Three of the Biggest Threats to Company’s Cyber Security

Phishing, Malicious Political Attacks & Monetary Fraud

Every business needs to address the ever-changing cyber threats that now make their way the Internet. It is not enough to merely install anti-virus software and believe that this will solve all of a business’ problems. Here are three of the biggest threats to company’s cyber security that you should know.

Phishing

Phishing is a practice in which hackers gain access to private consumer data. Frequently, a hacker creates an email to look like it was issued by your company. A customer may then respond to the email and provide his or her personal information. The hacker then preys upon this disclosure and uses it to open credit cards, make unauthorized charges and take advantage of the consumer’s identity. The essence of a phishing crime is that the hacker gains the trust of the customer. They may use sophisticated tactics to learn information about your customers, such as the names of relatives. The hacker then may pretend to be one’s distant relative to ask for financial assistance from the consumer.

Businesses have a duty to protect their customers from phishing attacks. Businesses should realize that information even like consumer names can be private information. If a hacker gains access to consumer names, then he or she may use social networks like Facebook to learn more information about the customer. Businesses need to be aware of these practices and work with cyber security firms to prevent information disclosures.

Malicious Political Attacks

Businesses should also be aware that not every hacker is motivated by profits. Some hackers are residents of foreign nations and discontented with the notion of capitalism in general. These hackers are very sophisticated and using numerous methods to target specific businesses. One example of a recent attack included an attack on a satirical news company by the Syrian Electronic Army. The Syrian Electronic Army was able to hack into the servers for the news company and then make its own postings on the site. One mistake that businesses make is underestimating the abilities and sophistication of enemy nations or politically-motivated hackers.

The best way for businesses to handle attacks from politically-motivated data hackers is to be proactive in preventing attacks. Businesses should not use a reactive method of dealing with politically-motivated data hackers. A reactive method does not solve the actual issues that lead to the hacking of business accounts. A reactive method also does not provide security to a business, because a business may still be attacked by army hackers in the future.

Monetary Fraud Hackers

Unlike the Syrian Electronic Army, some hackers are only motivated by financial gain. These hackers only seek to gain access to checking accounts, savings accounts, trust funds, Social Security information and credit card information. These hackers attempt to gain access to the internal data systems of highly-profitable companies. They are very sophisticated in the tactics that they use to hack corporate accounts.

Businesses need to take preventative measures in protecting internal corporate data systems. Many businesses are realizing this and are now working with sophisticated firms to protect their internal data systems. A company can also be very selective in the access that it provides to internal information systems. If many employees have access to internal data systems, then a company may be jeopardizing the information of its customers.

More than ever, companies need to be proactive in addressing cyber security threats. Cyber threats can cause serious legal issues for companies in the event of a hack or leak. Taking time to improve a company’s data system security is an investment in the future of the company. Cyber threats are only likely to increase in the future years, and businesses must be ready to prevent these attacks.

Information Security Forum (ISF) Identifies 6 Major Threats for 2014

ISF report states top six security threats global business will face in 2014 include the cloud, "BYO" trends and cyber-crime

A nonprofit group founded in 1989, the ISF performs research on topics dictated by its 350-plus global member organizations. Only recently has it begun making its findings public.

The six threats identified as major concerns headed into 2014, ISF emphasized the need for companies to find trusted partners and talk about cyber-security—a topic that's often treated as private.

Six: BYO

Trends Topping the ISF's list is BYO, and it's no mistake that the "D" is missing. Workers bring their email accounts, their cloud storage and more. As the trend of employees bringing mobile devices in the workplace grows, businesses of all sizes continue to see information security risks being exploited. These risks stem from both internal and external threats, including mismanagement of the device itself, external manipulation of software vulnerabilities and the deployment of poorly tested, unreliable business applications.

Five: Data Privacy In the Cloud

The cloud presented no danger, as long as one could tick off a list of items, including knowing how many clouds a company has; what other companies' data are being stored on the same servers; whether one's storage services are being subcontracted; and if there's a clear plan for what happens when a contract with a cloud provider is terminated. While the cost and efficiency benefits of cloud computing services are clear, organizations cannot afford to delay getting to grips with their information security implications.

Organizations must know whether the information they are holding about an individual is Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and therefore needs adequate protection.

