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Reading Time: ~2 min.

I’m excited to share that Webroot has entered into an agreement to be acquired by Carbonite, a leader in cloud-based data protection for consumers and businesses.

Why do I think this is such good news for customers, partners and our employees?  

For customers and partners, the combined Webroot and Carbonite will create an integrated solution for their top security needs today and a platform for us to build upon in the future. When surveyed, SMBs and MSPs consistently name endpoint security and backup and data recovery services among their top priorities.

For our threat intelligence partners, the addition of new data sources will make our threat intelligence services even more powerful.

We see great opportunities ahead building on the solutions you trust—endpoint and network protection, security awareness training and threat intelligence services—and extending them to backup and data recovery and beyond.

For employees, we see a great future of growth for a team with a shared culture. Both Webroot and Carbonite have tremendously talented team members who together will bring even more innovative solutions to market. But, just as important, both companies have a culture of customer focus, where customer success is the ultimate proof of company success. 

Until the transaction closes, we must operate as separate companies. After close, which we expect to happen in the first calendar quarter of 2019, I look forward to sharing more information about our plans.

In the meantime, customers and partners can expect:  

• The same commitment to customer care and support. You will have access to your same account reps and award-winning customer support team.
• Future solutions that combine Webroot’s threat intelligence driven portfolio with Carbonite’s data protection solutions.
• Extended sales channels and partner ecosystems. Carbonite partners will provide additional channels for Webroot to reach new customers and partners worldwide.

The most important point I want to underline is that our commitment to you will not change, and we are just expanding the family of people dedicated to building great solutions to protect you and your customers. 

Mike Potts
President & CEO, Webroot

The post Carbonite to Acquire Webroot appeared first on Webroot Blog.

Reading Time: ~4 min.

In my blog, Password Constraints and Their Unintended Security Consequences, I advocate for the use of passphrases. Embedded in the comments section, one of our readers Ben makes a very astute observation:

What happens when attackers start guessing by the word instead of by the letter? Then a four-word passphrase effectively becomes a four-character password.

What Ben is describing is called a “passphrase token attack,” and it’s real. With a good passphrase, the attack is not much of a threat though. First, a definition, then I’ll explain why.

What’s a token?

In the context of a passphrase token attack, a token is a grouping of letters, AKA a word. The passphrase made famous by the comic xkcd, “correct horse battery staple,” is 28 characters long. But, in a passphrase token attack, I wouldn’t try to guess all possible combinations of 28 letters. I would guess combinations of entire words, or tokens, each representing a group of characters.

The math behind passphrases

One might assume, as Ben did, that a four-word password is the same as a four-character password. But that’s a math error. Specifically, 95≠1,000,000. 

Here’s why: There are 95 letters, numbers, and symbols that can be used for each character in a password. However, there are over a million words in the English language. For simplicity’s sake, let’s call it an even million words. If I’m thinking of a single character, then at most you have to try 95 characters to guess it. But if I ask you to guess which word I am thinking of, then you may need to guess a million words before you have guessed the word that I am thinking of. 

So while there are 95^4 possible combinations of characters for a four-character password, there are over 1,000,000^4 combinations of words for a four-word password. 

You might be thinking “But nobody knows a million words,” and you are correct. According to some research, the average person uses no more than 10,000. So, as an attacker, I’d try combinations of only the most common words. Actually, I may be able to get by with a dictionary as small as 5,000 words. But 5,000^4 is still a whole lot more combinations than 95^4.

Here is one list of 5,000 of the most commonly used words in the English language, and another of the 10,000 most commonly used words. Choosing an uncommon word is great, but even words in the top 5,000 are still far better than a complex nine-character password.

Why and how to use a passphrase

There are two major strengths of passphrases: 

1. Passphrases allow for longer, more secure passwords. It’s length that makes a passphrase a killer password. A password/passphrase that’s 20 lowercase characters long is stronger than a 14 character password that uses uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. 
2. Passphrases can be easy to remember, making creating and using passwords a lot less painful. “Aardvarks eat at the diner” is easy to remember and, at 26 characters long and including uppercase and lowercase letters, is more than 9 trillion times stronger than the password “eR$48tx!53&(oPZe”, or any other complex, 16-character password, and potentially uncrackable.

Why potentially uncrackable? Because “aardvark” is not one of the 10,000 most frequently used words and, if a word is not in the attacker’s dictionary, then you win. This is why it helps to use foreign-language words. Even common foreign words require an attacker to increase the size of their dictionary, the very factor that makes passphrase token attacks impractical. Learning a word in an obscure foreign language can be fun and pretty much assures a passphrase won’t be cracked.

As we’ve seen, cracking a passphrase can be far more difficult than cracking a password, unless you make one of two common mistakes. The first is choosing a combination of words without enough characters. “I am a cat,” for example. Although it’s four words, it’s only 10 characters long and an attacker can use a conventional brute force attack, even for a passphrase. Spaces between words can be used to increase the length and complexity of passphrases.

The second most common mistake is using a common phrase as a passphrase. I can create a dictionary of the top 1,000,000 common phrases and, if you’re using one, then it only takes at most 1,000,000 guesses to crack (about the same as a complex three-character password). 

