Security warning for software developers: You are now prime targets for phishing attacks
Anny Palmer
ZD Net
Software developers are the people most targeted by hackers conducting cyberattacks against the technology industry, with the hackers taking advantage of the public profiles of individuals working in the high-turnover industry to help conduct their phishing campaigns.
The August 2019 Threat Intelligence Bulletin from cybersecurity company Glasswall details the industries most targeted by phishing, with the technology sector accounting for almost half of malicious phishing campaigns.
According to the Glasswall report, software developer is the role most targeted by hackers going after the technology sector.
A key reason for this is that devs do the groundwork on building software and will often have administrator privileges across various systems.
That’s something attackers can exploit to move laterally around networks and gain access to their end goal.
One way potential victims could make themselves less susceptible to attacks would be to display less information about themselves on their public-facing profiles – although given this is how many look for work, that might not be practical for everyone.
Link: https://www.zdnet.com/article/security-warning-for-software-developers-you-are-now-prime-targets-for-phishing-attacks/
[Infographic] Nations and Hackers Unleash Destructive Malware!
Rich Tehrani
Tehrani Blog
A new report from IBM X-Force Incident Response and Intelligence Services (IRIS) shows that these attacks have been on the rise, posing a growing threat to a wide variety of businesses that may not consider themselves an obvious target.
Key findings include:
• Massive destruction, massive costs: Destructive attacks are costing multinational companies $239 million on average.
As a point of comparison, this is 61 times more costly than the average cost of a data breach ($3.92 million).
• The long road to recovery: The debilitating nature of these attacks requires a lot of resources and time to respond and remediate, with companies on average requiring 512 hours from their incident response team.
It’s also common for organizations to use multiple companies to handle the response and remediation, which would increase hours even further.
• RIP laptops: A single destructive attack destroys 12,000 machines per company on average — creating quite a tab for new devices in order to get companies’ workforce back in action.
Link: https://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/security/infographic-nations-and-hackers-unleash-destructive-malware.html
Why Modernizing Security is Like Visiting a Fast-Food Restaurant
Jonathan Divincenzo
Dev Ops.com
Fast casual restaurants are taking over the food industry.
Today’s consumers want quality and speed, and the brick-and-mortar model offering immediate service paired with quality ingredients perfectly fits the bill.
It’s the new, modernized dining experience.
You can also argue that the same modernization taking the food industry by storm is happening in the security sector.
A modern infrastructure mix is made up of many parts (much like a layered chicken sandwich): cloud, containers, hardware, platforms—and sometimes serverless.
Flexibility and deployment options are essential to defending applications and APIs across multiple components and delivery stacks.
Typically, security teams end up in a balancing act of supporting new infrastructure plans while taking over existing legacy systems and applications.
The modern world is ever-evolving and the definition of “modern” changes as new technology is introduced.
Fast-food chains have evolved over the years and, in turn, moved the food industry forward with the introduction of fast, casual and reliable options.
The companies continue to evolve to meet the customers’ demands by introducing delivery services, unique rewards programs and leading mobile apps.
Link: https://devops.com/why-modernizing-security-is-like-visiting-a-fast-food-restaurant/
The Mainframe Is Seeing a Resurgence. Is Security Keeping Pace?
Ray Overby
Dark Reading
The old-school technology is experiencing new popularity, but too many people assume mainframes are inherently secure.
Case in point: IBM’s Z series mainframe sales are up 70% year-over-year.
And a recent Compuware survey showed that mainframe workloads are increasing.
Currently, 57% of enterprises with a mainframe run more than half of their critical applications on the mainframe, but that number is expected to rise to 64% by next year, according to Compushare.
Overlooking mainframe security is an industrywide issue today.
Recent research shows that even though 85% of companies say that mainframe security is a top priority, 67% admit that they only sometimes or rarely factor security into mainframe environment decisions.
Ultimately, the mainframe renaissance will equip businesses with the processing power, reliability, and scalability they need to thrive.
But for true peace of mind, especially where sensitive customer data is involved, businesses need to be aware of the importance of mainframe security and, just as importantly, prepared to execute on it.
