phishing

Vulnerability Exploits Overtake Phishing as Initial Attack Vector

Most security professionals will advise the number one way attackers gain an initial foothold on a network is, and continues to be, phishing and social engineering attacks. Palo Alto recently released their 2022 Incident Response Report which confirmed what most would say is true. At a combined 42%, phishing and social engineering make up almost half of all means of initial access.

The second most common way according to the above chart from Palo Alto is software vulnerabilities. However, in the first week of September, Kaspersky released its 2021 Incident Response Overview and it told a different story. 53.6% of the initial attack vectors they responded to were exploits of public-facing applications.

2021 had no shortage of time sensitive critical vulnerabilities including Log4j, Microsoft Exchange ProxyLogon, and three other CVEs related to the ProxyLogon vulnerabilities that were released in March of 2021. When these vulnerabilities are made publicly available it is only a matter of minutes before publicly facing systems are being scanned for vulnerable targets. Within hours, proof of concept exploits become available leading to an extremely high rate of organizations falling for such attacks.

In recent years, organizations have prioritized security awareness training and conducted social engineering and phishing training. But have those same organizations made it a priority to have a vulnerability management program in place?

How can organizations stay ahead of these attack trends? Start by building out a mature security program that includes annual penetration testing, ongoing vulnerability scanning, and a properly configured SIEM to alert on network anomalies. If you suspect a breach, identify a firm capable of responding to security incidents and secure an incident response retainer. Lastly, have an expert conduct a strategic security assessment to compare your organization’s security program to a known security standard like the Center for Internet Security Critical Security Controls.

TWiC | This Week in Cybersecurity – Let’s Go Phishing 🎣

Over the past week there have been many hot topics in cybersecurity. This edition of This Week in Cybersecurity includes stories focused on the latest in phishing campaigns tactics, techniques, procedures, common use cases, and infrastructure being used. Check out the details below.

Phishing Attacks Skyrocket with Microsoft and Facebook as Most Abused Brands

The number of phishing attempts that misuse the Microsoft brand jumped 266 percent in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the same period last year, according to a report by researchers at Vade. In the same period of time, fake Facebook messages increased by 177% in the second quarter of 2022. In Q1 2022 compared to the previous year, there were 266 percent more instances of phishing assaults using the Microsoft name. As opposed to the previous year, hackers are ramping up their use of false messages that abuse well-known companies, bringing back the bloom of phishing attempts. According to the phishing research Microsoft, Facebook, and the French bank Crédit Agricole are the three most frequently impersonated companies in attacks. Crédit Agricole, WhatsApp, and the French telecommunications provider Orange are some of the other top names that are misused in phishing attempts. Other well-known brands included Apple, Google, and PayPal.
DUCKTAIL Malware Targeting HR Professionals Through LinkedIn Spear-phishing Campaign

Cybersecurity research has recently learned of an ongoing operation known as DUCKTAIL. This strategy aims to gain control of a company’s Facebook business account that handle its advertising. DUCKTAIL uses a malware component that steals information to hack Facebook Business accounts. This sets DUCKTAIL apart from other malware campaigns that used Facebook as a base of operations in the past. The malware is able to access the victim’s Facebook account by stealing cookies from the victim’s browser and utilizing authentication cookies during authenticated Facebook sessions. This has allowed hackers to access every Facebook Business account that the victim has access to, even ones with restricted access. DUCKTAIL has been using LinkedIn to identify potential targets for these campaigns.
1,000s of Phishing Attacks Blast Off from InterPlanetary File System

The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), a distributed peer-to-peer file system, has become a hotbed of phishing-site storage. Thousands of emails containing phishing URLs are showing up in corporate inboxes. IPFS uses peer-to-peer (P2P) connections for file and service-sharing instead of a static resource demarked by a host and path. Phishers may start using even more sophisticated methods for replicating sites, such as using distributed hash tables. According to an anti-phishing expert, security admins need to educate themselves and their staff about how IPFS works.
Evilnum APT Hackers Group Attack Windows Using Weaponized Word Documents

The APT threat actor, Evilnum, has been targeting European banking and investment organizations. Recently their tactics, techniques, and procedures have included spear-phishing emails with attachments like Microsoft Word, ISO, and Windows Shortcut (LNK) files. Researchers discovered other variations of the campaign in late 2022, including ones that employed financial bribes to get victims to open malicious ZIP folders that were coupled with malicious .LNK files. In the middle of 2022, the methodology that was being used to distribute Word documents was altered once more to incorporate a mechanism that tries to connect to an attacker-controlled domain and obtain a remote template.

