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Cyber attack results show over 2.2 billion records stolen
It’s time to reflect on some of the most audacious, embarrassing and dangerous hacks, leaks and data breaches from the past year. 2016 is finished but and at this point there have been more than 2.2 billion records stolen in the past 12 months with a large number coming from historical breaches.
Yahoo – Yahoo has advised they have had at least an incredible 500 million accounts compromised. The intrusion actually happened in 2014 but was only picked up by the company in August of 2016 following an investigation into a separate breach. The August cyber attack turned out to be false but brought to light the extent of the 2014 intrusion. While Yahoo says the information taken was low-value data it did include security questions and answers which would make users vulnerable if used across multiple sites.
Linux Mint backdoor– The Linux operating system still remains one of the most popular Linux releases with approximately 6 million users despite a recent backdoor being announced. The malicious code was inserted into the legitimate version listed on the official Linux Mint forums. Hundreds of users downloaded the malicious build before detection.
“The hacked ISOs are hosted on 5.104.175.212 and the backdoor connects to absentvodka.com. Both lead to Sofia, Bulgaria, and the name of 3 people over there. We don’t know their roles in this, but if we ask for an investigation, this is where it will start.” said the official Mint statement.
SWIFT – SWIFT or Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication is a global organisation that operates a trusted and closed computer network for communication between member banks around the world. With 11,000 members and around 25 million financial messages sent per day SWIFT is a prime target for a cyber attack. On February 4, 2016 unknown hackers used Bangladeshi Bank employee SWIFT credentials to send approx $850 million to numerous accounts in the Philippines, Sri Lanka and other parts of Asia.
When Bank employees found the error $81 million had already been credited to multiple accounts—reportedly belonging to casinos in the Philippines—and all but $68,000 of it was withdrawn on February 5 and 9 before further withdrawals were halted. The hackers might have stolen much more if not for a typo in one of the money transfer requests that caught the eye of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York.
TRUMP – The president elect’s TRUMP hotel chain has been the victim of two cyber attacks since 2015 with the most recent in April 2016. According to some sources the organisation was using unpatched and insecure systems which were more than 10 years old. The April findings were only scratching the surface but it is likely the TRUMP organisation has been compromised much further.
Then, Trump’s presidential campaign leaked the resumes of prospective interns, including their names, addresses, and in some cases sensitive employment details. Let’s hope his cybersecurity strategy is better when he’s in office.
LinkedIn – The global professional networking company was first compromised in 2012. As with the same case as Yahoo, the scale of the historical 2012 breach was only understood this year when the number of stolen accounts exploded to almost 117 million. One reporter noted that the majority of stolen accounts had passwords found in the annual worst passwords list from SplashData.
Here’s how to check if your accounts have been compromised in a cyber attack, haveibeenpwned.com
Tumblr – It comes as no surprise that the Yahoo owned micro blogging and social networking website, Tumblr suffered a similar breach to their parent company in 2013 before the acquisition. Tumblr staff announced that it had been the victim of a security breach but refused to give details until investigative journalists discovered the stolen database had more than 65 million accounts.
MySpace – Formally the world’s largest social network, Myspace suffered their largest known exploit and brought them back into the headlines for the wrong reasons. The breach occurred on June 11th, 2013 but once again was only fully recognised earlier this year after further investigation.
“Each record may contain an email address, a username, one password and in some cases a second password.The methods MySpace used for storing passwords are not what internet standards propose and is very weak encryption or some would say it’s not encryption at all but it gets worse. We noticed that very few passwords were over 10 characters in length (in the thousands) and nearly none contained an upper case character which makes it much easier for people to decrypt.” said leaked data analysts at leakedsource.com.
US Political Attacks – The media had a field day surrounding the 2016 US election accusations from the White House that the Kremlin had committed politically motivated hacks on presidential candidates. Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper stated that “based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized” regarding the hacks. Russia has repeatedly denied the hacking allegations.
VK – The largest European online social networking service, based in Russia was the victim of 3 separate hacks in as many months. According to reports, the attack occurred in 2012 or 2013 and continues the historical hack trend which has dominated this list. An estimated 171 million accounts from VK.com and their parent company Mail.ru’s forums.
The hacker is now reported to be selling a portion of the database. 100 million accounts, which turns out to be a little over 17 gigabytes in size have been found on a dark web marketplace for 1 bitcoin.
