Archive for July, 2023

Darktrace launches HEAL, final piece of industry first AI Loop for Incident response, readiness and recovery

Posted in Commentary with tags on July 26, 2023 by itnerd

Darktrace today announces the launch of Darktrace HEAL™, its AI-enabled product to help businesses more effectively prepare for, rapidly remediate, and recover from cyber-attacks. HEAL provides security teams with unique abilities to simulate real attacks within their own environments, create bespoke incident response plans as cyber incidents unfold, and automate actions to rapidly respond to and recover from those incidents.

Managing emerging cyber-attacks presents an enormous challenge for security teams who must make decisions quickly in the heat of the attack based on potentially hundreds of changing and uncertain data points and factors. In a recent ransomware incident, analysts would have needed around 60 total hours of investigative work to build a complete understanding of the full scope and varied details, yet the malicious activity unfolded across just 10 hours. The pressure and complexity facing these teams is only poised to grow as generative AI tools enable attackers to increase the speed, scale, and sophistication of novel attacks. With the global average cost of a data breach reaching $4.35 million in 2022, the financial, operational and reputational stakes for businesses to remediate and recover quickly are high.

HEAL leverages Darktrace’s Self-Learning AI to give security teams new abilities designed to build cyber resilience and help them more easily and confidently address live incidents. With HEAL, security teams can:

  • Simulate real-world cyber incidents, allowing teams to prepare for and practice their response to complex attacks on their own environments.
  • Create bespoke, AI-generated playbooks as an attack unfolds based on the details of their environment, the attack, and lessons learned from their previous simulations. This reduces information overload, prioritizes actions, and enables faster decision-making at critical moments.
  • Automate actions from the response plan to rapidly stop and recover from the attack within the HEAL interface.
  • Create a full incident report, including an audit trail of the incident response with details of the attack, actions HEAL suggested, and actions taken by the security team for future learning and to support compliance efforts.

Transforming Readiness with Incident Simulations 

HEAL’s simulated incidents are a first-of-its-kind capability for security teams to safely run live simulations of real-world cyber-attacks ranging from data theft and ransomware encryption, to rapid worm propagation, all in their own environments and involving their own assets. Security teams are expected to flawlessly manage incident response in the face of a live, rapidly unfolding, often novel attack, usually without any realistic practice. HEAL enables teams to get real-world experience managing attacks as they would happen to the business and regularly practice these procedures to help fine tune their responses. That means teams aren’t running their incident response for the first time in the face of a real, live attack.

Transforming Incident Response with Bespoke, AI-Generated Playbooks 

When a live incident does occur, HEAL will use insights from Darktrace DETECT to create a picture of the attack and a bespoke, AI-generated, response playbook, built from Darktrace’s knowledge of the incident, the business’s environment, and lessons learned from the security team’s previous simulations. HEAL recommends the priority order for remediation actions based on factors like further damage the compromised asset can cause, how much the attack is relying on that asset as a pivot or entry point, and its importance to the business. Consequently, security teams can adapt their defenses as an incident evolves, enabling them to end it more rapidly and with less overall disruption. 

Transforming Recovery with Automated Remediation & Reporting

HEAL further enables security teams to quickly and efficiently manage and recover from live incidents by integrating with a variety of tools in a business’s wider security stack to automate actions. Within HEAL’s live playbooks, teams can activate and manage authorized tools from across their environment, from a single interface with a click of a button. At launch, HEAL will integrate with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Intune, Microsoft 365, Veeam, and Acronis.

HEAL provides security teams with automated incident reports during and after an attack,giving teams valuable time back that is normally spent writing detailed updates. The reports provide analysis of the attacker and security team actions, decisions, containment, and recovery information to keep stakeholders updated as an event unfolds. After an attack, this can offer essential compliance information to third parties such as forensics teams, insurance providers, and legal teams and can be used to assist with reviews and learning lessons from the attack and the response.

