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The newly discovered malware infects IoT devices in tandem with the prolific Gafgyt botnet, using known security vulnerabilities.

Attackers sent 52M malicious messages leveraging the likes of Office 365, Azure, OneDrive, SharePoint, G-Suite and Firebase storage in Q1 2021.

The exploit pries open CVE-2021-31166, a bug with a CVSS score of 9.8 that was the baddest of the bad in Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday release last week.

Customers panic and question parent company Anker’s security and privacy practices after learning their home videos could be accessed and even controlled by strangers due to a server-upgrade glitch.

Good investigative reporting on how Apple is participating in and assisting with Chinese censorship and surveillance.

Cybersecurity and biases are not topics typically discussed together. However, we all have biases that shape who we are and, as a result, impact our decisions in and out of security. Adversaries understand humans have these weaknesses and try to exploit them. What can you do to remove biases as much as possible and improve your cybersecurity posture across all levels of your organization?

Cybersecurity personnel have many things to address and decisions to make every day — from what alerts to investigate, to what systems to patch for the latest vulnerabilities, to what to tell the board of directors. However, our brains don’t give each decision equal attention—we take mental shortcuts. These mental shortcuts are known as biases and they allow us to react quickly.

In this two-part blog series, we’ll explore the types of cognitive biases that could be affecting your company’s security posture and give you tips on how to address these biases.

Part One: Types of Cognitive Biases

Do you feel you are biased? We all are to some extent. What do you see when you look at this picture below? Faces or a vase? Some people may see one or the other and some see both. This is representative of what happens in real life. Many of us are at the same meeting together but leave with different perspectives about the discussion. This is our cognitive biases influencing us.

A cognitive bias is a result of our brain’s attempt to simplify processing of information. The formal definition says it is “a systematic pattern of deviation from norms in judgment”.  We as individuals create our own “subjective reality” from the perception of the inputs. Our construction of reality, not the input, may dictate how we behave.

Availability Bias

Availability bias is a mental shortcut that our brains use based on past examples relating to information that is “available” to us around a specific topic, event, or decision. This information could come from things we saw on the news, heard from a friend, read, or experienced. When we hear information frequently, we can recall it quickly, and our brains feel it is important as a result. With all the urgent interrupts and overall volume of decisions needing to be made by CISOs and other cyber executives, it is very easy to get caught up in decision making based on past or recent information.

Availability bias impacts security in many ways. We often see the impact in the areas of risk assessment, preparedness, decision making and incident response. In the area of risk assessment, availability bias may arise when the company board of directors looks for an updated risk assessment. Rather than focusing on the entire company, data could be presented with respect to an area for which another company had a breach. For example, we have seen SolarWinds in the news a lot throughout the first quarter of this year, and our inclination might be to assess our risk in the context of that incident. However, the assessments should look at all aspects of the business in depth and not just focus on the supply chain risks. Are there issues that require more attention than what is trending in the news?

We also see availability bias in preparedness when organizations prepare for high impact, low probability events instead of preparing for high probability events. What we should worry about doesn’t always align with what we do worry about. Events that have a high impact but low probability of occurring, such as an airplane crash, a shark attack, or volcano eruption, often receive much attention but are less likely to occur. We remember these much more than we remember higher probability events like falling off a ladder or automobile accidents. For instance, can you name the last phishing campaign you heard about or the last time someone’s PII was stolen? Probably not, but these are examples of the high probability events your organization most likely needs to prepare for.

In the area of decision making, your CISO or the cybersecurity analysts may make decisions in favor of hot topics in the news. These topics may overshadow other information they know or is so mundane that it becomes background noise. As a result, decisions made are not well rounded. For example, if there was a recent IoT related issue like Dyn in 2016, your analysts may over focus on IoT related security decisions and neglect things like investing in new security controls for your mobile devices.

Availability bias also surfaces during critical incidents when emotions are typically running high and the focus is on quickly addressing the issue at hand. Focusing on securing the specific area where the incident occurred may leave us blind to another issue waiting in the wings. Let’s pretend someone broke into your home through a window, your first thought may be to secure all the windows quickly; however, if you didn’t look at all your security risks, you may forget that you can shake your garage door lock, and it’ll pop open.

Our analysts are typically exploring data thoroughly though executives may not always see the in-depth information. If you are at the executive level, I would recommend you review all the facts and consciously look beyond what is available quickly so you get the full picture of the incident, how prepared you are, risks, etc. If you are an analyst or in a position of influence, I would recommend summarizing the facts in way that accurately reflects the probability of those events occurring as well as considering all possible events.

