Nothing is more difficult than making predictions. Instead of trowing out wild ideas what might be coming, will be making educated guesses based on what has happened during the last 12 months and several years before that.
The past year has seen a rapid increase in the adoption of up-and-coming technologies. Everyday items are getting
smarter and more connected. Companies are saving millions with new technologies and cities are racing to
implement smart solutions. 5G promises to bring wireless high speed broadband to everywhere. On the other hand those solutions add new kinds of vulnerabilities. Competing in today’s digital marketplace requires that organizations are cyber-savvy. 2020 is when cybersecurity gets even weirder, so get ready.
Here are some trends and predictions for cyber security in 2020:
Cyber Attacks: Cyberattacks grow in volume and complexity.Many countries that are going to emerge as major threats in the 2020s. Nation-state backed cyber groups have been responsible for major incidents over the last decade. And now more countries want the same power. Cyberattacks range from targeting your database to steal information that can be sold on the dark web, to hijacking unused CPU cycles on your devices to mine for cryptocurrencies, or trying to infect vulnerable systems so they can be used later as part of a botnet.
IoT security: IoT security is still getting worse until it starts to get better. IoT security is an extremely hot topic right now and will be hot for many years to come. Industrial IoT risk has been discussed a lot. Physics dictates local application deployment, because the control rate of most industrial systems is 10 milliseconds or below. Smart Building Security Awareness Grows. The risks of the IoT in financial services are great. An explosion in IoT devices significantly raises the threat level. Gartner predicted that the world will see nearly 21 billion IoT devices by next year and it would be nice if all of them would be secure, but many of them unfortunately are not secure. Hackers are continually looking for ways to exploit device vulnerabilities. From smart TV’s, IP cameras, and smart elevators, to hospital infusion pumps and industrial PLC controllers, IoT and OT (Operational Technology) devices are inherently vulnerable and easy to hack. Why? Because IoT security is complicated and security should consider and integrated with IoT deployments. Gartner Says Worldwide IoT Security Spending Will Reach $1.9 Billion in 2019, and will raise to $ 3.1 billion in 2021, making it one of the fastest growing segments in cybersecurity industry. IoT landscape is complex, and so are the security solutions. These tackle the different challenges of IoT- device hardening, encryption, discovery, data protection, malware and anomaly detection, policy enforcement and more. You might have to do a little work with your internet of things devices to stay secure. A failure by many IoT device manufacturers to follow cryptographic best practices is leaving a high proportion of the devices vulnerable to attack. One in every 172 active RSA certificates are vulnerable to attack. It is a good idea to build a separate network segments for IoT devices so that they are isolated from the normal office network. FBI recommends that you keep your IoT devices on a separate network.
IoT privacy: Silicon Valley Is Listening to Your Most Intimate Moments. The world’s biggest companies got millions of people to let temps analyze some very sensitive recordings made by your “smart” speakers and smart phones. A quarter of Americans have bought “smart speaker” devices such as the Echo, Google Home, and Apple HomePod. Consulting firm Juniper Research Ltd. estimates that by 2023 the global annual market for smart speakers will reach $11 billion, and there will be about 7.4 billion voice-controlled devices in the wild. That’s about one for every person on Earth. The question is, then what? Having microphones that listen all the time is concerning. Also some attackers are terrifying homeowners and making them feel violated in their own homes.
Medical systems security: Cyberattacks on Medical Devices Are on the Rise—and Manufacturers Must Respond. Attacks on networked medical devices, and the data they collect and transmit, can be costly. Patient safety is a critical concern, especially with devices such as defibrillators and insulin pumps that could cause patient harm or death if they malfunction. It’s shocking that a few years after WannaCry and NotPetya, the healthcare industry is still not prepared to deal with ransomware attacks. Many hospitals and healthcare networks that have been hit by ransomware over the past few months.
Surveillance cameras: Surveillance cameras are capturing what we do on the streets, at airports, in stores, and in much of our public space. China’s Orwellian video surveillance gets a bad rap but the US isn’t far behind as US has nearly the same ratio of security cameras to citizens as China.And the numbers are growing all over the world. One billion surveillance cameras will be deployed globally by 2021, according to data compiled by IHS Markit. Russia is building one of the world’s largest facial recognition networks and it may even be bigger than China’s 200 million camera system. China’s installed base is expected to rise to over 560 million cameras by 2021, representing the largest share of surveillance devices installed globally, with the US rising to around 85 million cameras. Now US, like China, has about one surveillance camera for every four people (in 2018 China had 350 million cameras and USA 70 million). Surveillance cameras are getting better, smaller and cheaper and can be installed almost anywhere. It would be very easy to sneak another device onto a hotel’s Wi-Fi network, stream that video over the internet to the computer.
Facial recognition: Private companies and governments worldwide are already experimenting with facial recognition technology. Facial recognition software is touted as making us safer. But mass surveillance has downsides of major proportions. Massive errors found in facial recognition tech. Facial recognition systems can produce wildly inaccurate results, especially for non-whites. Russia is building one of the world’s largest facial recognition networks. Individuals, lawmakers, developers – and everyone in between – should be aware of the rise of facial recognition, and the risks it poses to rights to privacy, freedom, democracy and non-discrimination.
Shut off Internet: Worrying worldwide trend employed by various governments: preventing people from communicating on the web and accessing information. Amid widespread demonstrations over different issues many countries have started cutting Internet connections from people. Some countries, namely China, architected their internet infrastructure from the start with government control in mind. Russia is aiming to this direction. Iran, India, Russia. For better or worse, an internet blackout limits the government’s ability to conduct digital surveillance on citizens.
Security First: Implementing Cyber Best Practices Requires a Security-First Approach. Competing in today’s digital marketplace requires that organizations be cyber-savvy. The best defense is to start with a security-driven development and networking strategy that builds a hardened digital presence from the ground up. This not only ensures that your online services and web applications are protected from compromise, but also enables security to automatically evolve and adapt right alongside the development of your digital presence, rather than it having to be constantly rigged and retrofitted to adapt to digital innovation.
Zero Trust Network Access: Many of the most damaging breaches have been the result of users gaining access to unauthorized levels of network resources and devices. Zero Trust is an enforceable, identity-driven access policy that includes seamless and secure two-factor/OTP authentication across the organization. Zero Trust Network Access ensures that all users and devices are identified, profiled, and provided appropriate network access. It also ensures that new devices are automatically assigned to appropriate network segments based on things like device profiles and owners. When combined with Network Access Control (NAC), organizations can also discover, identify, grant appropriate access, and monitor devices, thereby enhancing your access and segmentation strategy.
Anti-virus software: Only Half of Malware Caught by Signature AV. The percentage of malware that successfully bypassed signature-based antivirus scanners at companies’ network gateways has increased significantly, either by scrambling
code known as “packing” using basic encryption techniques or by the automatic creation of code variants. It seems that new approaches like machine learning and behavioral detection are necessary to catch threats. Meanwhile, network attacks have risen, especially against older vulnerabilities.
Ransomware attacks: Ransomware will remain a major threat in the coming year, as the criminal business model continues to flourish. That’s a move that security professionals have long condemned, warning that paying the ransom in a ransomware attack could end up causing more turmoil for victims – as well as inspire other cybercriminals to launch ransomware attacks. Microsoft never encourage a ransomware victim to pay. What to do with this is question. How much does a large-scale ransomware attack cost, as opposed to just hiring an adequate number of skilled IT personnel, and having disaster recovery plans in place? There is no complete security solution that could stop all attacks, but you should have decent protection. It would seem prudent to have adequate staff and offline BACKUPS to deal with this kind of situation, so decent recovery would be possible. Having no backup system is the gamble many companies and public entities seem to be playing. Good backups helps to recover from ransom attacks. There are new tactics coming to use in ransomware. A new Snatch ransomware strain that will reboot computers it infects into Safe Mode to disable any resident security solutions. Another new tactic by ransomware developers is to release a victim’s data if they do not pay the ransom – they will publish data that they steal to a competitor if the ransom is not paid.
