Tag Archive for: Hack

Social Media, Brute Force Attacks, Passwords, Fake WAPs & Protecting Yourself

The video above shows a hack of Gmail, but your social media accounts can be just as vulnerable if you choose a common password like:

  • Password
  • 12345
  • QWERTY
  • iloveyou

Social media accounts are online assets, which no matter how big you build them, can still be a liability. This liability comes from how they can be exploited by hackers, especially when you do not take the proper steps to protect them.

You need to put as much effort into protecting your online assets as you do building them. You don’t need an entire IT team to do this, keep reading to learn the basics of what you need to do.

Defeat brute force hacks with better passwords

One of the most brainless hacks out there is known as a brute force hack. I hacker simply sets up a tool to target a specific account and the tool guesses passwords until it is right. You may know these tools as password recovery tools. They have be altered by hackers for nefarious purposes.

You have to defend against brute force hacks with better passwords that are complicated and use a mix of characters.

Fake WAPs: Use a variety of passwords

Let’s say that you took my advice above when you created a password that is “35IrulePLANETearthb1tches!” Good job, but now you have to come up with the new password for each of your social media accounts. This is important because of something known as the fake WAP. This is when a hacker will set up a free Wi-Fi network in a public location. They will then use the network to steal things like passwords.

Your first line of defense should be a good password manager. You can create a very strong password to get into the password manager, and then it could manage a wide variety of strong passwords for you. Good examples include:

Each one is going to help you protect your accounts by using a wide variety of passwords to defend against the fake WAP hack. Even if they do get one password to one of your social media accounts they won’t necessarily get access to all of your other accounts.

Secondary defense against fake WAP

Last failsafe to protect yourself against a fake WAP involves encryption. The problem with the fake WAP is the hacker will set up a hot spot that has no encryption on it. This means that they can see the following in plain text:

  • Confidential information that you send over your social media through private messages.
  • Any customer contact details that you sent back and forth.
  • Brand strategies discussed between related accounts.
  • Any credit card numbers that customers send through there.

The way that you are going to encrypt every single thing that you send over a hotspot, including your social media, is with a VPN with strong encryption. These tools are perfect for this job as they encrypt everything that is transferred to and from your device. All you have to do is connect to the VPN server and that takes care of your encryption, and your social media data.

Do your best against insider threats

Insider threats, especially recently fired employees that still have your social media, are very real. There have been a number of times when staff and being fired but they’re access to the social media has not been removed. The most embarrassing has probably been HMV.

 Here are ways that you can defend against this insider threat:

  • Make a record of all accounts that employees have access to.
  • Have plans in place to remove people from all accounts before they’re fired. Make sure a specific person is assigned to this.
  • If you have multiple accounts that multiple employees are given access to, it may be smart to consolidate these in one social media dashboard. You can use things like HootSuite, SocialFlow, or BufferApp.

The last point will make things easier ‘s that you only have one account to remove access from. Imagine having to remove access to twitter, Facebook, WordPress, Google, LinkedIn, etc.… Consolidate the accounts in one spot to minimize an insider threat caused by oversight on what accounts they have access to.

Social media and online security

Social media is a fantastic way to connect with your customers. It can be a very valuable asset to your company. The value that you get from that can be exploited by hackers for monetary reasons, or simply to troll you. Both of these will wind up costing you money. Invest in these tactics, make sure that your employees follow through on them, and you will save yourself a lot of money and heartache.

Critical flaw in Twitter’s code could let hackers take over your account

A security researcher discovered a critical vulnerability in the advertising code of Twitter, the most popular micro-blogging website in the world, which if exploited could let hackers publish updates from any other account without needing access to the victim’s profile.

The white-hat hacker, writing in a blog post this week (22 May), claimed to have uncovered the issue while exploring Twitter’s code for bugs. He said the flaw could give cybercriminals the ability to “publish entries in Twitter-network by any user of this service.”

The vulnerability was initially found on 26 February 2017 and fixed two days later.

