a company-issued device, are likely to work on multiple home devices. Make available enterprise licensed storage and sharing tools, so employees don’t have to resort to ‘sketchy’ or weak options when they exceed the limits for free storage on Dropbox or related services.

A Secure Web Gateway as a service is a useful option considering that teleworkers using a VPN will still likely be split tunneling (i.e. not going through corporate security devices when browsing to non-corporate sites, etc.), unlike when they are in the corporate office and all connections are sanitized. That is especially important in cases where a weak home router gets compromised and any exfiltration or other ‘phone home’ traffic from malware needs to be spotted.

A simple way to get this information out to employees is to add remote working security tips to any regularly occurring executive outreach.

Operational Issues

With a large majority of businesses switching to a work-from-home model with less emphasis on in-person meetings, we also anticipate that malicious actors will start to impersonate digital tools, such as ‘free’ remote conferencing services and other cloud computing software.

Having a policy on respecting telework privacy is a good preventative step to minimize the risk of this type of attack being successful. Remote workers may be concerned about their digital privacy when working from home, so any way to inform them about likely attack methods can help.

Any steps to prevent staff trying to evade security measures out of a concern over privacy are likely a good investment.

Crisis Specific Risks

During any major event or crisis, socially engineered attacks and phishing will increase. Human engineering means using any lever to make it a little bit easier for targets to click on a link.

We’re seeing targeted email attacks taking advantage of this. Some will likely use tactics such as attachments named “attached is your Work At Home Allowance Voucher,” spoofed corporate guidelines, or HR documents.

Sadly, we expect hospitals and local governments will see increased targeting by ransomware due the expectation that payouts are likelier during an emergency.

But Hang On – It Is Not All Bad News

The good news is that none of these attacks are  new and we already have playbooks to defend against them. Give a reminder to all staff during this period to be more wary of phishing, but don’t overly depend on user education – back it up with security technology measures. Here are a few ways to do that.

  • Give your remote workers the security and productivity tools they need to protect themselves and their non-corporate IT resources.
  • Include an enterprise managed cloud storage account for work documents so employees don’t find free versions that may not be safe.
  • Enable customers and supply chain partners, who may also be teleworking, to interact with you securely.

The post Suddenly Teleworking, Securely appeared first on .

This Week in Security News: Operation Overtrap Targets Japanese Online Banking Users and Everything You Need to Know About Tax Scams

By Jon Clay (Global Threat Communications)
week in security

Welcome to our weekly roundup, where we share what you need to know about the cybersecurity news and events that happened over the past few days. This week, learn about the number of ways Operation Overtrap can infect or trap victims with its payload. Also, read about how to protect your personal identity data and money during tax-filing season.

Read on:

AWS Launches Bottlerocket, a Linux-based OS for Container Hosting

AWS has launched Bottlerocket, its own open-source operating system for running containers on both virtual machines and bare metal hosts. The new OS is a stripped-down Linux distribution that’s akin to projects like CoreOS’s now-defunct Container Linux and Google’s container-optimized OS. The project is launching in cooperation with several partners including Alcide, Armory, CrowdStrike, Datadog, New Relic, Sysdig, Tigera, Trend Micro and Waveworks.

Tax Scams – Everything You Need to Know to Keep Your Money and Data Safe

There are two things that cybercriminals are always on the hunt for: personal identity data and money. During the tax-filing season, both can be unwittingly exposed. Over the years, cybercriminals have adapted multiple tools and techniques to part taxpayers with their personal information and funds. This blog looks at the main threats out there and what you can do to stay safe.

March 2020 Patch Tuesday: Microsoft Fixes 115 Vulnerabilities, Adobe None

This week for March 2020 Patch Tuesday, Microsoft dropped fixes for 115 CVE-numbered flaws: 26 are critical, 88 important, and one of moderate severity. The good news is that none of them are under active attack. Adobe seems to have skipped this Patch Tuesday and there’s no indication whether the customary security updates are just delayed or if there won’t be any in the coming days.

Operation Overtrap Targets Japanese Online Banking Users Via Bottle Exploit Kit and Brand-New Cinobi Banking Trojan

Trend Micro recently discovered a new campaign dubbed “Operation Overtrap” for the number of ways it can infect or trap victims with its payload. The campaign targets online users of various Japanese banks by stealing their banking credentials using a three-pronged attack. Based on Trend Micro’s telemetry, Operation Overtrap has been active since April 2019.

