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Scams
attackers Business Security Cyber Fraud FBI Frauds Email security Safety Scams

FBI: Business Email Compromise is a $43 Billion Scam

 

The FBI recently announced that the amount of money lost to business email compromise (BEC) scams is increasing each year, with a 65 per cent rise in identified global exposure losses between July 2019 and December 2021.

From June 2016 to July 2019, IC3 received victim complaints about 241,206 domestic and international occurrences, totalling $43,312,749,946 in exposed cash loss. 

The FBI stated, "Based on the financial data reported to the IC3 for 2021, banks located in Thailand and Hong Kong were the primary international destinations of fraudulent funds. China, which ranked in the top two destinations in previous years, ranked third in 2021 followed by Mexico and Singapore." 

This was revealed in a new public service announcement issued on the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) site as an update to a prior PSA dated September 2019, in which the FBI stated victims reported losses to BEC attacks totalling more than $26 billion between June 2016 and July 2019. 

About BEC scams:

BEC scams were the cybercrime type with the highest recorded overall victim losses last year, according to the IC3 2021 Internet Crime Report [PDF]. Based on 19,954 registered complaints relating to BEC attacks against individuals and businesses in 2021, victims reported losses of about $2.4 billion. BEC scammers use a variety of techniques to infiltrate business email accounts, including social engineering, phishing, and hacking, to transfer payments to attacker-controlled bank accounts. 

Small, medium and big enterprises are frequently targeted in this form of scam (also known as EAC or Email Account Compromise). Nonetheless, if the payout is high enough, they will attack individuals. Given that they often imitate someone who has the target's trust, their success rate is also very high. 

However, "the scam is not always associated with a transfer-of-funds request," as the FBI explained in the PSA alert. "One variation involves compromising legitimate business email accounts and requesting employees' Personally Identifiable Information, Wage and Tax Statement (W-2) forms, or even cryptocurrency wallets."

The FBI also offered advice on how to protect yourself from BEC scams:
  • Use secondary channels or two-factor authentication to verify requests for changes in account information.
  • Ensure the URL in emails is associated with the business/individual it claims to be from.
  • Be alert to hyperlinks that may contain misspellings of the actual domain name.
  • Refrain from supplying log-in credentials or PII of any sort via email. Be aware that many emails requesting your personal information may appear to be legitimate.
  • Verify the email address used to send emails, especially when using a mobile or handheld device, by ensuring the sender's address appears to match who it is coming from.
  • Ensure the settings in employees' computers are enabled to allow full email extensions to be viewed.
  • Monitor your personal financial accounts on a regular basis for irregularities, such as missing deposits.
Read more »
Web Servers
CERT-In Government of India IP Address Nord Security Privacy VPNS Web Servers

Will VPN Providers and the Indian Government Clash Over New Rules on User Data Collection?


The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, which administers CERT-in, has mandated all VPN providers and cryptocurrency exchanges save user records for five years. Some of the most well-known VPN providers, such as NordVPN and ExpressVPN, claim to collect only the most basic information about their customers and to provide ways for them to stay relatively anonymous by accepting Bitcoin payments. 

VPNs reroute users' internet connections through a separate network; this can be done for a variety of reasons, such as connecting to a workplace network that is not available from the general internet or accessing prohibited websites by using servers in other nations. 

Another characteristic of VPNs several VPN companies like Nord promote as a selling factor is privacy. They frequently claim to keep no logs; Nord's no-logs policy has been examined by PriceWaterhouseCoopers regularly. However, the IT Ministry's ruling would force the corporation to deviate from such a guideline for servers in India.

What sort of data does the government expect firms to preserve? 
  • Names of subscribers/customers who have hired the services have been verified.
  • Hire period, including dates.
  • IP addresses assigned to/used by members.
  • At the moment of registration/onboarding, the email address, IP address, and time stamp were utilized. 
  • Why are users hiring services? 
  • Validated contact information and addresses.
  • Subscriber/customer ownership patterns when hiring services.

Official orders from CERT-In, the government agency in charge of investigating and archiving national cybersecurity incidents, have generated controversy. It was announced in a press release for all "Data Centres, Virtual Private Server (VPS) providers, Cloud Service providers, and Virtual Private Network Service (VPN Service) providers" would be bound to maintain a variety of user data for at least five years after the service was canceled or discontinued. 

VPN industry's comment on user data?