Closing the Cyber AI Loop

HEAL works with DETECT and Darktrace PREVENT to build a live picture of the environment and attack, and integrates with Darktrace RESPOND to prioritize, isolate, and heal key assets to cut off and shorten attacks. Its introduction closes Darktrace’s Cyber AI Loop, bringing together DETECT, PREVENT, RESPOND, and HEAL into a single platform in which each element draws insights from and continuously reinforces the others to create a best-in-class cyber defense.

To learn more about Darktrace HEAL and the Darktrace Cyber AI Loop, register for the launch event on August 3.

Guest Post: 95% of patients fear their data will be leaked

Posted in Commentary on July 26, 2023 by itnerd

In today’s fast-paced healthcare industry, exchanging digital information has become essential for enhancing patient outcomes, simplifying procedures, and promoting medical progress. However, leaks of personal medical records have become a growing concern.

According to the data presented by the Atlas VPN team, 95% of patients are concerned about a potential data breach or leak of medical records. Furthermore, the majority of people do not trust Big Tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft offering products or services to store their health data.

Overall, 70% of patients have extreme or moderate concerns regarding their medical information being leaked. Of the people surveyed, 28% admitted to having extreme worries about a potential data breach of their medical records. Furthermore, 42% of respondents expressed moderate concerns.

The findings also showed that one in four patients (25%) held slight concerns about potential data breaches. Remarkably, a small 5% of respondents displayed a lack of concern regarding the possibility of their medical record data leak.

Medical data breaches can result in identity theft, financial fraud, reputational damage, and even endanger a patient’s physical well-being if sensitive medical conditions are disclosed.

Cybersecurity writer at Atlas VPN, Vilius Kardelis, shares his thoughts on how patient data should be handled:

“Healthcare providers must actively advocate for patient rights and data autonomy. Patients should be empowered with the knowledge of their data’s value, ownership, and control. By offering stringent data protection measures, healthcare providers can create an environment where patients feel in command of their health information.”

Low trust in Big Tech

Many people are skeptical about large technology companies offering services to store sensitive medical information. 

A significant 38% of respondents expressed an outright lack of trust in Big Tech. Many people are hesitant to trust Big Tech with their health data. Similarly, 27% of people slightly distrust Big Tech’s ability to manage their health data securely.

Concerns come from the knowledge of past breaches, the potential for misuse or unauthorized access, and doubts about the profit motives of these companies.

On the other hand, 21% of those surveyed placed slight trust in Big Tech. Even more surprisingly, 14% of respondents showed confidence in Big Tech’s ability to manage their health data securely.

To read the full article, head over to: https://atlasvpn.com/blog/95-of-patients-fear-their-data-will-be-leaked

95-of-patients-fear-their-data-will-be-leaked

The Uber driver app is now compatible with Apple CarPlay

Posted in Commentary with tags on July 26, 2023 by itnerd

Starting today, all drivers on the Uber platform with an iPhone will now have the ability to use the Uber driver app directly from their dashboard while using Apple CarPlay. 

This means drivers will be able to see demand heatmaps, accept trips, and view navigation right from the dashboard screen in their car.

Uber’s goal is to be the best platform for flexible work in the world, and they’re excited to add support for Apple CarPlay to make using the Uber driver app on iPhone even more comfortable and convenient for drivers.

Hackers Gain Vendor Account Access to Redirect Invoices in Latest VEC Attack

Posted in Commentary with tags on July 26, 2023 by itnerd

Vendor email compromise (VEC), a variation of business email compromise (BEC), is a sophisticated and dangerous email threat that is continuing to grow. VEC attacks are among the most successful social engineering attacks because they exploit the trusted relationships between customers and their vendors. 

Abnormal Security has released their latest research that detected a sequence of attacks where a threat actor gained access to five distinct vendor email accounts. The attacker gained access to vendor email accounts of individuals working in accounting and operations roles and sent emails in an attempt to redirect both current and future invoices to a different bank account. Each email contained a PDF attachment with a fabricated payment policy and the updated bank account information. Notably, all of the targeted organizations operate within the critical infrastructure sector, encompassing two healthcare companies, two logistics companies, and one manufacturing company.

