Hi, this is James from Cyber Citadel and here's our breakdown of cyber security awareness month
October 2021. We're going to reveal this year's cyber security awareness month theme; how Squid
Game can affect you with malware; and, bring you up to speed on what Cyber Citadel's been up to - ready.
First off, what is cyber security awareness month? Well, put simply, national cyber security awareness
month was formed in October 2003 through a collaboration between the US Department of
Homeland Security and the National Cyber Security Alliance. Since then, regional blocks countries and
organizations have adopted October as the month to raise cyber security awareness around the world.
Although now a global initiative, cyber security awareness month is inaugurated every year by the
President of the United States. In his proclamation, the President lays out the state of cyber security
in general and designates a yearly theme. What's this year's theme? "Do your part, be cyber smart."
As for the powers that be, it's been good to hear some progress towards keeping end-user populations
safe. At the beginning of the month, Google announced turning on two-factor authentication
by default for over 150 million users, including 2 million youtube creators.
It's high time all internet users enabled their multi-factor authentication across their accounts.
But Google's decision to enable it by default could be a move to protect users after Microsoft
introduced its passwordless account access mechanism. Not only pushing better cyber
defense, Google also went on the offensive with their threat analysis group claiming that they
were tracking 270 state-sponsored hacker groups from over 50 countries. And, it was encouraging
to see states banding together with over 30 countries pledging to mitigate the risk of
ransomware affecting financial systems as part of the International Counter-Ransomware Initiative.
Again, it's about time countries started working together against ransomware as illicit payments
topped nearly 500 million dollars globally in the last two years alone. But, with China and Russia
absent from the initiative it will be interesting to see just how much progress can be made.
For the techies out there, OWASP released their new list of Top 10 network vulnerabilities, with
broken access control taking the number one spot, ousting the king of vulnerabilities code injection.
If you're unfamiliar about OWASP's list of Top 10 vulnerabilities,
watch our video linked above which goes into them in more detail.
So what have you done to be cyber smart during October 2021? Let us know in the comments below.
But it hasn't all been good news - far from it. Ever since the widely publicized attacks on SolarWinds
and FireEye, supply chain attacks have seen a huge uptick. Microsoft reported that the Nobelium hacker
group responsible for compromising SolarWinds had continued to hit CSPs and MSPs, singling out 609
customers and attacking them over 22,000 times collectively. A new advanced persistent threat
group has been identified for a string of attacks targeting fuel, energy and aviation production
industries in Russia, the US, India, Nepal, Taiwan and Japan. Dubbed Chamelgang - from chameleon - the group
has used highly developed techniques to disguise malware as legitimate services from Microsoft,
IBM and Google. Other supply chain attacks included Iranian hackers infiltrating aerospace
and telecom dropbox accounts in the Middle East, Russia, the US, and Europe. The North Korean Lazarus
group unloading backdoor Copperhedge malware against defence firms in Latvia and South Korea.
And, a huge, presumably state-sponsored attack crippling Iran's fuel network.
In the realm of ransomware, the news was a mix of good
and bad. Let's start with the bad, eh? Group Fin12, a threat actor previously known as UNC1878,
famous for deploying Ryuk ransomware, had a field day going after healthcare targets using partners
to gain initial access before deploying ransomware themselves. Perhaps in more mainstream news, Fin7 -
known as one of the most successful APT hacking groups in the world - launched an audacious scam
to deliver their ransomware. Using a fake company called Bastion Secure, Fin7 recruited
unwitting software engineers under the guise of delivering a penetration testing service.
Promising $800-$1200 a month, IT specialists drawn into the scam raised alarm bells when asked by Bastian
Secure's representatives to gather information on domain administrators, file systems and backups.
But, I did promise some good news. Two prolific Ukrainian ransomware operators responsible
for attacks against more than a hundred different companies and close to $150 million in damages were
arrested. And has the dragon finally been slain? The notorious REvil ransomware gang had a spanner
thrown into the works after unidentified actors took control of the gang's Tor payment portal and
data leak website. Having gone underground after their operations were infiltrated, they were hacked
and forced offline by multiple private sector cyber experts working with the US government.
And as for Squid Game; malicious developers have been taking advantage of the smash hit
Netflix series by uploading malware onto Google Play Store disguised as a Squid
Game wallpaper app. The app was downloaded at least 5,000 times before being caught
by Google and taken down, leaving the infected as victims of ad fraud or costly SMS services.
Patches, patches, patches - these are crucial to any form of cyber security,
particularly in protecting against zero-day vulnerabilities. In case you didn't know,
here are some major patch updates that you should have made in October. An update on
iPad and iPhone to patch a memory corruption issue that allowed applications to execute
arbitrary code with kernel privileges. An update for Windows PCs that patched 71 vulnerabilities
in Microsoft Windows and other software. And, an update for Apache servers that patched two
security vulnerabilities: path traversal and file disclosure flaws. You're welcome.
Lastly, on to some news about what Cyber Citadel's been up to. In an effort to make a meaningful
contribution to this year's cyber security awareness month, Cyber Citadel has released a
series of videos interviewing our Lead Security Researcher, Rafay Baloch, on all things cyber
security. The series includes subjects on Pegasus - particularly relevant given New York Times
journalist, Ben Hubbard, being repeatedly hacked for stories written on Saudi Arabia. IoT security
and 5G connectivity - a hot topic given recent telecom service providers breached by light
basin, how the squid game malware previously discussed revealed flaws in Android's app
verification and Apple's industry-leading dedication to user privacy. As well as,
AI, machine learning, quantum computing, penetration testing, red teaming and much more. Rafay Baloch
also contributed to Hexnode's conference, Hexcon21, with his presentation - What You See Is Not Always
What You Get - a deep dive into mobile web browser security. And that's our roundup of cyber security
awareness month, October 2021. If you enjoyed the video don't forget to like and subscribe,
and let us know if you'd like to see more of this type of content in the comments below. See you soon.