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The Biden administration today issued its vision for beefing up the nation’s collective cybersecurity posture, including calls for legislation establishing liability for software products and services that are sold with little regard for security. The White House’s new national cybersecurity strategy also envisions a more active role by cloud providers and the U.S. military in disrupting cybercriminal infrastructure, and it names China as the single biggest cyber threat to U.S. interests.
The strategy says the White House will work with Congress and the private sector to develop legislation that would prevent companies from disavowing responsibility for the security of their software products or services.
Coupled with this stick would be a carrot: An as-yet-undefined “safe harbor framework” that would lay out what these companies could do to demonstrate that they are making cybersecurity a central concern of their design and operations.
“Any such legislation should prevent manufacturers and software publishers with market power from fully disclaiming liability by contract, and establish higher standards of care for software in specific high-risk scenarios,” the strategy explains. “To begin to shape standards of care for secure software development, the Administration will drive the development of an adaptable safe harbor framework to shield from liability companies that securely develop and maintain their software products and services.”
Brian Fox, chief technology officer and founder of the software supply chain security firm Sonatype, called the software liability push a landmark moment for the industry.
“Market forces are leading to a race to the bottom in certain industries, while contract law allows software vendors of all kinds to shield themselves from liability,” Fox said. “Regulations for other industries went through a similar transformation, and we saw a positive result — there’s now an expectation of appropriate due care, and accountability for those who fail to comply. Establishing the concept of safe harbors allows the industry to mature incrementally, leveling up security best practices in order to retain a liability shield, versus calling for sweeping reform and unrealistic outcomes as previous regulatory attempts have.”
In 2012 (approximately three national cyber strategies ago), then director of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) Keith Alexander made headlines when he remarked that years of successful cyber espionage campaigns from Chinese state-sponsored hackers represented “the greatest transfer of wealth in history.”
The document released today says the People’s Republic of China (PRC) “now presents the broadest, most active, and most persistent threat to both government and private sector networks,” and says China is “the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do so.”
Many of the U.S. government’s efforts to restrain China’s technology prowess involve ongoing initiatives like the CHIPS Act, a new law signed by President Biden last year that sets aside more than $50 billion to expand U.S.-based semiconductor manufacturing and research and to make the U.S. less dependent on foreign suppliers; the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative; and the National Strategy to Secure 5G.
As the maker of most consumer gizmos with a computer chip inside, China is also the source of an incredible number of low-cost Internet of Things (IoT) devices that are not only poorly secured, but are probably more accurately described as insecure by design.
The Biden administration said it would continue its previously announced plans to develop a system of labeling that could be applied to various IoT products and give consumers some idea of how secure the products may be. But it remains unclear how those labels might apply to products made by companies outside of the United States.
One could convincingly make the case that the world has witnessed yet another historic transfer of wealth and trade secrets over the past decade — in the form of ransomware and data ransom attacks by Russia-based cybercriminal syndicates, as well as Russian intelligence agency operations like the U.S. government-wide Solar Winds compromise.
On the ransomware front, the White House strategy seems to focus heavily on building the capability to disrupt the digital infrastructure used by adversaries that are threatening vital U.S. cyber interests. The document points to the 2021 takedown of the Emotet botnet — a cybercrime machine that was heavily used by multiple Russian ransomware groups — as a model for this activity, but says those disruptive operations need to happen faster and more often.
To that end, the Biden administration says it will expand the capacity of the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force (NCIJTF), the primary federal agency for coordinating cyber threat investigations across law enforcement agencies, the intelligence community, and the Department of Defense.
“To increase the volume and speed of these integrated disruption campaigns, the Federal Government must further develop technological and organizational platforms that enable continuous, coordinated operations,” the strategy observes. “The NCIJTF will expand its capacity to coordinate takedown and disruption campaigns with greater speed, scale, and frequency. Similarly, DoD and the Intelligence Community are committed to bringing to bear their full range of complementary authorities to disruption campaigns.”
The strategy anticipates the U.S. government working more closely with cloud and other Internet infrastructure providers to quickly identify malicious use of U.S.-based infrastructure, share reports of malicious use with the government, and make it easier for victims to report abuse of these systems.
“Given the interest of the cybersecurity community and digital infrastructure owners and operators in continuing this approach, we must sustain and expand upon this model so that collaborative disruption operations can be carried out on a continuous basis,” the strategy argues. “Threat specific collaboration should take the form of nimble, temporary cells, comprised of a small number of trusted operators, hosted and supported by a relevant hub. Using virtual collaboration platforms, members of the cell would share information bidirectionally and work rapidly to disrupt adversaries.”
But here, again, there is a carrot-and-stick approach: The administration said it is taking steps to implement Executive Order (EO) 13984 –issued by the Trump administration in January 2021 — which requires cloud providers to verify the identity of foreign persons using their services.
“All service providers must make reasonable attempts to secure the use of their infrastructure against abuse or other criminal behavior,” the strategy states. “The Administration will prioritize adoption and enforcement of a risk-based approach to cybersecurity across Infrastructure-as-a-Service providers that addresses known methods and indicators of malicious activity including through implementation of EO 13984.”
Ted Schlein, founding partner of the cybersecurity venture capital firm Ballistic Ventures, said how this gets implemented will determine whether it can be effective.
“Adversaries know the NSA, which is the elite portion of the nation’s cyber defense, cannot monitor U.S.-based infrastructure, so they just use U.S.-based cloud infrastructure to perpetrate their attacks,” Schlein said. “We have to fix this. I believe some of this section is a bit pollyannaish, as it assumes a bad actor with a desire to do a bad thing will self-identify themselves, as the major recommendation here is around KYC (‘know your customer’).”
One brief but interesting section of the strategy titled “Explore a Federal Cyber Insurance Backdrop” contemplates the government’s liability and response to a too-big-to-fail scenario or “catastrophic cyber incident.”
“We will explore how the government can stabilize insurance markets against catastrophic risk to drive better cybersecurity practices and to provide market certainty when catastrophic events do occur,” the strategy reads.
When the Bush administration released the first U.S. national cybersecurity strategy 20 years ago after the 9/11 attacks, the popular term for that same scenario was a “digital Pearl Harbor,” and there was a great deal of talk then about how the cyber insurance market would soon help companies shore up their cybersecurity practices.
In the wake of countless ransomware intrusions, many companies now hold cybersecurity insurance to help cover the considerable costs of responding to such intrusions. Leaving aside the question of whether insurance coverage has helped companies improve security, what happens if every one of these companies has to make a claim at the same time?
The notion of a Digital Pearl Harbor incident struck many experts at the time as a hyperbolic justification for expanding the government’s digital surveillance capabilities, and an overstatement of the capabilities of our adversaries. But back in 2003, most of the world’s companies didn’t host their entire business in the cloud.
Today, nobody questions the capabilities, goals and outcomes of dozens of nation-state level cyber adversaries. And these days, a catastrophic cyber incident could be little more than an extended, simultaneous outage at multiple cloud providers.
The full national cybersecurity strategy is available from the White House website (PDF).
For Cisco engineers working on Duo, having a remote-first workplace has helped them reach life goals, connect with colleagues around the world, and be intentional communicators. We understand that working remotely can be an adjustment — that’s why we’ve compiled the 10 parts of remote work that surprised our team members most and their advice for navigating the nuances. If you’re interested in being part of a remote-first workplace, check out our open positions.
Senior Engineering Leader David Rines has worked remotely for the past seven years. He’s found that Cisco’s approach to distributed teams has “enabled us to pick up the right talent, and not necessarily local talent. We are moving towards a global, follow the sun environment,” he said.