The blog is now live here: https://abnormalsecurity.com/blog/vec-attacks-replay-critical-infrastructure

Approov Intros Global Partner Program for Resellers, MSSPs, Tech Leaders, App Developers

Posted in Commentary with tags on July 26, 2023 by itnerd

End-to-end mobile app security provider Approov today launched a comprehensive global partner program dedicated to ensuring qualified business, reseller and technology leaders have access to its proven mobile security and comprehensive support, building on the large a number of existing Approov technology partnerships

Qualified participants can sell, integrate and support cutting-edge mobile security solutions from Approov in order to safeguard mobile apps, a critical element for almost all business transactions today. Approov partners work together with Approov technology experts to deliver complete solutions to their customers. Partners can help their customers fortify their applications against threats and vulnerabilities, ensuring the highest level of security for their users. 

Partners can deliver state-of-the-art mobile app security addressing customer needs, add value to their business and open new revenue opportunities as they ensure security for mobile apps in an increasingly interconnected world. Approov offers a full range of assistance and tools to partners as well as access to a rich ecosystem of experts.

Qualified participants can be consultants, managed security service providers (MSSPs), resellers or technologists with a focus on safeguarding mobile security. More information about the partner program, qualification criteria and registration information are available at the Approov partner portal.

New Partners Promotion: For a limited time, newly registered and qualified partners will be entitled to five complimentary mobile app security assessments to offer to their customers, delivered by Approov experts in collaboration with the partner. Registration by September 30, 2023, is required for this promotion.  

Rezilion Reveals Overlooked High-Risk Vulnerabilities in CISA KEV Catalog, Raising Questions about Patching Prioritization Standards

Posted in Commentary with tags on July 26, 2023 by itnerd

On Wednesday, July 26Rezilion, an automated software supply chain security platform, will release its new report, “CVSS, EPSS, KEV: The New Acronyms – And The Intelligence – You Need For Effective Vulnerability Management,” detailing the critical importance of the Exploitability Probability Prediction Score (EPSS) for enhancing patch prioritization and effective vulnerability management.

Rezilion’s vulnerability experts disclosed that there are three vulnerabilities currently being actively exploited and have a high EPSS score. The findings of the report show that vulnerabilities with a high EPSS score are more likely to be exploited compared to those with low EPSS scores- showing that using only the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) for prioritizing patching is not the most effective approach.

Key takeaways from the report include:

  • The conventional method of prioritizing vulnerabilities often falls short. A holistic approach, including CVSS, CISA’s KEV, and EPSS, offers the best defense.
  • The KEV catalog alone is insufficient due to the delay in adding newly discovered vulnerabilities.
  • Vulnerabilities with a high EPSS score are more likely to be exploited, emphasizing the importance of this information in prioritization.

You can read the report here.

Rezilion Reveals Overlooked High-Risk Vulnerabilities in CISA KEV Catalog, Raising Questions about Patching Prioritization Standards.

Posted in Commentary with tags on July 26, 2023 by itnerd

 Rezilion, an automated software supply chain security platform, will release its new report, “CVSS, EPSS, KEV: The New Acronyms – And The Intelligence – You Need For Effective Vulnerability Management,” detailing the critical importance of the Exploitability Probability Prediction Score (EPSS) for enhancing patch prioritization and effective vulnerability management.

Rezilion’s vulnerability experts disclosed that there are three vulnerabilities currently being actively exploited and have a high EPSS score. The findings of the report show that vulnerabilities with a high EPSS score are more likely to be exploited compared to those with low EPSS scores- showing that using only the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) for prioritizing patching is not the most effective approach.

Key takeaways from the report include:

  • The conventional method of prioritizing vulnerabilities often falls short. A holistic approach, including CVSS, CISA’s KEV, and EPSS, offers the best defense.
  • The KEV catalog alone is insufficient due to the delay in adding newly discovered vulnerabilities.
  • Vulnerabilities with a high EPSS score are more likely to be exploited, emphasizing the importance of this information in prioritization.