The hacker, known as kedrisch, reported the flaw via Twitter’s bug bounty service – a programme managed by the organisation HackerOne which lets researchers disclose bugs in exchange for rewards.

In this instance, kedrisch was handed a bounty of $7,560 (₦2,872,800) for his efforts.

The issue he found was in Twitter’s advertising code. Essentially, the researcher said flaws existed in how the service’s media library uploaded files such as videos, images and gifs to the platform.

Rules surrounding the responsible disclosure programme mean the flaw is only coming to light now.

In a statement, Twitter said: “The reporter discovered a flaw in the handling of Twitter Ads Studio requests which allowed an attacker to tweet as any user.

“By sharing media with a victim user and then modifying the post request with the victim’s account ID the media in question would be posted from the victim’s account. This bug was patched […] and no evidence was found of the flaw being exploited by anyone other than the reporter.”

Charlie Miller, a security expert well-known for being part of the collective which remotely hacked a 2014 Jeep Cherokee, tweeted: “As former appsec [Application Security] tech lead for Twitter, I’ll just say I’m not shocked this was in code from the ads team.” He did not elaborate further.

 Last December, kedrisch was awarded $1,120 (₦425,600) for finding a less critical flaw which could let a hacker change comments on Twitter’s official forums. This was publicly disclosed on 12 May 2017.
Most recently, Twitter issued a warning to users of its Vine service that a bug potentially exposed users’ email addresses and phone numbers to unnamed third parties. In an email sent to all impacted Vine users, it said the bug affected the Vine Archive for “less than 24 hours”.
Vine was bought by Twitter back in 2012 however the company decided to shut down the popular short video publishing application earlier this year amid a period of heavy job cuts.

“We want to emphasise that this information can’t directly be used to access your account, and we have no information indicating that it has been misused,” Twitter’s email to Vine users stressed. “We take these incidents very seriously, and we’re sorry this occurred,” it added.

IBTimes

Why Companies Shouldn’t Try to Hack Their Hackers

During a recent cybersecurity competition, teams of students conducting a mock exercise unintentionally caused the U.S. to start a (fake) war. The students were given a variety of options, including diplomatic ones, for responding to a cyberattack by China. The majority of them took an aggressive approach, known as “hack back,” with disastrous consequences. The mock exercise shows how tempting it is to launch a counterstrike in response to a cyberattack — and the potential for significant unintended consequences.

As the CEO of a publicly traded security company, I would like to urge businesses and individuals to beware those very same dangers. In the United States, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) prohibits private parties from accessing or damaging computer systems, even if they’re being used to attack you or your business.

But legislation in Congress would change that, giving private-sector businesses and individuals the right to strike back and hack their hackers. The idea behind the proposal is to empower people “to defend themselves online, just as they have the legal authority to do during a physical assault.” I believe the measure would do more harm than good. Here’s why.

Holes in the Self-defense Defense

It may sound reasonable that the same principle that allows homeowners to defend themselves against intruders, even if it involves causing harm to the attackers, should hold true for cyberattacks. But the reality is, unfortunately, that it would be akin to lobbing grenades from your front yard, hoping to get lucky and hit an attacker you haven’t seen as they flee the scene of the crime. Even if you do manage to hurt your attacker, you’ll likely hurt other people, too. In hack back, it’s almost impossible to ensure that an action targeted at a specific actor or group of actors will affect only the intended targets. After all, the internet is designed specifically for the purpose of systems interacting and communicating. Technology and users are increasingly interconnected.

It’s Difficult to Identify Your Attacker

Another significant challenge is that cyberattacks, which are sometimes discovered years after a security breach, are difficult to attribute to the correct actor. Hackers are constantly evolving their techniques to stay one step ahead of defenders and law enforcement. Sometimes they use deception techniques to plant indicators that point to some other perpetrator, either to throw off suspicion or to incriminate another party.

