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By Kyle Klassen Product Manager – Cloud Native Application Security at Trend Micro
Containers provide many great benefits to organizations – they’re lightweight, flexible, add consistency across different environments and scale easily.
One of the characteristics of containers is that they run in dedicated namespaces with isolated resource requirements. General purpose OS’s deployed to run containers might be viewed as overkill since many of their features and interfaces aren’t needed.
A key tenant in the cybersecurity doctrine is to harden platforms by exposing only the fewest number of interfaces and applying the tightest configurations required to run only the required operations.
Developers deploying containers to restricted platforms or “serverless” containers to the likes of AWS Fargate for example, should think about security differently – by looking upward, looking left and also looking all-around your cloud domain for opportunities to properly security your cloud native applications. Oh, and don’t forget to look outside. Let me explain…
Looking Upward
As infrastructure, OS, container orchestration and runtimes become the domain of the cloud provider, the user’s primary responsibility becomes securing the containers and applications themselves. This is where Trend Micro Cloud One, a security services platform for cloud builders, can help Dev and Ops teams better implement build pipeline and runtime security requirements. Cloud One – Application Security embeds a security library within the application itself to provide defense against web application attacks and to detect malicious activity.
One of the greatest benefits of this technology is that once an application is secured in this manner, it can be deployed anywhere and the protection comes along for the ride. Users can be confident their applications are secure whether deployed in a container on traditional hosts, into EKS on AWS Bottlerocket, serverless on AWS Fargate, or even as an AWS Lambda function!
Looking Left
It’s great that cloud providers are taking security seriously and providing increasingly secure environments within which to deploy your containers. But you need to make sure your containers themselves are not introducing security risks. This can be accomplished with container image scanning to identify security issues before these images ever make it to the production environment.
Enter Deep Security Smart Check – Container Image Scanning part of the Cloud One offering. Scans must be able to detect more than just vulnerabilities. Developer reliance on code re-use, public images, and 3rd party contributions mean that malware injection into private images is a real concern. Sensitive objects like secrets, keys and certificates must be found and removed and assurance against regulatory requirements like PCI, HIPAA or NIST should be a requirement before a container image is allowed to run.
Looking All-Around
Imagine taking the effort to ensure your applications, containers and functions are built securely, comply with strict security regulations and are deployed into container optimized cloud environments only to find out that you’ve still become a victim of an attack! How could this be? Well, one common oversight is recognizing the importance of disciplined configuration and management of the cloud resources themselves – you can’t assume they’re secure just because they’re working.
But, making sure your cloud services are secure can be a daunting task – likely comprised of dozens of cloud services, each with as many configuration options – these environments are complex. Cloud One – Conformity is your cloud security companion and gives you assurance that any hidden security issues with your cloud configurations are detected and prioritized. Disabled security options, weak keys, open permissions, encryption options, high-risk exposures and many, many more best practice security rules make it easy to conform to security best practices and get the most from your cloud provider services.
Look Outside
All done? Not quite. You also need to think about how the business workflows of your cloud applications ingest files (or malware?). Cloud storage like S3 Buckets are often used to accept files from external customers and partners. Blindly accepting uploads and pulling them into your workflows is an open door for attack.
Cloud One – File Storage Security incorporates Trend Micro’s best-in-class malware detection technology to identify and remove files infected with malware. As a cloud native application itself, the service deploys easily with deployment templates and runs as a ‘set and forget’ service – automatically scanning new files of any type, any size and automatically removing malware so you can be confident that all of your downstream workflows are protected.
It’s still about Shared Responsibility
Cloud providers will continue to offer security features for deploying cloud native applications – and you should embrace all of this capability. However, you can’t assume your cloud environment is optimally secure without validating your configurations. And once you have a secure environment, you need to secure all of the components within your control – your functions, applications, containers and workflows. With this practical approach, Trend Micro Cloud One perfectly complements your cloud services with Network Security, Workload Security, Application Security, Container Security, File Storage Security and Conformity for cloud posture management, so you can be confident that you’ve got security covered no matter which way you look.
To learn more visit Trendmicro.com/CloudOne and join our webinar on cloud native application threats https://resources.trendmicro.com/Cloud-One-Webinar-Series-Cloud-Native-Application-Threats.html
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This week, we bring you one of Security Weekly's very own, Tyler Robinson, Managing Director of Network Operations at Nisos, for a Technical Segment titled: To Hunt or Not To Hunt: Using offensive tooling to obtain OSINT and Real-Time Intelligence on a subject of interest for hunting or targeting! In our second segment, we talk Security News, to discuss Vulnerabilities in B&R Automation Software Facilitate Attacks on ICS Networks, Using AWS to secure your web applications, Serious Vulnerabilities Patched in Chrome & Firefox, Email Provider that got Hacked & Data of 600,000 Users is Now being Sold on the Dark Web, and As if the world couldn't get any weirder, this AI toilet scans your anus to identify you! In our final segment, we air a pre recorded interview with Jeff Man, entitled "Tales from the Crypt...Analysts pt.2", discussing many myths, legends and fables in hacker history!
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This week, Doug White brings you the latest on the Security Weekly Network in the Weekly Wrap Up, discussing Soaring phone calls, analprints, yes, I said that correctly, snake oil, Grace Hopper's ghost, and COBOL. No one has ever said all those things in a single sentence in the history of the world. All this and more on the Security Weekly News Wrapup.
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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 why Zoom has released an update for its Linux, Mac, and Windows apps that removes the meeting ID from the app’s title bar. Also, read about Trend Micro’s latest research on cloud-specific security, with examples of threats and risks that organizations could face when migrating to the cloud or using cloud services.
Read on:
Trend Micro Study Shows Cloud Misconfiguration as Major Threat
This week, Trend Micro released new research findings concerning cloud security, a major area of concern for enterprises of all sizes. The research confirms the role of both human errors and complex deployments in creating cloud-based cyber threats; above all, Trend Micro notes the dangers of cloud misconfiguration to cloud environments.
NCSA Small Business Webinar Series
The National Cyber Security Alliance is hosting a series of webinars for small business owners, and Trend Micro is proud to support this effort with guest speakers sharing threat intelligence and security expertise. The topics will help small companies deal with the challenges of COVID-19, including sessions on telework, digital spring cleaning, e-commerce security, how to avoid COVID-19 scams and more.
Cisco ‘Critical Update’ Phishing Attack Steals Webex Credentials
An ongoing phishing campaign is reeling in victims with a recycled Cisco security advisory that warns of a critical vulnerability. The campaign urges victims to “update,” only to steal their credentials for Cisco’s Webex web conferencing platform instead. The campaign is looking to leverage the wave of remote workers who have come to rely on online conferencing tools like Webex and other platforms.
Principles of a Cloud Migration – From Step One to Done
Cloud migrations are happening every day and analysts predict over 75% of mid-size to large enterprises will migrate a workload to the cloud by 2021 – but how can you make sure your workload is successful? In this multi-part blog series, Trend Micro explores best practices, forward thinking, and use cases around creating a successful cloud migration from multiple perspectives.
Zoomed In: A Look into a Coinminer Bundled with Zoom Installer
Trend Micro recently found a Coinminer bundled with the legitimate installer of video conferencing app Zoom, luring users who want to install the software but end up downloading a malicious file. The compromised files are assumed to come from fraudulent websites. Trend Micro has been working with Zoom to ensure that they are able to communicate this to their users appropriately.
Investigation into a Nefilim Attack Shows Signs of Lateral Movement, Possible Data Exfiltration
Trend Micro’s Managed XDR (MxDR) and Incident Response (IR) teams recently investigated an incident involving a company that was hit by the Nefilim ransomware, which was initially discovered in March 2020. What makes Nefilim especially devious is that the threat actors behind the attack threaten to release the victim’s stolen data on an online leak site.
Zoom Removes Meeting IDs from App Title Bar to Improve Privacy
Video conferencing service Zoom has released an update for its Linux, Mac, and Windows apps that removes the meeting ID from the app’s title bar. The update comes after the company’s users have often leaked their meeting IDs, and even meeting passwords, when sharing screenshots of their meetings on social media.
Analysis: Suspicious “Very Hidden” Formula on Excel 4.0 Macro Sheet
A malicious Microsoft Excel 4.0 Macro sheet with a suspicious formula that is set as “Very Hidden” was submitted by a customer and further analyzed by Trend Micro researchers. The sheet is not readily accessible via the Microsoft Excel User Interface (UI) due to a feature documented in the Microsoft website that allows users to hide sheets. The compromised files were commonly used as an attachment in spam.
