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Improve your presenting skills with additional platforms and new features for PowerPoint Presenter Coach

PowerPoint Presenter Coach now available on all platforms We love hearing feedback from our customers, and we’re excited to announce that PowerPoint Presenter Coach is now available on all platforms. PowerPoint Presenter Coach was first introduced in PowerPoint for the web, and both students and professionals have been utilizing this feature to become more confident…

The post Improve your presenting skills with additional platforms and new features for PowerPoint Presenter Coach appeared first on Microsoft 365 Blog.

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It’s Too Late for Threat Intelligence Vendors to Ignore IPv6

IPv6 has been a long time coming. Drafted by the Internet Engineering Task Force (ITEF) in 1998, it became an Internet Standard in 2017. Though the rollout of IPv6 addresses has proceeded at a glacial pace since then, adoption numbers continue to inch higher.

Worldwide IPv6 adoption, according to Google’s handy tracker, is around 33 percent. It’s higher in the United States, at just shy of 45 percent. The graph has been trending relentlessly up and to the right since the mid-2000s.

This increased adoption means more cyberattacks are originating from IPv6 addresses. That means security vendors and device manufacturers who rely on embedded threat intelligence should insist on visibility surrounding the successor to IPv4.

Why we needed IPv6

Since the late 1980s, the internet’s architects realized they were cruising toward a problem. IP addresses, those numbers assigned to every internet-connected device, or node, were designed to contain 32 bits. That made for just under 4.3 billion possible number combinations under the IPv4 system. It was apparent even thirty years ago that these possibilities would be exhausted.

That day came in February 2011, met with a dramatic announcement by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Its opening line reads, “A critical point in the history of the Internet was reached today with the allocation of the last remaining IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) addresses.”

It seemed like the end of an era. But it wasn’t really one at all. IP addresses are frequently recycled, reallocated and many millions were never used at all. There’s even a famous story about Stanford University giving back a block of millions of unused IPv4 addresses. That helps explain why we’ve gotten so far from the adoption of IPv6 as an Internet Standard to majority adoption.

On the other hand, IPv6 is based on 128-bit encryption. This allows for a whopping 3.4 x 1038 permutations, or roughly 340 trillion trillion trillion. So, while the day may come when we need to revisit the IP system, that day is unlikely to be soon and it almost certainly won’t be because we’ve run out of assignable options.

By the way…whatever happened IPv5? Didn’t we skip a number? Well, it did exist, but was never officially adopted because it used the same 32-bit architecture as its predecessor. Begun as an experimental method for transferring streaming voice and video data, IPv5 lives on through its successor, voice over IP (VoIP).

What continued IPv6 adoption means for internet security

Hackers tend to set their sites on new targets only when they become worthy of their attention. The same goes for IPv6. As the rest of the internet pursues its perfectly logical reasons for making the migration, increasing numbers of cybercriminals are looking to exploit it. As IPv6 adoption becomes more prevalent, threat actors are increasingly using its addresses as an attack vector.

If threat intelligence feeds haven’t prepared to analyze IPv6 addresses, they’re faced with big black holes in their data sets. As we’ve seen in recent attacks, the ability to monitor anomalous web traffic is key to detecting a breach. So, in addition to having visibility into the threat status of an IP, it’s also critical to have location data and be able to cross-reference its activities with known malicious ones.

Device manufacturers, too, should look to account for accelerated IPv6 adoption when it comes to securing their products. This is especially true for IoT devices. Not typically armed with the highest security measures to start with, they now face the additional threat of an intelligence blind spot if the manufacturer makes no effort to analyze IPv6 addresses.

As internet-connected nodes in the form of IoT devices continue to proliferate, millions of new IPs will be needed. IPv6 will thankfully be more than up to the task of accommodating them, but manufacturers should make sure their devices are designed with the capabilities to analyze them.

IPv6 may have been a long time coming, but it’s too late in the game to ignore. When it’s time to choose a threat intelligence partner, choose one that’s prepared.

