Weekly Cyber Risk Roundup: FBI Advises Home Router Resets

What’s Everyone Talking About? Trending Cybercrime Events

The big news for this week was the CISCO warning of 500,000 routers being hacked by Russian criminal hackers in a bid to attack Ukraine. According to CNBC, “Cisco’s Talos cyber intelligence unit said it has high confidence that the Russian government is behind the campaign, dubbed VPNFilter, because the hacking software shares code with malware used in previous cyber attacks that the U.S. government has attributed to Moscow.”

In subsequent reporting, the FBI has issued a statement and recommendation that all users with home or small-business router turn off the device and turn it back on. The reboot is meant to counter the Fancy Bear linked malware mentioned above.

Further details are being released as they are available. The details of the warnings were: “at least 500,000 in at least 54 countries. The known devices affected by VPNFilter are Linksys, MikroTik, NETGEAR and TP-Link networking equipment in the small and home office (SOHO) space, as well at QNAP network-attached storage (NAS) devices.”

Other trending cybercrime events from the week include:

State data breach notifications: In October 2017, criminal hackers obtained the credentials for two employee accounts for Worldwide Insurance Services. A phishing campaign was used to steal credentials and may have resulted in private insurance details of their customers being viewed by unauthorized parties. In December 2017, a former employee of Muir Medical Group took personal details of clients with them before their employment ended. This could have resulted in the leak of personal identifiable information of clients. In March 2018, a contractor for the California Department of Public Health experienced a robbery where documents and a laptop were stolen.
Altcoin Experienced Second Hack: The alternative cryptocurrency Verge, experienced its second hack in recent months. $1.4 Million (USD) was stolen in this recent attack which started as a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. In the last event, the cryptocurrency suffered a 25% loss.
Bitcoin Gold Suffers Attack: In a similar attack to the previous report with Verge, Bitcoin Gold suffered a 51% attack resulting in the loss of $18 million in Bitcoin Gold. Also known as double spending this type of attack works very similar to DDoS attacks in which they tie up the network resources of the targets.
Fourteen Vulnerabilities Found in BMWs: In a recent security test, researchers found fourteen vulnerabilities as they hacked BMW cars. The reported vulnerabilities were, “the flaws could be exploited to gain local and remote access to infotainment (a.k.a head unit), the Telematics Control Unit (TCU or TCB) and UDS communication, as well as to gain control of the vehicles’ CAN bus.”
App Leaks Passwords in Plaintext: Researchers discovered two servers owned by the app TeenSafe, which is an app parents and guardians can use to monitor phone activity of a child, were hosted without passwords to access data being stored. Over 10,000 accounts were exposed on the AWS hosted servers.

Cyber Risk Trends From the Past Week

A new report from security researchers this week is touting a new kind of banking malware. Researchers are calling the malware Backswap and discovered it attacking Polish banks. According to the report, “We have discovered a new banking malware family that uses an innovative technique to manipulate the browser: instead of using complex process injection methods to monitor browsing activity, the malware hooks key window message loop events in order to inspect values of the window objects for banking activity.”

The malware was first noticed in January 2018, and the first samples were analyzed in March 2018. According to the report, “the banker is distributed through malicious email spam campaigns that carry an attachment of a heavily obfuscated JavaScript downloader from a family commonly known as Nemucod. The spam campaigns are targeting Polish users.” As users see everyday, just because a malware strain is targeting a specific bank or country doesn’t mean it hasn’t started to spread or won’t be turned to other targets later.

Weekly Cyber Risk Roundup: MyFitnessPal Breach, Carbanak Leader Arrested

Under Armor announced this week that approximately 150 million users of the diet and fitness app MyFitnessPal had their personal information acquired by an unauthorized third party sometime in February 2018. As Reuters noted, it is the largest data breach of 2018 in terms of the number of records affected.

The breach was discovered on March 25, and the data compromised includes usernames, email addresses, and hashed passwords — the majority of which used bcrypt, the company said.

“The affected data did not include government-issued identifiers (such as Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers) because we don’t collect that information from users,” the company said in a statement. “Payment card data was not affected because it is collected and processed separately.”

MyFitnessPal also said that it would be requiring users to change their passwords and is urging users to do so immediately. The company is also urging users to review their accounts for suspicious activity as well as to change passwords on any other online accounts that used the same or a similar password to their now-breached MyFitnessPal credentials.

It is unclear how the unauthorized third party acquired the data, and the investigation is ongoing. Under Armour bought MyFitnessPal in February 2015 for $475 million.

Other trending cybercrime events from the week include:

Employee accounts targeted: The Retirement Advantage is notifying clients that their employees’ personal information may have been compromised due to unauthorized access to an employee email account at its Applied Plan Administrators division. Storemont in Northern Ireland is warning all staff of a cyber-attack targeting email accounts with numerous password attempts, and a number of accounts were compromised due to the attack. Shutterfly is notifying customers that their personal information may have been compromised due to an employee’s credentials being used without authorization to access its Workday test environment.
Payment card breaches: Manduka is notifying customers of a year-long payment card breach after discovering malware on its e-commerce web platform. Mintie Corporation is notifying customers of a ransomware attack that may have compromised customer payment card information. Fred Usinger said its hosting service provider notified the company of a breach involving personal information and stored payment information.
Other data breaches: A report from New York’s Attorney General said that 9.2 million New Yorkers had their data exposed in 2017, quadruple the number from 2016. Motherboard obtained thousands of user account details that are circulating on public image boards, and many of those accounts are related to a bestiality website. Mendes & Haney is notifying customers of unauthorized access to its network. Branton, de Jong and Associates is notifying customers that their tax information may have been compromised due to unauthorized access to its tax program. Researchers discovered a misconfigured database belonging to the New York internal medicine and cardiovascular health practice Cohen Bergman Klepper Romano Mds PC that exposed the patient information of 42,000 individuals.
Other notable events: Baltimore’s 911 dispatch system was temporarily shut down after a hack by an unknown actor led to “limited breach” of the system that supports the city’s 911 and 311 services. Kent NHS Trust is notifying patients that a staff member who had accessed their medical records “without a legitimate business reason” has been dismissed. The Malaysian central bank said it thwarted a cyber-attack that involved falsified wire-transfer requests over the SWIFT bank messaging network. Boeing said that a few machines were infected with the WannaCry malware.