Link: https://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities—threats/the-mainframe-is-seeing-a-resurgence-is-security-keeping-pace/a/d-id/1335476
The Ins and Outs of SOC for MSSPs and MSPs
Edward Gately
Channel Partners
To be successful as an MSSP or security-centric MSP, security operations center (SOC) is a must.
Channel Partners: What are some of the issues to consider when deciding whether to build your own SOC or outsource?
- Cost – building a SOC could cost $1-3 million depending on the size and scope.
- Timing – some partners may find that it’s better to outsource the SOC to ensure your sales team is capable of selling the solution before you invest in building it yourself.
- Skills – finding qualified people to work as SOC analysts is very difficult, so make sure that you have a pipeline of these rare resources before you invest.
- Scope – you need to decide early if you will staff for 24×7 or 9×5. Maybe you should partner for the after-hours work.
CP: What are some common mistakes to avoid when building your own SOC?
AR: Automation needs to be top of mind from the start.
A security information and event management (SIEM) solution alone with SOC analysis to sift through the data will not be effective unless you can automate some of the incident response to help you scale.
CP: What’s the best criteria for choosing a specialist to handle your SOC?
IT people think in a structured way with rules, policies and procedures – but hackers are very unstructured and creative.
To catch a hacker, you need to think like them, so hire a former programmer with problem-solving skills.
Link: https://www.channelpartnersonline.com/article/the-ins-and-outs-of-soc-for-mssps-and-msps/
Demisto & Uptycs: Orchestrating Incident Response Activities
Security Boulevard
Uptycs leverages the open-source osquery agent in order to acquire real-time data about nearly any facet of your infrastructure (more about osquery here).
This data is streamed, aggregated, and stored in the Uptycs backend and then made accessible via our API, allowing the integration of Uptycs data with other services.
The Uptycs-Demisto integration (available here in the Demisto Integration catalog) allows customers of both solutions the use of Uptycs data within their Demisto instance.
Link: https://securityboulevard.com/2019/08/demisto-uptycs-orchestrating-incident-response-activities/
Secureworks Unveils 24/7 Threat Detection and Response Service
Dan Kobialka
MSSP Alert
Secureworks, a Top 100 MSSP, has added a 24/7 service to its Red Cloak Threat Detection and Response (TDR) offering.
Red Cloak TDR’s 24/7 service helps organizations scale their security expertise and combat cyber threats, according to Secureworks.
In doing so, the service enables organizations to accelerate threat detection, response and remediation.
The 24/7 service for Red Cloak TDR is now available.
Also, Secureworks is showcasing its updated version of Red Cloak TDR at this week’s Black Hat USA conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Red Cloak TDR is a managed detection and response (MDR) offering designed to help organizations identify cyber threats that typically go undetected by traditional security solutions, Secureworks noted.
It uses insights from incident response engagements to provide continuously updated threat intelligence and analytics that enables organizations to recognize malicious activity.
In addition, Red Cloak TDR analyzes data from IT environments and applies advanced analytics and threat intelligence, Secureworks said.
It then alerts end users if it identifies suspicious activity that requires attention.
Link: https://www.msspalert.com/cybersecurity-companies/mssps/secureworks-threat-detection/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=sendpress&utm_campaign
IBM: Average Destructive Attacks Costs Over $200 Million
Dan Kobialka
MSSP Alert
Destructive malware, malicious software with the capability to render affected systems inoperable, represents a growing problem for global organizations, according to IBM X-Force Incident Response and Intelligence Services (IRIS).
Large multinational companies appear to incur costs around $239 million per destructive malware incident — 61 times greater than the cost of a typical data breach, IBM IRIS noted.
Furthermore, the average destructive malware attack affects 12,316 computer workstations and servers and requires 512 hours to remediate.
Link: https://www.msspalert.com/cybersecurity-research/ibm-destructive-malware-costs/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=sendpress&utm_campaign
Cylance report looks into questionable pentesting practices
Security Brief – Asia
BlackBerry has announced that new research from the BlackBerry Cylance Threat Intelligence Team has uncovered a trove of highly sensitive data.