This is even more problematic when you consider that devices operating as unwilling parts of a botnet may be used to carry out an attack. These infected devices — and their owners — are as much victims of the attacker as the primary target, yet any attempt to hack back could cause them harm. Even governments, which possess the large-scale, sophisticated intelligence-gathering programs needed to accurately attribute cyberattacks, can take a long time to do so. Private-sector organizations typically do not have these resources.

Running Afoul of the Law of Proportionality

In the wake of a cyberattack, even if the attacker has been identified, it is difficult to judge motivation accurately and to determine an appropriate response. Remember the students competing in the mock cybersecurity exercise, the ones who ended up at war? They thought their response was proportional, but the situation quickly got out of hand.

Sometimes the need for information is used as an argument for hacking back. The argument is that it can help with intelligence gathering. However, intelligence gathering is not the same as mounting a digital counterstrike. There are a number of intelligence-gathering measures that U.S. organizations can take that do not run afoul of the CFAA. For example, organizations can deploy honeypots in their own networks to capture information on the attacker and their methods.

Essentially, hack back legislation would put the ability to launch cyberattacks, decide proportional responses, and infiltrate systems into the hands of companies and individuals. If hack back is legalized and private-sector companies have it in their arsenals, I fear it could become the de facto response — rather than considering the broad range of options that do not involve hacking back.

New Pressure on Company Resources

Clearly, hacking back effectively would require specialized skills and costly investments. Were it legalized with an authorization framework that is insufficiently stringent, I fear that many organizations may try to participate without the necessary tools and expertise to carry it out. That is likely to be ineffective, damaging, or both.

Other companies cannot afford a great deal of in-house security expertise and technologies to protect themselves today. Hack back capability is a nonstarter for them. That will make them even more vulnerable if hack back is legalized. Profit-motivated attackers may try to avoid companies that threaten to strike back. Instead, they’ll target the unfortunate organizations below this security poverty line.

Legal Landmines in a Lawless “Land”

While the internet is a borderless space accessed from every country in the world, each of those countries has its own legal system and expects its citizens to abide by it. It would be very risky for companies and individuals who hack back to avoid running afoul of the laws of another country and international law.

When national governments do this, it tends to occur within existing international legal frameworks and under some regulatory oversight. It must meet a stringent burden of proof for attribution. There are parameters determining the types of targets that can be pursued and which actions can be taken. Any hack back authorization would need considerable government oversight to avoid abuse by the private sector and minimize collateral damage.

For example, what if a company hacks back and accidentally hurts another company or individual? The company could incur expensive legal proceedings, reputational damage, and loss of trust. Making organizations exempt from this kind of legal action around unintended consequences is problematic. How could we spot and stop accidental or intentional abuses of the system? Giving the private sector hack back capability would require a complex legal framework and oversight system. Who would run it? How would it be funded? This seems impractical and costly.

It’s hard to blame companies for feeling helpless in the wake of cyberattacks that have shut factories, paralyzed hospitals, and publicized proprietary corporate data. From phishing scams to ransomware to vulnerabilities in medical devices, connected electronics, and even the entire power grid, no one likes to feel that they are constantly on the losing end of a shadowy war against clandestine cyberattackers, with no hope in sight. That feeling of helplessness is behind a growing call for companies to be able to hack back.

Yet the potential costs of a misstep and the unintended consequences should deter business leaders from undertaking such an effort. We must instead work together to find solutions to our complex cybersecurity problems that are better than legitimizing vigilantism, particularly given its significant risks and dubious benefits. It’s one thing for students to unintentionally trigger a disaster in the safe confines of a competitive mock scenario. It’s another thing entirely to be a business leader that does so in the real world.

Harvard Business Review

Interconnected smart toys “can be weaponised”

An audience of security experts attending a cybersecurity conference at the World Forum in The Hague (The Netherlands) on Tuesday were shocked when a demonstration done by an 11-year-old “cyber ninja” showed the dismal cyber security standards that are prevailing in technology. He hacked into the Bluetooth devices to manipulate a teddy bear and show how interconnected smart toys “can be weaponised”.