One of the aspects Rines appreciates most of this structure is getting “a widely varied set of perspectives and experiences that help build a more reliable, more robust product, which is why we’re here.”
Another benefit to having colleagues across the globe is the sharing of recipes, a perk Senior Site Reliability Engineer Bernard Ting particularly enjoys. Proactively communicating with colleagues virtually “helps you to form bonds with people from other teams. You can always learn something new about cultures elsewhere. I talk to people about food and so I’m always gathering recipes from people from all over the world,” Ting shared.
While some may fear that working remotely could lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness, a different camaraderie can flourish in the structure of our distributed teams. With colleagues across time zones, “there’s always someone there who you can reach out to help solve your problem,” Rines said.
Collaboration hours are another way Site Reliability Engineering Manager Jaya Sistla has cultivated virtual community and problem-solving. These hours are blocked off for team members to talk about what they’re working on. “The main thing is being able to ask for help so you don’t go into the rabbit hole debugging things,” Sistla said.
Ting points out that working in a distributed model allows you to really engage in virtual events and conversations. Given that the team mainly communicates through online chat, Ting has found that “forces you to see everyone as equally approachable, which has made me more comfortable reaching out to people from anywhere in the world.”
For folks sharing an office, collaboration can happen through casual chats over coffee. When facing a challenge, you can ask your neighbor for support. While ideally virtual communication could have a similar cadence and spontaneity, the logistics of remote and distributed work require intentionality and being proactive in connecting with colleagues as people and as co-workers.
When Ting first started working remotely, he felt that every meeting needed to be formal and have a business objective. By sharing his feelings with his manager, he was reassured that “socializing is a very important part of teamwork, because if you don’t have a good relationship with your colleagues you’re not going to be able to have healthy discussions, healthy conflict or be able to critique each other when the situation arises.”
Since that conversation, Ting has been more proactive about catching up with colleagues, which can include sharing a coffee over video chat. Duo’s “coffee roulette” formalizes the process as every month, employees who opt in can be randomly paired up for a quick half-hour chat focused exclusively on socializing. Ting has found being proactive about socializing virtually helpful. “It’s made me more intentional with my time and really treasure the social experience you can get,” he said.
Some folks may be concerned that without a manager observing their efforts and work ethic day in and day out, it may be harder to recognize accomplishments and challenges. Ting found that within his team “when you work on projects and in your one-on-ones with your managers, they’re always very intentional about learning what you’ve been doing and seeing what your progress is like on certain projects. I’ve been asked, ‘How do you think you can improve? What are some of the things you’ve been doing outside of the team work?’”
To cultivate cross-team collaboration and education, there are thoughtfully planned virtual lunch and learns. “We schedule training sessions and common meetings at times that are flexible for everyone. If it has to be repeated, we do it so people can comfortably attend rather than stretching themselves and attending at odd hours,” Sistla said.
For Software Engineer Nick Aspinall, an important and fun part of working remotely is keeping in touch with virtual messaging. One unique perk has been getting to create and customize emojis with team members including a few of himself in “various ridiculous states,” he said.
Connecting with colleagues on themed channels focused on personal and professional interests from coffee to pets “makes it really cool because you can meet people across different teams and still get some of the feeling of rubbing elbows that you get when you’re in the office,” Aspinall said. Participating in these virtual conversations boosts morale while also providing an endless supply of cute animal pics.
Given the multi-faceted nature of our work and the importance of consistent information sharing, having different communication channels and formats to communicate data with varying degrees of complexity is vital. Having information readily accessible, accurate and updated is particularly necessary in a field like cybersecurity.
Senior Software Engineer Mario Lopez finds that the variety of information sources contributes to an easeful remote working experience. For instance, for complex architecture decisions or detailing, Duo’s Wiki is the best source.
Software Engineer Hanna Fernandez has benefited from chat channels dedicated to design and engineering topics to “see what everyone’s up to and what thoughts people have,” she said. Sista pointed out these are great places to ask questions and open up dialogue to solve problems.
Our culture is “video-on,” meaning that it is preferred that during video meetings, as much as possible, attendees have their cameras on. Lopez loves this because “you get a bit of that personal human element.”
“We’re all people behind these screens. You definitely get some of people’s personality through text, but you get it more when you actually see them. It’s infectious when you see someone smiling. You’ve got to smile back,” he shared (while we both smiled).
When Fernandez started at Cisco, she was advised to schedule individual meetings with everyone she would be working with on every team that she joined. That suggestion is one she’s applied even virtually.
“It’s a great strategy because I already know that my team is super talented and very smart, but this way I also get to know them as humans beyond their roles,” Fernandez said. Fernandez also finds it important to check in with co-workers and ask how they’re feeling and how their time off was. “I know a lot of people hate small talk, but it’s not just small talk. I’m genuinely interested in how my co-workers are doing.”
One of Ting’s biggest goals was buying his first house in the countryside outside of London. By working remotely, Ting has flexibility in his location which allowed him to achieve his goal of buying a house and settling down with his partner, while giving their dogs the space they need to be dogs.
When transitioning from fully remote to hybrid, it’s important to recognize that there will be some shifts to get accustomed to. As the structures of remote, distributed and hybrid work evolve, it’s important to stay flexible and notice what’s possible through multiple modalities of team building. Many teams have enjoyed in-person gatherings and connecting through virtual lunches and team games when remote.
Fernandez has had multiple roles with multiple structures at Cisco. As an intern, she was fully in person and shared desk space with other interns who collaborated on full stack engineering. While working in finance IT, Fernandez was hybrid and many of her colleagues were distributed among multiple offices. The pandemic began while she was in a DevOps role, forcing her to maintain boundaries around her work time while working fully remotely. In her current role working on Duo, Fernandez is completely remote but advocates for in-person events if possible, because “humans are social creatures who want to see each other’s faces in real life once in a while.”
For Aspinall, “when we did come back to the office, there was a bit of an adjustment period where you were overstimulated from the office.” He also wanted to ensure team members who were 100% remote were fully included. Now he sees that while half his team is fully remote and the other half is hybrid, “that doesn’t stop anyone from doing anything. All of our meetings feel the same. They’re all seamless.”
If you’re interested in joining our team from wherever you are in the world, check out our open roles.
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Most people who operate DDoS-for-hire businesses attempt to hide their true identities and location. Proprietors of these so-called “booter” or “stresser” services — designed to knock websites and users offline — have long operated in a legally murky area of cybercrime law. But until recently, their biggest concern wasn’t avoiding capture or shutdown by the feds: It was minimizing harassment from unhappy customers or victims, and insulating themselves against incessant attacks from competing DDoS-for-hire services.
And then there are booter store operators like John Dobbs, a 32-year-old computer science graduate student living in Honolulu, Hawaii. For at least a decade until late last year, Dobbs openly operated IPStresser[.]com, a popular and powerful attack-for-hire service that he registered with the state of Hawaii using his real name and address. Likewise, the domain was registered in Dobbs’s name and hometown in Pennsylvania.
Dobbs, in an undated photo from his Github profile. Image: john-dobbs.github.io
The only work experience Dobbs listed on his resume was as a freelance developer from 2013 to the present day. Dobbs’s resume doesn’t name his booter service, but in it he brags about maintaining websites with half a million page views daily, and “designing server deployments for performance, high-availability and security.”
In December 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice seized Dobbs’s IPStresser website and charged him with one count of aiding and abetting computer intrusions. Prosecutors say his service attracted more than two million registered users, and was responsible for launching a staggering 30 million distinct DDoS attacks.