Four: Reputational Damage

There are two types of companies—those that have been hacked and those that are going to be. What would a hack mean to your marketing manager, to your head of investor services, to your PR team that needs to put out that statement?. When the situation is something that could send stock prices plummeting, the reality of it sets in.

Three: Privacy and Regulation

Organizations need to treat privacy as both a compliance and a business risk, according to the ISF. "Furthermore," the report added, "we are seeing increasing plans for regulation around the collection, storage and use of information along with severe penalties for loss of data and breach notification, particularly across the European Union. Expect this to continue and develop further, imposing an overhead [cost] in regulatory management above and beyond the security function and necessarily including legal, HR and board level input."

Two: Cyber-Crime

ISF emphasized how shockingly excellent criminals are at coordinating and working together toward a cause. The Syrian Electronic Army's hack into The New York Times was offered as an example. The bad guys are really great at collaboration, because there's a lot in it for them.

Cyber-crime, hacktivism—hacking for a cause—and the rising costs of compliance, to deal with the uptick in regulatory compliance issues, can create a perfect storm of sorts,. "Organizations that identify what the business relies on most will be well-placed to quantify the business case to invest in resilience, therefore minimizing the impact of the unforeseen.

One: The Internet of Things 

High-speed networks and the Internet of Things will create scenarios like the ability for a car to detect a traffic jam ahead and understand that its driver won't make it to the airport in time for his flight—and so contact the airport to change the flight. That level of information, in the wrong hands, is concerning.

Businesses can't avoid every serious incident, and few have a "mature, structured approach for analyzing what went wrong.

By adopting a realistic, broad-based, collaborative approach to cyber-security and resilience, government departments, regulators, senior business managers and information security professionals will be better able to understand the true nature of cyber-threats and respond quickly and appropriately." 

PCI DSS 3.0 – What's New?

Infographic - Summary of the Changes from PCI DSS 2.0 to 3.0

Last month, the PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) officially released the PCI DSS v3.0 compliance standards, but much remains to be done before merchants, service providers and auditors will understand how the new mandates will impact organizations.

The effective date of the version 3.0 of the standard will be on January 1, 2014, but existing PCI DSS 2.0 compliant vendors will have until January 1, 2015 to move to the new standard, and some of the changes will continue to be best practices for several more months (until June 1, 2015).

Here’s what has changed:

Kaspersky Lab 2013 Global Corporate IT Security Risks

34% of respondents ranked protection from incidents as the top priority

Kaspersky Lab, in partnership with research company B2B International, conducts regular surveys focusing on the key IT security issues and cyber threats which worry businesses.

The survey aimed to find out what representatives of these companies thought of corporate security solutions, to ascertain their level of knowledge about cyber threats, what cyber security related problems they most often face, how they address these problems and what they expect in the future.

2013 Kaspersky Lab and B2B International survey results provided below reflect the opinions of companies on key issues related to the security of the corporate IT infrastructure.

They also reflect the changes that have taken place since the previous two studies. Comparing current and historical data helps to identify and analyze existing trends in this area, ultimately creating a complete and, we believe, objective picture of the threat landscape, as well as future problems and trends affecting corporate IT security.

Main Findings

According to the survey results, one of the major problems facing businesses is the creation of a clear IT infrastructure development strategy with an information security strategy at its heart.

Companies are increasingly determined to secure their IT infrastructure in the light of increasing numbers of incidents – and significant financial losses associated with them. The main findings of the survey are:

• Maintaining information security is the main issue faced by a company’s IT management.
• In the past 12 months, 91% of the companies surveyed had at least one external IT security incident and 85% reported internal incidents.
• A serious incident can cost a large company an average of $649,000; for small and medium-sized companies the bill averages at about $50,000.
• A successful targeted attack on a large company can cost it $2.4 million in direct financial losses and additional costs.
• For a medium-sized or small company, a targeted attack can mean about $92,000 in damages – almost twice as much as an average attack.
• A significant proportion of incidents resulting in the loss of valuable data were internal, caused by issues such as unclosed vulnerabilities in software used by the company, intentional or negligent actions of employees or the loss or theft of mobile devices.
• Personal mobile devices used for work-related purposes remain one of the main hazards for businesses: 65% of those surveyed saw a threat in the Bring Your Own Device policy.
• Information leaks committed using mobile devices – intentionally or accidentally – constitute the main internal threat that companies are concerned about for the future.

