Looking for a qualified candidate or new job? CSO’s security recruiter directory is your one-stop shop.

The recruiters listed below can help you find your next chief information security officer (CISO) or VP of security and fill hard-to-hire positions in risk management, security operations, security engineering, compliance, application security, penetration testers, and computer forensics, among many others.

If you’re a security recruiting firm, we want your information! Our goal is to provide the most complete recruiter resource available, but to do that we need your assistance. Please send the name, contact info and a few sentences about your company and its specialties to Michael Nadeau.

To read this article in full, please click here

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Looking for a qualified candidate or new job? CSO’s security recruiter directory is your one-stop shop.

The recruiters listed below can help you find your next chief information security officer (CISO) or VP of security and fill hard-to-hire positions in risk management, security operations, security engineering, compliance, application security, penetration testers, and computer forensics, among many others.

If you’re a security recruiting firm, we want your information! Our goal is to provide the most complete recruiter resource available, but to do that we need your assistance. Please send the name, contact info and a few sentences about your company and its specialties to Michael Nadeau.

To read this article in full, please click here

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St Petersburg couple were arrested in Argentina

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CISA notice warns of 1300 victims and counting

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Protecting your devices with antivirus is a great start, yet it’s only one part of staying safer online. With the way scammers and thieves target people today, you need to protect yourself too—specifically your identity and privacy. 

Threats have evolved over the years. While hackers still wage malware attacks on computers, tablets, and smartphones, the devices aren’t the ultimate target. You are. The personal and private information created and kept on your devices have tremendous value because scammers and thieves can use it to steal your identity, open credit cards in your name, and commit all kinds of identity theft and fraud. 

Yet just as using antivirus protection can keep you safer online, using privacy and identity protection will keep you far safer still. Let’s look at how all three can work in concert.   

Privacy protection  

Privacy protection focuses on keeping your information from getting into the hands of advertisers, cybercriminals, and data brokers who want to use it for their benefit. To boost your online privacy, consider a few thoughtful additions to your daily browsing, email, and social media routine.   

First, think carefully about your social media habits. Do you post everything about your day and childhood, pin your location, and share photos of documents that include your full name, birthday, or address? You may want to consider cutting back on what you broadcast on the internet, especially if your account is public for anyone to view.  

Unfortunately, while your friends and family may love your status updates, cybercriminals love them more. After only minutes of snooping, cybercriminals can glean enough personal details about you to impersonate you or target a social engineering attempt at you. To keep your private information more private, limit what you share on social media, pare down your follower and friend lists to only the closest people, and if your social media account platform supports it set your account to private.  

One more way to protect your privacy is to use a virtual private network (VPN). A VPN allows you to remain far more anonymous online by shielding your location and device information, along with the data passing along your connection—which includes things like your passwords, account information, and other sensitive info. 

A VPN offers further protection when you’re logged on to a public network, like those in coffee shops, libraries, and transportation hubs. Cybercriminals often lurk on non-password-protected Wi-Fi networks and eavesdrop on people paying bills or online shopping to steal their credentials.  

However, criminals aren’t the only ones who intrude on your privacy. Online data brokers collect thousands of data points on millions of people, then post bits of that information for anyone to see and offer far more detailed information for a price.  

Who buys this information? More legitimate purposes include people conducting background checks, journalists, law enforcement, and, largely, advertisers. With such in-depth information, advertisers can target highly specific audiences with their ads, all based on personal information that can include shopping habits from customer loyalty cards, health data from fitness apps, and information scraped from public social media posts—just to name a few of the umpteen sources they draw from. 

Yet data brokers won’t discriminate. They’ll sell to scammers and thieves as well, who can then use that personal information to help them commit identity fraud and theft. 

However, you can do something about this. Personal data cleanup can scan some of the riskiest data broker sites and show you which ones are selling your personal info. It can also provide guidance on how you can remove your data from those sites and can even manage the removal for you. And because data brokers continually update their data, personal data cleanup will continue to monitor those sites and help you get your information removed should it crop up again. 

In all, if you feel that your privacy shouldn’t be up for grabs, a personal data cleanup service can  

Identity protection  

Another form of protection focuses on keeping you safer from identity theft and fraud. Here, thieves will steal personal and account information to rack up charges on existing credit and debit cards, open entirely new accounts and lines of credit, or impersonating the victim themselves for employment, health insurance coverage, or to commit other crimes in someone else’s name. 

A few forms of identity crime include: 

New account theft occurs when a criminal successfully steals personal identifiable information (PII) and financial information and uses a victim’s excellent credit score to open new credit cards, utility accounts, cellphone accounts, and so forth.  
Account takeover fraud involves the use of an existing debit card, credit card, or other accounts to rack up charges—which usually happens when username and password information is stolen via a phishing attack or as the result of a data breach.  
Synthetic identity theft is a rising form of identity crime where thieves use a core piece of PII, like a Social Security Number in the U.S., to create an entirely new identity under a false name. With this “synthetic” identity, a scammer or thief can potentially open all manner of accounts, lines of credit, and even apply for benefits.   
Medical identity theft happens when thieves impersonate patients to gain access to their prescription medications or have their medical treatments paid for by the identity theft victim.  
Business identity theft can plague businesses of all sizes. Here, scammers and thieves will attempt to open new credit lines in the business’ name or send customers phony bills and collect the payments themselves.  

