Security Alert

Most Small Businesses Can’t Recover From Cyber Breaches

September 10, 2018 by Joseph Martin

A new study recently published by Sitchfast Technologies paints a grim picture of the threat landscape for small and medium-sized business. Their key finding? A staggering 60 percent of small businesses that suffer a data breach of any magnitude go out of business within six months. Worse, one business owner in three does not have a plan or safeguards in place to prevent a breach.

The single biggest weak link in the small business landscape is the fact that most employees who work for smaller companies are woefully uneducated about the dangers, how to identify them and how to avoid them. The study noted that among small business employees, more than a third (35 percent ) haven’t changed their passwords in over a year. In addition, 19 percent of small business employees share their passwords with colleagues, with a similar percentage using weak passwords based on personally identifiable information. Put those elements together, and it’s a recipe for disaster.

The authors of the report had this to say on the matter:

“Today’s cyber criminals employ a variety of complex attack methods to exploit business weaknesses and target employees with bad cyber hygiene, whether it’s the CEO or an intern, bypassing the basic security measures most companies have in place.

Until they recognize they are prime targets for hackers and adjust their security strategies, small businesses will continue to fall victim to rampant cyber attacks.”

Unfortunately, there are no easy solutions, but the report clearly points to two areas where you can make immediate improvements:

Currently, 65 percent of small to medium sized businesses have never run a phishing email test.

Only 21 percent of small to medium sized businesses provide cybersecurity training to their employees.

Both of these are incredibly easy to remedy, and if you perform these two simple steps, you’ll be miles ahead of your peers.

Joseph Martin

President & CEO
I hope you enjoyed this article. My mission is to take your stress away from dealing with IT problems. Call (252) 565-1235 or send me a message at our contact us page if you have a question, comment or want help.

Vulnerability Found In Major Manufacturers Of Android Phones

September 8, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Researchers operating out of the University of Florida, Stony Brook University and Samsung Research America have made a disturbing discovery. Millions of Android smartphones manufactured by eleven different OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) were found to be vulnerable to attack via AT Commands.

If you’re not sure what an “AT Command” is, you’re not alone. Part of the Hayes Command Set, ATtention Commands were developed in the early 1980s and designed to be transmitted via phone lines to issue commands to modems.

Most people aren’t even aware of the fact that their high-tech smartphones contain a basic modem within them, which allows the high-tech wonder to connect to the internet. While AT Commands have been standardized, many vendors have added custom AT Commands to their devices, and unfortunately, these commands can control a surprising variety of advanced features including the built-in camera and the touchscreen interface.

The AT Commands can be accessed via the phone’s USB interface. This means that a would-be attacker would have to gain physical access to the device, or place a malicious component inside a user’s charger, charging station, or USB dock.

Once a hacker is connected in this manner to the victim’s phone, he could use one of the AT Commands to steal data, unlock the screen, mimic touchscreen events, or even rewrite the phone’s firmware.

The research team has complied a database of phone models and firmware versions that are vulnerable to this type of attack. They have contacted all the vendors, and are continuing their testing.

Initially, the team tested AT Commands via the USB interface. Phase two of the research will test to see if those commands can be issued via WiFi or Bluetooth connections. The team has also published the Shell script they used in their original testing, available on GitHub.

So far, none of the OEMs contacted have released any information or given a timetable for a fix.

Joseph Martin

Security Issues Abound – Texas Voter Registration Records Leaked

September 7, 2018 by Joseph Martin

The great state of Texas has 15.2 million registered voters. Unfortunately, personal details belonging to nearly all of them (14.8 million) have been compromised, but don’t blame the state’s election officials.

This staggering breach was caused by the carelessness of a conservative-focused data firm, ironically named “The Data Trust.” They left their research file completely exposed and unprotected on a server that anyone could access with no password required. It’s hard to see how the exposure could have been more damaging or all-inclusive.

The Single, massive file contained the following details:

Voter name

Voter address

Gender

Voting history for past elections, including primaries and presidential elections

According to the independent New Zealand researcher who discovered it, who goes by the name of “Flash Gordon,” the file also contained indications of voter views on abortion, immigration, the Second Amendment, and whether or not the voter in question trusted Hillary Clinton.

