Category Archives: ransomware

Top 10 Ways SMBs Can Mitigate Cyber Risks and Threats in 2023.

Fig. 1. Stock Virus Infographic, 2023.

#smbinfosec #cyberrisk #techrisk #techinnovation #infosec #infosec #cloudcomputing 
#cyberdefense #disinformation #cio #ciso #cto #tech #ransomwareattack #123backup

1) Educate Employees About Cyber Threats and Hold Them Accountable:

Educate your employees about online threats and how to protect your business’s data, including safe use of social networking sites. Depending on the nature of your business, employees might be introducing competitors to sensitive details about your firm’s internal business. Employees should be informed about how to post online in a way that does not reveal any trade secrets to the public or competing businesses. Use games with training and hold everyone accountable to security policies and procedures. This needs to be embedded in the culture of your company. Register for free DHS cyber training here and/or use the free DHS SMB cyber resource toolkit. Most importantly, sign up for DHS CISA e-mail alerts specific to your company and industry needs and review the alerts – Sign up here. Use the free DHS developed CSET (Cybersecurity Evaluation Tool) to assess your security posture – High, Med, or Low. CSET is downloadable here.

2) Protect Against Viruses, Spyware, and Other Malicious Code:

Make sure each of your business’s computers are equipped with antivirus software and antispyware and updated regularly. Such software is readily available online from a variety of vendors. All software vendors regularly provide patches and updates to their products to correct security problems and improve functionality. Configure all software to install updates automatically. Especially watch out for freeware that contains malvertising. Make sure submission forms can block spam and can block code execution (cross-side scripting attacks).

3) Secure Your Networks:

Safeguard your Internet connection by using a firewall and encrypting information. If you have a Wi-Fi network, make sure it is secure and hidden – not publicly broadcasted. To hide your Wi-Fi network, set up your wireless access point or router so it does not broadcast the network name, known as the Service Set Identifier (SSID). Also, have a secure strong password to protect access to the router. (xbeithyg18695843%&*&RELxu75IGO) — example. Lastly, use a VPN (virtual private network) to encrypt data in transit, especially when working from home.

4) Control Physical Access to Computers and Network Components:

Prevent access or use of business computers by unauthorized individuals. Laptops can be particularly easy targets for theft or can be lost, so lock them up when unattended. Make sure a separate user account is created for each employee and require strong passwords. Administrative privileges should only be given to trusted IT staff and key personnel — with approval records.

5) Create A Mobile Device Protection Plan:

Require users to password-protect their devices, encrypt their data, and install security apps to prevent criminals from stealing information while the phone is on public networks. Use a containerization application to separate personal data from company data. Be sure to set reporting procedures for lost or stolen equipment.

6) Establish Security Practices and Policies to Protect Sensitive Information:

Establish policies on how employees should handle and protect personally identifiable information and other sensitive data. Clearly outline the consequences of violating your business’s cybersecurity policies and who is accountable. Base your security strategy significantly on the NIST Cybersecurity Framework 1.1: Identify, Detect Defend, Respond, and Recover — a respected standard that easy to understand (Fig. 1). The NIST Cybersecurity Framework Small Business Resources are linked here.

Fig. 2. NIST CSF Domains and Sub Areas, NIST, 2022.

7) Employ Best Practices on Payment Cards:

Work with your banks or card processors to ensure the most trusted and validated tools and anti-fraud services are being used. You may also have additional security obligations related to agreements with your bank or processor. Isolate payment systems from other, less secure programs and do not use the same computer to process payments and surf the internet. Outsource some or all of it and know where your risk responsibility ends.

8) Make Backup Copies of Important Business Data and Use Encryption When Possible:

Regularly backup the data on all computers. Critical data includes word processing documents, electronic spreadsheets, databases, financial files, human resources files, and accounts receivable/payable files. Back up data automatically if possible, or at least weekly, and store the copies either offsite or on the cloud. Having all key files backed up via the 3-2-1 rule — three copies of files in two different media forms with one offsite — thus reducing ransomware attack damage.

