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The U.S. government agency in charge of improving the nation’s cybersecurity posture is ordering all federal agencies to take new measures to restrict access to Internet-exposed networking equipment. The directive comes amid a surge in attacks targeting previously unknown vulnerabilities in widely used security and networking appliances.
Under a new order from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), federal agencies will have 14 days to respond to any reports from CISA about misconfigured or Internet-exposed networking equipment. The directive applies to any networking devices — such as firewalls, routers and load balancers — that allow remote authentication or administration.
The order requires federal departments to limit access so that only authorized users on an agency’s local or internal network can reach the management interfaces of these devices. CISA’s mandate follows a slew of recent incidents wherein attackers exploited zero-day flaws in popular networking products to conduct ransomware and cyber espionage attacks on victim organizations.
Earlier today, incident response firm Mandiant revealed that since at least October 2022, Chinese cyber spies have been exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in many email security gateway (ESG) appliances sold by California-based Barracuda Networks to hoover up email from organizations using these devices.
Barracuda was alerted to the exploitation of a zero-day in its products in mid-May, and two days later the company pushed a security update to address the flaw in all affected devices. But last week, Barracuda took the highly unusual step of offering to replace compromised ESGs, evidently in response to malware that altered the systems in such a fundamental way that they could no longer be secured remotely with software updates.
According to Mandiant, a previously unidentified Chinese hacking group was responsible for exploiting the Barracuda flaw, and appeared to be searching through victim organization email records for accounts “belonging to individuals working for a government with political or strategic interest to [China] while this victim government was participating in high-level, diplomatic meetings with other countries.”
When security experts began raising the alarm about a possible zero-day in Barracuda’s products, the Chinese hacking group altered their tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) in response to Barracuda’s efforts to contain and remediate the incident, Mandiant found.
Mandiant said the attackers will continue to change their tactics and malware, “especially as network defenders continue to take action against this adversary and their activity is further exposed by the infosec community.”
Meanwhile, this week we learned more details about the ongoing exploitation of a zero-day flaw in a broad range of virtual private networking (VPN) products made by Fortinet — devices many organizations rely on to facilitate remote network access for employees.
On June 11, Fortinet released a half-dozen security updates for its FortiOS firmware, including a weakness that researchers said allows an attacker to run malware on virtually any Fortinet SSL VPN appliance. The researchers found that just being able to reach the management interface for a vulnerable Fortinet SSL VPN appliance was enough to completely compromise the devices.
“This is reachable pre-authentication, on every SSL VPN appliance,” French vulnerability researcher Charles Fol tweeted. “Patch your #Fortigate.”
In details published on June 12, Fortinet confirmed that one of the vulnerabilities (CVE-2023-27997) is being actively exploited. The company said it discovered the weakness in an internal code audit that began in January 2023 — when it learned that Chinese hackers were exploiting a different zero-day flaw in its products.
Shodan.io, the search engine made for finding Internet of Things devices, reports that there are currently more than a half-million vulnerable Fortinet devices reachable via the public Internet.
The new cybersecurity directive from CISA orders agencies to remove any networking device management interfaces from the internet by making them only accessible from an internal enterprise network (CISA recommends an isolated management network). CISA also says agencies should “deploy capabilities, as part of a Zero Trust Architecture, that enforce access control to the interface through a policy enforcement point separate from the interface itself (preferred action).”
Security experts say CISA’s directive highlights the reality that cyberspies and ransomware gangs are making it increasingly risky for organizations to expose any devices to the public Internet, because these groups have strong incentives to probe such devices for previously unknown security vulnerabilities.
The most glaring example of this dynamic can be seen in the frequency with which ransomware groups have discovered and pounced on zero-day flaws in widely-used file transfer applications. One ransomware gang in particular — Cl0p — has repeatedly exploited zero day bugs in various file transfer appliances to extort tens of millions of dollars from hundreds of ransomware victims.
On February 2, KrebsOnSecurity broke the news that attackers were exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in the GoAnywhere file transfer appliance by Fortra. By the time security updates were available to fix the vulnerability, Cl0p had already used it to steal data from more than a hundred organizations running Fortra’s appliance.
According to CISA, on May 27, Cl0p began exploiting a previously unknown flaw in MOVEit Transfer, a popular Internet-facing file transfer application. MOVEit parent Progress Software has since released security updates to address the weakness, but Cl0p claims to have already used it to compromise hundreds of victim organizations. TechCrunch has been tracking the fallout from victim organizations, which range from banks and insurance providers to universities and healthcare entities.
The always on-point weekly security news podcast Risky Business has recently been urging organizations to jettison any and all FTP appliances, noting that Cl0p (or another crime gang) is likely to visit the same treatment on other FTP appliance vendors.
But that sound advice doesn’t exactly scale for mid-tier networking devices like Barracuda ESGs or Fortinet SSL VPNs, which are particularly prominent in small to mid-sized organizations.
“It’s not like FTP services, you can’t tell an enterprise [to] turn off the VPN [because] the productivity hit of disconnecting the VPN is terminal, it’s a non-starter,” Risky Business co-host Adam Boileau said on this week’s show. “So how to mitigate the impact of having to use a domain-joined network appliance at the edge of your network that is going to get zero-day in it? There’s no good answer.”
Risky Business founder Patrick Gray said the COVID-19 pandemic breathed new life into entire classes of networking appliances that rely on code which was never designed with today’s threat models in mind.