Public sector: Public Sector Security Is Lagging. The state of cybersecurity and resilience in the public sector needs an
urgent boost in many countries. U.S. citizens rely on state governments and local municipalities to provide a host of services everything from access to public records, law enforcement protection, education and welfare to voting and election services. Cybercriminals have been targeting state and local governments with ransomware tools, which infect an organization’s computer networks and lock up critical files.
Consumer confidence: Winning consumer confidence is crucial to the development of new digital services. In a PwC study, consumers are prepared to share personal information if it is of sufficient value to them. On the other hand, consumer confidence also needs to be earned that you keep the information safe.
API security: APIs now account for 40% of the attack surface for all web-enabled apps. It’s a good time to pay attention to API security, since some recent high-profile breaches have involved API vulnerabilities. OWASP, the Open Web Application Security Project known for its top 10 list of web application vulnerabilities, published the release candidate version of its API Security Top 10 list at the end of September 2019. Also it’s almost 2020 and some sysadmins are still leaving Docker admin ports exposed on the internet.
Skills gap: Security teams are already grappling with serious challenges due to the growing cybersecurity skills gap, are being tasked to secure an ever-expanding network footprint. Security teams are often left to secure virtual and cloud environments, the implementation of SaaS services, DevOps projects, the growing adoption of IoT, mobile workers, and an expanding array of personal connected devices after they have already been implemented. They often do not have enough people and enough knowledge on those new technologies to do their work well. The cybersecurity unemployment rate is zero, with over 1 million jobs currently unfilled, a number that is expected to climb to 3.5 million by 2021. 145% Growth is Needed to Meet Global Demand.
Think Like Your Adversary: Cybersecurity leaders need to access the potential vulnerabilities (from the mindset of the adversary) and devise effective defensive countermeasures unique to their company’s needs. Programmers Should Think like Hackers. Security must be taken into account in all programming steps.
Third party security: Most Companies Don’t Properly Manage Third-Party Cyber Risk. It’s been established that good cybersecurity requires not just an internal assessment of an organization’s own security practices, but also a close look at the security of the partners that businesses rely upon in today’s modern, interconnected world. Developing a Third-Party Cyber Risk Management (TPCRM) strategy is becoming more common with every news headline regarding a major breach that stemmed from a company’s relationship with a third-party.
Privacy and surveillance: Fears Grow on Digital Surveillance. Americans are increasingly fearful of monitoring of their online and offline activities, both by governments and private companies. More than 60 percent of US adults believe it is impossible to go about daily life without having personal information collected by companies or the government. Google and Facebook help connect the world and provide crucial services to billions. But their system can also be used for surveillance. Amnesty International says Facebook and Google’s omnipresent surveillance is inherently incompatible with the right to privacy and is a danger to human rights. The claim is that the companies’ surveillance-based business model is inherently incompatible with the right to privacy and poses a threat to a range of other rights including freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of thought, and the right to equality and non-discrimination. Amnesty International has called for a radical transformation of the tech giants’ core business model and said that Google and Facebook should be forced to abandon what it calls their surveillance-based business model because it is “predicated on human rights abuse.”
5G: Forecasting that 2020 will be “the year of 5G” no longer qualifies as a bold prediction. Billions of dollars’ worth of 5G rollouts are scheduled for the coming year, which will bring the emergent technology to countries around the world. The arrival of 5G will fuel an explosion of never-before-seen IoT machines, introducing uncharted vulnerabilities and opening the door for cyber-criminals to compromise our increasingly intertwined cities. Claims that 5G offers “better security” for IoT may not ring true.
5G security: The new 5G mobile networks will be the backbone of future digitalized operations. Therefore, it is also important to ensure the security and immunity of 5G networks.The Council of the European Union has warned member states that the introduction of 5G networks poses increased security risks while also bringing economic and infrastructure benefits. ENISA, the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity has published a ThreatLandscape for 5G Networks, assessing the threats related to the fifth generation of mobile telecommunications networks (5G). Organised cybercrime, rogue insiders and nation-state-backed hackers are among the groups that could soon be targeting 5G networks. Claims that 5G offers “better security” for IoT may not ring true – with the technology remaining vulnerable to SIM-jacking attacks within private Industry 4.0-style deployments. 5G SIM-swap attacks could be even worse for industrial IoT than now. Criminals can convince telcos to port a victim’s number to a new SIM card controlled by the criminal. Trust your hardware or operator? Pah, you oughta trust nobody. Do not put all your security and identification to this SIM card.
DNS Over HTTPS (DoH): DoH encrypted DNS queries are already set to arrive in Chrome and Firefox web browsers. Microsoft Will Bring DNS Over HTTPS (DoH) to Windows 10 in an attempt to keep user traffic as private as possible. DoH support in Windows means encrypted DNS queries. Microsoft says that DoH doesn’t require DNS centralization if adoption is broad among operating systems and Internet service providers alike.
Firewall configuration: Now, more than ever, it is important to automate firewall processes to prevent misconfigurations and data breaches. Gartner has warned that “50% of enterprises will unknowingly and mistakenly have exposed some IaaS storage services, network segments, applications or APIs directly to the public internet, up from 25% at YE18.”. This is a human problem, not a firewall problem.
Bot attacks: Bots are being used to take over user accounts, perform DDoS attacks, abuse APIs, scrape unique content and pricing information and more. Organizations are Failing to Deal With Rising Bot Attacks.
Network security: Networks are continually growing in complexity and the cyberattack surface is constantly expanding. The network perimeter of today is elastic, expanding and contracting with the demands of both users and the business. In a rush to adopt digital business practices, many of these new network expansion projects are often being implemented ad hoc by individual lines of business. Routers sit at the edge of the network and see everything and they can be utilized to Making the Network the First Line of Defense. A critical step in building a stronger security posture and more robust data protection strategy is a 24×7 facility whose mission is to monitor, detect, investigate and resolve active threats. Cybercriminals only need to be successful once in finding a way to access the network – but the security team needs to monitor everything on the network and be right all the time to ensure security. Today’s core network is continually adapting to the introduction of new devices, applications, and workflows, along with shifting network configurations to support business requirements, requiring the use of advanced, intent-based segmentation.
Security-Driven Networking: Security-Driven Networking is a new, strategic approach to security that enables the seamless expansion of network environments and services without ever compromising on security. Essentially, it begins by crafting a comprehensive security policy that covers the entire organization. It outlines the protocols, enforcement and inspection technologies, policies, and protections required to be in place before any new network environment or solution is even placed on the drawing board. It requires the selection and full integration of security tools that not only work together to share and correlate intelligence and coordinate a unified response to threats, but that also work seamlessly across the widest variety of environments possible.
Critical infrastructure: Determined threat actors have, for some time, been extending their toolsets beyond Windows, and even beyond PC systems. In recent years, we have seen a number of high-profile attacks on critical infrastructure facilities and these have typically been aligned to wider geo-political objectives. Expect targeted attacks on critical infrastructure facilities to increase. APT33 has shifted targeting to industrial control systems software. We need to be worried about Cyber-Physical Security of the Power Grid. To protect this infrastructure you need to prioritize strategic risks that affect critical infrastructure: Concern yourself with the most important hacks, Understand the critical pieces of your infrastructure and Know your inter-dependencies.
Payment security: Payment security backslides for second straight year in 2019. Verizon’s 2019 Payment Security Report found that full compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) fell to36.7% globally, down from 52.5% in 2018. At the same time EU’s PSD2 (Payments Services Directive) lays down regulatory requirements for companies that provide payment services, including the use of personal data by new fintech companies that are not part of the established banking community. Security of online, including mobile, payments is a key aspect of the legislation. Nevertheless, as banks will be required to open their infrastructure and data to third parties. Although SSLv3 has been considered obsolete and insecure for a long time, a large number of web servers still support its use.
