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Security roundup: February 2019

We round up interesting research and reporting about security and privacy from around the web. This month: security as a global business risk, insured vs protected, a 12-step programme, subject access requests made real, French fine for Google, and an imperfect getaway.

Risks getting riskier

Some top ten lists are not the kind you want to appear on. Data theft and cyber attacks both featured in the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2019. Only threats relating to extreme weather, climate change and natural disasters ranked above both security risks.

The report is based on a survey which asked 1,000 decision makers to rate global risks by likelihood over a 10-year horizon. As ZDNet reports, 82 per cent of those surveyed believe there’s an increased risk of cyberattacks leading to the theft of money and data. Some 80 per cent believe there’s a greater risk of cyberattacks disrupting operations.

The report also refers to the increased risk of cyberattacks against critical infrastructure, along with concerns about identity theft and decreasing privacy. The WEF’s overview includes a video of a panel discussing the risks, and the report itself is free to download.

Insuring against cyber attacks

Thinking of buying cyber risk insurance in the near future? The legal spat between Mondelez and Zurich might give pause to reconsider. The US food company sued its insurer for refusing to pay a $100 million claim for ransomware damages. NotPetya left Mondelez with 1,700 unusable servers and 24,000 permanently broken laptops. Zurich called this “a hostile or warlike action” by a government or foreign power which therefore excluded it from cover.

As InfoSecurity’s story suggests, Zurich might have been on safer ground by invoking a gross negligence clause instead, since Mondelez got hit not once but twice. And where does this leave victims? “Just because you have car insurance does not mean you won’t have a car crash. Just because you have cyber insurance does not mean you won’t have a breach,” said Brian Honan.

Lesley Carhart of Dragos Security said the case would have implications for cyber insurance sales and where CISOs spend money. “Not only is Zurich’s claim apparently that nation state adversaries can’t be insured against, but it adds the ever tenuous question of attribution to insurance claims,” she wrote.

The 12 steps to better cybersecurity

Somewhat under the radar, but no less welcome for that, Ireland’s National Cyber Security Centre has published guidance on cybersecurity for Irish businesses. It’s a high-level document that takes the form of a 12-step guide. It’s written in non-technical language, clearly intended for a wide audience. The steps include tips like getting senior management support for a cybersecurity strategy. The full report is free to download from here. We’ve taken a deep dive into the contents and you can read our thoughts here.

Fight for your right to part…ake of your data

GDPR obliges companies to cough up the personal data they hold about us on request, but what does that mean in practice? Journalist Jon Porter exercised his right to a subject access request with Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google. Just under 138GB of raw data later, he discovered that little of the information was in a format he could easily understand. If some of the world’s biggest tech companies are struggling with this challenge, what does that say for everyone else? It’s a fascinating story, available here.

Google grapples French fine

And speaking of all things GDPR-related, France’s data protection regulator CNIL has hit Google with a €50 million fine for violating the regulation. The CNIL claims Google didn’t make its data collection policies transparent enough and didn’t obtain sufficient, specific consent for personalising ads.

As Brian Honan wrote in the SANS Institute newsletter: “While the €50 million fine is the item grabbing the headlines, the key issue here is the finding by CNIL of the unlawfulness of Google’s approach to gathering people’s personal data. This will have bigger implications for Google, and many other organisations, in how they ensure they legally gather and use people’s personal data in line with the GDPR.”

You can run, but you can’t hide

Here’s a cautionary tale about the dangers of oversharing personal data on smart devices. UK police collared a hitman for an unsolved murder after data from his GPS watch linked him to scouting expeditions of the crime scene. Runners World covered the story and the Liverpool Echo published CCTV footage of an alleged recon trip near the victim’s home.

It’s an extreme example maybe, but the story shows how heavy our digital footprints can be (running shoes or not). Social media sharing can also be a security risk for a company’s remote workers. Trend Micro’s Bob McArdle outlined this very subject in his excellent Irisscon 2018 presentation. Social engineering expert Lisa Forte tweeted that she can gather intel about target companies from what their employees post online.