Actively Exploited MS Exchange Flaw Present on 80% of Exposed Servers
Attackers looking to exploit CVE-2020-0688, a critical Microsoft Exchange flaw patched by Microsoft in February 2020, don’t have to look hard to find a server they can attack: according to an internet-wide scan performed by Rapid7 researchers, there are at least 315,000 and possibly as many as 350,000 vulnerable on-premise Exchange servers (out of 433,464 total) out there.
Misconfigured Docker Daemon API Ports Attacked for Kinsing Malware Campaign
A campaign that targets misconfigured Docker Daemon API ports through Kinsing malware was reported by security researchers from Aqua Security. The campaign exploited the ports to run an Ubuntu container. According to the researchers, Kinsing malware’s strings revealed that it is a Golang-based Linux agent.
Threat Actors Deliver Courier-Themed Spam Campaign with Attached ACE Files
Trend Micro researchers detected a new courier service-themed malicious spam campaign that uses ACE files as attachments. The samples were gathered from Trend Micro’s honeypot. The email poses as a shipment arrival notification with a fake receipt attached. It then convinces receivers to download the attachment by asking them to check if the address on the receipt is correct.blo
Exploring Common Threats to Cloud Security
Trend Micro’s recent cloud research provides examples of threats and risks organizations could face when migrating to the cloud or using cloud services. No matter the cloud service or platform, the common theme is that misconfiguration continues to be one of the major pitfalls of cloud security, affecting both companies who subscribe to cloud services and users of software that are hosted on the cloud.
PowerPoint ‘Weakness’ Opens Door to Malicious Mouse-Over Attack
A researcher is sounding the alarm over what he believes could be a novel attack vector which allows a hacker to manipulate a PowerPoint file to download and begin the installation of malware, simply by hovering over a hypertext link. The technique does require a victim to accept one pop-up dialogue box to run or install a program. For those reasons, Microsoft does not consider this a vulnerability.
Cloud Transformation Is the Biggest Opportunity to Fix Security
Lower costs, improved efficiencies and faster time to market are some of the primary benefits of transitioning to the cloud. However, it’s not done overnight. It can take years to move complete data centers and operational applications to the cloud and the benefits won’t be fully realized until most functional data have been transitioned.
Who is World Wired Labs and Why Are They Selling an Android Trojan?
A company advertising a remote access tool frequently used by criminals and nation-state hackers may be serving as a front for a Chinese hacking group, according to research published by BlackBerry Cylance. In a report on remote access trojans (RAT), researchers detail an Android malware variant, which they call PWNDROID4, that can be used to monitor targets’ phone calls, record audio, send and receive text messages, and track victims’ GPS location.
Is your organization looking to migrate to the cloud? Share your thoughts in the comments below or follow me on Twitter to continue the conversation: @JonLClay.
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We are in unique times and it’s important to support each other through unique ways. Snyk is providing a community effort to make a difference through AllTheTalks.online, and Trend Micro is proud to be a sponsor of their virtual fundraiser and tech conference.
In today’s threat landscape new cloud technologies can pose a significant risk. Applying traditional security techniques not designed for cloud platforms can restrict the high-volume release cycles of cloud-based applications and impact business and customer goals for digital transformation.
When organizations are moving to the cloud, security can be seen as an obstacle. Often, the focus is on replicating security controls used in existing environments, however, the cloud actually enables new levels of visibility and controls that weren’t possible before.
With today’s increased attention on cyber threats, cloud vulnerabilities provide an opportunistic climate for novice and expert hackers alike as a result of dependencies on modern application development tools, and lack of awareness of security gaps in build pipelines and deployment environments.
Public clouds are capable of auditing API calls to the cloud management layer. This gives in-depth visibility into every action taken in your account, making it easy to audit exactly what’s happening, investigate and search for known and unknown attacks and see who did what to identify unusual behavior.
Join Mike Milner, Global Director of Application Security Technology at Trend Micro on Wednesday April 15, at 11:45am EST to learn how to Use Observability for Security and Audit. This is a short but important session where we will discuss the tools to help build your own application audit system for today’s digital transformation. We’ll look at ways of extending this level of visibility to your applications and APIs, such as using new capabilities offered by cloud providers for network mirroring, storage and massive data handling.
Register for a good cause and learn more at https://www.allthetalks.org/.
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This overview builds on the recent report from Trend Micro Research on cloud-specific security gaps, which can be found here.
Don’t be cloud-weary. Hear us out.
Recently, a major tipping point was reached in the IT world when more than half of new IT spending was on cloud over non- cloud. So rather than being the exception, cloud-based operations have become the rule.
However, too many security solutions and vendors still treat the cloud like an exception – or at least not as a primary use case. The approach remains “and cloud” rather than “cloud and.”
Attackers have made this transition. Criminals know that business security is generally behind the curve with its approach to the cloud and take advantage of the lack of security experience surrounding new cloud environments. This leads to ransomware, cryptocurrency mining and data exfiltration attacks targeting cloud environments, to name a few.
Why Cloud?
There are many reasons why companies transition to the cloud. Lower costs, improved efficiencies and faster time to market are some of the primary benefits touted by cloud providers.
These benefits come with common misconceptions. While efficiency and time to market can be greatly improved by transitioning to the cloud, this is not done overnight. It can take years to move complete data centers and operational applications to the cloud. The benefits won’t be fully realized till the majority of functional data has been transitioned.
Misconfiguration at the User Level is the Biggest Security Risk in the Cloud
Cloud providers have built in security measures that leave many system administrators, IT directors and CTOs feeling content with the security of their data. We’ve heard it many times – “My cloud provider takes care of security, why would I need to do anything additional?”
This way of thinking ignores the shared responsibility model for security in the cloud. While cloud providers secure the platform as a whole, companies are responsible for the security of their data hosted in those platforms.
Misunderstanding the shared responsibility model leads to the No. 1 security risk associated with the cloud: Misconfiguration.
You may be thinking, “But what about ransomware and cryptomining and exploits?” Other attack types are primarily possible when one of the 3 misconfigurations below are present.
You can forget about all the worst-case, overly complex attacks: Misconfigurations are the greatest risk and should be the No. 1 concern. These misconfigurations are in 3 categories:
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How Big is The Misconfiguration Problem?
Trend Micro Cloud One – Conformity identifies an average of 230 million misconfigurations per day.
To further understand the state of cloud misconfigurations, Trend Micro Research recently investigated cloud-specific cyber attacks. The report found a large number of websites partially hosted in world-writable cloud-based storage systems. Despite these environments being secure by default, settings can be manually changed to allow more access than actually needed.
These misconfigurations are typically put in place without knowing the potential consequences. But once in place, it is simple to scan the internet to find this type of misconfiguration, and criminals are exploiting them for profit.
Why Do Misconfigurations Happen?
The risk of misconfigurations may seem obvious in theory, but in practice, overloaded IT teams are often simply trying to streamline workflows to make internal processes easier. So, settings are changed to give read and/or write access to anyone in the organization with the necessary credentials. What is not realized is that this level of exposure can be found and exploited by criminals.
We expect this trend will increase in 2020, as more cloud-based services and applications gain popularity with companies using a DevOps workflow. Teams are likely to misconfigure more cloud-based applications, unintentionally exposing corporate data to the internet – and to criminals.
Our prediction is that through 2025, more than 75% of successful attacks on cloud environments will be caused by missing or misconfigured security by cloud customers rather than cloud providers.
How to Protect Against Misconfiguration
Nearly all data breaches involving cloud services have been caused by misconfigurations. This is easily preventable with some basic cyber hygiene and regular monitoring of your configurations.
Your data and applications in the cloud are only as secure as you make them. There are enough tools available today to make your cloud environment – and the majority of your IT spend – at least as secure as your non-cloud legacy systems.
You can secure your cloud data and applications today, especially knowing that attackers are already cloud-aware and delivering vulnerabilities as a service. Here are a few best practices for securing your cloud environment:
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To read the complete Trend Micro Research report, please visit: https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/us/security/news/virtualization-and-cloud/exploring-common-threats-to-cloud-security.
For additional information on Trend Micro’s approach to cloud security, click here: https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/business/products/hybrid-cloud.html.
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This week, we talk Enterprise News, to discuss how Ping Identity's PingID multi-factor authentication is now available in AWS Marketplace, 8,000 Unprotected Redis Instances Accessible From Internet, Tufin Announces Free Firewall Change Tracker to Enhance Network Security and Connectivity for Remote Workforces, Simple Advanced Persistent Threat Emulation with BreakingPoint Attack Campaigns from Ixia, and more! In our second segment, we welcome back Ferruh Mavituna, CEO and Founder of Netsparker, to talk about the Time to Measure Security Improvement in Application Security! In our final segment, we air a pre recorded interview from RSAC 2020 with Ed Bellis, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Kenna Security, discussing Moving Towards Modern Vulnerability Management!