So create your own unique passphrases and you’re all set. Most experts recommend passphrases be at least 20 characters long. But if you only go from eight characters to 16 upper and lower case letters, you’ll already be 430 trillion times better off. And if you’re creating a passphrase for a site requiring a number or symbol, it’s fine to add the same number and symbol to the end of your phrase, provided the passphrase is long to begin with.

As a side note, according to math, a five word passphrase is generally stronger than a four word passphrase, but don’t get too hung up on that.

So Ben, you are 100% right about the reality of passphrase token attacks. But, with a strong passphrase, the math says it doesn’t matter.Not: If this stuff fascinates you, or you suffer from insomnia, you might enjoy “Linguistic Cracking of Passphrases using Markov Chains.” You can download the PDFor watch this riveting thriller on YouTube. Sweet dreams.

The post The Reality of Passphrase Token Attacks appeared first on Webroot Blog.

Reading Time: ~4 min.

This is the first of a three-part report on the state of three malware categories: miners, ransomware and information stealers.

In Webroot’s 2018 mid-term threat report, we outlined how cryptomining, and particularly cryptojacking, had become popular criminal tactics over the first six months of last year. This relatively novel method of cybercrime gained favour for being less resource-intensive and overtly criminal when compared to tactics involving ransomware. But mining cases and instances of mining malware seem to have dropped off significantly in the six months since this report, both anecdotally and in terms of calls to our support queue. 

The crytpo world has gone through significant turmoil in this time, so it’s possible the reduced use of malicious cryptojacking scripts is the result of tanking cryptocurrency values. It’s also possible users are benefitting from heightened awareness of the threat and taking measures to prevent their use, such as browser extensions purpose-built to stop these scripts from running. 

Setting aside the question of why for a moment, let’s take a look at some stats illustrating that decline during that time period.

Cryptojacking URLs seen by Webroot over six months beginning 1 July through 31 December, 2018, Webroot SecureAnywhere client data. 

New miner malware seen by Webroot 

Data from six months beginning 12 July through 9 Jan, 2019, Webroot data, units logarithmic.

Monero mining profitability ($)

Data covering six months from 12 July – 9 Jan, 2019, Bit Info Charts, units logarithmic

Monero price ($)

Data covering six months from 12 July through 9 Jan, 2019, World Coin Index

Interpreting the data

None of the graphs are identical, but without too much statistical comparison, I think a broad trend can be seen: malicious mining is on the decline alongside a general decline in coin value and coin mining profitability. 

Profitability affecting criminal tactics is of course not surprising. The flexibility of exploit kits and modern malware campaigns like Emotet mean that cybercriminals can change tactics and payloads quickly when they feel their malware isn’t netting as much as it should.

Thanks to the dark web, criminal code has never been easier to buy or rent than in recent years, and cryptocurrencies themselves make it easy to swap infection tactics while keeping the cash flowing. Buying or renting malicious code and malware delivery services online is easy, so the next time the threat landscape changes, expect criminals to quickly change with it. 

Should I still care about miners?

Yes, absolutely. 

Cryptocurrency, cryptomining, and malicious cryptomining aren’t disappearing. Even with this dip, 2018 was definitely a year of overall cryptocrime growth. Our advanced malware removals teams often spot miner malware on machines infected by other malware, and it can be an indication of security holes in need of patching. And any illegal mining is still capable of constantly driving up power bills and frustrating users.

Where are cybercriminals focused now?

Information theftis the current criminal undertaking of choice, a scary development with potentially long-lasting consequences for its victims that are sometimes unpredictable even to thieves. The theft, trade, and use for extortion of personal data will be the focus of our next report.

What can I do?

Cryptojacking may only be on the decline because defences against them have improved. To up your chances of turning aside this particular threat, consider doing the following:

• Update everything. Even routers can be affected by cryptojacking, so patch/update everything you can.
• Is your browser using up lots of processor? Even after a reset/reinstall? This could be a sign of cryptojacking.
• Are you seeing weird spikes in your processor? You may want to scan for miner infections.
• Don’t ignore repeated miner detections. Get onto your antivirus’ support team for assistance. This could be only the tip of the iceberg.
• Secure your RDP.

What can Webroot do?

Webroot SecureAnywhere®antivirus products detect and remove miner infections, and the web threat shield blocks malicious cryptojacking sites from springing their code on home office users. For businesses, however, the single best way to stop cryptojacking, is with DNS-level protection. DNS is particularly good at blocking cryptojacking services, no matter how many sites they try to hide behind.

Persistent mining detections might point to other security issues, such as out-of-date software or advanced persistence methods, that will need extra work to fix. Webroot’s support is quick and easy to reach.

In the end, cryptomining and cryptojacking aren’t making the same stir in the cybersecurity community they were some months ago. But they’ve far from disappeared. More users than ever are aware of the threat they pose, and developers are reacting. Fluctuations in cryptocurrency value have perhaps aided the decline, but as long as these currencies have any value cryprojackers will be worth the limited effort they require from criminals.

Watch for the use of cryptominers to be closely related to the value of various cryptocurrencies and remain on the lookout for suspicious or inexplicable CPU usage, as these may be signs that you’re being targeted by these threats. 

And of course, stay tuned to the Webroot blog for information on the latest threat trends.

The post A Miner Decline: The Surprising Slowdown of Cryptomining appeared first on Webroot Blog.