What are the top cyber threats the public and private sectors should be concerned about in the latter part of 2018?

Cyber security is a continuous game of Spy vs. Spy. Every time a new technology is introduced, the potential attack surface expands. The moment one vulnerability is patched, hackers find another way in. Keeping up with current top cyber threats can feel overwhelming, even for security professionals.

In no particular order, here are the top cyber threats that public and private sector organizations face as we head into the latter part of 2018.

Cloud Breaches

Despite the best efforts of major cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services, to educate their customers about cloud security, the epidemic of cloud breaches has continued unabated and ranks among the top cyber threats of 2018. Some cloud security threats mirror those organizations have been combating on-premises for years, while others are unique to the cloud environment. The good news is that proactive governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) measures can prevent cloud breaches.

Ransomware

Last week, news broke that medical testing provider LabCorp had been victimized by what it called “a new variant” of ransomware, possibly a mutation of the SamSam virus. Earlier this year, Verizon reported that ransomware remains the most common variant of malware, with the healthcare sector taking the brunt of the attacks. While ransomware is responsible for less than half of cyber incidents involving malicious code overall, in the healthcare industry, that figure is 85%. Hackers like ransomware because it’s inexpensive, low-risk on their part, and results in a near-immediate payday, especially when it’s used to cripple highly sensitive IT environments, such as found in the healthcare industry.

Election Hacking

Election security was one of the top cyber threats heading into the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing probe into election interference resulted in 12 indictments against Russian nationals just last week. U.S. states have been expressing their concerns about the upcoming midterms for several months, and Microsoft recently alleged that midterm election hacking has already commenced. Elections are the cornerstone of our democracy; Congress must stop dragging its feet and immediately help the states address election security.

Cryptojacking/Cryptocurrency Mining

Even though ransomware is the most common malware variant, cryptojacking and crypto-mining malware are insidious up-and-comers on our list of top cyber attacks. Once nearly exclusive to mobile phones and other small IoT devices, “next-generation” cryptojacking malware, such as WannaMine and Smominru, target desktop machines and servers. These malware variants are highly destructive, extremely difficult to take down, and frighteningly easy to spread. Earlier this year, thousands of websites, including government sites in the U.S., the UK, and Australia, were infected after hackers injected malware into the popular Browsealoud plugin.

Phishing

The easiest, most popular way to access a system is not backdoor hacking but using legitimate login credentials to waltz right in the front door. That’s why the old standby, phishing, kicks off 90% of all cyber attacks. The FBI reports that business email compromise spear phishing scams result in $12 billion in losses annually. Like the rest of the top cyber threats, phishing has evolved and isn’t just about email anymore. Modern cyber criminals utilize text messages, social media, and even phone calls to snag login credentials and PII.

Attacks on ICS, SCADA systems, and Other Operational Technology

Attacks on operational technology (OT) systems – the “behind-the-scenes” technology that powers factories, mining operations, and critical infrastructure such as utilities, healthcare facilities, and transportation networks – are rapidly escalating. OT attacks don’t just cripple business operations; they present threats to employee and public safety, and even national security. Yet many organizations focus their security efforts on their IT systems and give little thought to OT security, other than possibly air-gapping their OT systems. OT systems face unique vulnerabilities and threats, and air-gapping no longer works as a standalone solution.

The specific top cyber threats and vulnerabilities your organization faces depend on many factors, which is why it’s imperative to have a reputable cyber security firm such as Lazarus Alliance perform a customized risk assessment.

The cyber security experts at Lazarus Alliance have deep knowledge of the cyber security field, are continually monitoring the latest information security threats, and are committed to protecting organizations of all sizes from security breaches. Our full-service risk assessment services and Continuum GRC RegTech software will help protect your organization from data breaches, ransomware attacks, and other cyber threats.

Lazarus Alliance is proactive cyber security®. Call 1-888-896-7580 to discuss your organization’s cyber security needs and find out how we can help your organization adhere to cyber security regulations, maintain compliance, and secure your systems.