“In the years leading up to the pandemic, the push towards identity-aware proxies and zero trust everything and moving away from this type of equipment was gradual, but it was happening,” Gray said. “And then COVID-19 hit and everybody had to go work from home, and there really was one option to get going quickly — which was to deploy VPN concentrators with enterprise features.”
Gray said the security industry had been focused on building the next generation of remote access tools that are more security-hardened, but when the pandemic hit organizations scrambled to cobble together whatever they could.
“The only stuff available in the market was all this old crap that is not QA’d properly, and every time you shake them CVEs fall out,” Gray remarked, calling the pandemic, “a shot in the arm” to companies like Fortinet and Barracuda.
“They sold so many VPNs through the pandemic and this is the hangover,” Gray said. “COVID-19 extended the life of these companies and technologies, and that’s unfortunate.”
It’s the month of top seeds, big upsets, and Cinderella runs by the underdogs. With March Madness basketball cranking up, a fair share of online betting will sure to follow—along with online betting scams.
Since a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2018, individual states can determine their own laws for sports betting. Soon after, states leaped at the opportunity to legalize it in some form or other. Today, 30 states and the District of Columbia have “live and legal” sports betting, meaning that people can bet on single-game sports through a retail or online sportsbook or combination of the two in their state.
If you’re a sports fan, this news has probably been hard to miss. Or at least the outcome of it all has been hard to miss. Commercials and signage in and around games promote several major online betting platforms. Ads have naturally made their way online too, complete with all kinds of promo offers to encourage people to get in on the action. However, that’s also opened the door for scammers who’re looking to take advantage of people looking to make a bet online, according to the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Often through shady or outright phony betting sites.
Let’s take a look at the online sports betting landscape, some of the scams that are cropping up, and some things you can do to make a safer bet this March or any time.
Among the 30 states that have “live and legal” sports betting, 19 offer online betting, a number that will likely grow given various state legislation that’s either been introduced or will be introduced soon.
If you’re curious about what’s available in your state, this interactive map shows the status of sports betting on a state-by-state level. Further, clicking on an individual state on the map will give you yet more specifics, such as the names of retail sportsbooks and online betting services that are legal in the state. For anyone looking to place a bet, this is a good place to start. This is further helpful for people who’re looking to get into online sports betting for the first time and is the sort of homework that the BBB advises people to do before placing a sports bet online. In their words, you can consider these sportsbooks to be “white-labeled” by your state’s gaming commission.
However, the BBB stresses that people should be aware that the terms and conditions associated with online sports betting will vary from service to service, as will the promotions that they offer. The BBB accordingly advises people to closely read these terms, conditions and offers. For one, “Gambling companies can restrict a user’s activity,” meaning that they can freeze accounts and the funds associated with them based on their terms and conditions. Also, the BBB cautions people about those promo offers that are often heavily advertised, “[L]ike any sales pitch, these can be deceptive. Be sure to read the fine print carefully.”
Where do scammers enter the mix? The BBB points to the rise of consumer complaints around bogus betting sites:
“You place a bet, and, at first, everything seems normal. But as soon as you try to cash out your winnings, you find you can’t withdraw a cent. Scammers will make up various excuses. For example, they may claim technical issues or insist on additional identity verification. In other cases, they may require you to deposit even more money before you can withdraw your winnings. Whatever you do, you’ll never be able to get your money off the site. And any personal information you shared is now in the hands of scam artists.”
If there’s a good reason you should stick to the “white labeled” sites that are approved by your state’s gaming commission, this is it. Take a pass on any online ads that promote betting sites, particularly if they roll out big and almost too-good-to-be-true offers. These may lead you to shady or bogus sites. Instead, visit the ones that are approved in your state by typing in their address directly into your browser.
In addition to what we mentioned above, there are several other things you can do to make your betting safer.
In addition to choosing a state-approved option, check out the organization’s BBB listing at BBB.org. Here you can get a snapshot of customer ratings, complaints registered against the organization, and the organization’s response to the complaints, along with its BBB rating, if it has one. Doing a little reading here can be enlightening, giving you a sense of what issues arise and how the organization has historically addressed them. For example, you may see a common complaint and how it’s commonly resolved. You may also see where the organization has simply chosen not to respond, all of which can shape your decision whether to bet with them or not.
Credit cards are a good way to go. One reason why is the Fair Credit Billing Act, which offers protection against fraudulent charges on credit cards by giving you the right to dispute charges over $50 for goods and services that were never delivered or otherwise billed incorrectly. Your credit card companies may have their own policies that improve upon the Fair Credit Billing Act as well. Debit cards don’t get the same protection under the Act.
Comprehensive online protection software will defend you against the latest virus, malware, spyware, and ransomware attacks plus further protect your privacy and identity. In addition to this, it can also provide strong password protection by generating and automatically storing complex passwords to keep your credentials safer from hackers and crooks who may try to force their way into your accounts. And, specific to betting sites, online protection can help prevent you from clicking links to known or suspected malicious sites.
With online betting cropping up in more and more states for more and more people, awareness of how it works and how scammers have set up their presence within it becomes increasingly important. Research is key, such as knowing who the state-approved sportsbooks and services are, what types of betting are allowed, and where. By sticking to these white-label offerings and reading the fine print in terms, conditions, and promo offers, people can make online betting safer and more enjoyable.
Editor’s Note:
If gambling is a problem for you or someone you know, you can seek assistance from a qualified service or professional. Several states have their own helplines, and nationally you can reach out to resources like http://www.gamblersanonymous.org/ or https://www.ncpgambling.org/help-treatment/.
The post How to Protect Yourself from March Madness Scams appeared first on McAfee Blog.
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