The government seized four-dozen booter domains, and criminally charged Dobbs and five other U.S. men for allegedly operating stresser services. This was the Justice Department’s second such mass takedown targeting DDoS-for-hire services and their accused operators. In 2018, the feds seized 15 stresser sites, and levied cybercrime charges against three men for their operation of booter services.
Dobbs’s booter service, IPStresser, in June 2020. Image: archive.org.
Many accused stresser site operators have pleaded guilty over the years after being hit with federal criminal charges. But the government’s core claim — that operating a booter site is a violation of U.S. computer crime laws — wasn’t properly tested in the courts until September 2021.
That was when a jury handed down a guilty verdict against Matthew Gatrel, a then 32-year-old St. Charles, Ill. man charged in the government’s first 2018 mass booter bust-up. Despite admitting to FBI agents that he ran two booter services (and turning over plenty of incriminating evidence in the process), Gatrel opted to take his case to trial, defended the entire time by court-appointed attorneys.
Prosecutors said Gatrel’s booter services — downthem[.]org and ampnode[.]com — helped some 2,000 paying customers launch debilitating digital assaults on more than 20,000 targets, including many government, banking, university and gaming websites.
Gatrel was convicted on all three charges of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, including conspiracy to commit unauthorized impairment of a protected computer, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and unauthorized impairment of a protected computer. He was sentenced to two years in prison.
Now, it appears Dobbs is also planning to take his chances with a jury. On Jan. 4, Dobbs entered a plea of not guilty. Neither Dobbs nor his court-appointed attorney responded to requests for comment.
But as it happens, Dobbs himself provided some perspective on his thinking in an email exchange with KrebsOnSecurity back in 2020. I’d reached out to Dobbs because it was obvious he didn’t mind if people knew he operated one of the world’s most popular DDoS-for-hire sites, and I was genuinely curious why he was so unafraid of getting raided by the feds.
“Yes, I am the owner of the domain you listed, however you are not authorized to post an article containing said domain name, my name or this email address without my prior written permission,” Dobbs replied to my initial outreach on March 10, 2020 using his email address from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
A few hours later, I received more strident instructions from Dobbs, this time via his official email address at ipstresser[.]com.
“I will state again for absolute clarity, you are not authorized to post an article containing ipstresser.com, my name, my GitHub profile and/or my hawaii.edu email address,” Dobbs wrote, as if taking dictation from a lawyer who doesn’t understand how the media works.
When pressed for particulars on his business, Dobbs replied that the number of IPStresser customers was “privileged information,” and said he didn’t even advertise the service. When asked whether he was concerned that many of his competitors were by then serving jail time for operating similar booter services, Dobbs maintained that the way he’d set up the business insulated him from any liability.
“I have been aware of the recent law enforcement actions against other operators of stress testing services,” Dobbs explained. “I cannot speak to the actions of these other services, but we take proactive measures to prevent misuse of our service and we work with law enforcement agencies regarding any reported abuse of our service.”
What were those proactive measures? In a 2015 interview with ZDNet France, Dobbs asserted that he was immune from liability because his clients all had to submit a digital signature attesting that they wouldn’t use the site for illegal purposes.
“Our terms of use are a legal document that protects us, among other things, from certain legal consequences,” Dobbs told ZDNet. “Most other sites are satisfied with a simple checkbox, but we ask for a digital signature in order to imply real consent from our customers.”
Dobbs told KrebsOnSecurity his service didn’t generate much of a profit, but rather that he was motivated by “filling a legitimate need.”
“My reason for offering the service is to provide the ability to test network security measures before someone with malicious intent attacks said network and causes downtime,” he said. “Sure, some people see only the negatives, but there is a long list of companies I have worked with over the years who would say my service is a godsend and has helped them prevent tens of thousands of dollars in downtime resulting from a malicious attack.”
“I do not believe that providing such a service is illegal, assuming proper due diligence to prevent malicious use of the service, as is the case for IPstresser[.]com,” Dobbs continued. “Someone using such a service to conduct unauthorized testing is illegal in many countries, however, the legal liability is that of the user, not of the service provider.”
Dobbs’s profile on GitHub includes more of his ideas about his work, including a curious piece on “software engineering ethics.” In his January 2020 treatise “My Software Engineering Journey,” Dobbs laments that nothing in his formal education prepared him for the reality that a great deal of his work would be so tedious and repetitive (this tracks closely with a 2020 piece here called Career Choice Tip: Cybercrime is Mostly Boring).
“One area of software engineering that I think should be covered more in university classes is maintenance,” Dobbs wrote. “Projects are often worked on for at most a few months, and students do not experience the maintenance aspect of software engineering until they reach the workplace. Let’s face it, ongoing maintenance of a project is boring; there is nothing like the euphoria of completing a project you have been working on for months and releasing it to the world, but I would say that half of my professional career has been related to maintenance.”
Allison Nixon is chief research officer at the New York-based cybersecurity firm Unit 221B. Nixon is part of a small group of researchers who have been closely tracking the DDoS-for-hire industry for years, and she said Dobbs’s claim that what he’s doing is legal makes sense given that it took years for the government to recognize the size of the problem.
“These guys are arguing that their services are legal because for a long time nothing happened to them,” Nixon said. “It’s difficult to argue something is illegal if no one has ever been arrested for it before.”
Nixon says the government’s fight against the booter services — and by extension other types of cybercrimes — is hampered by a legal system that often takes years to cycle through cybercrime cases.
“With cybercrime, the cycle between the crime and investigation and arrest can often take a year or more, and that’s for a really fast case,” Nixon said. “If someone robbed a store, we’d expect a police response within a few minutes. If someone robs a bank’s website, there might be some indication of police activity within a year.”
Nixon praised the 2022 and 2018 booter takedown operations as “huge steps forward,” but added that “there need to be more of them, and faster.”
“This time lag is part of the reason it’s so difficult to shut down the pipeline of new talent going into cybercrime,” she said. “They think what they’re doing is legal because nothing has happened, and because of the amount of time it takes to shut these things down. And it’s really a big problem, where we see a lot of people becoming criminals on the basis that what they’re doing isn’t really illegal because the cops won’t do anything.”
In December 2020, Dobbs filed an application with the state of Hawaii to withdraw IP Stresser Inc. from its roster of active companies. But according to prosecutors, Dobbs would continue to operate his DDoS-for-hire site until at least November 2022.
Two months after our 2020 email interview, Dobbs would earn his second bachelor’s degree (in computer science; his resume says he earned a bachelor’s in civil engineering from Drexel University in 2013). The federal charges against Dobbs came just as he was preparing to enter his final semester toward a master’s degree in computer science at the University of Hawaii.
Nixon says she has a message for anyone involved in operating a DDoS-for-hire service.
“Unless you are verifying that the target owns the infrastructure you’re targeting, there is no legal way to operate a DDoS-for-hire service,” she said. “There is no Terms of Service you could put on the site that would somehow make it legal.”
And her message to the customers of those booter services? It’s a compelling one to ponder, particularly now that investigators in the United States, U.K. and elsewhere have started going after booter service customers.
“When a booter service claims they don’t share logs, they’re lying because logs are legal leverage for when the booter service operator gets arrested,” Nixon said. “And when they do, you’re going to be the first people they throw under the bus.”
It’s been my pleasure to work alongside the Centre for Information Policy Leadership (CIPL) for over a decade to advocate for privacy to be respected as a fundamental human right and managed by organizations as a business imperative. CIPL works with industry leaders, regulators, and policymakers to deliver leading practices and solutions for privacy and responsible data use around the world.
