Heads Up! New Hybrid Ransomware Replicates Like A Virus

Here is a powerful piece of ammo to get (more) IT Security budget. SophosLabs labs' blog reported about a new Ransomware strain with a difference - this one is a true self-replicating parasitic virus! They call it VirRansom.

This new strain is a hybrid that combines CryptoWall-like functionality with active self-replicating virus infections of all files it can find. And like the cybercrime Reveton family of malware, it locks the PC's main screen demanding 0.619 Bitcoin to let you back in. Yikes.

Let me quote Sophos for a moment: "Worms vs. Parasitics: Most worms leave you with one, or perhaps a handful, of infected files that weren't there before and need to be deleted.

"Parasitic viruses, in contrast, may leave you with hundreds of infected files on each computer, or thousands, or more. If you leave even one of those infected files behind after a clean-up, the infection will start up all over again.

"Worse still, the infected files can't just be deleted, because they are your own files that were there before the infection started. That makes cleanup much trickier."

The good news: The file encryption is not as advanced as CryptoWall, as the key to decrypt the files is contained in the malware itself. Your antivirus should soon be able to decrypt the files and restore them, unless the bad guys are constantly changing the encryption keys in which case it may take a day or more before your AV catches up.

The bad news: This is a full-fledged virus which will spread across your network and doing a less than perfect job on the disinfection can easily lead to reinfection of your whole network.

CryptoWall-encrypted files that you can't or don't decrypt are harmless garbage forever, but you can delete them. With VirRansom, files that you don't decrypt are still recoverable, but also still actively infectious.

It gets nastier all the time. You can expect a VirRansom 2.0 soon where they might implement "new features" like industrial-strength encryption like CryptoWall where you only get the decryption keys after payment, and things like infection of your email server, where emails are converted to a worm for maximum dissemination of their malcode. (Think about the legal ramifications of something like this.)

You can mitigate these types of threats through both technical measures and enforcing security policy. First some technical approaches:

The very first thing you need to do is test the Restore function of your backups and make sure it works. And have a full set of backups offsite.

Start thinking about asynchronous real-time backups so you can restore files with a few mouse clicks.

Get rid of mapped drives and use UNC links for shared folders.

Whitelisting software, which only allows known-good executables to run, starts to look more attractive by the month.

Looking at the security policy angle, it's time to enforce best practices, and one of those is of course prevent these types of infections to begin with, through effective 5-th generation security awareness training, as the infection vector is your end-user opening up an attachment or clicking on a link. Find out how affordable this is for your organization. Get a quote now:

https://info.knowbe4.com/kmsat_get_a_quote_now

Shipping Problem Phishing Attacks - Here Is How They Look

Last CyberheistNews issue, we warned that Black Friday and Cyber Monday were behind us, and that criminal hackers have a "scam calendar" which focuses on major shopping events exactly like this. Here are 4 actual examples of these online e-commerce order or package shipment phishing attacks that have come in over the last week. The first one is a bogus Home Depot order that they want you to click on and make your PC into a botnet zombie. Images at the full blog post here:

https://blog.knowbe4.com/shipping-problem-phishing-attacks-here-is-how-they-look

How Was Sony Pictures Hacked?

Kevin Mandia, who was hired as the forensics expert wrote in a letter to Sony's CEO that the breach was unprecendented, well-planned and carried out by an "organized group". It's the most destructive cyber attack reported to date against a company on U.S. soil.

As Terabytes of data were exfiltrated, there will be a treasure trove of confidential data which will be leaked over the next weeks or months. But how was Sony hacked? The Grugg recently tweeted: "Well, pretty much every single hacked network in the news can be summarized: 'It started with an email...'" I would not be surprised if this was the case with Sony as well.

While security experts have been able to test the wiper malware employed against Sony Pictures Entertainment, they say they have not yet exactly determined how the malware infected Sony in the first place. "My educated guess would be that someone was targeted [with] a spear phishing e-mail, which granted access to a system," Tom Chapman, director of the cyber-operations group at cybersecurity firm EdgeWave, tells Information Security Media Group. "The hacker(s) then escalated privileges and took control of the mail server and possibly the Active Directory. From there, the hackers owned the system."

The attackers appear to have had an edge, in that they seem to be very familiar with Sony's network topology. "We have been investigating the attack and discovered new pieces of malware that are likely related to the same attackers," says security researcher Jaime Blasco, labs director of security management and threat intelligence vendor AlienVault. "From the samples we obtained, we can say the attackers knew the internal network from Sony since the malware samples contain hardcoded names of servers inside Sony's network and even credentials/usernames and passwords that the malware uses to connect to system inside the network."

The North Koreans are highly likely to blame. You might think that a country that has problems delivering enough electricity to its citizens would not be that sophisticated, but their hackers are trained by the Russians and the Chinese and Pyongyang runs some of its hacking operations out of a luxury hotel in nearby Shenyang, China.