Hackers Are Working Harder to Make Phishing and Malware Look Legitimate

Even though the overall volume of malware dropped in 2019, phishing and business email compromise (BEC) went up sharply, according to Trend Micro’s 2019 Cloud App Security Roundup. The company blocked nearly 400,000 attempted BEC attacks in 2018, which is 271% more than the previous year and 35% more credential phishing attempts than in 2018.

Busting Ghostcat: An Analysis of the Apache Tomcat Vulnerability (CVE-2020-1938 and CNVD-2020-10487)

Discussions surrounding the Ghostcat vulnerability (CVE-2020-1938 and CNVD-2020-10487) found in Apache Tomcat puts it in the spotlight as researchers investigated its security impact– specifically, its potential use for remote code execution (RCE). Learn more about the Ghostcat vulnerability in this blog analysis.

10 Key Female Cybersecurity Leaders to Know in 2020

In celebration of Women’s History Month, the editors of Solutions Review shared the accomplishments of ten key female cybersecurity leaders in 2020. Trend Micro’s CEO Eva Chen made the list based on her numerous accomplishments in the cybersecurity industry.

Coronavirus Used in Spam, Malware, and Malicious Domains

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is being used as bait in email spam attacks on targets across the globe. As the number of cases continues to grow, campaigns using the virus as a lure will likewise increase. This has been observed by multiple entities, and researchers from Trend Micro have also seen a significant spike in the detection of the subject in email spam attacks.

Cookiethief Android Malware Uses Proxies to Hijack Your Facebook Account

A combination of new modifications to Android malware code has given rise to Trojans able to steal browser and app cookies from compromised devices. Researchers from Kaspersky said the new malware families, dubbed Cookiethief, use a combination of exploits to acquire root rights to an Android device and then to steal Facebook cookie data. 

Nemty Ransomware Spreads via Love Letter Emails

Threat actors have been found distributing Nemty ransomware through a spam campaign using emails that pose as messages from lovers, according to a report by Malwarebytes and X-Force Iris researchers. Researchers from Trend Micro have also encountered the emails.

WordPress GDPR Plugin Vulnerable to Cross-Site Scripting Attacks

GDPR Cookie Consent, a WordPress plugin, inadvertently exposed websites to cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks through a vulnerability that affects versions 1.8.2 and below of the plugin. As disclosed in a report by NinTechNet, the vulnerability allowed privilege escalation. The plugin had over 700,000 active installations at the time of the exploit.

Analysis: Abuse of .NET Features for Compiling Malicious Programs

While the .NET framework is originally intended to help software engineers, cybercriminals have found a way to abuse its features to compile and execute malware on the fly. Recently, Trend Micro discovered several kinds of malware, such as LokiBot, utilizing this technique. 

OpenSMTPD Vulnerability (CVE-2020-8794) Can Lead to Root Privilege Escalation and Remote Code Execution

A root privilege escalation and remote execution vulnerability (designated as CVE-2020-8794) has been discovered in the free and open-source Unix Daemon, OpenSMTPD. The flaw originates from an out-of-bounds read, which attackers can take advantage of to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable systems.

Are you concerned about the security risks involved with filing your taxes online? Share your thoughts in the comments below or follow me on Twitter to continue the conversation: @JonLClay.

The post This Week in Security News: Operation Overtrap Targets Japanese Online Banking Users and Everything You Need to Know About Tax Scams appeared first on .

VMware Patches for Bugs in DHCP Service (Workstation, Fusion, Horizon, VMRC), (Fri, Mar 13th)

VMware Security Avisory VMSA-2020-0004 ( https://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2020-0004.html ) outlines a fix for a user-after-free bug in vmnetdhcp that allows guests to execute code in the host.  Affected platforms are: VMware Workstation Pro / Player, VMware Fusion Pro / Fusion, VMware Horizon Client for Windows, VMware Remote Console for Windows (VMRC for Windows)
  • March 13th 2020 at 11:39

Not all Ethernet NICs are Created Equal - Trying to Capture Invalid Ethernet Frames, (Fri, Mar 13th)

This all started with a simple request.  A client had purchased some new, shiny networking gear, and in each failover pair the active unit was sending 1 "Runt" per second.
  • March 13th 2020 at 01:08

Drink All the Booze, Log All the Things - ESW #175

By paul@securityweekly.com

This week, we talk Enterprise News, to talk about Neustar's enhanced UltraDNS capabilities boast greater capacity, global reach, and security, WatchGuard acquires Panda Security to expand endpoint capabilities, Ping Identity launches two-hybrid IT-focused solution packages, and Fortinet updates FortiOS & launches next-gen firewall product! In our second segment, we welcome back Corey Thuen, Co-Founder and CEO of Gravwell, to discuss Secondary Consequences of Bad Pricing Models! In our final segment, we air two pre-recorded interviews from the RSA conference 2020, with Corey Bodzin of ExtraHop, and Todd Weller of Bandura!