SurfWatch Labs collected data on many different companies tied to cybercrime over the past week. Some of the top trending targets are shown in the chart below.

Cyber Risk Trends From the Past Week

Law enforcement officials in Spain have arrested the alleged leader of the cybercriminal syndicate behind the Carbankak and Cobalt malware attacks, which have targeted more than 100 financial organizations around the world and caused cumulative losses of over €1 billion since 2013.

Europol’s press release did not name the alleged mastermind behind the group; however, Bloomberg reported that Spain’s Interior Ministry named the suspect as Denis K, a Ukrainian national who had accumulated about 15,000 bitcoins (worth approximately $120 million at the time of his arrest). Europol noted that numerous other coders, mule networks, and money launderers connected to the group were also the target of the international law enforcement operation.

The group first used the Anunak malware in 2013 to target financial transfers and ATM networks, and by the following year they had created a more sophisticated version of the malware known as Carbanak, which was used by the group used until 2016. At that point the group carried out an even more sophisticated wave of attacks using custom-made malware based on the Cobalt Strike penetration testing software, Europol said.

“The criminals would send out to bank employees spear phishing emails with a malicious attachment impersonating legitimate companies,” Europol wrote in a press release. “Once downloaded, the malicious software allowed the criminals to remotely control the victims’ infected machines, giving them access to the internal banking network and infecting the servers controlling the ATMs. This provided them with the knowledge they needed to cash out the money.”

Carlos Yuste, a Spanish police chief inspector who helped lead the operation, told Bloomberg that “the head has been cut off” of the high-profile group. Steven Wilson, Head of Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre, said that the arrest illustrates how law enforcement “is having a major impact on top level cybercriminality.”

Weekly Cyber Risk Roundup: Orbitz Breach, Facebook Privacy Fallout

One of the biggest data breach announcements of the past week belonged to Orbitz, which said on Tuesday that as many as 880,000 customers may have had their payment card and other personal information compromised due to unauthorized access to a legacy Orbitz travel booking platform.

“Orbitz determined on March 1, 2018 that there was evidence suggesting that, between October 1, 2017 and December 22, 2017, an attacker may have accessed certain personal information, stored on this consumer and business partner platform, that was submitted for certain purchases made between January 1, 2016 and June 22, 2016 (for Orbitz platform customers) and between January 1, 2016 and December 22, 2017 (for certain partners’ customers),” the company said in a statement.

Information potentially compromised includes payment card information, names, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and gender.

As American Express noted in its statement about the breach, the affected Orbitz platform served as the underlying booking engine for many online travel websites, including Amextravel.com and travel booked through Amex Travel Representatives.

Expedia, which purchased Orbitz in 2015, did not say how many or which partner platforms were affected by the breach, USA Today reported. However, the company did say that the current Orbitz.com site was not affected.

Other trending cybercrime events from the week include:

State data breach notifications: Island Outdoor is notifying customers that payment card information may have been stolen due to the discovery of malware affecting several of its websites. Agemni is notifying customers about unauthorized charges after “a single authorized user of our software system used customer information to make improper charges for his personal benefit.” The Columbia Falls School District is notifying parents of a cyber-extortion threat involving their children’s personal information. Intuit is notifying TurboTax customers that their accounts may have been accessed by an actor leveraging previously leaked credentials. Taylor-Dunn Manufacturing Company is notifying customers that it discovered cryptocurrency mining malware on a server and that a file containing personal information of those registered for the Taylor-Dunn customer care or dealer center may have been accessed. Nampa School District is notifying a “limited number” of employees and Skamania Public Utility District is notifying customers that their personal information may have been compromised due to incidents involving unauthorized access to an employee email account.
Data exposed: A flaw in Telstra Health’s Argus software, which is used by more than 40,000 Australian health specialists, may have exposed the medical information of patients to hackers. Primary Healthcare is notifying patients of unauthorized access to four employee email accounts. More than 300,000 Pennsylvania school teachers may have had their personal information publicly released due to an employee error involving the Teacher Management Information System.
Notable ransomware attacks: The city of Atlanta said a ransomware attack disrupted internal and customer-facing applications, which made it difficult for citizens to pay bills and access court-related information. Atrium Hospitality is notifying 376 hotel guests that their personal information may have been compromised due to a ransomware infection at a workstation at the Holiday Inn Sacramento. Finger Lakes Health said it lost access to its computer system due to ransomware infection.
Other notable events: Frost Bank said that malicious actors comprised a third-party lockbox software program and were able to access images of checks that were stored in the database. National Lottery users are being advised to change their passwords after 150 accounts were affected by a “low-level” hack. A lawsuit against Internet provider CenturyLink and AT&T-owned DirecTV alleges that customer data was available through basic Internet searches.

SurfWatch Labs collected data on many different companies tied to cybercrime over the past week. Some of the top trending targets are shown in the chart below.

Cyber Risk Trends From the Past Week

Facebook has faced a week of criticism, legal actions, and outcry from privacy advocates after it was revealed that the political consulting Cambridge Analytica had accessed the information of 50 million users and leveraged that information while working with the Donald Trump campaign in 2016.

“Cambridge Analytica obtained the data from a professor at the University of Cambridge who had collected the information by creating a personality-quiz app in 2013 that plugged into Facebook’s platform,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “Before a policy change in 2015, Facebook gave app creators and academics access to a treasure trove of data, ranging from which pages users liked to details about their friends.”

It isn’t clear how many other developers might have retained information harvested from Facebook before the 2015 policy change, The Journal reported. However, Mark Zuckerberg said the company may spend “many millions of dollars” auditing tens of thousands of data collecting apps in order to get a better handle on the situation.

The privacy breach has already led to regulatory scrutiny and potential lawsuits around the globe. Bloomberg reported that the FTC is probing whether data handling violated terms of a 2011 consent decree. In addition, Facebook said it would conduct staff-level briefings with six congressional committees in the coming week. Some lawmakers have called for Zuckerberg to testify as well, and Zuckerberg told media outlets that he would be willing to do so if asked.