9) Use A Password Management Tool and Strong Passwords:

Another way to stay safe is by setting passwords that are longer, complex, and thus hard to guess. Additionally, they can be stored and encrypted for safekeeping using a well-regarded password vault and management tool. This tool can also help you to set strong passwords and can auto-fill them with each login — if you select that option. Yet using just the password vaulting tool is all that is recommended. Doing these two things makes it difficult for hackers to steal passwords or access your accounts.

10) Use Only Whitelisted Sites Not Blacklisted Ones or Ones Found Via the Dark Web:

Use only approved whitelisted platforms and sites that do not expose you to data leakages or intrusion on your privacy. Whitelisting is the practice of explicitly allowing some identified websites access to a particular privilege, service, or access. Backlisting is blocking certain sites or privileges. If a site does not assure your privacy, do not even sign up let alone participate.

 About the Author:

Jeremy Swenson is a disruptive-thinking security entrepreneur, futurist/researcher, and senior management tech risk consultant. Over 17 years he has held progressive roles at many banks, insurance companies, retailers, healthcare orgs, and even governments including being a member of the Federal Reserve Secure Payment Task Force. Organizations relish in his ability to bridge gaps and flesh out hidden risk management solutions while at the same time improving processes. He is a frequent speaker, published writer, podcaster, and even does some pro bono consulting in these areas. As a futurist, his writings on digital currency, the Target data breach, and Google combing Google + video chat with Google Hangouts video chat have been validated by many. He holds an MBA from St. Mary’s University of MN, an MSST (Master of Science in Security Technologies) degree from the University of Minnesota, and a BA in political science from the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire.

The Main Purpose of Cryptocurrency Mixer and/or Splitter Services is Fraud and Money Laundering.

Cryptocurrency mixer and/or splitter services serve no valid “real-world” ethical business use case considering the relevant FinTech and legal options open. Even in the very rare case when you are a refugee fleeing a financially abusive government regime or terrorist organization is seeking to steal your assets while the national currency is failing, like in Venezuela which I wrote about in my 2014 article; that is about political revolution and your personal safety more than anything else. Although cases like this give a valid reason why you might want to mix and/or split your crypto assets – that’s not fully the same use case we’re talking about here with the recent uptick of crypto mixer and/or splitter service use. It’s only fair that we discuss the most likely and common use case, which is trending up, and not the few rare edge cases. This use case would be fraud and money laundering.

The evidence does not support that a regular crypto exchange is the same thing as a mixer and/or splitter service. For definitions sake, I am not defining mixing and/or splitting cryptocurrency as the same thing as selling, buying, or converting it – all of this can be done on one or more of the crypto exchanges which is why they are called exchanges. If they are the same or even considerably similar, then why are people and orgs using the mixer and/or splitter services at all? They use them because they offer a considerably different service. Using a mixer and/or splitter services assumes you have gotten some crypto beforehand, from a separate exchange, a step or more before in the daisy chain. This can be done via legal or illegal means. Moreover, why are they paying repeated and hugely excessive fees for these services? The fees are out of line with anything possibly comparable because there is higher compliance and legal risk for the operators of them in that they could get sanctioned like Blender.IO and others.

You can still have privacy if that is what you are seeking via a semblance of legal moves such as a trust tied to a separate legal entity, family office entity, converting to real estate, and marriage entity – if you have time to do the paperwork. Legally savvy people have anonymity over their assets often to avoid fraudsters, sales reps, and just privacy for privacy’s sake – but again still not the same use case. Even when people/orgs use these legal instruments for privacy, they still have compliance reporting and tax obligations – I.E., some disclosure. Keep in mind some disclosure serves to protect you that you in fact own the assets you say you own. Using these legal instruments with the right technical security including an encrypted VPN and multifactor authentication serves to sustain privacy, and you will then not need a crypto mixer and/or splitter.

Yet if you had cryptocurrency and wanted strong privacy to protect your assets, why would you not at least use some of the aforementioned legal instruments or the like? Mostly because any attorney worth anything would be obligated to report this blatant suspected fraud, and would not want to tarnish their name on the filings, etc. Specifically, the attorney would have to see and know where and what entities the crypto was coming from and going to, under what contexts, and that could trigger them to report or refuse to work with them – I.E. a fraudster would want to avoid getting detected.

