Joshua Goldfarb

There are important lessons to be learned from a crisis, even the ones that are more fiction than fact.

I’ve heard the statement “society doesn’t deal with problems until they become a crisis” many times. Unfortunately, this is often the case in information security, but it doesn’t need to be this way. As security practitioners, we can’t fix the ills of society. We can, however, learn how to distinguish a real security crisis from a manufactured one. Furthermore, from each crisis (real or manufactured) that we go through, we can learn how to avert them all together.

In this spirit, I offer 20 questions to ask during a real or manufactured security crisis.

1. What is the threat that the issue at hand poses? Regardless of the noise surrounding a given situation, you need to understand the actual threat you’re dealing with. Conjecture and hype won’t help. Rather, you need to objectively understand how the threat could manifest itself as a risk to the organization.

2. What is the organization’s exposure to the threat? Once you understand the threat, you can evaluate your exposure to that threat. This needs to be done in order to fully understand the gravity of the situation.

3. What risk does this threat pose to the organization? Once you understand the organization’s exposure, you can assess the risk posed to the organization. This is where you really begin to understand how seriously to consider the threat and how aggressively to respond.

4. Is the hype surrounding this threat justified? Separating fact from fiction is important. If the facts support the hype surrounding a given threat, then it needs to be dealt with as such. However, if the facts tell a different story, it’s time to spin this one down.

5. Does the hype surrounding the threat translate to a real risk for the organization? If the risk is real, then it’s time to respond appropriately. That includes the communication necessary to keep the right stakeholders informed.

6. When did we first become aware of the issue? Were you just made aware of this, or have you been aware of it for quite some time? The difference is important. If you knew about a significant risk to the organization and didn’t act on it or escalate appropriately, that’s a fairly significant lapse in security.

7. Why wasn’t this raised earlier? If there is a reason, it can be addressed as part of continual process improvement. If there is no reason, it’s important to understand why.

8. Could we have avoided this issue? In many cases, issues can be avoided if risk assessment were done more proactively, or if the attack surface had been reduced significantly. Not in all cases, of course, but it’s good to ask the question.

9. Why didn’t we avoid this issue? Once you understand how you could have avoided an issue, you need to ask why you didn’t.

10. Has any damage to the organization occurred? This is, of course, the quintessential question. If no damage occurred, you need to remediate the risk, learn from your mistakes, and be thankful. If damage has occurred, then you still need to remediate the risk, learn from your mistakes, and, of course, perform incident response.

11. What are the steps required to remediate the issue? If you need to respond and remediate, the first step is to map out the steps required to do so properly. Taking a few moments to get organized and ensure all bases are covered yields a higher-quality result and saves time down the line.

12. What are the lessons learned from this issue? After any issue is dealt with, lessons need to be extracted and studied. This allows the security organization to improve and mature.

13. Can we apply those lessons to avoid a similar situation in the future?Obviously, crisis mode is a last resort. If you can apply lessons learned, you can avoid making the same mistake.

14. What other potential crises might we encounter? Post-crisis is a great time to think outside of the box and do some analysis. Understanding what other pitfalls you may encounter allows you to mitigate those risks ahead of time and improve the security posture of the organization.

15. What else can we tighten up to avoid future issues? You may have patched, tightened controls, or improved monitoring after the crisis, but what else can you do to keep from having to relive this or a similar experience?

16. How can we ensure that our remediation of the issue will be effective? Your plan may sound good on paper, but to be more certain, map the technologies and applications the issue affects, then conduct a sanity check to see whether it will achieve your desired goals.

17. Have we verified that remediation was effective? If you’ve already remediated, have you tested to ensure that the remediation was effective? If not, you could be exposed to a recurrence.

18. What steps have we taken to avoid a similar situation in the future?You need to ensure that whatever remediation you’ve done, whatever lessons you’ve learned, and whatever improvements you’ve made are lasting and not a one-time fix.

19. Have we precisely and effectively communicated actions to management and executives? Regardless of whether or not you had a real crisis, whether or not you handled it appropriately, and whether or not you’ve made improvements to the security organization, your actions need to be documented and communicated to management and executives. This builds confidence in the security team’s ability and avoids excessive spin-up when the next issue arises.

