Remote working putting organisations at risk of ransomware

CERT NZ says the majority of ransomware attacks occur through poorly configured remote access systems, which businesses use to allow staff to access systems from outside the office.
While there are a range of these in use, one of the most commonly used is Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), with over 2,500 identified in New Zealand. RDP has a number of weaknesses, which means when it is used over the internet it can be exploited by attackers, and is a leading contributor to the ransomware incidents that CERT NZ receives.
“It’s essential that organisations urgently review their remote access systems, and make sure these systems are as secure as they can be. You may need to talk to your IT team or service provider about how to do this,” says Michael Shearer, Principal Advisor – Threats and Vulnerabilities at CERT NZ.
CERT NZ is partnering with internet service providers to contact organisations that use internet-exposed RDP to provide advice on how they can make remote working more secure.
“Regardless of what technology organisations use to enable remote working, it’s important to keep your system up to date and enable two-factor authentication for logins.”
As RDP is often exploited by attackers to gain access to an organisation’s network, CERT NZ recommends organisations consider other options to enable remote working, such as a virtual private network (VPN). Good VPN solutions support two-factor authentication, which adds an extra layer of security, and are designed to be used over the internet.
More broadly, CERT NZ is concerned about the growing impact ransomware attacks are having on New Zealand.
“Recent events have brought to light the devastating effects a ransomware attack can have on an organisation. There’s been an increasing trend of these types of attacks globally over the past 18 months, and they’re only going to continue.”
CERT NZ has seen an increase in ransomware reports in the second quarter of 2021 (April to June), compared to the first quarter of the year. Reaching a total of 30 reports, this is the highest number of ransomware reports made to CERT NZ within one quarter.
“These figures do not paint a complete picture of the extent of ransom attacks in New Zealand. These numbers only reflect what has been reported to us, however conversations with our industry partners indicate there are a lot more attacks happening.”
CERT NZ will soon be releasing more guidance for organisations about how to protect themselves against ransomware.

Understanding the increase in Supply Chain Security Attacks

The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity mapping on emerging supply chain attacks finds 66% of attacks focus on the supplier’s code.
Supply chain attacks have been a concern for cybersecurity experts for many years because the chain reaction triggered by one attack on a single supplier can compromise a network of providers. Malware is the attack technique that attackers resort to in 62% of attacks.
According to the new ENISA report - Threat Landscape for Supply Chain Attacks, which analysed 24 recent attacks, strong security protection is no longer enough for organisations when attackers have already shifted their attention to suppliers.
This is evidenced by the increasing impact of these attacks such as downtime of systems, monetary loss and reputational damage.
Supply chain attacks are now expected to multiply by 4 in 2021 compared to last year. Such new trend stresses the need for policymakers and the cybersecurity community to act now. This is why novel protective measures to prevent and respond to potential supply chain attacks in the future while mitigating their impact need to be introduced urgently.
Why is a good level of cybersecurity not good enough?
Composed of an attack on one or more suppliers with a later attack on the final target, namely the customer, supply chain attacks may take months to succeed. In many instances, such an attack may even go undetected for a long time. Similarly to Advanced Persistence Threat (APT) attacks, supply chain attacks are usually targeted, quite complex and costly with attackers probably planning them well in advance. All such aspects reveal the degree of sophistication of the adversaries and the persistence in seeking to succeed.
The report reveals that an organisation could be vulnerable to a supply chain attack even when its own defences are quite good. The attackers explore new potential highways to infiltrate organisations by targeting their suppliers. Moreover, with the almost limitless potential of the impact of supply chain attacks on numerous customers, these types of attacks are becoming increasingly common.
In order to compromise the targeted customers, attackers focused on the suppliers’ code in about 66% of the reported incidents. This shows that organisations should focus their efforts on validating third-party code and software before using them to ensure these were not tampered with or manipulated.
For about 58% of the supply chain incidents analysed, the customer assets targeted were predominantly customer data, including Personally Identifiable Information (PII) data and intellectual property.
For 66% of the supply chain attacks analysed, suppliers did not know, or failed to report on how they were compromised. However, less than 9% of the customers compromised through supply chain attacks did not know how the attacks occurred. This highlights the gap in terms of maturity in cybersecurity incident reporting between suppliers and end-users.

