David Klopp, Managing Director in the Cyber Risk practice of Kroll, recently spoke at the first session of PARIMA’s Confident Response Series 2021. The series aims to fine-tune incident response preparedness and help risk managers understand the latest tactics, techniques and procedures from the most successful cybercriminals, leading to deeper collaboration with business partners and mitigation of technical, legal and reputational risks.

Computers are machines driven by specific instruction sets governed by various rules and protocols known as operating systems. Just like the human body’s immune system is vulnerable to new viruses and their mutants, computers are prone to malware infections. We cover these basics and the different types of malware in this article. Malware in electronic devices can result in software vulnerabilities, which may affect legitimate programs in the system.

On March 2, Microsoft released patches for four zero-day vulnerabilities affecting Exchange Server 2013, 2016, and 2019 (CVE-2021-26855, CVE-2021-26857, CVE-2021-26858, and CVE-2021-27065). In the following weeks, attackers have been aggressively targeting vulnerable servers to install web shells that provide persistent remote access to infected servers. On March 9, attackers began installing a new ransomware variant known as DearCry or DoejoCrypt on infected servers.

A ransomware attack is a bug that we can’t shake off. Or perhaps, it can even be called a shape-shifter that somehow finds a way into networks, no matter how many armed sentries you’ve deployed in and around your perimeter. The line between ransomware and a data breach is slowly fading. Threat actors prefer ransomware over other modes of attack because they work.

As Marcus Hutchins was on his way home to the UK after attending Def Con and Black Hat in Las Vegas, NV, the FBI arrested him. This event sparked immediate internet outcry, especially among the cybersecurity community, as Hutchins was better known as MalwareTech and had just made cybersecurity fame by stopping the WannaCry ransomware outbreak a few months prior. So, why did the FBI arrest a newly famous cybersecurity expert?

First identified in 2014, Emotet evolved from a niche banking Trojan into what was classified this year by Europol as one of the most prevalent strains of malware in the world. The sheer scale of Emotet’s impact on organisations means that its disruption by authorities in early 2021 ranks as one of the most significant takedowns in cyber security history.

A new year typically brings a renewed sense of optimism; however, 2021 brings with it promises of unparalleled challenges for board members as their role in cyber risk oversight and increasing organizational resilience has never been more important. Over the course of 2020, as organizations shifted already overburdened staff to build capacity to support remote working, threat actors aggressively exploited weaknesses exposed in the transition.

In the past few months, Cyberint has observed a series of suspicious PDF files mentioning different retail brands, scanned to an anti-virus repository. Seeing as the files were flagged as malicious by the repository, Cyberint’s working assumption is that the retailers were mentioned in order to lure their employees or customers into opening the files.

The Lookout Threat Intelligence team has discovered two novel Android surveillanceware – Hornbill and SunBird.

As a security analyst on Elastic’s InfoSec team, a common scenario we see is users coming to our team and asking: “Is this file safe to open?” Or one user reports a phishing email with an attachment that they didn’t open, but we see from the logs that 10 other users also received that email but didn’t report it and no alerts went off on their systems.