Confirmation Bias

Another bias that appears in cybersecurity is confirmation bias. This is when you look for things to “confirm” your own beliefs or you remember things that only conform to your beliefs (similar to availability bias). For example, your news feed may be full of things related to your political beliefs based on what articles you clicked on, shared, or liked. Chances are it’s not filled with things that oppose your beliefs.  A few areas where confirmation bias is seen in cybersecurity is in decision making, security hygiene, risk assessment, preparedness, and penetration testing.

When you are making decisions, are you considering different points of view or just looking to your close group of trusted advisors who may think like you? Are you willing to push and challenge your own beliefs to ensure you are making the best decisions for the company?

When was the last time you reviewed your company’s security hygiene? Are you diligent about updating systems or do you believe it won’t happen to you because nothing has happened in the past? Are you using an XDR solution in your environment or do you feel you don’t need it because all your current systems are serving your needs just fine? Do you feel you are more secure when you are in the cloud vs on-prem despite human error affecting both?

How do you approach cybersecurity preparedness? Are you passive, reactive, or progressive? Similar to hygiene, do you feel an incident won’t happen to you so you look for data to confirm that? Or are you the opposite and feel you may repeat incidents if you don’t do everything possible to look for data to confirm those beliefs? If you are an executive, are you reviewing the facts and evidence for all your cyber processes or just those that you personally know well from early on in your career?  I’ve seen some analysts ignore some of their alerts because they weren’t quite sure how to deal with them. As a result, they fall back on what they know or information that is readily available.

Sometimes organizations may hire third party companies or employ penetration testing performed on their environments. When you define the scope of work, are you looking for all the gaps or holes or just focusing on the weaknesses and strengths? When the results come in, do you address everything that is recommended or only focus on the items you believe will impact you?

It is hard to look beyond what we believe because in our eyes it is ground truth.  It is important in making security decisions that we look beyond what we want to hear or see to ensure we are getting what we need to hear and see.

Unconscious or Implicit Bias

Unconscious or implicit biases are social stereotypes about certain groups of people that we form outside of our own conscious awareness. Just as you see in the picture, our mind is like an iceberg where the conscious mind is what we can recall quickly and are aware of. The subconscious mind stores our beliefs, previous experiences, memories, etc. When you have an idea, emotion, or memory from the past, it’s recalled from our subconscious by our conscious mind. The third layer – our unconscious mind – is deep inside our brain.

Everyone holds unconscious beliefs about various social groups, and these biases stem from our tendency to organize social worlds by categorizing them quickly. We often think about unconscious bias in the context of negative biases, but there are also positive unconscious biases, for example feeling a connection to someone from your hometown or college alma mater. Unconscious bias impacts security in the areas of decision making, risk assessment, incident response, cyber security policies and procedures, and identity and access management.

In the area of decision making, I’ve seen executives blindly trust the IT team because they are perceived as being the “experts”. While this may be true, they are wrestling with the same unconscious biases and skills shortages many of us are. Just as it’s important to seek out additional information and facts when making your own decisions, it’s equally important to review the data and provide feedback and alternate opinions to others. Often, it’s easy to go with the majority and not rock the boat. If you feel that something needs to change or be addressed differently, don’t be afraid to go against the flow. Mark Twain is quoted, “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.” When was the last time you went against the majority?

Another unconscious bias that sometimes arises is related to age. Some people feel older workers are a greater risk to a company than younger workers because they perceive older workers as not being “up to date” on newer technologies. Conversely, some feel younger people engage in risky behavior like visiting potentially suspect websites or sharing too much information on social media.  As a result, security analysts may focus on the wrong areas as the source of a security risk or issue based on their biases.

If you had an incident, how would you respond? Would you blame an unsecure IT environment, incompetent end users or would you look at the facts and evidence in and outside of your beliefs to determine what happened? How would you and your team respond to the incident? If your security operations team felt that IT had not done their part prior to the incident, you may be looking in the wrong area for the source of the incident. You may have heard the acronym PEBKAC. For those that don’t know what it means, it stands for “problem exists between the keyboard and chair”. Are you sure the problem is PEBKAC or does it lie somewhere in your environment?

Implicit trust is another form of unconscious bias. When was the last time your cybersecurity policies and procedures were thoroughly reviewed? Let’s say you feel your SOC analyst is amazing, and you trust everything they say. Because of this implicit trust, you don’t think to dive into the details. As a result, you could have a firewall running without any defined rules but wouldn’t know because you’ve never checked. This doesn’t mean your SOC analyst isn’t trustworthy, just that you shouldn’t allow your unconscious bias to overrule the necessary checks and balances.