You can read the report here.

Our Trip To France – Part 2: Our First Day On French Soil

Posted in Commentary with tags on July 26, 2023 by itnerd

Our travel day was a bit of a mess. But once my wife and I arrived at the village that we were staying at, we had a very typical French meal and got some sleep. Now we’re staying in a town called Gilhoc Sur Ormeze which is in the Ardèche department in southern France. The closest city is Valance which is in the Drôme department, and both are located in the Rhone Alps. To get to Gilhoc Sur Ormeze, you have to drive on some windy, narrow roads that take you deeper and deeper into the Rhone Alps. And driving those roads will make you feel like a rally driver because of how narrow they are. They will also stress you out because of how narrow they are. If I could give you one tip, don’t overestimate your own driving ability on roads like these. Drive sensibly and you’ll get to your destination safe and sound. And if you have cars behind you who want to go by you, look for a safe place to pull over and let them by.

The scenery is stunning, and I will show you some pictures of that scenery in a later update. But driving from Lyon led us to this place:

This French manor house dates back to the time of Napoleon Bonaparte, which puts it around the late 1700’s and has been owned by the same family that entire time. I was not able to take pictures of the interior which is equally as stunning out of respect that there is a family that lives here full time. And that family who invited us over and gave us this house on the property to stay in while we were in France:

We were staying in the property on the right side with the garage. It has two floors and the interior was rebuilt extensively by the owner’s late husband. On the left is a mill.

This is the mill wheel that no longer works as the supply of water that turned it was cut off about 90 years ago.

Here’s a couple of shots of the interior:

It was very nice place to stay in and we were lucky to have such a nice place to stay in France. A couple of other notes about the property.

It has a pond on it and inside the pond are these fellows:

Speaking of nature, when you get up in the morning, you can hear birds, frogs, roosters, and even dogs barking in the morning. It’s a nice soundtrack to get up to in the morning. Also because there’s no artificial lighting, you can see the stars easily and it gets pretty dark. Another nice thing about the property was this:

The box on the right with the three lights is a fibre modem/WiFi access point from Orange Telecom France. My wife and I were surprised that fibre optic Internet was available in a location that literally had no cell service as evidenced in this picture:

If you look at the top right, my iPhone 14 Pro presented me with the SOS via Satellite functionality. I had never seen that before, and given the nature of the roads in the area, that’s a handy feature to have if you crash.

Now back to the fact that this place in the middle of nowhere in France has fibre optic Internet where there are areas in Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area that don’t have fibre optic Internet. I noted that Orange was laying a lot of fibre optic cable everywhere we drive. Seeing as the area is mountainous as well has rural, that was impressive. So were these speeds which I got off of my laptop via WiFi:

These are pretty good speeds and are faster than some people get in Canada with a pretty great ping time. That allowed my wife and I to set up our respective MacBook Pros with ease once we got the WiFi password.

As for our first day on French soil, we did some grocery shopping with the help of our host who was able to bridge the divide between two English speaking people in a French speaking country. Seeing as the place we were staying in had its own kitchen, my wife and I decided to fend for ourselves. We then went into Valance and walked around. Since it was Monday, a lot of things were closed. But I did manage to take a couple of photos to give you an idea of what we saw:

After doing some more shopping for clothes, and food, we then went to a chocolate factory called Valrhona which was located in Tain l’Hermitage which is just outside of Valance. My wife went to town and bought over 100 Euros of chocolate. I’m not a chocolate person so she’s free to do her. But if you’re in the area, they do give tours of the factory for the price of 9 Euros per person before noon and 10.50 Euros after that.

Tomorrow we have a French market that we need to leave early in the morning to get to. That’s all we know so that will be interesting. Stay tuned to find out how that pans out.