Our organizations share the belief that privacy is key to trust and provides a critical competitive advantage for those who get it right. As privacy professionals, we live and breathe the importance of privacy every day and understand its value. We must help business leaders and other key stakeholders recognize and realize data privacy’s true worth and invest appropriately — beyond just meeting legal or compliance requirements.
We’re excited today to share this new, jointly-published research report Business Benefits of Investing in Data Privacy Management Programs. This report offers insights into the material business benefits that organizations are realizing from the time, monetary, and resource investments they have applied to building their Data Privacy Management Programs (DPMPs).
Here are some of the key findings:
Customers want accountability. While organizations are expected to meet their legal, compliance, and data security requirements, customers also demand organizations to be responsible stewards of their personal data. DPMPs not only enable organizations to gain a competitive edge, they empower them to earn and grow confidence and trust in the business.
Significant benefits from investing in DPMPs. Risk mitigation and compliance benefits, like avoiding regulatory scrutiny and fines, minimizing breaches, and evading damage to reputation, are among the most substantial benefits experienced by organizations that implement a DPMP. Other tangible benefits include greater agility, operational efficiency, and making the organization more attractive to investors.
Strong, attractive returns from DPMPs. More than half of organizations surveyed experienced at least $1 million in benefit from investing in privacy over the past year, with 28% realizing over $10 million in benefit.
Widespread Use of Privacy Maturity Models. Most organizations are using some form of a privacy maturity model to show accountability, including the CIPL Accountability Framework, ISO standards, Generally Accepted Privacy Principles, and the NIST Privacy Framework, among others. And CIPL members had an average score of 4.13 out of 5 with respect to implementing the seven elements of organizational accountability as described in the report.
There is considerable interest in further understanding the value DPMPs bring to their organization. Discussions about privacy and how DPMPs positively impact organizations will continue to be an increasing area of focus for corporate leadership, including the C-suite and at the Board level.
These findings offer valuable information and perspective for those building and operationalizing privacy. We’ll continue to research and share other qualitative and quantitative evidence that highlights privacy’s growing priority and value for organizations and the individuals they serve.
Check out this report Business Benefits of Investing in Data Privacy Management Programs and more related privacy research on consumer and organizational perspectives on the Cisco Trust Center.
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It has a way of sneaking up on you. Credit theft and fraud.
Maybe it’s happened to you. Maybe it’s happened to a friend or family member. There’s a call from the bank, a notification in your financial app, or a charge on the statement that’s beyond explanation. Someone else has tapped into your funds. Or worse yet, someone stole your identity and took out a loan in your name. You find out only after it’s happened.
That’s the trick with credit theft and fraud. People typically discover it after the damage is done. Then they’re left picking up the pieces, which can cost both time and money. Not to mention a potential knock to their credit score.
However, you can help keep it from happening to you. Our recently published Credit Protection Security Guide breaks down several ways. Here we’ll get into a quick introduction on the topic and show how you can prevent against credit theft and fraud better than ever before.
It’s an unfortunate reality in the world we live in today. Credit theft and fraud are something we all need to look out for, particularly as we increasingly shop and conduct our finances online, potentially exposing that information to thieves. Some figures estimate that for nearly every $100 in purchases made with debit and credit cards worldwide, somewhere around 7 cents can be stolen or fraudulent. As you can imagine, that figure adds up quickly, to the tune of more than $28 billion globally each year.
The flipside is this: today we have plenty of tools that make protecting our credit far easier than they ever were before. Up until now, that called for a time-consuming and sometimes rather manual process. You had to check credit separately with the different bureaus, place locks and freezes the same way, scan each credit report closely for suspicious activity, and so forth.
Now, online protection software can take much of that work off your hands. Comprehensive protection like McAfee+ has plans that offer credit monitoring, identity monitoring, and even identity theft protection & restoration—all quickly spotting any changes, notifying you if your personal information pops up on the dark web, and providing $1 of coverage toward restoring your credit along with the help of a licensed recovery pro if the unexpected happens to you.
Another thing online protection can do for you removes your personal information from those “people finder” and data broker sites. Identity thieves lean on those sites because they contain valuable information that they can piece together to commit theft and fraud in someone else’s name. If you think about your identity as a big jigsaw puzzle, these sites contain valuable pieces that can help complete the picture—or just enough to take a crack at your credit.
In fact, personal information fuels a global data trading economy estimated at $200 billion U.S. dollars a year. Run by data brokers that keep hundreds and even thousands of data points on billions of people, these sites gather, analyze, buy, and sell this information to other companies as well as to advertisers. Likewise, these data brokers may sell this information to bad actors, such as hackers, spammers, and identity thieves who would twist this information for their own purposes. In short, data brokers don’t discriminate. They’ll sell personal information to anyone.
Getting your info removed from these sites can seem like a daunting task. (Where do I start, and just how many of these sites are out there?) Our Personal Data Cleanup can help by regularly scanning these high-risk data broker sites for you and info associated with you like your home address, date of birth, and names of relatives—along with other detailed information about you that could include marriage licenses, voter registration and motor vehicle records, even real estate records too. It identifies which sites are selling your data, and depending on your plan, automatically requests removal.
How things have changed. Even as thieves have gotten savvier in the digital age, so have we. Collectively, we have a growing arsenal of ways that we can keep on top of our credit and protect ourselves from credit theft and fraud.
Our Credit Protection Security Guide breaks it all down in detail. In it, you’ll learn more about how thieves work, ways you can secure your credit online and off, how to monitor and lock it down, plus protect your mobile wallets too. It’s thorough. Yet you’ll find how straightforward the solution is. A few changes in habits and a few extra protections at your side will go a long way toward prevention—helping you avoid that call, text, or notification that your credit has been compromised.
In all, you can take control of your credit and make sure you’re the only one putting it to good use.
The post Your Guide to Protecting Your Credit appeared first on McAfee Blog.
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Your phone is likely a daily companion, giving you access to work emails, chats with friends, weather reports, and more — all in the palm of your hand. You can also use your phone for browsing online, looking up everything from your favorite recipes to your most-read media webpages.
While being able to browse whenever and wherever you want is convenient, you might prefer that your phone doesn’t save all your online searches. For example, if you frequently let other people use your phone, you may not want them to have access to a history of your Google searches. In this case, you can use private browsing or “incognito mode.”
This allows you to browse online without leaving any trace of your browsing activity on your mobile phone. Configuring your phone to use incognito mode can give you greater confidence while surfing online, as you’ll enjoy the peace of mind that comes with knowing your browser history isn’t recorded on your device.
This article explains what incognito mode is and how you can set it up on your mobile phone.
Incognito mode allows you to browse online without leaving certain data on the device you’re using. Also referred to as private browsing mode, it makes sure there’s no record of your search engine history, websites you visited, and even login details (and related passcodes) on that device.
As soon as you close the incognito web browser window, any cookies are erased and all these details disappear instead of being saved.
That said, if you leave an incognito browser window open on your phone — and then hand your phone to someone else — they’ll be able to see the activity. So, if you want to make the most of incognito mode, make sure to close the browser window after every surfing session.
Further, if you actively bookmark a page, it will be saved — even if you’re in incognito mode. Read on for some more caveats surrounding incognito mode and the extent of privacy it gives you.
It’s important to note that incognito mode or private browsing mode is a device-specific privacy measure. It makes sure that your search and web browsing history isn’t visible on the device itself.
However, your traffic and activity are both still visible to third parties beyond your device, such as your network admin, internet service provider (ISP), and the websites and search engines that you visit.
Viewing in private or incognito mode also won’t disguise your unique IP address from these parties. Incognito mode further doesn’t secure your device against cyberthreats like hackers.
