CyberWire Daily - The CyberWire 1.7.16

Episode Date: January 7, 2016

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Cyber Wire Network, powered by N2K. stay home with her young son. But her maternal instincts take a wild and surreal turn as she discovers the best yet fiercest part of herself. Based on the acclaimed novel, Night Bitch is a thought-provoking and wickedly humorous film from Searchlight Pictures. Stream Night Bitch January 24 only on Disney+. Hey everybody, Dave here. Have you ever wondered where your personal information is lurking online? Like many of you, I was concerned about my data being sold by data brokers. So I decided to try DeleteMe. I have to say, DeleteMe is a game changer.

Within days of signing up, they started removing my personal information from hundreds of data brokers. I finally have peace of mind knowing my data privacy is protected. Delete.me's team does all the work for you with detailed reports so you know exactly what's been done. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete.me. Now at a special discount for our listeners. private by signing up for Delete Me. Now at a special discount for our listeners, today get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindeleteme.com slash n2k and use promo code n2k at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to joindeleteme.com slash n2k and enter code n2k at checkout. That's joindeleteme.com slash n2k code N2K at checkout. That's joindelete.me.com slash N2K, code N2K. the hack in ukraine malware is being distributed with compromised certificates cyber enabled warranty fraud is increasing wordpress and silent circle issue patches time warner cable warns its

customers that their accounts may have been compromised a bit more from mcsoft on ransomware as a service tool ransom 32 plus what do you do when your parents get a call from tech support. I'm Dave Bittner in Baltimore with your Cyber Wire summary for Thursday, January 7, 2016. The Ukrainian rolling blackout, now generally regarded as the work of Russian security organs, prompts electrical utilities worldwide to take stock of their cyber defenses. This is especially true in the United States, where such taking stock results in an evergreen discovery. Much of the information attackers would need to stage their attacks is freely available in open sources. EyeSight Partners' Project GridStrike provides an object lesson in the form of proof-of-concept

collection, showing how attackers could develop such intelligence. And while squirrels doubtless have a much larger track record in power disruption, as Tenable points out in a Passcode op-ed, observers look for an increase in cyberattacks on infrastructure in 2016. A report surfaces attributed to U.S. Coast Guard sources that a cyberattack on a U.S. port was attempted and thwarted late in 2015. Cyber rioting resumes in the subcontinent as Indian hacktivists deface Pakistani sites as a memorial tribute to a slain border control officer.

Criminals are using compromised certificates to help spread malware infections. Trend Micro warns that Let's Encrypt certificates are being used to facilitate distribution of the Angler exploit kit. Zscaler reports some interesting findings on the information-stealing Trojan spy mail whose.NET executable is, quote, signed with a legitimate DigiCert-issued certificate, end quote. If you've wondered about how criminals monetize identity theft,

here's one trending approach discussed by Brian Krebs. The crooks use stolen identities in warranty fraud. They pose as you, gentle customer, tell a vendor that the gizmo you bought isn't working right, then receive a replacement. They proceed to fence. Time Warner Cable is notifying some 320,000 customers that their accounts may have been compromised. Look to your passwords. WordPress issues an update that fixes some security holes. Silent Circle patches an issue in its designed-for-privacy Blackphone.

In industry news, speaker manufacturer Harman International enters the market as it buys automotive cybersecurity company TowerSec, and investors continue to speculate about which companies may prove acquisition targets in 2016. Do you know the status of your compliance controls right now? Like, right now? We know that real-time visibility is critical for security, but when it comes to our GRC programs, we rely on point-in-time checks. But get this, more than 8,000 companies like Atlassian and Quora have continuous visibility into their controls with Vanta. Here's the gist. Vanta brings automation to evidence collection across 30 frameworks, like SOC 2 and ISO 27001.

They also centralize key workflows like policies, access reviews, and reporting, and helps you get security questionnaires done five times faster with AI. Now that's a new way to GRC. Get $1,000 off Vanta when you go to vanta.com slash cyber. That's vanta.com slash cyber for $1,000 off. Cyber threats are evolving every second, and staying ahead is more than just a challenge. Thank you. designed to give you total control, stopping unauthorized applications, securing sensitive data, and ensuring your organization runs smoothly and securely. Visit ThreatLocker.com today to see how a default-deny approach can keep your company safe and compliant. John Petrick is the editor of the Cyber Wire, and he joins me once again.

