A recent wave of DocuSign phishing emails has been linked to a data breach at the digital signature technology provider. A hacker gained access to a ‘non-core’ system that was used to send communications to users via email and stole users’ email addresses.
DocuSign reports that the peripheral system was compromised and only email addresses were accessed and stolen. No other data has been compromised as a result of the cyberattack. The data breach only affected DocuSign account holders, not registered users of eSignature.
It is currently unclear exactly how many email addresses were stolen, although the DocuSign website indicates the firm has more than 200 million users.
The attacker used customers’ email addresses to send specially crafted DocuSign phishing emails. The emails containing links to documents requiring a signature. The purpose of the emails was to fool recipients into downloading a document containing a malicious macro designed to infect computers with malware.
As is typical in phishing attacks, the DocuSign phishing emails appeared official with official branding in the headers and email body. The subject lines of the email were also typical of recent phishing campaigns, referring to invoices and wire transfer instructions.
The san Francisco based firm has been tracking the phishing emails and reports there are two main variations with the subject lines: “Completed: docusign.com – Wire Transfer Instructions for recipient-name Document Ready for Signature,” or “Completed *company name* – Accounting Invoice *number* Document Ready for Signature.”
The emails have been sent from a domain not linked to DocuSign – a sign that the emails are not genuine. However, due to the realism of the emails, many end users may end up clicking the link, downloading the document and infecting their computers.
Recipients are more likely to click on links and open infected email attachments if they relate to a service that the recipient uses. Since DocuSign is used by many business users, there is a significant threat of a network compromise if end users open the emails and follow the instructions provided by the threat actors.
Businesses can reduce the risk of malicious emails reaching end users inboxes by implementing an advanced spam filtering solution such as SpamTitan. SpamTitan blocks 99.97% of spam emails and 100% of known malware using dual antivirus engines for maximum protection.
To find out more about SpamTitan and other antimalware controls to protect your business, contact the TitanHQ team today.
A new encryptor – Jaff ransomware – could be heading your way via email. Jaff ransomware is being distributed by the individuals responsible for distributing the Dridex banking Trojan and Locky ransomware. The gang has also previously used Bart ransomware to encrypt files in an attempt to extort money from businesses.
In contrast to Locky and many other ransomware variants, the individuals behind Jaff ransomware are seeking a huge ransom payment to unlock files, suggesting the new variant will be used to target businesses rather than individuals. The ransom demand per infected machine is 1.79 Bitcoin – around $3,300. The WannaCry ransomware variant only required a payment of $300 per infected machine.
The distributors have used exploit kits in the past to spread infections, although spam email is used for the latest campaign. Whether that will remain the only distribution mechanism remains to be seen. Millions of spam email messages have already sent via the Necurs botnet, according to Proofpoint researchers who identified the new encryptor.
The emails have a PDF file attachment rather than a Word document. Those PDF files contain embedded Word documents with macros that will download the malicious payload. This method of distribution has been seen with Locky ransomware in recent weeks.
The change in file attachment is believed to be an attempt to get users to open the attachments. There has been a lot of publicity about malicious Word documents attached to emails from unknown senders. The change could see more end users open the attachments and infect their devices.
Opening the PDF file will present the user with a screen advising them that the contents of the document are protected. They are prompted to ‘enable editing’ by ignoring the security warning and enabling macros. Enabling macros will result in infection. Jaff ransomware will then search for and encrypt a wide range of file types including images and multimedia files, databases, office documents and backups.
There is no known decryptor for Jaff ransomware. Recovery will depend on a viable backup existing that has not been encrypted by the ransomware. The alternatives are to pay the sizable ransom payment or permanently lose files.
To protect against the threat, an advanced spam filtering solution should be implemented to prevent the emails from reaching end users’ inboxes. As a failsafe, employees should be warned about the threat of ransomware and instructed not to open any file attachments from unknown senders. They should also be alerted to the threat from PDF files containing embedded word documents.
The WannaCry ransomware attacks that started on Friday May 12 rapidly spread to more than 150 countries. While the attacks have been halted, IT security professionals are still scrambling to secure their systems and the search is now on for the perpetrators.
Malware researchers are analyzing the ransomware code and attack method to try to find clues that will reveal who conducted the WannaCry ransomware attacks.
At this stage in the investigation, no concrete evidence has been uncovered that links the attacks to any individual or hacking group, although a Google security researcher, Neel Mehta, has found a possible link to the Lazarus Group; a hacking organization believed to be based in China with links to North Korea.
The Lazarus Group is thought to be behind the attack on Sony Pictures in 2014 and the major heist on the Bangladesh central bank in February this year. While the link between the Lazarus Group and North Korea has not been comprehensively proven, the U.S. government is sure the group has been backed by North Korea in the past.
WannaCry Ransomware Code has been Reused
Mehta discovered parts of the ransomware code from the latest attacks were the same as code in a 2015 backdoor used by the Lazarus Group, suggesting the WannaCry ransomware attacks were conducted either by the Lazarus Group or by someone who has access to the same code.
Mehta also compared the code from the latest WannaCry ransomware variant and the backdoor to an earlier version of WannaCry ransomware from February and found code had been shared between all three. Symantec’s researchers have confirmed the code similarities.
Whether the Lazarus Group conducted the attacks is far from proven, and there is no evidence to suggest that were that to be the case, that the group had any backing from North Korea. The group could have been acting independently.
While some have called this link ‘strong evidence’, it should be explained that comparing code between malware samples does not confirm origin. Code is often reused and it is possible that the actors behind this campaign may have put in a false flag to divert attention from themselves onto the Lazarus Group and North Korea.
While the false flag idea is possible and plausible, Kaspersky Lab believes it is improbable and that the similarities in the source code point the finger of blame at the Lazarus Group.
Many Questions Remain Unanswered
The link with the Lazarus Group/North Korea is now being investigated further, but there are currently many questions unanswered.
The ransomware included a self-replicating function making it act like a worm, allowing it to rapidly spread to all vulnerable computers on a network. The sophistication of the attack suggests it was the work of a highly capable organization rather than an individual. However, the kill switch in the ransomware that was discovered by UK researcher ‘Malware Tech,’ allowed the infections to be halted. Such an ‘easily found’ kill switch would be atypical of such a sophisticated hacking group.
Previous attacks linked with the Lazarus Group have also been highly targeted. The WannaCry ransomware attacks over the weekend were purposely conducted in multiple countries, including China and Russia. The widespread nature of the attacks would be a departure from the typical attack methods used by Lazarus.
There are doubts as to whether North Korea would back an attack on its neighbours and allies, and while financially motivated attacks cannot be ruled out, past state-sponsored attacks have had a political purpose.
At this stage, it is not possible to tell who conducted the WannaCry ransomware attacks, but the latest discovery is an important clue as to who may be responsible.
On Friday May 12, a massive WannaCry ransomware campaign was launched, with the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) one of the early victims. The ransomware attack resulted in scores of NHS Trusts having data encrypted, with the infection rapidly spreading to networked devices. Those attacks continued, with 61 NHS Trusts now known to have been affected. Operations were cancelled and doctors were forced to resort to pen and paper while IT teams worked around the clock to bring their systems back online.
Just a few hours after the first reports of the WannaCry ransomware attacks emerged, the scale of the problem became apparent. The WannaCry ransomware campaign was claiming tens of thousands of victims around the world. By Saturday morning, Avast issued a statement confirming there had been more than 57,000 attacks reported in 100 countries. Now the total has increased to more than 200,000 attacks in 150 countries. While the attacks appear to now be slowing, security experts are concerned that further attacks will take place this week.
So far, in addition to the NHS, victims include the Spanish Telecoms operator Telefonica, Germany’s rail network Deutsche Bahn, the Russian Interior ministry, Renault in France, U.S. logistics firm FedEx, Nissan and Hitachi in Japan and multiple universities in China.
The WannaCry ransomware campaign is the largest ever ransomware attack conducted, although it does not appear that many ransoms have been paid yet. The BBC reports that the WannaCry ransomware campaign has already resulted in $38,000 in ransom payments being generated. That total is certain to rise over the next few days. WannaCry ransomware decryption costs $300 per infected device with no free decryptor available. The ransom amount is set to double in 3 days if payment is not made. The attackers threaten to delete the decryption keys if payment is not made within 7 days of infection.
Ransomware attacks usually involve malware downloaders sent via spam email. If emails make it past anti-spam solutions and are opened by end users, the ransomware is downloaded and starts encrypting files. WannaCry ransomware has been spread in this fashion, with emails containing links to malicious Dropbox URLs. However, the latest WannaCry ransomware campaign leverages a vulnerability in Server Message Block 1.0 (SMBv1). The exploit for the vulnerability – known as ETERNALBLUE – has been packaged with a self-replicating payload which can spread rapidly to all networked devices. The vulnerability is not a new zero day however. In fact, Microsoft patched the vulnerability in its MS17-010 security bulletin almost two months ago. The problem is many organizations have not installed the update and are vulnerable to attack.
The ETERNALBLUE exploit was reportedly stolen from the National Security Agency by Shadow Brokers, a cybercriminal gang with links to Russia. ETERNALBLUE was allegedly developed as a hacking weapon to gain access to Windows computers used by enemy states and terrorists. Shadow Brokers managed to steal the tool and published the exploit online in mid-April. While it is not known whether Shadows Brokers is behind the attack, the publication of the exploit allowed the attacks to take place.
The exploit allows the attackers to drop files on a vulnerable system, with that file then executed as a service. The dropped file then downloads WannaCry ransomware, which searches for other available networked devices. The infection spreads before files are encrypted. Any unpatched device with port 445 open is vulnerable.
The WannaCry ransomware campaign would have resulted in far more infections had it not been for the actions of a security researcher in the UK. The researcher –@MalwareTechBlog – found a kill switch to prevent encryption. The ransomware attempts to communicate with a specific domain. If communication is possible, the ransomware does not proceed with encryption. If the domain cannot be contacted, files are encrypted.
@MalwareTechBlog discovered the reference to the nonsense domain, saw that it was unregistered and bought it. By doing so, the ransomware attack was thwarted. The domain checking mechanism was presumably added to prevent the ransomware from running in a sandbox environment.
However, a new version of the ransomware without the kill switch has reportedly already been released, which could see the victim count increase substantially over the next few days. Organizations that have not applied Microsoft’s patch are advised to do so as a priority to block the attack.
The massive ransomware attack should serve as reminder to all organizations of the importance of applying patches promptly. That will be a particularly painful reminder for many organizations that fell victim to this preventable ransomware attack.
A new email-borne threat has recently been discovered. Fatboy ransomware is a new ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) being offered on darknet forums in Russia. The RaaS offers would-be cybercriminals the opportunity to conduct ransomware campaigns without having to develop their own malicious code.
RaaS has proven incredibly popular. By offering RaaS, malicious code authors can infect more end users by increasing the number of individuals distributing the ransomware. In the case of Fatboy ransomware, the code author is offering limited partnerships and is dealing with affiliates directly via the instant messaging platform Jabber.
Fatboy ransomware encrypts files using AES-256, generating an individual key for the files and then encrypting those keys using RSA-2048. A separate bitcoin wallet is used for each client and a promise is made to transfer funds to the affiliates as soon as the money is paid. By offering to deal directly with the affiliates, being transparent about the RaaS and offering support, it is thought that the code author is trying to earn trust and maximize the appeal of the service.
Further, the ransomware interface has been translated into 12 languages, allowing campaigns to be conducted in many countries around the world. Many RaaS offerings are limited geographically by language.
Fatboy ransomware also has an interesting new feature that is intended to maximize the chance of the victim paying the ransom demand. This RaaS allows attackers to set the ransom payment automatically based on the victim’s location. In locations with a high standard of living, the ransom payment will be higher and vice versa.
To determine the cost of living, Fatboy ransomware uses the Big Mac Index. The Big Mac Index was developed by The Economist as a method of determining whether currencies were at their correct values. If all currencies are at their correct value, the cost of a product in each country should be the same. The product chosen was a Big Mac. In short, the higher the cost of a Big Mac in the victim’s country, the higher the ransom demand will be.
So far, Recorded Future – the firm that discovered the ransomware variant – says the code author has generated around $5,000 in ransom payments since February. That total is likely to rise considerably as more affiliates come on board and more end users are infected. There is no known decryptor for Fatboy ransomware at this time.
New ransomware variants are constantly being developed and RaaS allows many more individuals to conduct ransomware campaigns. Unsurprisingly, the number of ransomware attacks has grown.
The cost of resolving a ransomware infection can be considerable. Businesses therefore need to ensure they have defenses in place to block attacks and ensure they can recover fast.
Backups need to be made regularly to ensure files can be easily recovered. Staff need to be trained on security best practices to prevent them inadvertently installing ransomware. Antispam solutions should also be implemented to prevent malicious emails from reaching end users’ inboxes. Fortunately, even with a predicted increase in ransomware attacks, businesses can effectively mitigate risk if appropriate defenses are implemented.
For advice on security solutions that can block ransomware attacks, contact the TitanHQ team today.
A Sabre Corporation data breach has potentially resulted in the theft of credit card details and PII from the SynXis Hospitality Solutions reservation system. The Sabre Corporation data breach was acknowledged in Sabre Corp’s Q2 10-Q filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Few details about the security incident have been released as the incident is currently under investigation.
What is known is the incident affects SynXis, a cloud-based SaaS used by more than 36,000 independent hotels and global hotel chains. The system allows employees to check room availability, pricing and process bookings.
Sabre Corporation recently discovered an unauthorized third party gained access to the system and potentially viewed the data of a subset of Sabre Corp’s hotel clients. Information potentially compromised as a result of the Sabre Corporation data breach includes the personally identifiable information and payment card information of hotel guests.
At this stage, Sabre Corporation is still investigating the breach and has not disclosed how the individual gained access to the payment system or when access was first gained. Sabre Corp is currently trying to determine exactly how many individuals have been affected, although affected companies have now been notified of the incident.
Sabre Corp has confirmed that the security breach only affected its SynXis Central Reservations system and unauthorized access has now been blocked. Law enforcement has been alerted to the incident and cybersecurity firm Mandiant contracted to conduct a full forensic investigation of its systems.