For the full report in PDF format, click here.

Collaboration among various sectors is must for protection against cyber-attacks

Information sharing can facilitate, the more effective fighting efforts against cyber-attacks

Sharing information about cyber-attacks is making a difference in the banking sector, helping bring criminals to justice and curbing fraud losses. And other sectors should learn from banking's example.

It's important for information security professionals to continue their efforts to get senior executives to buy in to the need for cross-industry collaboration. Informal sharing of cyber-intelligence has for years been a common practice among cybersecurity warriors in the trenches.

This type of information sharing, however, often has gone on in the background without the knowledge of upper management. That's because many executives are fearful of revealing too much or sharing with competitors their security vulnerabilities. But that attitude is, slowing but surely, changing.

What's more, the intelligence the financial industry has gathered over the last 12 months about al-Qassam and other attackers was shared with law enforcement, government and others. In fact, much of the information federal investigators gather about cyber-espionage and cyber-attacks comes from the financial sector first.

Those kind of partnerships are needed in other industry sectors as well. Cyber-attacks affect numerous industries, from hospitality and retail to healthcare and government. The more information sharing these sectors can facilitate, the more effective fraud-fighting efforts will be.

How To Develop Security Awareness?

Six Steps To Successful Security Awareness Training

If you would schedule an event to teach people about Internet Security, and make it optional to attend, only about 5% of your entire office population will show up. And guess what, those 5% are probably the people that need it least.

Here are the six elements of a successful Internet Security Awareness Training Program

• Formulate, and make easily available a written Security Policy.
  
• Each employee needs to read the document and sign it as an acknowledgment they understand the policy and will apply it.
  
• Give all employees a mandatory (online) Security Awareness Course, with a clearly stated deadline. It is highly recommended to explain to them in some detail why this is necessary.
  
• Make this Security Awareness Course part of the onboarding process of each new employee.
  
• Keep all employees on their toes with security top of mind, by continued testing. Sending a simulated phishing attack once a week is extremely effective to keep them alert.
  
• Never publicly identify an employee that fails a simulated attack, let their supervisor or HR take this up privately. Give a quarterly prize for the three employees with the lowest ‘fail-rate’.
  
• If you use posters, stickers and or screensavers, change the pictures or messages monthly. After a few weeks people simple don’t ‘see’ them anymore. It’s more effective to send them regular ‘Security Hints & Tips’ via email.

Five Generations Of Cybercrime

Now that cybercrime is in its fifth generation, prevent a security nightmare from happening on your watch

It helps to understand more about the history of hacking, when you need to defend yourself against cyber criminals. Early hacking started when guys like Kevin Mitnick became ‘digital delinquents’ and broke into the phone company networks.

That was to a large degree to see how far they could get with social engineering, and it got them way further than expected. Actual financial damage to hundreds of thousands of businesses started only in the nineties, but has moved at rocket speed these last 20 years.

Generation ONE

Those were the teenagers in dark, damp cellars writing viruses to gain notoriety, and to show the world they were able to do it. Relatively harmless, no more than a pain in the neck to a large extent. We call them sneaker-net viruses as it usually took a person to walk over from one PC to another with a floppy disk to transfer the virus.

Generation TWO

These early day ‘sneaker-net’ viruses were followed by a much more malicious type of super-fast spreading worms (we are talking a few minutes) like Sasser and NetSky that started to cause multi-million dollar losses. These were still more or less created to get notoriety, and teenagers showing off their “elite skills”.

Generation THREE

Here the motive moved from recognition to remuneration. These guys were in it for easy money. This is where botnets came in, thousands of infected PCs owned and controlled by the cybercriminal that used the botnet to send spam, attack websites, identity theft and other nefarious activities. The malware used was more advanced than the code of the ‘pioneers’ but was still easy to find and easy to disinfect.

Generation FOUR

Here is where cybercrime goes professional. The malware starts to hide itself, and they get better organized. They are mostly in eastern European countries, and use more mature coders which results in much higher quality malware, which is reflected by the first rootkit flavors showing up. They are going for larger targets where more money can be stolen. This is also the time where traditional mafias muscle into the game, and rackets like extortion of online bookmakers starts to show its ugly face.