To learn more about Netsparker, visit: https://securityweekly.com/netsparker
Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/ESWEpisode178
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This week, we welcome Chris Golden, Board Member for the Accreditation Body, as he will answer questions surrounding the DOD's release of the CMMC program to keep the amount of false information to a minimum!
Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/SCWEpisode23
To view the CMMC Model, visit: https://www.acq.osd.mil/cmmc/docs/CMMC_v1.0_Public_Briefing_20200131_v2.pdf
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Boiling the ocean with the subject, sous-vide deliciousness with the content.
Cloud Migrations are happening every day. Analysts predict over 75% of mid-large enterprises will migrate a workload to the cloud by 2021 – but how can you make sure your workload is successful? There are not just factors with IT teams, operations, and security, but also with business leaders, finance, and many other organizations of your business. In this multi-part series, I’ll explore best practices, forward thinking, and use cases around creating a successful cloud migration from multiple perspectives. Whether you’re a builder in the cloud or an executive overseeing the transformation, you’ll learn from my firsthand experience and knowledge on how to bring value into your cloud migration project.
Here are just a few advantages of a cloud migration:
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While there can certainly be several perils associated with your move, with careful planning and a company focus, you can make your first step into cloud a successful one. And the focus of a company is an important step to understand. The business needs to adopt the same agility that the cloud provides by continuing to learn, grow, and adapt to this new environment. The Phoenix Project and the Unicorn Project are excellent examples that show the need and the steps for a successful business transformation.
To start us off, let’s take a look at some security concepts that will help you secure your journey into this new world. My webinar on Principles to Make Your Cloud Migration Journey Secure is a great place to start: https://resources.trendmicro.com/Cloud-One-Webinar-Series-Secure-Cloud-Migration.html
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This week, we welcome Richard Clarke to discuss his new book, The Fifth Domain, and the need for cyber resilience, especially these days! In the Leadership and Communications segment, 4 Behaviors That Help Leaders Manage a Crisis, The Right Way to Keep Your Remote Team Accountable, 15 Steps to Take Before Your Next Video Call, and more!
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This week, Zoombombers threatened with jail time by FBI, Cybercriminals are trying to cash in on Zoom use, How to protect your Zoom calls, Bad Bots in 2020, CyberHero Comics: Defending your Health, and zoom configurations along with the lack of effective zooming on the zoom camera application!
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Marriott International has experienced their second data breach after two franchise employee logins were used to access more than five million guest records beginning in January. Contact details, airline loyalty program account numbers, birth dates and more were collected -- but likely not Bonvoy loyalty account numbers, PINs or payment information.
As noted, this is the second breach that Marriott has undergone in recent times, the first being through its acquired Starwood brand of hotels back in 2018 when it lost a large amount of personal information relating to its customers. So here we go again. While this breach may not be as serious this time around, the big question is what will this do for customer trust in Marriott’s brand and reputation.
“Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” comes to mind.
Most organizations who have gone through a breach review their security procedures and policies – no one wants it to happen to them again – traditionally extra funding is provided to deal with necessary remediation, which of itself can run into millions of dollars when, at the most basic level, funding a personal information monitoring service for victims along with the inevitable fines and cost of brand rebuild are taken into account.
Therefore, the issue that Marriott will need to address is how did this happen again, within a short period of time of the last breach and for some, particularly those accustomed to the European GDPR notification period, the question may also be and why did it take a month from discovery for Marriott to notify those affected?
Well the answer to the second question is simple, the U.S. has no national data breach notification requirement, and the patchwork quilt of 48 state laws that exist typically require notification within 30 to 45 days – this is clearly quite a bit longer that the mandatory 72-hour GDPR breach notification period in Europe. As for the bigger question of how did it happen again, well only time will tell, but for me this highlights a key challenge for many organisations, not just in the hospitality sector, namely that of how do you secure your third party suppliers?
The breach occurred at one of Marriott’s franchise properties by accessing the login credentials of two employees at the property. From a security standpoint this shines a light on two key challenges for security professionals today: the third party supplier and awareness about the insider threat. Unfortunately, third parties are becoming more of a vulnerability than ever before.
Organizations of all sizes need to think about the consequences of a trusted third party, in this case a franchisee, providing accidental, but harmful, access to their corporate information. Information shared in the supply chain can include intellectual property, customer or employee data, commercial plans or negotiations, and logistics. To address information risk, breach or data leakage across third parties, organizations should adopt robust, scalable and repeatable processes – obtaining assurance proportionate to the risk faced. Whether or not this was the case with Marriott remains to be seen.
Supply chain information risk management should be embedded within existing procurement and vendor management processes, so supply chain information risk management becomes part of regular business operations. Will this also help address the insider threat? Well it should certainly help raise awareness but the reality is that the insider threat is unlikely to diminish in the coming years. Efforts to mitigate this threat, such as additional security controls and improved vetting of new employees, will remain at odds with efficiency measures.
Organizations need to shift from promoting awareness of the problem to creating solutions and embedding information security behaviors that affect risk positively. The risks are real because people remain a ‘wild card’ and our businesses today exist on sharing of critical information with third party providers.
Many organizations recognize people as their biggest asset, yet many still fail to recognize the need to secure ‘the human element’ of information security. In essence, people should be an organization’s strongest control. Instead of simply making people aware of their information security responsibilities and how they should respond, the answer for businesses of all sizes is to embed positive information security behaviors that will result in “stop and think” behavior becoming a habit and part of an organization’s information security culture.
While many organizations have compliance activities which fall under the general heading of ‘security awareness’, the commercial driver should be risk, and how new behaviors can reduce that risk. For some, that message may come too late and it may take a breach or two to drive the message home.
The real question is for how much longer will consumers accept that the loss of their data is a cost of doing business before voting with their feet and taking their business to more trusted providers?
About the author: Steve Durbin is Managing Director of the Information Security Forum (ISF). His main areas of focus include strategy, information technology, cyber security and the emerging security threat landscape across both the corporate and personal environments. Previously, he was senior vice president at Gartner.
Copyright 2010 Respective Author at Infosec IslandIn the U.S and global communities, election security is a large concern because so many aspects of it can be insecure and open to attacks that may shift public opinion or be used for personal gain. Not only does the complexity of the U.S. government raise concerns about security, campaigns also have weak points that make it a target for attacks.
Limited IT Resources Put Campaigns and Voters at Risk
Given limited IT budgets, volunteers— who often work directly with voters, sometimes use their own personal devices and applications to communicate with other team members and supporters; they also have access to key private data belonging to candidates and team members. These personal devices are also used to access campaign systems such as the Voter Activation Network (NGP VAN) that include voter information to support operations such as phone banking and door-to-door canvassing. Without proper security controls, these personal devices can be used by adversaries to put both the campaign and voters at risk. Additionally, the threat of fake news has evolved with the advent of deepfake technology, which in recent times has been combined with artificial intelligence (AI), video and audio to create media that appears to be authentic— but is not.
Although security controls such as two-factor authentication (2FA) are helpful, campaigns and voters may still be at risk. Abel Morales, a security engineer at Exabeam, recommends that campaigns use user and entity behavior analysis (UEBA) to detect anomalous authentications. “By monitoring staffers’ behaviors and detecting anomalies from their typical workflows, IT would be able to reduce the impact of threats introduced through social engineering, phishing and other malicious techniques.” This method also can be used to detect voter anomalies as well.
The continuing threat of ransomware attacks and nation-state attacks
Ransomware attacks on voter databases and systems can facilitate payments in exchange for voter information. Ransomware encrypts data until a ransom is paid and could also be used to manipulate voting results or lock administrators out of critical data during an election therefore compromising voter confidence. Additionally, the increase in nation-state attacks are another major concern. Some officials believe that foreign influence on our elections will more likely come through social media to shape public opinion towards whatever direction serves their specific goals. In particular, the FBI is worried that Russia will use social media to cause further division between the political parties or hack campaign websites to spread misinformation.
Does the government’s structure make election security more difficult?.
The intricacies of the U.S. voting system also affect the security of elections because state and local governments are not forced to use the federal government’s testing standards. State and local governments have the option to adopt these security standards, use their own, or a hybrid. Also, testing for state and local governments can be completed by private companies or local universities, as there is no single federal test certification program. This deviation from the federal standard is also seen in the lack of mandatory audits to verify the integrity of the machines and testing procedures, and the management of the voter registration database system which contains voter records. Many of these database systems are outdated and ill-equipped to handle today’s cybersecurity threats, making it easier for adversaries to delete or add voters. Although these differences can be detrimental to the security of elections, they make it difficult for attackers to launch a large-scale, coordinated attack.