Facebook’s stock price has dropped from $185 to $159 over the past eight days amid the controversy, and several companies have suspended their advertising on Facebook or deleted their Facebook pages altogether due to the public backlash.

Weekly Cyber Risk Roundup: Russia Sanctions, Mossack Fonseca Shutdown, Equifax Insider Trading

On Thursday, the U.S. government imposed sanctions against five entities and 19 individuals for their role in “destabilizing activities” ranging from interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to carrying out destructive cyber-attacks such as NotPetya, an event that the Treasury department said is the most destructive and costly cyber-attack in history.

“These targeted sanctions are a part of a broader effort to address the ongoing nefarious attacks emanating from Russia,” said Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin in a press release. “Treasury intends to impose additional CAATSA [Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act] sanctions, informed by our intelligence community, to hold Russian government officials and oligarchs accountable for their destabilizing activities by severing their access to the U.S. financial system.”

Nine of the 24 entities and individuals named on Thursday had already received previous sanctions from either President Obama or President Trump for unrelated reasons, The New York Times reported.

In addition to the sanctions, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI issued a joint alert warning that the Russian government is targeting government entities as well as organizations in the energy, nuclear, commercial facilities, water, aviation, and critical manufacturing sectors.

According to the alert, Russian government cyber actors targeted small commercial facilities’ networks with a multi-stage intrusion campaign that staged malware, conducted spear phishing attacks, and gained remote access into energy sector networks. The actors then used their access to conduct network reconnaissance, move laterally, and collect information pertaining to Industrial Control Systems.

Other trending cybercrime events from the week include:

Sensitive data exposed: Researchers discovered a publicly accessible Amazon S3 bucket belonging to the Chicago-based jewelry company MBM Company Inc. that exposed the personal information of more than 1.3 million people. About 3,000 South Carolina recipients of the Palmetto Fellows scholarship had their personal information exposed online for over a year due to a glitch when switching programs. The Dutch Data Protection Authority accidentally leaked the names of some of its employees due to not removing metadata from more than 800 public documents.
State data breach notifications: ABM Industries is notifying clients of a phishing incident that may have compromised their personal information. Chopra Enterprises is notifying customers that payment cards used on its ecommerce site may have been compromised. Neil D. DiLorenzo CPA is notifying clients of unauthorized access to a system that contained files related to tax returns, and several clients have reported fraudulent activity related to their tax returns. NetCredit is warning a small percentage of customers that an unauthorized party used their credentials to access their accounts.
Other data breaches: A misconfiguration at Florida Virtual School led to the personal information of 368,000 students as well as thousands of former and current Leon County Schools employees being compromised. Okaloosa County Water and Sewer said that individuals may have had their payment card information stolen due to a breach involving external vendors that process credit and debit card payments. The Nampa School District said that an email account compromise may have compromised the personal information of 3,983 current and past employees. A cyber-attack at the Port of Longview may have exposed the personal information of 370 current and former employees as well as 47 vendors.
Arrests and legal actions: A Maryland Man was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his role in a multi-million dollar identity theft scheme that claimed fraudulent tax refunds over a seven-year period. The owner of Smokin’ Joe’s BBQ in Missouri has been charged with various counts related to the use of stolen credit cards. Svitzer said that 500 employees are impacted by the discovery of three employee email accounts in finance, payroll, and operations were auto-forwarding emails outside of the company for nearly 11 months without the company’s knowledge.
Other notable events: Up to 450 people who filed reports with Gwent Police over a two-year period had their data exposed due to security flaws in the online tool, and those people were never notified that their data may have been compromised. A security flaw on a Luxembourg public radio station may have exposed non-public information.

SurfWatch Labs collected data on many different companies tied to cybercrime over the past week. Some of the top trending targets are shown in the chart below.

Cyber Risk Trends From the Past Week

Two of the largest data breaches of recent memory were back in the news this week due to Mossack Fonseca announcing that it is shutting down following the fallout from the Panama Papers breach as well as a former Equifax employee being charged with insider trading related to its massive breach.

Documents stolen from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca and leaked to the media in April 2016 were at the center of the scandal known as the Panama Papers, which largely revealed how rich individuals around the world were able to evade taxes in various countries.

“The reputational deterioration, the media campaign, the financial circus and the unusual actions by certain Panamanian authorities, have occasioned an irreversible damage that necessitates the obligatory ceasing of public operations at the end of the current month,” Mossack Fonseca wrote in a statement.

While Mossack Fonseca’s data breach appears to have finally led to the organization shutting down, Equifax’s massive breach announcement in September 2017 has since sparked a variety of regulatory questions, as well as criticism of the company’s leadership and allegations of insider trading.

Last week the SEC officially filed a complaint that alleges that Jun Ying, who was next in line to be the company’s global CIO, conducted insider trading by using confidential information entrusted to him by the company to conclude Equifax had suffered a serious breach, and Ying then exercised all of his vested Equifax stock options and sold the shares in the days before the breach was publicly disclosed.

“According to the complaint, by selling before public disclosure of the data breach, Ying avoided more than $117,000 in losses,” the SEC wrote in a press release.

Ying also faces criminal charges from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia.

Weekly Cyber Risk Roundup: Payment Card Breaches, Encryption Debate, and Breach Notification Laws

This past week saw the announcement of several new payment card breaches, including a point-of-sale breach at Applebee’s restaurants that affected 167 locations across 15 states.

The malware, which was discovered on February 13, 2018, was “designed to capture payment card information and may have affected a limited number of purchases” made at Applebee’s locations owned by RMH Franchise Holdings, the company said in a statement.

News outlets reported many of the affected locations had their systems infected between early December 2017 and early January 2018. Applebee’s has close to 2,000 locations around the world and 167 of them were affected by the incident.

In addition to Applebees, MenuDrive issued a breach notification to merchants saying that its desktop ordering site was injected with malware designed to capture payment card information. The incident impacted certain transactions from November 5, 2017 to November 28, 2017.