To learn more about the Webroot BrightCloud IP Reputation Service, click here.

The post It’s Too Late for Threat Intelligence Vendors to Ignore IPv6 appeared first on Webroot Blog.

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Cyber News Rundown: Phishing Targets NHS Regulatory Commission

Spanish labor agency suffers ransomware attack

Multiple systems were taken offline following a ransomware attack on the Spanish government labor agency SEPE, which has affected all 700 of their offices across the country. While some critical systems were impacted by the attack, officials have confirmed that the systems containing customer and other sensitive payroll data were not compromised. The Ryuk ransomware group are believed to be behind the attack. The group were involved in nearly a third of all ransomware attacks in 2020.

Latest phishing campaign targets NHS regulatory commission

Officials for the Care Quality Commission (CQC) have been received roughly 60,000 malicious phishing emails over the past three months that seems to be linked to the release of the COVID- 19 vaccine. The campaign has followed a pattern of spreading false information and requesting sensitive information for user’s NHS accounts. The use of the pandemic to scare recipients of fraudulent emails continues as many look forward to their turn to receive the vaccine.

Hackers gain admin access to surveillance company cameras

Hackers from a known collective were able to gain access to over 150,000 Verkada surveillance cameras in various sensitive locations across the globe after finding an access point available on the web. Viewable feeds included jails, banks and internal entry cameras for top companies like Cloudflare, which has since confirmed that they have taken these cameras offline. It remains unclear how long the hackers had access to the systems. They have stated they were able to steal roughly 5GB of data from the Verkada systems, which will likely be leaked in the coming months.

Ransomware distributor arrested in South Korea

An individual was arrested by South Korean police late last month after a lengthy investigation tracked ransomware payments to withdrawals made by the individual. The man in custody is believed to be responsible for distributing more than 6,000 phishing emails spoofing local law enforcement. These used malicious attachments to trigger GandCrab ransomware payloads to encrypt systems. This is the second reported GandCrab affiliate caught by law enforcement in the past year as global law enforcement agencies work together to transnational ransomware organizations.

REvil ransomware group puts 170GB of data up for sale

Officials for the Pan-American Life Insurance Group have issued a statement regarding recent outages in their systems, which were the result of a ransomware attack. Though there was a post on a known REvil ransomware group forum claiming to have taken 170GB of data from this breach, that post has since been removed, which could indicate that Pan-American could be in negotiations with the group to restore their systems.

The post Cyber News Rundown: Phishing Targets NHS Regulatory Commission appeared first on Webroot Blog.

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Does a SIEM make sense for my MSP?

Every device on an MSP’s managed network provides insight into what’s happening on that network. This includes network routers, switches, printers, wireless devices to servers, endpoints, IoT devices and everything else connected to the network. Each creates a log in its own format, or syntax, that a technician can review for troubleshooting, configuration confirmation, the creation of specific alerts based on a device’s activity or a host of other reasons. These records of each devices’ activities are known as syslogs.

Syslogs present information in a variety of ways, including custom formatting, industry-standard formatting, even raw data lacking a consistent format. The good news is that any activity requiring a security review is buried somewhere in these syslogs. The bad news is that data can buried in these syslogs.

Whole mountain ranges of information are regularly processed by these systems. Millions upon millions of data points may be present, making the set overwhelmingly confusing. At best, sorting meaningful information from noise is a daunting task, even for well-staffed IT departments.

Fortunately for security professionals—and more specifically for MSPs and MSSPs focused on providing insight into their managed networks—there is a mature product category that can be incorporated into their technology stack to help. Security information event management (SIEM) solutions have existed for years, but they’ve recently been gaining traction among MSPs and MSSPs. For good reason: knowledge of a network’s activity is essential to protecting it.

Is setting up a SIEM worth the cost and effort for an MSP?