ExpressVPN stated, that their apps and VPN servers have been meticulously designed to completely erase sensitive data. As a result, ExpressVPN will never be forced to give non-existent client data.

"Our team is currently analyzing the latest Indian government decree to determine the best course of action. Because the law will not take effect for at least two months, we are continuing to work as usual. We are committed to protecting our clients' privacy, thus if no other options exist, we may withdraw our servers from India," Patricija Cerniauskaite, a spokesman for NordVPN stated.

If NordVPN leaves India, would you still be able to use it?

Users will most likely be able to connect to NordVPN's servers in other countries even if the company decides to leave India. According to reports, NordVPN has 28 servers in India which users in India and other countries can connect to. Surprisingly, NordVPN's Indian servers provide access to websites that are normally restricted in India.

India enters an unfortunate list of other large countries where Nord and other VPN providers have either pulled servers or never had a presence: Russia, where Nord and other VPN providers pulled servers just after the country ordered VPN firms to provide backdoor access to government on demand in 2019; and China, where VPN providers are subject to stringent controls. 

The Internet Freedom Foundation, a New Delhi-based digital rights advocacy group, claimed in a comprehensive statement released Thursday afternoon, the requirements were "extreme" and would impair VPN users' "individual liberty and privacy."
Read more »
TrendMicro
malware Payload Remote Code Execution Remote Shell TrendMicro

New Malware NetDooka Deployes Payload: Trend Micro Report

Experts found an advanced malware framework and it has named it as NetDooka because of a few components. The framework is deployed via a pay-per-install (PPI) service and includes various parts, which include a loader, a dropper, a full-featured remote access Trojan (RAT), and a protection driver that deploys its own network communication protocol. "Upon execution, the loader will deobfuscate strings, such as the command-and-control (C&C) server address, and check for the command-line arguments that were passed. The malware accepts multiple arguments that indicate what action should be taken," says TrendMicro report. 

NetDooka is distributed via the PrivateLoader malware which after installing, starts the exploitation chain. The report emphasizes the components and infection chain of the NetDooka framework. The scope varies from the issue of the first payload, which drops a loader that makes a new virtual desktop to deploy an antivirus software uninstaller and communicate with it by emulating the mouse and pointer position- an essential step to complete the uninstallation process and make an environment for executing other components- until the launch of the final RAT that is guarded by a kernel driver. 

The infection starts after a user unknowingly downloads PrivateLoader, generally via pirated software sites, after that, NetDooka malware gets installed, a dropper component that results in decrypting and implementing the loader component. The loader starts various checks to make sure that the malware isn't working in a virtual environment, following that it installs another malware through a remote server. It can also download a kernel driver that can be used later. 

The downloaded malware is another dropper component that a loader executes, it is responsible for decryption and execution of the final payload, a RAT has multiple features like executing a remote shell, getting browser data, capturing screenshots, and accessing system information. TrendMicro says "If no parameter is passed to the loader, it executes a function called “DetectAV()” that queries the registry to automatically identify the antivirus products available in order to uninstall them."
Read more »
NHS
Cyberspace Data Breach Data Theft INKY NHS

Britain’s National Health Service Hit by Massive Phishing Campaign

 

The National Health Service (NHS) of the United Kingdom witnessed a large phishing campaign for months. The threat actors have been using official NHS accounts to send phishing emails to unsuspecting third parties, it became a massive campaign in March. 

However, the campaign could have been much larger, as INKY reported in their findings. It’s safe to say that the total iceberg was much bigger than the tip we saw, INKY added. 

“We have processes in place to continuously monitor and identify these risks. We address them in collaboration with our partners who support and deliver the national NHSmail service. NHS organizations running their own email systems will have similar processes and protections in place to identify and coordinate their responses, and call upon NHS Digital assistance if required." 

NHS released the statement after INKY shared its findings with the institution. Further, NHS and its investigation bench have released statements, in which it said that their team was able to discover that the group did not compromise the mail server but rather individually hijacked accounts. 

It is between October 2021 and March 2022, that INKY successfully detected 1,157 phishing emails originating from NHSMail, the NHS email system for employees based in England and Scotland. Last year, this service was changed from an on-premise installation to Microsoft Exchange Online. This security change could have been a factor in the attack. 