“We have learned that the malware was contained to ONLY the Desktop ordering site of the version that you are using and certain payment gateways,” the company wrote. “Thus, this incident was contained to a part of our system and did NOT impact the Mobile ordering site or any other MenuDrive versions.”

Finally, there is yet another breach notification related to Sabre Hospitality Solutions’ SynXis Central Reservations System — this time affecting Preferred Hotels & Resorts. Sabre said that a unauthorized individual used compromised user credentials to view reservation information, including payment card information, for a subset of hotel reservations that Sabre processed on behalf of the company between June 2016 and November 2017.

Other trending cybercrime events from the week include:

Marijuana businesses targeted: MJ Freeway Business Solutions, which provides business management software to cannabis dispensaries, is notifying customers of unauthorized access to its systems that may have led to personal information being stolen. The Canadian medical marijuana delivery service JJ Meds said that it received an extortion threat demanding $1,000 in bitcoin in order to prevent a leak of customer information.
Healthcare breach notifications: The Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services said that the personal information of 11,000 people was improperly emailed to local contractors by a now-fired employee. Front Range Dermatology Associates announced a breach related to a now-fired employee providing patient information to a former employee. Investigators said two Florida Hospital employees stole patient records, and local news reported that 9,000 individuals may have been impacted by the theft.
Notable data breaches: Ventiv Technology, which provides workers’ compensation claim management software solutions, is notifying customers of a compromise of employee email accounts that were hosted on Office365 and contained personal information. Catawba County services employees had their personal information compromised due to the payroll and human resources system being infected with malware. Flexible Benefit Service Corporation said that an employee email account was compromised and used to search for wire payment information. A flaw in Nike’s website allowed attackers to read server data and could have been leveraged to gain greater access to the company’s systems. A researcher claimed that airline Emirates is leaking customer data.
Other notable events: Cary E. Williams CPA is notifying employees, shareholders, trustees and partners of a ransomware attack that led to unauthorized access to its systems. The cryptocurrency exchange Binance said that its users were the target of “a large scale phishing and stealing attempt” and those compromised accounts were used to perform abnormal trading activity over a short period of time. The spyware company Retina-X Studios said that it “is immediately and indefinitely halting its PhoneSheriff, TeenShield, SniperSpy and Mobile Spy products” after being “the victim of sophisticated and repeated illegal hackings.”

SurfWatch Labs collected data on many different companies tied to cybercrime over the past week. Some of the top trending targets are shown in the chart below.

Cyber Risk Trends From the Past Week

There were several regulatory stories that made headlines this week, including the FBI’s continued push for a stronger partnership with the private sector when it comes to encryption, allegations that Geek Squad techs act as FBI spies, and new data breach notification laws.

In a keynote address at Boston College’s cybersecurity summit, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that there were 7,775 devices that the FBI could not access due to encryption in fiscal 2017, despite having approval from a judge. According to Fry, that meant the FBI could not access more than half of the devices they tried to access during the period.

“Let me be clear: the FBI supports information security measures, including strong encryption,” Fry said. “Actually, the FBI is on the front line fighting cyber crime and economic espionage. But information security programs need to be thoughtfully designed so they don’t undermine the lawful tools we need to keep the American people safe.”

However, Ars Technica noted that a consensus of technical experts has said that what the FBI has asked for is impossible.

In addition, the Electronic Frontier Foundation obtained documents via a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that revealed the FBI and Best Buy’s Geek Squad have been working together for decades. In some cases Geek Squad techs were paid as much as $1,000 to be informants, which the EFF argued was a violation of Fourth Amendment rights as the computer searches were not authorized by their owners.

Finally, the Alabama senate unanimously passed the Alabama Breach Notification Act, and the bill will now move to the house.

“Alabama is one of two states that doesn’t have a data breach notification law,” said state Senator Arthur Orr, who sponsored Alabama’s bill. “In the case of a breach, businesses and organizations, including state government, are under no obligation to tell a person their information may have been compromised.”

With both Alabama and South Dakota recently introducing data breach notification legislation, every resident of the U.S. may soon be protected by a state breach notification law.

Weekly Cyber Risk Roundup: Record-Setting DDoS Attacks, Data Breach Costs

Last week, researchers observed a 1.35 Tbps distributed denial-of-service attack (DDOS) attack targeting GitHub. It was the largest DDoS attack ever recorded, surpassing the 1.2 Tbps attack against DNS provider Dyn in October 2016.

The attack leveraged a newly observed reflection and amplification vector known as memcached. Akamai researchers warned that other organizations experienced similar DDoS attacks using the new method following the GitHub attack and that even larger attacks may be possible in the future.

“Memcached can have both UDP and TCP listeners and requires no authentication,” the researchers wrote. “Since UDP is easily spoofable, it makes this service vulnerable to use as a reflector. Worse, memcached can have an amplification factor of over 50,000, meaning a 203 byte request results in a 100 megabyte response.”

The attack was mitigated within 10 minutes, GitHub said. The following day GitHub was the target of a second DDoS attack that disrupted availability for a 15-minute period, ThousandEyes reported.

“Because of its ability to create such massive attacks, it is likely that attackers will adopt memcached reflection as a favorite tool rapidly,” Akamai researchers wrote. “The good news is that providers can rate limit traffic from source port 11211 and prevent traffic from entering and exiting their networks, but this will take time.”

Wired reported there are approximately 100,000 memcached servers that currently have no authentication protection and can be abused by malicious attackers to carry out similar potentially massive, botnet-free DDoS attacks.