NSA – The infamous National Security Agency which is an intelligence organization of the US government, responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes has had their internal tools stolen and auctioned off by The Shadow Brokers.
The hacking tools which could break through Fortinet and Cisco firewalls was seen listed for auction through known exploit sites. With the wide range of Snowden Leaked files sources are able to confirm that the exploit tools belonged to the US government.
At the time of writing the auction has failed however, The Shadow Brokers have now appeared to have put up the NSA’s hacking tools and exploits for direct sale on an underground website.
NSA 2nd breach – To add to the public woes the NSA has been dealing with over the past three years,Harold Martin, former staffer stole approximately 50 terabytes of data from the the United States’ top security organisation. The majority of the information taken was considered classified and actually greatly eclipsed the previous breach by Edward Snowden.
Martin has been initially charged with mishandling information which has now been upgraded to espionage. While a lot of information was classified there is a large amount which is of greater public interest for which Martin has done a great service. Martin reportedly simply walked out the front door with the data over the course of his 20 year employment. This is case study number 1 for future employee breaches.
Oracle Point-of-Sale Terminals – Point of sale machines have become common place globally to assist all business’s process and retain important customer details. Micros, one of the largest terminal manufactures which was acquired by Oracle in 2014 for $5.3 billion reported that “hundreds of systems” at the company had been compromised.
The compromised systems had malware installed which was designed to remotely access usernames and passwords from systems located in retail outlets internationally.
Weebly – The web development and design giant put more than 43 million customers at risk earlier this year thanks to their own terrible internal security.
Weebly has openly admitted in a statement that the security gap and cyber attack was their own fault and they are taking appropriate measures for future security. The hacker reportedly took records which included usernames, passwords, IP addresses and email addresses.
AdultFriendFinder – The 2015 Ashley Madison breach which involved approx 37 million accounts has been made to look like a drop in the ocean after the 2016 AFF breach.
More than 400 million users were exposed in a targeted attack on the AdultFriendFinder network. The adult hook-up website has reportedly compromised an absolutely staggering 20 years of data from their initial set up in 1996. AdultFriendFinder describes itself as “one of the world’s largest sex hook-up” websites, with more than 40 million active users and a handful of similar adult oriented sites which were also compromised. In the cyber attack stolen data included usernames, browser information, date of the users last visit, purchasing patterns and more.
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Conclusion
Many more breaches have occurred which did not make the above list and with the enormity of the historical breaches now being brought to public attention it looks like 2017 is set for bigger and scarier reports to surface.
“I’m afraid we no longer live in a world where you can prevent breaches taking place, instead it is about how you manage them and what measures you have in place to protect your business and importantly, your customers. As recent events have shown, hard-earned reputations can be lost in a flash if you do not have the correct plans in place.” Inga Beale, Lloyd’s Chief Executive.
Each year the government departments release their collective data for an eye opening report about national, commercial and private online security.
Between July 2015 and June 2016, CERT Australia responded to 14,804 cyber security incidents affecting Australian businesses, 418 of which involved systems of national interest (SNI) and critical infrastructure (CI). The incidents affecting SNI and CI are broken down by sector below.
As CERT Australia relies on the voluntary self-reporting of information security incidents from private, commercial and government sources throughout Australia and internationally, CERT is unfortunately not able to get a complete view of all incidents. A large number of businesses which have been victims of a breach have paid a bitcoin ransom or fixed their system without notifying CERT or their cyber insurance provider.
According to CERT, the energy and communications sectors had the highest number of compromised systems. The banking and financial services and communications sectors had the highest number or DDoS attacks while the highest number of malicious emails was received by the energy and mining sectors.
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Trending exploitation techniques
Spear Phishing – emails containing a malicious link or file attachment with methods used becoming more convincing and difficult to spot. As such, spear phishing emails continue to be a common exploitation technique used in the compromise of Australian industry networks.
Ransomware – Ransomware encrypts the files on a computer (including network fileshares and attached external storage devices) then directs the victim to a webpage with instructions on how to pay a ransom in bitcoin to unlock the files. The ransom has typically ranged from $500 – $3000 in bitcoins.
Web-seeding techniques – By compromising web sites frequently visited by targets, adversaries are able to exploit targets without overt communication, such as spear phishing emails. Strategic web compromises have proven effective for thematic campaigns, such as targeting foreign policy and defence organisations via the compromise of think tanks and media organisations, but pose an equal threat to all users.