After the finding, INKY had reported it to the NHS on April 13, and by April 14, the institution witnessed a sharp decline in the number of attacks, as the NHS took measures to curb them. However, INKY users were still receiving a few phishing emails from the NHS mail domain. 

Following the attack, INKY has shared information regarding phishing campaign tricks which makes things easier for the group to lure the target. The threat actors use brand logos and trademarks to impersonate well-known brands. 

Credential harvesting and hijacked accounts play a key role in malicious activities. The group has further suggested Email users always check a sender’s email address carefully before sending and opening attachments.
Read more »
User Security
Card Skimming Credit Card Cyber Fraud Cyber Scam User Security

WooCommerce Credit Card Stealer Found Implanted in Fake Images

 

Card skimming and card details theft is one such sophisticated technique attack that seldom fails. Earlier this week, cybersecurity researchers at Sucuri blog unmasked a malicious campaign where a credit card swiper was injected into WordPress’ wp-settings.php file. The WooCommerce customers reported that images were disappearing from the cart almost as soon as they were uploaded. 

According to researchers, the credit card skimmer was buried deep down into the file titled '../../Maildir/sub.main', and it was easy to miss on a casual review. Scammers usually prefer to deploy malicious content out of the way so it is more difficult to detect. The common tactic employed is to create directories that look like system directories, or to place malware in existing core CPanel or other server directories. 

Upon analyzing the malicious file, researchers uncovered over 150 lines of code that had been obfuscated with str_rot13 and base64. Attackers also used multiple functions to store credit card data concealed in the wp-content/uploads/highend/dyncamic.jpg image file. When decoded, that data revealed not only credit card details submitted to the site, but also admin credentials to the site’s backend. 

Injecting card skimmers into WordPress plugin files is the newest trend, avoiding the heavily watched ‘wp-admin’ and ‘wp-includes’ core folders, where most injections are short-lived. It is one of the most lucrative and stealth attack tactics employed by scammers to make money. 

There are a couple reasons why this is a useful tactic. The primary reason is that it makes it very easy for scammers to download the stolen details in their browser or a console. Secondly, most website/server malware detection scans focus on website file extensions such as PHP, JS, and HTML. Image files, particularly those in a wp-content/uploads sub-directories, can sometimes be overlooked.

“Scammers are aware that most security plugins for WordPress contain some way to monitor the file integrity of core files (that is, the files in wp-admin and wp-includes directories). This makes any malware injected into these files very easy to spot even by less experienced website administrators. The next logical step for them would be to target plugin and theme files,” researchers explained.
Read more »
Scam
Cyber Fraud cybercriminals Facebook Ads Financial Loss Phishing Scams Scam

 Facebook: Bogus Event Scammers are Targeting Vendors

 

Victims have experienced nothing but worry as a result of a real-world scam that takes the pleasure out of craft fairs. It may sound strange, but it's a common criticism aimed at small/self-employed business owners who sell their own creations. They sell a range of craft-style things similar to those seen on Etsy and Redbubble in large quantities. Putting these products in front of live audiences at an event will almost certainly increase sales. 

Vendor fraud denotes misdeeds executed on a company's accounts payable (AP) for financial gain by vendors, or an employee. It's a type of scam that includes misrepresenting a vendor's or recipient's account details in AP to reroute payments.

How does this bogus vendor fair operate?

Regardless of location, the mainstream follows a consistent pattern. 
  • The imposters create completely new Facebook accounts and frequently use the same name on many accounts. 
  • They collect information from potential fair exhibitors via multiple web forms wherein name, address, description of sold things, business name, and phone number are all requested. 
  • Payment inquiries are made at this point. The recovery of funds might range from "fairly easy" to "total disaster" depending on the payment type.

How are the victims selected? 

Before claiming why an event is taking place nearby, the fraudsters use the seller's own public information against them, indicating the seller's location or even the types of products sold. The most intriguing aspect of it all is that fake fair frauds aren't an unusual occurrence. It's a legitimate sub-industry populated by devoted con artists. 

For example, false payments — in a payment scheme, the fraudster and employee can create a fictitious vendor (shell company) or manipulate an actual vendor's account to reflect their information. 

Changes to existing checks or the creation of unauthorized checks are examples of check changes. An employee takes checks from a vendor, alters the beneficiary, or forges the vendor's signature, and deposits the monies into an account of their choosing. 

Overbilling — When dealing with large numbers, a vendor expands invoices by adding extra goods or services to invoices raised to your organization. 