That said, there are plenty of other tools you can use to safeguard your device against cybercriminals. For example, McAfee+ helps to secure your Wi-Fi connection, shield you from malicious websites or links, and detect malware.
You may already be familiar with incognito mode through your computer. For example, many people set up incognito mode through browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Edge, or Internet Explorer.
However, incognito mode isn’t just for computers — you can also use it on your phone’s web browsing apps.
The steps to setting up incognito mode are fairly straightforward. That said, it depends largely on which type of device you have.
Setting up private browsing or incognito mode for an Android isn’t the same as setting it up for iOS. Read on to learn how to go incognito whether you’ve got an Apple iPhone or an Android phone like Samsung.
The process for setting up incognito mode also varies based on the browser you’re using. Here’s how to set it up in the Google Chrome browser for your Android (note that the Google Chrome app is the default browser for most Android phones):
Remember, for Google Chrome’s incognito mode to do the trick, you need to close your browsing session after each use. If you leave the tab open and someone else uses your phone, they can see your activity.
For iPhones, the default browser is Safari. Here’s how to set up private browsing in Safari for your iPhone:
Again, remember to close your browser’s private tabs when you’re done surfing. This makes sure that cookies are deleted and the private session is safely hidden from your device’s history.
The above steps can help you set up incognito mode on your Apple or Android phone’s browser. However, you probably use your phone for much more than browsing.
You might have apps for watching videos, getting driving directions, listening to music, and more. And the tips above will only protect your privacy when using the phone’s browser — not apps.
That said, some apps offer their very own in-app incognito mode. Examples include YouTube, Google Maps, Spotify, and Instagram. Other apps simply offer the option of private sessions, requiring you to log in with a dedicated username and password if you’re going to use the app. These include Whatsapp, Dropbox, Amazon, PayPal, and Evernote.
Some of these apps can even be configured so they’re only unlockable with touch ID or face ID.
Browsing in incognito or private mode on your phone allows you to surf online without leaving any trace of your search history on that specific device. However, it doesn’t block third parties like your internet service provider or network administrator from seeing what websites you’ve visited. Only your phone is affected.
Incognito mode also doesn’t protect you against potential cyberthreats, like malware. To stay safe and browse with confidence, consider McAfee Mobile Security. It includes Wi-Fi privacy protection, browsing safeguards, shields against unauthorized third-party activities, and more — and it works for Android and iOS devices. Find out more.
The post How to Browse Privately on Your Phone appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Ransomware groups are constantly devising new methods for infecting victims and convincing them to pay up, but a couple of strategies tested recently seem especially devious. The first centers on targeting healthcare organizations that offer consultations over the Internet and sending them booby-trapped medical records for the “patient.” The other involves carefully editing email inboxes of public company executives to make it appear that some were involved in insider trading.
Alex Holden is founder of Hold Security, a Milwaukee-based cybersecurity firm. Holden’s team gained visibility into discussions among members of two different ransom groups: CLOP (a.k.a. “Cl0p” a.k.a. “TA505“), and a newer ransom group known as Venus.
Last month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) warned that Venus ransomware attacks were targeting a number of U.S. healthcare organizations. First spotted in mid-August 2022, Venus is known for hacking into victims’ publicly-exposed Remote Desktop services to encrypt Windows devices.
Holden said the internal discussions among the Venus group members indicate this gang has no problem gaining access to victim organizations.
“The Venus group has problems getting paid,” Holden said. “They are targeting a lot of U.S. companies, but nobody wants to pay them.”
Which might explain why their latest scheme centers on trying to frame executives at public companies for insider trading charges. Venus indicated it recently had success with a method that involves carefully editing one or more email inbox files at a victim firm — to insert messages discussing plans to trade large volumes of the company’s stock based on non-public information.
“We imitate correspondence of the [CEO] with a certain insider who shares financial reports of his companies through which your victim allegedly trades in the stock market, which naturally is a criminal offense and — according to US federal laws [includes the possibility of up to] 20 years in prison,” one Venus member wrote to an underling.
“You need to create this file and inject into the machine(s) like this so that metadata would say that they were created on his computer,” they continued. “One of my clients did it, I don’t know how. In addition to pst, you need to decompose several files into different places, so that metadata says the files are native from a certain date and time rather than created yesterday on an unknown machine.”
Holden said it’s not easy to plant emails into an inbox, but it can be done with Microsoft Outlook .pst files, which the attackers may also have access to if they’d already compromised a victim network.
“It’s not going to be forensically solid, but that’s not what they care about,” he said. “It still has the potential to be a huge scandal — at least for a while — when a victim is being threatened with the publication or release of these records.”
The Venus ransom group’s extortion note. Image: Tripwire.com
Holden said the CLOP ransomware gang has a different problem of late: Not enough victims. The intercepted CLOP communication seen by KrebsOnSecurity shows the group bragged about twice having success infiltrating new victims in the healthcare industry by sending them infected files disguised as ultrasound images or other medical documents for a patient seeking a remote consultation.
The CLOP members said one tried-and-true method of infecting healthcare providers involved gathering healthcare insurance and payment data to use in submitting requests for a remote consultation on a patient who has cirrhosis of the liver.
“Basically, they’re counting on doctors or nurses reviewing the patient’s chart and scans just before the appointment,” Holden said. “They initially discussed going in with cardiovascular issues, but decided cirrhosis or fibrosis of the liver would be more likely to be diagnosable remotely from existing test results and scans.”
While CLOP as a money making collective is a fairly young organization, security experts say CLOP members hail from a group of Threat Actors (TA) known as “TA505,” which MITRE’s ATT&CK database says is a financially motivated cybercrime group that has been active since at least 2014. “This group is known for frequently changing malware and driving global trends in criminal malware distribution,” MITRE assessed.
In April, 2021, KrebsOnSecurity detailed how CLOP helped pioneer another innovation aimed at pushing more victims into paying an extortion demand: Emailing the ransomware victim’s customers and partners directly and warning that their data would be leaked to the dark web unless they can convince the victim firm to pay up.
Security firm Tripwire points out that the HHS advisory on Venus says multiple threat actor groups are likely distributing the Venus ransomware. Tripwire’s tips for all organizations on avoiding ransomware attacks include:
While the above tips are important and useful, one critical area of ransomware preparedness overlooked by too many organizations is the need to develop — and then periodically rehearse — a plan for how everyone in the organization should respond in the event of a ransomware or data ransom incident. Drilling this breach response plan is key because it helps expose weaknesses in those plans that could be exploited by the intruders.
As noted in last year’s story Don’t Wanna Pay Ransom Gangs? Test Your Backups, experts say the biggest reason ransomware targets and/or their insurance providers still pay when they already have reliable backups of their systems and data is that nobody at the victim organization bothered to test in advance how long this data restoration process might take.
“Suddenly the victim notices they have a couple of petabytes of data to restore over the Internet, and they realize that even with their fast connections it’s going to take three months to download all these backup files,” said Fabian Wosar, chief technology officer at Emsisoft. “A lot of IT teams never actually make even a back-of-the-napkin calculation of how long it would take them to restore from a data rate perspective.”
Whether you’re spending time on the web or working in the office, you want peace of mind knowing that you are in a safe environment. While most of us know to take precautions when online — protecting ourselves from things like phishing attacks and other cyber threats — we should also attend to our physical security.
One concern is tailgating — a social engineering attack where someone gets physical access to a business to take confidential information or do other harm.
Here are some ways to protect yourself from tailgating attacks, such as an unauthorized person following you into a restricted area while on the job.