20. Have we taken steps to avoid future damage? In the end, it all comes down to whether or not you avoid or minimize damage to the organization. This is perhaps is the hardest question to answer. But it is likely the most important.

Josh (Twitter: @ananalytical) is an experienced information security leader who works with enterprises to mature and improve their enterprise security programs.  Previously, Josh served as VP, CTO – Emerging Technologies at FireEye and as Chief Security Officer for … View Full Bio

Business email compromise attacks are growing in prevalence and creativity. Here’s a look at how they work, the latest stats, and some recent horror stories.

Last summer, the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) sounded a loud alarm for organizations about the growing danger of business email compromise (BEC) scams. At that time, the FBI said BEC fraud had cost organizations worldwide $12 billion in losses since 2013.

Since then, the threat has continued to grow more dire. Security industry researchers have shown BEC scams are increasing in scope and complexity as attackers perfect their attack playbooks to target an increasing number of victims around the globe.

Here, Dark Reading takes a look at how BEC scams work, the latest statistics on BEC prevalence, and some recent BEC horror stories that should help security professionals and users prepare themselves for this growing class of fraud.

The Fraudulent Activity

Some of the actions the bad guys are trying to trigger include getting their targets to transfer money to an account supposedly held by the company to cover a confidential transaction, paying a phony “unpaid” invoice, or diverting payroll for employees on auto-pay. The scenarios are plentiful, only limited to the creativity of attackers in coming up with a convincing social engineering “hook” that makes sense for whomever the target may be. In many cases, these transactions are sizable, and attackers will do considerable research to come up with a plausible, tailored story. 

Crooks Making a Mint

The crooks are making a fortune on these fraudulent transfers, fully embracing the philosophy of the “bigger the lie, the more believable it is” and, in many cases, convincing victims to transfer millions of dollars at a time. Last year a European cinema chain fell victim to a BEC attack that bilked $21.5 million in a series of transfers over the course of a month. The attackers targeted a Dutch regional executive at the firm by posing as the French CEO of the company that supposedly needed funds transferred for an acquisition.

According to security experts such as Crane Hassold, senior director of threat research at Agari, the upside for BEC attackers is huge because, in many cases, it takes very little technical acumen or infrastructure to carry out their attacks. As such, they expect the bad guys to continue flocking to BEC.

“The ROI for BEC is significantly higher than any of the other more technical cyberattacks,” Hassold told Dark Reading. “I think that’s going to be the next step. We’ll see other groups move into this space.”

Significant BEC Increases in the Past Year

That phenomenon of growing awareness from the bad guys is already making itself apparent in recent statistical analysis of BEC attack trends. According to a report earlier this spring by Proofpoint, the number of BEC attacks per targeted organization increased 476% year-over-year in the last quarter of 2018. Meantime, Mimecast found in its 2019 annual report on email security that impersonation and BEC attacks increased by 67%, with 73% experiencing direct losses.

That last point is important to remember, as BEC losses aren’t from damages to systems, downtime, or lost productivity. Instead, these are losses of cold, hard cash. All told, the FBI said that the known total losses for BEC equaled $2.7 billion in 2018

BEC Scammers Love Targeting CFOs and Financial Gatekeepers

While the types of victims vary from case to case, one thing is certain: The bad guys love to go after CFOs and other financial gatekeepers. In fact, one recent report showed that a multinational gang of attackers conducting BEC campaigns would actually seek out companies that sell contact information to marketers about CFOs to fuel its social engineering targeting efforts. This group not only uses the common “unpaid vendor” story to trick victims, but also other subterfuge, such as pretending to be an executive trying to conduct M&A activity who urgently needs a down payment so as not to jeopardize the deal.

From 419 to BEC Scams

A brand new research report from Agari found that for some cybercriminal games, BEC attacks are just a part of the bad guy’s well-balanced breakfast of fraudulent schemes. It highlighted one group called Scattered Canary, which initially started about 10 years ago by a lone Nigerian 419 scammer. Since then it has built up to at least 35 individuals who now make big bucks with BEC scams; they also conduct romance scams, credential harvesting, credit card and check fraud, and tax cons.

No Target Is Sacred

Everyone is fair game for BEC attackers. These criminals have stolen nest eggs from families during real-estate transactions, and just this spring they managed to steal $1.75 million from an Ohio Catholic parishthat was raising money for a church renovation. In that case, the criminals posed as a construction company the church was working for, claiming it had missed payments on the project.