Generation FIVE

The main event that created the fifth and current generation is that an active underground economy has formed, where stolen goods and illegal services are bought and sold in a ‘professional’ manner, if there is such a thing as honor among thieves. Cybercrime now specializes in different markets (you can call them criminal segments), that taken all together form the full criminal supply-chain. Note that because of this, cybercrime develops at a much faster rate. All the tools are for sale now, and relatively inexperienced criminals can get to work quickly. Some examples of this specialization are:

• Cybercrime has their own social networks with escrow services
• Malware can now be licensed and gets tech support
• You can now rent botnets by the hour, for your own crime spree
• Pay-for-play malware infection services that quickly create botnets
• A lively market for zero-day exploits (unknown vulnerabilities)

The problem with this is that it both increases the malware quality, speeds up the criminal ‘supply chain’ and at the same time spreads the risk among these thieves, meaning it gets harder to catch the culprits. We are in this for the long haul, and we need to step up our game, just like the miscreants have done the last 10 years!

Top 5 Tools Every Security Professional Must Learn

5 basic tools for security professionals

As the role of the information security professional continues to evolve within organizations towards that of an executive level position, we see a growing emphasis on traditional business administration skills over the more technical skills that previously defined the top security leadership job.

Nonetheless, Information Security Professionals need to keep abreast of the latest down-in-the-weeds tools and technologies that can benefit their organization’s security posture, as well as those tools that are widely available which could be misused by malicious actors to identify and exploit network security weaknesses.

ToolsWatch is a free interactive service designed to help auditors, penetration testers, and other security professionals keep their ethical hacking toolbox up to date with the latest and greatest resources.

ARMITAGE

Metasploit has become over the years the best framework to conduct penetration testing on network systems and IT infrastructure. Nevertheless, Armitage an open source effort to bring user-friendly interface to Metasploit.

Armitage demonstrations are very convincing and allow you to analyze weak and vulnerable machines in a network in just a few clicks. This tool has brilliantly hidden the complexity of Metasploit (for a non-technical audience) in favor of usability, and is a great way to demonstrate the security in depth of an IT architecture.

HASHCAT

There is constantly a battle between security folks and users when it comes to passwords. Although it is simple to deploy a Password Policy in a company, it’s also very difficult to justify it.

Because in a perfect world from users perspective, the best password would be the name of the family cat with no expiration date, and this fact applies  to any system that requires authentication.

HashCat has shown that the selection of a strong  password must be done carefully, and this tool allows us to demonstrate the ease with which a password can be recovered.

WIFITE

You know what you have connected to when using your hardwired network, but have you ever wondered if the air is playing tricks on you? To test your WiFi security, Wifite has the simplest way.

Wifite allows the discovery of all devices that have an active wireless capability enabled by default (like some printers for example). Wifite is a very simple and convincing way to validate the security of wireless networks.

WIRESHARK

Known for many years as Ethereal, WireShark is probably the best tool when it comes to sniffing for and collecting data over a network.

On the one hand, WireShark has boosted its capabilities with the support of several types of networks (Ethernet, 802.11, etc.) and also in the simplicity of its use through a very friendly user interface.

WireShark allows to demonstrate that outdated protocols such as Telnet / FTP should be banned from a corporate network, and that sensitive information should be encrypted to avoid being captured by a malicious user

SOCIAL ENGINEERING TOOLKIT (SET)

SET is a framework that helps the in creation of sophisticated technical attacks which operated using the credulity of the human. It can be used in the process of preparing a phishing attack mimicking a known website or trapping PDF files with the appropriate payload. The simplicity of use via an intuitive menu makes it an even more attractive tool.

It is the dream of every CISO to drive security awareness campaigns without ruining the security budget. With SET, the team in charge of security audits can design attacks scenarios and distribute them internally to the targeted users.

Visualizing The World's Biggest Data Breaches

In corporate servers we trust? A beautiful interactive timeline puts the growing vulnerabilities to our personal online security in stark relief

The experience is becoming so common it’s scary. You're sitting there minding your own business, when up pops an email (or worse, a letter via snail mail) from some company you may or may not be familiar with telling you that your data has been compromised by a security breach. Change your password, post haste--if you’re lucky that a password is the worst of what was compromised.

More than 50% of CEOs surveyed by the Ponemon Institute, a cybersecurity think tank, say that their company experiences cyber attacks daily or even hourly.