Vendor Fraud Classification 
  • Billing Fraud: Employees might manipulate payments in two ways. It can entail creating a fake vendor or generating duplicate payments using a genuine vendor's account. 
  • Fictitious Vendor - An employee with sufficient authority and access creates a fictitious vendor account or a shell corporation, registers it as a vendor, and makes regular payments to it. 
  • Duplicate Payments - An employee impersonates a legitimate vendor, manipulates payment data, and makes duplicate payments on a vendor's invoice. 
  • Check Manipulation: An employee falsifying or altering information on a vendor's check to redirect funds to a personal bank account. 
  • Bribery Acceptance: This sort of fraud is the outcome of an agreement between a vendor and an employee, in which the employee receives personal remittances from the seller in exchange for more advantages or sales.
  • Excess Billing: When a vendor invoices the company for excess quantities/prices than what was previously agreed upon, it is referred to as overbilling. 
  • Price fixing: Two sellers work together to fix prices at greater than normal levels.
  • Bid rigging: A form of fraud that involves collaboration between two or more vendors and workers to secure a procurement contract in favor of the highest bidder.
  • Cyber fraud: Vendor fraud cases are conducted by unknown, unauthorized personnel with no link to either the company or the vendor, making them the most difficult to identify. 

Indicators of threat 

For customers: the seller claims to be unavailable (for example, because they are traveling or have relocated to another country) and demands money before arranging for delivery of the items. They must pay the seller using foreign money transfers, checks, or direct bank transfers. They may receive a forged email receipt from the website's secure payment provider.

For vendors: Even if one is selling an expensive item like a car, the potential buyer is willing to buy your item without seeing it in person. The goods are widely available in the customer's native country, and a possible overseas buyer might be interested in purchasing them (e.g. a car or a couch). The cost of shipping frequently outweighs the cost of the item. 

Measures

Facebook posts without a location tag are an attempt to remain anonymous. Methods of Invoice Matching, Using Data Mining, Methodologies Establishing a fraud helpline might allow staff to report problems without fear of repercussions.

Vendor fraud can have a significant financial impact on a company, it can be avoided by properly developing, evaluating, and updating corporate rules regularly. 
Read more »
StealthWorker
Botnet GoBrut Heimdal Security malware StealthWorker

GoBrut Botnet Targets Sites and Devices: Heimdal Security Report

Heimdal Security released an advisory for its customer base, users, partners, and clients in a matter that involved the emergence of a botnet that has infected thousands of sites. The botnet StealthWorker (GoBrut) has managed a large number of attacks in a very short time, via brute-forcing the target's internet-facing NAS devices and web servers. For the infected devices, Heimdal says that they will be used in future botnet campaigns for exploiting more hosts. GoBrut is not a botnet novelty exactly. 

It was involved in the August 2021 campaign against Synology's NAS devices, however, its origin can be traced back to February 2019, when malware launched various brute-force attacks against poorly secured CMSs, including Magento. In terms of design, GoBrut is scripted in Golang, a popular programming language in the hacker communities and pen testers because of its flexibility, coding efficiency two IP addresses, and reasonable learning curve. In Synology's case, the payload was distributed via JS injection or something similar. 

Once the distribution was tagged as successful, the malware begins to collect resources, finding the ones vulnerable to brute force. The reason why botnet StealthWorker had impressive success is rooted in how few CMSs manage password hygiene. In various incidents, leaked credentials were default user-password pairs, which hints that no measures were taken to make the passwords strong. Regarding the intrusion, the credentials accessed via distributed dictionary-based brute-forcing were given to a C2 panel hosted on a secondary 'attack' address, for C2 performing functions. 

A surprising thing is that GoBrut is also capable of backtracking user admin login paths and extracting backup file locations. Heimdal Security says "the botnet StealthWorker is the very embodiment of the saying: “simpler is better”. Although heavily reliant on volumetric attacks, this malware has managed to rake up numerous hits by leveraging sub-par authentication mechanisms."

Read more »
Vulnerabilities and Exploits
Bugs Flaws Malvuln Research Security Vulnerabilities and Exploits

Conti, REvil, LockBit Ransomware Flaws Exploited to Block Encryption

 

A researcher has demonstrated how a flaw common to numerous ransomware families can be used to control and eliminate the malware before it encrypts files on vulnerable systems. Malvuln is a project created by researcher John Page (aka hyp3rlinx) that lists vulnerabilities uncovered in various types of malware. 

