An-insight-into-cyberterrorism
Posted in Cyber Security

An insight into cyberterrorism – Overview

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An-insight-into-cyberterrorism

By AMSAT Oct 12,2020

An insight into cyberterrorism

Cyberterrorism is the scourge facing both large and small organizations today. In fact, in the language of cybersecurity, two terms—cyberterrorism and cyberwarfare—have become the buzzwords.

 

What is cyberterrorism?

 

This is all about using the internet for nefarious objectives that seek to threaten or result in serious physical harm—even loss of life. Cyberterrorism often serves the objective to achieve political or ideological advantages through intimidation, terror and threat. The definition of cyberterrorism incorporates terror events like calculated disruption of computer networks through using numerous tools such as worms, viruses, and phishing events.

 

The explanation and description of cyberterrorism is highly dependent on context and prone to change. When cybercriminals leak or steal information, infiltrate the systems of régimes and conglomerates, they don’t immediately cause physical harm to a property or an individual but the disruption caused by such data breaches can be highly damaging. On the contrary, some experts believe that unlawful ways of receiving and curbing information should be considered as simple hacking rather than cyberterrorism.

How an organization can be protected against cyberterrorism

Since any organization may fall victim to cyberterrorism, it’s important that businesses—both large and small—prepare themselves to face any eventuality. In this context, you should often test your security events, perceive the vulnerabilities and mitigate them, while ensuring to update your tools, software and firewalls regularly. You need to device a disaster plan, inform everybody in your IT team to know what their roles and responsibilities are in case a crisis happens. Moreover, you should never be contingent on a single security solution, and always have a back-up plan in place.

Regardless of the disagreement over the presence of cyberwarfare, many nations including North Korea are known to conduct aggressive cyber actions against other countries.

Concerns

Cyberterrorism is getting extremely prominent on social media nowadays. Since the internet is playing a key role in all facets of human life, individuals or groups can use the privacy provided by the internet to intimidate citizens, certain groups, and states, without the looming threat of arrest, harm, or death to the attacker that being physically present would entail. Several groups use paraphernalia such as denial-of-service attack to attack and censor groups who confront them. Many people believe that cyberterrorism is a dangerous threat to countries’ economies, and fear an eruption could possibly lead to another Great Depression. Several leaders have an agreement that cyberterrorism has the highest amount of threat over other plausible attacks on U.S. soil. Although natural disasters are considered a chief threat and have known to be awe-inspiring to people and land, there is ultimately little that can be done to prevent such events from occurring. Therefore, one needs to focus more on preventive incidents that will make internet attacks difficult to implement. The Internet of Things seeks to further combine the simulated and physical worlds, which some experts see as a significant stimulus for states to use fanatical proxies in perpetuation of objectives.

Dependance on the internet is swiftly rising globally, generating a platform for international cyber terror schemes to be developed and executed as a direct threat to national security. For fanatics, cyber-based incidences have distinct advantages over physical attacks, as they can be executed remotely, covertly, and reasonably cheaply; they also do not need a heavy investment in weaponry and staff.

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  • cyberterrorism
  • Security Updates
  • cyber terror

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    Week in review: What happened in the field of cybersecurity
    Posted in Miscellaneous | Tagged

    Week in review: What happened in the field of cybersecurity

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    What happened in the field of cybersecurity

    By AMSAT Oct 9,2020

    Week in review: What happened in the field of cybersecurity

    Reports of vulnerability exploits, software releases, and ransomware vaccine marked the outgoing week. Here is a brief review of news that dominated the cyberworld.

     

    New ransomware vaccine programs created

     

    A new ransomware vaccine program was developed that terminates processes that use Microsoft’s vssadmin.exe application to try to remove volume shadow copies. Windows could make copies of users’ system and data files every day and save them in snapshots of Shadow volume copy.

     

    Microsoft accuses Iranian hackers of exploiting Zerologon flaw

     

    Tech giant Microsoft alleged that Iranian cybercriminals were exploiting the Zerologon vulnerability in several hacking campaigns. The company’s Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) was reported to have spotted the attacks.

    Google released Chrome 86 with security enhancements

    Search engine giant Google released Chrome 86 to the stable channel, which comprised many security improvements and new APIs for developers. Loaded with tons of password and security-related enhancements, Google’s new v86 release also comprised several new APIs.

    Windows Error Reporting service exploited by hackers

    It was learnt that a new fileless attack method that exploits the Microsoft Windows Error Reporting (WER) service was the handiwork of an unidentified hacking group. Malwarebytes security researchers Hossein Jazi and Jérôme Segura said that new “Kraken” attack was spotted on September 17. 

     

    US seized domain names used by Iran for propaganda

    The United States said that it captured as many as 92 domain names that an Iran-linked rival was leveraging in a global disinformation drive. Four of the domains appeared to be authentic news outlets, but they were controlled by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the US alleged.