Specifically, the use of multiple legal entities in different countries in a daisy chain of crypto coin mixing and/or splitting tends to be the pattern for persistent fraud and money laundering. That was the case in the 4.5-billion-dollar crypto theft out of NY and in Blender mixing fraud, and many other cases.

A recent U.S. Treasury press release concerning mixer service money laundering described it this way:

  • “Blended.io (Blender) is a virtual currency mixer that operates on the Bitcoin blockchain and indiscriminately facilitates illicit transactions by obfuscating their origin, destination, and counterparties. Blender receives a variety of transactions and mixes them together before transmitting them to their ultimate destinations. While the purported purpose is to increase privacy, mixers like Blender are commonly used by illicit actors. Blender has helped transfer more than $500 million worth of Bitcoin since its creation in 2017. Blender was used in the laundering process for DPRK’s Axie Infinity heist, processing over $20.5 million in illicit proceeds”.
Fig 1. U.S. Treasury Dept, Blener.io Crypto Mixer Fraud, 2022.

The question we as a society should be thinking about is tech ethics. What design feature crosses the line to enable fraud too much such that it is not pursued? For example, Silk Road crossed the line, selling illegal drugs, extortion, and other crime. Hacker networks cross the line when they breach companies and steal their credit card data and put it for sale on the dark web. Facebook crossed the line when it enabled bias and undue favor to impact policy outcomes.

Crypto mixer and/or splitter services (not mere crypto exchanges) are about as close to “money laundering as a service” as it gets – relative to anything else technically available excluding the dark web where there are far worse things available technically. Obviously, the developers, product owners, and project managers behind the crypto mixer and/or splitter services like this are serving the fraud and money laundering use case more than anything else. Some semblance of the organized crime rings is very likely giving them money and direction to this end.

If you are for and use mixer and/or splitter services then you run the risk of having your digital assets mixed with dirty digital assets, you have extortion high fees, you have zero customer service, no regulatory protection, no decedent Terms of Service and/or Privacy Policy if any, and you have no guarantee that it will even work the way you think it will.

In fact, you have so much decentralized “so-called” privacy that it could work against you. For example, imagine you pay the high fees to mix and split your crypto multiple times, and then your crypto is stolen by one of the mixing and/or splitting services. This is likely because they know many of their customers are committing fraud and money laundering, yet even if they are not these platforms are associated with that. Therefore, if the platform operators steal their crypto in this process, the victims have little incentive to speak up. Moreover, the mixing and/or splitting service companies have a nice cover to steal it, privacy. They won’t admit that they stole it but will say something like “everything is private and so we can’t see or know but you are responsible for what private assets you have or don’t have”. They will say something like “stealing it is impossible” which is course is a complete lie.

In sum, what reason do you have to trust a crypto mixing and/or splitting service with your digital assets as outlined above as they are hardly incentivized to protect them or you and operate in the shadows of antiquated non-western fintech regulation. So, what really do you get besides likely fraud? What is the business rationale behind using these services as outlined above considering no solid argument or evidence can support it is privacy alone, and what net benefit do you get besides business-enabling money laundering and fraud?

Now there are valid use cases for crypto and blockchain generally and here are five of them:

  1. Innovative tech removing the central bank for peer-to-peer exchange that is faster and more global, especially helping the underbanked countries.
  2. Smart contracts can be built on blockchain.
  3. Blockchain can be used for crowdfunding.
  4. Blockchain can be used for decentralized storage.
  5. The traditional cash and coin supply chain is burdensomely wasteful, costly, dirty, and counterfeiting is a real issue. Why do you need to carry ten dollars in quarters or a wad of twenty-dollar bills or even have that be a nation’s economic backing in today’s tech world?