Early in 2021, the Malvuln project was launched. SecurityWeek covered it in January 2021, when there were only a few dozen entries, and again in June 2021, when there were 260. Malvuln had almost 600 malware vulnerabilities as of May 4, 2022. Page added ten new entries in the first several days of May, detailing vulnerabilities in the Conti, REvil, Loki Locker, Black Basta, AvosLocker, LockBit, and WannaCry ransomware families. 

The researcher discovered that DLL hijacking flaws affect these and other ransomware families. By inserting a carefully designed file in a location where it will be run before the legal DLL, these vulnerabilities can often be exploited for arbitrary code execution and privilege escalation. When it comes to ransomware, a "attacker" can build a DLL file with the same name as a DLL that the malware looks for and loads. 

The new DLL will be executed instead of the ransomware executable if it is placed next to it. This can be used to stop malware from encrypting data by intercepting it and terminating it. The DLLs can be hidden, according to the researcher, who uses the Windows "attrib +s +h" command in his PoC videos. 

Page explained, “Endpoint protection systems and/or antivirus can potentially be killed prior to executing malware, but this method cannot as there’s nothing to kill — the DLL just lives on disk waiting. From a defensive perspective, you can add the DLLs to a specific network share containing important data as a layered approach.” 

Page told SecurityWeek that while some of the ransomware versions he tested were new, the strategy works against practically all ransomware, comparing it to a "Pandora's box of vulnerabilities." The researcher has also made videos showing how to exploit the ransomware's flaws. The videos demonstrate how a specially constructed DLL file installed in the same folder as the ransomware executable prevents the malware from encrypting files. 

Authentication bypass, command/code execution, hardcoded credentials, DoS, SQL injection, XSS, XXE, CSRF, path traversal, information disclosure, insecure permissions, cryptography-related, and other forms of attacks are all stored in the Malvuln database. Page also recently released Adversary3, an open-source malware vulnerability intelligence tool for third-party attackers. The Python-based application is intended to make it easier to access data from the Malvuln database, allowing users to search for vulnerabilities by attack category. 

According to the researcher, the tool could be valuable in red teaming activities. For instance, the tester could seek for devices hosting malware and exploit vulnerabilities in that malware to gain elevated access. When the project was first announced, certain members of the cybersecurity community expressed concern that the data could be beneficial to malware makers, assisting them in fixing vulnerabilities, some of which may have been exploited for threat intelligence reasons without their knowledge. The ransomware vulnerabilities and the Adversary3 tool, on the other hand, illustrate that the project can also benefit the cybersecurity community.
Read more »
Ukraine
Botnet malware Russia-Ukraine War Security Risk Ukraine

Attackers are Employing Multiple Malwares to Target Ukrainian System

 

Amid Russia-Ukraine war, cybersecurity experts have witnessed a sudden increase in the number of wiper malware deployments. Since February 24, Ukrainian security experts have unearthed at least seven new types of malwares employed by attackers to target Ukraine: AcidRain, WhisperGate, WhisperKill, HermeticWiper, IsaacWiper, CaddyWiper, and DoubleZero. 

Earlier this week, AT&T cybersecurity published a blogpost detailing the different types of wiper malware which we have covered below. 

WhisperKill 

On the night of January 14, anonymous hackers attempted to secure access to and deface the websites of more than 70 Ukrainian government agencies, according to Ukraine’s security service. The malware successfully defaced 22 websites and severely damaged six. 

How it operates: The malware downloads a payload that wipes the Master Boot Record (MBR), then downloads a malicious file hosted on a Discord server, which drops and executes another wiper payload that destroys files on the compromised devices. 

HermeticWiper 

A month after, on February 23rd 2022, ESET Research discovered a new Wiper called HermeticWiper being used against hundreds of Ukrainian systems. The hackers then used a shell company to issue a certificate that allows bypassing detection capabilities, such as Microsoft Defender SmartScreen and built-in browser protections. 

The malware collects all the data it wants to delete to maximize the impact of the wiping, it uses the EaseUS Partition Master driver to overwrite the selected parts of the disk with random data.

IsaacWiper 

A day after the initial assault with HermeticWiper, on February 24th, 2022, a new wiper was used against the Ukrainian government, as reported by ESET, without any significant similarities to the HermaticWiper used the day before. 