    TAGS

    • Cybersecurity
    • Ransomware
    • Vulnerability
    • hackers

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      An-Insight-into-Cybersecurity-Compliance
      Posted in Cyber Security

      An Insight into Cybersecurity Compliance

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      An-Insight-into-Cybersecurity-Compliance

      By AMSAT Oct 8,2020

      An Insight into Cybersecurity Compliance

      With a dramatic increase in the number of cyber-attacks all over the world, organizations and governments are looking to impose cybersecurity by establishing more demanding compliance requirements. However, cybersecurity risk often dwarfs compliance requirements. Therefore, to prepare for different compliance needs, enterprises should focus more on strengthening cybersecurity, enabling them to stay ahead of the growing requirements.

      What is Cybersecurity Compliance?


      Security compliance is typically defined as creating a program that sets up risk-based controls to protect the veracity, confidentiality, and accessibility of information stored, processed, or moved. But cybersecurity compliance is not based in an irrelevant standard or limitation. Since different standards are likely to overlap each other, this may lead to confusion and surplus work for enterprises using a checklist-based technique.

      What is cybersecurity compliance framework?

      Achieving compliance within a supervisory framework is an ongoing process. Since the environment is constantly changing, and the working efficacy of a control may fail, steady monitoring and reporting is obligatory, and supervision on exactly what steady monitoring involves is also defined within each framework.


      Cybersecurity compliance framework is a set of guidelines and best practices that organizations need to follow to meet monitoring needs, improve processes, buttress security, and appreciate other business objectives. These frameworks offer ideals that are influenced by internal auditors and other internal stakeholders to evaluate the controls in place within their own organization, or potential customers or investors to measure the possible risks of connecting with an organization.


      How to Create a Cybersecurity Compliance Program

      1. Set up a Compliance Team

      It’s difficult to underestimate the importance of compliance team even for small- and medium-sized businesses. Cybersecurity is not a standalone phenomenon. As organizations continue to move their important operations to the cloud, they should produce a unified workflow and communicate across business and IT departments.


      1. Create a Risk Assessment

      Companies of all sizes ought to engage in the risk evaluation procedure, as more standards and rules focus on taking a risk-based process to compliance.


      1. Set Controls

      Your risk tolerance tells you it’s time you discovered how to reduce or transfer risk. Controls can include firewalls, encryption, password policies, vendor risk management program, employee training, and insurance.


      1. Device Policies

      Policies register your compliance activities and controls, serving as the foundation for any internal or external audits required.


      1. Continuously Oversee and Respond

      All compliance needs zero in on the process in which threats emerge. Threat actors and hackers incessantly work to find novel methods to obtain data. Instead of working to find new flaws, these unprincipled elements seek to revise existing methods. For example, they may assimilate two different types of identified ransomware programs to produce a new one. Constant supervision only finds new threats. The most significant thing for a compliance program is to respond to these problems before they lead to a data breach.

      TAGS

      • Cybersecurity
      • Compliance
      • framework
      • Risk Assessment

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        Role-of-social-engineering-in-cybersecurity
        Posted in Cyber Security

        Role of social engineering in cybersecurity

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        Role-of-social-engineering-in-cybersecurity

        By AMSAT Oct 7,2020

        Role of social engineering in cybersecurity

        Organizations, both large and small, are being affected by social engineering attacks. And with a rise in frequency, such attacks are also becoming quite sophisticated, thanks to cybercriminals’ ingenious and novel ways to trick employees and individuals into giving out important company data.

        What is social engineering?

        Social engineering is a method used to manipulate people into releasing important and sensitive information. This term incorporates all malicious activities performed through human interactions. The major idea behind this idea is to impact the target victim into taking activities that may not be in their best interest.

        The trickiest element of social engineering is that it deals with human flaws rather than system fiasco or network weaknesses. Nonetheless, social engineering is different from other scams since it is typically one of many steps in a more complex scam technique.


        Why social engineering is important

        If you don’t want to be tricked by threat actors and social engineers into revealing your login credentials and hacking your account, then you must learn about social engineering attacks. However, by a twist of sheer bad luck, once the cyberthieves manage to trick you into divulging your email password, they can easily access your contact list and other important accounts. The problem is not that you don’t have a robust security solution; rather, it has to do with the fact that you sometimes trust people you shouldn’t, and you, inadvertently, end up giving them the tool they can use to harm you. Imagine living in a house with alarm systems, CCTVs, security dogs, or padlocks, but you open the door to a criminal who can attack you only because you mistook him a delivery guy.