The wonder kid in question is American Reuben Paul, a cyber security expert and white hat hacker who’s currently studying in the sixth standard of a school in Austin, Texas. Techworm had reported about the hacking skills of Reuben way back in 2015 when he warned an audience about the dangers of smartphone hacking while delivering a keynote address as a 9-year-old.

“From airplanes to automobiles, from smartphones to smart homes, anything or any toy can be part of the” Internet of Things (IOT),” Reuben told the crowd. “From terminators to teddy bears, anything or any toy can be weaponised.”

As part of his live demonstration and to prove his point, Reuben deployed his cuddly looking teddy bear ‘Bob’, which connects to the iCloud via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth smart technology to receive and transmit messages.

He then plugged a “Raspberry Pi” – a tiny and low cost computer – into his laptop on stage and started scanning the hall for available Bluetooth devices. To the astonishment of everyone in the hall, Reuben was able to download dozens of numbers including some of top officials.

Then, using the programming language called Python, he went on to hack into his Internet-connected teddy bear via one of the numbers and turned on Bob’s lights and transferred a recorded message from the audience through to the bear.

“Most internet-connected things have a blue-tooth functionality … I basically showed how I could connect to it, and send commands to it, by recording audio and playing the light,” he told AFP explaining his demonstration.

“IOT home appliances, things that can be used in our everyday lives, our cars, lights refrigerators, everything like this that is connected can be used and weaponised to spy on us or harm us.”

For instance, they could be used to steal private information such as passwords, as remote surveillance devices to spy on kids, or to locate a person using GPS.

More terrifyingly, toys could even be programmed to say “meet me at this location and I will pick you up,” Reuben said.

Besides being a cyber-ninja, Reuben is also the youngest American to earn a black belt in Shaolin Kung Fu. With the help from his family, Reuben has set up a non-profit organisation called CyberShaolin whose purpose is to spread awareness about “the dangers of cyber-insecurity”.

Since his talk, Reuben has been receiving congratulatory messages on Twitter from various experts in the infosec community applauding his work.

Reuben’s father, Mano Paul, an IT expert, said that his kid’s cyber skills emerged at the age of six, when he began exploring how software systems worked.

“He has always surprised us. Every moment when we teach him something he’s usually the one who ends up teaching us,” he told the AFP.

Reuben hopes to study cyber-security at either CalTech or MIT universities.

TechWorm

How to tell if you’ve been hacked by Russia, China, or North Korea

WannaCry had North Korea’s fingerprints all over it. The massive ransomware attack that hit over 150 countries last week reportedly contained code linked to other cyber crimes allegedly perpetrated by the Hermit Kingdom. But while it might take weeks or months for researchers to identify the culprit through forensic analyses, another set of clues already points to North Korea: motive.

There are rarely smoking guns when it comes to major cyber attacks, but clear patterns and evidence have emerged that indicate which foreign governments are responsible for the biggest ones. Would Russia or China have tried to take down hospitals in the U.K. for a measly $300? Probably not. China veers more towards stealing military and trade secrets, while Russia prefers operations that destabilize foreign governments. But North Korea will definitely hack for cash.

Here’s a quick guide to distinguishing cyber threats from North Korea, China, or Russia:

1. North Korea

Why are they attacking? What are their goals?

North Korea is a relative newcomer to the field of cyber warfare, yet it has quickly established itself as a formidable foe. The isolated country has long employed a strategy of asymmetrical warfare, so cyber attacks fit neatly into its preference for cheap, unpredictable operations that hold minimal risks of retaliation. Hit hard by sanctions, cash-strapped North Korea has recently shifted its cyber capabilities to generate income through theft and ransom — a strategy it might have just blown up to a global scale.

Who do they target?

Before the WannaCry attack, North Korea’s primary targets were South Korean banks and media companies as well as American corporations and international institutions. An attempted cyber attack on a Polish bank last year, for instance, inadvertently revealed that North Korea was also targeting the World Bank, the European Central Bank, and Bank of America. An indiscriminate attack like WannaCry might be a first, but it would hardly be surprising given their past behavior.