Election security: Nowadays, no elections can be held any longer without debate on influencing voters through online services. There are on-going accusations of Russian interference in US elections and fears about a possible reboot of this in the run-up to the 2020 elections. U.S. military cyber experts are plotting strategy in a fight against potential Russian and other cyberattacks ahead of the 2020 American and Montenegrin elections. As the 2020 Presidential election looms closer in the United
States, a key focus will be on securing election infrastructure to prevent tampering. Most of the largest US voting districts are still vulnerable to email spoofing. Also disinformation campaigns for political purposes are deeply rooted in cybercriminal endeavors. It’s quite possible that we will see changes to legislation and policy, as governments look to define more clearly what is and what isn’t allowed. Hacking is considered to be the biggest tech threats to 2020 elections in USA. Legislators are working on new laws, but it is not going to be enough in an era when technology is turning out entirely new attack surfaces.
False Flags: The use of false flags has become an important element in the playbook of several APT groups. This can be used to try to deflect attention away from those responsible for the attack or what is really happening.
Common attack tools: Cyber actors continually use commodity malware, scripts, publicly available security tools or administrator software during their attacks and for lateral movement, making attribution increasingly difficult.
Vulnerability disclosure: Most “white hat” cyber engineers seem to be driven by a sense of social responsibility best expressed as, “If you find something, say something.” Across the industry, the ethos is to share information quickly, whether the problem is a newly discovered exploit or an evolving cyber threat. The goal is to impel the affected vendor—hardware or software—to take quick action and produce a fix. There are good and bad ways to make vulnerabilities known. A premature “full disclosure” of a previously unknown issue can unleash the forces of evil, and the “black hats” often move faster than vendors or enterprise IT teams. The preferred path is a “responsible” or “coordinated” disclosure that happens behind the scenes. Public announcements occur after a specified period of time—typically 90 or 120 days. But things don’t work this way always.
Ransomware: Cybercriminals have become more targeted in their use of ransomware. It is inevitable that the cybercriminals will also attempt to diversify their attacks to include other types of devices besides PCs or servers. There is a Ransomware ‘Crisis’ in US Schools and in many cities in USA.
Supply chain: Use of supply chains will continue to be one of the most difficult delivery methods to address. It is likely that attackers will continue to expand this method through manipulated software containers, for example, and abuse of packages and libraries. Medium-sized companies are being targeted even more heavily by cyber criminals. They are often the weakest link in supply chains that include large corporations. There is the growth of counterfeit electronics.
Mobile: The main storage for our digital lives has moved from the PC to mobiles over last 10 years. Several countries have started demanding their own software (maybe in some cases also malware) to be installed to all smart phones. Putin signs law making Russian apps mandatory on smartphones, computers.
Android: Today 80% of Android apps are encrypting traffic by default. To ensure apps are safe, apps targeting Android 9 (API level 28) or higher automatically have a policy set by default that prevents unencrypted traffic for every domain. The heterogeneity of the Android versions will continue to be a problem in the coming year.
DDoS attacks: DNS amplification attacks continue to dominate distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, while mobile devices make up a larger share of traffic. The number of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks rose 86% in the third quarter compared to a year ago. DNS amplification attacks accounted for 45% of the attacks, while HTTP
floods and TCP SYN attacks accounted for 14%. Mobile Devices Account for 41% of DDoS Attack Traffic.
Business security: Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) increasingly recognize that a reactive security posture is no longer sufficient for protecting their networks. Breaches will happen. Companies should treat cyberattacks “as a matter of when” and not “whether.” Inside threads are still a big issue as Employees are one of your biggest assets, but human beings are the weakest link in the security chain. Data leaks help attackers to craft more convincing social engineering attacks. Plan proper incident management because Quick, reliable, multichannel communication is a vital part of any incident management solution. Cybercriminals often choose very small companies as their targets because small businesses rarely spend significant money on security systems. Medium-sized companies are being targeted even more heavily by cyber criminals. They are often the weakest link in supply chains that include large corporations.
Cyber insurance: Cyber Has Emerged as a Risk That is Not Specifically Covered by Other Insurance Policies. Since business is now urged to take a risk management approach to cyber security, it is natural and inevitable that cyber insurance should be considered as part of the mix. Cyber insurance is set to grow.
New encryption: The problem with encrypted data is that you must decrypt it in order to work with it. There is a powerful solution to this scenario: homomorphic encryption. Homomorphic encryption makes it possible to analyze or manipulate encrypted data without revealing the data to anyone. Just like many other populr forms of encryption, homomorphic encryption uses a public key to encrypt the data. There are three main types of homomorphic encryption: partially homomorphic encryption (keeps sensitive data secure by only allowing select mathematical functions to be performed on encrypted data); somewhat homomorphic encryption (supports limited operations that can be performed only a set number of times); fully homomorphic encryption (this is the gold standard of homomorphic encryption that keeps information secure and accessible). Cryptographers have known of the concept of homomorphic encryption since 1978 but Gentry established the first homomorphic encryption scheme in 2009.The biggest barrier to widescale adoption of homomorphic encryption is that it is still very slow. Duality, a security startup co-founded by the creator of homomorphic encryption, raises $16M.
Artificial Intelligence (AI): The buzzword for 2019 that we have all heard a thousand times was Artificial Intelligence, AI. The term AI is often interchanged with machine learning. There is a lot of research to examine AI applications on cyber security. As cyberattacks grow in volume and complexity, hopefully artificial intelligence (AI) is helping under-resourced security operations analysts stay ahead of threats. Cybersecurity tools currently use this data aggregation and pattern analysis in the field of heuristic modeling: THE TRUE FUNCTION OF AI WILL BE TO DETERMINE WITH A LONG ARC OF TIME AND DATA, WHAT “NORMAL” LOOKS LIKE FOR A USER. AI can act as an advisor to analysts, helping them quickly identify and connect the dots between threats. Finnish cyber security company F-Secure is making research on AI agents and on that Mikko Hyppönen says that AI should not used to try to imitate humans and that artificial intelligence-based attacks are expected in the near future. Another Finnish cyber security company Nixu says that Artificial intelligence is going to revolutionize cyber security. According to Orlando Scott-Cowley from Amazon Web Services machine learning is the new normal in cyber security. Advanced Machine Learning layers are to be integrated into the latest Windows cybersecurity products. Leaders in artificial intelligence warn that progress is slowing, big challenges remain, and simply throwing more computers at a problem isn’t sustainable.
2020 problems: Has your business prepared for the ‘2020 problem’? Software updates for Windows 7 will end on January 14, 2020. As of Jan. 14, 2020, Windows 7 and Server 2008 technical support and software updates will no longer be available from Windows Update. There will no longer be updates for Office 2010. Some business users can buy extended security update support with extra money for some time. Python will stop supporting Python version 2 on January 1, 2020. Beginning on January 1, 2020, un-patched Splunk platform instances will be unable to recognize timestamps from events where the date contains a two-digit year. December 2019 Patch Tuesday was the last time Microsoft ever offered security updates for devices running Windows 10 Mobile.
Crypto wars continue: A decades-old debate: Government officials have long argued that encryption makes criminal investigations too hard. Governments all over the world say that Encrypted communication is a huge issue for law enforcement and the balance between the privacy of citizens and effective policing of criminal activity is top of mind for governments, technology companies, citizens and privacy organisations all over the world. The international police organization Interpol plans to condemn the spread of strong encryption. Top law enforcement officials in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, the larger group will cite difficulties in catching child sexual predators as grounds for companies opening up user communications to authorities wielding court warrants. Congress warns tech companies: Take action on encryption, or we will. US lawmakers are poised to “impose our will” if tech companies don’t weaken encryption so police can access data.
Do not weaken encryption: Companies, they say, should build in special access that law enforcement could use with a court’s permission. Technologists say creating these back doors would weaken digital security for everyone. Unfortunately, every privacy protection mechanism is subject to abuse by the morally challenged. That’s just a truth that must be accepted and overcome. Invading the privacy of the masses in order to catch criminals is unacceptable. Remember three things: One, that strong encryption is necessary for personal and national security. Two, that weakening encryption does more harm than good. And three, law enforcement has other avenues for criminal investigation than eavesdropping on communications and stored devices. If back-doors are added to encryption, they will be abused. If You Think Encryption Back Doors Won’t Be Abused, You May Be a Member of Congress. Bad encryption can have business consequences. Apple and Facebook told the committee that back doors would introduce massive privacy and security threats and would drive users to devices from overseas. In Australia 40% of firms say they have lost sales say they have lost sales or other commercial opportunities as a result of the encryption law being in place.