We can sometimes also be led to overconfidence by unconscious bias. For example, when writing a paper or an article, we can be certain that there are no mistakes or typos, but often it’s because we’ve read or reviewed it so many times that our unconscious mind reads it as it should be and not what it actually is. Similarly, in the area of identity and access management, security analysts and software developers may blame users for issues and fail to look at the internal infrastructure or their own code because they have a false confidence that leads them to believe they couldn’t possibly be the problem.

To overcome unconscious and implicit bias, ensure you are sticking to the facts and asking all stakeholders, including those you may disagree with for inputs. Also look in the mirror. Did you make a mistake or are you excusing your behavior instead of facing it? Also, don’t be afraid to follow the words of Mark Twain and pause and reflect to ensure you are making the correct decision, addressing the incident in the correct way, or hiring the right person.

Because we all have biases and take mental shortcuts, we need to make a conscious effort to address them.  Look beyond what you want to hear or see and what shows up in your news feeds to address availability and confirmation bias. Ensure you are sticking to the facts and asking all stakeholders, including those you disagree with, for inputs to overcome unconscious and implicit bias. You don’t want to be the next company in the news because your biases got in the way.

 

 

The post Through Your Mind’s Eye: What Biases Are Impacting Your Security Posture? appeared first on McAfee Blogs.

In our last blog about defense capabilities, we outlined the five efficacy objectives of Security Operations, that are most important for a Sec Ops; this blog will focus on Visibility.

The MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK® Evaluation (Round3) focused on the emulation of Carbanak+FIN7 adversaries known for their prolific intrusions impacting financial targets which included the banking and hospitality business sectors.  The evaluation’s testing scope lasted 4 days – 3 days were focused on detection efficacy with all products set to detect/monitor mode only, and the remaining day focused on protection mode set for blocking events.  This blog showcases the breadth and depth of our fundamental visibility capabilities across the 3 days of detection efficacy.

It is important to note that while the goal of these evaluations by MITRE Engenuity is not to rank or score products, our analysis of the results found that McAfee’s blue team was able to use MVISION EDR, complemented by McAfee’s portfolio, to obtain significant visibility, achieving:

 

Scenario	Evaluation Scope	Visibility Outcome
Scenario – Carbanak	Across all 10 Major Steps (Attack Phases)	100%
Scenario – FIN7	Across all 10 Major Steps (Attack Phases)	100%

The evaluation when tracked by Sub-steps shows McAfee having 174 sub-steps with a total 87% visibility.

Going Miles-Wide

When you seek to defend enterprises, you need to assess your portfolio and ensure it can go the distance by spanning across the endpoint and its diverse context, as well as network visibility stemming from hostile activity executed on the target system. More importantly, your portfolio must closely track the adversary across kill-chain phases (miles-wide) to keep up with their up-tempo. The more phases you track, the better you will be able to orient your defenses in real-time.

Scenario 1 – Carbanak

The Carbanak emulation consisted of an attack with 10 Major Steps (Kill Chain Phases) on day one, and our portfolio provided visibility across every phase.  In these 10 phases, MITRE conducted 96 substeps to emulate the behaviors aligned to the known TTPs attributed to the Carbanak adversary.

McAfee MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Evaluation 3 Results­

Scenario 2 – FIN7

The FIN7 emulation consisted of an attack with 10 Major Steps (Kill Chain Phases) on day two, and our portfolio provided visibility across every phase.  In these 10 phases, MITRE conducted 78  substeps to emulate the behaviors aligned to the known TTPs attributed to the FIN7 adversary.

McAfee MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Evaluation 3 Results

Going Feet-Deep

Tracking the adversary across all phases of the attack (miles-wide) is significantly strong, but to be really effective at enterprise defense, you also need to stay deep within their operating mode, and keep up with their movement within and across your systems through different approaches (feet-deep).  At McAfee, we design our visibility sensors across defensible components to anticipate where adversaries will interact with the system, consequently tracing their activities with diverse data sources (context) that enrich our portfolio.  This not only let us track their intentions, but also discover impactful outcomes as they execute hostile actions (sub-steps).

Defensible Components and Telemetry acquired during the evaluation.

If a product is configured differently you can obtain information from each Defensible Component, but this represents telemetry acquired based on the config during the evaluation (not necessarily evidence that was accepted).