This wiper malware iterates through the filesystem, enumerates files and overwrites them. The behavior is similar to ransomware activity, but in this case, there is no decryption key. Once the data has been overwritten, it is lost. 

AcidRain 

On March 15, a new strain of wiper malware called AcidRain was discovered by researchers at SentinelLabs. AcidRain wiper was used in an attack against the Viasat KA-SAT satellite broadband service provider. 

The attacker gained access to the management infrastructure of the provider to deploy AcidRain on KA-SAT modems used in Ukraine. The wiper employed was the ELF MIPS wiper targeting Viasat KA-SAT modems, which aimed to firstly overwrite any file outside of the any common *nix installation: bin, boot, dev, lib, proc, sbin, sys, sur, etc. to then delete data from devices. 

CaddyWiper 

The first version of CaddyWiper was unearthed by ESET researchers on March 14 when it was used against a Ukrainian bank. Then it was employed again during the attack on the Ukrainian energy company on April 12. 

The Wiper overwrites files on the computer with null byte characters, making them unrecoverable. This malware can be executed with or without administrator privilege. In both cases, it causes lethal damage to the target machine. 

DoubleZero 

On March 22, 2022 CERT-UA reported a new wiper used against their infrastructure and enterprises. Dubbed DoubleZero, the wiper was distributed as a ZIP file containing an obfuscated .NET program. 

The wiper erases files in two ways: by overwriting them with zero blocks of 4096 bytes (FileStream.Write method) or using NtFileOpen, NtFsControlFile API calls (code: FSCTL_SET_ZERO_DATA). 

To prevent further assaults, researchers recommended keeping systems up to date and sharing knowledge regarding cybersecurity. In addition, attacks can be avoided by having periodic backup copies of key infrastructure available.
Read more »
SSH
Akamai Cloud based services Container Security Crypto Mining Cyber Security DDOS Vulnerability Honeypot Intezer cybersecurity Kernel Kubernetes SSH

Safeguarding From Container Attacks Inside the Cloud


As an alternative to virtualization, containerization has become a key trend in software development. It entails encapsulating or packaging software code and all of its dependencies so it may execute consistently and uniformly across any infrastructure. Containers are self-contained units that represent whole software environments that may be transported. They include everything a program needs to run, including binaries, libraries, configuration data, and references. Docker and Amazon Elastic, as an illustration, are two of the extra well-known choices. 

Although many containers can run on the same infrastructure and use the same operating system kernel, they are isolated from such a layer and have a little interface with the actual hosting elements, for instance, a public cloud occasion. The ability to instantly spin up and down apps – for users, is one of the many advantages of running cloud-based containers. Admins may utilize orchestration to centrally manage containerized apps and services at scale, such as putting out automatic updates and isolating any malfunctioning containers.

Container adoption is at an all-time high, worldwide businesses of all sizes are eager to jump on board. According to a poll conducted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), 83 percent of respondents plan to use Kubernetes in production in 2020, up from 78 percent the year before and just 58 percent in 2018. As adoption grows, cybercriminals' interest grows as well. According to a June Red Hat study, 94 percent of respondents have experienced a Kubernetes security problem in the last 12 months. 

Larry Cashdollar, an Akamai security researcher, recently set up a basic Docker container honeypot to test what type of attention it would get from the larger web's cybercriminals. The results were alarming: in just 24 hours, the honeypot was used for four different nefarious campaigns. Cashdollar had integrated SSH protocol for encryption and developed a “guessable” root password. It wouldn't stick out as an obvious honeypot on the web because it was running a typical cloud container configuration, he explained. It would instead appear to be a vulnerable cloud instance. The assaults had a variety of objectives: one campaign aimed to utilize the container as a proxy to access Twitch feeds or other services, another attempted a botnet infection, a third attempted crypto mining, and the fourth attempted a work-from-home hoax. 

"Profit is still the key motivator for cybercriminals attacking containers," as these cases demonstrate, according to Mark Nunnikhoven, a senior cloud strategist at Lacework. "CPU time and bandwidth can be rented to other criminals for buried services, or even used to directly mine cryptocurrencies. Data can be sold or ransomed at any time. In an environment where containers are frequently used, these reasons do not change." 

