Panana Mossack Fonseca may be victim of hacking

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Mossack Fonseca, the Panamanian law firm at the centre of a huge leak of confidential financial data claims that it was the victim of a hacking.

Mossack Fonseca, the Panamanian law firm at the centre of a huge leak of confidential financial data claims that it was the victim of a hackRamon Fonseca- a senior partner at the firm said the leak was not an “inside job” – the company had been hacked by servers based abroad. It had filed a complaint with the Panamanian attorney general’s office.

Several countries are investigating possible financial wrongdoing by the rich and powerful after the leak of more than 11 million documents.

Last week the company reportedly sent an email to its clients saying it had suffered “an unauthorised breach of our email server”.

The company has accused media organisations reporting the leak of having “unauthorised access to proprietary documents and information taken from our company” and of presenting this information out of context.

In a letter to the Guardian newspaper on Sunday, the company’s head of public relations threatened possible legal action over the use of “unlawfully obtained” information.

The revelations have already sparked political reaction in several countries where high-profile figures have been implicated.

On Tuesday Iceland’s Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson stepped down after the documents showed he owned an offshore company with his wife but had not declared it when he entered parliament.

He is accused of concealing millions of dollars’ worth of family assets. Mr Gunnlaugsson says he sold his shares to his wife, and denies any wrongdoing.

European football body Uefa confirmed today that Swiss police had searched its offices in relation to the Panama papers.

It said police had a warrant to look for contracts between Uefa and Cross Trading/Teleamazonas.

The Panama papers suggest current Fifa president Gianni Infantino signed off on a contract with two businessmen who have since been accused of bribery.

Mr Infantino signed off the contract in 2006 as a Uefa director. He says he is “dismayed” that his “integrity is being doubted” and denies any wrongdoing.

Also on Wednesday, Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko reacted to his name being linked to the papers.

He said he had created an offshore holding company for his confectionery business when he became president in 2014 but not to avoid taxes.

He said: “If we have anything to be investigated, I am happy to do that. This is absolutely transparent from the very beginning. No hidden account, no associated management, no nothing.”

Eleven million documents held by the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca have been passed to German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which then shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. BBC Panorama and The Guardian are among 107 media organisations in 76 countries which have been analysing the documents.

ISIS suspect Salah Abdeslam cornered by pizza delivery

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It appears as though Salah Abdeslam was found by a combination of security forces’ metadata research and a support network that couldn’t cook.

It appears as though Salah Abdeslam was found by a combination of security forces' metadata research and a support network that couldn't cook.Salah went missing after he wimped out of “martyrdom,” ditching his suicide vest and calling friends to come pick him up and take him home. The car was stopped by the French, but their names weren’t available to the police yet.

Clearly, security forces are not sharing counterterrorism information fast enough to handle modern operations. A slow moving target like the Soviets, or even al Qaeda, allows for a more relaxed approach. ISIS’ operational tempo and behavior is too fast and haphazard.

The Molenbeek area where Salah had been hiding is riddled with radical support networks and sympathizers. He was able to rely on his friends and other support networks. Police targeted elements of these support networks, and eventually discovered a link to Salah himself.

Belgian and French police, who had worked intensively together since November 13, carried out a midday check on what they thought was a defunct terrorist safe house. The utility bills hadn’t been paid in months, officials said, leading police to assume the apartment in the Forest district of southern Brussels stood empty. The six person team didn’t expect to meet resistance and brought no police backup or special forces support.

When the police opened the door, they were shot at with a Kalashnikov and “a riot gun,” according to the Belgian authorities. Four officers were wounded, including a French policewoman. Heavily armed police pursued suspects across the rooftops. One gunman was killed. Two fled the scene, evading capture even though police had sealed off the area.

The “defunct” safe house had a glass with Salah’s fingerprint. Police developed a number of leads and ended up monitoring a house in the Molenbeek area.

Staking out the house, the police became convinced that a larger group of people was there after a woman who seemed to live there ordered several pizzas, according to two security officials.