Bill Evans, the VP of the security firm “One Identity,” had this to say about the incident:

“The idea of having a database like this sitting with no password is such an incredible lapse in judgement today. While we all know that keeping up with password best practices can be somewhat annoying – forgetting and resetting them in a broken cycle – it is inexcusable and maybe illegal to leave data that contains personal information like this completely unprotected.

It is a good reminder, however, and call to action for any organization that is storing sensitive data, that it is their responsibility to ensure security, as well as authentication to access it. There are four basic security measures that should be part and parcel of doing business today. Those include end-user education, multi-factor authentication, privileged-access management, and access governance to ensure only the right people have the right access to the right things at the right time.”

Indeed.

Joseph Martin

Hackers Now Targeting Point Of Sale Systems

September 6, 2018 by Joseph Martin

There’s a new threat to point of sale (POS) systems coming out of Russia, according to security researchers from Booz Allen Hamilton. The malware, which they’re calling “RtPOS” isn’t bleeding edge technology, and does not approach the level of sophistication of other recently discovered strains, but that doesn’t mean it should be taken lightly. These strains include RawPOS, MajikPOS, UDPOS, and Treasure hunter.

In its current incarnation, it has a limited feature set and is basically a RAM scrapper. Once deployed, it will watch a PC’s RAM looking for text patterns, which are saved to a local DAT file. Of interest, it doesn’t currently appear to have any sort of networking capability, so when the data is collected and stored, it has no means of actually porting it to a command and control server (yet).

There are two competing theories as to why this software is the way it is. One theory is that it’s simply a rough draft. A work in progress. Although relatively benign in its current incarnation, it would be quite easy for the authors to add enhancements to the code, and possibly to update the software remotely, turning this “nonthreatening” software into a true menace in the blink of an eye.

Another theory is that RtPOS is one part of a multi-part, much more subtle attack. The purpose of the software is simply to infect and collect data, leaving it to a separate process to exfiltrate the data at irregular intervals, which would be more difficult to detect, and unlikely to draw attention.

At present, there’s no clear indication which theory is correct, but both ideas are disturbing. As ever, vigilance is the key. Hardly a day goes by that researchers somewhere in the world don’t discover some new threat. This is but the latest.

Joseph Martin

Hackers Make More Money Than Is Spent On Cybersecurity

September 5, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Quick question – how much do the world’s cyber criminals make every sixty seconds?

If you guessed a quarter of a million dollars, you’d be wrong. If you doubled that value, you’d be wrong again.

According to research conducted by RiskIQ, cybercriminals are raking in a cool million dollars per minute, compared with businesses spending $171,233 per minute on security measures. It’s a lopsided battle, and businesses aren’t winning.

Some other interesting tidbits culled from the company’s research. Every sixty seconds:

Four new potentially vulnerable web components are discovered.

A new website appears running the CoinHive cryptocurrency mining script.

1.5 companies fall victim to a ransomware attack, with an average cost to the victimized company of $15,221.

In addition to that, RiskIQ discovered that a site running the CoinHive script was deleted every ten minutes, and that a new phishing domain appears about every five minutes.

Raef Meeuwisse, a security researcher and author, had this to say about the report and its findings:

“Cybercrime and cybersecurity co-exist in a constant cycle of innovation. As one particular criminal trend towards a particular technique increases, so the security functions create or strengthen the required defenses.

However, it is evident at both the level of personal and organizational cybersecurity that spending is unusually low. In fact, most of these cybercriminals are not going after the hard targets with great defenses, they are targeting the low hanging fruit – and there is still far too much of it.”

The simple truth is that until and unless we start taking cybersecurity more seriously, and until the aforementioned “low hanging fruit” ramps up spending to properly secure their systems, we can expect to see the number of cybercrimes continue to increase. Unfortunately, despite the crimewave, there doesn’t seem to be much motivation to do that.