Tailgating is a type of social engineering attack where an unauthorized person gains physical access to an off-limits location — perhaps a password-protected area — where they might steal sensitive information, damage property, compromise user credentials or even install malware on computers.
“Piggybacking” is closely related to tailgating, but it involves consent from the duped employee. So, while a worker might be unaware that someone has tailgated them into a restricted area with piggybacking, the hacker might convince a worker to provide access because they are posing as, say, a delivery driver.
Companies, particularly at risk of being targeted by tailgating scams, include those:
Generally speaking, companies with robust security systems in place — including using biometrics, badges, or other identity and information security measures — are better protected from tailgating and piggybacking attacks.
But that’s not to say that some smooth-talking fraudster can’t talk someone into letting them in or finding some way around those protections.
Common types of tailgating attacks that you should be aware of on the job include:
Protecting yourself from tailgating attacks is partly a matter of learning about the issue, raising your level of awareness on the job, and depending on your employer, putting in place more effective security systems.
Some solutions include:
Many companies know how to train employees to recognize, avoid, and cope with online security issues but may forget to provide the same diligence to physical security. How to spot and deal with threats should be part of this training, plus cultivating an awareness of surroundings and people who might be out of place.
Management should offer a clearly stated security policy taught to everyone, which might insist that no one be allowed into a secure area without the proper pass or identification. As the security policy is updated, all employees should be aware of changes and additions.
These security measures should be part of an overall protection program, like McAfee+, which includes antivirus software, a firewall, identity monitoring, password management, web protection, and more.
If you have a large business spread over several floors, it can be hard for employees to know who works there and who doesn’t, leaving them susceptible to tailgating and piggybacking attacks. Requiring smart badges and cards to access restricted areas can help cut back on unauthorized intrusions and provide better access control.
Building fully staffed reception areas with dedicated security personnel could also be part of a larger security system.
Biometric scanners are an even more advanced way to provide proper authentication for a worker’s identity. They scan a unique physical or audible feature of a person and compare it to a database for approved personnel.
Examples of biometric security include:
One reason people are vulnerable to physical and cyberattacks is that they lack education on social engineering and the kinds of threats it poses.
Workers need to understand the full range of social engineering techniques and know-how to protect themselves, whether in their social media accounts or physical work environment.
For their part, companies can use simulated phishing emails and tailgating attacks to raise awareness and underline how to follow protocols in dealing with them.
If there are many ways to enter a business, it may make sense to put video surveillance on all entrances. Advanced video surveillance systems can use artificial intelligence (AI) and video analytics to scan the faces of people entering and compare them to a database of employee features.
Whether at work or at home, people want to be secure from attacks by cybercriminals who seek to take personal information.
To add a layer of security to all their connected devices — including computers, smartphones, and tablets — an increasing number of people are turning to the comprehensive coverage of McAfee+
Features range from advanced monitoring of possible threats to your identity, automatic implementation of virtual private networks (VPNs) to deal with unsafe networks, and personal data clean-up, removing your information from high-risk data broker sites.
McAfee protection allows you to work and play online with greater peace of mind.
The post What Are Tailgating Attacks and How to Protect Yourself From Them appeared first on McAfee Blog.
It’s important to know that not all websites are safe to visit. In fact, some sites may contain malicious software (malware) that can harm your computer or steal your personal contact information or credit card numbers.
Phishing is another common type of web-based attack where scammers try to trick you into giving them your personal information, and you can be susceptible to this if you visit a suspicious site.
Identity theft is a serious problem, so it’s important to protect yourself when browsing the web. Online security threats can be a big issue for internet users, especially when visiting new websites or following site links.
So how can you tell if you’re visiting a safe website or an unsafe website? You can use a few different methods. This page discusses key things to look for in a website so you can stay safe online.
When you’re visiting a website, a few key indicators can help determine whether the site is safe. This section explores how to check the URL for two specific signs of a secure website.
“Https” in a website URL indicates that the website is safe to visit. The “s” stands for “secure,” and it means that the website uses SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption to protect your information. A verified SSL certificate tells your browser that the website is secure. This is especially important when shopping online or entering personal information into a website.
When you see “https” in a URL, the site is using a protocol that encrypts information before it’s sent from your computer to the website’s server. This helps prevent anyone from intercepting and reading your sensitive information as it’s transmitted.
The padlock icon near your browser’s URL field is another indicator that a webpage is safe to visit. This icon usually appears in the address bar and means the site uses SSL encryption. Security tools and icon and warning appearances depend on the web browser.
Let’s explore the cybersecurity tools on the three major web browsers:
Overall, the ”https” and the locked padlock icon are good signs that your personal data will be safe when you enter it on a website. But you can ensure a website’s security is up to par in other ways. This section will explore five in-depth methods for checking website safety.
McAfee WebAdvisor is a free toolbar that helps keep you safe online. It works with your existing antivirus software to provide an extra layer of protection against online threats. WebAdvisor also blocks unsafe websites and lets you know if a site is known for phishing or other malicious activity. In addition, it can help you avoid online scams and prevent you from accidentally downloading malware. Overall, McAfee WebAdvisor is a useful tool that can help you stay safe while browsing the web.
When you’re browsing the web, it’s important to be able to trust the websites you’re visiting. One way to determine if a website is trustworthy is to look for trust seals. Trust seals are logos or badges that indicate a website is safe and secure. They usually appear on the homepage or checkout page of a website.
There are many types of trust seals, but some of the most common include the Better Business Bureau (BBB) seal, VeriSign secure seal, and the McAfee secure seal. These seals indicate that a third-party organization has verified the website as safe and secure.
While trust seals can help determine whether a website is trustworthy, it’s important to remember that they are not foolproof. Website owners can create a fake trust seal, so it’s always important to do your own research to ensure a website is safe before entering personal information.
Another way to determine if a website is safe to visit is to check for a privacy policy. A privacy policy is a document that outlines how a website collects and uses personal information. It should also state how the site protects your data from being accessed or shared by scammers, hackers, or other unauthorized individuals.
If a website doesn’t have a privacy policy, that’s a red flag that you shouldn’t enter any personal information on the site. Even if a website does have a privacy policy, it’s important to read it carefully so you understand how the site uses your personal data.
It’s important to do some preliminary research before visiting a new website, especially if you’re shopping online or entering personal data like your address, credit card, or phone number. One way to determine if a website is safe and trustworthy is to check third-party reviews. Several websites provide reviews of other websites, so you should be able to find several reviews for any given site.
Trustpilot is one example of a website that provides reviews of other websites.
Look for common themes when reading reviews. If most of the reviews mention that a website is safe and easy to use, it’s likely that the site is indeed safe to visit. However, if a lot of negative reviews mention problems with viruses or malware, you might want to avoid the site.
You can also analyze the website design when deciding whether a website is safe to visit. Look for spelling errors, grammatical mistakes, and anything that appears off. If a website looks like it was made in a hurry or doesn’t seem to be well-designed, that’s usually a red flag that the site might not be safe.
Be especially careful of websites that have a lot of pop-ups. These sites are often spammy or contain malware. Don’t download anything from a website unless you’re absolutely sure it’s safe. These malicious websites rarely show up on the top of search engine results, so consider using a search engine to find what you’re looking for rather than a link that redirects you to an unknown website.
If you’re unsure whether a website is safe to visit, download McAfee WebAdvisor for free. McAfee WebAdvisor is a program that helps protect you from online threats, such as malware and viruses. It also blocks pop-ups and other intrusive ads so you can browse the web without worry. Plus, it’s completely free to download and use.
Download McAfee WebAdvisor now and stay safe while browsing the web.