Just like the raid on el Chapo Guzman was triggered by a large food order, it seems Salah’s capture was based on too many pizzas. Maybe fugitives might want to consider cooking at home, rather than ordering delivery.

It seems that significant parts of the manhunt were enabled by recovering and analyzing mobile phones used by the various suspects.

Aside from the fingerprint found, earlier raids on suspected terrorist hideouts brought other important leads, according to officials. Electronic devices confiscated in earlier raids helped authorities track Abdeslam down, said a Belgian source.

Once a suspect’s mobile number and sim card have been identified, investigators can then serve a court order on telecoms operators to track the number and card down to the nearest phone tower.

The location information generated by the mobile devices (phones and possibly tablets) enabled security forces to track not only individuals, but to map out their networks via e.g. co-location. Mobile phones, even when encrypted and even when using encrypted communications tools, still provide a rich source of intelligence information to security forces.

Modern connected society is a huge data source for the intelligence analyst. Social connections are mapped out via online social networks such as Facebook, but also via the mobility of personal tracking devices such as mobile phones. An underground operative, such as Salah, can avoid using mobiles and computers, but the various elements of his above ground support network are as reliant on modern tools as anyone else.

The problem for underground operatives is that they are reliant on support networks. Support networks for clandestine organizations are almost always based on social networks. Modern society makes support networks an open book for anyone with access to the data (social apps, telco records, etc) and the analytic tools to parse that data (eg Palintir, analysts notebook, etc).

From: https://medium.com/@thegrugq/man-hunting-the-sport-of-security-forces-373d167a3066#.h3otbr3gj

$100 million cyber theft from Bangladesh Central Bank

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The cyber theft of $100 million from the Bangladesh Central Bank – by way of the New York Federal Reserve – is the largest bank theft to date.

The cyber theft of $100 million from the Bangladesh Central Bank - by way of the New York Federal Reserve - is the largest bank theft to date

On February 5, the New York Fed was allegedly “penetrated” when “hackers” (of supposed Chinese origin) stole $100 million from accounts belonging to the Bangladesh central bank.

The money was then channeled to the Philippines where it was sold on the black market and funneled to “local casinos” (to quote AFP). After the casino laundering, it was sent back to the same black market FX broker who promptly moved it to “overseas accounts within days.”

The whole situation was quite embarrassing for the NY Fed, because what happened is that someone in the Philippines requested $100 million through SWIFT from Bangladesh’s FX reserves, and the Fed complied, without any alarm bells going off at the NY Fed’s middle or back office.

“Some 250 central banks, governments, and other institutions have foreign accounts at the New York Fed, which is near the centre of the global financial system,” Reuters notes. “The accounts hold mostly U.S. Treasuries and agency debt, and requests for funds arrive and are authenticated by a so-called SWIFT network that connects banks.”

As it turns out there is much more to the story, and as Bloomberg reports today now that this incredible story is finally making the mainstream, there is everything from casinos, to money laundering and ultimately a scheme to steal $1 billion from the Bangladeshi central bank.

And yes, it does appear that hackers managed to bypass the Fed’s firewall:

“Even as banks continue to harden their defenses against such sabotage, hackers too have upped their game to breach servers by utilizing both technical skills and rogue elements within the financial institutions,” said Sameer Patil, an associate fellow at Gateway House in Mumbai who specializes in terrorism and national security.

A Bangladesh central bank official who is part of a panel investigating the disappearance of the funds said that a separate transfer of $870 million had been blocked by the Fed, something the Fed refused to comment on. It does not, however, explain why $100 million was released.

Essentially the dispute is about whether the Fed went through the right procedure when it received transfer orders.

Naturally, the Fed’s story is that it did nothing wrong. Bloomberg writes that according to a Fed spokeswoman, instructions to make the payments from the central bank’s account followed protocol and were authenticated by the SWIFT codes system. There were no signs the Fed’s systems were hacked, she said.