Joseph Martin

High Frequency Audio Computer Monitors May Expose Screen Activity

September 4, 2018 by Joseph Martin

It may sound like something straight out of a science fiction movie, but recently, researchers have made a disturbing discovery. Using nothing more than an off-the-shelf microphone, it’s possible for an attacker to determine what content you’re viewing on your computer monitor.

The researchers tested a variety of LCD screens (with both LED and CCFL backlighting) and observed that the high-pitched noise made by the monitors changed as the content displayed on the screen changed.

The research team tested a variety of methods of recording audio data from the monitors in question, and found that they could capture sufficient data with a few methods. First, a smartphone positioned near the screen, second a compromised smart virtual assistant (like Google Home or Amazon’s Alexa), and third, using a parabolic microphone from up to ten meters distant.

Even more disturbing, the researchers discovered that an attacker could correctly identify the website a victim was looking at with up to 97 percent accuracy if the microphone was close to the monitor, and with 90.9 percent accuracy with microphones placed at some distance.

Worst of all, subtle changes in the pitch of your display screen make it possible for hackers to identify what specific characters are being displayed with an accuracy that ranged from 88 percent (more distant microphones) to 98 percent (microphones in close proximity to the monitor). This makes it entirely possible to glean passwords and other sensitive information.

Granted, this is an extremely exotic form of attack that requires a great deal of advance preparation by the attacker. Because of this, it’s unlikely that it will see widespread use anytime soon. Even so, it’s something that a careful and determined hacker could do right now using off the shelf technology, and there’s very little the victim could do to prevent it.

While we’re unlikely to see equipment manufacturers take the necessary steps to mask acoustic emanations, robust on-site physical security measures would make detection of this type of attack fairly easy.

Joseph Martin

Millions Of T-Mobile Customers Data May Have Been Leaked

September 4, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Telecommunications giant T-Mobile is the latest victim of a large-scale data breach, with personal data belonging to more than two million of its customers having been leaked. The exposed information included customer name, phone number, email address, billing zip code, account number and whether the account was pre-paid or post-paid.

As bad as that is, it could have been far worse. Fortunately, no financial information, passwords, or social security numbers were compromised.

According to the official statement released by T-Mobile, their security team shut down the “unauthorized capture of some information” on August 20th of this year. The statement did not provide specific details about how the hackers got into the company’s servers, and only provided an estimate of the total number of customer records impacted.

The statement read, in part:

“We take the security of your information very seriously and have a number of safeguards in place to protect your personal information from unauthorized access. We truly regret that this incident occurred and are so sorry for any inconvenience this has caused you.”

T-Mobile has reached out to law enforcement and has contacted all customers who were impacted by the breach.

Although no passwords were compromised, if you received a notification from the company that information about your account was compromised, it would be wise to change your password just to be safe. Be on guard against phishing attacks that may target you based on the information that was gleaned via the breach.

This is but the latest in a long and growing stream of high profile breaches this year, but it is by no means the largest. Earlier this year, for example, Car phone Warehouse suffered a breach that impacted all of its ~10 million customers. As ever, vigilance is the key.

Joseph Martin

Android Malware Could Access Your Pictures And Calls

September 1, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Android users have a new threat to contend with, according to a sixteen-page whitepaper outlining a new malware strain.

The paper was published by a group of security researchers working for Bitdefender. They identified a robust new strain of malware called “Triout.”

According to the report, although they just discovered the malware a month ago, there are indications that it has been in use since at least mid-May of this year.

Among other things, it can:

Steal call log data

Collect and steal SMS messages

Record every call taking place on the phone

Upload recordings of those calls to a remote server

Send the phone’s GPS coordinates to a remote server

Upload a copy of every picture taken with the phone’s camera to a remote server

Hide from the user’s view

These are robust, highly advanced features that require extensive, detailed knowledge of the Android OS. Typically, malware of this type is used by nation-state hackers with deep pockets, or by well-heeled networks of cybercriminals. At this point, there’s no clear indication which category Triout’s creators fall into.

The malware strain has been found masquerading as a legitimate app, but the team has been unable to trace it back to its source of origin. At this point, there’s no clear indication where it’s coming from. The first sample was uploaded to VirusTotal from Russia, but subsequent samples were uploaded from an Israeli IP address.