Ericka Chickowski

6 Security Scams Set to Sweep This Summer

Kelly Sheridan

Experts share the cybersecurity threats to watch for and advice to stay protected.

We look forward to summer’s warm weather, travel plans, and maybe some added relaxation. Cybercriminals look forward to summer’s new opportunities for scams and targeted attacks.

Seasonal threats aren’t new; for example, the holiday season typically brings phishing attacks in the form of fake package deliveries and fraudulent gift cards. Similarly, summertime, which drives an increase in flights and hotel stays, should put people on high alert for a wave of related scams.

Travelers taking time away from work and home are often too busy planning their vacations to protect their devices and data, but there’s no downtime for cyberattackers. Hackers are getting more advanced in their techniques to capture information, and they’re taking a closer look at the travel industry, targeting hotel chains and airlines with data breaches to capture loyalty program numbers, payment card data, and other personally identifiable information (PII).

But travel scams aren’t the only security threats to worry about this summer. Here, security experts weigh in on threats that should be top-of-mind for consumers and employees alike. Any threats you’re worried about that aren’t listed here? Feel free to share them in the Comments, below.

Kelly Sheridan is the Staff Editor at Dark Reading, where she focuses on cybersecurity news and analysis. She is a business technology journalist who previously reported for InformationWeek, where she covered Microsoft, and Insurance & Technology, where she covered financial services. Sheridan earned her BA in English at Villanova University. You can follow her on Twitter @kellymsheridan.

Travel Security: Confidence Is Higher Than Deserved

In research released late last month, IBM discovered a disconnect between survey respondents’ confidence in their security practices and their actual security habits while on the road. One-quarter say they are “very” or “extremely” confident in their abilities to protect themselves from cybercrime while traveling; 37% say they’re “somewhat” confident. Only 16% and 9% say they’re “a little” or “not at all” confident, respectively.

But when asked about their travel habits, 24% of these confident respondents admit to connecting to public Wi-Fi networks every time they travel on business; 22% do the same on all personal trips. More than 25% bring and use a device containing confidential or sensitive work-related data when they travel for work; 16% do the same when traveling for pleasure. Nearly 20% of seemingly security-savvy travelers charge devices via public USB ports or charging stations when traveling for business; 17% do the same when they’re on vacation.

More than 70% of Americans have engaged in a higher-risk travel behavior – connecting to public Wi-Fi, for example, or charging on a public USB station – regardless of whether they’re traveling for business or pleasure. Charles Henderson, global managing partner at IBM and head of X-Force Red, points to another trend: “Very often, consumers treat work information differently than they treat personal information,” he says.

In addition, people are more likely to protect their own data than corporate trade secrets, a common issue faced by CISOs, he says. It is worth noting respondents travel far more frequently for personal than business reasons. Only 26% report traveling for work, while 84% say they primarily travel for personal reasons.

Seasonal Scams Turn Political

It’s not new for cybercriminals to capitalize on major events with phishing campaigns; we’ve previously seen this in Olympic Destroyer and World Cup-themed attacks. It is helpful, however, to know which trends are top-of-mind. This summer, it’s the 2020 presidential campaign.

“Obviously, political alliances and political leanings are something that’s useful in trying to get people,” says Adam Kujawa, director of Malwarebytes Labs.

Leading into the 2020 campaign, we’ll likely see several attempts by cybercriminals locally based in the US or Western countries. Will disinformation manifest in social media campaigns, as it did during the 2016 elections? Not necessarily. After social media came under a harsh spotlight following the last presidential campaign, Kujawa thinks criminals spreading gossip and disinformation will turn to phishing.

“These are the kind of focused attacks we see more against consumers,” he adds. Still, it’s important for employees to be aware of threats that could potentially arrive in their inboxes.

Loyal to Fraud

Cybercriminals are ramping up with attacks against travel companies. In recent years we’ve seen massive breaches at Marriott/Starwood, Cathay Pacific, and British Airways. “The travel industry as a whole has been targeted much, much more,” IBM’s Henderson says, because it “has the trifecta of data criminals care about.”