“First Known” Open Source Supply Chain Attacks Target Banks

Posted in Commentary with tags on July 26, 2023 by itnerd

In a recent report, Checkmarx researchers analyzed what they described as the first open source software supply chain attacks targeting the banking industry.

In the first half of the year, two attacks were observed with the threat actors uploading packages to NPM with the first containing a payload designed to latch onto a login form intercepting the login data, and the second containing a preinstall script that executed its objective upon installation. They also leveraged an advanced post-exploitation C2 framework allowing the attackers to evade standard defense tools.

Checkmarx noted that the contributor behind these packages had a LinkedIn profile page of an individual posing as an employee of the targeted bank and they initially assumed it was the bank’s pen testing exercise but discovered it was not. The malicious packages were reported and have since been removed.

“Traditionally, organizations primarily focused on vulnerability scanning at the build level — a practice no longer adequate in the face of today’s advanced cyber threats. Once a malicious open-source package enters the pipeline, it’s essentially an instantaneous breach — rendering any subsequent countermeasures ineffective. This escalating gap underscores the urgency to shift our strategy from merely managing malicious packages to proactively preventing their infiltration,” Checkmarx researchers explained.

I have two comments on this. The first is from Ted Miracco, CEO, Approov Mobile Security:

   “While open source reduces R&D costs and enables innovation, its decentralized nature makes it prime for exploitation by bad actors. As this recent attack on the banking industry highlights, most organizations today are dependent upon open source components, and an increasingly complex software supply chain. Businesses and especially financial institutions must vigilantly monitor for malicious packages entering their ecosystem by proactive scanning and reviewing all components and dependencies. The alternative is to just cross your fingers and hope vulnerabilities are found fast enough, which leaves the door open to corrupted code.”

And the second is from Dave Ratner, CEO, HYAS:

   “Checkmarx is absolutely correct when they point out that this is just one more example to shift a security strategy from reactive to proactive. With advanced social engineering, and the wide use of cloud and open source in all sectors, infiltration via supply-chain attacks are becoming increasingly common and are far too difficult to detect with traditional mechanisms; nevertheless, knowledge of adversary infrastructure and what is and isn’t command-and-control (C2) can help provide the proactiveness that organizations require. A proper Protective DNS solution can detect the beaconing activity to C2 and ensure that these instantaneous breaches are rendered inert before the attack takes hold.”

Open source is thought to solve all problems. And it can. But it isn’t risk free. Companies who choose to use open source to run their business need to know and mitigate the risks.

Claims Have Surfaced By TWO Ransomware Groups That Yamaha’s Canadian Music Division Has Been Pwned

Posted in Commentary with tags on July 26, 2023 by itnerd

 Yamaha ‘s Canadian music division is confirming a cyber-attack on the company after two separate ransomware groups claimed responsibility. This is the Yamaha corporation considered the world’s largest producer of musical equipment, not the motorcycle company. On June 14th the Black Byte ransomware gang listed Yamaha on its breach website.

But on Friday Yamaha appeared on the Kira ransomware groups leak site:

In a statement last Thursday (7/20), Yamaha Canada Music confirmed that it “recently encountered a cyberattack that led to unauthorized access and data theft,” and “swiftly implemented measures to contain the attack…” The company has been notifying affected individuals and offering credit monitoring services to those at risk from the attack. “Additionally, we have taken decisive actions to reinforce our network defenses and ensure enhanced security measures moving forward.” 

Carol Volk, EVP, BullWall had this to say:    

“Thank you for the credit monitoring, but we’d really prefer our data wasn’t stolen in the first place. Organizations simply need to get more aggressive in stopping ransomware attacks. Identifying and protecting against known strains is a losing battle. It didn’t work for antivirus and it’s not working for ransomware. More needs to be done to not just detect that these zero-day attacks are in progress, but to contain the spread and the damage.” 

Really, the fact that I keep writing about this sort of thing on a daily basis is starting to get tiring. Companies really need to do something to stop this sort of pwnage from happening. It’s the right thing to do for the companies. And more importantly us.