What do they take? How do they use it?

Even before it was implicated in the WannaCry attack, North Korea had taken to ransom. Last year, the country stole the personal data of more than 10 million customers from Interpark, a South Korean online retailer. Interpark was alerted to the breach after it received an anonymous message that demanded $2.7 million in bitcoin or else the attack would be publicized. Interpark refused to pay the ransom and alerted South Korean authorities. Interestingly, despite causing so much havoc, the WannaCry operation has seen relatively meager returns: Only about $70,000 in bitcoin has been netted to date.

North Korea’s most profitable operation, however, wasn’t ransomware at all, but a heist. Last year, it attempted to steal nearly $1 billion from a bank in Bangladesh, and successfully made off with $81 million.

All of the country’s attacks aren’t for money, though. Before WannaCry, its highest profile attack was on Sony Pictures Entertainment, when it infiltrated the company’s network in an attempt to stop the release of a comedy about the imagined assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Hackers released a trove of embarrassing emails that were widely reported on. But what received less attention was the damage done to Sony’s systems. A highly destructive form of malware was introduced and over 70 percent of its computers were left inoperable.

How did they get in?

North Korea’s sophisticated cyber capabilities are surprising considering its extreme isolation and poor infrastructure. Given the country’s limited connectivity to the outside world, its massive army of hackers, estimated to be 1,700 strong, are allowed to live and work abroad, mostly in China, Southeast Asia, and Europe. The ability to live outside of North Korea is actually a major perk for hackers given how few opportunities there are to leave the barren country. As an added bonus, many North Korean hackers are allowed to run illegal gambling websites to earn additional income.

What’s next?

With the United States and other nations ratcheting up sanctions in response to North Korea’s growing nuclear program, it is likely that North Korean hackers will continue to generate cash from hacking. Whether it returns to targeted operations or tries another indiscriminate attack like WannaCry, though, remains to be seen.

2. China

Why are they attacking? What are their goals?

Chinese cyber attacks are closely aligned with China’s broader national goals of rapidly developing its economic and military might. To that end, Chinese cyber attacks have been aimed at gathering intelligence and stealing military and trade secrets, effectively saving China billions of dollars in research and development costs and helping it quickly catch up to the U.S. in certain key areas.

Who do they target?

China’s targets stretch across American businesses, industries, and government agencies. It is widely believed that China has been responsible for many high-profile cyber attacks against the U.S. in recent years, including: stealing plans for the F-35 fighter jet; infiltrating the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s and the State Department’s networks; making off with the personal records of over 20 million Americans from the Office of Personnel Management; and breaking into the 2008 McCain and Obama presidential campaigns.

What did they take? How did they use it?

China employs a “grain of sands” approach to hacking, meaning they steal massive amounts of information — often low-level — and sift through it to find valuable nuggets.

When Coca-Cola was in the midst of negotiating the purchase of a Chinese company, for instance, Chinese hackers were poring over Coca-Cola’s systems, hoping to learn more about their negotiation strategy. In a more far-reaching and pernicious attack, Chinese hackers broke into RSA, a computer security company that supplies the SecurID tokens many employees at U.S. banks, intelligence agencies, and military contractors use to securely access computer systems. Two months later, Chinese hackers successfully penetrated Lockheed Martin’s systems partly using data stolen in the heist.

Other cyber attacks have focused on companies that manage critical infrastructure like electrical power grids and gas and water lines. One successful effort targeted a company with detailed blueprints and remote access to over 60 percent of oil and gas pipelines in North America.

How did they do it?

China loves to phish. Most cyber attacks begin with an innocent-seeming email often with an attachment. Once the attachment is opened, hackers are able to gain entry into computer networks and hunt for information. Such attacks are called spear phishing and were used to gain access to Coca-Cola, RSA, and even the State Department. Once inside, hackers can carefully prowl a network, stealing information or unleashing damaging malware.