The new California Consumer Privacy Act is the strictest data privacy law in the U.S., but it falls fall short of the GDPR.

The recent Exactis data leak, which could surpass Equifax in the sheer number and scope of records exposed, has data privacy advocates calling for an “American GDPR.” While it is unlikely that a federal data privacy law will come to pass anytime soon, some states have already taken matters into their own hands. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which was coincidentally signed into law the day after the Exactis leak hit the news, is the latest example.

However, while the California Consumer Privacy Act codifies many rules that are beneficial to consumers, it also has significant shortcomings. It is the toughest data privacy law in the U.S., but calling it an “American GDPR” is more than a bit of a stretch.

The Pros of the California Consumer Privacy Act

First, let’s look at some of the new rights California consumers can look forward to:

• The right to know what information companies are collecting, what categories of data will be collected prior to collection, and why they are collecting it.
• The right to prohibit companies from selling their information.
• Minors under 16 must opt in before their data is collected at all.
• The right to know the categories of third parties with whom their data is being shared.
• The right to know the categories of sources of information from whom their data was acquired.
• The right to sue companies for violations of the CCPA.

Businesses can be fined up to $7,500 for each violation of the CCPA. While this may seem like a nominal amount, if hundreds, thousands, or even millions of records are involved, the penalties could be staggering.

The Drawbacks of the California Consumer Privacy Act

The CCPA has an interesting backstory. It began not as a bill, but a ballot initiative that was largely bankrolled by real estate developer Alistair Mactaggart. Mactaggart’s initiative – which had collected over 600,00 signatures and was on its way to being placed on the ballot in November – was stricter than the CCPA. Additionally, unlike state laws, which can be amended by the state legislature, once a California ballot initiative is passed by voters, it can be amended only by another successful ballot initiative. Lawmakers, pressured by tech companies who were spooked by the proposed referendum, hurriedly drew up and passed the CCPA as the deadline for the November ballot loomed. Mactaggart had promised to withdraw his initiative if the legislature passed a “comparable” law, and he made good on this promise.

Since the CCPA was rather hurriedly drafted, and was drafted for the specific purpose of avoiding a much stricter law that would have been incredibly difficult to amend, it contains numerous drawbacks, including:

• While the California Consumer Privacy Act gives consumers the right to know what information companies are collecting, it doesn’t require them to get permission before collecting it unless the data subject is under 16 years old.
• Companies also don’t have to give consumers the option of opting out of having their data collected.
• Similarly, while companies are required to inform consumers if they are selling or sharing their information, the requirement applies only if they are asked.
• Consumers have to wait for a company to actually sell their information before they can tell the company to stop.
• Consumers cannot opt out of having their information “shared,” only “sold.” They have the right to know the “categories” of who the data is being “shared” with, but they can’t stop it.
• Consumers don’t have to be informed exactly who their data is being sold to or “shared” with, only the “categories” of these companies.
• The CCPA applies only to residents of California, while they are in California. If a Californian shares their data while on a weekend trip to Las Vegas, the CCPA doesn’t apply.

Additionally, the California Consumer Privacy Act doesn’t come into effect until January 1, 2020, and tech companies are already pressuring the legislature to water it down further. This hasn’t escaped Alistair Mactaggart’s attention, as Bloomberg reports:

“There is the risk that tech will now sneakily come in and eviscerate this law,” Mactaggart says. “I want to stay involved to make sure we keep the gains we made.” He’s considering putting together a group of engineers and technical experts to help the state attorney general put the law into effect and enforce it. “The AG is going to have to produce some very sophisticated granular rules for how this stuff gets implemented, and [the tech industry] is going to be lobbying the AG six ways to Sunday,” he says.

Mactaggart also told Bloomberg that if the CCPA is weakened too significantly, he will consider another ballot initiative.

As the old saying goes, “California leads the nation.” Regardless of the ultimate fate of the CCPA, now that California has decided to address consumers’ increasing demands for data privacy and security, enterprises can expect similar legislation or even ballot initiatives in other states.