This list provides just a few examples, yet in all its forms, identity crime can affect your finances, credit score, and ability to secure loans, a mortgage, or future credit cards.  

One way to keep your identity secure is to guard your PII carefully. Never give out your Social Security Number unless it’s necessary—such for employment, opening bank and credit accounts, applying for public assistance, filing tax returns, or obtaining a driver’s license. While other businesses may ask you for your Social Security Number for identification purposes, you are not legally bound to provide it. You can ask to provide an alternate form. Also, never share it over email or text where it can be potentially intercepted.  

Beyond your Social Security Number, you can take steps to protect the many other forms of personal information you have. An identity monitoring service can keep tabs on everything from email addresses to IDs and phone numbers for signs of breaches so you can take action to secure your accounts before they’re used for identity theft.​ Likewise, credit monitoring can watch for unusual credit activity that could be an indicator of identity theft as well. ​ 

Should the unfortunate occur, identity theft & recovery coverage like ours can help you get back on track in several ways. First, it provides $1 million in identity theft coverage that covers travel expenses, legal fees, and stolen funds reimbursement. Additionally, it provides the assistance of a licensed identity theft recovery pro who can help you repair your identity and credit.  

Device security  

The third form of protection involves our devices, like computers, tablets, and phones—protecting them from both physical and digital threats. 

The first step you can take is to use a password, PIN, facial recognition, or other form of lock to keep your devices safer in the event of loss or theft. With this protection, your device is effectively an open book, providing a thief with access to all manner of personal information, accounts, and apps. 

Taking this protection a step further is learning to remotely locate your devices and then lock or wipe them. Many laptops and mobile devices offer location tracking services to help find a lost device—and yet others allow the owner to remotely lock or even wipe the contents of that device if they fear it’s lost for good or fallen into the wrong hands.  

It’s all rather straightforward, and device manufacturers have put up helpful web pages that can walk you through the process:  

Apple provides iOS users with a step-by-step guide for remotely wiping devices  
Google offers up a guide for Android users as well   
For laptops, Microsoft and Apple users can take the following steps:    
Windows: Enable in Settings > Update & Security > Find my device  
macOS: Enable via Settings > Your Name > iCloud > Find My Mac  

Another good step you can take is to back up your files, whether with an online cloud service, a physical external drive, or both. By storing your files in the cloud, you can recover them quickly if your device is stolen and you have to remotely wipe its contents. Storing them on an external drive also lets you recover your files if your device is stolen, however, you’ll want to keep it in a secure location so that it can’t be stolen as well. Options include a fireproof safe where you keep other valuables or even a safe deposit box. The drawback is that you will have to back up files manually and regularly whereas cloud backup is practically automatic when you’re connected to the internet.   

Another component of device security is defending against malicious software. Viruses and malware can make their way onto your devices through several avenues, including sketchy websites, dishonest downloads, phishing schemes, and clicking on ads. The challenge is that several of these avenues can look rather legitimate at first glance. Sophisticated hackers, scammers, and thieves have learned how to make their bogus websites and search results look like the real thing. One way you can prevent making a bad click or downloading an attachment loaded with malware is to use web advisor software that can protect you while you browse. 

And finally, yes, antivirus is a must now just as it’s ever been. When kept up to date with the latest updates, it can prevent malware from getting onto your devices—plus scan, detect, and delete viruses and malware from your devices should they make their way onto them.  

Protecting your privacy, identity, and devices—today calls for all three 

The threats out there are many, and they go beyond threats to your devices. Hackers, scammers, and thieves are quite interested in you. Your accounts, your personal information, and anything they can grab to commit theft or fraud. Protecting yourself today calls for not only protecting your devices but your privacy and identity too. 

Comprehensive online protection software like ours covers all three—privacy, identity, and devices. It includes the protections mentioned above, plus dozens of features more such as ransomware coverage, credit freezes, security locks, and an online protection score that shows you just how safe you are, along with suggestions that can make you safer still.  

In all, it gives you far more control over your privacy and personal information, control that should rest in your hands, and not in the hands of data brokers, hackers, scammers, and thieves. 

The post Privacy, Identity, and Device Protection: Why You Need to Invest in All Three appeared first on McAfee Blog.

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Peter is an IT manager for a technology manufacturer that got hit with a Russian ransomware strain called “Zeppelin” in May 2020. He’d been on the job less than six months, and because of the way his predecessor architected things, the company’s data backups also were encrypted by Zeppelin. After two weeks of stalling their extortionists, Peter’s bosses were ready to capitulate and pay the ransom demand. Then came the unlikely call from an FBI agent. “Don’t pay,” the agent said. “We’ve found someone who can crack the encryption.”