Things we liked

Protector, puzzle master, moral crusader, change agent: the many faces of a CISO. MORE

And another thing: want to be a good security leader? Learn to tell a good story first. MORE

Making the contentious case that breaches can be a good thing, and aren’t automatically bad for business. MORE

Google Chrome, used by almost two-thirds of web browsers, has a new plugin that warns users when entering a username/password combination that’s been detected in a data breach. MORE

An offer you couldn’t retweet: meeting the godfather of fake news. MORE

The Council to Secure the Digital Economy (CSDE) has published a guide to help protect the Internet from botnets. The International Anti-Botnet Guide will be updated every year. MORE

ENISA has released a study of CSIRTs and incident response capabilities in Europe to 2025. MORE

The post Security roundup: February 2019 appeared first on BH Consulting.

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Security newsround: January 2019

We round up interesting research and reporting about security and privacy from around the web. This month: the security year in review, resilience on rails, incidents in depth, phishing hooks millennials, Internet of Threats, and CISOs climbing the corporate ladder.

A look back at cybercrime in 2018

It wouldn’t be a new year’s email without a retrospective on major security incidents over the previous 12 months. Credit to CSO Online for assembling a useful overview of some of last year’s most common risks and threats. To beef up this resource, it sourced external research and stats, while adding plenty of links for further reading. Some of the highlights include the massive rise in cryptocurrency mining. “Coin miners not only slow down devices but can overheat batteries and sometimes render a device useless,” it warned.

The article also advises against posting mobile numbers on the internet, because criminals are finding ways to harvest them for various scams. CSO also advises organisations about knowing the value of their data in order to protect it accordingly. Threatpost has a handy at-a-glance guide to some of the big security incidents from the past year. Meanwhile, kudos to Vice Motherboard for its excellent ‘jealousy list’ which rounds up great hacking and security stories from 2018 that first appeared in other media outlets.

Luas security derails tram website

The new year got off to a bad start for Dublin’s tram operator Luas, after an unknown attacker defaced its website in a security incident. On January 2nd, the Luas site had this message: “You are hacked… some time ago i wrote that you have serious security holes… you didn’t reply… the next time someone talks to you, press the reply button… you must pay 1 bitcoin in 5 days… otherwise I will publish all data and send emails to your users.”

The incident exposed 3,226 user records, and Luas said they belonged to customers who had subscribed to its newsletter. News of the incident spread widely, possibly due to Luas’ high profile as a victim, or because of the cryptocurrency angle.

The tram service itself was not affected, nor was the company’s online payments system. While the website was down, Luas used its Twitter feed to communicate travel updates to the public, and warned people not to visit the site. Interviewed by the Irish Times, Brian Honan said the incident showed that many organisations tend to forget website security after launch. As we’ve previously blogged, it’s worth carrying out periodic vulnerability assessments to spot gaps that an attacker could exploit. With the Luas site not fully back six days later, Brian noted on Twitter that it’s important to integrate incident response with business continuity management.

One hacked laptop and two hundred solemn faces

When an employee of a global apparel company clicked on a link in a phishing email while connected to a coffee shop wifi, they unwittingly let a cybercrime gang onto their corporate network. Once in, the attackers installed Framework POS malware on the company’s retail server to steal credit card details. It’s one real-life example from CrowdStrike’s Cyber Intrusion Casebook. The report details various incident response cases from 2018. It also gives recommendations for organisations on steps to take to protect their critical data better. In addition to coverage in online news reports, the document is available as a free PDF on CrowdStrike’s site.

Examples like these show the need for resilience, which we’ve blogged about before. No security is 100 per cent perfect. But it shouldn’t follow that one gap in the defences brings the entire wall crumbling down.

Digitally savvy, yes. Security savvy, not so much

Speaking of phishing, a new survey has found that digital natives are twice as likely to have fallen victim to a phishing scam than their older – sorry, we mean more experienced –  colleagues. Some 17 per cent in the 23-41 age group clicked on a phishing link, compared to 42-53 years old (6 per cent) or 54+ (7 per cent). The findings suggest a gap between perception and reality.

Out of all the age groups, digital natives were the most confident in their ability to spot a scam compared to their senior peers. Yet the 14 per cent of digital natives who weren’t as sure of their ability to spot a phish was strikingly close to the percentage in the same age bracket who had fallen for a phishing email. The survey by Censuswide for Datapac found that 14 per cent of Irish office workers – around 185,000 people – have been successfully phished at some stage.