Visibility By McAfee Data Sources / Defensible Components

Scenario 1 – Carbanak

Of the 96  Sub-Steps emulating Carbanak, our visibility coverage extends from more than 10 unique data sources including the automated interception of scripted source code used in the attack by our ATD sandbox integration with the DXL fabric.

McAfee MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Evaluation 3 Results

Scenario 2 – FIN7

Of the 78 Sub-Steps emulating FIN7, our visibility coverage extends from more than 10 unique data sources providing higher context in critical phases with Systems/Api Calls Monitoring to preserve the user’s security awareness as advanced behaviors aim for in-memory approaches conducted by the adversary.

McAfee MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Evaluation 3 Results

Visibility By McAfee Product

Acquiring data from sensors is fundamental, however, to be effective at security outcomes, your portfolio needs to essentially spread its deep coverage of data sources to balance the security visibility blue-teamers need as the progression of the attack is tracked through each phase.

This essential capability provides the blue-teamer a balance of contextual awareness from detection technologies (EDR and SIEM), and decisive disruption of impactful behaviors from protection products (ENS, DLP, ATD, NSP) oriented to neutralize the adversary’s actions on objectives.
In every phase of the attack, McAfee protection fused with detection products would successfully neutralize the adversary and afford blue teamers rich contextual visibility for investigations needing context before and after the block would have occurred.

Scenario 1 – Carbanak

McAfee MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Evaluation 3 Results

This chart clearly shows how ENS (in observe mode) would have prevented a successful attack, blocking the Initial Breach, protecting the customers from further damage. For the scope of the evaluation, it’s also important to remark how the products interacted by providing telemetry on each step.

Scenario 2 – FIN7

McAfee MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Evaluation 3 Results

In the impactful kill-chain phase of “steal payment data”, the DLP product kicks into prevention, while being complemented by the ATD sandbox intercepting the payload that attempts to steal the information, as well as EDR having contextual information within the kill-chain for offline investigations the blue teamer needs.

Visibility Efficacy

Here, we covered the essentials of visibility and how to determine the power of having a strong telemetry foundation, not only as individual sensors or defensible components that provide information, but when analyzed and contextualized, we enable the next level of actionability required to prioritize cases with enriched detections.

Stay tuned for the next blog series explaining how detections were supported by this telemetry where we produced 274 detections that have more than 2 data sources.

The post Miles Wide & Feet Deep Visibility of Carbanak+FIN7 appeared first on McAfee Blogs.

Personal devices and the information they carry are incredibly valuable to their owners. It is only natural to want to protect your device like a royal family fortifying a medieval castle. Unlike medieval castles that depended upon layers and layers of protection (moats, drawbridges, spiky gates, etc.), personal devices thrive on just one defense: a devoted guard called antivirus software. 

Increasing your personal device’s security detail with more than one guard, or antivirus software is actually less effective than using a single, comprehensive option. Microsoft operating systems recognize the detriment of running two antivirus software programs simultaneously for real-time protection. Microsoft Windows automatically unregisters additional programs so they do not compete against each other. In theory, if you have a Microsoft device, you could run on-demand or scheduled scans from two different antivirus products without the operating system disabling one of them. But why invest in multiple software where one will do? 

If you do not have a Microsoft device, here is what could happen to your device if you run more than one antivirus program at a time, and why you should consider investing in only one top-notch product. 

Fight Over Potential Viruses 

Antivirus programs want to impress you. Each wants to be the one to catch a virus and present you with the culprit, like a cat with a mouse. When antivirus software captures a virus, it locks it in a secure place to neutralize it. If you have two programs running simultaneously, they could engage in a tussle over who gets to scan, report, and remove the virus. This added activity could cause your computer to crash or use up your device’s memory. 

Report Each Other as Suspicious 

Antivirus software quietly monitors and collects information about how your system runs, which is similar to how viruses operate. One software could mark the other as suspicious because real-time protection software is lurking in the background. So, while one antivirus program is busy blowing the whistle on the other, malicious code could quietly slip by. 

Additionally, users could be buried under a barrage of red flag notifications about each software reporting the other as suspicious. Some users become so distracted by the onslaught of notifications that they deactivate both programs, or ignore notifications altogether, leaving the device vulnerable to real threats. 

Drain Your Battery and Slow Down Your Device 

Running one antivirus software does not drain your battery, and it can actually make your device faster. However, two antivirus programs will not double your operating speed. In fact, it will make it run much slower and drain your battery in the process. With two programs running real-time protection constantly in the background, device performance is extremely compromised. 