The makeup of the voting machine market is a huge risk
Three companies make up more than 90 percent of the voting machine market, suggesting that a compromise of just one of these three companies could have a significant impact on any election. Manipulation is not a formidable task given many of these machines are running outdated software with existing vulnerabilities. As transitioning to machines running newer Windows operating systems in time for the 2020 election may not be possible, Microsoft has committed to providing free updates for all certified voting machines in operation running on Windows 7.
Internet-connected devices increase risk
Our U.S. voting system is comprised of many different types of devices with varying functions including tallying and reporting votes. Security experts note that web-based systems such as election-reporting websites, candidate websites and voter roll websites are easier to attack compared to a voting machine. Many of these systems are IoT devices that have their own unique security challenges. Often, they are shipped with factory-set, hardcoded passwords; they’re unable to be patched or updated; and have outdated protocols and lack encryption. They are also susceptible to botnets that can exploit large numbers of devices in a short period. IoT attacks could also compromise a user’s browser to manipulate votes and cut power to polling stations.
Proactive responses to help understaffed election IT teams
To prevent targeted attacks, campaign IT tech teams and staffers are performing training courses to learn how to detect and report suspicious emails. The DNC has created a security checklist for campaigns with recommendations, and the Center for Internet Security has also developed a library of resources to help campaigns including a Handbook for Elections Infrastructure Security. Machine-based learning systems enable limited teams to operate 50 percent more efficiently through automation – which is essential given the scale and number of elections. Security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) as part of a modern SIEM can also orchestrate remediation in response to an identified anomaly through playbooks. SOAR automatically identifies and prioritizes cybersecurity risks and responds to low-level security events, which is extremely useful for state and local government agencies that operate with small cybersecurity teams.
Republicans and Democrats unite to offer a helping hand
In late 2019, recognizing the seriousness of election attacks and the lack of security resources, former campaign managers for Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney launched a non-profit organization, Defending Digital Campaigns (DDC), which offers free to low-cost security technology and services to federal election campaigns. Some experts predict that the 2020 election will be one of the most anticipated digital security events in U.S. history. Given the complexity of the election process and voting system, security automation, behavior analytics and security education can be a part of the solution for managing a secure voting process.
About the author: Tim Matthews brings over 20 years of experience building and running software marketing teams and a focus on the security market. Prior to Exabeam, he was Vice President of Marketing at Imperva, where he led a worldwide marketing team.
Copyright 2010 Respective Author at Infosec IslandThis week, we welcome Grant Ongers, Co-Founder of Secure Delivery, to discuss why "You re (probably) Doing AppSec Wrong"! In the Application Security News, Zoom is gaining lots of attention for flaws, Popular Digital Wallet Exposes Millions to Risk in Huge Data Leak, 12k+ Android apps contain master passwords, secret access keys, secret commands in not-so-secret client-side code identified by a research tool Inputscope, and more!
Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/ASWEpisode102
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Working from home? How do you keep your employees cyber-safe and cyber-secure? How do you protect your reputation, profit, and cash flow when you depend on your IT infrastructure as never before?
The National Cyber Security Alliance is hosting a series of webinars for small business owners, and we’re proud to support this effort with guest speakers to share our threat intelligence and security expertise.
The topics will help small companies deal with the challenges of COVID-19. The agenda is at https://staysafeonline.org/event_category/cybersecure-my-business/.
Here’s a quick overview of each session and why it might benefit your organization to tune in.
Telework Cybersecurity Best Practices – April 7: Many small business owners rely on face-to-face meetings with their teams. But, social distancing and work-from-home directives interrupt that way of doing things. In this session, we’ll discuss how to adjust your business to deal with a remote workforce. For some managers, not seeing every member of the team can be unsettling. We’ll talk about ways to overcome that barrier. For many organizations, using remote tools can put an extra burden on your IT gear and staff. We’ll talk about alternatives to lighten that load. And for most organizations, the new way of working can expose new and different information security vulnerabilities. We’ll offer some good practices to reduce your exposure.
Guest speakers from Trend Micro will be Greg Young and Ed Cabrera.
Spring has Sprung! Time for a Digital Spring Cleaning – April 14: One way to cut down on IT resource use is to get rid of unnecessary stuff. This webcast will suggest tactics to reduce the burden on your infrastructure. You will learn about cleaning up your storage, getting off unnecessary email lists, improving your – and your customers’ – privacy, and lowering your attack profile by getting rid of stale applications and services.
E-Commerce Security During COVID-19 – April 21, 2020: Businesses that rely on foot traffic are pivoting to on-line offerings. Restaurants support demand with delivery or curbside pick-up, which both put a strain on your IT resources. Unfortunately, the bad guys are exploiting weaknesses in on-line ordering and payment systems. We’ll talk about measures small businesses should consider to protect their reputation, cash flow, and profits during this transition.
Guest speakers from Trend Micro will be myself and Mitchel Chang.
How to Avoid COVID-19 Scams – May 5, 2020: Bad guys are trying to make money off Covid-19 worries. In this session, Lesley Fair, a Senior Attorney with the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission talks about different kinds of scams and what to do about them, hopefully before anyone gets conned, and what steps you can take if you think you might have gotten stung. Ths session will be repeated on May 26.
Guest speakers from Trend Micro will be myself and Jon Clay.
What Are Phishing, Vishing and Smishing? How Can I Protect My Small Business From These Threats? – May 12, 2020: This session will discuss attacks that can arrive through email, messages, and video chats. Small businesses are targets as well as big firms and the public at large – the bad guys are going anywhere they can to make a (dishonest) buck. You’ll help your employees and customers protect themselves with some good advice, practices, and tools.
Mitchel Chang will be a guest panelist.
How to Avoid COVID-19 Scams – May 26, 2020: A second session of the May 5 discussion. This time Jon Clay and Myla Pilao will be guest speakers from Trend Micro.
Telework Cybersecurity Best Practices – June 9, 2020: A second session of the April 7 event. Greg and Ed will give a repeat performance attendees.
Each session starts at 2:00 PM Eastern time. NCSA will record each session, but you should register to listen in and ask questions live. While the information is tuned to meet the needs of small businesses, individuals at larger organizations, and the general public, will find good ideas and helpful hints an tips to stay safe and cope with this challenging time. We hope to see you soon.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments below or @WilliamMalikTM
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This week, we welcome Matt Allen, Senior Solutions Engineer at VIAVI Solutions, to discuss Collaboration between NetOps and SecOps in today's world! In our second segment, we welcome Lorrie Cranor, Director of CyLab Security and Privacy Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, to discuss Research on Security and Privacy labels for IoT devices! In the Security News, Two Zoom Zero-Day Flaws Uncovered, Millions of routers running OpenWRT vulnerable to attack, Marriott says 5.2 million guest records were stolen in another data breach, PoC Exploits for CVE-2020-0796 (SMBGhost) Privilege Escalation flaw published, and we welcome our very special guest for tonight, Dave Kennedy, who joins us to talk about Video Chat Client Vulnerability History and the recent Zoom Vulnerabilities!
Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/PSWEpisode645
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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 8,000 Redis instances running unsecured in different parts of the world, even deployed in public clouds. Also, read about a new Windows malware, called “Coronavirus,” that makes disks unusable by overwriting the master boot record (MBR).
Read on:
COVID-19: How Do I Work from Home Securely?
In light of the current COVID-19 crisis, shelter-in-place orders have forced many companies to support remote work. However, hackers are primed and ready to take advantage of home workers, whose machines and devices may not be as secure as those in the office. In this blog, learn about some of the major threats to home workers and their organizations, and what can be done to keep hackers at bay.
Vulnerability Researchers Focus on Zoom App’s Security
Researchers have turned up security and privacy flaws in Zoom, which has had success during the pandemic. In late March, one red-team member found that Zoom would display universal naming convention (UNC) paths as links, which, if clicked, would send a username and password hash to an attacker-controlled system. In this article, Brian Gorenc of Trend Micro’s ZDI program shares insight into Zoom vulnerabilities.
More Than 8,000 Unsecured Redis Instances Found in the Cloud
Trend Micro discovered 8,000 Redis instances running unsecured across the globe, even deployed in public clouds. The instances have been found without Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption and are not password protected. When left unsecured and allowed to be internet-facing or integrated into IoT devices, cybercriminals can find and abuse Redis servers to launch attacks such as SQL injections, cross-site scripting, malicious file uploads, and even remote code execution, among others.