Peter, who spoke candidly about the attack on condition of anonymity, said the FBI told him to contact a cybersecurity consulting firm in New Jersey called Unit 221B, and specifically its founder — Lance James. Zeppelin sprang onto the crimeware scene in December 2019, but it wasn’t long before James discovered multiple vulnerabilities in the malware’s encryption routines that allowed him to brute-force the decryption keys in a matter of hours, using nearly 100 cloud computer servers.

In an interview with KrebsOnSecurity, James said Unit 221B was wary of advertising its ability to crack Zeppelin ransomware keys because it didn’t want to tip its hand to Zeppelin’s creators, who were likely to modify their file encryption approach if they detected it was somehow being bypassed.

This is not an idle concern. There are multiple examples of ransomware groups doing just that after security researchers crowed about finding vulnerabilities in their ransomware code.

“The minute you announce you’ve got a decryptor for some ransomware, they change up the code,” James said.

But he said the Zeppelin group appears to have stopped spreading their ransomware code gradually over the past year, possibly because Unit 221B’s referrals from the FBI let them quietly help nearly two dozen victim organizations recover without paying their extortionists.

In a blog post published today to coincide with a Black Hat Dubai talk on their discoveries, James and co-author Joel Lathrop said they were motivated to crack Zeppelin after the ransomware gang started attacking nonprofit and charity organizations.

“What motivated us the most during the leadup to our action was the targeting of homeless shelters, nonprofits and charity organizations,” the two wrote. “These senseless acts of targeting those who are unable to respond are the motivation for this research, analysis, tools, and blog post. A general Unit 221B rule of thumb around our offices is: Don’t [REDACTED] with the homeless or sick! It will simply trigger our ADHD and we will get into that hyper-focus mode that is good if you’re a good guy, but not so great if you are an ***hole.”

The researchers said their break came when they understood that while Zeppelin used three different types of encryption keys to encrypt files, they could undo the whole scheme by factoring or computing just one of them: An ephemeral RSA-512 public key that is randomly generated on each machine it infects.

“If we can recover the RSA-512 Public Key from the registry, we can crack it and get the 256-bit AES Key that encrypts the files!” they wrote. “The challenge was that they delete the [public key] once the files are fully encrypted. Memory analysis gave us about a 5-minute window after files were encrypted to retrieve this public key.”

Unit 221B ultimately built a “Live CD” version of Linux that victims could run on infected systems to extract that RSA-512 key. From there, they would load the keys into a cluster of 800 CPUs donated by hosting giant Digital Ocean that would then start cracking them. The company also used that same donated infrastructure to help victims decrypt their data using the recovered keys.

Jon is another grateful Zeppelin ransomware victim who was aided by Unit 221B’s decryption efforts. Like Peter, Jon asked that his last name and that of his employer be omitted from the story, but he’s in charge of IT for a mid-sized managed service provider that got hit with Zeppelin in July 2020.

The attackers that savaged Jon’s company managed to phish credentials and a multi-factor authentication token for some tools the company used to support customers, and in short order they’d seized control over the servers and backups for a healthcare provider customer.

Jon said his company was reluctant to pay a ransom in part because it wasn’t clear from the hackers’ demands whether the ransom amount they demanded would provide a key to unlock all systems, and that it would do so safely.

“They want you to unlock your data with their software, but you can’t trust that,” Jon said. “You want to use your own software or someone else who’s trusted to do it.”

In August 2022, the FBI and the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a joint warning on Zeppelin, saying the FBI had “observed instances where Zeppelin actors executed their malware multiple times within a victim’s network, resulting in the creation of different IDs or file extensions, for each instance of an attack; this results in the victim needing several unique decryption keys.”

The advisory says Zeppelin has attacked “a range of businesses and critical infrastructure organizations, including defense contractors, educational institutions, manufacturers, technology companies, and especially organizations in the healthcare and medical industries. Zeppelin actors have been known to request ransom payments in Bitcoin, with initial amounts ranging from several thousand dollars to over a million dollars.”

The FBI and CISA say the Zeppelin actors gain access to victim networks by exploiting weak Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) credentials, exploiting SonicWall firewall vulnerabilities, and phishing campaigns. Prior to deploying Zeppelin ransomware, actors spend one to two weeks mapping or enumerating the victim network to identify data enclaves, including cloud storage and network backups, the alert notes.

Jon said he felt so lucky after connecting with James and hearing about their decryption work, that he toyed with the idea of buying a lottery ticket that day.

“This just doesn’t usually happen,” Jon said. “It’s 100 percent like winning the lottery.”

By the time Jon’s company got around to decrypting their data, they were forced by regulators to prove that no patient data had been exfiltrated from their systems. All told, it took his employer two months to fully recover from the attack.

“I definitely feel like I was ill-prepared for this attack,” Jon said. “One of the things I’ve learned from this is the importance of forming your core team and having those people who know what their roles and responsibilities are ahead of time. Also, trying to vet new vendors you’ve never met before and build trust relationships with them is very difficult to do when you have customers down hard now and they’re waiting on you to help them get back up.”

A more technical writeup on Unit 221B’s discoveries (cheekily titled “0XDEAD ZEPPELIN”) is available here.

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