The problem is that the counterparty on the other side of the SWIFT order was not who the Fed thought, and what should have set off red lights is that the recipients was not the government of the Philippines but three casinos.

Bangladesh is quite understandably – furious: a local official said the Fed should’ve checked the payment orders with the central bank to ensure they were authentic, even if they used the correct SWIFT codes. The official also said there are plans to take legal action against the Fed to retrieve missing funds.

Four requests to transfer a total of about $81 million to the Philippines went through, but a fifth, for $20 million, to a Sri Lankan non-profit organization was held up because the hackers misspelled the name of the NGO, Shalika Foundation.

Hackers misspelled “foundation” in the NGO’s name as “fandation”, prompting a routing bank, Deutsche Bank, to seek clarification from the Bangladesh central bank, which stopped the transaction, one of the officials said.

Luckily, the Fed stopped some of the $1 billion in total requested funds. The unusually high number of payment instructions and the transfer requests to private entities – as opposed to other banks – raised suspicions at the Fed, which also alerted the Bangladeshis, the officials said. The details of how the hacking came to light and was stopped before it did more damage have not been previously reported.

The transactions that were stopped totaled $850-$870 million, one of the officials said. At least $80 million made it through without a glitch.

The funds were used to buy casino chips or pay for losses at venues including Bloomberry Resorts Corp.’s Solaire Resort & Casino and Melco Crown Philippines Resort Corp.’s City of Dreams Manila, according to the paper. There was no suggestion in the report the banks or casinos named were complicit with any improper movement of funds.

In other words, the Fed was funding gamblers, only these were located in Philippine casinos, not in the financial district. Ironically, that’s precisely what the Fed does, only it normally operates with gamblers operating out of Manhattan’s financial district.

From: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-16/printer-error-set-off-bangladesh-race-to-halt-illicit-transfers

Some of the biggest tech companies are expanding users’ data encryption

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Some of the Silicon Valley’s leading technology companies – including Facebook, Google and Snapchat, are increasing privacy technology as Apple fights the US government over encryption, the Guardian has learned.

Some of the Silicon Valley’s leading technology companies – including Facebook, Google and Snapchat, are working on their own increased privacy technology as Apple fights the US government over encryptionWork on new encryption projects began before Apple entered a court battle with US authorities over the San Bernardino killer’s iPhone.

The projects could antagonize authorities just as much as Apple’s more secure iPhones, which are currently at the center of the San Bernardino shooting investigation. They also indicate the industry may be willing to back up their public support for Apple with concrete action.

Within weeks, Facebook’s messaging service WhatsApp plans to expand its secure messaging service so that voice calls are also encrypted, in addition to its existing privacy features. The service has some one billion monthly users. Facebook is also considering beefing up security of its own Messenger tool.

Snapchat, the popular ephemeral messaging service, is also working on a secure messaging system and Google is exploring extra uses for the technology behind a long-in-the-works encrypted email project.

Engineers at major technology firms, including Twitter, have explored encrypted messaging products before only to see them never be released because the products can be hard to use – or the companies prioritised more consumer friendly projects. But they now hope the increased emphasis on encryption means that technology executives view strong privacy tools as a business advantage – not just a marketing pitch.

Barack Obama has also made it clear he thinks some technology companies are going too far. “If government can’t get in, then everyone’s walking around with a Swiss bank account in their pocket, right?” he said 11 March at the SXSW technology conference in Austin, Texas.

WhatsApp has been rolling out strong encryption to portions of its users since 2014, making it increasingly difficult for authorities to tap the service’s messages. The issue is personal for founder Jan Koum, who was born in Soviet-era Ukraine. When Apple CEO Tim Cook announced in February that his company would fight the government in court, Koum posted on his Facebook account: “Our freedom and our liberty are at stake.”

WhatsApp already offers Android and iPhone users encrypted messaging. In the coming weeks, it plans to offer users encrypted voice calls and encrypted group messages, two people familiar with the matter said. That would make WhatsApp, which is free to download, very difficult for authorities to tap.

Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, has talked publicly about how tech companies can help the west combat Isis online and Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, recently joined a Defense Department advisory group on how tech can aid in future battles.

Those matters may seem separate, but US national security officials view the increasing availability of encryption technology as a major aid to Islamic State’s online recruitment efforts. At some point, tech firms may have to choose whether they care more about being seen as helping the west to fight terrorism or standing as privacy advocates.

Some technology executives think one middle path would be to encourage the use of encryption for the content of messages while maintaining the ability to hand over metadata, which reveals who is speaking to whom, how often and when. That is why the specifics of the new products will be key to determining both their security and Washington’s reaction to them.

Ransomware targets Apple Mac computers

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Security researchers have found malware to encrypt Apple Mac computers and demand ransom to unlock them.

Security researchers have found malware to encrypt Apple Mac computers and demand ransom to unlock them
Mac computers tend to be regarded as relatively safe from attack, but the migration of so-called ransomware targeting the Microsoft Windows operating system to Apple’s Mac OS X is yet another indicator that things are changing.

Mac users need to be more vigilant and aware of the risks, while cyber security professionals need to equip themselves to identify and quickly respond to this new malware threat, especially in having a pragmatic approach in place for managing extortion-style threats, say security industry pundits.

“As Apple computers and devices become more popular with corporate IT departments, there’s a recognition by attackers that valuable data and resources are available by targeting Mac users,” said Vann Abernethy, chief technology officer at security firm NSFOCUS IB.

“These types of attacks will become increasingly common as the platform gains acceptance within the enterprise world, just as Microsoft Windows is targeted for similar reasons,” he said.

Ransomware is currently one of the most popular ways for cyber criminals to extort money from individuals and organisations in the form of the unregulated bitcoin cryptocurrency.

According to the UK National Crime Agency, ransomware is one of the top international cyber threats, along with distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks and bullet-proof hosting services.

The newly discovered KeRanger ransomware targeting Mac was discovered hidden in a version of the Transmission BitTorrent client by researchers from security firm Palo Alto Networks.

Businesses are still getting caught by ransomware, despite the fact that there are fairly straightforward methods to avoid it.

Like its Windows counterparts, KeRanger encrypts files on infected computers with a strong encryption algorithm and contains a payment process enabling the victim to purchase decryption for 1 bitcoin- currently worth around £290.

A special feature of KeRanger is a three day delay after infection, which researchers believe was aimed at getting as many users to download the infected version of the Transmission client before its hidden payload was revealed.

By hiding the ransomware in the Transmission client for downloading and sharing BitTorrent files, attackers were attempting to bypass Mac OS security because the Transmission software is signed with a valid developer certificate, causing the Mac operating system to consider it safe and allow installation.

The discovery of Keranger is a sign that Mac users need to be educated on basic information security practices, just like Windows users have been over the past 10 to15 years.

Cyber crime is fastest growing economic crime

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Cyber crime is up 20% since 2014 and is the fastest growing economic crime, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers’s (PWC) latest biennial Global Economic Crime Survey.

Cyber crime is up 20% since 2014 and is the fastest growing economic crime, according to PWCThe UK has seen a double digit rise in economic crime against corporates in the past two years, with 55% of organisations affected – up 11% since 2014 and well above the US (38%) and China (28%).

The survey found that 60 % of economic crime in the UK was committed by external perpetrators, up from 56% in 2014. While there was a decline in economic crime perpetrated by employees (31%), there was an 11% increase in fraud committed by senior management to 18%.

“While the prevalence of traditional fraud – such as asset misappropriation – has fallen since 2014, there has been a huge rise in organisations reporting cyber crime, with technology driving almost every other area of economic crime,” said Andrew Gordon, PwC’s global and UK forensics leader.

“Businesses need to minimise the opportunities for economic crime through rigorous fraud risk assessment, supported by a culture based on shared corporate values, robust policies and compliance programmes,” he said.