These attacks are becoming more and more sophisticated, and increasingly, they are successful--to date this year, there have 343 data breaches reported in the U.S., which already exceeds the number in all of 2006, according to the Wall Street Journal. A new visualization of the world’s biggest data breaches on a timeline since 2004 puts the rise of cyberattacks in stark relief.

You can explore the graphic more here. And to protect yourself against certain kinds of data breaches, it's always good to follow good hygiene for passwords and PINs to your online accounts, like making sure you use different passwords for all sites. You can see a few additional tips on how to secure your passwords here.

Forecast on Top Trends in Data Breach, Privacy and Security

12 trends in privacy and security

First identified as an industry issue a decade ago, data breaches are now part of the consumer vocabulary. Data breaches have evolved from credit card fraud with financial consequences to medical identity theft with life-threatening implications.

According to leading experts, the frequency, severity, and impact of data breaches are expected to escalate. Industry experts :

1. Global criminals: Criminals are now globally connected and increasingly part of organized crime rings.

2. Advanced persistent threat (APT): APT is the biggest threat to organizations, whereby hackers gain access to a network and remain there undetected for a long period of time.

3. Malicious attackers: Hacktivists and national states have an advantage over today’s defenders of corporate data and IT infrastructure.

4. Breaches affect everyone and everything: Breaches affect large and small businesses of all kinds, regardless of sophistication, and high- and low-tech information.

5. Information can be infinitely distributed, causing limitless damage: The electronic health information privacy breach epidemic is an unanticipated “game changer” in that health information can be stolen from anywhere in the world, distributed to an infinite number of locations for an infinite period of time and can cause limitless damage.

6. Increased enforcement risk: Regulators at both the federal and state levels in many foreign countries have become, and will continue to be, increasingly aggressive in investigating security breaches and obtaining substantial monetary settlements or penalties from responsible organizations.

7. Identity theft will not go away, until the issue of identity is solved: "Identity-proofing" consumers involves verifying and authenticating with numerous technologies, and the flexibility of consumers to recognize a slight trade-off of privacy for security.

8. Real-time prevention: The rate of exposure for personally identifiable information is now so great, we must concede that the data itself is no longer able to be protected. Our defensive strategy must now shift to real-time prevention of the abuse of this sensitive information by criminal elements.

9. More digital devices and technologies, to digitize personal data: Drones, utility smart meters, automated license plate readers, and more powerful facial recognition software - all used to collect and digitize consumers' sensitive personal data - will provide more opportunities for government to resell consumer data, forcing consumers to demand better privacy protections and read/approve/decline company privacy statements.

10. Many data breaches are avoidable if commonsense security practices are in place: In recent cases where companies experienced data breaches, the companies' security practices did not protect against even readily foreseeable threats. Companies need to use “reasonable and appropriate security measures” for handling consumers’ personal information.

11. Long-term monitoring: Data obtained by hacking, theft or unauthorized access, isn't always used immediately by the perpetrators. Organizations need to develop a tactical plan for incident response that includes persistent, long-term diligence and monitoring, due to the possibility of lag time that can occur between the time of the breach and the fraudulent use of consumer information.

12. Continued business naiveté: Corporations continue their delusional belief that data security and cyber privacy are a byproduct of purchasing better technology. It helps, but it's the human beings using the technology correctly (or not, in the case of most breaches) that actually delivers results. Forward-thinking companies will focus assets on training the stewards of their valuable data.

Do You Need an Anti-Virus for MAC?

It's unlikely you'll ever run into malware for the Mac

But you may still want to consider an antivirus tool anyway—if not to protect yourself, but to protect your Windows-using friends from any malware you may inadvertently send their way.

If you agree, Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac maybe the best choice, and it's free.

Many of you may choose to use nothing, but you need to consider that malware is starting to become a bit more prevalent on the Mac, and even the safest browsing habits don't protect you completely. 

Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac

Platform: OS X (10.4+) 
Price: Free
Download: Click here

Features

• Compact, easy-to-use interface that can be used for custom on-demand scans of files, folders, and drives, or scheduled, periodic full scans of your Mac.
  
• Also scans files on your Mac for known Windows malware, trojans, and viruses, and deletes or quarantines them so you don't risk spreading them to someone else via network share, USB drive, or email.
  
• Deletes or quarantines known threats, gives you the option to quarantine anything suspicious that may be a new threat or dangerous file.
  