The researchers note that despite its advanced feature set, the group responsible appears to have made a mistake:

“What is striking…is that it’s completely obfuscated, meaning that simply by unpacking the cloned app’s .apk file, full access to the source code becomes available….this could suggest that the Triout framework may be a work-in-progress, with developers testing features and compatibility with devices.”

Joseph Martin

Gmail Releases New Confidential Mode

August 29, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Google has introduced a new Gmail feature called “Confidential Mode,” which seeks to make sending and receiving important or sensitive emails more secure. Unfortunately, it may have inadvertently created as many problems as it solves.

Here’s how the new feature works, and why you may be leery of using it:

To send a confidential email, compose your message as normal, and then, click the “lock” icon located at the bottom of the email screen. When this button is pressed, you’ll be presented with a number of options that will enable you to specify a self-destruct time ranging from one day to five years. The email will auto-delete after the amount of time specified.

You’ll also be able to specify whether the email requires a password to open, and of course, giving you the ability to set that password. Also, a message sent in Confidential mode cannot be forwarded to any other user or be printed out.

The new service works across all email systems because Confidential messages aren’t actually sent. The user will get a notification that they’ve received a confidential mail, and a link to click to access it, which points back to Google’s own servers where the email is housed.

Given this, the sender of the message also has the ability to selectively remove access to confidential emails if one was inadvertently sent to the wrong recipient.

All of that sounds great in theory, but there’s a problem. That’s exactly how phishing attacks work.

Security professionals have sounded the alarm that hackers will quickly begin spoofing Google’s new service, pointing the links in their messages toward their own servers. When users are prompted to provide their login credentials to see the message, they’ll be handing access to their email account over to the hackers. Google has not yet responded to or commented on this flaw in their new system. Use with caution.

Joseph Martin

If You Use Photoshop, Update Immediately

August 28, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Do you use Photoshop? Does anyone who works for you use it? If so, you’ll want to apply the latest security patch immediately.

Two new vulnerabilities were discovered after the release of Adobe’s regularly scheduled August 2018 security patch update. This prompted the company to take the unusual step of releasing an emergency, out-of-band update to correct the issue.

These two newly discovered vulnerabilities (tracked as CVE-2018-12810 and CVE-2018-12811) impact Adobe photoshop CC2017, v18.1.5 and earlier 18.x versions, and Adobe Photoshop CC 2018, v19.1.5 and earlier 19.x versions.

It was discovered and initially reported by Kushal Arvind Shah, a security researcher with FortiGuard Labs. The vulnerabilities allow hackers to exploit a pair of critical memory corruption flaws, which allows a them to remotely execute malicious code on the target user’s machine.

Again, it must be stressed that neither of these issues were addressed by the company’s regularly scheduled patch update released earlier this month. Although if you haven’t yet applied that patch, you should. It addresses a total of eleven different security flaws spread across a number of the company’s products including: Flash Player, Acrobat, Reader, Experience Manager and Creative Cloud.

To get the fix for the Photoshop vulnerabilities, you’ll need to go to the company’s website and download the out of band patch designed specifically to address this issue.

It should be noted that both issues, while having been assigned a severity rating of “Critical,” have only been given a priority rating of three. This suggests that these flaws have not been exploited in the wild. That, however, is simply a matter of time. If members of your creative team employ Photoshop to generate graphics for your business, applying the latest patch should be a top priority. To do anything less is to invite an attack against your business.

Joseph Martin

Most Small Businesses Can’t Recover From Cyber Breaches

Vulnerability Found In Major Manufacturers Of Android Phones

Security Issues Abound – Texas Voter Registration Records Leaked

Hackers Now Targeting Point Of Sale Systems

Hackers Make More Money Than Is Spent On Cybersecurity

High Frequency Audio Computer Monitors May Expose Screen Activity

Millions Of T-Mobile Customers Data May Have Been Leaked

Android Malware Could Access Your Pictures And Calls

Gmail Releases New Confidential Mode

If You Use Photoshop, Update Immediately

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