Stop Phishing
nGuard has been conducting social engineering assessments for almost 2 decades and has the experience and expertise to assess your users against phishing campaigns using a variety of attack methods. Using emails, phone calls, text messages, multi-factor prompt bombing attacks, fake websites, and more, nGuard can thoroughly test your security awareness training program efficacy. Contact your Account Executive or Security Consultant to learn more about how nGuard can help.

TWiC | This Week in Cybersecurity

Over the past week there have been many hot topics in cybersecurity. This edition of This Week in Cybersecurity includes stories covering Microsoft rolling back their decision to not block Office macros by default, phishing campaigns successfully bypassing multi-factor authentication (MFA), a former CIA engineer responsible for the “Vault 7 Leaks” was convicted, hackers targeting industrial control systems, and much more. Check out the details below.

Microsoft Rolls Back Decision To Block Office Macros By Default

While Microsoft announced earlier this year that it would block VBA macros on downloaded documents by default, Redmond said that it will roll back this change based on “Feedback” until further notice. Microsoft’s customers were the first to notice that Microsoft rolled back this change in the Current Channel, with the old ‘Enable Editing’ or ‘Enable Content’ buttons shown at the top of downloaded Office documents with embedded macros. While Microsoft has not shared the negative feedback that led to the rollback of this change, users have reported that they are unable to find the Unblock button to remove the Mark-of-the-Web from downloaded files, making it impossible to enable macros.
Large-Scale Phishing Campaign Bypasses MFA

Attackers are getting wise to organizations’ increasing use of MFA to better secure user accounts and creating more sophisticated phishing attacks like these that can bypass it, noted a security professional. “While MFA is certainly valuable and should be used when possible, by capturing the password and session cookie – and because the session cookie shows that MFA was already used to login – the attackers can often circumvent the need for MFA when they login to the account again later using the stolen password,” observed Erich Kron from KnowB4. This attack is especially convenient for threat actors because it precludes the need for them to craft their own phishing sites such as the ones used in conventional phishing campaigns, researchers noted. In the phishing campaign observed by Microsoft researchers, attackers initiate contact with potential victims by sending emails with an HTML file attachment to multiple recipients in different organizations. One of nGuard’s most common assessments is Social Engineering. During these assessments our engineers come across applications that require MFA and attempt to bypass the requirement using these techniques and others like MFA Prompt Bombing.
Jury convicts ex-CIA engineer for leaking the agency’s “Vault7” hacking toolset

Joshua Schulte, the former CIA engineer arrested for what’s being called the biggest theft of classified information in the agency’s history, has been convicted by a federal jury. Schulte was arrested in relation to the large cache of documents that Wikileaks had published throughout 2017. That string of CIA leaks known as “Vault 7” contained information on the tools and techniques the agency used to hack into iPhones and Android phones for overseas spying. It also had details on how the CIA broke into computers and how it turned smart TVs into listening devices. A federal jury has found Schulte guilty on nine counts, including illegally gathering national defense information and then transmitting it. As part of his closing arguments, he told the jurors that the CIA and the FBI made him a scapegoat for their embarrassing failure, repeating what his side had been saying from the time he was arrested.
State-backed hackers targeted US-based journalists in widespread spy campaigns

State-sponsored hackers from China, North Korea, Iran and Turkey have been regularly spying on and impersonating journalists from various media outlets in an effort to infiltrate their networks and gain access to sensitive information, according to a report released by cybersecurity firm Proofpoint. In one of the operations, the report found that since early 2021, Chinese-backed hackers engaged in numerous phishing attacks mainly targeting U.S.-based journalists covering U.S. politics and national security. The researchers concluded their report with a warning to journalists to protect themselves and their sources because these types of attacks are likely to persist as state-sponsored hackers attempt to gather more sensitive information and manipulate public perception.
Hackers are targeting industrial systems with new strain of malware

People hawking password-cracking software are targeting the hardware used in industrial-control facilities with malicious code that makes their systems part of a botnet, a researcher reported. Lost passwords happen in many organizations. A programmable logic controller — used to automate processes inside factories, electric plants, and other industrial settings, for example, may be set up and largely forgotten over the following years. When a replacement engineer later identifies a problem affecting the PLC, they may discover the now long-gone original engineer never left the passcode behind before departing the company. An entire ecosystem of malware attempts can capitalize on scenarios like this one inside industrial facilities. Online advertisements promote password crackers for PLCs and human-machine interfaces, which are the workhorses inside these environments. nGuard has a wide range of experience securing Critical Infrastructure, SCADA systems, and Industrial Controls Systems for the manufacturing industry. Our penetration testing and compliance assessments can give you the confidence in the security posture of these environments.