2FA: The second authentication factor might be a minor inconvenience, but it provides a major security boost. With past years riddled with security breaches, it is high time we evaluated the way we secure our online presence. Two factors are much better than one, but can still be hacked. Attacks that phish 2FA to access email accounts cost $100-$400; such attacks can be prevented with physical security keys. Also some physical security keys can be hacked as they turn to be less secure that what they were told to be in the advertisements.
Myth of sophisticated hacker in news: It’s the latest lexical stretch for an adjective that’s widely used in reports of cybersecurity incidents — and widely loathed by researchers as a result. If everything is sophisticated, nothing is sophisticated.
New security models: Google moved from perimeter-based to cloud-native security. Google’s architecture is the inspiration and template for what’s widely known as “cloud-native” today—using microservices and containers to enable workloads to be split into smaller, more manageable units for maintenance and discovery. Google’s cloud-native architecture was developed prioritizing security as part of every evolution.
Hacktivists: Hacktivists seek to obtain private information about large companies in order to embarrass or expose the company’s controversial business practices. Many companies are a treasure trove for personal information, whether they realize it or not. Experian is predicting that the emerging cannabis industry will experience an increase in data breaches and cybersecurity threats in 2020.
RCS messaging: RCS, expanded as Rich Communications Services, is a protocol that aims to replace SMS.RCS messaging has rolled out to Android users in the US. The update brings a lot of new features like chat, send hi-res videos and photos and create group chat. One criticism of RCS is that it doesn’t provide end-to-end encryption. RCS could be also better in many other security aspects. Researchers have discovered that the RCS protocol exposes most users to several cyber attacks. These risks are said to be mitigated by implementing the protocol with the security perspective in mind. The standard itself allows for poor security implementation, but GSMA advises its members to deploy rcs with the most secure settings possible.
Data breaches: Billions of Sensitive Files Exposed Online all the time. During the first six months of 2019, more than 4 billion records were exposed by data breaches. That’s a shocking statistic that’s made even more so when you realize that passwords were included in droves. On December 4, a security researcher discovered a treasure trove of more than a billion plain-text passwords in an unsecured online database. Many businesses wrongly assume they are too small to be on the radar of the threat actors. The truth is that it is all about the data, and small businesses often have less well-guarded data stores. All organizations are exposed to security breaches: from large multinationals to SMEs and public administrations. A common thread is unsecured cloud-based databases that left the sensitive information wide open for anyone to access online.
Phishing: Phishing remains 1 of the most pervasive online threats. Phishing emails are still managing to catch everyone out. Phishing e-mails which are used to steal credentials usually depend on user clicking a link which leads to a phishing website that looks like login page for some valid service. Google Chrome now offers better protection against it as safe Browsing displays warning messages to users ahead of visiting dangerous websites and before downloading harmful applications. New advanced ways to phish are taken to use.With dynamite phishing, the cyber criminals read the email communication from a system already infected with an information stealer. The infected user’s correspondents then receive malicious emails that quote the last “real” email between the two parties and look like a legitimate response from the infected user. Attacks that phish 2FA to access email accounts cost $100-$400; such attacks can be prevented with physical security keys.
Windows: Microsoft Doesn’t Back Up the Windows Registry Anymore. It’s still possible to perform Windows Registry backups, but the option is disabled by default. It’s time to disconnect RDP from the internet as brute-force attacks and BlueKeep exploits usurp convenience of direct RDP connection. Microsoft is ready to push a full-screen warning to Windows 7 users
who are still running the OS after January 14.
Linux: Support for 32 bit i386 architecture will be dropped by many Linux distributions. It turns out that there are essentially no upstream development resources dedicated to x86_32 Linux. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was badly broken.
Drones: Turkey is getting military drones armed with machine guns. Drone hacking happens. There is now Dronesploit – Metasploit for drones. Metasploit-style CLI framework tailored for tinkering with everybody’s favourite unmanned flying objects.
World market war: China tells government offices to remove all foreign computer equipment. China has ordered the replacement of all foreign PC hardware and operating systems in state offices over the next three years. This will mean that China to ditch all Windows PCs by 2022.China has already some of their own Linux distros like Kylin and Deepin. Many western countries are more or less banning Huawei teleocm equipment.
Cloud security: Traditional security tools and methodologies are ill-suited to protect cloud native’s developer-driven and infrastructure-agnostic multicloud patterns. The vision as laid out by these renown analysts is straightforward. The legacy “data center as the center of the universe” network and network security architecture are obsolete and has become an inhibitor to the needs of digital business. They describe the underpinning shift to cloud infrastructure, a digital transformation that has been underway for ten years. They also point out that the corporate network cannot protect end users who consume cloud applications from any location and any device without the contorting, expensive, backhaul of traffic through the corporate data center. Gartner coins a new term for the future of security and networks, SASE (pronounced sassy), Secure Access Service Edge, which is not anything really new. SASE promises to create a ubiquitous, resilient, and agile secure network service—globally. Most of the stolen data incidents in the cloud are related to simple human errors rather than concerted attacks. Expect that through 2020, 95% of cloud security failures will be the customer’s fault. A common thread is unsecured cloud-based databases that left the sensitive information wide open for anyone to access online. Also it’s almost 2020 and some sysadmins are still leaving Docker admin ports exposed on the internet.
Autocracy as a service: Now Any Government Can Buy China’s Tools for Censoring the Internet. “Autocracy as a service” lets countries buy or rent the technology and expertise they need, as they need it. China offers a full-stack of options up and down the layers of the internet, including policies and laws, communications service providers with full internet.
Geopolitics: US-China Tech Divide Could Cause Havoc. It is possible that world’s next major conflict can start in cyberspace. USA has ordered to ban certain hardware from China (Huawei and ZTE). China orders ban on US computers and software. Chinese government to replace foreign hardware and software within three years. Who needs who more?
International cyber politics: Lack of international standards for proper behavior in cyberspace prevents the United States and allies from policing adversaries as they wish to. US can’t ‘enforce standards that don’t exist’. We have international norms in the maritime; we don’t have those in cyber. It makes it difficult to enforce standard that don’t exist, and to therefore hold nations accountable for nefarious behavior. NATO did confirm in 2017 that it could invoke Article 5 of its charter should one or more member nations find themselves under a serious cyberattack that threatens critical military and civilian infrastructure.