OWASP’s IoT hit list

Is your organisation planning an Internet of Things project in 2019? Then you might want to send them in OWASP’s direction first. The group’s IoT project aims to improve understanding of the security issues around embedding sensors in, well, anything. To that end, the group has updated its top 10 list for IoT. The risks include old reliables like weak, guessable passwords, outdated components, insecure data transfer or storage, and lack of physical hardening. The full list is here.

The number’s up for CISO promotions

Why do relatively few security professionals ascend to the highest levels of business? That’s the provocative question from Raj Samani, chief scientist with McAfee. In an op-ed for Infosecurity Magazine, Samani argues that security hasn’t yet communicated its value to the business in an identifiable way. Proof of this is the fatigue or indifference over ever-mounting numbers of data breaches. Unlike a physical incident like a car accident where the impact is instantly visible, security incidents don’t have the same obvious cause and effect.

“The inability to determine quantifiable loss means that identifying measures to reduce risk are merely estimated at best. Moreover, if the loss is rarely felt, then the value of taking active steps to protect an asset can simply be overlooked,” Samani writes. “We can either bemoan the status quo or identify an approach that allows us to articulate our business value in a quantifiable way.”

The post Security newsround: January 2019 appeared first on BH Consulting.

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Security newsround: July 2018

We round up reporting and research from across the web about the latest security news and developments. This month: stress test for infosec leaders, cybercrime by the numbers, financial fine for enabling cyber fraud, third party risk leads to Ticketmaster breach, Privacy Shield in jeopardy, and a win for Wi-Fi as security improves.

Under pressure: stress levels rise for security professionals

Tense, nervous headache? You might be working in information security. A global survey of 1,600 infosec leaders has found that the role is under more stress than ever. Rising malware threats, a shortage of skilled people, and budget constraints are producing a perfect storm of pressure on professionals. The findings come from Trustwave’s 2018 Security Pressures Report. It found that the trend of increasing stress has been edging steadily upwards since its first report five years ago.

Some 54 per cent of respondents experienced more pressure to secure their organisation in 2017 compared to the previous year. More than half (55 per cent) also expect 2018 to bring more pressure than 2017 did. Dark Reading quoted Chris Schueler of Trustwave saying the pressure to perform will push security leaders to improve performance or burn out. SecurityIntelligence led with the angle that the biggest obligation facing security professionals is preventing malware. Help Net Security has a thorough summary of the findings.

There was some good news: fewer professionals reported feeling pressure to buy the latest security tech compared to past years. The full report is available to download here.

CEO fraud scam hits companies hard

CEO fraud, AKA business email compromise, was the internet crime most commonly reported to the FBI during 2017. Victims lost a combined amount of more than $676 million last year, up almost 88 per cent compared to 2016. Total cybercrime-related losses totalled $1.42 billion last year. The data comes from the FBI’s 2017 Internet Crime Report, which it compiles from public complaints to the agency. (No vendor surveys or hype here.)

The next most prominent scams were ransomware, tech support fraud, and extortion, the FBI said. Corporate data breaches rose slightly in number year on year (3,785 in 2017, up from 3,403 in 2016) but the financial hit decreased noticeably ($60.9 million in 2017 vs $95.9 million in 2016). There were broadly similar numbers of fake tech support scams between 2017 and 2016, but criminals almost doubled their money. The trends in the report could help security professionals to evaluate potential risks to their own organisation and staff.

Asset manager’s lax oversight opens door to fraud and a fine

Interesting reading for security and risk professionals in the Central Bank of Ireland’s highly detailed account of a cyber fraud. Governance failings at Appian Asset Management led to it losing €650,000 in client funds to online fraud. Although Appian subsequently replaced the funds in the client’s account, the regulator fined the firm €443,000. A CBI investigation uncovered “significant regulatory breaches and failures” at the firm, which exposed it to the fraud. It’s the first time the Irish regulator has imposed such a sanction for cyber fraud.

The fraud took place over a two-month period, starting in April 2015. The CBI said a fraudster hacked the real client’s webmail account to impersonate them during email correspondence with an Appian employee. The fraudster also used a spoofing technique to mimic that employee’s email address. The criminal intercepted messages from the genuine client and sent replies from the fake employee email to hide traces of the scam.

The press release runs to more than 3,200 words, and also goes into great detail about the gaps in policy and risk management at Appian.