Vulnerable VPN Appliances at Healthcare Organizations Open Doors for Ransomware Gangs
The increased enterprise VPN use due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the work-from-home shift has not gone unnoticed by ransomware gangs, Microsoft warns. Microsoft has pinpointed several dozens of hospitals with vulnerable gateway and VPN appliances in their infrastructure and decided to notify them directly about it and offer advice on how to keep safe.
Cloud-First but Not Cloud-Only: Why Organizations Need to Simplify Cybersecurity
The global public cloud services market is on track to grow 17% this year, topping $266 billion. However, while many organizations may describe themselves as “cloud-first”, they’re certainly not “cloud-only.” Hybrid cloud is the name of the game today: a blend of multiple cloud providers and multiple datacenters. While driving agility, differentiation and growth, this new reality also creates cyber risk.
Magecart Hackers Inject iFrame Skimmers in 19 Sites to Steal Payment Data
Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered an ongoing new Magecart skimmer campaign that has successfully compromised at least 19 different e-commerce websites to steal payment card details. According to a recent report, RiskIQ researchers spotted a new digital skimmer, dubbed “MakeFrame,” that injects HTML iframes into webpages to phish payment data.
The AWS Service to Focus On – Amazon EC2
Trend Micro recently analyzed the most affected AWS Services, finding that EC2-related issues topped the list with 32% of all issues and S3 contributed to 12% of all issues. While cloud providers offer a secure infrastructure and best practices, many customers are unaware of their role in the shared responsibility model. In this blog, learn how to secure data and configure environments with AWS best practices.
Wiper Malware Called “Coronavirus” Spreads Among Windows Victims
A new Windows malware has emerged that makes disks unusable by overwriting the master boot record (MBR). It takes its cue from the COVID-19 pandemic, calling itself simply “Coronavirus.” Overwriting the MBR is the same trick that the infamous NotPetya wiper malware used in 2017 in a campaign that caused widespread, global financial damage.
Raccoon Stealer’s Abuse of Google Cloud Services and Multiple Delivery Techniques
Raccoon Malware as a Service (MaaS) can steal login credentials, credit card information, cryptocurrency wallets and browser information. It can arrive on a system through delivery techniques such as exploit kits, phishing and bundled with other malware. In this blog, Trend Micro investigates campaigns that used exploit kits Fallout and Rig, and observes its use of Google Drive as part of its evasion tactics.
Developing Story: COVID-19 Used in Malicious Campaigns
The COVID-19 pandemic is being used in a variety of malicious campaigns including email spam, BEC, malware, ransomware and malicious domains. As the number of those afflicted continue to surge by thousands, campaigns that use the disease as a lure also increase. Trend Micro researchers are periodically sourcing for samples on COVID-19-related malicious campaigns.
Threat Actors Abuse Evernote, Other Shared Platforms for Credential Phishing
Trend Micro researchers found campaigns that abuse the note-taking platform Evernote to host credential-phishing pages. The campaigns also exploit other shared platforms for editing images, making infographics and charts, and creating brand templates. Evernote’s notebook sharing functionality that uses public links is what threat actors exploited to spread malicious PDF files via phishing emails.
Malicious Domains and Files Related to Zoom Increase, ‘Zoom Bombing’ on the Rise
As the use of video conferencing platforms has increased with many people working from home due to the COVID-19 outbreak, cases of “Zoom Bombing” and malicious domains and files related to Zoom have also been on the rise. Registrations of domains that reference the name of Zoom has significantly increased, and other communication apps such as Google Classroom have been targeted as well.
Russian Investigators Bust Credit Card Fraud Ring
Russian federal investigators have arrested at least 25 people accused of operating a credit card fraud ring, according to a statement released by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). Those charged allegedly included a card fraud kingpin and two dozen associates linked to more than 90 websites that sold stolen credit card data and operated internationally.
A recent Microsoft blog reported the tech giant had seen a “775 percent increase of our cloud services in regions that have enforced social distancing or shelter in place orders.” That line was wrong: the almost 8x increase only pertained to monthly users of the Microsoft’s Teams collaboration platform, and only in a one-month period in Italy, a region of the world particularly impacted by the virus.
Using Zoom? Here’s How to Keep Your Business and Employees Safe
The COVID-19 crisis has sparked a new wave of phishing, BEC, extortion, ransomware and data breach attempts, and although it’s not the only platform being targeted, Zoom has been the subject of some of the highest-profile incidents so far. Fortunately, there are things organizations can do to protect their business and their employees. In this blog, learn about best practices you can use to help secure your Zoom conferences.
Have you or your organization been a victim of “Zoom Bombing”? Share your thoughts in the comments below or follow me on Twitter to continue the conversation: @JonLClay.
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Cyber-criminals are always looking for new opportunities to make money and steal data. Globally trending events are a tried-and-tested way of doing just this, and they don’t come much bigger than the current Covid-19 pandemic. It’s sparking a wave of phishing, BEC, extortion, ransomware and data breach attempts. And as increasing numbers of global workers are sent home, new opportunities are opening up to compromise video conferencing apps.
Although not alone in being targeted, Zoom has been the subject of some of the highest-profile incidents so far this year. Fortunately, there are things you can do to keep your business safe.
Under the microscope
The video conferencing app is in many ways a victim of its own success. Security concerns have been raised about it in the past, after researchers revealed zero-day flaw in the Mac Zoom client which could have allowed hackers to spy on users via their webcams. Later the same year, separate research revealed an API-targeted enumeration attack affecting the platform. Neither of these are thought to have been exploited in the wild.
However, things have changed today: with much of the world using the platform to hold business meetings and personal video calls, scrutiny of its security posture has never been greater.
From bugs to bombing
There are several risks to be aware of. The first is of several new vulnerabilities discovered in the platform: one of which could allow hackers to steal Windows passwords, and another two which could enable attackers to remotely install malware on affected Macs and eavesdrop on meetings.
Most news coverage, however, is focused on “Zoombombing” — when uninvited users crash meetings. This often happens when large-scale semi-public events are held, and meeting IDs are shared on social media. If there’s no password for the meeting and attendees aren’t screened, then Zoombombers may turn up. Once in the ‘meeting’, crashers often post offensive comments, stream adult content or do other things to disrupt the event.
The same underlying techniques could be used by hackers to eavesdrop on or disrupt business meetings. It’s all about taking advantage of unsecure settings in the app, (and possibly using brute-force tools to crack meeting IDs).
With access to a meeting, hackers could harvest highly sensitive and/or market-critical corporate information, or even spread malware via a file transfer feature.
The final threat is from phishing attacks. Hackers know users are looking en masse for ways to communicate during government lockdowns. By creating legitimate-looking Zoom links and websites, they could steal financial details, spread malware or harvest Zoom ID numbers, allowing them to infiltrate virtual meetings. One vendor discovered 2,000 new domains had been registered in March alone, over two-thirds of the total for the year so far.
What you can do
The good news is that there are several things you can do to mitigate the security risks associated with Zoom.
The most basic are:
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Next, it’s important to revisit those administrative settings in the app, to reduce the opportunities for hackers and Zoombombers.
The most important revolve around the Zoom Personal Meeting ID (a 9-11 digit number every user has). If a hacker gets hold of this, and the meeting is not password protected, they could access it. A leaked email or simple brute-force/guessing techniques could enable a hacker to compromise the ID and associated URL. For reoccurring meetings, the threat persists.
Fortunately, automatically generated passwords are now switched on by default, and the use of personal meeting IDs are switched off, meaning Zoom will create a random, one-off ID for each meeting.
These setting should be kept as is. But organisations can do more, including:
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The global public cloud services market is on track to grow 17% this year, topping $266 billion. These are impressive figures, and whatever Covid-19 may do short-term to the macro-economy, they’re a sign of where the world is heading. But while many organizations may describe themselves as “cloud-first”, they’re certainly not “cloud-only.” That is, hybrid cloud is the name of the game today: a blend of multiple cloud providers and multiple datacenters.
Whilst helping to drive agility, differentiation and growth, this new reality also creates cyber risk. As IT leaders try to chart a course for success, they’re crying out for a more holistic, simpler way to manage hybrid cloud security.
Cloud for everyone
Organizations are understandably keen to embrace cloud platforms. Who wouldn’t want to empower employees to be more productive and DevOps to deliver agile, customer-centric services? But digital transformation comes with its own set of challenges. Migration often happens at different rates throughout an organization. That makes it hard to gain unified visibility across the enterprise and manage security policies in a consistent manner — especially when different business units and departments are making siloed decisions. An estimated 85% of organizations are now using multiple clouds, and 76% are using between two and 15 hybrid clouds.