 

Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/ESWEpisode175

To try RevealX Cloud for Free visit: https://securityweekly.com/extrahop

To find out more about Bandura Cyber, please email Todd.Weller@banduracyber.com

To learn more about ExtraHop, visit: https://securityweeky.com/extrahop

 

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  • March 12th 2020 at 21:00

Hysteria Abound - BSW #165

By paul@securityweekly.com

This week, we discuss how we breakdown the categories in Information Security. We look at the major areas of Infosec and how they relate to your security programs and the vendors/technologies in each category. Our category breakdown will be used to label each segment we produce and allow subscribers to select categories of interest! In the Leadership and Communications segment, CISOs who leave after 2 years may not finish what they start, Most CISOs ready to move jobs if something better comes along, A New Framework for Executive Compensation, and more!

 

Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/BSWEpisode165

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  • March 12th 2020 at 09:00

Beer & Napkins - SCW #20

By paul@securityweekly.com

This week, we welcome Winn Schwartau for an interview. The goal of the show is to explore all the attitudes and impressions between security and compliance regardless of where you stand. for security folks - how to navigate compliance to promote security; for compliance folks - to expose them to the depth of research/knowledge/capabilities of the hacker community.

 

Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/SCWEpisode20

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  • March 11th 2020 at 21:00

FIDO, PwnedLocker, & Crex24 - SWN #17

By paul@securityweekly.com

This week, Microsoft starts disabling authentication, New ransomware called PwndLocker is out and about, and a secret-sharing app called Whisper is "the safest place on the internet. James Adams from Core Security, a Help Systems Company joins us today talking about "How to think and act like a hacker."

 

Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/SWNEpisode17

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  • March 11th 2020 at 16:00

Things Change - BSW #163

By paul@securityweekly.com

This week, we welcome David Sherry, Chief Information Security Officer at Princeton University, and Tara Schaufler, Information Security Awareness and Training Program Manager at Princeton University, to discuss Rapid Cultural Change of Security on the Princeton Campus! In the Leadership and Communications segment, Why 67% of companies fear they can't sustain privacy compliance, How Using An Old School Paper Planner Changed My Life, How to attract top talent in a competitive hiring market, and more!

 

Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/BSWEpisode163

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  • February 19th 2020 at 10:00

Party Like It's '99 - ASW #99

By paul@securityweekly.com

This week, we welcome Guy Podjarny, Snyk's Founder and President! In the Application Security News, Revoking certain certificates on March 4 and Why 3 million Let s Encrypt certificates are being killed off today, Gandalf: An Intelligent, End-To-End Analytics Service for Safe Deployment in Large-Scale Cloud Infrastructure and slides, and CISOs Who Want a Seat at the DevOps Table Better Bring Value!

 

Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/ASWEpisode99

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  • March 11th 2020 at 14:57

Agent Tesla Delivered via Fake Canon EOS Notification on Free OwnCloud Account, (Wed, Mar 11th)

For a few days, there are new waves of Agent Tesla[1] landing in our mailboxes. I found one that uses two new "channels" to deliver the trojan. Today, we can potentially receive notifications and files from many types of systems or devices. I found a phishing sample that tries to hide behind a Canon EOS camera notification. Not very well designed but it’s uncommon to see this. It started with a simple email:
  • March 11th 2020 at 09:06

Microsoft Patch Tuesday March 2020, (Tue, Mar 10th)

Microsoft today released patches for a total of 117 vulnerabilities. 25 of these vulnerabilities are rated critical. None of the vulnerabilities had been disclosed before today. Microsoft also has not seen any of them exploited in the wild.
  • March 11th 2020 at 00:04

Smart Check Validated for New Bottlerocket OS

By Trend Micro

Containers provide a list of benefits to organizations that use them. They’re light, flexible, add consistency across the environment and operate in isolation.

However, security concerns prevent some organizations from employing containers. This is despite containers having an extra layer of security built in – they don’t run directly on the host OS.

To make containers even easier to manage, AWS released an open-source Linux-based operating system meant for hosting containers. While Bottlerocket AMIs are provided at no cost, standard Amazon EC2 and AWS charges apply for running Amazon EC2 instances and other services.