According to a recent Gartner study, client misconfigurations or mistakes would be the primary cause of more than 99 percent of cloud breaches by 2025. As per Trevor Morgan, product manager at comfort AG, most businesses, particularly smaller businesses, rely on default configuration options rather than more advanced and granular setup capabilities: "Simple errors or selecting default settings  that are far less safe than customized options." The problems with configuration typically go beyond the containers themselves. Last July, for example, misconfigured Argo Workflows servers were detected attacking Kubernetes clusters. 

Argo Workflows is an open-source, container-native workflow engine for coordinating parallel activities on Kubernetes to reduce processing time for compute-intensive tasks such as machine learning and large data processing. 

According to an examination by Intezer, malware operators were using publicly available dashboards which did not require authentication for outside users to drop crypto miners into the cloud. Far above misconfiguration, compromised images or layers are the next most serious threat to containers, according to Nunnikhoven. "Lacework Labs has witnessed multiple instances of cybercriminals infiltrating containers, either through malware implants or pre-installed crypto mining apps," he said. "When a group deploys the pictures, the attacker has access to the victim's resources."

According to Gal Singer, an Aqua Security researcher, the flaw (CVE-2020-15157) was discovered in the container image-pulling process. Adversaries may take advantage of this by creating dedicated container images which stole the host's token when they were pulled into a project.  Similarly, a denial-of-service vulnerability in one of Kubernetes' Go libraries (CVE-2021-20291) was discovered to be exploited by storing a malicious picture in a registry. When the image was taken from the registry by an unwary user, the DoS condition was generated.

The second source of concern is vulnerabilities, both known and unknown. In 2021, several container flaws were discovered, but "Azurescape" was likely the most alarming. Within Microsoft's multitenant container-as-a-service offering, Unit 42 researchers found a chain of exploits that might allow a hostile Azure user to infect other customers' cloud instances. 

Containerized environments can provide unique issues in terms of observability and security controls, according to Nunnikhoven, but a comprehensive security approach can help. Researchers recommended that users apply a laundry list of best practices to secure their Kubernetes assets: 

  • Avoid using default settings; use secure passwords.
  • To prevent attackers from impersonating the token owner, do not send privileged service account tokens to anyone other than the API server. 
  • Enable the feature "BoundServiceAccountTokenVolume": When a pod ends, its token becomes invalid, reducing the risk of token theft.
  • Examine orchestrators for least-privilege settings to verify that CI/CD movements are authenticated, logged, and monitored. 
  • Be comprehensive: Create a unified risk picture that includes both cloud-based applications and traditional IT infrastructure. 
  • Have data-analysis software in place, as well as an automatic runbook that can react to the findings.
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Ransomware
customer privacy Cyber Attacks IT Security Mobile Apps Ransomware

Car Rental Giant Sixt Hit by Cyberattack, Operations Shut Down

Rental car giant Sixt, a company based in Germany announced that it has been hit by a cyberattack that resulted in large-scale inconvenience in Sixt's global operations. In April, the company closed down some parts of its IT infrastructure to restrict a cyberattack. 

Only important systems were operating, like the company website and mobile applications. Sixt said that the disturbance for employees and customers was expected, it believes that the disruption was contained to great extent. 

According to the company, it has offered business continuity to its customers, but the temporary disruptions in customer care centers and few branches can be expected for some time. "As a standard precautionary measure, access to IT systems was immediately restricted and the pre-planned recovery processes were initiated. Many central Sixt systems, in particular, the website and apps were kept up and running," said Sixt in a statement. Sixt did most of the car bookings with pen and paper last week, and systems that were not important have been shut down after the cyberattack. 

Calling customers were provided an automated notification "due to a technical problem, we are currently unavailable." No more details are available as of now, Sixt said that it has launched an inquiry into the issue, however, didn't disclose any information on how the attack happened. Sixt is requesting its customers to be patient until the issue is resolved. No ransomware group has claimed the responsibility for the attack as of now, however, the chances of ransomware are highly likely. 

According to Bleeping Computer, ransomware groups are targeting companies like Sixt because of the upcoming tourism season. Vacations are easy money for car rental companies. Ransomware groups generally operate during high traffic periods to increase the chances of damage to the targets. 

The greater the damage, the easier the ransom payment. Sixt said "impacts on the company, its operations and services have been minimized to provide business continuity for customers. However, temporary disruptions, in particular in customer care centers and selective branches, are likely to occur in the short term."

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