Sources:
https://pentestmag.com/iot-security-its-complicated/
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https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/12/09/dronesploit_framework/
https://www.securityweek.com/blunt-effect-two-edged-sword-vulnerability-disclosures
https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/8.0.0/ReleaseNotes/FixDatetimexml2020
https://threatpost.com/email-voted-a-weak-link-for-election-security-with-dmarc-lagging/150909/
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/12/04/council_of_eu_5g_risks/
https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/05/major-voting-districts-vulnerable-email-security/
https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2019/12/241053-hack-for-hire/fulltext
http://read.uberflip.com/i/1180978-siliconexpert-growth-of-counterfeit-electronics-3/0?acctid=6759
https://www.zdnet.com/article/2020-is-when-cybersecurity-gets-even-weirder-so-get-ready/
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/12/09/china_orders_ban_on_us_computers_and_software/
https://www.securityweek.com/case-cyber-insurance
https://www.eetimes.eu/ai-will-empower-industry-4-0-when-it-arrives/
https://www.pandasecurity.com/mediacenter/security/2019-the-ransomware-tsunami/
https://blog.paloaltonetworks.com/2019/12/cloud-native-security-platform-age/
https://github.com/dhondta/dronesploit/
https://www.zdnet.com/article/1-in-every-172-active-rsa-certificates-are-vulnerable-to-exploit/
https://nationalcybersecurity.com/hacking-the-biggest-tech-threats-to-2020-elections/
https://www.welivesecurity.com/2019/12/17/bluekeep-time-disconnect-rdp-internet/
https://www.eff.org/wp/behind-the-one-way-mirror
https://www.gdatasoftware.com/blog/2019/12/35671-early-detection-and-repulsion-of-dangerous-attacks
https://www.is.fi/digitoday/tietoturva/art-2000006342803.html
https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/30/duality-cybersecurity-16-million/
https://www.wired.com/story/sobering-message-future-ai-party/
https://security.googleblog.com/2019/12/an-update-on-android-tls-adoption.html?m=1
https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-all-android-users-in-the-us-just-got-rcs-next-gen-sms/
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/12/scaring_people_.html
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2019-June/001261.html
https://lwn.net/ml/oss-security/CALCETrW1z0gCLFJz-1Jwj_wcT3+axXkP_wOCxY8JkbSLzV80GA@mail.gmail.com/
https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-australia-46463029
https://cyware.com/news/rcs-technology-most-users-are-vulnerable-to-hacking-b53f9a6f
https://hub.packtpub.com/core-python-team-confirms-sunsetting-python-2-on-january-1-2020/
https://www.cnet.com/news/congress-warns-tech-companies-take-action-on-encryption-or-we-will/
https://cyware.com/news/rcs-technology-most-users-are-vulnerable-to-hacking-b53f9a6f
https://edri.org/facial-recognition-and-fundamental-rights-101/
https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/10/insider-threats-startups-protect/
https://uk.pcmag.com/windows-10/121518/microsoft-doesnt-back-up-the-windows-registry-anymore
https://threatpost.com/ransomware-attack-new-jersey-largest-hospital-system/151148/
https://chiefexecutive.net/bridge-cybersecurity-skills-gap/
https://systemagic.co.uk/has-your-business-prepared-for-the-2020-problem/
https://news.yahoo.com/massive-errors-found-facial-recognition-tech-us-study-215334634.html
https://www.securityweek.com/most-companies-dont-properly-manage-third-party-cyber-risk
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2019/11/21/hyoty-panee-jakamaan-tietonsa-luottamus-ratkaisee/
https://pentestmag.com/advice-for-a-cybersecurity-leader-think-like-your-adversary/
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/11/google-facebook-surveillance-privacy/
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/pol30/1404/2019/en/
https://www.securityweek.com/compromised-connection-5g-will-unite-cities-and-also-put-them-risk
https://www.securityweek.com/amnesty-international-calls-facebook-google-rights-abusers
https://www.securityweek.com/microsoft-will-bring-dns-over-https-doh-windows
https://www.securityweek.com/cybersecurity-workforce-gap-145-growth-needed-meet-global-demand
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2019/11/19/successful-soc/
https://www.securityweek.com/making-network-first-line-defense
https://techbeacon.com/security/how-prioritize-strategic-risks-affect-critical-infrastructure
https://www.securityweek.com/transitioning-security-driven-networking-strategy
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/16/5g_iot_report/
https://www.securityweek.com/us-montenegro-plot-cyber-warfare-ahead-2020-elections
https://www.securityweek.com/fears-grow-digital-surveillance-us-survey
https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/attack-on-online-retail/31786/
https://www.securityweek.com/implementing-cyber-best-practices-requires-security-first-approach
https://securelist.com/advanced-threat-predictions-for-2020/95055/
https://www.darkreading.com/cloud/smart-building-security-awareness-grows/d/d-id/1336597
https://www.cisomag.com/the-future-of-ai-in-cybersecurity/
https://www.ibm.com/security/artificial-intelligence
https://www.welivesecurity.com/2019/12/13/2fa-double-down-your-security/
https://cannatechtoday.com/experian-predicts-an-increase-in-global-cannabis-industry-data-breaches/
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2019/11/21/f-secure-tutkimaan-tekoalyagentteja/
https://www.securityweek.com/ongoing-research-project-examines-application-ai-cybersecurity
http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/10151-mikko-hypponen-tekoalyn-ei-pida-matkia-ihmista
http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/10124-nixu-selvitti-tekoaly-mullistaa-kyberturvan
http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/10120-kyberturvassa-koneoppiminen-on-uusi-normaali
https://www.is.fi/digitoday/tietoturva/art-2000006316233.html
https://www.cyberscoop.com/apt33-microsoft-iran-ics/
https://blog.malwarebytes.com/exploits-and-vulnerabilities/2019/11/exploit-kits-fall-2019-review/
https://www.enisa.europa.eu/news/enisa-news/enisa-draws-threat-landscape-of-5g-networks/
https://systemagic.co.uk/has-your-business-prepared-for-the-2020-problem/
https://smartgrid.ieee.org/newsletters/november-2019/the-cyber-physical-security-of-the-power-grid
https://www.wired.com/story/un-secretary-general-antonio-guterres-internet-risks/
https://codastory.com/authoritarian-tech/russia-facial-recognition-networks/
https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/9/21002515/surveillance-cameras-globally-us-china-amount-citizens
https://www.wired.com/story/iran-internet-shutoff/
https://www.zdnet.com/article/fbi-recommends-that-you-keep-your-iot-devices-on-a-separate-network/
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-interpol-encryption-exclusive-idUSKBN1XR0S7
https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/to-the-point/does-facial-recognition-software-threaten-our-freedom
1,468 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Industrial Cyber Physical Security Enhancement
https://pentestmag.com/industrial_cyber_physical_security_enhancement/
The Cyber Physical bad guys are now attacking IOT and IIOT. They are constantly getting better at attacking and so the good guys must also constantly get better at defending. There is much evidence that most good guys have not even properly started to improve their security stance yet, so this is also a serious ‘call-to-action’ paper.
Our modern society is built on automation, control systems and their management. The “Things”, mentioned often in the Internet of Things (IOT) and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT), are becoming smarter and more ubiquitous. If you think about all the automation controlled “Things” that have contributed to your day and try to list them, you may be surprised and perhaps a little worried to know that they are also being invisibly attacked.
Food Manufacturing, Transport (Planes, Trains, Automobiles, etc.), Clothing, Water Treatment, Waste Processing and Management, Pharmaceutical Manufacturing and Testing, Logistics, Medical Device Manufacturing, Energy (generation, Transmission, Distribution), Power, Defence, Hospitals, Cashpoints, and Beverage Dispensers are just some of the examples of this melange of “Things” in our personal lives.
Critical National Infrastructures are under immense pressure from government, regulators, and themselves to enhance their defences, improve cyber monitoring and to re-work the gargantuan quantities of legacy systems. This is not an easy task with industrial IT, due to a range of largely legacy problems. The aging and legacy industrial systems were not designed to be monitored and interrupted and scanned by active defence solutions. These security problems are both procedural, legislative and technical, so all end-users are now having to review remediation against enormous business and operational risks.
Tomi Engdahl says:
myths, including these from Kaspersky Labs about ICS industrial plants.
Myth: We are disconnected.
Fact: Most systems have at least 10+ information connections to the world.
Myth: Firewall protected.
Fact: Most firewalls are set to allow ‘any’ on inbound and poorly understood by each department.
Myth: Hackers don’t understand SCADA/OT/ICS.
Fact: Increase of hackers specifically attacking ICS/OT/SCADA due to kudos of accomplishment.
Myth: We are an unlikely target.
Fact: Can be collateral due to proliferation of attacks and own supply chain, e.g. Stuxnet variants.
Myth: Safety backup system will protect us.
Fact: Safety systems just as likely to be hit as control systems. Often similar systems are deployed.
https://pentestmag.com/industrial_cyber_physical_security_enhancement/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2020/07/24/raportti-kyberuhkien-alkuvuoden-trendit/
Tomi Engdahl says:
EFF Launches Searchable Database of Police Agencies and the Tech Tools They Use to Spy on Communities
Atlas of Surveillance Shines Light on Deployment of Cameras, Drones, and More
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-launches-searchable-database-police-agencies-and-tech-tools-they-use-spy
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), in partnership with the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, today launched the largest-ever collection of searchable data on police use of surveillance technologies, created as a tool for the public to learn about facial recognition, drones, license plate readers, and other devices law enforcement agencies are acquiring to spy on our communities.