What’s next?

After decades of widespread and brazen cyber attacks, Chinese intrusions have dramatically fallen. Since the Obama administration signed an agreement with the Chinese government to curb economic espionage in 2015, Chinese cyber attacks have decreased more than 90 percent. Chinese hackers have since turned their attention inwards to help President Xi Jinping root out corruption, and have significantly ramped up attacks on Russian industries.

3. Russia

Why are they attacking? What are their goals?

Russia possesses highly advanced cyber capabilities and is a “near peer” to the United States, according to Gen. Keith Alexander, the former head of the NSA and the military’s Cyber Command. America’s Cold War adversary has moved beyond espionage and regularly uses influence operations and electronic warfare to disrupt and destabilize countries hostile to Russian interests.

Who did they target?

Like China, Russia targets an array of Western businesses, defense contractors, government agencies, and most notably political campaigns. However, unlike China, Russia has used stolen information far more publicly.

What did they take? How did they use it?

The first major Russian cyber attack on the U.S. was uncovered in 1996. After a two-year investigation, it was discovered that hackers had broken into NASA, the Air Force, the Navy, and the Department of Energy, stealing whole weapon designs. Since then, Russia has changed tactics to influence operations and full-out cyber warfare.

Following a 2007 dispute between the Kremlin and Estonia, a former Soviet satellite state, over the relocation of a monument, Russian hackers shut down nearly all of the Estonian government’s websites, many of the country’s major news outlets, and its biggest banks. The attacks lasted nearly three weeks.

Cyber attacks were also unleashed during Russia’s war with Georgia in 2008 as well as its invasion of Crimea in 2011. In 2015, Ukraine blamed Russia for a cyber attack that left over 200,000 Ukrainians without power.

Off the battlefield, Russia has focused on influence operations aimed at undermining opponents of Russia, destabilizing governments, and discrediting democratic processes. The most notable instances, of course, were during the U.S. presidential election last year, when Russia allegedly stole and published emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and hacked into the Democratic National Committee servers in an effort to damage Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.

Meanwhile, in Europe this year, hackers successfully stole emails from the campaign of now-French President Emmanuel Macron and infiltrated Germany Parliament’s computer networks.

How did they do it?

Like China, Russia relies on spear-phishing attacks to gain access to networks. Their willingness, however, to cause physical damage is unique and highly advanced.

In its attack on Ukraine’s power grid, Russia showed the world its sophisticated capabilities. In a carefully planned attack that took months to execute, Russian hackers slowly wormed their way into Ukrainian power companies’ networks, then carefully studied the infrastructure and planted malware at power substations before launching a synchronized assault.

What’s next?

Unless it is severely punished, Russia will continue to use cyber attacks to hack elections, spread false information, and sow chaos.

The Week

Zomato Hacked, Records Of 17 Million Users Stolen, Company Assures Card Details Safe

In a major cyber attack on food ordering app Zomato,  1.7 crore user records were stolen from the company’s database. The stolen database includes user email addresses and hashed passwords.

 What Zomato says

The company in its blog post on Thursday gave the following assurances:

  • The stolen information can’t be misused since the company has reset the passwords for all affected user
  • The stolen password cannot be converted/decrypted back to plain text
  • It also assured that no payment information or credit card data has been stolen/leaked.
  • It has recommended users to change passwords in case they’re using the same for other accounts as well.

Here is what Zomato wrote:

The hashed password cannot be converted/decrypted back to plain text – so the sanctity of your password is intact in case you use the same password for other services. But if you are paranoid about security like us, we encourage you to change your password for any other services where you are using the same password.

Important note – payment related information on Zomato is stored separately from this (stolen) data in a highly secure PCI Data Security Standard (DSS) compliant vault. No payment information or credit card data has been stolen/leaked.

As a precaution, we have reset the passwords for all affected users and logged them out of the app and website. Our team is actively scanning all possible breach vectors and closing any gaps in our environment. So far, it looks like an internal (human) security breach – some employee’s development account got compromised.