John, imagine my elderly folks sitting home in their condo, and they're watching Matlock on the TV, and suddenly their landline phone rings, and on the other end, it's someone claiming to be from tech support, and he's there to tell them that there's a serious problem with their computer, but he can fix it online if only they will give him access to it. Chances are that's not actually tech support, right? Yeah, it's not tech support at all. And let me just say that I really hope you're a more dutiful son with your parents

than I suspect you are, and that dutiful son with your parents than I suspect you are, and that you help them out with things like that. I supply endless lifetime, unlimited tech support for my parents. So thank you very much. Okay. The general phenomenon you're describing, that's an instance of what people call social engineering. Okay. So social engineering, tell me more. What exactly is that? Yeah. Social engineering needn't be a scam directed at the elderly. And in fact, usually it's not. It's a way that people often gain access to criminals, opponents, the opposition,

often gains access to a business enterprise or a government agency. So social engineering is the art of obtaining information illegitimately by deceiving or manipulating people who have legitimate access to that information. So someone on the other end of the phone, someone on the other end of the computer, they're convincing you to do something that you shouldn't do, and they are quite good at being convincing, yes? Yeah, it's a con, and social engineers are con artists. They are the modern version of the traditional con man. And it's worth noting that, as from your example, this needn't happen in cyberspace.

You know, the social engineer can call you on the phone, on the landline. The social engineer can show up at your place of business pretending to be a delivery man or someone who would like to use the restroom or something like that. But the idea is to establish some sort of relationship of trust. He wants to get you to have confidence in him or in her, hence the name con. You know, a con artist does that. They exploit your confidence, and they are convincing you to do something that is really not in your best interest to do. So to come back to the case of your poor parents, and I am going to talk to them to check that, in fact, you're helping them out with this kind of thing. What the scammer on the other end is going after is some credential, that he wants access to their machine, he wants their passwords.

Why would he do that? He might want to steal their identity. He might want to rope their machine into a botnet. He might want to do any number of things with them. He might say to them that, you know, I've analyzed your computer. It's out of warranty, but for the low, low price of $99, I'll fix it right now. Yeah, any kind of scam you could imagine, they could run like that. But what they're after in this case and what we're interested in is getting access to a device, to a system, to a network.

And they do that by convincing someone to give up their credentials. There's a very familiar family of scams like this. It's called the Microsoft tech support scam, because typically they say, we're from Microsoft tech support, and we have detected a problem with your computer. We need access to it. Please give us your credentials, and we'll be able to take care of that for you in a jiffy. Now, of course, this isn't Microsoft. Microsoft is not going to call you up and do that. Microsoft knows what it's doing, and it knows that that would be a very bad practice if they ran tech support that way. So it's not Microsoft. It's some guy sitting in a boiler room somewhere calling people up at random, hoping to get their stuff. They'll call people

who own Macs and tell them, you know, you're a Microsoft computer as well. Right. If you don't own a Microsoft machine, that's a dead giveaway that there's something wrong here. Well, and I suppose part of what makes it difficult is that you can't just install an antivirus bit of software and protect yourself because that's not how they're getting into your system. They're using you. So, you know, what's the advice to my elderly parents? What's the advice to our listeners to have your guard up against these kinds of attacks? It's the same advice you'd give someone to be wary of anyone who approaches you with any con,

is don't trust the random voice on the other end of the telephone. Don't assume that the person calling you is, in fact, the person that they say they are. It's unlikely in the extreme that Microsoft tech support is going to call you. It's as unlikely that Microsoft tech support would call you like that as it is that the widow of a Nigerian prince would have been moved in her heart to ask you for assistance in transferring funds. Yeah, to be fair, I mean, she was very convincing, and I needed the money. I really need to talk to your parents.

Thanks, John. You're welcome. We'll talk again soon. And now, a message from Black Cloak. Did you know the easiest way for cybercriminals to bypass your company's defenses is by targeting your executives and their families at home? Black Cloak's award-winning digital executive protection platform secures their personal devices, home networks, and connected lives. Because when executives are compromised at home, your company is at risk. In fact,

over one-third of new members discover they've already been breached. Protect your executives and their families 24-7, 365, with Black Cloak. Learn more at blackcloak.io. And that's The Cyber Wire. We are proudly produced in Maryland by our talented team of editors and producers. I'm Dave Bittner. Thanks for listening. Your business needs AI solutions that are not only ambitious, but also practical and adaptable. That's where Domo's AI and data products platform comes in. With Domo, you can channel AI and data into innovative uses that deliver measurable impact.

Secure AI agents connect, prepare, and automate your data workflows, helping you gain insights, receive alerts, and act with ease through guided apps tailored to your role. Data is hard. Domo is easy. Learn more at ai.domo.com. That's ai.domo.com.