Other trending cybercrime events from the week include:

W-2 information breached: The University of Alaska said that 50 current and former employees and students had their personal information compromised when hackers gained access to their university accounts by answering security questions and resetting their passwords. The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development is notifying employees that their W-2 information was compromised due to a spear phishing attack. Wallace Community College Selma said that current and former employees had their W-2 information compromised when an employee fell for a phishing scam. Curtis Lumber is notifying employees that their personal information was stolen in a spear phishing attack, and some of those employees have reported issues related to filing their federal taxes following the incident.
Ransomware infections continue: The Colorado Department of Transportation said that computers had been reinfected with ransomware eight days after an initial attack. Both the Children’s Aid Society of Oxford County and the Family and Children’s Services of Lanark, Leeds and Grenville in Canada were the victims of a ransomware infection. Jemison Internal Medicine is notifying 6,550 patients of a ransomware infection that may have compromised their personal information.
Payment card breaches and service disruptions: A number of Tim Hortons locations in Canada were temporarily shut down or were forced to close their drive-throughs after malware was discovered targeting Panasonic cash registers. NIS America said that customers of its online stores had their information compromised due to being redirected to a malicious site that would harvest their information during the checkout process. North 40 is notifying customers that their payment card information may have been compromised due to unauthorized access to its e-commerce website.
Notable data breaches: A hacker gained access to the intranet of Germany’s government and accessed confidential information. St. Peter’s Surgery and Endoscopy Center is notifying patients that their personal and medical information may have been compromised due to unauthorized access to its servers. Healthcare vendor FastHealth submitted a data breach notification regarding unauthorized access to its web server. Porsche Japan said that the information of customers was exposed due to a hack. Metro Wire Rope Corporation said that an employee email account was compromised after the employee opened a malicious attachment with credential-stealing capabilities. The French news magazine L’Express exposed a database containing the personal information of readers and after being notified of the exposure took a month to secure the data. U.S. Marine Corps Forces Reserve may have compromised the personal information of 21,426 individuals due to sending an unencrypted email with an attachment to the wrong email distribution list.
Other notable events: The Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center said that one of its employees was successfully phished, and the compromised email account was used to send further phishing messages to other members, affiliates, and employees. The recent hack of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics that led to Internet disruptions and website downtime was a false-flag operation carried out by Russian military spies to make it appear as if the attack was carried out by North Korea, U.S. intelligence officials said. An Arkansas man who developed the remote-access Trojan NanoCore and marketed it on Hack Forums has been sentenced to 33 months in prison.

SurfWatch Labs collected data on many different companies tied to cybercrime over the past week. Some of the top trending targets are shown in the chart below.

Cyber Risk Trends From the Past Week

Equifax was back in the news this week after announcing it had discovered an additional 2.4 million U.S. consumers who were affected by its massive 2017 data breach, bringing the total number of people impacted to 147.9 million.

“This is not about newly discovered stolen data,” said Paulino do Rego Barros, Jr., Interim chief executive officer in a press release. “It’s about sifting through the previously identified stolen data, analyzing other information in our databases that was not taken by the attackers, and making connections that enabled us to identify additional individuals.”

The company also said that it expects breach-related costs to hit $275 million in 2018, which Reuters noted could make the Equifax breach the most costly hack in corporate history:

The projection, which was disclosed on a Friday morning earnings conference call, is on top of $164 million in pretax costs posted in the second half of 2017. That brings expected breach-related costs through the end of this year to $439 million, some $125 million of which Equifax said will be covered by insurance.

Those breach-related costs could rise further once legal actions from consumers and regulators are finally resolved. However, Sen. Elizabeth Warren recently stated that “Equifax is still making money off their own breach” and that even consumers who do not want to do business with them may end up buying credit protection services from another company who “very well may be using Equifax to do the back office part.”

It’s the same criticism she waged in January when introducing a bill with Sen. Mark Warner to address problems related to credit agencies collecting data without strict protections in place to secure that information. As CNET noted, if such a bill was in place at the time of the Equifax breach, the company likely would have faced a fine of at least $14.3 billion.

Weekly Cyber Risk Roundup: W-2 Theft, BEC Scams, and SEC Guidance

The FBI is once again warning organizations that there has been an increase in phishing campaigns targeting employee W-2 information. In addition, this week saw new breach notifications related to W-2 theft, as well as reports of a threat actor targeting Fortune 500 companies with business email compromise (BEC) scams in order to steal millions of dollars.

The recent breach notification from Los Angeles Philharmonic highlights how W-2 information is often targeted during the tax season: attackers impersonated the organization’s chief financial officer via what appeared to be a legitimate email address and requested that the W-2 information for every employee be forwarded.

“The most popular method remains impersonating an executive, either through a compromised or spoofed email in order to obtain W-2 information from a Human Resource (HR) professional within the same organization,” the FBI noted in its alert on W-2 phishing scams.

In addition, researchers said that a threat actor, which is likely of Nigerian origin, has been successfully targeting accounts payable personnel at some Fortune 500 companies to initiate fraudulent wire transfers and steal millions of dollars. The examples observed by the researchers highlight “how attackers used stolen email credentials and sophisticated social engineering tactics without compromising the corporate network to defraud a company.”

The recent discoveries highlight the importance of protecting against BEC and other types of phishing scams. The FBI advises that the key to reducing the risk is understanding the criminals’ techniques and deploying effective mitigation processes, such as:

limiting the number of employees who have authority to approve wire transfers or share employee and customer data;
requiring another layer of approval such as a phone call, PIN, one-time code, or dual approval to verify identities before sensitive requests such as changing the payment information of vendors is confirmed;
and delaying transactions until additional verification processes can be performed.

Other trending cybercrime events from the week include:

Spyware companies hacked: A hacker has breached two different spyware companies, Mobistealth and Spy Master Pro, and provided gigabytes of stolen data to Motherboard. Motherboard reported that the data contained customer records, apparent business information, and alleged intercepted messages of some people targeted by the malware.
Data accidentally exposed: The University of Wisconsin – Superior Alumni Association is notifying alumni that their Social Security numbers may have been exposed due to the ID numbers for some individuals being the same as their Social Security numbers and those ID numbers being shared with a travel vendor. More than 70 residents of the city of Ballarat had their personal information posted online when an attachment containing a list of individuals who had made submissions to the review of City of Ballarat’s CBD Car Parking Action Plan was posted online unredacted. Chase said that a “glitch” led to some customers’ personal information being displayed on other customers’ accounts.
Notable data breaches: The compromise of a senior moderator’s account at the HardwareZone Forum led to a breach affecting 685,000 user profiles, the site’s owner said. White and Bright Family Dental is notifying patients that it discovered unauthorized access to a server that contained patient personal information. The University of Virginia Health System is notifying 1,882 patients that their medical records may have been accessed due to discovering malware on a physician’s device. HomeTown Bank in Texas is notifying customers that it discovered a skimming device installed on an ATM at its Galveston branch.
Other notable events: The Colorado Department of Transportation said that its Windows computers were infected with SamSam ransomware and that more than 2,000 computers were shut down to stop the ransomware from spreading and investigate the attack. The city of Allentown, Pennsylvania, said it is investigating the discovery of malware on its systems, but there is no reason to believe personal data has been compromised. Harper’s Magazine is warning its subscribers that their credentials may have been compromised.