The Sabre Corporation data breach is the latest in a string of cyberattacks on hotel chains. Hyatt Hotels Corp, Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants, Omni Hotels & Resorts, Trump Hotels, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Hilton Hotels, HEI Hotels & Resorts and InterContinental Hotels Group have all experienced data breaches in recent months that have resulted in the attackers gaining access to their card payment systems.
While the method used to gain access to Sabre’s system is not yet known, similar cyberattacks on hotel reservation and payment systems have involved malware and compromised login credentials.
If malware is installed on systems it can be used to monitor keystrokes and record login credentials. The sharing of login credentials and poor choices of passwords can also allow attackers to gain access to login credentials.
To protect against cyberattacks, hotels and their contracted SaaS providers should use layered defences including multiple systems to prevent the downloading of malware and multi-factor authentication to reduce the risk from compromised login credentials being used to gain access to POS systems.
Web filters should be used to control employees’ Internet access and downloads, an antispam solution used to prevent malicious emails from reaching end users’ inboxes and anti-virus and anti-malware solutions should be kept up to date and set to scan networks regularly.
Organizations in the hospitality sector must also ensure they have the basics correct, such as changing default passwords, using strong passwords and employing good patch management policies.
The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has issued a new alert to businesses warning of the risk of business email compromise scams.
The businesses most at risk are those that deal with international suppliers as well as those that frequently perform wire transfers. However, businesses that only issue checks instead of sending wire transfers are also at risk of this type of cyberattack.
In contrast to phishing scams where the attacker makes emails appear as if they have come from within the company by spoofing an email address, business email compromise scams require a corporate email account to be accessed by the attackers.
Once access to an email account is gained, the attacker crafts an email and sends it to an individual responsible for making wire transfers, issuing other payments, or an individual that has access to employees PII/W-2 forms and requests a bank transfer or sensitive data.
The attackers often copy the format of emails previously sent to the billing/accounts department. This information can easily be gained from the compromised email account. They are also able to easily identify the person within the company who should be sent the request.
Not all business email compromise scams are concerned with fraudulent bank transfers. IC3 warns that the same scam is also used to obtain the W-2 tax statements of employees, as has been seen on numerous occasions during this year’s tax season.
Phishing scams are often sent out randomly in the hope that some individuals click on malicious links or open infected email attachments. However, business email compromise scams involve considerable research on the company to select victims and to identify appropriate protocols used by the company to make transfer requests.
Business email compromise scams often start with phishing emails. Phishing is used to get end users to reveal their login credentials or other sensitive information that can be used to gain access to business networks and perform the scam. Malware can also be used for this purpose. Emails are sent with links to malicious websites or with infected email attachments. Opening the attachments or clicking on the links downloads malware capable of logging keystrokes or provides the attackers with a foothold in the network.
IC3 warns that business email compromise scams are a major threat for all businesses, regardless of their size. Just because your business is small, it doesn’t mean that you face a low risk of attack.
Between January 2015 and December 2016, IC3 notes there was a 2,370% increase in BEC scams. While funds are most commonly sent to bank accounts in China and Hong Kong, IC3 says transfers have been made to 103 countries in the past two years.
The losses reported by businesses are staggering. Between October 2013 and December 2016, more than $5 billion has been obtained by cybercriminals. United States businesses have lost $1,594,503,669 in more than 22,000 successful scams. The average loss is $71,528.
IC3 lists the five most common types of business email compromise scams as:
Businesses receiving requests from frequently used suppliers requesting transfers be made to a new bank account.This is also known as a bogus invoice scam.
An executive within the company (CFO or CTO for example) requests a transfer be made by a second employee in the company. This is also known as a business executive scam.
A compromised email account is used to send a payment request/invoice to a vendor in the employees contact list.
The attackers impersonate an attorney used by the firm and request the transfer of funds. These scams are common at the end of the week or end of the business day. They are also known as Friday afternoon scams.
A request is sent from a compromised email account to a member of the HR department requesting information on employees such as W-2 Forms or PII. These scams are most common during tax season.
There are a number of strategies that can be adopted to prevent business email compromise attacks from being successful.
IC3 recommends:
Using a domain-based email account rather than a web-based account for business email accounts
Exercising caution about the information posted to social media accounts. This is where the attackers do much of their research
Implement a two-step verification process to validate all transfer requests
Use two-factor authentication for corporate email accounts
Never respond to an email using the reply option. Always use forward and type in the address manually
Register all domains that are similar to the main domain used by the company
Use intrusion detection systems and spam filters that quarantine or flag emails that have been sent with extensions similar to those used by the company – Blocking emails sent from xxx_company.com if the company uses xxx-company.com for example
Be wary of any request that seems out of the ordinary or requires a change to the bank account usually used for transfers
A Google phishing scam has been spreading like wildfire over the past couple of days. Emails have been sent in the millions inviting people to edit Google Docs files. The emails appear to have been sent by known individuals, increasing the likelihood of the messages being opened and the links being clicked.
In contrast to many email scams that include a link to a spoofed website, this scam directs the recipient to Google Docs. When the user arrives at the site they will be presented with a legitimate Google sign-in screen.
The Google phishing scam works within the Google platform, taking advantage of the fact that individuals can create a third-party app and give it a misleading name. In this case, the app has been named ‘Google Docs.’
This makes it appear that Google Docs is asking for permission to read, send, delete, and manage emails and access the user’s contacts. However, it is the creator of the app that is asking to be granted those permissions. If users check the developer name, they will see that all is not as it seems. Many individuals will not check, since the permission screen also includes Google logos.
Signing in will give the attacker access to the user’s Google account, including their emails, Google Docs files, and contact list. Further, signing in on the website will also result in the victim’s contact list being sent similar invitations. Unsurprisingly, many have fallen for the Google phishing scam and countless emails are still circulating.
The scam appears to have started at some point on Wednesday. Google has now issued an official statement saying it is taking action to protect users and has disabled the accounts that are being used to conduct the scam.
Google confirmed the actions it has taken in response to the phishing scam, saying “We’ve removed the fake pages, pushed updates through Safe Browsing, and our abuse team is working to prevent this kind of spoofing from happening again. We encourage users to report phishing emails in Gmail.”
Anyone who receives a request to edit a Google Doc should treat the request with suspicion, even if it has been sent from someone known to the recipient.
If you think you may have fallen for this phishing scam it is likely that emails will already have been generated and sent to your contacts. However, you can take action to block the threat by revoking the access rights you have given to the app through the Connected Apps and Sites page.
The Google phishing scam is highly convincing and clearly shows how sophisticated cybercriminals are getting in their attempts to gain access to sensitive information and why it is imperative that email users be permanently on their guard.
Training employees on basic cybersecurity is essential. Conventional cybersecurity solutions such as antivirus software are no longer as effective at blocking threats as they once were and employees are targeted by cybercriminals.
Cybercriminals are well aware that employees are easy to fool. Social engineering techniques are used to create highly convincing phishing scams. Those emails contain images of well-known brands and text that would not look out of place in an official communication. Believable reasons are given for the need to disclose login credentials, click on hyperlinks or open email attachments. The emails are effective.
Email is now the number one attack vector for cybercriminals and the biggest cybersecurity threat for businesses.
Employees Still Lack Security Awareness
Even though the threat from phishing has been widely reported in the media, many employees still take major security risks at work.
A recent survey conducted by Glassdoor on UK office workers highlights how serious the risk of email cyberattacks is. 1,000 office workers from mid to large-sized businesses in the UK were asked questions about cybersecurity. 58% of respondents said they usually opened email attachments sent from unknown individuals.
Cybercriminals often mask email addresses to make the emails appear as if they have been sent from someone in the recipient’s contact list. Those tactics are even more effective at getting an end user to take the desired action – clicking on a hyperlink or opening an email attachment. The former directs the end user to a malicious website where malware is silently downloaded. Opening the email attachment results in code being run that downloads a malicious payload.
When asked how often email attachments from known senders were opened, 83% of respondents said they always or usually opened email attachments. Office workers were also asked whether their organization had experienced a cyberattack. 34% of respondents said it had.
How often are malicious emails getting past organizations security defenses? 76% of respondents said suspicious emails had been sent to their work email inboxes.
The survey suggests cybersecurity training is either not being conducted or that it is in effective and email security solutions are not in place or have not been configured correctly.
20% of respondents said their organization had no policy on email attachments, or if it did, it had not been communicated to them. 58% said they would feel much safer if their organization had the appropriate technology in place to protect them from email attacks.
How to Improve Defenses Against Email Attacks
Organizations must ensure appropriate technology is in place to block malicious emails and that employee cybersecurity training programs are developed to raise awareness of the risks of cyberattacks via email.
Policies should be developed – and communicated to staff – covering email attachments and hyperlinks. If staff are unaware of the risks, they cannot be expected to be able to identify an email as suspicious and take the appropriate action. It must also be made clear to employees what actions should be taken if suspicious emails are received.
Cybersecurity training programs should also be evaluated. If those programs are not tested, employers will not know how effective their training is. Sending dummy phishing emails is a good way to determine whether training programs are effective.
A powerful spam filtering and anti-phishing solution should also be employed to prevent malicious emails from reaching end users’ inboxes. SpamTitan, for instance, is an advanced antispam solution for SMEs that blocks over 99.7% of spam emails and 100% of known malware. By preventing malicious emails from reaching end users’ inboxes, employee cybersecurity training will not be put to the test.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a new data privacy and security law in Europe that comes into force next year, but does GDPR apply to American companies? As many U.S. companies have recently discovered, not only does GDPR apply to American companies, doing business within the EU is likely to be extremely costly for companies that do not comply with GDPR.
Any organization or individual that does business within any of the 28 EU member states (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom) must comply with GDPR or face heavy penalties.
The penalty for non-compliance with GDPR for enterprises is up to 20,000,000 Euros ($23,138,200) or 4% of the annual global turnover of the company for the previous fiscal year, whichever is the greatest. An enterprise found not to have complied with GDPR will also be subjected to regular, periodic data protection audits to ensure its policies and procedures are updated and the firm continues to comply with GDPR.
So, what is the regulation and how does GDPR apply to American companies? What do U.S firms need to do to comply with GDPR?
How Does GDPR Apply to American Companies?
The main purpose of GDPR is to give EU citizens greater control over how their personal data is collected, protected and used. While the legislation applies to EU companies, it also applies to any company that chooses to do business in the EU. That includes any online business that owns a website that is accessible by EU citizens if that website collects user data.
Since the definition of personal information includes online identifiers such as cookies, GDPR has implications for huge numbers of U.S businesses. GDPR applies to all companies that do business with persons based in EU member states, with the exception of law enforcement agencies or when data are collected for national security activities.
To continue to do business in the EU, most companies will have to implement additional privacy protections and adopt end-to-end data protection strategies.
The EU classes personal data as “Any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person,” which includes a wide range of information from names, addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses to bank information and credit card details, photos, posts on social media websites, medical information, and even an individuals IP address.
Even when controls have been implemented to keep data secure, it may still be necessary to overhaul systems to ensure sufficient protections are in place. Companies must be aware where data are stored and employees must be trained to ensure they are aware of their responsibilities with regards to the use of data.
Organizations will need to provide customers – and website visitors – with detailed information on data that are collected and how data will be used. Consent must be obtained before any data are collected and consent must be obtained from a parent or custodian of a minor.
There must be a legitimate and lawful reason for collecting data and limited to the minimum necessary information for the purpose for which data are collected. Data must be deleted when that purpose has been achieved.
Organizations must appoint a Data Protection Officer who is knowledgeable about GDPR and will oversee compliance if their core activities are data collection, storage or data processing. That individual must also have a thorough understanding of the company’s organizational and technical infrastructure.
Organizations also need to implement appropriate policies, procedures and technologies to ensure that the data of EU citizens can be permanently erased. GDPR includes the right to be forgotten – termed ‘Right to Erasure’.
The legislation that GDPR replaces only required data to be deleted when it caused substantial damage or distress. However, from next year, an EU citizen can request that all data collected on them be permanently deleted if the information is no longer needed for the purpose that it was originally collected. Data must also be deleted if consent to use the data is withdrawn or if the processing of data is unlawful and breaches GDPR.
Many U.S. companies already have technologies in place that will comply with the data protection requirements of GDPR, but the right to erasure requirement could pose problems.
Symantec recently conducted a survey that revealed 9 out of 10 businesses were concerned that they would not be able to comply with the right to erasure requirement of GDPR, with only 4 out of 10 businesses already having a system in place that could potentially allow all data to be deleted.
Compliance with GDPR in the United States
A recent survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers on large multinational companies in the United States shows efforts are already underway to ensure compliance with the EU regulation. More than half of surveyed firms said GDPR is now their main data protection priority, with 92% saying compliance with GDPR is a top priority this year. The cost of compliance is considerable. 77% of surveyed firms said they are planning to spend more than $1 million on GDPR compliance, with one of the main spending priorities being improving their information security defenses.
Many companies are starting to ask how how does GDPR apply to American companies, but a study conducted by NTT Security suggests that three quarters of U.S. businesses are ignoring GDPR because they do not believe the regulation applies to them. Ignorance could prove very costly indeed. Further, time is running out. For many companies, compliance with GDPR will not be a quick process and the deadline is fast approaching. GDPR comes into effect on May 25, 2018. Miss the deadline and fines await.
A law firm ransomware attack has resulted in business files being left encrypted and inaccessible for three months, causing considerable billing losses for the firm.
Why did the law firm not simply pay the ransom demand to regain access to their files? Well, they did. Unfortunately, the attackers took the money and did not supply viable keys to unlock the encrypted files. Instead, they had a much better idea. To issue another ransom demand to try to extort even more money from the law firm.
The law firm, Providence, RI- based Moses Afonso Ryan Ltd, was forced to negotiate with the attackers to gain access to its data. It took more than three months and ransomware payments of $25,000 to finally regain access to its files. However, the ransomware payment represented only a tiny proportion of the cost of the attack. During the three months that data were locked, the firm’s lawyers struggled to work.