Here are six tips to identify crypto-related scams:

  1. With most businesses, it should be easy to find out who the key operators are. If you can’t find out who is running a cryptocurrency or exchange via LinkedIn, Medium, Twitter, a website, or the like be very cautious.
  2. Whether in cash or cryptocurrency, any business opportunity promising free money is likely to be fake. If it sounds too good to be true it likely is. Multi-level marketing is one old example of this scam.
  3. Never mix online dating and investment/financial advice. If you meet someone on a dating site or social media app, and then they want to show you how to invest in crypto or they ask you to send them crypto. No matter what sob story and huge return they are claiming it’s a scam (FTC).
  4. Watch out for scammers who pretend to be celebrities who can multiply any cryptocurrency you send them. If you click on an unexpected link they send or send cryptocurrency to a so-called celebrity’s QR code, that money will go straight to a scammer, and it’ll be gone. Celebrities don’t have time to contact random people on social media, but they are easily impersonated (FTC).
  5. Celebrities are however used to pump crypto prices via social media, so they get a windfall, and everyone else takes a hit. Watch out for crypto like Dogecoin which is heavily tied to celebrity pumps with no real-world business value. If you are lucky enough to get ahead, get out then.
  6. Watch out for scammers who make big claims without details, white papers, filings, or explanations at all. No matter what the investment, find out how it works and ask questions about where your money is going. Honest investment managers or advisors want to share that information and will back it up with details in many documents and filings (FTC).

Jeremy Swenson is a disruptive thinking security entrepreneur, futurist/researcher, and senior management tech risk consultant. Over 17 years he has held progressive roles at many banks, insurance companies, retailers, healthcare orgs, and even governments including being a member of the Federal Reserve Secure Payment Task Force. Organizations relish in his ability to bridge gaps and flesh out hidden risk management solutions while at the same time improving processes. He is a frequent speaker, published writer, podcaster, and even does some pro bono consulting in these areas. As a futurist, his writings on digital currency, the Target data breach, and Google combing Google + video chat with Google Hangouts video chat have been validated by many. He holds an MBA from St. Mary’s University of MN, a MSST (Master of Science in Security Technologies) degree from the University of Minnesota, and a BA in political science from the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire.

Watch Out for Coronavirus (COVID-19) Scams and Malware

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is being used in a variety of malicious/hacking campaigns including email spam, ransomware, BEC (business e-mail compromise), malware, drive-by downloads, and even fraudulent domains. The mention of current events in malicious cyber-attacks is nothing new as threat actors often use current events and popular personalities in their social engineering strategies.

Fig. 1. Nate Benson (WGRZ), 03/16/20.

89ac23c0-6408-4e68-a8ff-94f8b227e7d0_750x422

As the number of those infected continues to increase, campaigns that use the disease as a lure are likely to also increase because people tend to get excited about trending information and they click without double-checking, especially when their defenses are down in this emotional and media-hyped context. Let facts and science rule the day, not speculation and sensationalized news media. As we seek recovery and healing, the last thing we need is the double whammy of being hacked, scammed, or the victim of ransomware. Don’t let that be you, always double-check.

Here are some detailed internet hygiene and scam avoidance tips (compiled from the FTC, Trend Micro, and Symantec):

  1. Don’t click on links from sources you don’t know. They could download viruses onto your computer or device.
  2. Trend Micro identified the following exploits as of 03/16/20 and more are likely coming. Five of which were .exe or executable files – very high risk.

Fig. 1. Trend Micro Identified Cyber Exploit Files (Trend Micro, 03/16/20).

COVID 19 Exploit Files 03_17_20
  1. Watch for emails claiming to be from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or experts saying that they have information about the virus.
  2. For the most up-to-date information about the Coronavirus, visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
  3. Symantec Identified the following Fake example:

Fig 2. Fake CDC Alert Phishing Example (Steve Symanovich, Symantec, 03/17/2020).

CDC Phishing Scam E-mail Example From Symantec 03_17_20
  1. Ignore online offers for vaccinations. There currently are no vaccines, pills, potions, lotions, lozenges or other prescription or over-the-counter products available to treat or cure Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) — online or in stores.
  2. Report any suspected product scams to the FTC here – scroll to the bottom for reporting link.
  3. Do your homework when it comes to donations, whether through charities or crowdfunding sites. Don’t let anyone rush you into making a donation. If someone wants donations in cash, by gift card, or by wiring money, don’t do it.
  4. Beware of online requests for personal information. A coronavirus-themed email that seeks personal information like your Social Security number or login information is a phishing scam. Legitimate government agencies won’t ask for that information.
  5. Never respond to email by giving your personal data.
  6. Check the email address or link. You can inspect a link by hovering your mouse button over the URL to see where it leads. But keep in mind phishers can create links that closely resemble legitimate addresses. Never go to HTTP only sites but look for the HTTPS. Use the trend micro URL checker here but know it won’t catch all bad sites but is a good start.
  7. Watch for spelling and grammatical mistakes. If an email includes spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors, it’s likely a sign you’ve received a phishing email.
  8. Look for generic greetings. Phishing emails are unlikely to use your name. Greetings like “Dear sir or madam” signal an email is not legitimate.
  9. When in doubt, don’t open, block, and delete.