SurfWatch Labs collected data on many different companies tied to cybercrime over the past week. Some of the top trending targets are shown in the chart below.

Cyber Risk Trends From the Past Week

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued updated guidance on how public organizations should respond to data breaches and other cybersecurity issues last week.

The document, titled “Commission Statement and Guidance on Public Company Cybersecurity Disclosures,” states that “it is critical that public companies take all required actions to inform investors about material cybersecurity risks and incidents in a timely fashion, including those companies that are subject to material cybersecurity risks but may not yet have been the target of a cyber-attack.”

The SEC also advised that directors, officers, and other corporate insiders should not trade a public company’s securities if they are in possession of material nonpublic information — an issue that arose when it was reported that several Equifax executives sold shares in the days following the company’s massive data breach. The SEC said that public companies should have policies and procedures in place to prevent insiders from taking advantage of insider knowledge of cybersecurity incidents, as well as to ensure a timely disclosure of any related material nonpublic information.

“I believe that providing the Commission’s views on these matters will promote clearer and more robust disclosure by companies about cybersecurity risks and incidents, resulting in more complete information being available to investors,” said SEC Chairman Jay Clayton. “In particular, I urge public companies to examine their controls and procedures, with not only their securities law disclosure obligations in mind, but also reputational considerations around sales of securities by executives.”

The SEC unanimously approved the updated guidance; however, Reuters reported that there was reluctant support from democrats on the commission who were calling for much more rigorous rulemaking to be put in place.

Weekly Cyber Risk Roundup: Olympic Malware and Russian Cybercrime

More information was revealed this week about the Olympic Destroyer malware and how it was used to disrupt the availability of the Pyeonchang Olympic’s official website for a 12-hour period earlier this month.

It appears that back in December, a threat actor may have compromised the computer system’s of Atos, an IT service provider for the Olympics, and then used that access to perform reconnaissance and eventually spread the destructive wiper malware known as “Olympic Destroyer.”

The malware was designed to delete files and event logs by using legitimate Windows features such as PsExec and Windows Management Instrumentation, Cisco researchers said.

Cyberscoop reported that Atos, which is hosting the cloud infrastructure for the Pyeongchang games, was compromised since at least December 2017, according to VirusTotal samples. The threat actor then used stolen login credentials of Olympics staff in order to quickly propagate the malware.

An Atos spokesperson confirmed the breach and said that investigations into the incident are continuing.

“[The attack] used hardcoded credentials embedded in a malware,” the spokesperson said. “The credentials embedded in the malware do not indicate the origin of the attack. No competitions were ever affected and the team is continuing to work to ensure that the Olympic Games are running smoothly.”

The Olympic Destroyer malware samples on VirusTotal contained various stolen employee data such as usernames and passwords; however, it is unclear if that information was stolen via a supply-chain attack or some other means, Cyberscoop reported.

Other trending cybercrime events from the week include:

Organizations expose data: Researchers discovered a publicly exposed Amazon S3 bucket belonging to Bongo International LLC, which was bought by FedEx in 2014, that contained more than 119 thousand scanned documents of U.S. and international citizens. Researchers found a publicly exposed database belonging to The Sacramento Bee that contained information on all 19 million registered voters in California, as well as internal data such as the paper’s internal system information, API information, and other content. Researchers discovered a publicly exposed network-attached storage device belonging to the Maryland Joint Insurance Association that contained a variety of sensitive customer information and other credentials. The City of Thomasville said that it accidentally released the Social Security numbers of 269 employees to someone who put in a public record request for employee salaries, and those documents were then posted on a Facebook page.
Notable phishing attacks: The Holyoke Treasurer’s Office in Massachusetts said that it lost $10,000 due to a phishing attack that requested an urgent wire payment be processed. Sutter Health said that a phishing attack at legal services vendor Salem and Green led to unauthorized access to an employee email account that contained personal information for individuals related to mergers and acquisitions activity. The Connecticut Airport Authority said that employee email accounts were compromised in a phishing attack and that personal information may have been compromised as a result.
User and employee accounts accessed: A phishing attack led to more than 50,000 Snapchat users having their credentials stolen, The Verge reported. A hacker said that it’s easy to brute force user logins for Freedom Mobile and gain access to customers’ personal information. Entergy is notifying employees of a breach of W-2 information via its contractor’s website TALX due to unauthorized individuals answering employees’ personal questions and resetting PINs.
Other notable events: Makeup Geek is notifying customers of the discovery of malware on its website that led to the theft of personal and financial information entered by visitors over a two-week period in December 2017. The Russian central bank said that hackers managed to steal approximately $6 million from a Russian bank in 2017 in an attack that leveraged the SWIFT messaging system. Western Union is informing some customers of a third-party data breach at “an external vendor system formerly used by Western Union for secure data storage” that may have exposed their personal information.

SurfWatch Labs collected data on many different companies tied to cybercrime over the past week. Some of the top trending targets are shown in the chart below.

Cyber Risk Trends From the Past Week

The U.S. government issued a formal statement this past week blaming the Russian military for the June 2017 outbreak of NotPetya malware. Then on Friday, the day after the NotPetya accusations, the Justice Department indicted 13 Russian individuals and three Russian companies for using information warfare to interfere with the U.S. political system, including the 2016 presidential election. Those stories have once again pushed the alleged cyber activities of the Russian government into the national spotlight.

A statement on NotPetya from White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders described the outbreak as “the most destructive and costly cyber-attack in history” and vowed that the “reckless and indiscriminate cyber-attack … will be met with international consequences.” Newsweek reported that the NotPetya outbreak, which leveraged the popular Ukrainian accounting software M.E. Doc to spread, cost companies more than $1.2 billion. The United Kingdom also publicly blamed Russia for the attacks, writing in a statement that “malicious cyber activity will not be tolerated.” A spokesperson for Russian President Vladimir Putin denied the allegations as “the continuation of the Russophobic campaign.”