Moses Afonso Ryan made a claim against its insurance policy for lost billings as a result of the attack; however, the insurer, Sentinel Insurance Co., has refused to pay the bill. The law firm claims to have lost $700,000 as a result of the attack in lost billings alone. The firm has recently filed a U.S. District Court lawsuit against its insurer claiming breach of contract and bad faith for denying the claim.
The law firm ransomware attack involved a single phishing email being opened by one of the firms’ lawyers. That email has so far cost the firm more than $725,000 and the losses will continue to rise.
Important lessons can be learned from this law firm ransomware attack. First, the importance of training all staff members on the risk of ransomware attacks and teaching security best practices to reduce the risk of attacks being successful.
Since phishing emails are now highly sophisticated and difficult to identify, technical solutions should be implemented to prevent emails from reaching employees’ inboxes. Endpoint protection systems can reduce the risk of ransomware being installed and can detect infections rapidly, limiting the damage caused.
All businesses should take care to segment their networks to ensure that a ransomware infection on a single computer does not result in an entire network being impacted.
It is also essential for backups to be performed regularly and for those backups to be tested to ensure data can be recovered. This law firm cyberattack clearly demonstrated that organizations cannot rely on attackers making good on their promise to unlock data if the ransom is paid.
There have been cases where the attackers have not been able to supply a functional key to unlock data, and numerous examples of attackers issuing further ransom demands in an attempt to extort even more money out of companies.
Hackers are continuing to attack healthcare organizations, but healthcare ransomware attacks are the biggest cause of security incidents, according to the NTT Security 2017 Global Threat Intelligence Report.
Healthcare ransomware attacks accounted for 50% of all security breaches reported by healthcare organizations between October 2015 and September 2016 and are the largest single cause of security breaches.
However, healthcare is far from the only sector to be targeted. Retail, government, and the business & professional services sector have also suffered many ransomware attacks during the same period. Those four sectors accounted for 77% of global ransomware attacks. The worst affected sector was business & professional services, with 28% of reported ransomware attacks, followed by the government (19%), healthcare (15%) and retail (15%).
NTT Security reports that phishing emails are the most common mechanism for ransomware delivery, being used in 73% of ransomware and malware attacks. Poor choices of password are also commonly exploited to gain access to networks and email accounts. NTT says just 25 passwords were used in 33% of all authentication attempts on its honeypots, while 76% of authentication attempts used a password known to have been implemented in the Mirai botnet.
Zero-day exploits tend to attract considerable media attention, but they are used in relatively few attacks. Web-based attacks have fallen but they still pose a significant threat. The most commonly attacked products were Microsoft Internet Explorer, Adobe Flash Player, and Microsoft Silverlight. Exploit kit activity has fallen throughout the year as cybercriminals have turned to phishing emails to spread malware and ransomware. There was a steady decline in exploit kit attacks throughout the year.
With phishing posing the highest risk, it is essential that organizations ensure they have adequate defenses in place. Phishing attacks are sophisticated and hard to distinguish from genuine emails. Security awareness training is important, but training alone will not prevent some attacks from being successful. It is also important to ensure that training is not just a one time exercise. Regular training sessions should be conducted, highlighting the latest tactics used by cybercriminals and recent threats.
The best form of defense against phishing attacks is to use anti-phishing technologies such as spam filters to prevent phishing emails from reaching end users. The more phishing emails that are blocked, the less reliance organizations place on end users being able to identify phishing emails. Solutions should also be implemented to block users from visiting phishing websites via hyperlinks sent via email.
Cyberattacks on educational institutions are occurring at an alarming rate. While the education sector has not been as heavily targeted as the financial services and healthcare in recent years, that is no longer the case. Cybercriminals and state-actors now have the education sector in their crosshairs.
Cybercriminals have realized that cyberattacks on educational institutions can be highly profitable, with this year seeing a sharp rise in attacks.
Schools, colleges and higher education institutions hold vast quantities of data that can be used for fraud and identity theft. As we have already seen this year, cyberattacks on educational institutions are now much more common. The first quarter of the year saw a rise in W-2 phishing attacks, with criminals managing to obtain the tax information of many thousands of staff members. Those data were used to file fraudulent tax returns. Student records can be used for identity theft and can be sold for big bucks on darknet marketplaces. Attacks aimed at obtaining the personal data of students have similarly increased.
Educational institutions also conduct extensive research. The past year has seen a sharp rise in espionage related cyberattacks on educational institutions. Criminals are also conducting attacks to gain access to bank accounts. This year, two major cyberattacks on educational organizations have resulted in bank transfers being made to criminals’ accounts. At the start of the year, a phishing attack on the Cleveland Metropolitan School District resulted in more than $100,000 being obtained by the attackers. Denver Public Schools was also attacked, with the attackers redirecting $40,000 in payroll funds to their own accounts.
The recently published Data Breach Investigation Report from Verizon clearly shows the new attack trend. Over the past year, there have been 455 incidents reported by educational institutions, 73 of which have resulted in the theft of data.
While many industries see cyberattacks conducted for financial reasons, in education, financial gain was only the motive behind 45% of cyberattacks. 43% of attacks involved espionage and 9% of attacks were conducted for fun. Out of all reported data breaches, 26% involved espionage. Last year the percentage was just 5%.
Attacks are coming from all angles – Internal attacks by students; attacks by cybercriminals looking to steal data, and state-sponsored actors looking to steal research. The latter accounted for more than half of data breaches in the past year.
The Verizon report indicates hacking is the biggest threat. 43% of breaches were due to hacks, although social attacks and malware were also common. Verizon reports that almost 44% of breaches involved social and around a third involved malware. Social attacks and malware have increased considerably over the course of the past year. The most common social attack was phishing via email.
As long cyberattacks on educational institutions remain beneficial or profitable, cyberattacks will continue. Educational institutions therefore need to take steps to improve their security posture. Since social attacks such as phishing are commonplace, and malware infections commonly occur via email, educational institutions need review their email defenses.
Password policies should be introduced to ensure strong passwords are set on email accounts and policies introduced to ensure passwords are regularly changed. Spam filtering solutions should be implemented and all staff and students should receive training on security awareness. Verizon suggests staff and students should be encouraged or rewarded for reporting phishing and pretexting attacks.
There was some good news in the latest installment of the Symantec Internet Security Threat Report. Web-based attacks have fallen year on year, but ransomware attacks on businesses have sky rocketed. Sabotage and subversion attacks have also risen sharply in the past 12 months.
The Internet Security Threat Report shows that exploit kit and other web-based attacks fell by 30% in 2016, but over the same period, ransomware attacks on businesses increased by 36%.
Ransomware has proved popular with cybercriminals as attacks are easy to perform and money can be made quickly. If an attacker succeeds in encrypting business data, a ransom must be paid within a few days. In the United States, where the majority of ransomware attacks occur, 64% of businesses pay the ransom.
Web-based attacks on the other hand typically take longer and require considerably more technical skill. Cybercriminals must create and host a malicious site and direct end users to the site. Once malware has been downloaded, the attackers must move laterally within the network and find and exfiltrate sensitive data. The data must then be sold.
Ransomware attacks on businesses are far easier to conduct, especially using ransomware-as-a-service. All that is required is for criminals to pay to rent the ransomware, set their own terms, and distribute the malware via spam email. Many ransomware authors even provide kits with instructions on how to customize the ransomware and conduct campaigns. The appeal of ransomware is clear. It is quick, easy and profitable to conduct attacks.
The Symantec Internet Security Threat Report charts the rise in popularity of ransomware. Symantec detected 101 separate ransomware families in 2016. In 2014 and 2015 the count was just 30. Symantec’s ransomware detections increased from 340,665 in 2015 to 463,841 in 2016. Ransomware as a service has played a major role in the increase in attacks.
Ransom demands have also increased in the past year. In 2015, the average ransom demand was $294 per infected device. In 2016, the average ransomware demand had increased to $1,077.
Fortunately, good data backup policies will ensure businesses do not have to pay to unlock their data. Unfortunately, even if data can be recovered from backups, ransomware attacks on businesses are costly to resolve. Cybersecurity firms need to be hired to conduct analyses of networks to ensure all traces of ransomware (and other malware) have been removed. Those firms must also check to make sure no backdoors have been installed.
Ransomware attacks on businesses typically see computers locked for several days, causing considerable loss of revenue for companies. Customer breach notifications may also need to be issued. Ransomware attacks can cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to resolve, even if no ransom is paid.
Since ransomware is primarily distributed via spam email, businesses need to ensure they have appropriate email defenses in place. An advanced spam filter with an anti-phishing component is essential, along with other endpoint protection systems.
Symantec’s figures show that spam email volume has remained constant year on year, with spam accounting for 53% of email volume in 2016.
In 2016, one in 2,596 emails involved a phishing component, down from one in 965 in 2014. Phishing attacks may be down, but malware attacks increased over the same period.
Malware-infected email attachments and malicious links to malware-infected websites accounted for one in every 131 emails in 2016, up from 1 in 220 in 2015 and 1 in 244 in 2014. In 2016, 357 million new malware variants were detected, up from 275 million in 2014.
The decline in web-based attacks is certainly good news, but it doesn’t mean the threat can be ignored. Last year there were 229,000 web-based attacks tracked by Symantec. While that is a considerable decrease from the previous year, web-based attacks still pose a significant threat to businesses.
Web-based attacks could also increase this year. The Symantec Internet Security Threat Report indicates 9% of websites have critical bugs that could be easily exploited by cybercriminals allowing them to hijack the websites. Worryingly, Symantec reports that 76% of websites contain bugs that could potentially be exploited.
The Symantec Internet Security Threat Report shows data breaches have remained fairly constant over the past two years. In 2014, widely reported to be ‘the year of the data breach’, Symantec recorded 1,523 data breaches. The following year that fell to 1,211 breaches. Last year, there was little change, with 1,209 breaches reported.
The halt in the rise in data breaches suggests organizations are getting better at protecting their networks and data. However, large data breaches are increasing. Last year there were 15 data breaches that involved the theft of more than 10 million records, up from 11 in 2014.
Protecting against data breaches and cyberattacks requires comprehensive, multi-layered security defenses. TitanHQ offers a range of cybersecurity solutions for SMEs to help them improve their security posture and protect against web-based and email-based security threats.
For more information on how you can improve your security posture, and information on the best spam filter for business use, contact the TitanHQ team today.
A Shoney’s Restaurants malware infection has resulted in the theft of customers’ payment card details. Hackers managed to install malware on the POS system used by dozens of Shoney’s restaurants
Shoney’s is a 70-year-old Nashville, Tennessee-based restaurant chain that operates approximately 150 restaurants across the Southern United States, Midwest and lower Atlantic region. The chain serves customers in 17 states, although only selected restaurants in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia were affected. At least 37 restaurants were affected.
Financial institutions identified a trend in credit card fraud and were able to determine that all of the affected cardholders had visited a Shoney’s Restaurant. Best American Hospitality Corp., which manages and operates a number of Shoney’s establishments, was notified of a potential cyberattack and started an investigation. Kroll Cyber Security LLC was hired to conduct an investigation into the attack.
Kroll’s investigation revealed the malware enabled the attackers to steal cardholder names, credit card numbers, CVV codes, and expiry dates, although in some cases, cardholder names were not obtained. It is unclear how many individuals have been impacted, although any individual who visited one of the affected restaurants and paid by credit card has potentially had their information stolen. The malware was capable of reading data from the magnetic strips of payment cards as the information was routed through its computer system.
Access to the POS system is understood to have first been gained on December 27, 2016, although some restaurants were not infected until January 11. The Shoney’s Restaurants malware infection was contained on March 6, 2017, according to a press release issued by Best American Hospitality Corp.
The Shoney’s Restaurants malware attack is the latest is a slew of POS system breaches that have hit the hospitality sector hard. Earlier this year, the Arby’s restaurant chain was attacked and had credit card data stolen, while Wendy’s suffered a major credit card breach last year. Hotels have also been attacked, with more than 1,100 Intercontinental Hotel Group hotels discovered to have had malware installed that accessed its POS system.
Cyberattacks on the hospitality sector are to be expected. Hotels and restaurants are visited by tens of thousands of customers, and payment by credit card is common. Card details can be stolen and encoded onto magnetic strips on blank cards and used for fraudulent purchases. Each card number can allow criminals to steal hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.
All too often, data breaches occur due to poor security practices such as the failure to use strong passwords or failing to change default passwords. Other basic security failures that can open the door to attackers include failing to use web and email security products, not using two-factor authentication and not implementing security patches promptly. Businesses should also conduct regular vulnerability scans and penetration tests to ensure all of their systems are secure.
If you would like advice on web and email security protections that can prevent hackers from gaining access to your POS system and installing malware, contact the TitanHQ team today and find out how you can improve your resilience against malware and cyberattacks.
2017 was the year when Locky Ransomware first arrived on the scene, with the ransomware variant fast becoming the biggest ransomware threat. Locky infections rose rapidly following its release in February and continued to rise in the first half of the year. The ransomware variant was initially installed via exploit kits, although as exploit kit activity fell, the developers switched to spam email as the primary attack vector.
As 2016 progressed, Locky activity declined. While Locky infections continue, it is no longer the biggest ransomware threat. Locky now accounts for just 2% of infections. A new report from Malwarebytes has revealed that the biggest ransomware threat – by some distance – is Cerber ransomware.
Cerber ransomware is now behind 90% of all global ransomware infections, with those attacks performed using many different variants of the ransomware. Cerber has even surpassed TeslaCrypt; a previously highly prevalent ransomware variant that dominated attacks in 2015 and early 2016. At the start of 2017, Cerber’s ‘market share’ stood at 70%, although that increased to 90% by the end of Q3.
The secret of the success of Cerber lies not only in the sophistication of the ransomware, but how it is being used and distributed. Cerber ransomware has become the biggest ransomware threat because it is not only the authors that are using it to attack organizations. There is now an army of affiliates using the ransomware. Those affiliates do not need programming experience and neither much in the way of technical skill. Their role is simple. They are simply distributors who get a cut of the profits for any ransoms they manage to generate.
