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Phishing: Understanding Your Cyber Adversaries

Nearly two years ago, an infamous incident occurred where stolen pictures of celebrities flooded the internet. Originally, it was thought that this was due to an iCloud vulnerability that allowed a brute force attack. But it now turns out it was because of a simple social engineering phishing hack.

Phishing usually involves sending mass emails that masquerade as legitimate communications, coming from a trustworthy source like a big bank or credit card company. The phisher seeks to trick the recipient into clicking on a link or opening an attachment that downloads malware onto the victim’s computer. The malware can then be used for criminal activity including theft of sensitive data or money. While phishers may send thousands of emails, all they need are a few or even one individual to fall for their trick to get into the IT system. It’s easy to forget that security threats aren’t always the work of sophisticated technology geniuses with malevolent intent. As in the case of the celebrity photos, the method was relatively simple. However, it still caused reputational damage.

Cyber attacks don’t appear out of nowhere.

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At the beginning and right through development and attack, humans are involved. Recently, we profiled half a dozen types of attackers. We call them the “Unusual Suspects.” An attack might start with the Professional working in the digital shadows seeking to make the most money possible from the damage they cause. Then you’ve got the Mules and Getaways who are on the front line, and will be the first to get caught when the law comes knocking. There are also Activists and Nation State Actors who are looking to change the world or steal information on behalf of their country’s government. And then there’s the Insider leaking sensitive information accidentally or on purpose with malicious intent.

bae - the usual suspects

These are all just some of personas BAE Systems recently identified as key threats to businesses and without them, cybercrime can’t exist.

Wising up to phishing attacks

In the IT space, one of the most common ways cyber criminals target employees of a company is through phishing. In the aforementioned celebrity photos case, court documents said Ryan Collins, 36, of Pennsylvania, hacked more than 100 people. According to reports in the press he used email names like ‘e-mail.protection318@icloud.com’ and asked for password details.

With these credentials, the hacker was able to go through email accounts looking for photos and videos, managing to get into around 50 iCloud accounts and 72 Gmail accounts mostly belonging to celebrities. It’s quite easy to imagine the damage hackers could cause if they got hold of corporate emails – think of the damage the 2014 Sony hack inflicted.

You can’t patch a human

Employees will always be a weak spot, and clever social engineering is leading to more examples of how this weakness can be exploited. The effects can be devastating. For example: a company that collects credit card data from its customers is at risk of a major data breach from a single employee clicking on an email leading to a website laced with malware. The financial and/or reputational damage and the related fines or compensation claims that result could be significant.

At its core, combating social engineering is a human problem that requires human solutions. In certain cases victims may violate policies, but it may often be the case that the rules or training were not clear enough for the employee to know they were doing something that could have serious consequences. And because humans are behind social engineering attacks, they are capable of evolving, matching the way the business world is using technology.

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To mitigate against social engineering attacks, there needs to be security awareness and culture from top to bottom. This might mean ongoing training for employees to understand the threats, as well as the right policies and procedures in place. This helps employees understand the risk from social engineering and what role they have in preventing it. Remember, this all has to be done in tandem with putting the right technology in place.

Defeating the Unusual Suspects

Defending against cyber threats is all well and good, but what about catching these Unusual Suspects? This is difficult, because they use sophisticated tactics to escape detection–they are located all over the world, and use secure software to escape detection and remain anonymous, often routing communications through multiple countries to avoid being caught.

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Fortunately this is a case where human fallibility is a good thing–criminals will make mistakes and leave digital finger prints that sophisticated analytics and forensic analysis can pick up. Finally don’t underestimate the power of human ingenuity–thanks to the efforts of security professionals, we’re finally getting to a point where the investigation of online crime is being slowly demystified and defenses put in place to mitigate the threat.

Why You Need a Vendor Management Policy Right Now

In recent years, more and more cybersecurity incidents have taken place as a result of insecure third-party vendors, business associates and contractors. For example, the repercussions of the notorious Target breach from a vulnerable HVAC vendor continue to plague the company today. With sensitive data, trade secrets and intellectual property at risk, hackers can easily leverage a third party’s direct access into a company’s network to break in.

While such incidents may cause significant financial and reputational harm to the first-party business, there is hope.

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Regulators are instating a growing number of legal requirements that an organization must meet with respect to third-party vendor riskcybersecurity management. As liability and regulations take shape, it is important to assess whether your company currently employs a vendor risk management policy, and, if not, understand how a lack of due diligence poses significant risk on your organization’s overall cybersecurity preparedness.

A vendor management policy is put in place so an organization can tier its vendors based on risk. A policy like this identifies which vendors put the organization most at risk and then expresses which controls the company will implement to lessen this risk. These controls might include rewriting all contracts to ensure vendors meet a certain level of security or implementing an annual inspection.

All this probably sounds pretty good, but you may still be wondering why you really need a vendor management policy—and why it’s urgent.