It remains unclear what “consequences” the U.S. will impose in response to NotPetya. Politicians are still urging President Trump to enforce sanctions on Russia that were passed with bipartisan majorities in July. Newsday reported that congressmen such as democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer and republican representative Peter King have urged those sanctions to be enforced following Friday’s indictment of 13 Russians and three Russian companies.

The indictment alleges the individuals attempted to “spread distrust” towards U.S. political candidates and the U.S. political system by using stolen or fictitious identities and documents to impersonate politically active Americans, purchase political advertisements on social media platforms, and pay real Americans to engage in political activities such as rallies. For example, the indictment alleges that after the 2016 presidential election, the Russian operatives staged rallies both in favor of and against Donald Trump in New York on the same day in order to further their goal of promoting discord.

As The New York Times reported, none of those indicted have been arrested, and Russia is not expected to extradite those charged to the U.S. to face prosecution. Instead, the goal is to name and shame the operatives and make it harder for them to work undetected in future operations.

Weekly Cyber Risk Roundup: Cryptocurrency Attacks and a Major Cybercriminal Indictment

Cryptocurrency continued to make headlines this past week for a variety of cybercrime-related activities.

For starters, researchers discovered a new cryptocurrency miner, dubbed ADB.Miner, that infected nearly 7,000 Android devices such as smartphones, televisions, and tablets over a several-day period. The researchers said the malware uses the ADB debug interface on port 5555 to spread and that it has Mirai code within its scanning module.

In addition, several organizations reported malware infections involving cryptocurrency miners. Four servers at a wastewater facility in Europe were infected with malware designed to mine Monero, and the incident is the first ever documented mining attack to hit an operational technology network of a critical infrastructure operator, security firm Radiflow said. In addition, Decatur County General Hospital recently reported that cryptocurrency mining malware was found on a server related to its electronic medical record system.

Reuters also reported this week on allegations by South Korea that North Korea had hacked into unnamed cryptocurrency exchanges and stolen billions of won. Investors of the Bee Token ICO were also duped after scammers sent out phishing messages to the token’s mailing list claiming that a surprise partnership with Microsoft had been formed and that those who contributed to the ICO in the next six hours would receive a 100% bonus.

All of the recent cryptocurrency-related cybercrime headlines have led some experts to speculate that the use of mining software on unsuspecting users’ machines, or cryptojacking, may eventually surpass ransomware as the primary money maker for cybercriminals.

Other trending cybercrime events from the week include:

W-2 data compromised: The City of Pittsburg said that some employees had their W-2 information compromised due to a phishing attack. The University of Northern Colorado said that 12 employees had their information compromised due to unauthorized access to their profiles on the university’s online portal, Ursa, which led to the theft of W-2 information. Washington school districts are warning that an ongoing phishing campaign is targeting human resources and payroll staff in an attempt to compromise W-2 information.
U.S. defense secrets targeted: The Russian hacking group known as Fancy Bear successfully gained access to the email accounts of contract workers related to sensitive U.S. defense technology; however, it is uncertain what may have been stolen. The Associated Press reported that the group targeted at least 87 people working on militarized drones, missiles, rockets, stealth fighter jets, cloud-computing platforms, or other sensitive activities, and as many as 40 percent of those targeted ultimately clicked on the hackers’ phishing links.
Financial information stolen: Advance-Online is notifying customers that their personal and financial information stored on the company’s online platform may have been subject to unauthorized access from April 29, 2017 to January 12, 2018. Citizens Financials Group is notifying customers that their financial information may have been compromised due to the discovery of a skimming device found at a Citizens Bank ATM in Connecticut. Ameriprise Financial is notifying customers that one of its former employees has been calling its service center and impersonating them by using their name, address, and account numbers.
Other notable events: Swisscom said that the “misappropriation of a sales partner’s access rights” led to a 2017 data breach that affected approximately 800,000 customers. A cloud repository belonging to the Paris-based brand marketing company Octoly was erroneously configured for public access and exposed the personal information of more than 12,000 Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube personalities. Ron’s Pharmacy in Oregon is notifying customers that their personal information may have been compromised due to unauthorized access to an employee’s email account. Partners Healthcare said that a May 2017 data breach may have exposed the personal information of up to 2,600 patients. Harvey County in Kansas said that a cyber-attack disrupted county services and led to a portion of the network being disabled. Smith Dental in Tennessee said that a ransomware infection may have compromised the personal information of 1,500 patients. Fresenius Medical Care North America has agreed to a $3.5 million settlement to settle potential HIPAA violations stemming from five separate breaches that occurred in 2012.

SurfWatch Labs collected data on many different companies tied to cybercrime over the past week. Some of those “newly seen” targets, meaning they either appeared in SurfWatch Labs’ data for the first time or else reappeared after being absent for several weeks, are shown in the chart below.

Cyber Risk Trends From the Past Week

A federal indictment charging 36 individuals for their role in a cybercriminal enterprise known as the Infraud Organization, which was responsible for more than $530 million in losses, was unsealed this past week. Acting Assistant Attorney General Cronan said the case is “one of the largest cyberfraud enterprise prosecutions ever undertaken by the Department of Justice.”

The indictment alleges that the group engaged in the large-scale acquisition, sale, and dissemination of stolen identities, compromised debit and credit cards, personally identifiable information, financial and banking information, computer malware, and other contraband dating back to October 2010. Thirteen of those charged were taken into custody in countries around the world.

As the Justice Department press release noted:

Under the slogan, “In Fraud We Trust,” the organization directed traffic and potential purchasers to the automated vending sites of its members, which served as online conduits to traffic in stolen means of identification, stolen financial and banking information, malware, and other illicit goods. It also provided an escrow service to facilitate illicit digital currency transactions among its members and employed screening protocols that purported to ensure only high quality vendors of stolen cards, personally identifiable information, and other contraband were permitted to advertise to members.