        Key facts about social engineering

        • Social engineering schemes differ from one social engineer to the next;
        • You don’t immediately get to know you are being hoodwinked
        • Social engineering is an old trick that spans across different industries, and it’s both physical and digital;
        • Most threat actors generally attack large enterprises and other SMEs, although no one is immune from a social engineering attack;
        • Social engineering techniques are also employed by countries and states.

        Types of social engineering attacks

        The following are the types of social engineering with examples:

         

        1. Phishing

        To gain access to important information—such as login credentials or bank information—phishing is a very popular technique employed by cyber-attackers and threat actors. A number of people still fall prey to phishing despite its widespread occurrence. For instance, a threat actor pretends to be a reliable source through interactions meant to trick the target into opening text messages or emails. The phisher’s ultimate objective is to bait the victim into revealing their personal information. Phishing emails can be recognized by the fundamental tone of urgency.

         

        1. Vishing

        Except for a voice, vishing serves the same purpose as phishing. Unlike a phisher, a visher uses urgent voice calls, voice mails, or voice notes to persuade the target into trusting that they must act quickly to defend themselves against an arrest or other eventualities.

         

        1. Baiting

        This type of social engineering method involves the target victim getting trapped the ‘bait.’ The social engineer knows that humans are certainly influenced when you throw an apparently tempting offer, so they exploit this. For example, a wicked threat actor might deliberately place a USB stick branded as “Confidential” in a place where the victim can notice it. Nevertheless, unbeknown to the target the stick is infected with malware. The target may then take the ‘bait’ and attach it to a computer system out of inquisitiveness. As soon as this activity is carried out, the malware gets injected into the computer.

         

        1. Pretexting

        In pretexting, the cyber-criminal retrieves critical information through a series of astutely created lies. The swindle is typically introduced by an invader feigning to be in need of the user’s sensitive information in order to carry out a significant task. For example, the cybercriminal can send the victim an email that nominates them as the beneficiary of a will. Nevertheless, the victim is cheated into trusting that they need to reveal their personal information to hasten the inheritance process.

         

        1. Quid Pro Quo

        This attack occurs when threat actors ask for personal information from their target in exchange for recompence or something they wish. It’s often an “if you give me this, I’ll give you that” kind of trade.

         

        The deal often appears too good to be true and it typically is because the threat actor is often the one who is the biggest beneficiary of such an exchange.

        TAGS

        • social engineering
        • Phishing
        • Cyber Security

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          What-transpired-in-the-sphere-of-cybersecurity
          Posted in Cyber Security

          Week in review: What transpired in the sphere of cybersecurity

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          What-transpired-in-the-sphere-of-cybersecurity

          By AMSAT Oct 02,2020

          Week in review: What transpired in the sphere of cybersecurity

          The outgoing week has been full of reports pertaining to vulnerabilities and their patches, as well as hacking and cyberattack incidents. Here’s a brief review of what transpired in the happening week.

          Apple fixed multiple flaws in macOS

          Technology giant Apple patched as many as four flaws across macOS Catalina, High Sierra and Mojave.

          The first flaw, CVE-2020-9973, was one of the security holes that affected the Model I/O component. Apple said misuse of the vulnerability, which involved the handing out of a malicious USD file, could lead to random code execution or a DoS condition.

           

          Another flaw, CVE-2020-9968, impacted all versions of macOS and which Apple also fixed in iOS 14. Apple also fixed a random code execution flaw that could be misused using malicious image files.

           

          North Korea hacker group strove to hack 11 UN Security Council officials

          A hacker group formerly linked with North Korea was spotted carrying out spear-phishing attacks to compromise the United Nations Security Council officials.


          The attacks were attributed to a North Korean hacker group by the codename of Kimsuky. As per the UN report, Kimsuky operations occurred across March and April this year and comprised a series of spear-phishing operations aimed at the Gmail accounts of UN officials.

          QNAP asked users to update NAS firmware and app

          Taiwanese vendor QNAP urged its customers to update the firmware and apps installed on NAS devices to avoid AgeLocker ransomware infections.


          The vendor also recognized that older versions of the PhotoStation app are impacted by known security flaws.

          Earlier, the company had issued another alert to warn its users of a wave of attacks spreading a ransomware strain tracked as eCh0raix.

          UHS hospitals hit by Ryuk ransomware attack

          Universal Health Services (UHS) healthcare providers were reportedly hit by a Ryuk ransomware attack, prompting them to shut down systems at healthcare facilities in the United States.


          The attack also disabled multiple antivirus programs.


          Universal Health Services (UHS) is an American Fortune 500 company with annual revenues of $11.37 billion and over 90,000 employees.

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          • Cyber Security
          • Ransomware Attack

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            The outgoing week has been full of reports pertaining to vulnerabilities and their patches, as well as hacking and cyberattack incidents. Here’s a brief review of what transpired in the happening week.