It is obvious that Sony's defense-in-depth security policy was deeply flawed in either incorrectly stating the right procedures or failing to enforce them. Not having the breach detection tools in place to spot terabytes of data leaving the building is another epic fail. More:

https://www.cuinfosecurity.com/sony-hack-destover-malware-identified-a-7638

Warm Regards,

Stu Sjouwerman

Quotes Of The Week

Quotes of the Week:

"Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imagination, our possibilities become limitless." - Jamie Paolinetti - Filmmaker

"I believe that filmmaking - as, probably, is everything - is a game you should play with all your cards, and all your dice, and whatever else you've got. So, each time I make a movie, I give it everything I have. I think everyone should, and I think everyone should do everything they do that way." - Francis Ford Coppola, Movie Director

Thanks for reading CyberheistNews! Please forward to your friends.

Security News

PCI DSS 3.0 Compliant In Half The Time At Half The Cost

It's time to get and stay PCI DSS 3.0 compliant.

Now that the new 3.0 standard goes into effect, it's a great time to start using a new tool that will save you half the time and half the cost becoming compliant: KnowBe4 Compliance Manager 2015.

It comes with a pre-made PCI DSS 3.0 template that you can use immediately to get compliant and maintain compliance in a business-as-usual process.

Escape from Excel-hell!

Most organizations track PCI compliance using spreadsheets, MS-Word, or proprietary self-maintained software. This is inefficient, error prone, costly, and a risk in itself. Get and stay PCI DSS 3.0 compliant in half the time and at half the cost with KnowBe4 Compliance Manager™.

Get a short, live web-demo, and we will show you how easy and affordable this is!

https://www.knowbe4.com/demo_kcm

Top 10 InfoSec Pain Points

IT Analyst firm 451 Research (these guys are very good by the way, check them out, link at the end) recently asked over 200 InfoSec pros what their top information security pain points were. The answers are very interesting. I'm only taking the Top 10, the list went on to 30, but the percentages fell below 8% so I skipped them.

Here is the list:

Mobile Device Security - 16% User Behavior - 11% Vulnerability Management - 9% Security Awareness Training - 9% Hackers - 9% Third-party Security - 9% Resource Constraints - 9% Monitoring - 8% Data Leakage Prevention - 8% Compliance/Auditing - 8%

We are of course happy to mention that with effective security awareness training, you can actually DO something about the #2 headache, and cover two out of your Top 5 problems! Check out the new 2015 version of Kevin Mitnick Security Awareness Training:

https://www.knowbe4.com/products/kevin-mitnick-security-awareness-training/

And here is the website of 451 Research:

https://451research.com/

Phishing Lessons Learned in 2014? Employee Training Matters

Our friends at Wombat created a good summary why security awareness training is a must these days. Why? Organizations without security awareness programs -- and, specifically, new employee training -- reported average annual financial losses of $683,000. Those with training totaled just $162,000 in average financial losses. So, save your organization half a million bucks and use effective user-education.

"Bottom-line, companies that train their employees about cyber security best practices spend 76% less on security incidents than their non-training counterparts. Analysts now agree, including industry giant Gartner, which has published a magic quadrant on security awareness training. A recent article shows more: https://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/news/2240234092/Despite-skeptics-security-awareness-training-for-employees-is-booming

SMS Bank And Account Phishing In The U.S. Triples

Cloudmark observed an interesting trend: "SMS bank and account phishing in the U.S. tripled in September and continues as the nation’s number one category of reported SMS. However, some very notable cities such as New York City have dodged these malicious attempts at users’ financial and account details.

"Over the past two months, we’ve seen a sharp increase in SMS phishing attacks — jumping from only 15% of the nation’s bad texts in August to just above 46% in September. In terms of raw volumes, this represented a 58 percent increase in the amount of reports for this type of attack." A snapshot of the past six months is at the Cloudmark Blog:

https://blog.cloudmark.com/2014/12/01/u-s-sms-phishing-attacks-on-the-rise-this-fall/

SANS Released December Issue of OUCH!

They said: "We are excited to announce the December issue of OUCH! This month, led by Guest Editor Jake Williams, we explain what anti-virus is, how it works and its limitations. Ultimately, our goal is for people to understand that while anti-virus helps protect you, it cannot detect nor stop all malware. As always, we encourage you to download and share OUCH! with others." English Version (PDF):

https://www.securingthehuman.org/newsletters/ouch/issues/OUCH-201412_en.pdf

SpiceWorks: "Do you ever test your users' security knowledge?"

Laura asked on the SpiceWorks Security Forum: "We recently learned that some IT admins will send fake phishing emails to their users to test them (we discussed this in a recent article). If the user reports the fake email to IT, they get a pat on the back, but if they click and open the fake email, they're taken to a web page that admonishes them for clicking it and teaches them how to spot a real phishing email.

"I hear some are using a site called PhishMe that helps them send fake phishing emails with a cute cat picture attached. But I wonder if any Spiceheads have clever tactics for testing users??"

Well, here is what the answers are. Read them, it's not a lot of time but very interesting:

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/669881-do-you-ever-test-your-users-security-knowledge?page=1#entry-4077219

FAVE Links This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff.

Here is some more about land speed records and how it feels to kick out the parachute when you go 400 miles per hour:

https://vimeo.com/113384524

The world's biggest three economies over the centuries. Fascinating graph. I had no idea that some countries were so strong for so long:

https://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/10/worlds-richest-economies