Ransom payments are likely with Cerber infections. There is no decryptor for the ransomware as no flaws have been discovered. Files locked by Cerber cannot be unlocked without the decryption keys, and only the attackers have access to those. The encryption used is of military-grade, says Malwarebytes. Further, a computer does not even need to be connected to the Internet in order for files to be encrypted. The latest variants also include a host of new defenses to prevent detection and analysis.
The primary attack vector used is email. Cerber is distributed in spam email, with infection occurring when a user opens an infected email attachment. That triggers the downloading of Cerber from the attacker’s Dropbox account.
With the new defenses put in place by its authors and no shortage of affiliates signing up to use the ransomware-as-a-service, Cerber looks set to remain the main ransomware threat throughout Q2. Attacks will continue and likely increase, and new variants will almost certainly be released.
All organizations can do is to improve their defenses against attack. Cybersecurity solutions should be employed to prevent spam emails from being delivered to end users. Staff should be trained how to identify malicious emails and not to open email attachments sent from unknown senders. Organizations should also use security tools to detect endpoint infections.
Since even with advanced security defenses infections are still possible, it is essential that all data are backed up and those backups tested to ensure they will allow encrypted data to be recovered.
In the United States, phishing attacks on schools and higher education institutions have soared in recent months, highlighting the need for improvements to be made to staff education programs and cybersecurity defenses.
Phishing refers to the practice of sending emails in an attempt to get the recipients to reveal sensitive information such as logins to email accounts, bank accounts, or other computer systems. Typically, a link is included in the email which will direct the user to a website where information must be entered. The sites, as well as the emails, contain information to make the request look genuine.
Phishing is nothing new. It has been around since the 1980’s, but the extent to which sensitive information is stored electronically and the number of transactions that are now conducted online has made attacks much more profitable for cybercriminals. Consequently, attacks have increased. The quality of phishing emails has also improved immeasurably. Phishing emails are now becoming much harder to identify, especially by non-technical members of staff.
No organization is immune to attack, but attackers are no longer concentrating on financial institutions and healthcare organizations. The education sector is now being extensively targeted. Phishing attacks on schools are being conducted far more frequently, and all too often those attacks are succeeding.
Such is the scale of the problem that the IRS recently issued a warning following a massive rise in phishing attacks on schools. Campaigns were being conducted by attackers looking for W-2 Form data of school employees. That information was then used to submit fraudulent tax returns in school employees’ names.
Recent Phishing Attacks on Schools, Colleges, and Universities
Westminster College is one of the latest educational institutions to report that an employee has fallen for the W-2 Form phishing scam, although it numbers in dozens of schools, colleges and universities that have been attacked this year.
Phishing emails are not only concerned with obtaining tax information. Recently, a phishing attack on Denver Public Schools gave the attackers the information they needed to make a fraudulent bank transfer. More than $40,000 intended to pay staff wages was transferred to the criminal’s account.
This week, news emerged of a listing on a darknet noticeboard from a hacker who had gained access to school email accounts, teacher’s gradebooks, and the personal information of thousands of students. That individual was looking for advice on what to do with the data and access in order to make money.
Washington University School of Medicine was targeted in a phishing attack that saw the attackers gain access to patient health information. More than 80,000 patients potentially had their health information stolen as a result of that attack.
Last week, news emerged of an attempted phishing attack on Minnesota schools, with 335 state school districts and around 170 charter schools potentially attacked. In that case, the phishing attack was identified before any information was released. The attack involved an email that appeared to have been sent from the Education Commissioner. The attackers were trying to gain access to financial information.
How to Improve Defenses Against Phishing Attacks
Fortunately, there are a number of technological controls that can be implemented cheaply to reduce the risk of phishing attacks on schools being successful.
An advanced spam filtering solution with a powerful anti-phishing component is now essential. A spam filter looks for the common spam and phishing signatures and ensures suspect messages are quarantined and not delivered to end users.
It must be assumed that occasionally, even with a spam filter, phishing emails may occasionally be delivered. To prevent employees and students from visiting phishing websites and revealing their information, a web filtering solution can be used. Web filters block end users from visiting websites that are known to be used for phishing. As an additional benefit, web filters can stop individuals from accessing websites known to contain malware or host illegal or undesirable material – pornography for instance.
Those solutions should be accompanied by training for all staff members on the risk from phishing and the common identifiers that can help staff spot a phishing email. Schools should also implement policies for reporting threats to the organization’s IT department. Fast reporting can limit the harm caused and prevent other staff members from responding.
IT departments should also have policies in place to ensure thwarted attacks are reported to law enforcement. Warnings should also be sent to other school districts following an attack to allow them to take action to protect themselves against similar attacks.
Any school or higher educational institution that fails to implement appropriate defenses against phishing attacks will be at a high risk of a phishing attack being successful. Not only do phishing attacks place employees at risk of fraud, they can prove incredibly costly for schools to mitigate. With budgets already tight, most schools can simply not afford to cover those costs.
Improve Your Phishing Defenses with TitanHQ
The TitanHQ team have worked on email anti-spam solutions for schools, web filtering for the education sector, and email archiving for schools for over 20 years. We have a deep understanding of the security issues that all schools and colleges face when trying to protect students, school staff and visitors. TitanHQ has developed products to address the needs of schools and block threats such as phishing, malware, and ransomware, while ensuring compliance with federal and state laws.
TitanHQ offers schools a powerful and highly effective email security solution – SpamTitan – which blocks in excess of 99.9% of spam and 100% of known malware threats. The award-winning solution is the single-most important measure to block phishing and malware threats, the majority of which are delivered via email.
WebTitan offers safe internet browsing for children, providing protection from harmful and obscene web content whether students are studying at school or at home. Web security is available for all devices, and in addition to blocking age-inappropriate web content, will prevent access to known phishing websites and will block malware and ransomware downloads.
If you want to improve your defenses against phishing and malware in the most cost effective way possible, give the TitanHQ team a call today. Both solutions are available to schools and other educational institutions on a 30-day 10% free trial, which will allow you to see for yourself the difference each makes and why so many schools have already implemented these solutions.
A phishing attack on a HIPAA-covered entity has resulted in a $400,000 penalty for non-compliance with HIPAA Rules. This is not the first time a phishing attack has attracted a penalty from OCR for non-compliance.
The failure to prevent phishing attacks does not necessarily warrant a HIPAA penalty, but failing to implement sufficient protections to prevent attacks could land HIPAA-covered entities in hot water.
HIPAA Compliance and Phishing
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights is tasked with enforcing Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Rules. While OCR conducts audits of covered entities to identify aspects of HIPAA Rules that are proving problematic for covered entities, to date, no financial penalties have been issued as a result of HIPAA violations discovered during compliance audits. The same is certainly not the case when it comes to investigations of data breaches.
OCR investigates each and every data breach that impacts more than 500 individuals. Those investigations often result in the discovery of violations of HIPAA Rules. Any HIPAA-covered entity that experiences a phishing attack that results in the exposure of patients’ or health plan members’ protected health information could have historic HIPAA violations uncovered. A single phishing attack that is not thwarted could therefore end up in a considerable fine for non-compliance.
What HIPAA Rules cover phishing? While there is no specific mention of phishing in HIPAA, phishing is a threat to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of ePHI and is covered under the administrative requirements of the HIPAA Security Rule. HIPAA-covered entities are required to provide ongoing, appropriate training to staff members. §164.308.(a).(5).(i) requires security awareness training to be provided, and while these are addressable requirements, they cannot be ignored.
These administrative requirements include the issuing of security reminders, protection from malicious software, password management and login monitoring. Employees should also be taught how to identify potential phishing emails and told about the correct response when such an email is received.
The HIPAA Security Rule also requires technical safeguards to be implemented to protect against threats to ePHI. Reasonable and appropriate security measures, such as encryption, should be employed to protect ePHI. Since ePHI is often available through email accounts, a reasonable and appropriate security measure would be to employ a spam filtering solution with an anti-phishing component.
Given the frequency of attacks on healthcare providers, and the extent to which phishing is involved in cytberattacks – PhishMe reports 91% of cyberattacks start with a phishing email – a spam filtering solution can be classed as an essential security control.
The risk from phishing should be highlighted during a risk analysis: A required element of the HIPAA Security Rule. A risk analysis should identify risks and vulnerabilities that could potentially result in ePHI being exposed or stolen. Those risks must then be addressed as part of a covered entity’s security management process.
HIPAA Penalties for Phishing Attacks
OCR has recently agreed to a settlement with Metro Community Provider Network (MCPN), a federally-qualified health center (FQHC) based in Denver, Colorado following a phishing attack that occurred in December 2011. The attack allowed the attacker to gain access to the organization’s email accounts after employees responded by providing their credentials. The ePHI of 3,200 individuals was contained in those email accounts.
The fine was not exactly for failing to prevent the attack, but for not doing enough to manage security risks. MCPN had failed to conduct a risk analysis prior to the attack taking place and had not implemented security measures sufficient to reduce risks and vulnerabilities to a reasonable and appropriate level. OCR settled with MCPN for $400,000.
In 2015, another covered entity ended up settling with OCR to resolve violations of HIPAA Rules following a phishing attack. University of Washington Medicine paid OCR $750,000 following the exposure of 90,000 individual’s ePHI. In that case, the phishing attack allowed attackers to install malware. OCR Director at the time, Jocelyn Samuels, pointed out “An effective risk analysis is one that is comprehensive in scope and is conducted across the organization to sufficiently address the risks and vulnerabilities to patient data.” She also said, “All too often we see covered entities with a limited risk analysis that focuses on a specific system such as the electronic medical records or that fails to provide appropriate oversight and accountability for all parts of the enterprise.”
Covered entities are not expected to prevent all phishing attacks, but they must ensure the risk of phishing has been identified and measures put in place to prevent phishing attacks from resulting in the exposure of theft of ePHI. If not, a HIPAA fine may be issued.
Microsoft has finally patched a zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft Word that has been exploited by cybercriminals for months. Recently, the vulnerability has been exploited by the gang behind the Dridex banking Trojan.
The remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2017-0199) affects the Windows Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) application programming interface. The vulnerability is a logic flaw rather than a programming error, which makes defending against attacks difficult.
The bug affects RTF files. The spam email campaigns use RTF files containing an embedded OLE2Link object, which downloads an HTA (HTML Application) file containing malicious code when the document is opened. No user interaction other than opening the file is required to infect the end user’s device.
There is some debate as to how long the vulnerability has been actively exploited in the wild. Attacks may have been occurring as early as November 2016 according to SophosLabs, although certainly since the start of 2017. Over the past two months, the vulnerability has been extensively exploited to deliver the Dridex banking Trojan.
The zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft Word has been exploited for espionage purposes in Russian speaking countries, while FireEye observed the exploit being used to distribute Latentbot malware. Latentbot is an information stealer with the ability to corrupt hard drives.
Many security companies have been tracking the vulnerability, although it was McAfee that announced the existence of the actively exploited flaw on Friday last week. The flaw exists in virtually all Microsoft Word versions and does not require macros to be enabled in order for malicious code to run.
Employees are advised never to enable macros on documents unless they are 100% certain that a document is legitimate; however, this zero-day exploit does not rely on macros. Simply opening the Word document on an unpatched Office installation is likely to result in infection.
This makes the vulnerability particularly dangerous. Any end user that opens a specially crafted Word document would automatically run the code which would see the Dridex Trojan (or another malware) downloaded. One protection that can prevent the malicious code from running is to enable Protected View mode. However, the code will run when Protected View is turned off.
The malicious emails sent out in at least one campaign have the subject line “scanned data” with the RFT file attachments containing the word ‘scan’ followed by a random string of numbers, according to Proofpoint.
To protect against this exploit, the patches for both Office and Windows that were released by Microsoft on Tuesday April 11, 2017 should be applied. However, in order to apply the security update, Service Pack 2 for Office 2010 must be installed.
If it is not possible to apply the Microsoft updates immediately, you can configure your spam filter to block RTF files or add RTF files to the list of documents to block in the Microsoft Office Trust Center.
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that one of the leading email spammers has been arrested as part of an operation to disrupt and dismantle the infamous Kelihos botnet.
The Kelihos botnet is a network of tens of thousands of computers that are used to launch massive spamming campaigns comprising millions of emails. Those spam emails are used for a variety of nefarious purposes including the distribution of ransomware and malware. The botnet has been extensively used to spread fake antivirus software and spread credential-stealing malware.
Computers are added to the Kelihos botnet using malware. Once installed, Kelihos malware runs silently and users are unaware that their computers have been hijacked. The Kelihos botnet can be quickly weaponized and used for a variety of malicious purposes. The botnet has previously been used for spamming campaigns that artificially inflate stock prices, promote counterfeit drugs and recruit people to fraudulent work-at-home schemes.
Pyotr Levashov is believed to operate the botnet in addition to conducting a wide range of cybercriminal activities out of Russia. In what turned out to be an unwise move, Levashov left the relative safety of his home country and travelled to Barcelona, Spain on holiday. Levashov was arrested on Sunday, April 9 by Spanish authorities acting on a U.S. issued international arrest warrant.
Levashov is suspected of playing a role in the alleged Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election in 2016, although Levashov is best known for his spamming activities, click fraud and DDoS attacks.
Levashov, or Peter Severa as he is otherwise known, is heavily involved in distributing virus spamming software and is believed to have written numerous viruses and Trojans. Spamhaus lists Levashov in seventh place on the list of the 10 worst spammers.
Levashov is believed to have run multiple operations that connected virus developers with spamming networks, and is suspected of running the Kelihos botnet, the Waledac botnet – which was taken down in 2010 – and the Storm botnet. Levashov was indicted for his role in the latter in 2009, although he managed to avoid extradition to the United States. At the time, Storm was the biggest spamming botnet in operation and was used to send millions of emails every day. Levashov also moderates many spamming forums and is well known in underground circles. Levashov is believed to have been extensively involved in spamming and other cybercriminal activities for the past 20 years; although to date he has avoided prosecution.
A statement released by the U.S. Department of Justice reads, “The operation announced today targeted an ongoing international scheme that was distributing hundreds of millions of fraudulent e-mails per year, intercepting the credentials to online and financial accounts belonging to thousands of Americans, and spreading ransomware throughout our networks.”