Some 44% of UK organisations that experienced economic crime in the past two years were affected by cyber incidents, a jump of 20% from 2014 and 12% greater than the global response of 32%.

The rise of cyber crime, the report said, is in stark contrast with some of the traditional forms of economic crime, including asset misappropriation and procurement fraud, which have declined.

Just over half of UK organisations say they expect to be the victim of cyber crime in the next two years, suggesting it will become the UK’s largest economic crime.

Global corporate intelligence leader at PwC Mark Anderson said cyber attackers are now more ambitions than ever.

“Their aim goes beyond targeting financial information to include a company’s ‘crown jewels’ – customer data and intellectual property information, the loss of which can bring down an entire business,” he said.

“The threat of cybercrime is now a board level risk issue, but not enough UK companies treat it that way.”

UK respondents say the greatest concern about a cyber attack is the potential disruption to services, with 31% saying it would have a medium to high impact.

Surprisingly, almost half say that cyber crime would have no effect on their reputation, and almost 60% are not concerned about the potential for theft of intellectual property.

The strong shift towards more senior and experienced employees carrying out corporate fraud in the UK should be of particular concern, the report said, because senior management fraud is often more difficult to detect and prevent, and usually has a much greater effect on an organisation.

While those in middle management remained the most responsible for economic crime (36%), half the instances committed by staff in the UK involved employees over the age of 40, and the number carried out by staff over the age of 50 tripled from 6% to 18%.

The survey found that 45% of internal fraudsters had worked for more than five years in the organisation they defrauded and 21% had more than a decade of service.  In contrast, the number of junior staff carrying out economic crime has fallen since 2014 from 45% to 28%.

While the majority (86%) of UK organisations have formal business ethics and compliance programmes in place, far fewer (63%) back up these rules with regular training and communication.

Financial services companies are set to be the biggest spenders on compliance in the UK in the next two years, while compliance budgets for other industries are under pressure as they face demands to do more with less, according to the survey.

The survey also found that 20% of UK organisations say they have never performed a fraud risk assessment, while 44% do so annually. Some 5% of respondents say they have been asked to pay a bribe in the past 24 months, while 7% feel they lost a business opportunity to a competitor who was willing to pay it.

More than a fifth of frauds were detected through suspicious transaction monitoring, 14% through fraud risk management, 8% through data analytics, 8% through internal audit and 8% through accidental discovery.

Small business risks cyber attack damage

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Small businesses are underestimating the impact a cyber attack would have on their reputation and must take steps to protect themselves.

Small businesses are underestimating the impact a cyber attack would have on their reputation and must take steps to protect themselvesThe warnings come as a result of research published according to the findings of the Small Business Reputation and the Cyber Risk report, by the Government’s Cyber Streetwise campaign and KPMG.

Less than a quarter of small businesses cite cyber security as a top concern, but it’s of vital importance to consumers and within the supply chain.

The impact of a cyber attackbreach can be huge and long lasting, affecting brand, client retention and ability to win new business.

In the past few years there has been a rapid expansion in the development and adoption of new communications technologies which continue to transform Government, business and the ways in which we interact with each other. Cyber crime undermines confidence in our communications technology and online economy.

There were an estimated 5.1 million incidents of fraud and 2.5 million incidents falling under the Computer Misuse Act recorded last year (ONS, 2015). Add in recent high profile hacking cases and the issue of cyber security is now more important than ever.

Cyber Streetwise and KPMG surveyed 1,000 small businesses and 1,000 consumers across the UK to assess how small businesses feel about cyber security, how they are protecting themselves and the impact of a cyber breach on their reputation.

Key cyber security research findings:

  • Cyber security was cited as one of the top concerns by less than a quarter of small businesses (23%), yet it is fast becoming the only way to do business:
  • 83% of consumers surveyed are concerned about which businesses have access to their data and 58% said that a breach would discourage them from using a business in the future.