Here are four explanations to give you a better idea:

  1. Legal Liability

There are a growing number of legal requirements in a variety of sectors—from finance, to retail, to health care, to energy—on how companies should manage their third-party risk. Regulators have recognized that data breaches through third parties can present significant and sometimes catastrophic consequences to an organization. To deal with this risk, they have created various legal requirements in an effort to have organizations manage their third-party cyber risks more carefully. If you are in a regulated industry and do not currently have a vendor management policy, you could be out of compliance (and in a lot of trouble).

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  1. Well-Known Risks

An organization should be concerned about third parties that have either access to their most sensitive data or direct access into their corporate network. So if you work with a lot of third parties, you are naturally creating more targets that hackers and criminals can exploit. This is becoming more common, as organizations are outsourcing to vendors more frequently in an effort to either save costs or capitalize on vendor expertise. While that is all well and good, the more vendors you have, the larger risk landscape you create. This is a well-known risk—but all too many companies don’t give it enough thought.

  1. Unknown Risks

Not all risks are easily understandable. Many organizations today have entered into business relationships with third parties, not fully understanding the risk to their data. What’s more, the first party may not have set requirements for how their vendors should secure their data.

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A number of organizations struggle to even know who has access to their sensitive data, how much access they have, where it resides, and more. These unknowns give plenty of companies a valid reason for concern.

  1. Significant Consequences

To see how very real the consequences of not managing vendor policy are, simply read some of the latest cybersecurity headlines. An example that demonstrates the significant impact of a third-party breach is the recent Experian breach, which exposed the personally identifiable information of over 15 million consumers. In this case, Experian was holding loads of sensitive T-Mobile customer data, which hackers were able to access. The T-Mobile CEO John Legere expressed how furious he was at Experian for being the source of this compromise. Nothing has been stated yet, but we’re certain that this business partnership will be reevaluated after this experience.

The truth is that if you don’t have a vendor management policy in place today, your company is falling behind the times. Unfortunately, not having such a policy in place also means there is a good chance that your organization’s sensitive data is being handled by someone who shouldn’t have access to it. This puts the health of your entire company on the line.

Top Obama Administration Officials, Law Enforcement Reach Out at RSA Conference

loretta lynch at RSA

Attorney General Loretta Lynch addresses RSA Conference 2016

SAN FRANCISCO—Many of the Obama administration’s top brass are here in force, addressing some 40,000 practitioners from every part of the technology and information security industry at the annual RSA Conference. Set against the backdrop of the ongoing fight over between Apple and the FBI encryption and backdoors, the tension ebbed and flowed during sessions with Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, and Admiral Mike Rogers, U.S. Navy Commander, U.S. Cyber Command, and director of the NSA. While many speakers will not address the issue directly, the subtext is clear throughout the show, particularly as the public battle brings considerable interest to the privacy and security issues the RSA has centered on for 25 years.

Indeed, in his keynote address, RSA President Amit Yoran called law enforcement’s current stance on encryption “so misguided as to boggle the mind.” Brad Smith, president and chief legal officer of Microsoft, chimed in as well, asserting that we cannot keep people safe in the real world unless we can keep them safe in the virtual world. He lauded Apple and pledged that the tech giant would stand with Apple in its resistance.

Ash Carter at RSA

Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter in Conversation with Ted Schlein of Kleiner Perkins at RSA

While the gravity of the issue and the massive potential impact for many in the sector are boggling many minds here, the administration officials’ sessions also offered more broadly positive comments for businesses outside the tech sector. The conciliatory tone Lynch and Carter often struck centered on the critical need for partnerships between technology and government. They tried to emphasize the ways the administration is reaching out to private entities, both within Silicon Valley and across corporate America at large.

According to Sec. Carter, for example, the United States Cyber Command has three core missions: defending the Department of Defense’s network; helping American companies, the economy and critical infrastructure; and engaging in offensive cyber missions. The second is a key pillar, he said, as the DoD must keep in perspective that the strength of American entities is the strength of the nation. From threat intelligence to the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental he announced yesterday, to be helmed by Google’s Eric Schmidt, Carter believes there is considerable need for industry to engage with government on cyberrisk, and both parties have valuable assets to contribute. “Data security is a necessity, and we must help our companies harden themselves,” Carter said. Indeed, he wants both help for and from the industry. In closing, he said, “We are you. You pay us. We represent you and our job is to protect you, and we’d love to have your help.”

He also noted that the DoD is trying to learn a bit about managing its cyberrisk from the commercial sector’s best practices. “We do grade ourselves and we’re not getting good grades across the enterprise,” Carter told reporters Wednesday, according to Defense News. “I have these meetings where I call everyone in and we have these metrics which tell us how we’re doing [and] if you don’t score well, that is evident to the Secretary of Defense at those meetings.

“We don’t assume for a minute that we’re doing a perfect job at this,” he added. “That’s the whole reason for me to be here and the whole reason for me to be engaging with this community here at this conference.”