The DOJ operation also involved the takedown of domains associated with the Kelihos botnet starting on April 8, 2017. The DOJ says shutting down those domains was “an extraordinary task.”
While it is certainly good news that such a high profile and prolific spammer has been arrested and the Kelihos botnet has been severely disrupted, other spammers are likely to soon take Levashov’s place. Vitali Kremez, director of research at Flashpoint said his firm had seen chatter on underground forums indicating other major spammers are responding to the news of the arrest by taking acting to secure their own operations. There may be a blip in email spam volume, but that blip is only likely to be temporary.
The importance of anti-phishing training for staff members has been highlighted this week following a major incident in Denver. A targeted Denver Public Schools phishing scam saw at least 30 members of staff divulge their usernames and passwords to scammers.
The Denver Public Schools phishing scam enabled attackers to gain access to accounts, which allowed information to be gained to access to the school district’s payroll system. The attackers changed the routing numbers for payments to employees and directed the payments to their own accounts. More than $40,000 that had been set aside to pay staff wages was stolen.
Staff members have now been paid and efforts are continuing to recover the stolen funds. At least 14 direct deposits were made and have not been recovered. The school district is hoping that the payments will be covered by an insurance policy. The incident has been reported to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the incident is being investigated to try to identify the individuals behind the scam.
The Denver Public Schools phishing scam was highly convincing; however, questions will be asked about how so many employees fell for the scam and disclosed their login credentials. The school district has confirmed that efforts were made to educate its employees on the risk of phishing prior to the attack taking place.
Denver Public Schools employs 13,991 members of staff. The response percentage was therefore very low, but it can only take one individual to respond to such a scam for serious financial harm to be caused.
A Bad Year for Phishing Attacks on Schools
Phishing attacks on schools are commonplace, but this year has seen attacks soar. For instance, in 2017, there have been 141 reported W-2 phishing scams, 33 of which affected schools, colleges and universities.
While phishing scams used to be fairly easy to detect, now they are becoming much more sophisticated. It is now not easy to tell a phishing email from a real email request. The attackers use spoofing techniques to make the emails appear as if they have been sent from within the organization. Genuine email accounts may even be compromised and used for phishing attacks. Last month, the Digital Citizens Alliance reported finding millions of .edu email addresses listed for sale on the dark web. Those email addresses are often used for phishing scams as they are trusted.
Phishing emails are often free from the spelling and grammatical errors that were commonly seen in spam emails in years gone by. The emails often contain lifted branding, images and formatting, which makes them highly convincing. The requests for information may also seem reasonable.
How to Prevent Phishing Attacks
Providing anti-phishing training for staff is now an essential cybersecurity defense; however, it is also important to ensure that training has had the desired effect and has been taken onboard. Schools should therefore conduct dummy phishing exercises to identify the effectiveness of their training programs. Research has shown that with practice, employees get much better at identifying phishing scams.
Technological solutions should also be implemented to prevent spam emails from reaching end users’ inboxes. Advanced anti-spam solutions such as SpamTitan do not rely on blacklists to identify emails as spam. Blacklists are used along with a host of front end controls and emails are subjected to Bayesian analyses to identify common spam signatures. Rules can be set to reduce the risk of email spoofing.
If you are interested in finding out more about the range of technological solutions that can be employed to reduce the risk of phishing attacks, contact the TitanHQ team today.
A recent report from IBM X-Force has highlighted the massive growth in tax-related email spam this year. Between December 2016 and February 2017, tax-related email spam increased by an incredible 6,000%.
A rise in tax-related email spam is to be expected during tax season. It is the time of year when tax returns are submitted and criminals can make substantial profits. If tax information is stolen and a fraudulent tax return is submitted prior to the individual submitting their own return, thousands of dollars in refunds can be obtained. With such high returns from each set of tax information, it is no surprise that tax-related scams are so prevalent.
This year, has seen many different scams detected, although one of the most successful is the W-2 phishing scam. The scam involves a tax fraudster impersonating the CEO, CFO or another executive, and emailing a request for W-2 Forms to members of the payroll department.
As we have seen on numerous occasions this year, the emailed lists can contain thousands of employees’ sensitive information. Usually, every employee that has taxable earnings for the previous fiscal year. To date, there have been 141 reports of successful scams. The largest breach was reported by American Senior Communities. The tax information of more than 17,000 members of staff were emailed to scammers.
The IRS said it was one of the most dangerous email phishing scams seen in recent years. It’s too early to tell how much in fraudulent refunds have been paid out by the IRS, although last year the total was around $5.8 billion. This year that total is expected to rise.
W-2 form phishing scams may be the most common type of tax-related email scams seen this year, but there are many. Most are delivered by email, although website phishing attacks have also been highly prevalent.
Cybercriminals have been impersonating tax software companies and have been sending out fake marketing emails encouraging consumers to visit spoofed websites. They are then relieved of their personal information. Information gathered via the online forms enable fraudsters to steal identities and file fraudulent tax returns in the victims’ names.
Tax season is also a time when malware infections spike. Tax-related email spam is sent with malicious email attachments. Opening those attachments results in malware or ransomware being downloaded to the victims’ computers.
Cybercriminals use a wide variety of techniques to steal credentials. Social engineering techniques are used to fool email recipients into believing requests for information are genuine. Attackers use typosquating and URL hijacking to make their malicious websites appear legitimate. The phishing templates used by some cybercriminals are so convincing it is almost impossible to distinguish them from genuine emails. The correct branding is used, links are masked, and support is even offered for uploading tax-related documentation. In many cases, the emails contain the IRS logo and victims are fooled into supplying their credentials. The scams are often successful, even though the IRS does not initiate contact with taxpayers via email.
To protect against attacks and fraud, consumers can set an IRS IP PIN on their accounts. That pin number must be used to file a tax return. Provided the PIN is not disclosed, individuals will be protected from fraudulent tax filings.
Many Americans leave filing their tax returns to the last minute; however, this year the scammers started sending tax-related email spam early. The late filing of tax returns gives cybercriminals plenty of time to submit fake returns. Tax returns should be filed as soon as a W-2 Form is received to reduce the risk of becoming a victim of fraud.
Businesses can protect themselves against W-2 phishing scams by implementing an advanced spam filtering solution to block spam emails. However, staff should also receive anti-phishing training and policies should be implemented that require any request for W-2 Forms to be verified with the sender of the email by telephone.
Businesses are still being targeted by scammers so they should be on their guard. They should also ensure that they are prepared well in advance for the tsunami of tax-related email spam that will start to arrive from December 2017.
The Inland Revenue Service has issued a new warning to tax professionals about a new IRS e-Services phishing scam.
With the tax return deadline fast approaching it is the last chance for the fraudsters to steal identities and file fraudulent tax returns. The past few days has seen a surge in phishing attacks on tax professionals.
The purpose of the IRS e-Services phishing scam is to obtain tax professionals’ e-Services usernames and passwords. The emails use a variety of subject lines that have been crafted to attract attention and ensure the emails are opened.
The emails claim to have been sent by the IRS about issues with the user’s e-Services account. The emails warn that the user’s e-Services account has been closed, suspended or blocked. In order to reactivate the account or prevent its closure, the email recipient is required to login to their account.
A link is supplied in the email that enables the recipient to take the required action. Clicking on the link will direct the user to a login page that closely resembles the IRS e-Services portal. Entering in a username and password into the login page will see the details captured by the attackers.
In response to the high volume of phishing attacks on tax professionals, the IRS has been improving account security in recent weeks. The IRS has been asking tax professionals to revalidate their accounts to prevent delays when accessing their e-Services accounts. The attackers appear to be taking advantage and piggybacking on those recent communications.
The IRS warns all tax professionals that if for any reason their e-Services account has been closed, they should contact the e-Services Help Desk to reactivate their account, but never to click on any links contained in emails. While links to malicious websites are used for this scam, users should also be wary about any attachments sent in e-Services emails.
This tax season has seen a major increase in tax-related email scams, most notably a massive rise in W-2 Form phishing scams. At least 140 successful W-2 Form phishing attacks have already been announced, although with two weeks left of tax season that figure is certain to rise. K12 schools, colleges and other higher education institutions have been extensively targeted this year, as has the healthcare industry. Some of the phishing scams have resulted in thousands of employees’ tax details being obtained by fraudsters.
The last few days before the April 18 deadline for submitting tax returns is likely to see many more phishing attacks performed. All businesses should therefore be on their guard and should exercise extreme caution.
Today is World Backup Day: An annual event that started in 2010 to raise awareness of the importance of backing up data.
Backups are used to recover data in the event of disaster; however, having a backup of data does not necessarily mean data can be recovered. Restoring files from backups is not always effective. Backups can be corrupted and the restoration of files can fail.
While World Backup Day raises awareness of the importance of backing up data, we would like to emphasize the importance of testing backups and reviewing backup strategies to ensure they are effective. Don’t wait until disaster strikes to ensure your strategies are effective and files can be recovered. By then it will be too late.
How Common is Data Loss?
Recent research conducted by Kroll OnTrack has revealed an alarming number of companies have experienced data loss, even when backups of data were performed. Kroll polled 1,000 companies in the United States, Europe, and Australia and discovered that a third of companies had experienced a data loss incident.
Out of those companies, 35% did not have a current backup and experienced data loss as a direct result. Two thirds (67%) of organizations were able to recover the majority of their data from backup files, while 13% said they could recover up to three quarters of their data. Corrupted backup files were cited as the reason for data loss by 12% of companies, but a quarter of companies that lost data said their backup system did not work as it should.
A quarter of companies that backed up their data said they did not test those backups to make sure files could be recovered. A quarter said they tested backups once a week to ensure data were recoverable, and 30% tested their backups on a monthly basis.
Backups are an organization’s insurance against data loss. Just as an insurance policy should not be taken out until the fine print has been read, backups should not be trusted until they have been tested.
The World Backup Day pledge is “I solemnly swear to backup my important documents and precious memories on March 31st.” However, to that we add, “I also swear to test my backups to make sure my important documents can be recovered.”
Ransomware – A Major Data Loss Risk for All Businesses
The past 12 months have clearly highlighted the importance of backing up data. Ransomware attacks soared in 2016. Ransomware is a form of malware that locks files with powerful encryption. A ransom demand is then issued to supply the key to unlock the data. Without access to that key, data will remain locked forever if a backup of data does not exisit.
The only way to unlock files is to pay a sizable ransom payment. That payment could be tens of thousands of dollars. In February, last year, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center was forced to pay a ransom of $17,000 to obtain the key to unlock ransomware-encrypted data after it was discovered files could not be recovered from backups.
Ransomware has fast become one of the biggest cybersecurity threats. Research conducted by Kaspersky Lab revealed the number of ransomware variants increased 11-fold between Q1 and Q3, 2016, by which time 32,091 different ransomware variants had been detected. By Q3 2016, a business was being attacked with ransomware every 40 seconds and 42% of small to medium sized businesses had been attacked with ransomware. 32% of businesses were forced to pay the ransom in order to recover their data.
While ransomware attacks have soared, the malicious software is only the third main cause of data loss. Hardware failure poses the biggest risk followed by the loss or theft of devices. Software errors and data loss due to system upgrades round off the top five list.
A Good Data Backup Strategy
Backup systems can be used to continuously backup data, but at the very least a daily backup should be made. Those backups should be tested at least once a week to ensure data can be successfully recovered.
To prevent data loss and maximize the probability of data recovery, organizations should use the 3-2-1 approach. Each organization should ensure they have three copies of data. The original and two backups. Those backups should be stored on two different media and one of those copies should be stored off site. The easiest option to satisfy those requirements is to have a physical copy on a storage device and a backup in the cloud. Since ransomware can encrypt data on network drives and connected storage devices, a local drive should be disconnected after the backup has been made.
Take out some time this World Backup Day to test your backups and review your backup strategies and ensure that you will be able to recover your data if disaster strikes.
The 2017 IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index has been released this week. The report provides an insight into the main cybersecurity threats faced by all industries and major cyberattack trends, data breaches and security incidents experienced by U.S. organizations in 2016.
Last year’s IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index showed healthcare was the industry most heavily targeted by cybercriminals. However, the 2017 IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index shows cybercriminals changed their focus in 2016. Last year, the financial services was hit the hardest. The healthcare dropped down to fifth place.
The healthcare industry did not suffer mega data breaches of the same scale as 2015 – which saw a 78.8 million-record cyberattack on Anthem Inc., and 10 million record+ data breaches at Premera Blue Cross and Excellus BlueCross BlueShield. However, there were security breaches aplenty. 2016 was the worst ever year for healthcare industry breaches, with more incidents reported than any other year in history.
Those breaches resulted in far fewer records being exposed or stolen. The 2017 IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index indicates there was an 88% drop in exposed or stolen healthcare records in 2016 compared to the previous year. Around 12 million healthcare records were exposed or stolen in 2016.
The 2017 IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index also shows that there was a shift in the nature of attacks, with cybercriminals targeting unstructured data rather than structured data. Data breaches involving email archives, intellectual property, and business documents all rose in 2016.
The healthcare industry may not have seen so many records exposed, but that was certainly not the case across all industry sectors. 2016 was a very bad year for cyberattacks. In 2015, around 600 million records were exposed or stolen. In 2016 the total jumped to an incredible 4 million records, helped in no small part by the 1.5 billion record breach at Yahoo and the discovery of massive data breaches at LinkedIn, MySpace, and Dropbox. It is therefore no surprise that IBM called 2016 The Year of the Mega Data Breach.
Top of the list of attacked industries in 2016 was financial services. Both the financial services and healthcare sectors saw a fall in attacks by outsiders, but attacks by malicious insiders and inadvertent actors increased in both industry sectors.
In the financial services, 5% of attacks involved malicious insiders and 53% involved inadvertent actors. In healthcare, 25% of attacks involved malicious insiders and 46% involved inadvertent actors. The financial services saw 42% of attacks conducted by outsiders. Healthcare cyberattacks by outsiders accounted for 29% of the annual total.
According to the 2017 IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index, the second most targeted industry was information and communications, followed by manufacturing and retail. All three industries saw increases in attacks by outsiders, which accounted for the vast majority of attacks. 96% of attacks on information and communications were by outsiders, with 91% apiece for manufacturing and retail.