The Atlas of Surveillance database, containing several thousand data points on over 3,000 city and local police departments and sheriffs’ offices nationwide
https://atlasofsurveillance.org/
Tomi Engdahl says:
One can buy a thing or two on the darkweb, but majority of stores are of scammers, sitting to scam / blackmail those looking to hire a service on DW. Markets like SilkRoad and AlphaBay were honest in their wrong-work atleast that is why they got established (and later individuals running them captured by LEAs)
https://blog.drhack.net/how-to-buy-on-dark-web-stores/
This article will give a quick explanation of what is the dark web, what all happens on the dark web and how to access the notorious dark web
What is Dark Web
Internet used by regular people is referred to as ‘Clearnet‘ because of its low encryption and hence less anonymity. Encryption has improved greatly on clearnet over the past few years keeping in view user privacy, but clearnet still allows service providers, governments and other entities to get a snoop of what we are trying to do or who might be using the service.
The darknet requires special configurations and networks such as Tor or I2P, while there are other ecosystems which offer better anonymity and greater features with lesser efforts, one such tool is known as Utopia P2P Ecosystem (guide). These provide enough security that guarantees anonymity. This anonymity grants everyone a superpower they fantasize, which is being invisible or a ghost where you can affect others but can not be held accountable for.
Dark Web CleanCoin crypto mixer Service description : When you use CleanCoin to mix your Bitcoins, you will receive Bitcoins that originate from lots and lots of different transactions and wallet addresses, making it almost impossible for someone to track your wallet activity.
Tor architecture provides two services – anonymous browsing, and hosting of anonymous services through the so-called ‘Tor Browser’.
let us first get one thing sorted out: Is Dark Web and Deep Web same ? and the answer is NO.
Deep web has no relation to dark web. Anything not indexed or not available for direct access i.e. requires to sign-in, make an account or pay a fee is categorized as deep web. Deep web content can be on clearnet, while dark web is not hosted on clearnet. Deep web also includes any content that its owners have blocked from web crawlers for indexing.
Several websites supposedly offered assassinations for a hefty fee. There are many scams for such “Killer for Hire” aswell, where the kill doesn’t happen and at times the one hiring is blackmailed with the conversation.
Dark web is mostly known because of criminal activities and is frowned upon in society. However, it’s main aim is to give everyone the freedom they were promised and it is a haven for a lot of good people as well. As with everything the bad actors get more attention and that is the case with dark web aswell.
Accessing the dark web requires the use of an anonymizing browser called Tor. Procedure of Installing Tor is simple.
Download Latest from the official Tor Project website
Run the downloaded file and install
Start browsing on Tor through the installed Tor Browser
Let’s list some sites which you can browse and make use of Tor.
Grams – One of biggest Tor search engine but it returns results that are repetitive and often irrelevant to the query. Link lists like
The Hidden Wiki – Lists sites available on Tor, while the list might return many 404’s.
Facebook – Yes, Facebook is on Tor. The engineer who developed Facebook’s Tor branch pointed out that authentication in the Tor network is even better than on the more widely used internet protocols
Dream Market – A Commerce Website
WikiLeaks – Whistle Blower website
Book Library – A collection of full-text books which are hard to find on clearnet
New York Secure Drop – New York Secure drop website known as ‘Project Strongbox’
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to Protect Your Network Infrastructure and Apps from DDoS Attacks?
https://pentestmag.com/how-to-protect-your-network-infrastructure-and-apps-from-ddos-attacks/
#pentest #magazine #pentestmag #pentestblog #PTblog #DDoS #attacks #network #infrastructure #apps #protection #cybersecurity #infosecurity #infosec
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/unix-linux-password-cracking-john-the-ripper/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Cold War Bunker That Became Home to a Dark-Web Empire
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/03/the-cold-war-bunker-that-became-home-to-a-dark-web-empire
An eccentric Dutchman began living in a giant underground facility built by the German military—and ran a server farm beloved by cybercriminals.
In
the mid-nineteen-seventies, the West German Army, the Bundeswehr, built a vast underground bunker near the town of Traben-Trarbach. It was five stories deep, had nearly sixty thousand square feet of floor space, and was designed to withstand a nuclear attack. Eighty days’ worth of survival provisions were stored inside, including an emergency power supply and more than a million litres of drinking water. You entered the facility through an air lock; the interior temperature was set to seventy degrees. The walls were concrete, thirty-one inches thick, and some were lined with copper. The rooms were soundproof and transmission-proof.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Social Mapper: A Social Media Enumeration & Correlation Tool
https://pentestmag.com/a-social-media-enumeration-correlation-tool-by-jacob-wilkin-greenwolf/
#pentest #magazine #pentestmag #pentestblog #PTblog #SocialMapper #social #media #enumeration #correlation #tool #cybersecurity #infosecurity #infosec
Tomi Engdahl says:
By 2021, the shortage of qualified #cybersecurity professionals could expand to 3.5 million unfilled positions worldwide, leading to new opportunities for both skilled cybersecurity professionals and entry-level workers on the lookout for prospective new fields.
Experts describe the cybersecurity jobs market as having 0% unemployment, as organizations offer high salaries amid fierce competition for top talent. Read more here, via Tripwire : https://bit.ly/39iuE0I
Tomi Engdahl says:
Entry-Level Career Advice for Aspiring Cybersecurity Professionals
https://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/security-data-protection/entry-level-career-advice-aspiring-cybersecurity-professionals/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cloud computing is making Linux a more tempting target for hackers
https://www.pcgamer.com/cloud-computing-is-making-linux-a-more-tempting-target-for-hackers/
Security report highlights why Linux threats are becoming more common.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Top Free Vulnerability Assessment Tools of 2020
https://pentestmag.com/the-top-free-vulnerability-assessment-tools-of-2020/
#pentest #magazine #pentestmag #pentestblog #PTblog #top #free #vulnerability #assessment #tools #cybersecurity #infosecurity #infosec
Tomi Engdahl says:
New: Amazon says the number of law enforcement requests for customer data spiked during the first half of 2020. https://tcrn.ch/314z2Nc
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cyber espionage of air-gapped environments and Covid-19 themed attacks: Q2 2020 in review
https://www.itsecurityguru.org/2020/07/30/cyber-espionage-of-air-gapped-environments-and-covid-19-themed-attacks-q2-2020-in-review/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cyber-espionage-of-air-gapped-environments-and-covid-19-themed-attacks-q2-2020-in-review
Tomi Engdahl says:
The science of spying: how the CIA secretly recruits academics
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/oct/10/the-science-of-spying-how-the-cia-secretly-recruits-academics
Eye Spy for long read by Daniel Golden for 10 october 2017 Illustration: Lee Martin/Guardian Design
In order to tempt nuclear scientists from countries such as Iran or North Korea to defect, US spy agencies routinely send agents to academic conferences – or even host their own fake ones.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Expert Advise On NSA/CISA Alert on Foreign Hackers
Expert Advise On NSA/CISA Alert on Foreign Hackers
https://www.informationsecuritybuzz.com/expert-comments/expert-advise-on-nsa-cisa-alert-on-foreign-hackers/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Plot Against America: The GOP’s Plan to Suppress the Vote and Sabotage the Election
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-campaign-2020-voter-suppression-consent-decree-1028988/
Blocking ballots, intimidating voters, spreading misinformation — undermining democracy is at the heart of Trump’s 2020 campaign
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cybersecurity Testing for Industrial Control Systems (W42)
https://pentestmag.com/product/cybersecurity-testing-for-industrial-control-systems-w42/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Library of Resources for
Industrial Control System Cyber Security
https://scadahacker.com/library/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/23/taking-on-the-perfect-storm-in-cybersecurity/
Tomi Engdahl says:
What’s industry role in DoD information warfare efforts?