Tales from the script: third-party app flaw leads to Ticketmaster data breach

As growing numbers of websites rely on third-party scripts, it’s vital to check they don’t put sites’ security at risk. That’s one of the lessons from the data breach at Ticketmaster UK. The company discovered malicious code running on its website that was introduced via a customer chat feature. This exposed sensitive data, including payment details, of around 40,000 customers. Anyone who bought a ticket on its site between September 2017 and June 2018 could be at risk, Ticketmaster warned.

On discovering the breach, Ticketmaster disabled the code across all its sites. The company contacted all affected customers, recommending they change their passwords. It published a clearly worded statement to answer consumer questions, and offered free 12-month identity monitoring.

Although this first seemed like good crisis management and proactive breach notification, the story didn’t end there. Inbenta Technologies, which developed the chat feature, weighed in with a statement shifting some blame back towards Ticketmaster. The vulnerability came from a single piece of custom JavaScript code Inbenta had written for Ticketmaster. “Ticketmaster directly applied the script to its payments page, without notifying our team. Had we known that the customised script was being used this way, we would have advised against it, as it incurs greater risk for vulnerability,” Inbenta CEO Jordi Torras said.

Then Monzo, a UK bank, blogged in detail about the steps it took to protect its customers from the fallout. This included the bombshell that Ticketmaster knew about the breach in April, although the news only went public in June. Wired said these developments showed the need to thoroughly investigate potential breaches, and to remember subcontractors when assessing security risks.

Privacy Shield threat puts EU-US data sharing in doubt

US authorities have two months to start complying with Privacy Shield or else MEPs have threatened to suspend it. The EU-US data sharing framework replaced the Safe Harbor framework two years ago. Privacy Shield was supposed to extend the same rights for protecting EU citizens’ data as they have in Europe. In light of the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal (both of which were certified under Privacy Shield), it seems that’s no longer the case.

MEPs consider privacy and data protection as “fundamental rights … that cannot be ‘balanced’ against commercial or political interests”. They voted 303 to 223 in favour of suspending the Privacy Shield agreement unless the US complies with it.

This could have implications for any organisation that uses a cloud service provider in the US. If they are using Privacy Shield as an adequacy decision for that agreement, they may no longer be GDPR-compliant after 1 September. Expect more developments on this over the coming months.

Welcome boost for Wi-Fi security

The Wi-Fi Alliance’s new WPA3 standard promises enhanced security for business and personal wireless networks. It will use a key establishment protocol called Simultaneous Authentication of Equals (SAE) which should prevent offline dictionary-based password cracking attempts. Announcing the standard, the Wi-Fi Alliance said the enterprise version offers “the equivalent of 192-bit cryptographic strength, providing additional protections for networks transmitting sensitive data, such as government or finance”. Hardware manufacturers including Cisco, Aruba, Broadcom and Aerohive all backed the standard.

Tripwire said WPA3 looks set to improve security for open networks, such as guest or customer networks in coffee shops, airports and hotels. The standard should also prevent passive nearby attackers from being able to monitor communication in the air. The Register said security experts have welcomed the upgrade. It quoted Professor Alan Woodward, a computer scientist at the University of Surrey in England. The new form of authentication, combined with extra strength from longer keys, is “a significant step forward”, he said.

 

The post Security newsround: July 2018 appeared first on BH Consulting.

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Security newsround: April 2018

We round up reporting and research from across the web about the latest security news. This month: privacy palaver at Facebook, a cyberattack with explosive intent, securing the IoT, sportswear maker uncovers data breach, and authorities arrest an alleged cybercrime mastermind.

Facebook shook by reverberations and revelations

The worlds of privacy and security collided last month after revelations that consulting group Cambridge Analytica had obtained records of 86 million Facebook users. It then used the data to target voters with pro-Trump messages during the 2016 US presidential election campaign. Scientists working on profiling technology had developed a free personality quiz app that harvested the friend information of users who downloaded the app via Facebook. They then provided this data to Cambridge Analytica. The New York Times reported that the idea for building the app came via Palantir, the data analysis company that works with intelligence agencies.