The financial services sector saw a substantial rise in SQLi and OS CMDi attacks in 2016 – The most common attack method for the industry. The main attack method on the information and communications sector involved exploitation of vulnerabilities allowing attackers to trigger buffer overflow conditions. The main attack method on the manufacturing, retail and healthcare industries was also SQLi and OS CMDi attacks, which accounted for 71% of manufacturing industry cyberattacks, 50% of retail cyberattacks, and 48% of healthcare cyberattacks.
The 2017 IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index indicates cybercriminals favored older attack methods in 2016 such as ransomware, malware toolkits, and command injection to gain access to valuable data and resources.
Ransomware was big news in 2016. Many cybercriminals turned to ransomware as a quick and easy source of income. Figures from the FBI indicate $209 million in ransom payments were made in the first three months of 2016 alone.
Malware was also extensively used in attacks, with Android malware and banking Trojans big in 2016. Not all attacks targeted organizations for their data. DDoS attacks increased, both in frequency and severity. While attacks of 300+ Mbps were unusual in 2015, they became the norm in 2016. One attack in excess of 1 Tbps was reported.
While 2015 saw exploit kits extensively used to infect endpoints with malware, in 2016 spam email was favored. Spam was a primary attack tool of cybercriminals, especially in the second half of the year. While the first half of the year saw spam email volume remain steady, the 2017 IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index indicates there was a significant increase in spam volume in the second half of the year and a massive rise in the number of malicious email attachments.
The 2017 IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index shows the vast majority of malicious attachments were ransomware or ransomware downloaders, which accounted for 85% of malicious email attachments.
The increase in the use of spam email as an attack vector shows how important it is for organizations to improve their defenses against email attacks. An advanced spam filter is essential as is training of employees on security best practices and phishing attack prevention.
The Digital Citizens Alliance (DCA) has published new research showing there has been a massive rise in the theft of university email credentials and a massive rise in the sale of email credentials on darknet marketplaces.
This year’s study revealed the theft of university email credentials has grown significantly in the past 12 months. The report shows 13,930,176 stolen email credentials have been discovered to have been listed for sale. This time last year when the darknet was last scraped for stolen credentials there were around 2.8 million stolen credentials listed for sale. The year before that the figure stood at 2.2 million.
While the 13.9 million figure includes email credentials that were stolen over the past 8 years, 76% of those stolen credentials were discovered in the past 12 months.
When the researchers combined all types of credentials from multiple sectors they discovered there had been a 547% increase in credentials finding their way onto darknet marketplaces over the past three years.
The fivefold increase in the theft of university email credentials in a single year is a massive spike, which has been attributed to major data breaches at third party websites rather than cyberattacks on universities. The researchers say the massive 1-billion record data breach at Yahoo, the huge breach at LinkedIn and other large-scale cyberattacks on Dropbox, Weebly, MySpace and others are to blame.
The email credentials of university staff and students are being sold on underground marketplaces for between $3.50 to $10 each. While many actors had listed the email credentials for sale, some individuals were trading credentials and others were offering the stolen credentials for free.
The study only looked at theft of university email credentials at the top 300 higher education institutions. Smaller universities were excluded from the study. The stolen credentials were sorted into different higher education institutions to determine which were the worst affected. The universities with the highest numbers of stolen credentials were found to be:
University of Michigan – 122,556
Pennsylvania State University – 119,350
University of Minnesota – 117,604
Michigan State – 115,973
Ohio State – 114,032
University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) – 99,375
New York University – 91,372
University of Florida – 87,310
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University – 82,359
Harvard University – 80,100
The researchers were unable to determine why mid-west universities were the worst affected, although they hypothesized that it may be simply due to the size of the universities and the number of students, staff members, and alumni for those universities.
The researchers also looked at the size of the university and compared this to the number of stolen email credentials to gain a better understanding of demand for email addresses from specific universities and to ‘level the playing field’. Some universities appeared in the top ten of both lists, while smaller but more prestigious universities shot up the rankings. When ordered by the ratio of stolen email accounts to the total number of enrolled students and staff the top ten list changed to:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Carnegie-Mellon University
Cornell University
Baylor University
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Pennsylvania State University
University of Michigan
Kent State University
Bowling Green State University
It is easy to see why the theft of university email credentials is such a problem. Edu email addresses are valuable to cybercriminals. They can be used in spear phishing and phishing campaigns but they also allow the users to obtain student discounts with retailers or when purchasing items such as software. Microsoft for instance offers a discount for students purchasing its Office products. The discounts can be considerable.
University email addresses are also highly valuable due to the data contained in those accounts. Information in the accounts can be mined and a huge amount of information can be gathered, from medical records to ID numbers and passwords to the weekends when students are likely to be away.
While email addresses and passwords were discovered, the researchers were unable to tell if the passwords were real and current and could be used to gain access to the accounts. The researchers also found that some of the email addresses appeared to have been spoofed or were incorrect accounts. While these posed less of a threat, the credentials were still of value to cybercriminals.
Phishing attacks do not need correct email addresses to be successfully used. Providing the correct format for emails is used, the email addresses can add credibility to phishing campaigns.
Adam Benson, Executive Director of the DCA said “Higher Education Institutions have deployed resources and talent to make university communities safer, but highly-skilled and opportunistic cyber criminals make it a challenge to protect large groups of highly-desirable digital targets.”
“We shared this information from cybersecurity researchers to create more awareness of just what kinds of things threat actors are capable of doing with an .edu account.” Said Benton.
While large scale third party data breaches were partly to blame, cyberattacks on universities still occur. To prevent theft of university email credentials the researchers suggest cybersecurity programs need to be conducted and awareness needs to be raised on the importance of using strong passwords.
Training should be provided to make sure staff and students are aware of the techniques used by criminals such as phishing. They should also be warned of the risk of clicking on links sent in emails. The researchers suggest tests should be conducted to see who clicks on malicious links. Conducting those tests is not a witch hunt, rather, it can give universities a better idea about how easy staff and students are being duped. Universities should also consider the use of multi-factor authentication to make accounts more secure.
Figures from Trustwave show there has been a steady decline in exploit kit activity over the past year. Exploit kits were once one of the biggest cybersecurity threats. In late 2015 and early 2016 exploit kits were being extensively used to spread ransomware and malware. Now exploit kit activity has virtually dropped to nothing.
Exploit kits are toolkits that are loaded onto malicious or hijacked websites that probe for vulnerabilities in browsers and plugins such as Adobe Flash Player and Java. When a new zero-day vulnerability was discovered, it would rapidly be added to exploit kits and used to silently download ransomware and malware onto web visitors’ computers. Any individuals that had failed to keep their browsers and plugins up to date would be at risk of being infected. All that would be required was make them – or fool them- into visiting a malicious website.
Links were sent via spam email, malvertising was used to redirect web visitors and websites were hacked and hijacked. However, the effort required to develop exploits for vulnerabilities and host exploit kits was considerable. The potential rewards made the effort more than worthwhile.
Exploit kits such as Angler, Magnitude and Neutrino no longer pose such a big threat. The actors behind the Angler exploit kit, which was used to spread Locky ransomware in early 2016, were arrested. Law enforcement agencies across the world have also targeted gangs running these exploit kits. Today, exploit kit activity has not stopped entirely, but it is nowhere near the level seen in the first half of 2016.
While this is certainly good news, it does not mean that the threat level has reduced. Ransomware and malware are still major threats, all that has happened is cybercriminals have changed tactics for distributing the malicious programs. Exploit kits are not dead and buried. There has just been a lull in activity. New exploit kits are undoubtedly being developed. For the time being, exploit kit activity remains at a low level.
Now, the biggest threat comes from malicious spam email messages. Locky and other ransomware variants are now almost exclusively spread via spam email messages. Cybercriminals are also developing more sophisticated methods to bypass security controls, trick end users into opening infected email attachments, and improve infection rates.
Much greater effort is now being put into developing convincing phishing and spear phishing emails, while spam emails are combined with a wide range of social engineering tricks to get end users to open infected email attachments. End users are more knowledgeable and know not to click on suspicious email attachments such as executable files; however, malicious Word documents are another matter. Office documents are now extensively used to fool end users into installing malware.
With cybercriminals now favoring spam and phishing emails to spread malware and ransomware, businesses need to ensure their spam defenses are up to scratch. Employees should continue to be trained on cybersecurity, the latest email threats should be communicated to staff and advanced spam filters should be deployed to prevent messages from being delivered to end users.
Security researchers in Israel have developed a proof-of-concept exploit called DoubleAgent that takes advantage of vulnerabilities in antivirus products to turn them against users. The exploit could potentially be incorporated into DoubleAgent malware, although there have been no known attacks that take advantage of the flaws in AV products to the researchers’ knowledge.
The proof-of-concept was developed by Cybellum researchers, who say that most third-party Windows antivirus products are susceptible and could potentially be hijacked. To date only three AV companies have confirmed that they are developing patches to block potential DoubleAgent malware attacks – AVG, Trend Micro and Malwarebytes.
The attack involves the Microsoft Application Verifier, which is used to check for bugs in programs that run on Windows. The researchers use DLL hijack techniques to fool the verifier using a malicious DLL. They claim the technique could be used to insert a custom verifier into any application.
DoubleAgent malware may not yet have been developed to exploit the zero-day vulnerability, although the researchers say they have used their proof-of-concept to take full control of the Norton Security AV program – many other AV products are also susceptible to this type of attack.
The Cybellum-developed DoubleAgent malware could be used in a number of different attack scenarios, all of which are particularly chilling.
Since the antivirus program can be pwned by an attacker, it could be turned on the user and used as malware. Antivirus software is trusted, so any actions taken by the AV program would be treated as legitimate. The researchers warn that the AV program could be turned into a double agent and do anything the attackers wanted.
The AV solution could be instructed to whitelist certain other programs allowing an attacker to install any malware undetected. Once installed, the malware would run totally undetected and the user would be unaware that their AV software had been rendered virtually useless. The AV software would also be prevented from flagging data exfiltration or communications with the attacker’s C&C.
An attacker could cripple a company’s applications using the DoubleAgent malware. If a legitimate program used by the company is marked as malicious by its antivirus software program, it would be prevented from running. It would therefore be possible to perform Denial of Service attacks. Also, since AV software has the highest level of privileges, it could be used to perform any number of malicious actions, such as deleting data or formatting a hard drive. That means a ransomware-style attack could be performed or the company’s computer systems could be sabotaged.
Fortunately, only Cybellum has the code and AV companies that have been found to be susceptible to such an attack have been notified. Patches are therefore likely to be developed to prevent such an attack.
The SANS Internet Storm Center reports that the Blank Slate spam campaign which was first detected in July last year is now being used to spread Cerber ransomware, rather than previous favorites Locky and Sage 2.0.
In the majority of cases, emails used to spread ransomware and other nasties use a variety of social engineering techniques to trick end users into opening the email attachments and infecting their computers. However, the Blank Slate spam campaign opts for simplicity. The spam email messages contain no text, hence the name ‘blank slate’.
The email messages contain a double zip file attachment. A zip file is attached to the email, and within it is a second zip file containing JavaScript or a Word document with a malicious macro. The JavaScript or macro then downloads the malicious payload – Cerber ransomware – if it is run.
Without any social engineering tactics, infection rates are likely to be much lower. However, researchers suggest that more email messages are likely to get past security defenses using this technique. Since more emails are delivered to end users’ inboxes, this is likely to make up for the fact that fewer attachments will be opened. The blank slate spam campaign is believed to be spread via botnets.
Cerber ransomware has been a major threat over the past 12 months. The ransomware is frequently updated to ensure it avoids detection. The latest blank slate spam campaign is being used to spread the latest form of the ransomware, which hides malicious code inside Nullsoft Scriptable Install System (NSIS) installers.
Security researchers at Palo Alto Network’s Unit 42 team report that Cerber ransomware is being hosted on around 500 separate domains. When domains are detected by hosting companies they are rapidly shut down; however, new domains are then registered by the criminals to take their place.
Since new domains can easily be registered using stolen credentials, the costs to cybercriminals are low. The cost of signing up for a new domain are negligible. Burner phones can be purchased cheaply and the numbers provided when registering domains, email addresses can be registered free of charge, and stolen credit card details can be used to make payment. There is no shortage of stolen credit card numbers to use. However, the rewards from Cerber ransomware infections are high. Now, the keys to decrypt data locked by Cerber ransomware costs victims 1 Bitcoin – around $1,000.
Organizations can protect against the threat by ensuring their spam filtering solutions are carefully configured and making sure all employees are instructed never to open JavaScript files or enable Word macros sent from unknown senders.
A recent survey conducted by CBT Nuggets has revealed that even tech savvy people are prone to commit cybersecurity howlers and place themselves, and their organization, at risk. In fact, far from intelligence preventing individuals from suffering online identity theft and fraud, it appears to make it far more likely.
The survey, which was conducted on 2,000 respondents, showed that people who believed they were tech savvy were actually 18 times more likely to become victims of online identity theft.
The more educated individuals were, the more likely they were to become victims of cybercrime. The survey revealed that high school graduates were less likely to be victims of cybercrime than individuals who had obtained a Ph.D.
24% of respondents with a Ph. D said they were a victim of identity theft compared to 14% who had a Bachelor’s degree, 13% who were educated to college level and 11% who had been educated only to high school level.
Women were found to be 14% more likely to have their identities stolen than men, and millennials were less likely to suffer identity theft than Baby Boomers and Generation X.
Interestingly, while the vast majority of malware targets Windows users, the survey revealed that users of Apple devices were 22% more likely to be victims of identity theft than Windows users, although Android phone users were 4.3% more likely than iPhone users to suffer identity theft.
There were some interesting results about the level of care used when venturing online. Even though the risk of cyberattacks on law firms has increased in recent years and law firms are a major target for cybercriminals, lawyers were less likely than other professionals to follow online security best practices.
69% of respondents from the legal profession did not follow online security best practices because they were too lazy to do so. Only people in ‘religious industries’ fared worse on the laziness scale (70%).