Antivirus Software Best Practices 

There is no reason to invest in two antivirus programs when one solid software will more than do the trick to protect your device. Here are some best practices to get the most out of your antivirus software: 

1. Back up files regularly 

One habit you should adopt is backing up your files regularly. You never know when malware could hit and corrupt your data. Add it to your weekly routine to sync with the cloud and back up your most important files to an external hard drive.  

2. Keep your software up to date 

Whenever your software prompts you to install an update, do it! New cyber threats are evolving every day, and the best way to protect against them is to allow your software to stay as up-to-date as possible. 

3. Read the results reports   

Always read your antivirus results reports. These reports let you know the suspicious suspects your software was busy rounding up. It will give you a good idea of the threats your devices face and perhaps the schemes that you unknowingly fell into, such as clicking on a link in a phishing email. This information can also help you improve your online safety habits. 

Quality Over Quantity 

In the end, make sure that the antivirus software you choose is as robust as possible. For example, McAfee Total Protection can secure up to 10 devices and even offers features beyond antivirus protection, including safe web browsing, PC optimization, and home network security. 

Stay Updated 

To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, subscribe to our newsletter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook. 

The post Less Is More: Why One Antivirus Software Is All You Need appeared first on McAfee Blogs.

Many online services allow users to reset their passwords by clicking a link sent via SMS, and this unfortunately widespread practice has turned mobile phone numbers into de facto identity documents. Which means losing control over one thanks to a divorce, job termination or financial crisis can be devastating.

Even so, plenty of people willingly abandon a mobile number without considering the potential fallout to their digital identities when those digits invariably get reassigned to someone else. New research shows how fraudsters can abuse wireless provider websites to identify available, recycled mobile numbers that allow password resets at a range of email providers and financial services online.

Researchers in the computer science department at Princeton University say they sampled 259 phone numbers at two major wireless carriers, and found 171 of them were tied to existing accounts at popular websites, potentially allowing those accounts to be hijacked.

The Princeton team further found 100 of those 259 numbers were linked to leaked login credentials on the web, which could enable account hijackings that defeat SMS-based multi-factor authentication.

“Our key finding is that attackers can feasibly leverage number recycling to target previous owners and their accounts,” the researchers wrote. “The moderate to high hit rates of our testing methods indicate that most recycled numbers are vulnerable to these attacks. Furthermore, by focusing on blocks of Likely recycled numbers, an attacker can easily discover available recycled numbers, each of which then becomes a potential target.”

The researchers located newly-recycled mobile numbers by browsing numbers made available to customers interested in signing up for a prepaid account at T-Mobile or Verizon (apparently AT&T doesn’t provide a similar interface). They said they were able to identify and ignore large blocks of new, unused numbers, as these blocks tend to be made available consecutively — much like newly printed money is consecutively numbered in stacks.

The Princeton team has a number of recommendations for T-Mobile and Verizon, noting that both carriers allow unlimited inquiries on their prepaid customer platforms online — meaning there is nothing to stop attackers from automating this type of number reconnaissance.

“On postpaid interfaces, Verizon already has safeguards and T-Mobile does not even support changing numbers online,” the researchers wrote. “However, the number pool is shared between postpaid and prepaid, rendering all subscribers vulnerable to attacks.”

They also recommend the carriers teach their support employees to remind customers about the risks of relinquishing a mobile number without first disconnecting it from other identities and sites online, advice they generally did not find was offered when interacting with customer support regarding number changes.

In addition, the carriers could offer their own “number parking” service for customers who know they will not require phone service for an extended period of time, or for those who just aren’t sure what they want to do with a number. Such services are already offered by companies like NumberBarn and Park My Phone, and they generally cost between $2-5 per month.

The Princeton study recommends consumers who are considering a number change instead either store the digits at an existing number parking service, or “port” the number to something like Google Voice. For a one-time $20 fee, Google Voice will let you port the number, and then you can continue to receive texts and calls to that number via Google Voice, or you can forward them to another number.

Porting seems like less of a hassle and potentially safer considering the average user has something like 150 accounts online, and a significant number of those accounts are going to be tied to one’s mobile number.

While you’re at it, consider removing your phone number as a primary or secondary authentication mechanism wherever possible. Many online services require you to provide a phone number upon registering an account, but in many cases that number can be removed from your profile afterwards.

It’s also important for people to use something other than text messages for two-factor authentication on their email accounts when stronger authentication options are available. Consider instead using a mobile app like Authy, Duo, or Google Authenticator to generate the one-time code. Or better yet, a physical security key if that’s an option.

The full Princeton study is available here (PDF).