Recently published KPMG Supply Chain research supports this; 94% of procurement managers say that cyber security standards are important when awarding a project to an SME supplier and 86% would consider removing a supplier from their roster due to a breach.

UK small businesses value their reputation as one of their key assets. Yet they are hugely underestimating the likelihood of a cyber breach happening to them and its long term impact:

60% of small businesses surveyed have experienced a cyber breach, but only 29% of those who haven’t experienced a breach cited potential reputational damage as an ‘important’ consideration.

The impact of a cyber breach can be huge and long lasting. 89% of the small businesses surveyed who have experienced a breach said it impacted on their reputation.  Those who experienced a breach said the attack led to:
Brand damage (31%)
Loss of clients (30%)
Ability to win new business (29%)

Quality of service is also a risk. Those surveyed who experienced a cyber breach found it caused customer delays (26%) and impacted the business’ ability to operate (93%).

The full report was published at: https://home.kpmg.com/uk/en/home/insights/2016/02/small-business-reputation-and-the-cyber-risk.html

UK businesses expect cyber attacks to cost £1.2 million

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Half of UK businesses expect to be hit by a cyber attack and that recovery costs will be £1.2 million or more.

Half of UK businesses expect to be hit by a cyber attack and that recovery costs will be £1.2 million or more.This is the highest figure globally, according to the Risk:Value 2016 report by information security and risk management company NTT Com Security.

The report is based on a survey of business decision-makers in the UK, the US, Germany, France, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland.

Although about 50% of UK respondents said information security was vital to their organisation and agreed it was good practice, 20% admitted that poor information security was the single greatest risk to the business, ahead of decreasing profits (12%), competitors taking market share (11%) and on a par with lack of employee skills (21%).

Well over half (57%) agreed that their organisation would suffer a data breach at some point, while only one third disagreed and one in 10 said they did not know.

They expected recovery from a cyber attack to take an average of two months, and they anticipated a 13% drop in revenue, on average, following a breach.

The survey showed that recent high profile data breaches are starting to hit home, with organisations spending 11% of their IT budgets on information security, up from 10% the previous year.

However, nearly a quarter of the UK businesses surveyed revealed that more is spent on human resources than on information security.

Detailing remediation costs following a security breach, the report said respondents indicated that they expected 18% to be spend on legal fees, 18% on fines or compliance costs, 17% on compensation to customers, and 11% on third-party remediation.

Other anticipated costs included PR and communications (14%) and compensation paid to suppliers (12%) and to employees (11%).

According to the report, the vast majority of UK respondents admitted they would suffer both externally and internally if data was stolen, including loss of customer confidence (66%) and damage to reputation (57%), as well as direct financial loss (41%). More than one-third of decision-makers (34%) expected to resign or expected another senior colleague to resign because of a breach.

The study found that although only 41% of UK organisations have a disaster recovery plan in place and only 40% have a formal security policy, in both cases almost half are in the process of implementing or designing one.

In terms of responsibility for managing a company’s recovery plan, 15% of respondents said the CEO now has responsibility, although it still largely falls to the chief risk officer, chief information officer or chief security officer.

While 77% agreed it is vital that their business is insured for security breaches, only 26% have dedicated cyber security insurance – but 38% are in the process of getting a policy.

One in five UK respondents said they did not know if their organisation had any type of insurance to cover for the financial impact of data loss or an information security breach.

Cyber criminal activity by UK teens grows

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More than 10% of UK teens say they know someone who has engaged in an illegal cyber activity, a survey has revealed.

More than 10% of UK teens say they know someone who has engaged in an illegal cyber activity, a survey has revealed.The survey was commissioned and published by security firm Kaspersky Lab to mark Safer Internet Day 2016 yesterday- which aims to promote the safe, responsible and positive use of digital technology for children and young people.

The survey also found that just over one third of respondents would be impressed if a friend hacked a bank’s website and replaced the homepage with a cartoon, and one in 10 would be impressed if a friend hacked the air traffic control systems of a local airport.