How can this stolen information be misused?

Since we have reset the passwords for all affected users and logged them out of the app and website, your zomato account is secure. Your credit card information on Zomato is fully secure, so there’s nothing to worry about there.

This is not the first instance where Zomato had to face a cyber attack as in 2015, ethical hacker Anand Prakash hacked 6.2 crore accounts of Zomato in order to expose the company’s flaw. Prakash later informed Zomato after which its technical team fixed the bug in an hour’s time, reports vcc circle.

ScoopWhoop

‘WannaCry’ Ransomware Attack Spreads to 74 Countries

A wave of ransomware infections took down a wide swath of UK hospitals and is rapidly moving across the globe.

The so-called Wanna Decryptor ransomware is currently moving like wildfire across 74 countries in more than 45,000 attacks, including a massive takedown of several UK hospitals today.

The number of infections across the world is quickly growing, according to Kaspersky’s Twitter post. So far, some of the countries that have been hit include Britain, Spain, Russia, Taiwan, India, and the Ukraine, according to various reports streaming across the WannaCry Twitter feed.

Security experts say the ransomware attack is exploiting the Server Message Block (SMB) critical vulnerability that was patched by Microsoft on March 14, MS17-010. The 0day exploit, aka ETERNALBLUE, believed to be an NSA exploit tool, initially was leaked by Shadowbrokers, prompting a patch from Microsoft.

“There is nothing comparable to date. This is a massive global ransomware operation, the largest and most effective to date. Unfortunately, not all organizations patched against ETERNALBLUE/shadowbrokers exploits,” said Kurt Baumgartner, principal security researcher, Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT) for Kaspersky Lab.

According to an Avast blog post, Telefonica in Spain and the National Health Service (NHS) hospitals in England have been hit.

In the UK, a large scale attack hit a number of hospitals across the region, forcing medical staff to re-route emergency patients to other hospitals in the area, according to a report in The Guardian.

The malware struck NHS hospitals around lunch time, with an initial email going out to employees that the email servers were encountering difficulty, followed by clinical and patient systems going down, the Guardian reported. That was followed by a ransom note appearing on employees’ computer screens, demanding $300 in Bitcoins to be paid in three days, otherwise the ransom would double. And if no payment was made after seven days, then the files would be forever lost, according to the report.

The NHS issued an alert and confirmed 16 medical centers had been hit, according to Kaspersky Lab.

This ransom message also appeared in Spain, where telecom giant Telefonica was also targeted, the Guardian noted.

“The suspected syndicated attack is unique in that it’s not targeted at any one industry or region, and is using a particularly nasty form of malware that can move through a corporate network from a single entry point,” says Simon Crosby, co-founder and chief technology officer at Bromium.

“As usual, it’s leveraging a recently patched vulnerability that many have failed to implement in a timely matter,” he says. “As long as the industry continues to play this never ending cat and mouse game of patchwork systems, sophisticated attackers will easily find ways to exploit the public in increasingly large scale attacks such as this.”

How WannaCry Makes You Cry

The ETERNALBLUE exploit tool surfaced on the Internet via the Shadowbrokers’ dump on April 14. Although Microsoft had issued the March patch, many organizations have not yet installed it, according to Kaspersky’s blog post on WannaCry.

The security firm said WannaCry initiates through an SMBv2 remote code execution in Microsoft Windows and then encrypts data with a file extension “.WCRY.” It then drops and executes a decryptor tool that was designed to hit users in multiple countries with a ransom note translated to the appropriate language for that country, according to Kaspersky Lab.

Kaspersky’s Baumgartner describes the attack this way: “It is a worm over SMB and the communications are over TOR, directly to hidden services, so I would not call it a peer-to-peer worm.”

Researchers recommend installing Microsoft’s patch, which closes the affected SMB Server vulnerability used in the WannaCry attack.