Malicious advertising – “Malvertising” allows an adversary to target a specific audience by exploiting online advertisement networks used by popular websites that visitors trust. Typically, either malicious code is inserted into an ad being presented to users in the course of their normal browsing or a benign ad is used to redirect the user to somewhere that will download malicious code automatically.
Microsoft office macros– Adversaries are increasingly using Microsoft Office macros – small programs executed by Microsoft Office applications such as Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint – to circumvent security controls that prevent users from running untrusted applications. Microsoft Office macros can contain malicious code resulting in a targeted cyber intrusion yielding unauthorised access to sensitive information.
DDoS extortion– A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is an attempt to make an online service unavailable by overwhelming it with traffic from multiple sources. DDoS extortion occurs when a cyber adversary threatens to launch DDoS activities against an organisation unless a fee is paid.
Secondary Targeting – There has been an increase in the detection of cyber adversaries attempting to gain access to enabling targets – targets of seemingly limited value but which share a trust relationship with a higher value target organisation. It is imperative that organisations understand that they might be targeted solely based on their connections with other organisations – the real target of these adversaries.
Targeted Disclosures – While the theft and targeted disclosures of sensitive information is not a new threat, the employment of the tactic in such a brazen manner against high profile entities has almost certainly lowered the threshold of adversaries seeking to conduct such acts.
Credential Harvesting Campaigns – emails direct the user to access a document via Google Drive, and by clicking on a “View Document” link, the user is then directed to a webpage where credentials are requested and thereby harvested by the adversary. Emails are then sent from the compromised user’s account to contacts contained in the compromised user’s address book, meaning the malicious emails will appear to be coming from legitimate and trusted sources.
What does a typical cyber security compromise look like?
Intial foothold
The attacker sends a spear phishing email with a malicious link to their target which when opened will execute malware creating an entry into the network.
Network Reconnaissance
After access has been granted the attacker will continually monitor and study the network, search for domain administration credentials and possibly propagate through other linked networks. As an example, an adversary will regularly access the network to gain updated user credentials, thus avoiding losing access because of password changes.
Establish Presence
Once in the network, adversaries will attempt to obtain legitimate user credentials with the goal of gaining legitimate remote administrative access. After legitimate credentials are obtained, the adversary will transition from malware dependant tradecraft to the use of Virtual Private Network (VPN), Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), or other corporate remote-access solutions combined with software native to the organisation.
Ensure Persistence
Adversaries strive to install malware or a web shell to ensure ongoing access should their legitimate accesses cease to function. Malware is typically configured with a limited “beacon rate” to minimise network traffic and evade network defenders. However, web shells are increasingly being used as they generate zero network traffic and are difficult to detect unless the adversary is actively interacting with them.
Execute Intent
Once persistent access is gained, the adversary will execute their intent. This intent could be anything from data exfiltration to enabling lateral movement to the real targeted organisation, exploiting circle of trust relationships between the organisations.
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Further Resources
Mitigation of Targeted Cyber Security Intrusions
The mitigation strategies tailor and provide additional controls that make the mitigation strategies relevant to current and emerging issues such as ransomware and other destructive malware, malicious insiders, and industrial control systems.More information can be found at http://www.asd.gov.au/infosec/mitigationstrategies.htm
The Australian Government Information Security Manual (ISM)
The Australian Government Information Security Manual (ISM) assists in the protection of official government information that is processed, stored or communicated by Australian government systems, and is available at http://www.asd.gov.au/infosec/ism/index.htm
CERT Australia (Computer Emergency Response Team)
CERT Australia’s public website contains useful information for Australian businesses in relation to mitigating cyber security incidents and security issues affecting major Australian businesses. More information can be found at: https://www.cert.gov.au/
Cyber crime & security tips from experts you can apply to your business
As cyber crime becomes more pervasive in business life the importance for employee education and security procedures is paramount. Norton has compiled a list of basic information on how you can prevent online fraud.
1. Keep your computer current with the latest patches and updates
Applying patches and other software fixes as soon as they become available is one of the best ways to keep criminals away from your sensitive information. Software manufacturers regularly update versions to include newly found software vulnerabilities that attackers could otherwise exploit.
While staying up to date will not stop all attacks, it can make the process more difficult and potentially discourage attackers from accessing to your system.
Most recent versions of popular software can be configured to download and automatically update, giving you a great start toward keeping your business secure online.
2. Make sure your computer is configured securely
Ensuring your online applications such as web browser, antivirus and anti spyware, online storage and email software are configured correctly is one of the most important areas to focus on.