In Thin Red Line: Penetration Testing Practices Examined, the BlackBerry Cylance Threat Intelligence Team sheds light on a range of questionable pentesting practices, by-products and outcomes.
The report raises critical questions about the industry’s adherence to expectations of privacy and confidentiality, as well as compliance with legal and regulatory requirements, like Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Included in the report is a case study of an advanced persistent threat (APT) like group which the research team found to be operating openly as a Brazilian security firm that is linked to the exposure of sensitive air traffic control data.
The research also explores the tradecraft of more than two dozen well-known companies offering pentesting services, from boutiques to blue chips, and finds the widespread exposure of client data in semi-public repositories.
Link: https://securitybrief.asia/story/cylance-report-looks-into-questionable-pentesting-practices
Help Net Security
It includes a mature Npcap raw packet capturing/sending driver, 11 new NSE scripts, a bunch of new libraries, bug fixes and performance improvements.
Nmap team has created the Npcap raw packet capturing/sending driver because the previously used Winpcap hasn’t been updated since 2013, doesn’t always work on Windows 10, and depends on long-deprecated Windows APIs.
Npcap uses modern APIs, is more performant, secure and featureful.
Nmap 7.80 updates the bundled Npcap from version 0.99-r2 to 0.9982, including all changes from the last 15 Npcap releases.
Link: https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2019/08/12/nmap-7-80/
Response Source
NTT Security, the specialised security company of NTT Group, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3).
This latest move forms part of its committment to sharing its strategic threat intelligence with industry partners and law enforcement agencies to prevent cybercrime globally.
The new MoU defines a framework for NTT Security and Europol to exchange strategic threat intelligence as well as information relating to cybersecurity trends and industry best practice.
Trust building through public-private sector partnerships is a priorty for NTT Security as it looks to enhance it’s relationship with EC3 which now includes NTT Security’s Global Threat Intelligence and Incident Center (GTIC)
Europol is one of many partners with whom NTT Security collaborates.
Others include the National Cyber Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA); Council of Registered Ethical Security Testers (CREST); Cyber Threat Alliance (CTA) Forum of Incident Response Teams (FIRST) and others.
Link: https://pressreleases.responsesource.com/news/98221/ntt-security-partners-with-europol-to-bolster-threat-intelligence/
ConnectWise Identifies MSP Security Holes Through Risk Assessments
Maddie Bacon
Channel Futures
More than half of MSPs don’t do basic security awareness training, according to new data from ConnectWise.
57% of participating MSPs and SMBs don’t do security awareness training, 48% have not assessed or analyzed cybersecurity attack targets and tactics, and 48% don’t have a security incident response plan in place — all while more than 60% of SMBs experience cyberattacks or data breaches, according to the “2017 State of Cybersecurity in Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (SMB)” report from Ponemon Institute.
Link: https://www.channelfutures.com/security/connectwise-identifies-msp-security-holes-through-risk-assessments
Stronger as One: IronNet Expands the Power of Collective Defense to Organizations of All Sizes
Iron Net
New strategic initiative will improve cyber defense collaboration and security outcomes across organization and industry
IronNet Cybersecurity, the leading provider of collective defense and network behavioral analysis for companies and industries, today announces that IronDome, the industry’s first and only collective defense platform, is now available to companies of all sizes.
IronDome is a revolutionary way to defend against sophisticated and well-funded cyber adversaries by enabling organizations to join resources and envision impending potential threats to collectively defend against targeted attacks.
The platform applies advanced behavioral analytics, AI, and machine learning techniques to network traffic data and combines the tradecraft knowledge of the best offensive and defensive cyber operators in the world with world-class mathematicians and data scientists.
This IronDome expansion will be the first cross-sector sharing initiative at scale.
Additional initiatives will be launched to complement other public-private sharing entities and to provide a real-time anonymized view into domestic and international threats for cyber response.
Link: https://ironnet.com/new/stronger-as-one-ironnet-expands-the-power-of-collective-defense-to-organizations-of-all-sizes/
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