To help manage this complexity, organisations are embracing containers and serverless architectures to develop new applications more efficiently. However, the DevOps teams using these technologies are focused primarily on time-to-market, sometimes at the expense of security. Their use of third-party code is a classic example: potentially exposing the organization to buggy or even malware-laden code.
A shared responsibility
The question is, how to mitigate these risks in a way that respects the Shared Responsibility model of cloud security, but in a consistent manner across the organization? It’s a problem exacerbated by two further concerns.
First, security needs to be embedded in the DevOps process to ensure that the applications delivered are secure, but not in a way that threatens the productivity of teams. They need to be able to use the tools and platforms they want to, but in a way that doesn’t expose the organization to unnecessary extra risk. Second, cloud complexity can often lead to human error: misconfigurations of cloud services that threaten to expose highly regulated customer and corporate data to possible attacks. The Capital One data breach, which affected an estimated 100 million consumers, was caused partly by a misconfigured Web Application Firewall.
Simplifying security
Fortunately, organizations are becoming more mature in their cloud security efforts. We see customers that started off tackling cyber risk with multiple security tools across the enterprise, but in time developed an operational excellence model. By launching what amount to cloud centers of excellence, they’re showing that security policies and processes can be standardized and rolled out in a repeatable way across the organization to good effect.
But what of the tools security teams are using to achieve this? Unfortunately, in too many cases they’re relying on fragmented, point products which add cost, further complexity and dangerous security gaps to the mix. It doesn’t have to be like this.
Cloud One from Trend Micro brings together workload security, container security, application security, network security, file storage security and cloud security posture management (CSPM). The latter, Cloud One – Conformity offers a simple, automated way to spot and fix misconfigurations and enhance security compliance and governance in the cloud.
Whatever stage of maturity you are at with your cloud journey, Cloud One offers simple, automated protection from a single console. It’s simply the way cloud security needs to be.
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If we run a contest for Mr. Popular of Amazon Web Services (AWS), without a doubt Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) has ‘winner’ written all over it. However, what’s popular is not always what is critical for your business to focus on. There is popularity and then there is dependability. Let’s acknowledge how reliant we are on Amazon Elastic Cloud Computing (EC2) as AWS infrastructure led-organizations.
We reflected upon our in-house findings for the AWS ‘Security’ pillar in our last blog, Four Reasons Your Cloud Security is Keeping You Up at Night, explicitly leaving out over caffeination and excessive screen time!
Drilling further down to the most affected AWS Services, Amazon EC2 related issues topped the list with 32% of all issues. Whereas Mr. Popular – Amazon S3 contributed to 12% of all issues. While cloud providers, like AWS, offer a secure infrastructure and best practices, many customers are unaware of their role in the shared responsibility model. The results showing the number of issues impacting Amazon EC2 customers demonstrates the security gap that can happen when the customer part of the shared responsibility model is not well understood.
While these AWS services and infrastructure are secure, customers also have a responsibility to secure their data and to configure environments according to AWS best practices. So how do we ensure that we keep our focus on this crucial service and ensure the flexibility, scalability, and security of a growing infrastructure?
Introducing Rules
If you thought you were done with rules after passing high school and moving out of your parent’s house, you would have soon realized that you were living a dream. Rules seem to be everywhere! Rules are important, they keep us safe and secure. While some may still say ‘rules are made to be broken’, you will go into a slump if your cloud infrastructure breaks the rules of the industry and gets exposed to security vulnerabilities.
It is great if you are already following the Best Practices for Amazon EC2, but if not, how do you monitor the performance of your services day in and day out to ensure their adherence to these best practices? How can you track if all your services and resources are running as per the recommended standards?
We’re here to help with that. Trend Micro Cloud One – Conformity ‘Rules’ provide you with that visibility for some of the most critical services like Amazon EC2.
What is the Rule?
A ‘Rule’ is the definition of the best practice used as a basis for an assessment that is run by Conformity on a particular piece of your Cloud infrastructure. When a rule is run against the infrastructure (resources) associated with your AWS account, the result of the scan is referred to as a Check. For example, an Amazon EC2 may have 60 Rules (Checks) scanning for various risks/vulnerabilities. Checks are either a SUCCESS or a FAILURE.
Conformity has about 540 Rules and 60 of them are for monitoring your Amazon EC2 services best practices. Conformity Bot scans your cloud accounts for these Rules and presents you with the ‘Checks’ to prioritize and remediate the issues keeping your services healthy and prevent security breaches.
Amazon EC2 Best Practices and Rules
Here are just a few examples of how Conformity Rules have got you covered for some of the most critical Amazon EC2 best practices:
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See how Trend Micro can support your part of the shared responsibility model for cloud security: https://www.trendmicro.com/cloudconformity.
Stay Safe!
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The coronavirus pandemic—the infection officially designated as COVID-19—is causing upheaval across the globe. Aside from the serious economic and public health implications, one very practical impact of shelter-in-place dictums is to force many companies to support remote working where they can. The most recent data tells us that in 2017, eight million Americans worked from home at least some of the week — amounting to around 5% of US workers. However, the events of the past few weeks are driving what is being described in certain sectors as the biggest shift to home working since 9/11.
This will ensure that many companies can continue functioning while helping to achieve social distancing to minimise the spread of the virus. But there are challenges, particularly to smaller businesses who don’t have IT security teams to assist with the transition. Hackers are primed and ready to take advantage of home workers, whose machines and devices may not be as secure as those in the office. There’s also a risk that workers are more distracted by current events when working at home, creating more opportunities for cyber-criminals to strike.
This isn’t just about hackers stealing your personal log-ins and information to sell on the dark web. In a home-working context, corporate data and systems may also be at risk. It takes just one unsecured remote worker to let the bad guys in. The damage they end up doing may be particularly difficult for employers to weather given the extreme economic pressures already on many firms.
With that in mind, therefore, let’s take a look at some of the major threats to home workers and their organizations, and what can be done to keep the hackers at bay.
Phishing messages are by far the number one threat to home workers. Cyber-criminals are using widespread awareness of COVID-19, and a desire for more information on the outbreak, to trick users into clicking on malicious links or opening booby-trapped attachments. Many are spoofed to appear as if sent by trusted organizations such as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or the World Health Organization (WHO). They may claim to offer more information on the spread of the outbreak, tips on staying safe, and even provide details of how to get a non-existent vaccine online.
If you click through on a malicious link, the next stage of the attack could:
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Brute forcing is another way for hackers to hijack your cloud accounts. They use previously breached username/password combos and run them through automation software to try them across billions of websites and apps. Because users reuse passwords across numerous accounts, the bad guys often get lucky and are able to unlock additional accounts in this way. Home workers using Microsoft Teams, Slack, Zoom and other cloud platforms for collaboration and productivity may be targeted.
Malicious smartphone apps are another threat to home workers. These may be disguised to trick the user into believing they’re downloading a COVID-19 tracker, for example. In reality, it could infect the device with ransomware, info-stealers, or other malware. That device could then spread the same malware to the corporate network, if it is connected to it via the home network.
Smart device threats are also a concern for home workers. More and more of us are investing in smart home devices. From voice assistants to smart speakers, connected refrigerators to smart TVs, it’s estimated that there’ll be as many as 128 million smart homes in the US by the end of this year. However, often these consumer-grade devices don’t have strong built-in protection. They may use weak, factory default passwords and/or contain multiple software vulnerabilities which are rarely patched by the manufacturer, if at all. The risk is that hackers could hijack one or more of these devices and use them as a stepping stone into the home and then corporate network – as we’ve demonstrated in previous research.
Friends and family could also introduce new cyber-threats, as they will also be confined largely to the home. That means they’ll be logging on to the home network with their own mobile devices, which may not be as well protected from threats as they should be. Once again, such threats could spread quickly from the home network to infect the enterprise network if it’s connected without adequate security controls. Another risk is of children using unsecured remote learning platforms, which may offer cybercriminals opportunities to hijack accounts, steal information and spread malware onto the network.
Home workers represent an attractive target in their own right. After all, personal information and log-ins (home banking, Netflix, webmail etc) can be easily sold for a profit on dark web marketplaces. However, organizations represent a much bigger, potentially more lucrative pay day for cyber-criminals. While corporate PCs and networks might be fairly well secured, the rush to support home working may have left gaps the bad guys are keen to exploit.
By first compromising the home worker, and then pivoting through unsecured channels to the corporate network, hackers could spread ransomware, steal sensitive company IPs, infect work networks with crypto-mining malware, or steal large volumes of customer data. They may also look to hijack employees’ corporate email or other accounts as the first part of a multi-stage information-stealing attack. There have even been new warnings of Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks in which employees (usually those working in the finance department) are contacted by someone posing as a senior exec and ordered to wire business funds to a new bank account.