Choosing the right level of security and privacy for a business depends on many variables and is best reviewed by your IT department or an independent security analyst.
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3. Choose strong passwords and keep them safe
We use passwords frequently for everything from online banking, social media and shopping to logging into our favorite airline Web site. As a result, choosing a strong password that cannot easily be guessed has never been more important to prevent becoming another victim of cyber crime.
Typically a strong password will have 8 or more characters and use a combination of letters, numbers and symbols (e.g. #3%9&@6). Avoid using any passwords which use your login name, are based on personal information such as name or date of birth and avoid words in the dictionary. Keep your passwords in a safe place and make sure not to use the same password for multiple online services.
Resetting passwords regularly or at least every 90 days can also limit the damage caused by an attacker who has already gained access to your account.
4. Protect your computer with security software
Security software necessities include firewall and antivirus programs. A firewall is usually your computer’s first line of defense-it controls who and what can communicate with your computer online and isolates bad traffic such as attacks from ever reaching your system.
The next line of defense is more often than not, antivirus software. Most antivirus software is designed to monitor all online activities such as email messages and web browsing and protects an individual from viruses, worms, Trojan horse and other types of malicious attacks. Spyware and unwanted programs such as adware are usually picked up from a good antivirus package like Norton Antivirus, McAfee Antivirus 2017, Kaspersky 2017, Avast Pro Antivirus and Bitdefender total security.
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5. Protect your personal information
It is always prudent to exercise caution when sharing personal information online such as your name, address, contact number and email address. As more online services require your information for subscriptions, newsletters and shipping your purchases it is nearly impossible to transact online without divulging personal details.
Keep an eye out for suspicious or fraudulent email messages – Suspicious messages with misspellings, poor grammar, odd phrasings and website addresses with strange extensions
Don’t respond to email messages that request personal information – Legitimate companies will not use email messages to ask for your information. When in doubt, contact the company
Avoid fraudulent websites which are used to gather personal information – Fraudsters often forge malicious links to make them look convincing
Pay attention to privacy policies on websites and in software – It is important to understand how an organization might collect and use your personal information before you share it with them
Guard your email address – be careful when posting your email address online in newsgroups, blogs or online communities
6. Online offers that look too good to be true usually are
“Free” software and guides such as screen savers, investment tricks, emoticon packs, contests and instant millionaire guarantees are some of the alluring attention grabbing techniques these companies use. The software or guide usually comes packaged with hidden advertising or monitoring software that tracks your behavior and habits ultimately being given to another group without your knowledge.
Ultimately, the old saying “if it seems too good to be true, it usually is” is again accurate.
7. Review bank and credit card statements regularly
Identity theft and online scams can be greatly reduced if caught promptly after your data is stolen or when the first use of your details is attempted.
Reviewing your monthly statements and online banking transaction history regularly is one of the easiest ways to stay on top of and report any incidents to your bank and credit card providers. Many financial institutions use fraud prevention services to identify unusual purchases and prevent the transaction in real time before any funds are charged, these systems are not perfect though and some transactions are still approved.
If your bank catches the transaction they might call you to confirm the unusual order, don’t ignore these calls as they are a good sign something or someone is attempting to access your details which are now compromised.
Trade secrets stolen in cyber attack on ThyssenKrupp AG
One of the world’s largest engineering firms ThyssenKrupp has released a cyber security statement. The release indicates they have been the victims of “organised, highly professional hacker activities” earlier in 2016.
The corporation consists of 670 companies worldwide. While ThyssenKrupp is one of the world’s largest steel producers, the company also provides components and systems for the automotive industry, elevators, escalators, material trading and industrial services. As of a 2009 reorganization, it is structured into eight business areas that fall under two major divisions, Materials and Technologies
“The incident is not attributable to security deficiencies at Thyssenkrupp. Human error can also be ruled out. Experts say that in the complex IT landscapes of large companies, it is currently virtually impossible to provide viable protection against organized, highly professional hacking attacks. Early detection and timely countermeasures are crucial in such situations. Thyssenkrupp has been successful in both respects” stated Robin Zimmermann, head of external communications.
The breach which was discovered in April 2016 after a series of additional breaches were discovered by the company’s internal security. The original breach was traced back to February 2016 and was caused by hackers located in southeast Asia.