For organizations that have older equipment or legacy software, such as hospitals, manufacturing plants, and power plants, deploying a patch can be complicated and disruptive, which may in part explain how a wide swath of NHS hospitals fell victim to WannaCry.

Dark Reading

7 Steps to Fight Ransomware

Ransomware can be a highly lucrative system for extracting money from a customer. Victims are faced with an unpleasant choice: either pay the ransom or lose access to the encrypted files forever. Until now, ransomware has appeared to be opportunistic and driven through random phishing campaigns. These campaigns often, but not always, rely on large numbers of emails that are harvested without a singular focus on a company or individual.

As ransomware perpetrators continue to hone their skills, we’re seeing a shift to more specific targets. The driver of this shift is the realization that companies, especially larger ones, are much higher-value targets than an average individual and are thus able to pay significantly higher ransoms.

This change has elevated the need for companies to strengthen their defensive strategies. Executives must allocate resources and ensure strategies are active against ransomware intent on paralyzing their organization.

The best defensive strategies should include the following:

1. Provide user awareness training and friendly testing. This can reduce the human attack surface.

2. Maintain a comprehensive patch management program to keep all systems up to date and reduce the endpoint attack surface.

3. Limit users’ privilege and network drive connectivity to the minimum essential for job requirements.

4. Conduct frequent backups and store them offline because many ransomware variants will spread through drive shares and can even reconnect a disconnected drive share.

5. Use network segmentation that requires authentication. For example, a user must enter a password before traversing the network. This will reduce the network attack surface.

6. Deploy advanced threat intelligence tools. Threat intelligence can be used to identify IP addresses of known command and control sites. Blocking these sites can potentially prevent malware from being able to establish its encryption routine. It’s important to note this strategy may not work on some newer versions of ransomware that operate independently and create their own encryption keys without having to communicate with a command and control server.

7. Lastly, as a final fallback, know how to buy Bitcoin (or Monero, which is emerging as an alternative means of payment.) Consider pre-purchasing some in advance in the event a ransom needs to be paid on short notice.

Should you pay the ransom to continue operations, or do you refuse to pay it as a matter of principle? The tie-breaker is the cost of downtime — measured potentially in the range of thousands of dollars per hour. One should establish in advance the financial impact of losing access to critical information or business processes, and work through the decision before facing a crisis.

Ransomware is a clear and present danger. Companies can no longer afford to take a wait-and-see attitude. If you’re vulnerable to ransomware and take no precautions to mitigate those vulnerabilities, then the only thing you’re relying upon to prevent an infection is hope — and hope is not a strategy. By implementing the seven defensive actions listed above you can greatly reduce, and potentially eliminate, vulnerabilities. Review the list again, and remember that increased security awareness training with testing can be your most effective defense.

Dark Reading

This Phishing Attack is Almost Impossible to Detect On Chrome, Firefox and Opera

A Chinese infosec researcher has discovered a new “almost impossible to detect” phishing attack that can be used to trick even the most careful users on the Internet.

He warned, Hackers can use a known vulnerability in the Chrome, Firefox and Opera web browsers to display their fake domain names as the websites of legitimate services, like Apple, Google, or Amazon to steal login or financial credentials and other sensitive information from users.

Read more

Hacking Group Claims N.S.A. Infiltrated Mideast Banking System

For the past few months, an elite hacking group calling itself the Shadow Brokers has sporadically leaked sensitive data from the National Security Agency. On Friday, just when its leaks had appeared to slow, the group released what appears to be its most damaging leak so far: a trove of highly classified hacking tools used to break into various Microsoft systems, along with what it said was evidence that the N.S.A. had infiltrated the backbone of the Middle East’s banking infrastructure.

The timing of the leaks coincides with the United States’ recent shift in policy in Syria, which has escalated the conflict with the Syrian government’s main backer, Russia. The Shadow Brokers wrote in broken English in an online post, which cited the American missile attack on a Syrian air base among other reasons for the leak, that after a hiatus, it had returned to leaking because it was upset that President Trump was abandoning “the peoples who getting you elected.”

Read more