46% of healthcare industry professionals said they were too lazy when it came to cybersecurity, a particular worry considering the value of healthcare data and the extent to which cybercriminals are conducting attacks on the healthcare industry. The most common reason given for lax security and taking risks online was laziness, being too busy and it being inconvenient to follow security best practices.
65.9% of respondents believed they faced a medium or high risk of being hacked, yet only 3.7% of respondents said they followed all of the basic security recommendations. Perhaps that’s why so many people felt they faced a medium or high risk of being hacked!
One of the biggest risks taken by respondents was avoiding using public Wi-Fi networks. Only 11.8% of respondents said they avoided connecting to the Internet on public Wi-Fi networks. However, when it comes to divulging sensitive information while connected to a public Wi-Fi network, people were more savvy. 83.3% said they avoided transmitting sensitive information when connected to public Wi-Fi networks. Only 40.6% of respondents said they updated their devices every time they were prompted to do so.
The survey also showed which states were the worst for identity theft. While Florida often makes the headlines, the state ranked in the bottom ten for identity theft, with just 11% of respondents from the state saying they had suffered identity theft. The worst states were Maryland with 28% of respondents saying they were victims of identity theft, followed by Alabama with 26% and Kentucky with 22%. The safest states were Alabama (6%) and Louisiana (5%).
An investigation into a November Metropolitan Urology ransomware attack has revealed that the attackers may have gained access to the protected health information (PHI) of almost 18,000 former patients.
The Metropolitan Urology ransomware attack occurred on November 28, 2016 and impacted two servers used by the medical group. While the ransomware successfully encrypted a wide range of files, it was not initially known whether any data covered by Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Rules had been accessed.
An external computer security firm was contracted to conduct an investigation, which revealed on January 10, 2017 that PHI was potentially accessed by the attackers. Names, procedural codes, dates of service, account numbers, control numbers, and other ID numbers were all potentially viewed. In total, 17,364 patients who had visited Metropolitan Urology centers for treatment between 2003 and 2010 were impacted by the Metropolitan Urology ransomware attack.
The Metropolitan Urology ransomware attack is the latest in a long list of ransomware attacks on U.S. healthcare providers in recent months. The healthcare industry is being extensively targeted by cybercriminals who know that healthcare providers are heavily reliant on data and need access in order to continue to provide medical services to patients. If patient data are encrypted and systems taken out of action, there is a high probability that a ransom demand will be paid.
However, in the case of the Metropolitan Urology ransomware attack, computers were recovered by the IT security firm and it would appear that a ransom was not paid. The same cannot be said of Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center. In January, a ransom payment of $17,000 was made to recover files that had been encrypted by ransomware. Many other healthcare providers have similarly paid to have their data decrypted.
HIPAA and Ransomware Attacks
In July last year, following a spate of healthcare ransomware attacks, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights – which enforces HIPAA Rules – confirmed ransomware attacks are reportable security breaches. All HIPAA breaches must be reported to OCR within 60 days of the discovery of the breach and patients must similarly be notified of any incidents in which their PHI has been compromised.
A HIPAA breach is classed as “the acquisition, access, use, or disclosure of PHI in a manner not permitted under the HIPAA Privacy Rule which compromises the security or privacy of the PHI.”
Not all forms of ransomware involve the exfiltration of data, but a ransomware infection still counts as a HIPAA Privacy Rule breach. OCR confirmed that the encryption of PHI does count at a HIPAA breach because the information has been disclosed to a third party.
Ransomware incidents are therefore reportable and warrant notifications to be issued to patients unless the covered entity can demonstrate there is a “low probability that PHI has been compromised.”
OCR suggests that the way to do this is to conduct a risk assessment and investigate the nature and extent of PHI that has been viewed, the individuals that may have accessed the PHI, whether the PHI was stolen or viewed, and the extent to which the risk to PHI has been mitigated.
The covered entity should also determine which malware variant was used and the algorithmic processes used by that malware to encrypt data. Demonstrating a low probability of a PHI compromise may therefore prove problematic for healthcare organizations, especially smaller healthcare organizations with limited resources.
Protecting Healthcare Computers from Ransomware Attacks
Protecting against ransomware attacks requires investment in a wide range of different solutions. Organizations can focus on preventing ransomware from being installed by blocking the main vectors used to spread infections. Spam filtering solutions can be highly effective at blocking email-borne threats. Preventing suspicious emails from being delivered reduces reliance on end users being able to identify emails as malicious and stops them from opening infected attachments and clicking on malicious links.
To block web-borne attacks, healthcare organizations can implement a web filtering solution to control the file types that can be downloaded. The solution can also be used to block websites known to contain malware or exploit kits. A web filter can be configured to prevent end users from accessing certain types of websites that carry a high risk of infection.
Endpoint security solutions can help to detect ransomware infections, allowing rapid action to be taken to reduce the extent of an infection. Computers and/or servers can then be isolated to prevent the spread of the ransomware to other connected devices.
However, since it is not possible to reduce risk of infection with ransomware to zero, organizations must ensure that data is backed up and can be recovered in the event that computers are encrypted. Multiple backups should be performed, and backup files should be stored on air-gapped devices and in the cloud.
For further information on protecting your organization from the threat of ransomware, contact the TitanHQ team today.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority in the United Kingdom has recently issued a warning about law firm email scams following a sharp rise in law firm cyberattacks.
According to SRA figures, almost 500 UK law firms have been targeted by cybercriminals. One of the most common law firm email scams seen in recent weeks involves an attacker sending an email to a solicitor pretending to be a new client. While the attacker could claim to have any number of legal problems in the initial email, one of the favored themes is a property or business that is about to be purchased or sold.
Legal services are requested and, when the solicitor replies, the attacker sends an email containing a malicious email attachment. The email attachment does not contain the malware, instead a malicious macro is embedded in the document. A believable explanation for the inclusion of the macro is provided in the document to allay suspicion. If the macro is enabled, a script is run that downloads the malicious payload. The download occurs silently so the solicitor is unlikely to be aware that their computer has been infected.
The malware then collects and exfiltrates sensitive data, or provides access to the solicitor’s computer allowing the attacker to search for any useful data. Keyloggers can also be installed to log keystrokes on the infected computer and collect login information for email and bank accounts.
The SRA has emphasized there is a high risk of attack, suggesting UK solicitors should treat cybercrime as a priority risk. Action should be taken promptly to mitigate the risk and ensure that the firm’s data are secured. The SRA warns that a cyberattack can cause considerable damage to a firm’s reputation and could result in significant harm to clients. Clients and the law firm can suffer considerable financial losses as a result of these scams.
Not all cyberattacks on law firms involve malware. Phishing is also a major risk. Many law firm email scams attempt to get solicitors to reveal sensitive information such as login credentials, passwords, or other confidential information. These law firm email scams are not easy to identify. Cybercriminals invest considerable time and effort into building up relationships with solicitors via email or over the telephone to build trust. Once a personal relationship has been established it is far easier for the scammers to fool solicitors into revealing sensitive information.
The seriousness of the threat is clear from the reports of cybercrime received by the SRA from solicitors over the past year. The SRA says more than £7 million of clients’ money has been stolen from solicitors in 2016.
The advice to law firms on reducing cybersecurity risk is:
Make sure all data are backed up and stored securely on a drive that is not connected to a computer
Make use of secure cloud services for storing sensitive data and accessing and processing information
Keep software up to date. Patches and software/system updates should be applied promptly
Solicitors should consider using encryption services for all stored data, especially on mobile devices
Antivirus and antimalware systems should be installed and set to update definitions automatically. Regular scans of systems should also be scheduled.
As an additional protection against law firm email scams, solicitors should implement an advanced antispam solution to prevent phishing and other malicious emails from being delivered.
To protect against malicious links and redirects from malvertising, solicitors should consider implementing a web filtering solution. A web filter can be used to block visits to webpages known to contain malware.
The world’s largest spam operation has been exposed, and along with it, a massive database of email addresses. More than 1.37 billion email addresses, names, addresses, and IP addresses were in the database, which was exposed as a result of an error made during a backup. The company behind the operation is the email marketing firm River City Media – A legitimate email marketing company that uses some decidedly shady email marketing practices.
So how large is the world’s largest spam operation? According to MacKeeper researchers, the company behind the massive spamming campaigns were sending up to one billion spam email messages every day. However, due to the leak, life is likely to get a lot tougher for the email marketing firm. Its entire infrastructure has now been added to the spamming blacklist maintained by Spamhaus: The world leader in providing up to date threat intelligence on email spam and related spamming activity.
So how does a database from the world’s largest spam operation get released on the Internet? Faulty backups! The company failed to configure their Rsync backups correctly, resulting in those backups being available online without any need for a password. The database was discovered by MacKeeper security researcher Chris Vickery.
The revelation that such a large database had been obtained was huge news. In fact, it even drew a response from the Indian government, which felt it necessary to explain that it was not the source of the leak. The Indian government’s federal ID system is one of a very small number of databases that contain that number of records.
The number of records in the database is so large that almost everyone that uses email would either be on the list or would know someone that is.
How does a company amass so many email addresses? According to Vickery, there are various methods used, although he said “credit checks, education opportunities, and sweepstakes,” are typically used to obtain the email addresses, as are legitimate marketing campaigns from major brands. Users divulge their email addresses during these campaigns in order to receive a free gift, special offer, or an online service. Hidden away in the terms and conditions, which few people read, is confirmation that the information collected will be shared with marketing partners. Those marketing partners then share addresses with their partners, and their partners’ partners, and so on. Before long, the email addresses will be made available to a great deal of spammers.
When spammers use those addresses, there is a high probability that the domains used for sending the marketing messages will be blocked. To get around this, companies such as RCM use warm up accounts to send out their campaigns.
New campaigns will be sent to the warm up accounts, and provided they do not generate complaints, the sender of the emails will be marked as a good sender. With a good reputation, the spammers will be able to scale up their operation and send out billions of messages. If at any point messages start to be rejected or complaints start to be received, the domain is dropped and the process starts again. That way, RCM is able to bypass spam filtering controls and continue to send messages.
A detailed insight into the world’s largest spam operation and the techniqus used to send spam messages has been published by CSO Online, which worked with Vickery, MacKeeper, and Spamhaus following the discovery of the huge database.
Free Dharma ransomware decryption is now possible following the publication of the decryption keys used by the cybercriminal gang behind the ransomware.
The Dharma ransomware decryption keys have now been used to develop a decryptor to unlock Dharma-encrypted files. If your organization has been attacked with Dharma ransomware, you can unlock your files by using the Dharma ransomware decryptor developed by Kaspersky Lab or ESET. A ransom no longer needs to be paid.
The decryptor available from ESET will unlock files encrypted by Dharma and its predecessor, Crysis. Kaspersky Lab has added the keys to its Rakhni ransomware decryptor.
It is easy to determine which ransomware variant has been used by checking the file extension on ransomware-encrypted files. Dharma ransomware adds the ‘.dharma’ extension to files after they have been encrypted.
The keys to unlock the encryption were posted on a BleepingComputer tech support forum last week by an individual with the username ‘gektar’. Where that individual obtained the decryption keys is unknown, although both Kaspersky Lab and ESET have confirmed that the decryption keys are genuine. The decryption keys will work for all variants of Dharma ransomware.
The name gektar is not known to security researchers. No other online posts are believed to have been made with that username. The username seems to have been created solely to post the decryption keys. It would appear the individual responsible wants to keep a low profile.
Unfortunately, there are now more than 200 ransomware families, with many different ransomware variants within each of those families. Dharma may be no more, but the ransomware threat is still severe. There are still no decryptors available for the biggest ransomware threats: Locky, Samsa (Samsam) and CryptXXX, which are still being extensively used by cybercriminal gangs to extort money out of businesses.
The best defense that businesses can adopt to ensure ransomware-encrypted files can be recovered for free is to ensure that backups of critical files are made on a daily basis. Those backups should be stored on an air-gapped device and also in the cloud.
Recovery from backups and removing ransomware infections can be a labor-intensive and time-consuming process, so anti-ransomware defenses should also be employed to prevent infection. We recommend using SpamTitan to block ransomware emails from being delivered to end users’ inboxes and WebTitan to prevent drive-by ransomware downloads.
A recently published study from the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Office of Technology Research and Investigation has revealed that anti-phishing technologies are not being widely adopted by U.S. businesses.
While there are several anti-phishing technologies that could be adopted by businesses to reduce susceptibility to phishing attacks, relatively few businesses are taking full advantage of the latest anti-phishing solutions.
Phishing is a type of online scam primarily conducted via email, although the same type of scam can occur online on malicious websites. The email version of the scam involves sending an email request to an employee in which the attacker claims to be a well-known source. That could be an Internet service provider, a well-known company such as Amazon or Netflix, or the CEO or CFO of the employee’s company. The target is asked to send sensitive personal or business information.
Typically, the attackers request financial information, logins, or as we have seen on numerous occasions this year, employees’ W-2 Form data. The information is then used for identity theft and fraud. In the case of the W-2 Form phishing scams, the information is used to file fraudulent tax returns in employees’ names.
Phishing is one of the biggest cybersecurity threats that businesses must mitigate. A separate study conducted by PhishMe showed that the vast majority of cyberattacks start with a phishing email. The largest ever healthcare data breach – which resulted in the theft of 78.8 million health insurance members’ credentials from Anthem Inc. – occurred as a result of an employee responding to a phishing message.
The FTC’s research revealed that most businesses have now implemented authentication controls, but little else. The FTC study (performed by OTech) found that 86% of businesses were using the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) to determine whether emails that claim to have been sent from a business were actually sent from the domain used by that business.
While this is an important anti-phishing control, SPF alone is insufficient to protect businesses from phishing attacks. SPF controls can be bypassed.
The FTC study found that fewer than 10% of businesses were using Domain Message Authentication Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) to receive intelligence on the latest spoofing attempts used to bypass SPF controls. DMARC allows businesses to automatically reject unauthenticated messages, yet few use the technology.
While not covered by the FTC study, one of the best additional anti-phishing technologies is a spam filtering solution such as SpamTitan.
SpamTitan blocks 99.97% of spam email messages, 100% of known malware via its dual anti-virus engines, while a powerful anti-phishing component looks for common signatures of phishing emails and prevents them from being delivered.