Trade secrets and project data have been stolen from the plant engineering division. Other areas are still yet to be fully investigated in what is now the second major cyber breach since 2012 for the engineering giant. In 2012 TKAG and Airbus parent company EADS had also been targeted by Chinese hackers. In September 2015 China and the U.S. agreed not to target each other for cybertheft of intellectual property. This is a major step in the right direction and indicates their compliance with these tactics towards other targets.
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“It is important not to let the intruder know that he has been discovered,” a spokesman said. The news of the breach was not publicly announced until the company had cleansed the infected systems in one global action and implemented new security measures to monitor its computer network.
Within its marine systems unit, which produces military submarines and warships no breaches have been found.
The Australian federal government has successfully appointed Craig Davies as CEO for the new not-for-profit company Australian Cyber Security Growth Network Ltd in December 2016.
For the past 3 years Craig was previously the head of security for Australian enterprise software giant Atlassian. Mr Davies has over 25 years experience in the industry and has been a long time advisor for start-ups on security.
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Greg hunt, minister for innovation has stated “[The centre] will bring together industry, researchers and governments to create a national enterprise that will provide the foundation for the development of next generation products and services needed to live and work securely in our increasingly connected world,”
The new centre which was announced earlier this year as part of the national innovation and science agenda will cost $32 million and be positioned next to Data 61’s national cyber security centre in the Docklands.
Mr davies will be joined by Data61’s Adrian Turner and Doug Elix as the centre’s joint chairs.
As technology steamrolls ahead at an alarming rate so does the possibility of a cyber threatsfrom not just an external hacker but also from an organisations own workforce.
Earlier this year at a Risk and Insurance Management Society forum in Melbourne experts from around the globe gathered to discuss the future of cyber insurance for commercial and government exposures.
Using untested equipment(USB devices, laptops, tablets, phones) which have been infected on work equipment
Malicious damage by IT staff who had access to the system after dismissal
Carla Liedtke, Asia-Pacific Director of Control Risks stated “There are four groups initiating cyber threats, starting with criminals looking to extort money, the second group is national states, and there are 60 countries in the world with cyber programs.
“The third group is ‘hacktivists’, who have a cause to push, but all these can work with people within the organisation.”
Ms Liedtke says internal threats can be driven by money or sympathy for a cause and innocent staff unwittingly opening emails with malware links can also activate attacks.
“Today it is not a question of if you will you suffer a cyber attack, it is when. It is important to have clear, defined roles in the threat crisis team when the attack does occur.”
Tricia Hobson, Partner at Norton Rose Fulbright spoke about a lawyer’s role to mitigate the risks which follow a cyber breach.
“It is important to know who you tell of a security breach,” she said. “In Australia there is no mandatory obligation to notify of breaches.”
The US has breach reporting laws, but they are different in each state. This would affect an Australian company with overseas customers if credit card details were stolen, Ms Hobson says.
“Australia is now the second most litigious country in the world, and a breach is a ready-made class action.
In a joint study with Cambridge University, the Lloyd’s insurance giant has ranked Sydney 12th out of 301 global cities in terms cyber attack exposure with $4.86 billion ($6.36 billion) of GDP at risk for 2015 – 2025.
In its City Risk Index 2015-2025, Lloyd’s also ranked other Australian cities in the study, Melbourne’s economic risk was measured at $US3.87 billion ($5.06 billion), followed by Canberra at $US2.8 billion ($3.66 billion).
Brisbane’s risk was $US2.05 billion ($2.68 billion), Perth’s $US1.83 billion ($2.39 billion) and Adelaide’s $US1.01 billion ($1.32 billion).
Globally, Lloyd’s warns that $294 billion is at risk as attempted and successful cyber attacks become more prevalent.
“We are living in a world where people carry a globally connected supercomputer in their pocket and almost every important work document is stored in the cloud, on servers or online. The result is an explosion in the potential for cyber risk.” Lloyd’s Global CEO Inga Beale stated during a recent visit to Sydney.
“The latest series of high-profile data breaches is just the beginning,” she said. “With the emergence of the Internet of Things, the potential for cyber risk is enormous.”
Lloyd’s has seen the amount of Cyber Insurance coverage increase 168-fold in the past two decades in Australia with more businesses seeking to protect themselves.
In the US 25% of businesses now have cyber insurance. Europe should catch up after the EU introduces its General Data Protection Regulation in 2018.
The regulation, with implications for Australian business holding European customer data, requires disclosure of breaches to national data protection authorities and potentially affected individuals.