When asked how they would feel if a friend found their way into a celebrity’s online email account and discovered lots of private pictures, 18% said they would be impressed, and 17% would be impressed if a friend managed to obtain all the names and addresses of people who had bought adult films online.

More than a quarter of respondents said they knew how to hide their IP address, 41% said they knew about malware, 44% knew about phishing, 24% knew about distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, 17% knew about ransomware, and 13% knew about crypto-malware.

Recent research by the National Crime Agency (NCA) revealed the average age of a cyber criminal is now just 17, raising concern that youngsters are increasingly becoming involved in cyber crime, many of them unwittingly.

In the light of this finding, public awareness and understanding of the online behaviour of young people is vital, said David Emm, principal security researcher, Kaspersky Lab.

“It’s frighteningly easy for teenagers to find their way into the dark corners of the internet today as they explore and experiment or take their first steps towards making some easy money online by searching for tools and advice,” he said.

Once lured in, youngsters are vulnerable to exploitation by cyber criminals who use them to distribute and create malicious software or help launder funds from cyber crime, said Emm.

UK based criminals were the second highest originators of cyber crime attacks after the US in the second quarter, according to ThreatMetrix. Rising cyber crime suggests criminal law does not deter criminals and that a better legal solution is required to prevent further rises.

The survey also revealed misguided loyalty among teenagers. When asked what they would do if a friend was doing things online that could be illegal, more than half said they would tell the friend to stop, but would not tell anyone else.

One third said they would not get involved, 22% said they would ask about it but not join in, and only 21% said they would report it to the police.

The NCA recently launched a campaign aimed at preventing young people from becoming involved in cyber crime.

The Safer Internet Day 2016 campaign website provides guidance for parents and teachers on how to recognise signs of cyber criminal involvement and ways of encouraging the positive use of cyber skills.

SME’s poor security practices targeted by ransomware

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SME’s poor security knowledge and practices are being targeted by ransomware.

SME's poor security knowledge and practices are being targetted by ransomware.It is important not to underestimate the scale of ransomware attacks or to believe that you are safe if you are not a Microsoft user, as the first attacks on Android devices were identified in 2011.

According to one industry report, the number of cyber ransomware attacks increased in 2014 by more than 4,000%, with small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) being the main target due to poor security practices.

On the technical side, we can have spam, malware and bad URL detection engines or services that can be installed in networks – generally as part of an internet security appliance or firewall – rather than individual boxes installed in front of email servers.

The reason we would want such protection as part of the general internet connection is to provide protection for email, browsing and other internet related operations such as file transfer and remote access.

There are also a number of very good commercial cloud based email spam, malware and URL detection services available. These are well worth a look for smaller enterprises that must consider costs of ownership, support and overall effectiveness.

Even with the best spam, malware and URL detection services, some emails that could form the start of a ransomware attack may get through. These emails contain a URL link that, when clicked, will take the user’s web browser to a website that will attempt to download the ransomware.

These emails could not have been detected as malicious for a number of reasons, such as the URL being too new to have been identified as malicious; the patching or updating of an onsite box being out of date; or the URL pointing to a perfectly legitimate website that has been compromised in preparation for a watering hole attack.

The rise in legitimate websites being compromised for the purposes of executing watering hole attacks as a way of delivering malware – including ransomware – means enterprises need to add malware detection to web browsing activities.

Protecting against a ransomware attack

Having got the technical side sorted according an enterprise’s risk appetite and budget, what else can be done to help protect against a successful ransomware attack?

Staff awareness training and regular follow up initiatives are key. It is important to make staff aware that unexpected emails – even from known sources – are suspicious, particularly those that require a URL link to be activated.

If all else fails and a ransomware attack is successful, then having access to good, well-tested backups with at least one copy that is held off network will be vital in service restoration. Note that the off network backup itself should not be used as is, but copied. The copy should then be used to bring the network back, which will protect the good backup from being compromised.