https://www.c4isrnet.com/information-warfare/2020/07/19/whats-industry-role-in-dod-information-warfare-efforts/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://pentestmag.com/pentest-scapy-cheat-sheet/
Tomi Engdahl says:
HOW COPS CAN SECRETLY TRACK YOUR PHONE
A guide to stingray surveillance technology, which may have been deployed at recent protests.
https://theintercept.com/2020/07/31/protests-surveillance-stingrays-dirtboxes-phone-tracking/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://pentestmag.com/unscrambling-lua/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://pentestmag.com/dagon-advanced-hash-cracking-manipulation-system/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://pentestmag.com/simple-methods-for-securing-your-business/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://pentestmag.com/which-is-more-secure-voip-or-landline/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The TRUST Principles for digital repositories
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-020-0486-7?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=SCDT_1_DL01_GL_TRUST
As information and communication technology has become pervasive in our society, we are increasingly dependent on both digital data and repositories that provide access to and enable the use of such resources. Repositories must earn the trust of the communities they intend to serve and demonstrate that they are reliable and capable of appropriately managing the data they hold.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CISOs Should Be Licensed Like Other Mature Professions
https://pentestmag.com/cisos-should-be-licensed-like-other-mature-professions/
#pentest #magazine #pentestmag #pentestblog #PTblog #CISO #license #cybersecurity #infosecurity #infosec
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to hide from a drone – the subtle art of ‘ghosting’ in the age of surveillance
https://theconversation.com/how-to-hide-from-a-drone-the-subtle-art-of-ghosting-in-the-age-of-surveillance-143078?utm_source=digg
Avoiding drones’ prying eyes can be as complicated as donning a high-tech hoodie and as simple as ducking under a tree.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to issue Let’s Encrypt wildcard certificate with acme sh & AWS Route 53 DNS API and grab A+ ratings https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/route-53-lets-encrypt-wildcard-certificate-with-acme-sh/ Useful when you need to TLS certificate on LAN that are not open from the internet or other purposes #Linux #Unix #sysadmin #OpenSource #DevOps
Tomi Engdahl says:
The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) today has published guidance on how to expose as little location information as possible while using mobile and IoT devices, social media, and mobile apps.
https://media.defense.gov/2020/Aug/04/2002469874/-1/-1/0/CSI_LIMITING_LOCATION_DATA_EXPOSURE_FINAL.PDF
Tomi Engdahl says:
Starting at the end of July, Microsoft has begun detecting HOSTS files that block Windows 10 telemetry servers as a ‘Severe’ security risk.
The HOSTS file is a text file located at C:\Windows\system32\driver\etc\HOSTS and can only be edited by a program with Administrator privileges.
This file is used to resolve hostnames to IP addresses without using the Domain Name System (DNS).
This file is commonly used to block a computer from accessing a remote site by assigning host to the 127.0.0.1 or 0.0.0.0 IP address.
Windows 10 users began reporting that Windows Defender had started detecting modified HOSTS files as a ‘SettingsModifier:Win32/HostsFileHijack’ threat.
When detected, if a user clicks on the ‘See details’ option, they will simply be shown that they are affected by a ‘Settings Modifier’ threat and has ‘potentially unwanted behavior’.
While Microsoft Defender detecting HOSTS hijacks [is not new](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2764944/hosts-file-is-detected-as-malware-in-windows-defender), it was strange to see so many people suddenly reporting the detection.
Tomi Engdahl says:
[Steganography Project](https://github.com/JHurst97/SteganograhyProject): This program takes a cover image and allows the user to store text OR an image inside of another image by manipulating the bits of each pixel.
User can choose to modify 1/2/3/4 LSB (least significant bit(s)).
1LSB means less potential storage but less noise (1/255) – 4LSB means more 4x more potential storage than 1LSB but 4x the noise (16/255)
Image embed is currently always set to 1LSB, the input image must be 8x smaller than the cover image.
[https://github.com/JHurst97/SteganograhyProject](https://github.com/JHurst97/SteganograhyProject)
Tomi Engdahl says:
US voting hardware maker’s shock discovery: Security improves when you actually work with the community >
US voting hardware maker’s shock discovery: Security improves when you actually work with the community
ES&S takes the bold step of not ignoring vulnerability reports
https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/06/black_hat_ess_bugs/
Black Hat Just hours after Professor Matt Blaze today discussed the state of election system security in America, one of the largest US voting machine makers stepped forward to say it’s trying to improve its vulnerability research program.
Election Systems and Software (ES&S), whose products include electronic ballot boxes and voter registration software, said it is working with infosec outfits and bug-finders to improve the security of its products.
Most notably, ES&S will beef up said rewards program. With the help of ethical hackers at Synack, testers will be able to hammer on devices like the ES&S ExpressPoll without fear of legal reprisal.
This is actually a big step for ES&S, who when we last checked in was bickering with DEF CON organizers over its products being included in the voting-machine-hacking village, and taking heat from government officials for its lax security.
“Our election infrastructure is designated as critical infrastructure by the DHS,” he said. “What we are seeing here is a match made in heaven between the security research community and the government bodies.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
A little disappointed with this one… Its install was sloppy. and English translations not so good.. https://www.sigintos.com/ It does have some nice features but needs a heck of a lot more refinement…
https://www.sigintos.com/
All software required for SIGINT. SigintOS-Tool, GnuRadio, YateBTS, srsLTE, Gqrx, IMSI Catcher and others…
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.io/project/172292-introduction-to-reverse-engineering-with-ghidra
Tomi Engdahl says:
Black Hat 2020: Influence Campaigns Are a Cybersecurity Problem
https://threatpost.com/black-hat-hacking-public-opinion/158167/
An inside look at how nation-states use social media to influence, confuse and divide — and why cybersecurity researchers should be involved.
Social media used as a cudgel for nation-states to sway opinion is a cybersecurity threat CISOs can’t ignore — and need to understand better and mitigate against.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Inside the Courthouse Break-In Spree That Landed Two White-Hat Hackers in Jail
https://www.wired.com/story/inside-courthouse-break-in-spree-that-landed-two-white-hat-hackers-in-jail/
When two men were hired to break into Iowa judicial buildings, they thought it was just another physical security audit—until they were charged with burglary.
security professionals who swore in the initial aftermath of the Coalfire case that they’d never perform penetration tests for local governments again. Strand sees the incident as more of a rare worst-case scenario than one that should have a lasting chilling effect on the industry. But he says it shows how even careful security practitioners can be ensnared in a system that’s all too often driven not by the law, but by Kafkaesque small-town politics.
“It just became a perfect storm,” Strand says of the case. “The nerve this hit in the community is this: The law can be on your side. The contract can be on your side. But if the politics are not on your side, you can be played as a pawn.”
On planning calls with the security team of the Iowa judicial branch who were hiring them, the two veteran penetration testers remember the state’s staff sounding like they were sincerely interested in improving their security.
Some in the security industry have treated Coalfire’s Iowa imbroglio as a “teachable moment,” as penetration tester Deviant Ollam puts it.
talks and panel discussions about how the Coalfire incident could be avoided in the future.
Even Sheriff Leonard showed up, telling the group that DeMercurio and Wynn, along with any other physical penetration testers, should have warned local law enforcement before starting an operation.
Coalfire, meanwhile, has made efforts to start a working group for “protecting ethical hackers,” advocating for better laws to shield them and more awareness among governments and law enforcement.
The Iowa legislature, for its part, doesn’t seem to have gained much respect for the penetration-testing profession.
Never mind that Coalfire’s testing revealed security flaws as basic as unlocked doors and windows, ones that could be used to access highly sensitive criminal justice information like juror identities and evidence. “They just said ‘We’re obviously insecure, and now we’re going to make sure we never test again,’” DeMercurio says. “It was one of the most asinine things you could possibly do.”
AS FOR THE case’s effects on Wynn and DeMercurio themselves, they say the damage is done. Aside from their nearly five months of legal limbo, they’ll have dismissed felony charges on their records permanently, ones that will show up any time a client does a background check before letting them perform a penetration test. DeMercurio has previously held a security clearance. He’s not sure he’ll be able to get one again.