The post How to Tell Whether a Website Is Safe or Unsafe appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Throughout my career, I have noticed the way we “futurize” technology. Often, we are thinking of technology in five-to-ten-year increments. But the fact of the matter is – technology is moving faster than we can keep up. The minute we think we understand it, it’s already onto something new. That’s why here at Cisco, we’re focused on what’s NEXT. We all know technology will continue to grow at a rapid pace, our goal is to remain at the forefront of these changes.
After much anticipation, it’s finally here! I am excited to present the first episode of “NEXT” by Cisco Secure! “NEXT” is a video series illuminating simple conversations about complex topics. Our mission is twofold: First, we want to humanize cybersecurity. Second, we want to build a bridge between Cisco Secure and the ideas of the future.
CTO of Cisco Secure, TK Keanini and I sit down with Michael Ebel, CEO of Atmosfy. If you saw our preview, then you know Atmosfy is on a mission to help inspire others and support local restaurants through live videos.
Want to learn what’s NEXT for Michael Ebel and Atmosfy? Check out our episode!
We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Secure on social!
Cisco Secure Social Channels
Welcome back! In our last article, you cleared out your extraneous digital footprints by removing unnecessary accounts and opting-out of data broker services, and have finished a dedicated review of your online history. In this final section, we will answer the natural question encountered at the end of any journey: What’s next?
Before becoming the series you’ve just read, I presented a version of this many times as a live talk at conferences and training sessions. After the first few talks, I noticed a consistent trend in the feedback when I was approached afterwards: people who said they felt anxious about how their online activity going forward might share more than they want. So I went back and added a final section to the talk, one that we’re going to cover together now: risk acceptance and the value of routine in good security.
Some people think that the goal of good security is to eliminate risk. One of the first lessons you learn in this industry, though, is that eradicating every possible risk is very rarely practical, whether we’re talking about the individual or organizational level. This is because there are few choices one can make with zero possibility of a negative outcome, and because human beings are… human, and even with excellent discipline and good intent the best of us can mess up.
The goal of good security strategy is instead to assess risk and find a healthy balance: to decide what is more or less important and valuable, to determine how damaging the worst-case scenario might be and weigh that against the potential benefits, and figuring out how much you can reasonably do to tip the balance and increase your odds of success.
That’s fairly abstract, so let’s use a couple quick practical examples at both levels:
I don’t know about you, but I grew up as a child of the internet, and the thought of never going online again isn’t one I’m likely to seriously consider. So rather than logging off forever, let’s focus on how we can both stay safe and stay connected. We’ve completed the “3 R’s” of the self-dox process: Review, Restrict, and Remove. But now, a surprise more shocking than the Spanish Inquisition itself: we’re going to add two final steps-Repeat and Refine.
Every good security plan includes a plan for routine follow-up. We know that staying offline forever isn’t practical, so the next best thing is to set up a reminder to go through an easier version of this checklist on a regular schedule. Why is it easier? In this review, you had to look back on your entire life up to the present, and next time you’ll just need to look back from then to… well… now! Depending on how active you are online and how likely you are to be doxxed, this might make sense to do on an annual basis, or split into abbreviated and more frequent quarterly reviews.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to this review, but here are some typical checks you may want to consider:
Before we move on to our final (final, I promise!) step, let’s talk one more kind of repeating. A wifi repeater is a gadget that can connect to and boost the signal from a wireless network, helping to expand the network’s reach and keep a strong connection. In the same way, by sharing the lessons you’ve learned with your family and friends you will expand the reach of that security knowledge. Not only does that help keep the people you care about safer… but since we’ve seen how information shared about us by others can also be discovered by doxxers, it helps to increase your own safety as well!
My goal in writing this series was to give a straightforward introduction and broadly-useful walkthrough of how to figure out what’s out there about you online. In the beginning of this series, I talked about how the level of risk for doxxing is not the same for everyone. You may want to go significantly further than we’ve covered in this guide if you are:
This can cover a wide range of additional steps like placing a freeze on your credit report, requesting a privacy removal from search engines, or even setting up dedicated secure devices/apps for communication online. The full scope of these additional protections is beyond what we can cover here, but I will again recommend the Self-Doxxing Guide from AccessNow and the Gender and Tech Safety Resource guide linked in the first post of this series as an excellent reference for where else you might want to check.
Thank you for following along with me on this journey, and I hope that you found this guide and the resources shared have been helpful for you. Still have questions, or have you discovered any of the links/tools here are no longer available? Please let me know! Life comes at you fast on the web, and I want to make sure this guide continues to be relevant and helpful for a long time to come. You can drop me a line at zoe@duo.com, or find me on Twitter. Until then, happy trails and stay safe out there!
If you can’t get enough security content and care deeply about making the web safer for everyone, we’d also love to hear from you. Please check out our open positions and how your passion can contribute to keeping people safe online.
We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Secure on social!
Cisco Secure Social Channels
Welcome back! Previously in our Go Dox Yourself series, we walked through reviewing what information is available about you online, prioritizing those accounts that are most important or still active, and then restricting how much we share through those accounts and who gets to see it. That’s two out of our three steps — maybe good enough for Meatloaf, but not for us! You’re in the home stretch now, and this is the most straightforward-if-slow portion of the process — so let’s dive right in.
In the review step , along with the top accounts that you wrote out in your initial brain dump, we used some email search tricks and the free services NameCheckup.com and NameChk.com to dig up any unused, forgotten, or now obsolete accounts you might have previously registered under your email address or favorite username (or, as us ʼ80s kids used to say, your “handle.”)
We set those old accounts to the side to focus on your active and sensitive data first, but now it’s time to make Marie Kondo proud and clean out the junk drawers of our online life – if it doesn’t still serve you or spark joy, let’s kiss it goodbye!
In a perfect world, this would be as simple as logging in, going to your account settings and clicking a big ol’ “Cancel My Account” button. However, many sites opt to bury the cancelation settings behind a series of smokescreen menus, sometimes even including a half dozen unskippable “are you SURE you want to leave?” and “but we’ll give you a super good deal to stay!” surveys to click through first.
If you find yourself thwarted and your first search of “[Unwanted Service] cancel” doesn’t take you where you need to go, try checking out AccountKiller. This collaborative resource takes submissions of step-by-step deletion instructions and direct links to cancel for a tremendous number of sites, and even includes phone tree options and direct support numbers for canceling offline accounts as well.
The first pass of your delete list might well be longer than a CVS receipt, because these days the average person has 100 password-protected accounts to manage, but don’t worry! You don’t have to sprint to the finish line, and slow progress checking off a few accounts in short sessions over a few weeks will serve you better than a several-hour slog of trying to clear them all at once and burning out.
An important lesson in security is that operating at max capacity isn’t sustainable all the time, and planning for rest and overflow in our personal security planning is no different. Remember that the work you’re doing is cumulative, each small step is one more forward, and every account you clear now is one less that you’ll need to revisit later.
You might notice that we’ve checked off most of the information from our initial brainstorm: emails, usernames, phone numbers, profile pictures… but so far, we haven’t done much with your location history: the cities you lived in and live now, the cities where you worked or went to school, and the city of your birth. Now that we’re going to see how much information on you is available through data brokers and public record sites, these details will be important to have handy.
For the unfamiliar, data brokers are companies which collect and bundle personal information for everything from ad customization to individual investigation. Brokers collect their data through a wide variety of methods, including:
These metrics and details are bundled and sold, either directly through lookup sites like we’ll review in just a moment, or in demographic bundles (for example, “Resilient Renters” or “Living on Loans: Young Urban Single Parents”). If you’ve ever walked through a car dealership window-shopping and suddenly found sponsored content for that car company in your feed, data brokers are the most likely reason.