Biden Administration Announces Further Actions to Protect U.S. Critical Infrastructure

The Biden Administration continues to take steps to safeguard U.S. critical infrastructure from growing, persistent, and sophisticated cyber threats. Recent high-profile attacks on critical infrastructure around the world, including the ransomware attacks on the Colonial Pipeline and JBS Foods in the United States, demonstrate that significant cyber vulnerabilities exist across U.S. critical infrastructure, which is largely owned and operated by the private sector.
Currently, federal cybersecurity regulation in the United States is sectoral. It has a patchwork of sector-specific statutes that have been adopted piecemeal, as data security threats in particular sectors have gained public attention. Given the evolving threat faced today, it must consider new approaches, both voluntary and mandatory. It is critical infrastructure owners and operators responsibility to follow voluntary guidance as well as mandatory requirements in order to ensure that the critical services the American people rely on are protected from cyber threats.
President Biden has signed a National Security Memorandum (NSM) on “Improving Cybersecurity for Critical Infrastructure Control Systems,” which addresses cybersecurity for critical infrastructure and implements long overdue efforts to meet the threats. The NSM:
- Directs the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in collaboration with other agencies, to develop cybersecurity performance goals for critical infrastructure.
- Formally establishes the President’s Industrial Control System Cybersecurity (ICS) Initiative. The ICS initiative is a voluntary, collaborative effort between the federal government and the critical infrastructure community to facilitate the deployment of technology and systems that provide threat visibility, indicators, detections, and warnings.

TSA Takes Steps to Address Some Pipeline Security Program Weaknesses

The nation's pipelines are vulnerable to cyber-based attacks due to increased reliance on computerized systems. In May 2021 malicious cyber actors deployed ransomware against Colonial Pipeline's business systems. The company subsequently disconnected certain systems that monitor and control physical pipeline functions so that they would not be compromised.
Protecting the nation's pipeline systems from security threats is a responsibility shared by both the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and private industry stakeholders. Prior to issuing a cybersecurity directive in May 2021, TSA's efforts included issuing voluntary security guidelines and security reviews of privately owned and operated pipelines. GAO reports in 2018 and 2019 identified some weaknesses in the agency's oversight and guidance, and made 15 recommendations to address these weaknesses. TSA concurred with GAO's recommendations and has addressed most of them, such as clarifying portions of its Pipeline Security Guidelines improving its monitoring of security review performance, and assessing staffing needs.
As of June 2021, TSA had not fully addressed two pipeline cybersecurity-related weaknesses that GAO previously identified. These weaknesses correspond to three of the 15 recommendations from GAO's 2018 and 2019 reports.
Incomplete information for pipeline risk assessments. GAO identified factors that likely limit the usefulness of TSA's risk assessment methodology for prioritizing pipeline security reviews. For example, TSA's risk assessment did not include information consistent with critical infrastructure risk mitigation, such as information on natural hazards and cybersecurity risks. GAO recommended that TSA develop data sources relevant to pipeline threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences of disruptions. As of June 2021, TSA had not fully addressed this recommendation.
Aged protocols for responding to pipeline security incidents. GAO reported in June 2019 that TSA had not revised its 2010 Pipeline Security and Incident Recovery Protocol Plan to reflect changes in pipeline security threats, including those related to cybersecurity. GAO recommended that TSA periodically review, and update its 2010 plan. TSA has begun taking action in response to this recommendation, but has not fully addressed it, as of June 2021.
TSA's May 2021 cybersecurity directive requires that certain pipeline owner/operators assess whether their current operations are consistent with TSA's Guidelines on cybersecurity, identify any gaps and remediation measures, and report the results to TSA and others. TSA's July 2021 cybersecurity directive mandates that certain pipeline owner/operators implement cybersecurity mitigation measures; develop a Cybersecurity Contingency Response Plan in the event of an incident; and undergo an annual cybersecurity architecture design review, among other things. These recent security directives are important requirements for pipeline owner/operators because TSA's Guidelines do not include key mitigation strategies for owner/operators to reference when reviewing their cyber assets. TSA officials told GAO that a timely update to address current cyber threats is appropriate and that they anticipate updating the Guidelines over the next year.