Carter also announced that the Department of Defense will be hosting “Hack the Pentagon,” a bug bounty program offering white hat hackers cash for finding and reporting vulnerabilities in the Pentagon’s websites. Many companies have been offering these programs to try to discover their exposure in a controlled setting, without the risk of reputation damage, personal information exposure and business interruption that accompany an unknown hacker finding them instead. Carter called these a “business best practice” to gauge preparedness.

Federal law enforcement also has a notable presence at RSA and is making a pronounced effort to reach out to businesses regarding cyberrisk, threat intelligence, and managing a cyberattack. Indeed, in one session Tuesday, panelists from the Department of Homeland Security, FBI and the White House urged a call to action for businesses to get serious about proactively building bridges with law enforcement and to make use of the many resources the administration is trying to activate to help private industry fortify against cyber threats. The government is working to make it easier for companies to turn to it for help, they said, and attitudes are shifting to more consistently recognize and respect victimized businesses and minimize business interruption.

Some in the audience expressed skepticism, such as one man who seized upon the Q&A portion of a session on government departments’ specific roles in fighting cyber criminals. He asked how the government can be trusted to help industry when it cannot protect itself. But corporate entities should be taking note, particularly of the services available. While many hesitate to share threat intelligence or even successful attacks, Eric Sporre, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s cyber division, stressed that FBI Director James Comey has made it a directive for FBI field offices to develop relationships with local businesses and to treat businesses as crime victims, not perpetrators. In responding to attacks, he noted, the Bureau sometimes even brings in victim services to holistically approach aiding in the investigation and recovery process.

Andy Ozment, assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications at the Department of Homeland Security, also highlighted the preventative measures his department offers companies, including personal risk assessment services. In some cases, chief information security officers and other executives engaged in cyberrisk management functions have been getting DHS assessments, using them as a tool to drive investment or otherwise sell cyber upwards with the board or C-suite of their organizations.

65% of Businesses Unprepared For Email-Based Cyber Threats

In a recent threat report, cloud email management company Mimecast warned they had seen a 55% increase in whaling attacks over the past three months. As we reported in this month’s Risk Management cover story “The Devil in the Details,” social engineering fraud schemes like whaling (which is phishing that targets higher-profile employees and executives) resulted in a total losses of more than $1.2 billion worldwide between October 2013 to August 2015. According to the Mimecast Business Email Threat Report 2016, released yesterday, IT security professionals clearly recognize the risk, with 64% of respondents in the new saying they see email as a major cybersecurity threat to their business. Yet only 35% feel confident about their level of preparedness against data breaches, while 65% feel ill-equipped or too out of date to reasonably defend against the risk.

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“Our cyber-security is under attack and we depend on technology, and email in particular, in all aspects of business. So it’s very disconcerting to see that while we might appreciate the danger, many companies are still taking too few measures to defend themselves against email-based threats in particular,” said Peter Bauer, chief executive officer of Mimecast. “As the cyber threat becomes more grave, email attacks will only become more common and more damaging. It’s essential that executives, the C-suite in particular, realize that they may not be as safe as they think and take action. Our research shows there is work still to be done to be safe and we can learn a lot from the experience of those that have learnt the hard way.”

Even the most secure companies feel the most at risk of these scams. Of the top 20% of organizations that feel most secure, 250% are more likely to see email as their biggest vulnerability. Those who feel most confident about guarding against the risk are 2.7 times more likely to have a C-suite that is extremely or very engaged in email security. Among the IT security managers who feel most prepared, five out of six say that their C-suite is engaged with email security, Mimecast reports. However, of all IT security managers who were polled, only 15% say their C-suite is extremely engaged in email security, while 44% say their C-suite is only somewhat engaged, not very engaged, or not engaged at all.

The firm also had some insight on best budgeting against the risks of phishing. Those who feel better prepared to handle email-based threats also allocate higher percentages of their IT security budgets toward email security, the firm found, with these IT security managers allocating 50% more of their budgets to email security compared to managers who were less confident in their readiness. Mimecast found 10.4% of the total IT budget toward email security is the ideal intersection between email security confidence and spend.

To reduce the threat of whaling, Mimecast recommends that companies:

  • Educate your senior management, key staff members and finance teams on this specific type of attack. Don’t include whaling in a general spear-phishing awareness campaign—single out this style of attack for special attention to ensure key staff remain vigilant.
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  • Carry out tests within your own business. Build your own whaling attack as an exercise to see how vulnerable your staff are.
  • Use technology where possible. Consider an inbound email stationery that marks and alerts readers of emails that have originated outside of the corporate network.
  • Consider subscribing to domain name registration alerting services so you are alerted when domains are created that closely resemble your corporate domain.
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    Consider registering all available TLDs for your domain, although with the emergence of generic TLDs (gTLD) this may not be scalable.

  • Review your finance team’s procedures; consider revising how payments to external third parties are authorized. Require more than single sign-off, or perhaps use voice or biometric approval only with the requestor to ensure validity of the request.

Check out the infographic below for more on business email threats:

mimecast business email threats