Lastly, with so many people working from home amid the pandemic, our next podcast will deal with IAM / vendor risk mgmt., and the related work from home network security considerations — coming around April/May 2020! Follow our podcast here.

Wishing you, your family, and the greater community — strength, healing, innovation, and fast recovery. Together we can get through this.

Abstract Forward Podcast #1: Data Classification With Jim Danburg.

data_classification_2.jpgIn this episode, renowned governance, risk and compliance critical infrastructure security and resiliency expert Jim Danburg joins us for a candid and thought-provoking conversation on data classification, including a funny story doing a project for a CISO (chief information security officer).  More specifically, we discuss the four types of data classification vs. only three, data over-classification, data mis-classification, governance risk and compliance, data security, role based access control (RBAC), need to know policy, litigation discovery risk, the declining cost of data storage: disk vs. solid state, outsourcing data and PCI risk, mapping dependencies, the relationship between executives and data policy compliance, insider threat, bring your own device (BYOD) containerization: corporate vs. personal data with privacy implications, the secure destruction of data and hardware – and what it takes to improve all this!

BI_CyberDataAssessment_LargeListen here.

Contact Abstract Forward Consulting here.

Disclaimer: This podcast does not represent the views of former or current employers and / or clients. This podcast will make every reasonable effort to verify facts and inferences therefrom. However, this podcast is intended to entertain and significantly inform its audience based on subjective reason based opinions. Non-public information will not be disclosed. Information obtained in this podcast may be materially out of date at or after the time of the podcast. This podcast is not legal, accounting, audit, health, technical, or financial advice. © Abstract Forward Consulting, LLC.

Decryption Options For 3 Ransomware Types

ransomware-main.pngRansomware is on the rise and is going after more victims with little to no defenses, small to medium-small sized businesses and even quiet non-profits. Here are a few tools with a valid track record of stopping and removing 3 common types of ransomware.
1) LockCrypt is a ransomware discovered in June 2017 but is still active in various mutations. It spreads by brute forcing Remote Desktop Protocol credentials – a key port (3389) that should be obviously locked. A prominent example of this exploit occurred in December 2017 when an employee opened an email which was maliciously sent from another co-worker’s account. This was merely an attempt to trick the person to click on the malicious attachment which was appended to the letter. Once it was opened, the ransomware download began after which 48 out of 500 servers of North Carolina County were compromised with LockCrypt (Ugnius Kiguolis, Spyware.com, 12/11/17).

As per Bitdefender, this ransomware family has several sub-variants with the following specific extensions, the first (.1btc) is decryptable with this free Bitdefender tool and the others may be decryptable with the free Trend Micro Malwarebytes Ransomware File Decryptor tool (check for updates).

  1. .1btc (decryptable and included in this version of the tool)
  2. .lock (decryptable, not included in our tool)
  3. .2018 (decryptable, not included in our tool)
  4. .bi_d (not decryptable)
  5. .mich (decryptable, not included in our tool)

2) The five-year-old ransomware Trojan-Ransom.Win32.Rakhni has received a facelift recently which now allows it to decide whether or not to install its traditional ransomware or to drop a cryptominer.

The malware is delivered through spam campaigns where the email comes with a PDF attached which the receiver is prompted to save and then enable editing. When the victim attempts to open the document he or she is presented with an executable that portrays itself as an Adobe Reader plugin and it asks the person to allow it to make changes to their computer (Doug Olenick, SC Magazine, 07/06/18).

According the Kaspersky labs, the current injection chain on this newer exploit is largely the same as before. However, the malware moves along a rather complex path before it decides which form it will take. During the process it will check to make sure the device is not a virtual machine, it will check for and disarm an AV software and also Widows Defender and finally erase most of the footprints made during the malware installation.