This includes PII (names, passports, driver’s license numbers, birthdates), payment card data, and loyalty numbers. It’s an emerging trend for cybercriminals, he explains. “Loyalty programs, and loyalty fraud, is huge,” Henderson says. Rewards numbers for airlines and hotels are located on boarding passes and baggage tags. Cybercriminals have their eyes peeled, as points can be cashed in for free flight tickets and hotel stays, Henderson explains.

And because rewards customers are considered VIPs, hotels and airlines try to avoid inconveniencing them and often don’t pressure them for details if they call in with a loyalty program number. This makes it easy for criminals, armed with a loyalty program number, to pretend to be someone else and walk away with free flights or hotel stays.

“They don’t want to be the inconvenient travel airline or hotel,” says Henderson, who points to a need for industry standards around traveler protection with respect to loyalty programs. He also advises companies in the travel industry to test what a breach looks like, so they can more effectively detect and respond to incidents when they occur.

Summertime Employment Scams

Job hunters should be aware of multiple variations of employment scams during the summer months, says Adrien Gendre, chief solution architect at Vade Secure. These impersonate companies of all sizes and industries, and while they happen year-round, they’re most prevalent during the summer months and at year’s end when people are job hunting.

Some scams arrive in the form of fake job offers appearing to come from recruiters at large companies. They invite recipients to join a job search database by downloading a free application, which is laced with malware. Others are deceptive spam emails, which claim to offer available jobs but redirect recipients to a fraudulent site. There are also LinkedIn phishing attempts, which try to manipulate people into sharing data or downloading malware.

“The topics of LinkedIn phishing emails range from bogus connection requests to fake job offers, with the goal of harvesting credentials and other personal information or installing malware,” Gendre says.

He advises employees to be logical: If something seems too good to be true, it likely is. “For instance, large, well-known companies typically have candidates flocking to them, so why would they need to blindly email people who may or may not have the necessary experience?” he says.

Further, think twice if an alleged recruiter demands an immediate response. Yes, you have to move quickly to land a dream job – but that’s exactly what the attacker wants.

Watch Your Wi-Fi

Travelers have a nasty habit of hunting down free Wi-Fi before and after their flights. Attackers are taking advantage, IBM’s Henderson says, and using this behavior to inform their strategies. Many have started to bring their own Wi-Fi hotspots and/or sting rays (fake cell towers designed to intercept data between devices and the Internet) into airports, hoping travelers will connect. While cybercriminals target travel companies year-round, they’re more likely to target travelers during peak times of the year.

“If you notice a behavior in travelers, you’re going to target it in the form of crime,” he explains. The airport is an interesting place because people who are getting off a flight and didn’t want to pay for in-flight Wi-Fi want to catch up with the world as soon as they land. Similarly, people whose devices are running low on battery are quick to plug into any USB charging port without stopping to think the connection could be malicious.

Malwarebytes Labs’ Kujawa also points to the risks associated with not only rogue hotspots, but public Internet. “Public Wi-Fi, combined with auto-connecting on devices, is a huge security vulnerability, in my opinion,” he says.

Travelers should be aware of when their devices connect to public Wi-Fi networks at Starbucks or McDonald’s, which can happen without their agreement. “That’s an easy way to not even be aware the information’s traveling over the network,” he adds.

Targeted in Transit

More than half of the respondents in IBM’s research are “very” or “extremely” concerned their credit cards or other sensitive information will be stolen while traveling, while about 31% say they are similarly concerned about this type of data theft at home. Nearly 40% say they put “a great deal” or “extreme amount” of effort into protecting digital data while traveling, 32% say they put “some” effort into their protection, and 19% say they put in “not much” or no effort at all.

But data is in demand, and Henderson encourages travelers to recognize this. “Understand that your data is valuable,” he says. “That’s something that a lot of consumers miss.” If people accept their data has value, he continues, they’re more likely to protect it.

“Luckily, it’s very easy to try and avoid that stuff happening anymore,” says Kujawa, who recommends prepaid credit cards for those worried about having numbers stolen on the road. But that’s not all travelers can do to protect their data: Malwarebytes advises travelers to buy shields for contactless payment cards so they can transport them without leaking information. It’s also smart to back up data on all devices coming on the journey; this way, if anything is stolen, the information isn’t lost.

Kelly Jackson Higgins

Tweet suggests possible screenshot of stolen city documents and credentials in the wake of attack that took down city servers last week.