For both men, the experience rattled not only their careers but their sense of the American justice system.
“What if I was any other color? Would I have been treated differently?” DeMercurio muses.
Tomi Engdahl says:
“On August 5, 2020, the U.S. mounted a systematic attempt to splinter the global Internet.”
Trump and Pompeo: Stop the Internet, we want to get off
https://www.internetgovernance.org/2020/08/07/trump-and-pompeo-stop-the-internet-we-want-to-get-off/
On August 5, 2020, the U.S. mounted a systematic attempt to splinter the global Internet. It released a policy that tries to leverage US information services providers to force the rest of the digital economy to indiscriminately exclude Chinese businesses. The US “Clean Path” initiative, announced in April of this year, was designed to pressure European carriers to avoid purchasing 5G equipment from Huawei and ZTE, in order to establish China-free communications paths between the US and its embassies in foreign countries. The new initiative does not seem to be confined to protecting government communications, however. Pompeo claims to be protecting “our citizens’ privacy and our companies’ most sensitive information” by eliminating interoperation with any and all Chinese providers.
Secretary Pompeo’s broader “Clean Network” initiative is a watershed in US Internet policy. It embraces national barriers to Internet connectivity. It signals to every nation, not just China, that any foreign internet-based service provider, including American ones, should be considered a national security threat. It completely abandons WTO-based free trade agreements for telecommunications equipment and services.
The day after Pompeo’s bombshell policy announcement, two executive orders were released banning specific apps, one on TikTok the other on WeChat.
Cynical use of national emergency laws
Portraying TikTok as a threat to national security barely passes the giggle test. Numerous data breaches reliably attributed to Chinese state actors have occurred since 2010. Some of them, notably the Office of Personnel Management and Equifax hacks, successfully exfiltrated large amounts of incredibly sensitive data about US citizens and government officials.
none of these breaches relied on the victims’ use of Chinese apps, equipment vendors or handsets. The risk of sensitive data being exposed is inherent in the digital economy and is not linked to the national origin of any vendors in the supply chain.
As an ironic testimony to the American double standard here, the day after the US Executive Orders banned TikTok and WeChat apps on the grounds that they threaten the privacy and security of nation’s citizens and businesses, the Wall Street Journal reported that “A small U.S. company with ties to the U.S. defense and intelligence communities has embedded its software in numerous mobile apps, allowing it to track the movements of hundreds of millions of mobile phones world-wide.”
Is it a new Cold War?
As we predicted a few months ago, the US has chosen to make the global information economy the key battleground in the US-China conflict.
This is not a Cold War. While construed as a security threat, the U.S. split with China is almost entirely about economics; or more precisely, about the long term political effects of economic competition. As best we can interpret the US government’s actions, it fears that if China obtains a strong foothold in globalized markets for information and communications technology, it will become a peer in the international arena
What is the goal?
As far as we can tell, the only real goal of insisting that all businesses connected to China are agents of the Communist Party is to isolate and cripple Chinese ICT industries. The purpose of that crippling process, presumably, is to maintain the U.S. lead in high-tech industries and continued US dominance of the capability for globalized surveillance. This nationalistic, zero-sum take on technological development and innovation sees the digital economy as an extension of the military; any improvement in China’s capability detracts from the U.S.’s capabilities and power. (Apparently, it is the U.S., not China, that believes in civil-military fusion).
Tomi Engdahl says:
In A Pandemic Crisis, All Sectors Need To Be On High Cyber Alert – An Interview With Ian Thornton-Trump
https://pentestmag.com/in-a-pandemic-crisis-all-sectors-need-to-be-on-high-cyber-alert-an-interview-with-ian-thornton-trump/
#pentest #magazine #pentestmag #pentestblog #PTblog #interview #pandemic #cyber #alert #cybersecurity #infosecurity #infosec
Tomi Engdahl says:
Website security 101: keeping your website safe from hackers
https://seranking.com/blog/website-security/?sou1=FB_COM&gr1=Feed_FB&tg1=LaL_Paid3&kw1=Post_Cyber_Security_COM
2. Cyberattacks are expensive for business whereas cybersecurity is way cheaper.
For a small business, cybersecurity solutions cost around 4% of its operational budget whereas a big organization may spend just up to 2% of it on cybersecurity. Compared to this, the average cost of a data breach in 2019 reached a staggering $3.92 million, as per the 2019 IMB Cost of Data Breach Report.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pig in a poke: smartphone adware
https://securelist.com/pig-in-a-poke-smartphone-adware/97607/
Tomi Engdahl says:
[Slides] BHUSA Talk: Demystifying Modern Windows Rootkits
https://billdemirkapi.me/slides/Demystifying-Modern-Windows-Rootkits-BH.pdf
https://www.facebook.com/140713133274103/posts/592750931403652/
Tomi Engdahl says:
How I accidentally gatecrashed a startup’s morning meeting
No hacking required.
https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/08/sorry-i-gatecrashed-your-zoom-meeting/?tpcc=ECFB2020
Reporters use a ton of tools to collect information, monitor changes in websites, check if someone opened their email for comment, and navigate vast pools of public data. These tools aren’t special, reserved only for card-carrying members of the press, but rather are open to anyone who wants to find and report information. One tool I use frequently on the security beat lists all the subdomains on a company’s website. These subdomains are public but deliberately hidden from view, yet you can often find things that you wouldn’t from the website itself.
Bingo! I immediately found the company’s pitch deck. Another subdomain had a ton of documentation on how its product works.
Before I could register what was happening, I had joined what appeared to be the company’s morning meeting.
The company had hardcoded their Zoom meeting rooms to a number of subdomains on their company’s website. Anyone who knew the easy-to-guess subdomain — trust me, you could guess it — would immediately launch into one of the company’s standing Zoom meetings. No password required.
Zoom has seen its share of security issues and forced to change default settings to prevent abuse, largely driven by greater scrutiny of the platform as its usage rocketed since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
But this wasn’t on Zoom, not this time. This was a company that connected an entirely unprotected Zoom meeting room to a conveniently memorable web address, likely for convenience, but one that could have left lurkers and eavesdroppers in the company’s meetings.
It’s not much to ask to password-protect your Zoom meetings, because next time it probably won’t be me.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Learn how to install and set up WireGuard VPN client for FreeBSD jail running either on FreeNAS or FreeBSD host.
https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/how-to-install-a-wireguard-vpn-client-in-a-freebsd-jail/
#OpenSource #Unix #Sysadmin #IT
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Security Reminder: Containers Talk to Each Other and Other Endpoints
https://pentestmag.com/a-security-reminder-containers-talk-to-each-other-and-other-endpoints/
#pentest #magazine #pentestmag #pentestblog #PTblog #container #endpoint #security #cybersecurity #infosecurity #infosec
Tomi Engdahl says:
The state is a decade or more behind the game. Modern companies that care about security assume that all networks are compromised and act accordingly. See https://cloud.google.com/beyondcorp
The Clean Network program is the Trump Administration’s comprehensive approach to safeguarding the nation’s assets including citizens’ privacy and companies’ most sensitive information from aggressive intrusions by malign actors, such as the Chinese Communist Party.
The Clean Network addresses the long-term threat to data privacy, security, human rights and principled collaboration posed to the free world from authoritarian malign actors.
The Clean Network is rooted in internationally accepted digital trust standards. It represents the execution of a multi-year, all-of-government, enduring strategy, built on a coalition of trusted partners, and based on rapidly changing technology and economics of global markets.
The Clean Network
https://www.state.gov/5g-clean-network/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.dna.fi/fi/yrityksille/blogi/-/blogs/tietoturvaongelmat-ovat-kaikkialla-maailmassa-samanlaisia-paitsi-yhdessa-asiassa?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=linkad&utm_content=artikkeli_tietoturvaongelmat_ovat_kaikkialla_maailmassa_samanlaisia_paitsi_yhdessa_asiassa&utm_campaign=sa_kampanja_kamabm_20