The executable, which is written in Delphi and has its strings encrypted, then presents a message box that states the PDF could not be opened, basically to keep the victim from thinking anything negative is about to happen (Doug Olenick, SC Magazine, 07/06/18).

It first checks that the device has one of the substrings:

  1. \TEMP
  2. \TMP
  3. \STARTUP
  4. \CONTENT.IE
  5. Registry check

It then checks to see if the registry contains checks that in the registry there is no value HKCU\Software\Adobe\DAVersion and if it finds this is so it creates HKCU\Software\Adobe\DAVersion = True (Doug Olenick, SC Magazine, 07/06/18). As of Feb 2018 Kaspersky Labs has a free decryption tool (since updated) to get rid of most variations of this infection.

3) Thousands of LabCorp’s servers were impacted by the SamSam ransomware attack on 07/13/18, a CSO online report confirmed (Steve Ragan, 07/19/18). Early information indicates that the company contained the spread of the infection and neutralized the attack within 50 minutes – great. However, before the attack was fully contained, 7,000 systems and 1,900 servers were negatively impacted; 350 were production servers (Steve Ragan, CSO Online, 07/19/18. This is a growing trend in the healthcare sector that reached 15% in 2016 (Fig1. Greg Slabodkin, Health Data Management, 04/11/18).

Fig. 1.
Ransomeware Health.pngAs per Jessica Davis of HealthcareITnews, “SamSam is the virus that shut down the Allscripts platform for about a week in January 2017 and is known to use brute force RDP (remote desktop protocol) attacks to breach a system and spread. The variant is also responsible for taking down Hancock Health, Adams Memorial and the government systems of Atlanta — among a host of others” (HealthcareITNews.com, 07/20/18).

The ransom note it displays is quite interesting, giving the option of randomly-selected file encryption (if you don’t pay the full amount). They’ll also unlock one file for free as a token of trust that they will give your files back after payment (Christopher Boyd, Malwarebytes Labs, 05/01/18).

Fig 2.
samsam-ransomware-infected-file-sensorstechforum-com-sorry-for-files-html-virus
The virus has been updated a couple of times. Currently, it appends one of the following file extensions (Julie Splinters, spyware.com, 06/23/18):

  1. .weapologize;
  2. .AreYouLoveMyRansFile;
  3. .breeding123;
  4. .country82000;
  5. .disposed2017;
  6. .fucku;
  7. .happenencedfiles;
  8. .helpmeencedfiles;
  9. .howcanihelpusir;
  10. .iaufkakfhsaraf;
  11. .mention9823;
  12. .myransext2017;
  13. .noproblemwedecfiles;
  14. .notfoundrans;
  15. .prosperous666;
  16. .powerfulldecryp;
  17. .supported2017;
  18. .suppose666;
  19. .VforVendetta
  20. .Whereisyourfiles;
  21. .wowreadfordecryp;
  22. .wowwhereismyfiles;
  23. .loveransisgood.

Different variants of the virus might drop different versions of ransom notes. However, at the moment victims might receive one of these ransom notes in:

  1. 0009-SORRY-FOR-FILES.html,
  2. IF_WANT_FILES_BACK_PLS_READ.html,
  3. 000-PLEASE-READ-WE-HELP.html,
  4. 000-No-PROBLEM-WE-DEC-FILES.html,
  5. READ-FOR-DECCCC-FILESSS.html,
  6. HELP_DECRYPT_YOUR_FILES.HTML,
  7. 001-HELP_FOR_DECRYPT_FILE.html,
  8. 006-READ-FOR-HELLPP.html,
  9. PLEASE_READ_FOR_DECRYPT_FILES_[Number].html,
  10. PLEASE-README -AFFECTED-FILES.html.

SamSam is the newest and most powerful of the three types of ransomeware mentioned above. There is no known decryption tool or fix for data that you don’t already have your data backed up. Yet it is known to uses tools such as Mimikatz to steal valid user credentials and common IT management tools to move malware to new hosts. Attackers and their malware are increasingly reliant on Mimikatz and similar tools, such as PsExec — associated with everything from PoS malware to webshells — to spread through the network and do damage (Dark Reading, 06/20/18, Ajit Sancheti). Stay tuned here for updates regarding a stable decryption tool for SamSam.