The cyber security experts at Lazarus Alliance have deep knowledge of the cyber security field, are continually monitoring the latest information security threats, and are committed to protecting organizations of all sizes from security breaches. Our full-service risk assessment services and Continuum GRC RegTech software will help protect your organization from data breaches, ransomware attacks, and other cyber threats.

Lazarus Alliance is proactive cyber security®. Call 1-888-896-7580 to discuss your organization’s cyber security needs and find out how we can help your organization adhere to cyber security regulations, maintain compliance, and secure your systems.

Most Federal Contractors Aren’t Using DMARC to Secure Their Emails

U.S. federal government agencies are required to use the email security protocol DMARC to prevent email spoofing, but the overwhelming majority of federal contractors either don’t have it installed or don’t have it set up properly. NextGov reports:

Among the top 98 government contractors by dollar value, only 45 have properly installed the tool known as DMARC and only five have set it up to quarantine or reject spoofed or phishing emails that might contain malware, according to an analysis by the company ValiMail.

That means 93 of those companies are more vulnerable to phishing and spoofed emails, which might endanger those contractors’ federal clients—even if those agencies have installed DMARC themselves.

What Is DMARC?

Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance is an email authentication and reporting protocol that protects against email spoofing, phishing, and spamming by verifying the authenticity of a sender’s identity. It was first proposed in 2012, and it is receiving a lot of attention right now because the U.S. DHS mandated that all second-level federal agency domains have valid DMARC records by January 15, 2018.

DMARC can be thought of as the top layer of a trio of protocols and technologies to strengthen email security. It builds on the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) protocols. SPF hardens DNS servers and ensures that only authorized users are permitted to send emails from a domain. DKIM prevents the contents of emails from being compromised.

DMARC ties SPF and DKIM together with a consistent set of policies. A DMARC policy allows a sender domain to specify if its emails use SPF, DKIM, or both. If the authentication fails, the incoming email is either rejected or directed to a spam folder, depending on how the policy is configured. The intended recipient then has an option to report the incident to the sending domain so that their security team can investigate the incident.

Right now, U.S. federal agencies are required only to have DMARC installed at a monitoring level, but by October 16, 2018, they must set their policies to “reject.”

The Shortfalls of DMARC

For DMARC to work, both the sender and recipient domains must have it configured properly. While DMARC adoption is growing exponentially, it is not yet universal, even among very large companies. NextGov reports that some of the federal contractors who have failed to properly set up DMARC are major multinational corporations.

Configuring DMARC, SPF, and DKIM is tedious and can be very tricky, especially for companies that have a lot of domains and subdomains or that use cloud services – which is pretty much everyone these days. Once the protocols are set up, they must be maintained and managed, and procedures must be implemented to deal with warnings and incident reports. Many companies do not have the in-house expertise or resources to handle this work.

Finally, while DMARC is an important email security protocol, it is not a panacea or a standalone solution. DMARC protects only against direct domain spoofing; it stops cyber criminals from using yourname.com to send spam and phishing emails. However, it doesn’t prevent criminals from using another, very similar domain that could trick users, such as yourename.com, or from using a fake name in the “from” field. The latter is of particular concern for mobile users, as mobile devices often display only an email sender’s name, not their email address.

DMARC is not the do-all, end-all of email security, and email security is only one component of enterprise cyber security. It’s important to partner with a reputable, experienced cyber security firm such as Lazarus Alliance to assess all your risks and vulnerabilities and secure all your systems, not just your email servers.

The cyber security experts at Lazarus Alliance have deep knowledge of the cyber security field, are continually monitoring the latest information security threats, and are committed to protecting organizations of all sizes from security breaches. Our full-service risk assessment services and Continuum GRC RegTech software will help protect your organization from data breaches, ransomware attacks, and other cyber threats.

Lazarus Alliance is proactive cyber security®. Call 1-888-896-7580 to discuss your organization’s cyber security needs and find out how we can help your organization adhere to cyber security regulations, maintain compliance, and secure your systems.