Bottlerocket is purpose-built to run containers and improves security and resource utilization by only including the essential software to run containers, which improves resource utilization and reduces the attack surface compared to general-purpose OS’s.

At Trend Micro, we’re always focused on the security of our customers cloud environments. We’re proud to be a launch partner for AWS Bottlerocket, with our Smart Check component validated for the OS prior to the launch.

Why use additional security in cloud environments

While an OS specifically for containers that includes native security measures is a huge plus, there seems to be a larger question of why third-party security solutions are even needed in cloud environments. We often hear a misconception with cloud deployment that, since the cloud service provider has built in security, users don’t have to think about the security of their data.

That’s simply not accurate and leaves a false sense of security. (Pun intended.)

Yes – cloud providers like AWS build in security measures and have addressed common problems by adding built in security controls. BUT cloud environments operate with a shared responsibility model for security – meaning the provider secures the environment, and users are responsible for their instances and data hosted therein.

That’s for all cloud-based hosting, whether in containers, serverless or otherwise.

 

Why Smart Check in Bottlerocket matters

Smooth execution without security roadblocks

DevOps teams leverage containerized applications to deploy fast and don’t have time for separate security roadblocks. Smart Check is built for the DevOps community with real-time image scanning at any point in the pipeline to ensure insecure images aren’t deployed.

Vulnerability scanning before runtime

We have the largest vulnerability data set of any security vendor, which is used to scan images for known software flaws before they can be exploited at runtime. This not only includes known vendor vulnerabilities from the Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), but also vulnerability intelligence for bugs patched outside the ZDI program and open source vulnerability intelligence built in through our partnership with Snyk.

Flexible enough to fit with your pipeline

Container security needs to be as flexible as containers themselves. Smart Check has a simple admin process to implement role-based access rules and multiple concurrent scanning scenarios to fit your specific pipeline needs.

Through our partnership with AWS, Trend Micro is excited to help ensure customers can continue to execute on their portion of the shared responsibility model through container image scanning by validating that the Smart Check solution will be available for customers to run on Bottlerocket at launch.

More information can be found here: https://aws.amazon.com/bottlerocket/

If you are still interested in learning more, check out this AWS blog from Jeff Barr.

The post Smart Check Validated for New Bottlerocket OS appeared first on .

Trend Micro Cloud App Security Blocked 12.7 Million High-Risk Email Threats in 2019 – in addition to those detected by cloud email services’ built-in security

By Chris Taylor

On March 3, 2020, the cyber division of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a private industry notification calling out Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams through exploitation of cloud-based email services. Microsoft Office 365 and Google G Suite, the two largest cloud-based email services, are targeted by cyber criminals based on FBI complaint information since 2014. The scams are initiated through credential phishing attacks in order to compromise business email accounts and request or misdirect transfers of funds. Between January 2014 and October 2019, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received complaints totaling over $2.1 billion in actual losses from BEC scams targeting the two cloud services. The popularity of Office 365 and G Suite has positioned themselves as attractive targets for cybercriminals.

Trend Micro™ Cloud App Security™ is an API-based service protecting Microsoft® Office 365™, Google G Suite, Box, and Dropbox. Using multiple advanced threat protection techniques, it acts as a second layer of protection after emails and files have passed through Office 365 and G Suite’s built-in security.

In 2019, Trend Micro Cloud App Security caught 12.7 million high-risk email threats in addition to what Office 365 and Gmail security have blocked. Those threats include close to one million malware, 11.3 million phishing attempts, and 386,000 BEC attempts. The blocked threats include 4.8 million of credential phishing and 225,000 of ransomware. These are potential attacks that could result in an organization’s monetary, productivity, or even reputation losses.

Trend Micro started publishing its Cloud App Security threat report since 2018. For third year in a row, Trend Micro Cloud App Security is proven to provide effective protection for cloud email services. The following customer examples for different scenarios further show how Cloud App Security is protecting different organizations.

Customer examples: Additional detections after Office 365 built-in security (2019 data)

These five customers, ranging from 550 seats to 80K seats, are across different industries. All of them use E3, which includes basic security (Exchange Online Protection). This data shows the value of adding CAS to enhance Office 365 native security. For example, a transportation company with 80,000 Office 365 E3 users found an additional 16,000 malware, 510,000 malicious & phishing URLs and 27,000 BEC, all in 2019. With the average cost of a BEC attack at $75,000 each and the potential losses and costs to recover from credential phishing and ransomware attacks, Trend Micro Cloud App Security pays for itself very quickly.