With so many techniques at their disposal, it’s easy to imagine that the bad guys have the upper hand. But by putting a few best practices in place, there are things businesses and employees can do today to reduce home working security risks.
Consider the following:
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We don’t know how long COVID-19 will last. But by adapting to the new reality as quickly as possible, businesses and their home workers can at least close down any security gaps, enabling them to be as productive as possible — while most importantly, staying safe and healthy.
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Google is on track to resume the roll-out of stable Chrome releases next week, but says it will skip one version of the browser.
Last week, the Internet search giant said it was pausing upcoming releases of the browser, following an adjusted work schedule due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, and that both Chrome and Chrome OS releases would be affected.
At the time, the company revealed it would focus on the stability and security of releases, and that it would prioritize security updates for Chrome 80.
Now, Google says it is ready to resume pushing releases to the Stable channel as soon as the next week, with security and critical fixes meant for version 80 of the browser.
Moving forth, the company is planning the release of Chrome 81 in early April, but says it would then jump directly to Chrome 83, which is set to arrive in mid-May, thus skipping Chrome 82.
“M83 will be released three weeks earlier than previously planned and will include all M82 work as we cancelled the M82 release (all channels),” Google said.
This week, the company will resume the Canary, Dev and Beta channels, with Chrome 83 moving to Dev.
“We continue to closely monitor that Chrome and Chrome OS are stable, secure, and work reliably. We’ll keep everyone informed of any changes on our schedule,” the Internet giant said.
The company hasn’t shared any details on when Chrome 84 releases would start arriving, but said it would provide the information in a future update.
Following Google’s announcement last week, Microsoft said it would pause stable Edge releases, to align with the Chromium Project. Today, the Redmond-based tech company announced that Edge build 83.0.461.1 was released to the Dev channel.
“As you can see, this is the first update from major version 83. This is a slight deviation from our normal schedule due to current events,” Microsoft says, adding that version 81 is heading for the Stable channel soon.
Related: Google Patches High-Risk Chrome Flaws, Halts Upcoming Releases
Related: Chrome 80 Released With 56 Security Fixes
Related: Chrome Will Block Insecure Downloads on HTTPS Pages
Copyright 2010 Respective Author at Infosec IslandThis week, we talk Enterprise News, to discuss OWASP Security Knowledge Framework, How to Write an Automated Test Framework in a Million Little Steps, Sumo Logic Selects StackRox to Protect Its Cloud-Native Applications and Services, Sysdig Provides the First Cloud-Scale Prometheus Monitoring Offering, and Windows users under attack via two new RCE zero-days! In our second segment, we welcome Sumedh Thakar, Chief Product Officer at Qualys, to talk about Cybersecurity Challenges Created by a Remote Workforce! In our final segment, we welcome Tod Beardsley, Director of Research at Rapid7, to discuss SMB exposures and User Behavior Analytics failures, using findings from Rapid7 Research Labs!
To learn more about Qualys, visit: https://securityweekly.com/qualys
To learn more about Rapid7 or to get a free trial, visit: https://securityweekly.com/rapid7
Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/ESWEpisode177
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This week, Doug White brings you the latest and greatest news across all of our shows on the network, as well as all of the hot topics this week! Doug discusses Zoombombing, Russian Hackers, Zuck turns over the controls to the AIs, free cybersecurity products to help out, Chubb hacked, and more!
Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/SWNEpisode22
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Driving digital transformation initiatives while safeguarding the enterprise is a mammoth task. In some aspects, it might even sound counter-intuitive when it comes to opening up IT infrastructure, or converging IT and OT networks to allow external parties such as partners and customers to closely interact with the organization to embrace new business models and collaboration (think cloud applications, APIs, sensors, mobile devices, etc.).
Although new technology is being adopted quickly, especially web frontends, applications and APIs, much of the underlying IT infrastructure as well as the supporting processes and governance models are somewhat legacy, and struggle to keep up.
For its 2020 CISO Benchmark Report, Cisco surveyed some 2,800 CISOs and other IT decision-makers from 13 countries, how they cope with that, and they came up with a number of interesting findings.
Cyber-threats are a global business risk
The World Economic Forum says business leaders view cyber-attacks as the #2 global risk to business in advanced economies, taking a back seat only to financial crises. Not surprisingly,89 percent of the respondents in the Cisco study say their executives still view security as a high priority, but this number is down by 7 percent from previous years.
Nine out of ten respondents felt their company executives had solid measures for gauging the effectiveness of their security programs. This is encouraging, as clear metrics are key to a security framework, and it’s often difficult to get diverse executives and security players to agree on how to measure operational improvement and security results.
Leadership matters
The share of companies that have clarified the security roles and responsibilities on the executive team has risen and fallen in recent years, but it settled at 89 percent in 2020. Given that cyber-security is being taken more seriously and there is a major need for security leaders at top levels, the need to continue clarifying roles and responsibilities will remain critical.
The frequency with which companies are building cyber-risk assessments into their overall risk assessment strategies has shrunk by five percent from last year. Still, 91 percent of the survey respondents reported that they’re doing it. Similarly, 90 percent of executive teams are setting clear metrics to assess the effectiveness of their security programs, although this figure too is down by six percent from last year.
Cloud protection is not solid
It’s almost impossible for a company to go digital without turning to the cloud. The Cisco report found that in 2020, over 83 percent of organizations will be managing (internally or externally) more than 20 percent of their IT infrastructure in the cloud. But protecting off-premises assets remains a challenge.
A hefty 41percent of the surveyed organizations say their data centers are very or extremely difficult to defend from attacks. Thirty-nine percent report that they struggle to keep applications secure. Similarly, private cloud infrastructure is a major security issue for organizations; half of the respondents said it was very or extremely difficult to defend.
The most problematic data of all is data stored in the public cloud. Just over half (52 percent) of the respondents find it very or extremely challenging to secure.Another 41 percent of organizations find network infrastructure very or extremely challenging to defend.
Time-to-remediate scores most important
The Cisco study enquired about the after-effects of breaches using measures such as downtime, records, and finances. How much and how often are companies suffering from downtime? It turns out that organizations across the board issued similar answers. Large enterprises (10,000 or more employees) are more likely to have less downtime (between zero and four hours) because they typically have more technology, money, and people available to help respond and recover from the threats. Small to mid-sized organizations made up most of the five- to 16-hour recovery timespans. Potentially business-killing downtimes of 17-48 hours were infrequent among companies of all sizes.
After a security incident, rapid recovery is critical to keeping disruption and damages to a minimum. As a result, of all the metrics, time-to-remediate (also known as “time-to-mitigate”) scores are the ones most important when reporting to the C-suite or the company’s board of directors, the study concludes.
Automating security is not optional – it’s mandatory
The total number of daily security alerts that organizations are faced with is constantly growing. Three years ago, half of organizations had 5,000 or fewer alerts per day. Today, that number is only 36 percent. The number of companies that receive 100,000 or more alerts per day has risen to 17 percent this year, from 11 percent in 2017. Due to the greater alert volumes and the considerable resources needed to process them, investigation of alerts is at a four-year low: just under 48 percent of companies say they can keep up. That number was 56 percent in 2017, and it’s been shrinking every year since. The rate of legitimate incidents (26 percent) has remained more or less constant, which suggests that a lot of investigations are coming up with false positives.
Perhaps the biggest side-effect of this never-ending alert activity is cyber-security fatigue. Of the companies that report that it exists among their ranks, 93 percent of them receive more than 5,000 security warnings every day.
A sizeable majority (77 percent) of Cisco’s survey respondents expect to implement more automated security solutions to simplify and accelerate their threat response times. No surprise here. These days, they basically have no choice but to automate.
Vigilance pays dividends
Organizations that had 100,000 or more records affected by their worst security incident increased to 19 percent this year, up four percent from 2019. The study also found that a major breach can impact nine critical areas of a company, including operations and brand reputation, finances, intellectual property, and customer retention.
Three years ago, 26 percent of the respondents said their brand reputation had taken a hit from a security incident; this year, 33 percent said the same. This is why, to help minimize damages and recover fast, it’s key to incorporate crisis communications planning into the company’s broader incidence response strategy.
Finally, the share of survey respondents that reported that they voluntarily disclosed a breach last year (61 percent) is the highest in four years.The upshot is that overall, companies are actively reporting breaches. This may be due to new privacy legislation (GDPR and others), or because they want to maintain the trust and confidence of their customers. In all likelihood, it’s both.
In conclusion, the CISO Benchmark report shows a balance of positives and negatives. Organizations are looking to automate security processes to accelerate response times, security leadership is strengthening and setting metrics to improve overall protection, and more breaches are being identified and reported. But there’s still work to be done to embed security into everything organizations do as they evolve their business.
