Welcome to the Ironshare Cyber Round-up where we look back atthe events of that last week and cover some of the news, posts, views, and highlightsfrom the world of Security.
In this week’s round-up:
InSeptember 2017, Equifax suffered a massive data breach affecting 147 millionpeople in the US and 14 million in the UK. The breach included the birth dates,social security numbers and payment card details of all affected users. Thisarticle covers a different, often-missed aspect of a breach; the overwhelming humanimpact on the staff. Loss of the leadership team, long hours, huge pressure,demand and criticism of the IT & Security teams, being forced to maintainsecrecy, and online abuse, all lead to a decline in the mental health of thoseinvolved. The Equifax breach should be a lesson to all Companies; focus on all thepotential impact areas, including human factors and not just the financial consequences.
Over thelast two years, Equifax have responded to the incident by spending $1.25billion on the transformation of their security capabilities. Equifax are now consideredone of the industry leaders in security after the changes made following thebreach.
By BBC.co.uk
A recentsecurity incident has led to customer’s personal information being leaked tothe public. Following the leak, Trend Micro, a global security firm, immediatelystarted to investigate; during the investigation their lead suspect was one oftheir own employees who had stolen the data with malicious intent. Theyconfirmed in a recent report that there was no external hack involved and theleak was in fact a result of an insider threat. Insider threats are often overlookedbut should be seen a major threat to any organisation. The company have sincerely apologized to allwho received scam calls from the criminal and responded to the incident veryquickly.
By TrendMicro.com
Scammers have found a new way to bait their victims into falling for phishing attempts; in a recent campaign, scammers have disguised themselves as the victim’s Human Resources department and tempted them with a pay rise. The email prompts them to open an excel spreadsheet which redirects them to a fake Office 365 login page. These kinds of branded phishing attacks have been very successful against a large number of employees; unless you know what you are looking for, the login page can be very deceiving and often perceived as legitimate. Always be cautious when dealing with emails such as this, and only click on links if you are certain they are from a trusted source. If it sounds too good to be true, your probably right.
By BleepingComputer.com
Researchers have recently identified a spate of MageCart attacks carried out by multiple groups on the same sites at the same time. This is believed to be the result of a cybercrime-as-a-service operation, in which various groups breach websites using card skimming kits purchased on the internet. After an attack is disclosed, it is likely that multiple groups will attempt to take advantage of it. This was seen on the online store PEXSuperstore; the site was infected with two MageCart skimmers that were completely different. The main similarity that researchers have picked up on is that both attacks targeted Magento-based websites and injected code in similar ways; it is believed that these simultaneous attacks are not intentional, with several groups running multiple campaigns without realizing.
By ThreatPost.com
A new zero-day vulnerability has been found that affects the Google Chrome web browser. The exploit was found by Kaspersky, a Russian cyber security firm, who believe it is being used in a campaign known as ‘Operation WizardOpium’; this campaign is possibly linked to the Lazarus group of attacks. The bug has been flagged as very dangerous, as it allows attackers to execute code when exploited. Google have now released a patch for this vulnerability; we recommend applying this patch as soon as possible. More details on the nature of the bug included in the original post.
By GulfNews.com
And that’s it for this week round-up, please don’t forget totune in for our next instalment.
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Edition #66 – 8th November 2019
Stuart Hare is a Technologist with a passion for helping people in all aspects of IT & Cyber Security. Stuart is the Founder of Ironshare, an Information and Cyber Security company providing consultancy and managed services.
Samuel is a Security Analyst with Ironshare, an Information and Cyber Security company providing Security consultancy and managed services.
Joshua is working as a Managed Service Lead with Ironshare, an Information and Cyber Security company providing Security consultancy and managed services.