Customer examples: Additional Detections after Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection (2019 data)

Customers using Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) also need an additional layer of filtering as well. For example, an IT Services company with 10,000 users of E3 and ATP detected an additional 14,000 malware, 713,000 malicious and phishing URLs, and 6,000 BEC in 2019 with Trend Micro Cloud App Security.

Customer examples: Additional Detections after third-party email gateway (2019 data)

Many customers use a third-party email gateway to scan emails before they are delivered to their Office 365 environment. Despite these gateway deployments, many of the sneakiest and hardest to detect threats still slipped though. Plus, a gateway solution can’t detect internal email threats, which can originate from compromised devices or accounts within Office 365.

For example, a business with 120,000 Office 365 users with a third-party email gateway stopped an additional 27,000 malware, 195,000 malicious and phishing emails, and almost 6,000 BEC in 2019 with Trend Micro Cloud App Security.

Customer examples: Additional Detections after Gmail built-in security (2019 data)

*Trend Micro Cloud App Security supports Gmail starting April 2019.

For customer choosing G suite, Trend Micro Cloud App Security can provide additional protection as well. For example, a telecommunication company with 12,500 users blocked almost 8,000 high risk threats with Cloud App Security in just five months.

Email gateway or built-in security for cloud email services is no longer enough to protect organizations from email-based threats. Businesses, no matter the size, are at risk from a plethora of dangers that these kinds of threats pose. Organizations should consider a comprehensive multilayered security solution such as Trend Micro Cloud App Security. It supplements the included security features in email and collaboration platforms like Office 365 and G Suite.

Check out the Trend Micro Cloud App Security Report 2019 to get more details on the type of threats blocked by this product and common email attacks analyzed by Trend Micro Research in 2019.

The post Trend Micro Cloud App Security Blocked 12.7 Million High-Risk Email Threats in 2019 – in addition to those detected by cloud email services’ built-in security appeared first on .

Tax Scams – Everything you need to know to keep your money and data safe

By Trend Micro

Tax season has always been a pretty nerve-wracking time for hard-working Americans. But over the years, technology advances have arrived to gradually make the process a bit easier. The bad news is that they can also introduce new cyber risks and even more stress.

There are two things that cybercriminals are always on the hunt for: people’s identity data from their accounts, and their money. And during the tax-filing season both can be unwittingly exposed. Over the years, cybercriminals have adapted multiple tools and techniques to part taxpayers with their personal information and funds.

Let’s take look at some of the main threats out there and what you can do to stay safe.

What do they want?

Cybercrime is a highly efficient money-making business. Some reports suggest this underground economy generates as much as $1.5 trillion each year. (See Into the Web of Profit, April 2018, McGuire, Bromium.) And tax-related scams are an increasingly popular way for the bad guys to drive-up profits. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) claims that “thousands of people have lost millions of dollars and their personal information” to such attacks.

The bottom line is that they’re after one of two things: to trick you into wiring funds to them, and/or to get hold of your personally identifiable information (PII), including bank account and Social Security Numbers (SSNs). This personal data can subsequently be used to defraud you or the IRS, or may be deployed in follow-on identity fraud schemes to capture illicit funds from you.

There are various ways cyber-criminals can achieve these goals. The most common is by using social engineering tactics to trick taxpayers into sending money or personal information. But they might also use malware, either delivered to you personally or targeted at your tax preparer. This means you not only have to look after your own cybersecurity but also demand that the third-party businesses you work with store and transmit your sensitive information securely.

Look out for these scams

Here’s a round-up of the most popular tactics used by tax scammers today:

Impersonation: The fraudster gets in touch pretending to be an IRS representative. This could be via email, phone, social media or even SMS. They usually claim you owe the IRS money in unpaid taxes or fines and demand a wire transfer, or funds from a prepaid debit card. Sometimes they may ask for personal and financial details—for example, by claiming you’re entitled to a large tax refund and they just need you to supply your bank account info.

These interactions are usually pushy. The scammer knows the best way of making you pay up is by creating a sense of urgency and, sometimes, shaming the individual into believing they’ve been withholding tax payments. Phishing emails may look highly convincing, right down to the logo and sender domain, while phone callers will use fake names and badge numbers. Sometimes the scammers use personal data they may have stolen previously or bought on the Dark Web to make their communications seem more convincing.