A mysterious and newly created Twitter account on May 12 posted what purports to be a screenshot of sensitive documents and user credentials from the city of Baltimore, which was hit late last week by a major ransomware attack.

Researchers at Armor who have been investigating the so-called Robbinhood ransomware malware used in the attack on the city discovered the post. They say it could either be from the attacker, a city employee, someone with access to the documents — or even be just a hoax. The city is still recovering from the May 7 attack, which has disrupted everything from real estate transactions awaiting deeds, bill payments for residents, and services such as email and telecommunications.

Ransomware attacks typically are all about making money: Attackers demand a fee to decrypt victims’ files they have accessed and encrypted. Whether the tweet came from the attackers trying to put the squeeze on the city to pay up or threatening to abuse the kidnapped information is unclear.

City officials previously have said they have no plans to pay the ransom. “I think the mayor was very clear: We’re not paying a ransom,” said City Council president Brandon Scott in an interview yesterday on a local CBS affiliate.

Eric Sifford, security researcher with Armor’s Threat Resistance Unit (TRU), discovered the Twitter post appearing to taunt or threaten Baltimore officials. He says he’s not sure whether the tweet came from the actual attackers. “They are trying to make a statement … and to show that they not only were able to encrypt major portions of network of the city …. but they have a lot of internal access,” as well, if the documents in the screenshot are legitimate, Sifford says.

Armor today will post a blog with an obfuscated shot of the tweet and account to ensure the City of Baltimore gets the chance to change the posted usernames and passwords if, indeed, they are legit.

Dark Reading has viewed the full Twitter account and post but is only publishing the obfuscated information.

Meanwhile, the Robbinhood attackers in their ransom note demanded $17,600 in bitcoin per system — a total of about $76,280, according to analysis by Armor. The bitcoin wallet for the ransom for the city had not been used at this time, the researchers say, indicating the city has kept its vow not to pay.

Most of Baltimore’s servers were shut down as officials investigated the attack last week, but its 911 and 311 systems were not hit, according to reporting by The Baltimore Sun. When the attack was spotted, employees at City Hall were told to unplug Ethernet cables and shut down their computers and other devices to stem the spread of the malware, Baltimore city councilman Ryan Dorsey told the Sun.

Efforts today to reach some Baltimore city officials, including the office of the city’s newly named mayor, Bernard C. Jack Young, were unsuccessful in several cases, in part because email is down for many employees, and several departments are instead using Google Voice voicemail to get messages.

A spokesperson for Baltimore City Council Member Zeke Cohen, with whom Dark Reading was able to contact, said Cohen’s office did not have any information on the tweet, nor could they verify whether the information and documents in the screenshot are from the information encrypted by the ransomware attackers.

Security expert John Bambenek, director of cybersecurity research at ThreatStop, says the tweet looks relatively legitimate. “Either someone spent real effort trying to find documents from public sources or it’s our guy. Either way, he just put himself on the menu for the FBI if he’s not,” Bambenek says.

‘Hurry Up!’
Armor said the Robbinhood ransom note also warns the city not to call the FBI, or risk the attackers going away and leaving the files encrypted. “We’ve watching you for days and we’ve worked on your systems to gain full access to your company and bypass all of your protections,” the ransom note said, specifying payment within four days or the fee would increase. After 10 days, the data would no longer be recoverable, the note said, according to Armor.

“We won’t talk more. All we know is MONEY! Hurry up! Tik Tak, Tik Tak, Tik Tak!” the note read, according to Armor.

The same ransomware recently hit the city of Greenville, N.C., as well as several power companies in India last month, according to the security firm.

Meanwhile, Baltimore’s ransomware attack is one of 22 against state and local government entities so far in 2019, Armor notes. Other victims including Washington, Pennsylvania; Amarillo, Texas; Cleveland Airport, Cleveland, Ohio; Augusta City Center, Augusta, Maine; Stuart, Florida; Imperial County, California; Garfield County, Utah; Greenville, North Carolina; Albany, New York; Jackson County, Georgia; Schools System of Taos, New Mexico; Del Rio, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; and Leominster, Massachusett

Kelly Jackson Higgins is Executive Editor at DarkReading.com. She is an award-winning veteran technology and business journalist with more than two decades of experience in reporting and editing for various publications, including Network Computing, Secure Enterprise … View Full Bio