Facebook initially argued that it didn’t consider this as a breach, because anyone using the app had consented to the terms of service. Such semantic gymnastics didn’t cut much ice with commentators who considered it a ‘breach of trust’ – or worse. The scandal seemed to grow ever more complex as more details emerged. At one point, Facebook saw more than $50 billion wiped off its share price. When CEO Mark Zuckerberg eventually broke his silence days later, his response was “evasive and disingenuous”, wrote Karlin Lillington. Facebook has since suspended another data analytics firm, CubeYou, whose tactics were similar to those of Cambridge Analytica.

Sarah Clarke has written a nuanced perspective on the original story and its privacy implications on her Infospectives blog. Meanwhile, SANS published a guide for infosec professionals on communicating to staff about protecting privacy and deactivating social media profiles.

Life’s a breach

Staying with breaches of a different kind, Verizon has just published its 2018 Data Breach Investigations Report. Now in its 11th year, the DBIR is one of the most widely respected and authoritative sources of security research. Here are some of the key findings: financial gain is the motivation behind 76 per cent of incidents. Outsiders conducted 73 per cent of cyber attacks – mostly organised criminal groups. Ransomware’s unstoppable rise continues: it was the leading malware type last year, responsible for 39 per cent of all infections. The report analyses nine industry sectors and looks at the specific security risks facing each one. The full report is here, with an executive summary available here. The 2018 edition draws on more than 53,000 real-world incidents and 2,347 confirmed data breaches. Ireland’s IRISS-CERT was among 67 agencies contributing to the research.

Cyber crossover

Security experts have long argued that before long, a cyber-attack that began in the virtual world would have real-world consequences. Now there’s an example. News emerged that a petrochemical plant in Saudi Arabia suffered a malware intrusion designed to set off an explosion. The only thing that stopped the explosion from triggering was an error in the computer code, the New York Times reported. The attackers reportedly compromised controllers made by Schneider, which are used in 18,000 plants around the world. The NYT quoted an expert who said a technique that worked against Schneider controllers in Saudi Arabia could also be used in the United States. In separate but related news, the US Department of Homeland Security and the FBI accused Russian hackers of attacking energy companies. The attackers reportedly used spear-phishing to compromise networks in small organisations that are part of US critical infrastructure.

Embedded devices to get embedded security

The UK Government has published  a proposed code of practice aimed at improving security for the Internet of Things. The ‘Secure By Design’ report aims to encourage manufacturers and service providers to embed security at the earliest stages of developing IoT products and services. Recommendations include not allowing universal default passwords, securely storing sensitive data, and making it easier for consumers to configure the devices. The average UK household owns at least 10 connected devices. This blog from the Information Commissioner’s Office covers the main points. James Lyne, head of R&D at SANS Institute, described the development as “positive and much needed”. The issue also came into focus after a fatal collision in Arizona last month, involving a self-driving car. After all, what is an autonomous car but a very large connected device? The Electronic Frontier Foundation called for sharing data as a way to improve both safety and security.

Under Armour doesn’t run for cover after breach

Under Armour disclosed that its MyFitnessPal app and website was hacked, exposing personal information about almost 150 million accounts. The incident occurred in February and affected usernames, emails and passwords, but not payment data. Under Armour said it used strong encryption to protect the passwords. This story is important for two reasons. It’s less a finger-pointing exercise at a data breach victim; more a testament to Under Armour’s transparency. The company informed affected users quickly, and was on the front foot when dealing with media questions. Security experts praised the company’s proactive steps to deal with the fallout: it had a plan and executed against it. Financial markets weren’t so forgiving, though. Shares in Under Armour fell 3.8 per cent after the company disclosed the breach.

A win for the good guys as Carbanak chief cuffed

Let’s wrap up this roundup with a good news story for a change. Law enforcement agencies arrested the alleged ringleader behind the Carbanak and Cobalt attacks. The arrest was a complex operation conducted by Spain’s National Police, supported by Europol, the FBI, and authorities in Romania, Moldova, Belarus and Taiwan, along with private cybersecurity companies. Since 2013, the gang had targeted banks worldwide with a combination of spear phishing and malware like Carbanak and Cobalt. The phishing emails contained a malicious attachment that, when downloaded, gave criminals remote control of the infected machines. Europol said this gave the gang access to the internal banking network and infected the servers controlling the ATMs. As the agency’s infographic shows, the group’s ill-gotten gains amounted to more than $1 billion.

 

The post Security newsround: April 2018 appeared first on BH Consulting.