A Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing: Technology Alone is a Security Facade
After over 20 years in cybersecurity, I firmly believe that technology alone has not, and will not, win the war on cyberattacks. The idea of a purely technical solution providing lasting protection is flawed from the outset. The claims of security vendors that only bring technology to the cyber fight is the equivalent of a…
The Conti ransomware leaks
On February 27, an individual with insights into the Conti ransomware group started leaking a treasure trove of data beginning with internal chat messages. Conti is responsible for a number of high profile attacks, including one against the Irish Healthcare system which has cost more than $48 million and more importantly has had an unprecedented…
Patchwork APT caught in its own web
Patchwork is an Indian threat actor that has been active since December 2015 and usually targets Pakistan via spear phishing attacks. In its most recent campaign from late November to early December 2021, Patchwork has used malicious RTF files to drop a variant of the BADNEWS (Ragnatela) Remote Administration Trojan (RAT). What is interesting among…
SideCopy APT: Connecting lures to victims, payloads to infrastructure
Last week, Facebook announced that back in August it had taken action against a Pakistani APT group known as SideCopy. Facebook describes how the threat actors used romantic lures to compromise targets in Afghanistan. In this blog post we are providing additional details about SideCopy that have not been published before. We were able to…
2021 X-Force Threat Intelligence Index Reveals Peril From Linux Malware, Spoofed Brands and COVID-19 Targeting
From the front lines of incident response engagements to managed security services, IBM Security X-Force observes attack trends firsthand, yielding insights into the cyber threat landscape. Every year, X-Force collates billions of data points to assess cybersecurity threats to our customers. This report — the X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2021 — represents our latest edition…
Rising physical threats putting leaders under pressure
Physical threats are rising and increasingly unmanageable, putting unprecedented financial, reputational and liability pressures on business leadership and security teams, according to a study by the Ontic Center for Protective Intelligence. As physical security operations budgets are expected to increase in 2021, driven and accelerated by COVID-19, the study showcases the collective perspectives of chief…
Malware activity spikes 128%, Office document phishing skyrockets
Nuspire released a report, outlining new cybercriminal activity and tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) throughout Q3 2020, with additional insight from Recorded Future. Threat actors becoming even more ruthless The report demonstrates threat actors becoming even more ruthless. Throughout Q3, hackers shifted focus from home networks to overburdened public entities, including the education sector and…
When it Comes to Threat Intelligence, a Multi-Vendor Strategy is Needed
The fact that there is no silver bullet for cyber security, but instead every organization needs to work with a variety of vendors, has shaped the common practices of how we purchase security solutions. In many cases, there’s a checklist – we need a firewall, an end-point protection solution, a SIEM, a penetration service, a…
We Need Better Classification of Threat Intelligence
he threat intelligence landscape has vastly changed over the years. While the term was originally used to refer to malware Indicators of Compromise (IOC) – lists of known malware signatures and the servers those malware communicate with, a method to identify infected devices within corporate networks – as time went by vendors have broadly expanded…
New Vulnerability Could Put IoT Devices at Risk
Society relies so heavily on technology that the number of internet connected devices used globally is predicted to grow to 55.9 billion by 2025. Many of these devices span parts of Industrial Control Systems (ICS) that impact the physical world, assist us in our daily lives at home and monitor and automate everything from energy…