ABC News reported that investigators believe the group’s nearly 11,000 members targeted more than 4.3 million credit cards, debit cards, and bank accounts worldwide. Over its seven-year history, the group inflicted $2.2 billion in intended losses and more than $530 million in actual losses against a wide range of financial institutions, merchants, and individuals.
Continue reading “Weekly Cyber Risk Roundup: Cryptocurrency Attacks and a Major Cybercriminal Indictment”

Weekly Cyber Risk Roundup: Bitcoin Attacks Dominate Headlines, New Phishing Warnings

Several cryptocurrency exchanges were among the week’s top trending cybercrime targets due to a variety of different currency thefts, data breaches, and warnings from researchers.

The most impactful incident occurred at the bitcoin mining platform and exchange NiceHash, which said on Wednesday that its payment system was compromised and the bitcoin in its wallet was stolen. NiceHash said it is “working to verify the precise number of BTC taken”; however, news outlets reported that a wallet linked to the attack obtained around 4,736 bitcoin, which is valued at more than $72 million based on Saturday’s price. The company has not released many details about the attack other than that it began after an employee’s computer was compromised.

In addition, researchers warned this week that the increased valuation of bitcoin has led to it becoming one of the top 10 most targeted industries for DDoS attacks. On Monday, Bitfinex said that its services were disrupted by a DDoS attack. On Thursday, Coinbase warned that the explosion of interest in digital currencies was creating “extreme volatility and stress” on its systems and warned its users to invest responsibly as any future downtime could impact their ability to trade.

News outlets also reported that some Bittrex customers who go through the company’s manual verification process but are rejected have received customer support emails that contain the passports details and photographs of other users, although Bittrex has not confirmed the reports.

Finally, the SEC announced that it obtained an emergency asset freeze to halt the Initial Coin Offering PlexCorps after it raised up to $15 million from thousands of investors by falsely promising a 13-fold profit in less than a month’s time.

Other trending cybercrime events from the week include:

TIO Networks announces breach: PayPal announced a breach at TIO Networks, a payment processor it acquired in July, that affects approximately 1.6 million customers. City Utilities (CU) and Duke Energy have since notified customers that their personal information was compromised due to the breach, as TIO was the provider of the operating system for CU’s payment kiosks and mobile payment app, in addition to being used to process Duke Energy’s in-person payments.
Payment card breaches: The Image Group is notifying customers of a temporary vulnerability on its eCommerce platform, Payflow Pro, that made some payment card numbers susceptible to interception while in transit to PayPal. JAM Paper & Envelope is notifying customers of a payment card card breach affecting its website due to unauthorized access by a third party. A payment card breach involving the Royal National Institute for the Blind’s web store affects as many as 817 customers, and around 55 individuals have already reported fraudulent activity as a result of the incident.
Extortion attacks: The Alameda County Library is notifying its users that their personal information may have been compromised after it received an extortion email that claimed hackers had gained access to the library’s entire database of users and may sell that information if they weren’t paid a five bitcoin ransom. The Mecklenburg County government in North Carolina said that its computer systems were infected with ransomware that is demanding $23,000 for the encryption key. Mad River Township Fire and EMS Department in Ohio said that years of data related to residents who used EMS or fire services was lost due to a ransomware infection. The fertility clinic CCRM Minneapolis said that nearly 3,300 patients may have had their information compromised due to a ransomware attack.
Other notable incidents: The Center for Health Care Services in San Antonio is notifying 28,434 patients that their personal information was stolen by a former employee. The County of Humboldt is notifying current and former employees that the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office recovered payroll documents from the county. Pulmonary Specialists of Louisville is notifying patients their information may have been compromised due to possible unauthorized access. Virtual keyboard developer Ai.Type, bike sharing company oBike, Real Time Health Quotes, and Stanford University all had data breaches due to accidental data exposure. Baptist Health Louisville, Sinai Health System, and The Henry Ford Health System notified patients of employee email account breaches.
Law enforcement actions: Authorities reportedly shut down Leakbase, a service that sold access to more than two billion credentials collected from old data breaches. The Justice Department announced a software developer at the National Security Agency’s Tailored Access Operations has pleaded guilty to removing classified NSA data and later having that data stolen from his personal computer by Russian state-sponsored actors. A Michigan man pleaded guilty to gaining access to the Washtenaw County computer network and altering the electronic records of at least one inmate in an attempt to get the inmate released early. A Missouri man has been sentenced to six years in prison for hacking his former employer, American Crane & Tractor Parts, in order to steal trade secrets.

Cyber Risk Trends From the Past Week

Phishing concerns were highlighted once again this past week due to a newly announced vulnerability that allows malicious actors to spoof emails, as well as warnings that phishers are making efforts to appear more legitimate.

A researcher has discovered a collection of bugs in email clients, dubbed “Mailsploit,” that circumvents spoofing protection mechanisms and, in some cases, allows code injection attacks. The vulnerabilities were found in dozens of applications, including Apple Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, Microsoft Outlook 2016, Yahoo! Mail, ProtonMail, and others.

The bug has been fixed in 10 products and triaged for 8 additional products, the researcher said. In addition, Mozilla and Opera said they won’t fix the bug as they consider it to be a server-side problem; however, Thunderbird developer Jörg Knobloch told Wired that a patch would be made available. DMARC spoofing protection is not attacked directly using Mailsploit, the researcher said, but rather bypassed by taking advantage of how the clients display the email sender name.

In addition, researchers said that nearly a quarter of all phishing websites are now hosted on HTTPS domains, up from three percent a year ago. The increase is due to both an increased number of HTTPS websites that can be compromised and used to host malicious content, as well as phishers registering HTTPS domains themselves due to their belief that the “HTTPS” designation makes a phishing site seem more legitimate to potential victims. An informal poll conducted by PhishLabs found that more than 80% of the respondents incorrectly believed the green padlock associated with HTTPS websites indicated that a website was either legitimate or safe — when in reality it only means that the connection is encrypted.

Individuals and organizations should be aware that malicious actors continue to leverage exploits like Mailsploit along with more secure-looking websites in order to dupe potential victims via phishing attacks with the goal of installing malware, gaining access to networks, or stealing sensitive data.