              

            Apple fixed multiple flaws in macOS

             

            Technology giant Apple patched as many as four flaws across macOS Catalina, High Sierra and Mojave.

            The first flaw, CVE-2020-9973, was one of the security holes that affected the Model I/O component. Apple said misuse of the vulnerability, which involved the handing out of a malicious USD file, could lead to random code execution or a DoS condition.

            Another flaw, CVE-2020-9968, impacted all versions of macOS and which Apple also fixed in iOS 14. Apple also fixed a random code execution flaw that could be misused using malicious image files.

             

            North Korea hacker group strove to hack 11 UN Security Council officials

             

            A hacker group formerly linked with North Korea was spotted carrying out spear-phishing attacks to compromise the United Nations Security Council officials.

            The attacks were attributed to a North Korean hacker group by the codename of Kimsuky. As per the UN report, Kimsuky operations occurred across March and April this year and comprised a series of spear-phishing operations aimed at the Gmail accounts of UN officials.

             

            QNAP asked users to update NAS firmware and app

             

            Taiwanese vendor QNAP urged its customers to update the firmware and apps installed on NAS devices to avoid AgeLocker ransomware infections.

            The vendor also recognized that older versions of the PhotoStation app are impacted by known security flaws.

            Earlier, the company had issued another alert to warn its users of a wave of attacks spreading a ransomware strain tracked as eCh0raix.

             

            UHS hospitals hit by Ryuk ransomware attack

             

            Universal Health Services (UHS) healthcare providers were reportedly hit by a Ryuk ransomware attack, prompting them to shut down systems at healthcare facilities in the United States.

             

            The attack also disabled multiple antivirus programs. Universal Health Services (UHS) is an American Fortune 500 company with annual revenues of $11.37 billion and over 90,000 employees.

            Posted in Cyber Security

            Cybersecurity Challenges in 2020 and Beyond

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            By AMSAT Oct 02,2020

            Cybersecurity Challenges in 2020 and Beyond

            In this day and age, when digitization has assumed a whole new level and hackers have found novel ways to infiltrate corporate data and systems, securing privacy has become more important than ever. News about cyber-threats like ransomware, phishing, vulnerability exploits, IoT based attacks, are a dime a dozen these days, with no end in sight. In view of the number of threats organizations—large and small—face the world over, cybersecurity has become a serious concern that needs to be dealt with seriously and effectively.

             

            Organizations are investing in new technologies in such diverse fields as telecommunication, artificial intelligence (AI), space travel, and health sciences. While digitization has its own sets of benefits, it is also highly vulnerable, prompting companies to take concrete measures to keep them from falling prey to cybercriminals and imperiling their privacy and confidentiality. Here are some of the biggest challenges organizations are likely to face in 2020 and beyond.

            1. Artificial Intelligence serves both as a deterrent and facilitator in cyber-attack

            While artificial Intelligence has done wonders in preempting cyber-attacks, it also, quite bizarrely, serves to facilitate a hacker in carrying out a malicious attack. Following rigorous research and modeling, AI can learn the irregularities in behavior patterns which can be used as a defensive tool, but, sadly, these same methods can be used by hackers and threat actors to execute a cyberattack.

             

            2. Loopholes in technical skills

            To prevent cyberattacks from occurring and to evaluate threats in the network, it’s important for organizations, large and small, to invest in training existing staff. Failure to do so will result in the loss of millions of dollars for corporate behemoths. According to research, the average cost of a data breach in 2019 was approximately $3.92m and the cost per lost record was around $150. Companies are immensely investing in making the system sturdy; however, executing these new cutting-edge technologies needs access to highly skilled and experienced technical resource.

             

            3. Cloud Risks

            On account of the flexibility and costs incurred in the legacy data center, organizations are moving their important data from legacy data centers to the cloud. Effective configuration and security measures ought to be in place in order to move the data to the cloud; otherwise, odds of falling into a trap can’t be ruled out. Cloud service providers are only meant to secure their platform, while companies are responsible for protecting the companies’ infrastructure from theft and removal over the cloud.

             

            4. Ransomware Threats

            This is the headline-grabbing cyberthreat these days; threats of ransomware attacks hitting organizations always loom.  Ransomware encodes files or blocks the access on the system or the network, after which the hacker demands ransom contingent on the criticality of the data or the size of the organization. In such cases, the victims, apart from losing the data, may also suffer financial and productivity losses, additional IT costs, and legal fees. 

             

            5. Internet of Things (IoT)

             

            Given a phenomenal rise in the adoption of the Internet of Things, security threats such as DDoS and ransomware can be employed to steal important data from both the individual and the organization. Threat actors can easily take advantage of these flaws in IoT infrastructure to perpetrate cyber-attacks.

            TAGS

            • Cybersecurity
            • Artificial Intelligence
            • Ransomware Threats

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