The short answer is: YES. If you want to synthesize information from various sources to determine if a security event has or is taking place on a customer network, then yes, a SIEM is the natural evolution of the MSP security stack.

The longer answer is, well, longer. Let’s break out a couple of options for those interested in establishing a more sophisticated security information and event management solution.

SIM, SEM or SIEM? That’s the question to begin with. While security information management (SIM) and security event management (SEM) solutions have been in place for some time, they’re now commonly combined into the offering referred to as a SIEM.

So, where does an MSP get started? There are three common choices for getting a SIEM stood up and configured:

  • On-premise – Stand up a server, add some software (a bunch, actually), point all the syslogs to the device and get started. Easy, right? In reality, on-premise solutions have a higher cost and can be daunting to get started. Software costs range based upon the solution provider’s model. But if control and compliance are important, on-premise solutions may be a great option.
  • Cloud-based – Any one of a number of existing solutions that cater to MSPs are simpler to get started. The challenge with cloud-based solutions entails pulling data from many sources and pushing it through firewalls and networks to a public cloud solution.
  • Hybrid – As its name implies, some options blend cloud-based solutions with a local collection server to gather information and push a single source, securely, to the cloud for analysis and processing.

Feeding your SIEM a healthy diet of data

Before deciding on a SIEM component, a log collection or data collection solution must be set up to feed it. Syslog collection refers to a number of different activities, but in a SIEM or security-specific sense it usually comes down to what makes the most sense for the application: purpose-built or generic.

  • A syslog aggregator or log collector – These are devices that take in all syslog information from all devices. They range from sophisticated solutions with alerting and performance reviews to feeds that simply “normalize” the data, distilling the most relevant input and then reworking the details into a consistent standard and reporting on the highlights.
  • Syslog bridges – These are more generic solutions that act mostly as log collectors. Simply point devices to this collector and it maps the data.
  • Syslog collector – These are generic log collectors much like a bridges, but they usually provide a little more intelligence, cost more, and often serve multiple purposes like performance, device status and security event reporting.

Log gathering is the most misunderstood aspect of a SIEM and is often overlooked. The key is finding the most appropriate strategy for your needs.

For most MSPs, a basic bridge with a specific security purpose for feeding a SIEM may be the most efficient and cost-effective option. For additional needs like performance or status determinations, a more sophisticated syslog may be good. But most performance and status information is already provided by RMM solutions, so why reinvent the wheel?

What to expect from your SIEM

After deciding on a syslog collector and SIEM setup, it’s time to put the SIEM to work parsing data and making sense of the output. This is the intel that allow technicians to make sound decisions regarding security events.

Which SIEM to incorporate into a given MSPs operations depends on the level of services offered. MSPs building out a SOC or offering managed detection and response (MDR) services may require more sophisticated output from their SIEM. MSPs simply looking to distill information for their respective technical teams to analyze and make security decisions can usually rely on tailored, cloud-based solutions.

Regardless of the provider, a SIEMs should at least do the following:

  • Perform log gathering – If log gathering is not directly accounted for by a SIEM, another solution will be necessary for feeding data to it.
  • Correlate security events – To spot security threats that may be spread across a network, not only native to a single device’s syslog, a SIEM must be able to track data across multiple devices.
  • Connect to threat intelligence feeds – To keep up with a rapidly shifting threat landscape (and therefore useful to preventing attacks) it must be informed by strong threat intelligence feeds, preferably those using machine learning to recognize even zero-day threats.
  • Issue security alerts – A key SIEM benefit is the ability to provide timely alerts regarding security events based on large amounts of data to assist with decision making, making it possible to stop attacks before they develop
  • Present reports – Many SIEMs can produce reports in a cadence that makes sense for an MSP or MSSP depending on their needs and the needs of their clients.
  • Enhance compliance – Because SIEMs aggregate information on a network, it can produce compliance reports for clients based on industry-specific needs.