For this step you should reference the previously-mentioned Personal Data Removal Workbook provided by Michael Bazzell through his company, IntelTechniques. Bazzell has maintained and updated this workbook for many years now, and it is by far the most comprehensive resource for keeping a handle on who is buying and selling your data.
One of the first things you’ll notice on opening the workbook is the sheer volume of businesses out there buying and selling your data: at time of writing, the current edition includes 220 separate brokers. But much like your initial account inventory likely included a select set of important accounts and a longer list of less-relevant ones, there are less than a dozen brokers who dominate most of the market and should be at the top of your list – and fortunately, they’re also at the top of the workbook! These sites are:
Aside from covering most of the market for data and analytics intelligence, these primary sites often act as “feeders” for smaller providers that are either directly affiliated or collect information for their own databases from the largest providers. Which means that as you remove your data from these sites, you’ll not only check off another box on your list, but you may also reduce the number of hits you find for your information on smaller sites as you work your way down.
Congratulations: if you’ve been following along, you’ve just made it through your self-doxxing! Hopefully you’re feeling much better informed and aware of what tracks you’ve left online, and addressed who you do and do not want to have your… addresses. Join us soon for our wrap-up post where we’ll recap with takeaway lessons, as well as good habits and check-ins to keep you safe going forward.
Care about keeping people and their data safe online? Check out our open roles.
We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Secure on social!
Cisco Secure Social Channels
NetWitness and Cisco released the third annual Findings Report from the RSA Conference® 2022 Security Operations Center (SOC).
The RSA Conference® SOC analyzes the Moscone Center wireless traffic, which is an open network during the week of the Conference.
The role of the SOC at RSA Conference is an educational exhibit sponsored by NetWitness and Cisco. It has elements of a SOC like you would create to protect an organization. The RSAC SOC coordinated with the Moscone Center Network Operation Center for a SPAN of the network traffic from the Moscone Center wireless network. In the SOC, NetWitness had real time visibility of the traffic traversing the wireless network. Cisco provided automated malware analysis, threat intelligence, DNS visibility and Intrusion Detection; brought together with SecureX.
The goal of the RSAC SOC is to use technology to educate conference attendees about what happens on a typical wireless network. The education comes in the form of daily SOC tours and an RSA Conference® session. You can watch the replay of the ‘EXPOSURE: The 3rd Annual RSAC SOC Report’ session here.
The findings report addresses several security topics, including:
Look forward to seeing you in 2023!
Download the RSA Conference® 2022 Security Operations Center Findings Report here.
Acknowledgements: Our appreciation to those who made the RSAC SOC possible.
Percy Tucker
Steve Fink
Bart Stump
Dave Glover
Jessica Bair Oppenheimer – Cisco SOC Manager
Ian Redden – Team Lead & Integrations
Aditya Sankar / Ben Greenbaum – SecureX & Malware Analytics
Alejo Calaoagan / Christian Clasen – Cisco Umbrella
Dinkar Sharma / Seyed Khadem-Djahaghi – Cisco Secure Firewall
Matt Vander Horst – SecureX Orchestration
Doug Hurd – Partnerships
Eric Kostlan
Navin Sinha
Zohreh Khezri
Eric Goodwin
Gabe Gilligan and the amazing staff at XPO Digital!
We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Secure on social!
Cisco Secure Social Channels
With passwords and MFA out of the way, let’s next look at connected apps or services that are tied to our priority accounts. When you log into other sites on the web through Facebook, Google, or another social account, as well as when you install social media apps or games, you are sharing information about those accounts with those services. This may be as limited as the email address and username on file, or may include much more information like your friends list, contacts, likes/subscriptions, or more.
A well-known example of this data-harvesting method is the Cambridge Analytica story, where installing a social media app opened up access to much more information than users realized. (Note: as mentioned in the linked article, Facebook added protective measures to limit the amount of data available to app developers, but connected accounts can still present a liability if misused.)
With this in mind, look under the Security or Privacy section of each of your account’s settings, and review where you have either used this account to log into a third-party website or allowed access when installing an app. Here are some handy links to some of the most common services to check:
If you aren’t going to use the app again or don’t want to share any details, remove them. Once you’ve checked your accounts, repeat this process with all the apps installed on your phone.
Just like connecting a social account to a third-party game can share information like your contact info and friend’s list, installing an app on your mobile device can share information including your contacts, camera roll and more. Fortunately, mobile OSes have gotten much better at notifying users before installation on what information is shared, so you should be able to see which apps might be nosier than you’re comfortable with.
Finally — and this is really for the nerds and techies out there — check if you have any API (short for “application programming interface”) keys or browser extensions connected to your accounts. API keys are commonly used to let different apps or services “talk” between one another. They let you use services like Zapier or IFTTT to do things like have your Spotify favorites automatically saved to a Google Sheet, or check Weather Underground to send a daily email with the forecast.
Browser extensions let you customize a web browser and integrate services, like quickly clicking to save an article for review on a “read it later” service like Instapaper. Even if you trust the developer when installing these apps, they may pose a risk later on if they are recovered or taken over by an attacker. These “zombie extensions” rely on a broad install base from a legitimate service which can later be misused to gather information or launch attacks by a malicious developer.
We’ve made great progress already, and taken steps to help defend your accounts from prying eyes going forward – now it’s time to lock down your previous activities on social media. Rather than enumerate every option on every service, I’ll highlight some common tools and privacy settings you’ll want to check:
Before moving on to email, I’ll add another plug for the NYT Social Media Security and Privacy Checklists if you, like me, would rather have a series of boxes to mark off while going through each step above.
Security experts know that you can’t erase the possibility of risk, and it can be counterproductive to build a plan to that expectation. What is realistic and achievable is identifying risk so you know what you’re up against, mitigating risk by following security best practices, and isolating risk where possible so that in the event of an incident, one failure doesn’t have a domino effect affecting other resources. If that seems a bit abstract, let’s take a look at a practical example.
Tech journalist Mat Honan was the unlucky victim of a targeted hack, which resulted in a near-complete lockout from his digital life requiring a Herculean effort to recover. Fortunately for us, Mat documented his experience in the Wired story, “How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking,” which offers an excellent summary of exactly the type of domino effect I described. I encourage you to read the full article, but for a CliffsNotes version sufficient for our needs here:
Honan’s article goes into much more detail, including some of the changes made by the services exploited to prevent similar incidents in the future. The key takeaway is that having a couple of emails without strong authentication tied to all his most important accounts, including the recovery of these email accounts themselves, meant that the compromise of his Amazon account quickly snowballed into something much bigger.
We’re going to learn from that painful lesson, and do some segmentation on our email channels based on the priority and how public we want that account to be. (“Segmentation” is an industry term that can be mostly boiled down to “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”, and keep critical or vulnerable resources separate from each other.) I would suggest setting up a few different emails, listed here from least- to most-public:
For all of the above, of course, we’ll create strong passwords and set up 2FA. And speaking of 2FA, you can use the same split-channel approach we followed for email to set up a dedicated verification number (using a VOIP service or something like Google Voice) when sending a passcode by SMS is the only option supported. Keeping these recovery numbers separate from your main phone number reduces the risk of them being leaked, sold, or captured in an unrelated breach.
Good news: We’re almost done with doxxing ourselves! In the next section, we’ll sweep out those unused accounts to avoid leaving data-filled loose ends and take a look at how data brokers profit off of your personal information and what you can do to opt-out.
You’ve made it this far so maybe you’re passionate like we are about developing innovative ways to make security accessible. We’d love for you to join our mission.
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