The threat from phishing is growing. A study from the Anti-Phishing Working Group revealed there was a 65% increase in phishing attacks in 2016 compared to 2015. Last year, 1,220,523 phishing attacks were reported. With attacks increasing at such a rate, and given the number of phishing attacks on businesses so far in 2017, more must be done to prevent attacks.
Is your business doing enough to prevent phishing attacks? What anti-phishing technologies has your business adopted to prevent employees being scammed?
Law firms are prime targets for cybercriminals, so it is perhaps unsurprising that there has been an increase in law firm cyberattacks in recent months. With the threat level now at unprecedented levels, protections must be increased to keep data secure.
Many law firm cyberattacks are targeted, with hackers seeking access to highly sensitive data, although law firms can just as easily fall victim to random attacks. Those attacks still have potential to cause considerable harm.
A recent security incident has showed just how easy it is for cybercriminals to conduct attacks and take advantage of unpatched vulnerabilities.
Zero-Day WordPress Vulnerability Discovered
WordPress is a flexible website content management system. It requires relatively little skill to update and WordPress sites can be easily managed. It is therefore no surprise that it has become one of the most popular website content management systems. There are more than 60 million websites running WordPress, with the platform popular with many SMBs, including law firms.
However, the popularity of the platform makes it a target for cybercriminals. Zero-day WordPress vulnerabilities provide cybercriminals with access to the sites and their associated databases.
When a new zero-day vulnerability is discovered, WordPress rapidly issues a patch. One zero-day WordPress vulnerability was recently discovered and the platform was updated rapidly as usual. Users of the site were urged to update to version 4.7.2 as a matter of urgency.
The reason for urgency was not announced until a week later after a significant proportion of WordPress sites had been updated. However, once the vulnerability was disclosed, hackers were quick to take advantage. Within 48 hours of the REST API vulnerability being disclosed, hackers started exploiting it on a grand scale. Sucuri was tracking the attacks and monitoring its WAF network and honeypots closely to see if hackers were actively exploiting the flaw.
The cybersecurity firm reports that it identified four different hacking groups that were exploiting the WordPress vulnerability. They were performing scans to find sites still running outdated WordPress versions and once vulnerable sites were identified they were attacked.
Law Firm Cyberattacks See Websites Defaced
The failure to update WordPress promptly resulted in more than 100,000 websites being attacked, according to figures from Google. Websites were defaced, additional pages added and the sites used for SEO spam. In this case, the aim was not to gain access to data nor to load malware onto the sites, although that is not always the case.
The speed at which the WordPress flaw was exploited shows how important it is to keep WordPress sites updated. Due to the popularity of the platform, had the hacking groups loaded malware onto sites, the number of individuals who could have been infected with malware would have been considerable.
The potential fallout from a website being hacked and defaced, or worse, from malware being loaded, can be considerable. Many small law firms were attacked as a result of failing to update their WordPress site within a week of the update being issued.
A defaced website, in the grand scheme of things, is a relatively quick fix, although such an attack does not inspire confidence in a company’s ability to keep sensitive data protected. For a law firm, that could mean the difference between getting a new client and that individual seeking another law firm.
In this case, the law firm cyberattacks could have been prevented with a quick and simple update. In fact, WordPress updates can be scheduled to occur automatically to keep them secure.
The take home message is not to ignore security warnings, to ensure that someone reads the messages sent from WordPress, and better still, to set updates to occur automatically.
BugDrop malware is a new and highly advanced email-borne threat detected in the past few days. While attacks are currently concentrated on companies in Ukraine, BugDrop malware attacks have already started in other countries. Companies in Austria, Russia and Saudi Arabia have also been attacked.
Due to the nature of the attacks, it is clear that the actors behind the new malware have access to significant resources. So far, BugDrop malware is known to have stolen an incredible 600 GB of data from around 70 confirmed targets. At the rate that the malware is stealing data, the storage required will be considerable. This is therefore unlikely to the work of an isolated hacker. A significant cybercriminal group or most likely, a foreign-government backed hacking group, is likely to be responsible for the attacks.
Companies involved in scientific research, critical infrastructure, news media, engineering, and even human rights organizations have been targeted.
The malware will steal documents stored on infected computers and networks to which the computer connects. Passwords are stolen and screenshots are taken. However, rather than simply gain access to intellectual property and other sensitive data, the malware has another method of obtaining information. BugDrop malware, as the name suggests, bugs organizations and records audio data.
The malware turns on the microphone on an infected computer and records conversations, which accounts for the huge volume of data stolen. The stolen files are then encrypted and uploaded to the attackers’ Dropbox account. Files are retrieved from the Dropbox account and are decrypted. The resources required for analyzing such huge volumes of data – including audio data – are considerable, as are the storage requirements.
The CyberX researchers who discovered the malware suggest that Big Data analytics are likely used rather than manually checking the stolen data. Either way, such an operation must be heavily staffed, which points to a state-sponsored group. CyberX says “Given the sophistication of the code and how well the operation was executed, we have concluded that those carrying it out have previous field experience.”
Since data exfiltration occurs via Dropbox, data exfiltration may not be detected. Many companies allow their employees to access Dropbox and connections to the storage service are often not monitored. Encryption is used, preventing many anti-virus solutions from detecting attacks or sandboxing the malware. The attacks also involve reflective DLL injection – since code is run in the context of other processes, detection is made more difficult.
BugDrop malware is being distributed via spam email using malicious macros in Word documents. If macros are enabled, the malware will be installed when the document is opened. Since many companies now automatically block macros and require them to be enabled on each document, the attackers prompt the user to enable macros by saying the document was created in a newer version of Microsoft Office. To view the contents of the document, macros must be enabled. The Word documents contains a professional image from Microsoft, including branding and Office logos, to make the warning appear genuine.
Google has released its latest statistics on the main corporate email security threats, with the search engine giant’s report also delving into the latest email-borne attacks on corporate Gmail account users. The report follows on from a presentation at the RSA Conference, which provided more detail on the biggest corporate email security threats that now have to be blocked.
According to Google’s data, spam is still a major problem for businesses. While the barrage of unsolicited emails is a nuisance that results in many hours of lost productivity, corporate users face a much bigger threat from spam. Malicious messages are a major menace.
Cybercriminals are targeting corporate users to a much higher extent than personal email account holders. The reason is clear. There is more to be gained from infecting corporate computers with malware than personal computers. Businesses are much more likely to pay ransoms if data are encrypted by ransomware. The data stored by businesses has much higher value on the darknet, and plundering business bank accounts nets far higher rewards.
It is therefore no surprise to hear that Google’s stats show that businesses are 6.2 times as likely to receive phishing emails and 4.3 times as likely to be targeted with malware-infected emails. Spam on the other hand is more universal, with business emails accounts 0.4 times as likely to be spammed than personal accounts.
Main Corporate Email Security Threats by Business Sector
Corporate email security threats are not spread evenly. Cybercriminals are conducting highly targeted attacks on specific industry sectors. Google’s data show that nonprofits are most commonly targeted with malware, receiving 2.3 times as many malware-infected emails as business accounts. The education sector is also being extensively targeted. Schools, colleges and universities are 2.1 times as likely to be sent malware-infected emails, followed by government industries, which are 1.3 times as likely to be targeted than businesses.
However, when it comes to email spam and phishing attacks, it is the business sector which is most commonly targeted. Currently, email spam is the biggest problem for businesses in the IT, housing, and entertainment industries, while phishing attacks are much more commonly conducted on IT companies, arts organizations and the financial sector.
Malicious Spam Poses a Major Risk to Corporations
As we have seen on so many occasions in the past two years, email is a major attack vector for businesses. Cybercriminals use spam email to infect end users with information-stealing malware, file-encrypting ransomware, and conduct credential-stealing phishing attacks. Email-borne attacks are still highly profitable. The attacks require little effort and criminals are able to bypass security controls by targeting end users.
Given the massive increase in malware and ransomware variants in the past two years, blocking spam and malicious messages is now more important than ever. Additionally, the cost of mitigating data breaches is rising year on year (According to the Ponemon Institute). Malware and ransomware infections can be extremely costly to resolve, while successful phishing attacks can net cybercriminals huge sums from selling stolen corporate data and making fraudulent bank transfers. Those costs must be absorbed by businesses.
Protecting Your Organization from Email-Borne Threats
Fortunately, it is possible to mitigate corporate email security threats by using an advanced spam filtering solution such as SpamTitan. SpamTitan blocks 99.97% of spam messages and boasts a low false positive rate of just 0.03%. A powerful anti-phishing component prevents phishing emails from being delivered to end users, while dual anti-virus engines (Bitdefender/ClamAV) are used to scan all incoming (and outgoing) messages for malicious links and attachments.
If you want to improve your defenses against the latest corporate email security threats, contact the TitanHQ team today. Since SpamTitan is available on a 30-day free trial, you can also see for yourself how effective our product is at protecting your organization from email-borne threats before committing to a purchase.
A fresh round of email warnings for Yahoo account holders has been sent; however, cybercriminals are taking advantage: A new Yahoo breach phishing campaign has been detected that piggybacks on the latest news.
New Warnings for Yahoo Email Account Holders
Yahoo has been sending fresh warnings to account holders explaining that their accounts may have been compromised as a result of the Yahoo cyberattacks in 2013 and 2014. The Yahoo cyberattacks were the largest ever seen, resulting in the theft of 1 billion and 500 million users’ credentials. Yahoo has now confirmed that the attacks involved the use of forged cookies to bypass its security controls.
Yahoo’s CISO Bob Lord has told account holders in the email that “We have connected some of the cookie forging activity to the same state-sponsored actor believed to be responsible for the data theft we disclosed on Sept. 22, 2016.” As was the case in previous Yahoo warnings, accounts should be reviewed for any suspicious activity and users should not click on links or open attachments from unknown senders.
Yahoo Breach Phishing Campaign Detected
Many active Yahoo account holders are concerned about email security following news of the cyberattacks in 2013/2014 and cybercriminals have been quick to take advantage. The fresh round of email warnings has only heightened fears, as well as the risk for account holders. Cybercriminals have been piggybacking on the latest news of account breaches and have been sending their own messages to Yahoo email users. The latest Yahoo breach phishing email campaign play on users’ fears over the security of their accounts. The Yahoo breach phishing emails attempt to fool security conscious account holders into clicking on malicious phishing links and revealing sensitive information.
In the latest round of warnings, Yahoo urged users to take advantage of Yahoo’s password-free security service – the Yahoo Account Key authentication service. The latest round of Yahoo breach phishing emails offer account holders the option of upgrading the security on their accounts as well. To improve take up, the attackers add urgency by saying the target’s account has been temporarily limited for failing an automatic security update. A link is supplied for users to click to re-verify account ownership. If they fail to click on the link and update their details, they will be permanently locked out of their account.
The Yahoo breach phishing campaign is likely to claim many victims, although the phishing emails are fairly easy to identify as fake. The emails appear to have come from an account called ‘Mail’, although checking the actual email address will reveal that the email was not sent from a domain used by Yahoo. There are also some errors with the structure of the email. Slight grammatical errors are a tell-tale sign that the emails are not genuine.
However, not all Yahoo breach phishing emails contain errors. Some have been highly convincing. Users are therefore advised to exercise extreme caution when using their Yahoo accounts and to be on high alert for Yahoo breach phishing emails.
Cost of the Yahoo Cyberattacks
The Yahoo cyberattacks of 2013 and 2014 have cost the company dearly. While it is unclear what the final cost of the Yahoo cyberattacks will be, it will certainly be well in excess of $250 million – That is the price reduction Verizon Communications is seeking following the revelation that Yahoo account holders’ credentials were stolen in the two massive cyberattacks reported last year. The purchase price of $4.8 billion, which was agreed in the summer of 2016, is to be reduced. There was talk that the deal may even not go ahead as a result of the Yahoo cyberattack revelations. While Yahoo will not want a price reduction, there are likely to be a few sighs of relief. Verizon were rumored to be looking for a $1 billing reduction in the price just a few weeks back.
In the United Kingdom and Eire, homebuyers and sellers are being targeted by cybercriminals using a new solicitor email scam. The scam, which involves mimicking a solicitor, is costing victims thousands. There have also been some reported cases of cybercriminals sending solicitors emails claiming to be their clients and requesting changes of bank details. Any pending transfers are then made to the criminals’ accounts.
Since funds for home purchases are transferred to solicitors’ accounts before being passed on to the sellers, if cybercriminals are able to change the bank details for the transfers, the funds for the purchase will be paid directly into their accounts.
While email spoofing is commonplace, this solicitor email scam often involves the hacking of solicitors’ email accounts. Once access has been gained, cybercriminals search for emails sent to and from buyers and sellers of homes to identify potential targets. While the hacking of email accounts is occurring, there have also been instances where emails between buyers, sellers, and their solicitors have been intercepted. When bank details for a transfer are emailed, the hackers change the bank information in the email to their own and then forward the email on.
The solicitor email scam is highly targeted and communications are monitored until the crucial point in the purchasing process when a bank transfer is about to be made. Since the potential rewards are considerable, cybercriminals are willing to put the time and effort into the scam and be patient. Buyers, sellers, and solicitors are well researched and the emails are highly convincing.
Instances of this conveyancing scam have been increasing in recent months and it has now become the most common cybercrime affecting the legal sector. The Law Society, a representative body for solicitors in the UK, has issued a warning about the conveyancing scam due to an increased number of complaints, although it is currently unclear how many fraudulent transfers have been made.
There is of course an easy way for solicitors to prevent such a scam from being successful, and that is to contact the homebuyer or seller before any transfer is made and to verbally confirm the bank details by telephone. Alternatively, policies can be developed requiring bank account information to only be sent via regular mail.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority advises against the use of email for property transactions due to the potential for cybercriminals to intercept and spoof messages. Email may be convenient, but with such large sums being transferred it pays to exercise caution.
While this solicitor email scam is common in the UK and Eire, legal firms in the United States should also exercise caution. Since the conveyancing scam is proving to be lucrative, it will only be a matter of time before U.S. lawyers are targeted.