A good SIEM solution can minimize technician workload and minimize manual data interpretation. It also benefits clients by beefing up your own security capabilities. A SIEM is a natural step for any growing MSP’s looking to provide the best security solution for customers with workable margins.

With a little focus, it shouldn’t take months or an act of congress to setup and use a SIEM. The above guidance should enable any MSP, regardless of size, to devise a viable plan for putting one in place.

The post Does a SIEM make sense for my MSP? appeared first on Webroot Blog.

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3 Ransomware Myths Businesses Need to Stop Believing ASAP

Despite the rising ransomware numbers and the numerous related headlines, many small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) still don’t consider themselves at risk from cyberattacks. Nothing could be further from the truth. Smaller organizations are a prime target, and ransomware authors have only upped the ante in their methods to ensure they get paid. For example, many ransomware groups now threaten to expose or sell company data stolen in a breach if victims refuse to pay, meaning the business in question could have to shell out for heavy fines due to GDPR and similar regulations. In many cases, paying the ransom may be the most cost effective (and least publicly embarrassing) option. But what if your business can’t afford it? Or if the downtime from the attack is too much to recover from? And what’s the long-term psychological and emotional toll?

Here are 3 myths about ransomware that businesses need to stop believing to stay resilient against these evolving and insidious attacks.

Myth #1: My company is small, so attackers won’t bother.

Today, any business is a target for ransomware, no matter its size. Since 2018, up to 86% of SMBs have reported being victims of ransomware each year. And, according to Verizon, “[Ransomware] is a big problem that is getting bigger, and the data indicates a lack of protection from this type of malware in organizations.”

We’ve put this myth at the top of our list because it’s particularly dangerous. For many small organizations, a single cyberattack could put them out of business. Bigger enterprises with more robust data recovery and bigger security budgets are much more likely to weather an attack, while a smaller business may have no way of making up for the loss of time, revenue, and damage to customer trust that an attack could have.

Ransomware is not going away, and it’s getting more costly for SMBs. Businesses can’t afford to underestimate the risk.

Myth #2: There’s no way to prepare for a ransomware attack.

The sad truth in today’s cyber climate is that an attack is practically inevitable. The trick is reducing the likelihood of an attack, and making sure critical data is protected in case an attack succeeds. To prepare your business to weather the storm, there are a few key steps you can take.

  1. Proactively defend against ransomware attacks.
    Ransomware typically gets into an organization by tricking a user into downloading a file and/or enabling macros. Combining reliable endpoint protection that can stop macros and malicious scripts with security awareness training for end users is an excellent step toward a proactive and in-depth defense.
  2. Protect your data.
    The ransomware business model works because losing access to your data can cause serious damage. A strong backup solution is vital. Full-server backups or asking end users to manage their own backups aren’t the most feasible options. But with the right solution set, there are significantly more efficient ways to ensure data on endpoint devices, servers, and within the Microsoft 365 suite is secured.

Myth #3: I already have a backup, so I’m safe.

If your business gets hit with an attack, you can and should expect some downtime. And if we accept the maxim “time is money,” then any amount of downtime is costly and potentially damaging. Having backups in place is crucial, but you also need to be able to recover the data you need quickly from safe backups that haven’t also been infected with the ransomware.

Bigger organizations have more resources to invest in redundant servers in secondary locations, but these protections can come at too high a cost for many SMBs. If that sounds like you, you’re not alone. We recommend you look into disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS), so you can leverage the cloud to ensure that critical business systems are online and accessible, no matter what happens on your network.

Next Steps

The one-two combination of proactive prevention and recovery is key for staying cyber resilient. If you start working to address the tips in this blog, you’ll drastically improve your chances of avoiding a ransomware attack entirely; and getting through it successfully if you do get breached.

For more details on these and other misconceptions to watch out for, get your free copy of our guide, Rip the Target Off Your Back: Debunking the Top 5 Myths about Ransomware and SMBs.

The post 3 Ransomware Myths Businesses Need to Stop Believing ASAP appeared first on Webroot Blog.