In some impersonation scams, the fraudsters may even pretend to work for charities and ask for personal details to help disaster victims with tax refund claims.

Spoofing, phishing, and malware: In some cases, a text, email or social media message spoofed to appear as if sent from the IRS or your tax preparer actually contains malware. The scammers use the same tactics as above but trick the recipient into clicking on a malicious link or opening an attachment laden with malware. The covert download that follows could result in: theft of your personal information; your computer being completely hijacked by hackers via remote control software; or a ransomware download that locks your computer until you pay a fee.

Fake tax returns: Another trick the scammers employ is to use stolen SSNs and other personal information to file tax returns on your behalf. They can then try to claim a large payment in tax refunds from the IRS. The PII they use to file in your name may have been taken from a third-party source without your knowledge, and the first you might hear of it is when you go to file a legitimate tax return. It can take months to resolve the problem.

Attacks targeting tax preparers: Over half of Americans use third-party tax preparation companies to help them with their returns. However, this offers another opportunity for scammers to get hold of your sensitive information. In one recently discovered campaign, malware deployed on tax preparers’ websites was designed to download to the visitor’s computer as soon as they loaded the page. The IRS warns that businesses large and small are potentially at risk, as scammers are keen to get hold of tax information which enables them to file highly convincing fake returns in your name.

What to do

The good news is that by taking a few simple steps you can insulate yourself from the worst of these scams. Remember: the IRS does not contact taxpayers by email, text messages or social media to request personal/financial information— so if you receive communications that do, they are definitely a scam. It’s also important to remember that scams happen all year round, not just in the run-up to the tax filing deadline. That means, unfortunately, that you need to be on your guard all the time.

Here are a few other recommendations:

  • Install anti-malware from a reputable provider to block phishing emails and websites and prevent malware downloads.
  • Be wary of any unsolicited messages purporting to come from your tax preparer or the IRS. Always contact them directly to check whether it’s a genuine communication or not.
  • Don’t click on any links in unsolicited emails, or download attachments.
  • Obtain an Identity Protection PIN from the IRS before filing your taxes. This will prevent fake returns being filed in your name.
  • Alert phishing@irs.gov about any unsolicited emails from IRS scammers.
  • Protect your log-ins with tax preparation companies. Switch on multi-factor authentication (MFA) if available, and/or use a password manager to make your logins hard to guess or crack.

It also pays to demand that your tax preparer take their own precautions to keep your data secure. They should not be sending sensitive data or documents unencrypted in emails and must take steps on their own to combat phishing emails that target employees, since these can cascade to you during your tax preparation process. Whether hosted in the cloud or running on-premises, the servers that hold your data should also have adequate protection—and you have a right (and a duty to yourself) to ask ahead of time what they’re doing to protect it.

According to the IRS tax preparers should put the following internal controls in place:

  • Install anti-malware on all web and storage servers and keep their software automatically updated.
  • Encourage the use of unique, strong passwords via a password manager for each account, and deploy multi-factor authentication technology for clients.
  • Encrypt all sensitive files and emails exchanged with strong password protections.
  • Back-up sensitive data regularly to a secure off-site source.
  • Wipe clean/destroy any old hard drives and printers containing sensitive data.
  • Limit access to taxpayer data to staff who need to know.

How Trend Micro can help

Trend Micro offers a range of security tools to help taxpayers keep their personal and financial information safe from fraudsters.

Our flagship consumer solution Trend Micro Security (TMS) provides the following protections:

  • Protects against phishing links in emails that can take you to fraudulent sites. Its Fraud Buster feature for Gmail and Hotmail extends this to webmail.
  • Blocks malicious website downloads and scans for malware hidden in attachments.
  • Protects against ransomware and theft of sensitive data via Folder Shield.
  • Protects and manages strong, unique passwords with Password Manager, which is bundled with Trend Micro Maximum Security.

To find out more, go to our Trend Micro Security website.

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SE Scams, Hackers, & WPA2 Attacks - Wrap Up - SWN #16

By paul@securityweekly.com

Hacker Movies, misinformation, and 70% of government employees felt they hadn't had adequate training in security. Doug White recaps the past week of all of the shows on the Security Weekly network!

 

Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/SWNEpisode16

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  • March 9th 2020 at 20:01

Malicious Spreadsheet With Data Connection and Excel 4 Macros, (Mon, Mar 9th)

Reader Carsten submitted an interesting malicious spreadsheet: c2af8b309a9ce65e9ac67c6d3c3acbe7.
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