NSA, CISA, and FBI detail Chinese State-Sponsored Actions, Mitigations

The National Security Agency (NSA), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a Cybersecurity Advisory, Chinese State-Sponsored Cyber Operations: Observed TTPs. This advisory describes over 50 tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) Chinese state-sponsored cyber actors used when targeting U.S. and allied networks, and details mitigations.
Chinese state-sponsored cyber activity poses a major threat to U.S. and allied systems. These actors aggressively target political, economic, military, educational, and critical infrastructure personnel and organizations to access valuable, sensitive data. These cyber operations support China’s long-term economic and military objectives.
One significant tactic detailed in the advisory includes the exploitation of public vulnerabilities within days of their public disclosure, often in major applications, such as Pulse Secure, Apache, F5 Big-IP, and Microsoft products. This advisory provides specific mitigations for detailed tactics and techniques aligned to the recently released, NSA-funded MITRE D3FEND framework.
General mitigations outlined include: prompt patching; enhanced monitoring of network traffic, email, and endpoint systems; and the use of protection capabilities, such as an antivirus and strong authentication, to stop malicious activity.

New ITU standards project to define a sustainability passport for digital products

A new ITU standard is under development to describe the information that a sustainability passport for digital products should contain to support consumers, industry and government in applying the principles of circular economy.
The project is underway in ITU’s standardization expert group for ‘environment and circular economy’, ITU-T Study Group 5.
Circular economy can be described as extending a product’s lifespan over multiple lifecycles or increasing the value delivered by a product over its lifespan. Supporting the shift towards circular economy is a key priority for ITU-T Study Group 5, with e-waste now the world’s fastest-growing waste stream.
Experts see considerable potential for a sustainability passport to provide an instrument to help manage e-waste in a sustainable way, on a global scale – e-waste often crosses borders, and often to developing countries ill-equipped to manage a growing e-waste burden.
Our national passports describe our attributes at birth but also record where we have travelled. Should a sustainability passport for digital products be the same?
“Digital products have one set of attributes at manufacture, but these attributes can change over time as products are upgraded, recycled or resold,” highlights the standard’s Editor and Co-Rapporteur for the responsible working group (Q7/5), Leandro Navarro of Spain’s Colegio Oficial Ingenieros de Telecomunicación.
The new standard aims to define the requirements and semantics necessary to represent information relevant to circular product lifecycles. Its development will consider the inclusion of information available at the time of manufacture as well as dynamic information representing changes to product attributes over product lifecycles.
“We need verifiable data to support us in assessing the extent to which we are achieving principles of circular economy and our ambition to achieve net zero emissions,” explains Leandro. “There is currently no international agreement on the product information required to facilitate and achieve circularity in the digital technology industry.”
Clarifying the necessary information could help to put theory into practice, highlights Leandro, making an example of ITU L.1023, an international standard outlining an assessment method for circular scoring.
“Verifiable, machine-readable information could enable automatic comparisons of product attributes relevant to circularity,” says Leandro. "And with the required degree of interoperability, all stakeholders and systems could make use of this information."

New StopRansomware.gov website launched

The U.S. Government launched a new website to help public and private organizations defend against the rise in ransomware cases. StopRansomware.gov is a whole-of-government approach that gives one central location for ransomware resources and alerts. We encourage organizations to use this new website to understand the threat of ransomware, mitigate risk, and in the event of an attack, know what steps to take next.
The StopRansomware.gov webpage is an interagency resource that provides our partners and stakeholders with ransomware protection, detection, and response guidance that they can use on a single website. This includes ransomware alerts, reports, and resources from CISA, the FBI, and other federal partners.

CISA’s CSET Tool Sets Sights on Ransomware Threat

CISA has released a new module in its Cyber Security Evaluation Tool (CSET): the Ransomware Readiness Assessment (RRA). CSET is a desktop software tool that guides network defenders through a step-by-step process to evaluate their cybersecurity practices on their networks. CSET—applicable to both information technology (IT) and industrial control system (ICS) networks—enables users to perform a comprehensive evaluation of their cybersecurity posture using many recognized government and industry standards and recommendations.

