The phish attack obtained banking details
Three Wichita State University employees fell prey to a common phish attack asking for their credentials, giving cybercriminals access to change banking details.
We’ve said it time and time again: the cybercriminals do their homework. In the case of the attack on WSU employees, cybercriminals spoofed the university’s payroll system and sent emails to employees tricking them into providing their university ID and password. That was all the attackers needed to gain full control to the employee’s profile, personal data, and most importantly – banking information.
Where's my paycheck?
It wasn’t until a number of employees did not receive their paychecks that the scam was found out. At least three members of the WSU staff fell for the scam, allowing cybercriminals to alter the ... Read More
Cybersecurity starts with your users
Your cybersecurity trained employees are a central component of your security posture, according to Freaky Clown (FC), CEO and Head of Ethical Security at Cygenta.
FC is a professional red teamer who tests the security of organizations by breaking into them. FC talked to Carole Theriault in part two of an interview on the CyberWire’s Hacking Humans podcast.
FC says that managers are often surprised by how far he can get without being caught, because employees don’t know to watch out for threats. He describes a number of unusual situations in which he has convinced employees to participate in strange activities, such as building teepees with their coats as a team building exercise, or setting up a bar in a government building. “You can ... Read More
Passwords get stolen and sold
The bad guys are constantly coming out with new ways to hack into your network and steal your organization’s confidential information.
Verizon's recent Data Breach Report showed that 81% of hacking-related breaches used either stolen or weak passwords. And, a new survey from Dark Reading shows 44% of organizations say users pose the greatest threat to data security!
Find out if your users are putting a big target on your organization’s back
KnowBe4’s Password Exposure Test (PET) is a new and complimentary IT security tool that allows you to run an in-depth analysis of your organization’s hidden exposure risk associated with your users.
PET makes it easy for you to identify users with exposed emails publicly available on the web, and checks your Active Directory to see if they are using weak or compromised ... Read More
AI and facial recognition are dangerous
As I proofread this post, Facebook users are jumping on a new fad. They are posting pictures of themselves 10 years ago and today. They do this to show much they have aged, or have not aged, in 10 years. I think this is dangerous. AI can take these facial images, superimpose your face on an image and then defraud you.
This starts to be more than a bit concerning. The faces in this post (below) look like pretty normal humans. They could be social media shots. However, they were generated by a recent type of algorithm: generative adversarial network, or GAN.
Nvidia researchers Tero Karras, Samuli Laine, and Timo Aila posted details of the method to produce completely imaginary fake faces with ... Read More
Triton got into a petrochemical plant
In the summer of 2017, a petrochemical plant in Saudi Arabia experienced a worrisome security incident that cybersecurity experts consider to be the first-ever cyber attack carried out with “a blatant, flat-out intent to hurt people.” The attack involved a highly sophisticated new malware strain called Triton, which was capable of remotely disabling safety systems inside the plant with potentially catastrophic consequences. It all started when someone launched a spear phishing attack and someone else clicked a link they should not have clicked.
Luckily, a flaw in the Triton code triggered a safety system that responded by shutting down the plant. If it hadn’t been for that flaw, the hackers could have released toxic hydrogen sulfide gas or caused explosions. As ... Read More
Phishing and File Sharing
Internet thieves have long used file sharing sites and services to host their malicious files. When they do this, they typically use the underlying service to generate download links that anyone can click without logging in to the hosting service.
Over the past month we started noticing apparently legitimate Dropbox emails pushing links to files with names suspiciously similar to those routinely used by the bad guys. When we clicked the links to check, however, we were greeted with a demand to log in to the service. That's typically been a sign that the files involved were legit.
Still, something wasn't right here. Given the file names presented, we reckoned there was little chance those files were innocuous. So, we decided to log in to ... Read More
Ransomware knocked most systems offline
Officials in Jackson County, Georgia, paid $400,000 to cyber-criminals this week to get rid of a ransomware infection and regain access to their IT systems. The County hired cyber-security consultant to negotiate ransom fee with hacker group. Jackson County officials have not yet confirmed how hackers breached their network.
The infection forced most of the local government's IT systems offline, with the exception of its website and 911 emergency system.
"Everything we have is down," Sheriff Janis Mangum told StateScoop in an interview. "We are doing our bookings the way we used to do it before computers. We're operating by paper in terms of reports and arrest bookings. We've continued to function. It's just more difficult."
Jackson County officials notified the FBI and hired a cyber-security consultant. ... Read More
Office Depot $300 scam - yes, it really happened
I'm sure you've heard something about the Office Depot $300 fraud. For a thorough explanation, see https://cybersafetynet.net/office-depot-faked-malware-scans-to-sell-unneeded-300-tech-services/. Basically, Office Depot's malware scan reported malware on computers that did not have malware. Office Depot then sold an unnecessary $300 service. Today I am writing about how that would look in other industries.
We have a high level of trust in those who provide professional services. We go to them when we sense a problem and need their training, judgement and professionalism to turn the problem into a solution. Let's see how this would play out in another industry.
Electrical
Your kitchen has a refrigerator, microwave oven and coffee maker. You discover that you can run two at the same time, but ... Read More
Is this the best Facebook phishing scam ever?
Scams seeking to harvest online credentials have long tried to replicate known logon pages. But this newly found instance is just about perfect.
In every scam that uses social engineering, the key is to be believable. If it looks right, feels right, has the timing right, etc., the victim is more likely to fall for it. This latest scam seeks to take advantage of a user’s desire to leverage single sign-on (SSO) via well-known websites. In this case, Facebook. Rather than creating (and remembering) countless passwords for an equivalently large number of websites, users will take advantage of identifying themselves via Facebook.
Under normal circumstances, a Facebook API is called which prompts the user to authenticate. But researchers at security vendor Myki have ... Read More
A phishing attack will strike you. It is not a question of IF, but a question of WHEN
With the massive rise in phishing attacks, 2019 is the year for organizations to realize the concept of becoming a victim is an issue of when and no longer if.
According to Malwarebyte’s 2019 State of Malware report, there is pretty much no industry that is unaffected by malware. And phishing attacks remain an effective means of tricking users. In Healthcare alone, nearly one-half of orgs citing a 1-10% click rate when interacting with mock-phishing emails to test user response, and another one-quarter of organizations seeing click rates of 11-30%.
These numbers clearly indicate that organizations simply aren’t prepared for phishing attacks.
What you can do
What’s needed is an anti-phishing plan in place that helps to ... Read More