About the author: Marc Wilczek is Chief Operating Officer at Link11, an IT security provider specializing in DDoS protection, and has more than 20 years of experience within the information and communication technology (ICT) space.
Copyright 2010 Respective Author at Infosec IslandWelcome 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 Apple iOS smartphone users in Hong Kong targeted in a new campaign exploiting online news readers to distribute malware. Also, read about how hackers are hijacking routers and changing Domain Name System (DNS) settings in order to redirect victims to attacker-controlled sites promoting fake coronavirus information apps.
Read on:
Apple iOS Users Served Mobile Malware in Poisoned News Campaign
Apple iOS smartphone users in Hong Kong are being targeted in a new campaign exploiting online news readers to serve malware. This week, Trend Micro researchers said the scheme, dubbed Operation Poisoned News, uses links posted on a variety of forums popular with Hong Kong residents that claim to lead to news stories.
The Wawa Breach: 30 Million Reasons to Try Dark Web Monitoring
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 data breach from convenience store and gas station chain Wawa could be one of the largest ever, affecting 30 million card records from customers.
Infosec Industry Shows Compassionate Side Amid #COVID19 Pandemic
As the coronavirus pandemic continues, large numbers of organizations have been forced to implement work from home measures for staff. While working from home, employees are more susceptible to cybersecurity threats, especially with a rise in tailored COVID-19 cyber-scams. In this article, read about how Trend Micro and other information security companies have taken steps to offer free resources and support to organizations and employees at this difficult time.
Nefilim Ransomware Threatens to Expose Stolen Data
A new ransomware named Nefilim has been discovered threatening to release its victims’ data to the public if they fail to pay the ransom. It is most likely distributed through exposed Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), as shared by SentinelLabs’ Vitali Krimez and ID Ransomware’s Michael Gillespie.
Cryptojacking, the theft of computing power to mine digital currency, has been around at least since 2013 – and has shrunk in use dramatically with the death of Monero-mining service Coinhive. Since Coinhive’s closure last year, cryptojacking has been almost eliminated, according to a group of researchers from the University of Cincinnati in America, and Lakehead University in Canada.
Microsoft Alerts Users About Critical Font-Related Remote Code Execution Vulnerability in Windows
Microsoft released a security advisory on a zero-day remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability affecting Windows operating systems. The vulnerability is found in an unpatched library and comprises two RCE flaws found in Adobe Type Manager Library (atmfd.dll), a built-in library for the Adobe Type Manager font management tool in Windows.
Credit Card Skimmer Found on Tupperware Website
Cybercriminals hacked Tupperware.com and planted malicious code designed to steal payment card information, Malwarebytes warned this week. The credit card skimmer was planted on the main website and some of its localized versions. The website has nearly one million visitors every month, indicating that hackers may have obtained a significant number of payment card records.
Researchers observed a number of new developments related to the internet of things (IoT) malware Mirai, which actively searches for vulnerabilities in IoT devices. A new Mirai variant named Mukashi was found attacking network-attached storage (NAS) devices, a new vulnerability in GPON routers was exploited by Mirai, and a UPX-packed Fbot variant was detected by a Trend Micro honeypot.
Hackers Hijack Routers to Spread Malware Via Coronavirus Apps
Cybercriminals are hijacking routers and changing Domain Name System (DNS) settings, in order to redirect victims to attacker-controlled sites promoting fake coronavirus information apps. If victims download these apps, they are infected with information stealing Oski malware. This latest attack shows that hackers are becoming more creative in how they leverage the coronavirus pandemic.
Working from Home? Here’s What You Need for a Secure Setup
In response to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, many companies have rolled out work-from-home arrangements. As a result, there has been an influx of employees signing in remotely to corporate networks and using cloud-based applications, potentially opening doors to security risks. In this blog, Trend Micro shares how security teams and home office users can mitigate the risks that come with remote-working setups.
Russian Hackers Using Stolen Corporate Email Accounts to Mask their Phishing Attempts
In the last year, Russian military intelligence hackers have used previously hacked email accounts to send a wide array of phishing attempts. Feike Hacquebord, senior threat researcher at Trend Micro, explains new research regarding the group known as Fancy Bear, APT28, or Pawn Storm, and how they used hacked emails of high-profile personnel at defense firms in the Middle East to carry out an attack.
Review, Refocus, and Recalibrate: The 2019 Mobile Threat Landscape
Trend Micro analyzed 2019’s most notable mobile threats to assess the landscape and help users and enterprises reevaluate their measures and practices to defend against future threats. While there was a decrease in certain threats compared to 2018, in 2019 cybercriminals looked at the malicious mobile routines that worked in the past and adjusted these to make them more sophisticated, persistent, and profitable online and offline.
Have you seen any COVID-19 related cyber-scams? Share your thoughts in the comments below or follow me on Twitter to continue the conversation: @JonLClay.
The post This Week in Security News: Hong Kong Users Targeted with Mobile Malware via Local News Links and Hackers Hijack Routers to Spread Malware Via Coronavirus Apps appeared first on .
The corporate endpoint is a constant battle between cybersecurity white hats and criminal attackers. According to one study from the Ponemon Institute, 68% of organizations were victims of an attack on the endpoint in 2019. The risks and costs associated with undetected threats are immeasurable. Organizations need to detect and respond immediately before any significant damage is done.
In order to do this, CISOs must look beyond the endpoint to also include email, servers, cloud workloads and networks. This is the value of Trend Micro’s XDR platform. We heard feedback on this strategy recently, as Trend Micro was named a Leader in The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Detection and Response, Q1 2020.
Under fire and over-stretched
Enterprise IT security teams are under unparalleled pressure. On one hand, they’re bombarded with cyber-attacks on a massive scale. Trend Micro detected and blocked over 52 billion such threats in 2019 alone. On the other hand, they’re facing a range of continuously evolving black hat tools and techniques including fileless malware, phishing, and supply chain attacks, that could lead to data theft and service outages. The stakes couldn’t be higher, thanks to an ever-tightening regulatory regime. All of this must be done with workforce challenges: the current cyber skills shortage for North American firms stands at nearly 500,000 workers.
These are the kinds of challenges facing Trend Micro customer MedImpact Healthcare Systems, the largest privately held pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) in the US. Processing more than one million healthcare claims daily, MedImpact must protect two primary data centers, three call centers staffed 24/7, and multiple private network routing centers — all to the strict compliance requirements of HIPAA, PCI DSS and other regulations.
As Frank Bunton, VP, CISO for MedImpact knows, effective endpoint detection and response (EDR) is vital to modern organizations. “EDR accelerates the threat analysis process so we can get to the solution faster,” says Bunton. “Speed to resolution is critical because we see attacks every day on just about every network.”
But MedImpact is similar to a lot of other organizations today in that it also appreciates the need to go beyond the endpoint for critical cross-layer detection and response. “XDR gives us the added confidence that our organization is protected on all fronts. If an endpoint detects a problem, it automatically uploads the suspect object to a tool that analyzes that problem and fixes it. By the time we are aware of an issue, the issue is resolved. There is no way we could manage this much information without extended security automation,” says Bunton.
The future is XDR
This is where XDR comes in. It has been designed to look not just at endpoint detection and response, but also to collect and correlate data from across the organization, including: email, endpoint, servers, cloud workloads, and networks. With this enhanced context, and the power of our AI and expert security analytics, the platform is able to identify threats more easily and contain them more effectively.
This matters to organizations like MedImpact, whose key challenge was “finding security solutions that could communicate with each other and share valuable data in real time.” XDR has visibility across the entire IT environment to detect earlier and with more confidence. It provides a single source of the truth and delivers fewer higher-fidelity alerts to enhance protection and maximize limited IT resources.
But don’t just take our word for it. Forrester gave us a perfect score for product vision, security analytics, performance, market presence and much more. “Trend Micro has a forward-thinking approach and is an excellent choice for organizations wanting to centralize reporting and detection with XDR but have less capacity for proactively threat hunting,” the report concluded.
To find out more… check out the Forrester report on leaders in this space.
Learn more from MedImpact’s success story.
The post Riding another wave of success for our multi-layered detection and response approach appeared first on .
This week, we welcome David Walter, Vice President, RSA Archer and RSA Cloud at RSA Security, to discuss Compliance Risk Challenges! In our second segment, we welcome Kevin Haynes, Chief Privacy Officer at Nemours Children's Health System, to talk about Nemours' use of RSA Archer to manage Compliance Risk!
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Show Notes: https://wiki.securityweekly.com/SCWEpisode22
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