The RRA is a self-assessment based on a tiered set of practices to help organizations better assess how well they are equipped to defend and recover from a ransomware incident. CISA has tailored the RRA to varying levels of ransomware threat readiness to make it useful to all organizations regardless of their current cybersecurity maturity. The RRA:

  • Helps organizations evaluate their cybersecurity posture, with respect to ransomware, against recognized standards and best practice recommendations in a systematic, disciplined, and repeatable manner.
  • Guides asset owners and operators through a systematic process to evaluate their operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) network security practices against the ransomware threat.
  • Provides an analysis dashboard with graphs and tables that present the assessment results in both summary and detailed form.

CISA strongly encourages all organizations to take the CSET Ransomware Readiness Assessment

Coordinated action cuts off access to VPN service used by ransomware groups

Law enforcement and judicial authorities in Europe, the US and Canada have seized the web domains and server infrastructure of DoubleVPN. This is a virtual private network (VPN) service which provided a safe haven for cybercriminals to attack their victims.
This coordinated takedown, led by the Dutch National Police (Politie), under jurisdiction of the National Public Prosecutor’s Office (Landelijk Parket), with international activity coordinated by Europol and Eurojust, has now ended the availability of this service.
VPN service ransomware
Servers were seized across the world where DoubleVPN had hosted content, and the web domains were replaced with a law enforcement splash page. This coordinated takedown was carried out in the framework of the European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats (EMPACT).
DoubleVPN was heavily advertised on both Russian- and English-speaking underground cybercrime forums as a means to mask the location and identities of ransomware operators and phishing fraudsters. The service claimed to provide a high level of anonymity by offering single, double, triple and even quadruple VPN connections to its clients.
DoubleVPN was being used to compromise networks all around the world. Its cheapest VPN connection cost as little as EUR 22 ($25).
International coordination
International cooperation was central to the success of this investigation as the critical infrastructure was scattered across the world.
Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) supported the investigation from the onset, bringing together all the involved countries to establish a joint strategy. Its cybercrime specialists organised over 30 coordination meetings and four workshops to prepare for the final phase of the takedown, alongside providing analytical and crypto-tracing support. A virtual command post was set up by Europol on the action day to ensure seamless coordination between all the authorities involved in the takedown.
Eurojust facilitated the judicial cross-border cooperation and coordination, to ensure an adequate response in order to take down the network. For this purpose, and since October last year, six dedicated coordination meetings took place, organised by Eurojust, and set up a coordination centre during the action day, during which the operation was rolled on the ground by the various national authorities involved.

Coordinated Action Cuts Off Access to VPN Service Used by Ransomware Groups

Law enforcement and judicial authorities in Europe, the US and Canada have seized the web domains and server infrastructure of DoubleVPN. This is a virtual private network (VPN) service which provided a safe haven for cybercriminals to attack their victims.
This coordinated takedown, led by the Dutch National Police (Politie), under jurisdiction of the National Public Prosecutor’s Office (Landelijk Parket), with international activity coordinated by Europol and Eurojust, has now ended the availability of this service.
Servers were seized across the world where DoubleVPN had hosted content, and the web domains were replaced with a law enforcement splash page. This coordinated takedown was carried out in the framework of the European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats (EMPACT).
DoubleVPN was heavily advertised on both Russian and English-speaking underground cybercrime forums as a means to mask the location and identities of ransomware operators and phishing fraudsters. The service claimed to provide a high level of anonymity by offering single, double, triple and even quadruple VPN-connections to its clients.
DoubleVPN was being used to compromise networks all around the world. Its cheapest VPN-connection cost as little as €22 ($25).
INTERNATIONAL COORDINATION
International cooperation was central to the success of this investigation as the critical infrastructure was scattered across the world.
- Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) supported the investigation from the onset, bringing together all the involved countries to establish a joint strategy. Its cybercrime specialists organised over 30 coordination meetings and four workshops to prepare for the final phase of the takedown, alongside providing analytical and crypto-tracing support. A virtual command post was set up by Europol on the action day to ensure seamless coordination between all the authorities involved in the takedown.
- Eurojust facilitated the judicial cross-border cooperation and coordination, to ensure an adequate response in order to take down the network. For this purpose, and since October last year, six dedicated coordination meetings took place, organised by Eurojust, and set up a coordination centre during the action day, during which the operation was rolled on the ground by the various national authorities involved.
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