• Runs quietly in the background, scanning emails, downloads, and any other files on access, stopping you from opening them before they can do any harm.
  
• Light on system resources while running in the background.
  
• Installs like any other Mac application, and uninstalls just as easily—no complicated packages or components to manage or configure.
  
• Sophos' "Live Antivirus" feature updates your app the moment new threats are detected or found in the wild. The feature also performs real-time lookups to see if files accessed are in the SophosLabs database, even if they're unfamiliar to the app.
  
• Supports OS X up to 10.8 and back to 10.4, and is completely free for all versions.

Cyber Infrastructure Protection Guidelines by Strategic Studies Institute

It provides the foundation for long-term policy development and a roadmap for cyber security

Increased reliance on the Internet and other networked systems raise the risks of cyber attacks that could harm our nation’s cyber infrastructure.

The cyber infrastructure encompasses a number of sectors including: the nation’s mass transit and other transportation systems; banking and financial systems; factories; energy systems and the electric power grid; and telecommunications, which increasingly rely on a complex array of computer networks, including the public Internet.

However, many of these systems and networks were not built and designed with security in mind. Therefore, our cyber infrastructure contains many holes, risks, and vulnerabilities that may enable an attacker to cause damage or disrupt cyber infrastructure operations.

Threats to cyber infrastructure safety and security come from hackers, terrorists, criminal groups, and sophisticated organized crime groups; even nation-states and foreign intelligence services conduct cyber warfare.

Cyber attackers can introduce new viruses, worms, and bots capable of defeating many of our efforts. Costs to the economy from these threats are huge and increasing. Government, business, and academia must therefore work together to understand the threat and develop various modes of fighting cyber attacks, and to establish and enhance a framework to assess the vulnerability of our cyber infrastructure and provide strategic policy directions for the protection of such an infrastructure.

This book addresses such questions as:

• How serious is the cyber threat?
• What technical and policy-based approaches are best suited to securing telecommunications networks and information systems infrastructure security?
• What role will government and the private sector play in homeland defense against cyber attacks on critical civilian infrastructure, financial, and logistical systems?
• What legal impediments exist concerning efforts to defend the nation against cyber attacks, especially in preventive, preemptive, and retaliatory actions?

Refer here to download the book.

Detecting Cyber Intrusion in SCADA System

How to recognize intrusion?

One of the axioms of cyber security is that although it is extremely important to try to prevent intrusions into one’s systems and databases, it is essential that intrusions be detected if they do occur.

An intruder who gains control of a substation computer can modify the computer code or insert a new program. The new software can be programmed to quietly gather data (possibly including the log-on passwords of legitimate users) and send the data to the intruder at a later time.

It can be programmed to operate power system devices at some future time or upon the recognition of a future event. It can set up a mechanism (sometimes called a ‘‘backdoor’’) that will allow the intruder to easily gain access at a future time.

For example, if the goal of the intrusion was to gain unauthorized access to utility data, the fact that another party is reading confidential data may never be noticed. Even when the intrusion does result in damage (e.g., intentionally opening a circuit breaker on a critical circuit), it may not be at all obvious that the false operation was due to a security breach rather than some other failure (e.g., a voltage transient, a relay failure, or a software bug).

For these reasons, it is important to strive to detect intrusions when they occur. To this end, a number of IT security system manufacturers have developed intrusion detection systems (IDS).

These systems are designed to recognize intrusions based on a variety of factors, including primarily:

• Communications attempted from unauthorized or unusual addresses and
• An unusual pattern of activity.

They generate logs of suspicious events. The owners of the systems then have to inspect the logs manually and determine which represent true intrusions and which are false alarms.

To make the situation more difficult, hackers have learned to disguise their network probes so they do not arouse suspicion. In addition, it should be recognized that there is as much a danger of having too many events flagged as suspicious as having too few.

Users will soon learn to ignore the output of an IDS that announces too many spurious events. There are outside organizations however that offer the service of studying the output of IDSs and reporting the results to the owner. They will also help the system owner to tune the parameters of the IDS and to incorporate stronger protective features in the network to be safeguarded.

Making matters more difficult, most IDSs have been developed for corporate networks with publicly accessible internet services. More research is necessary to investigate what would constitute unusual activity in a SCADA=SA environment.

In general, SA and other control systems do not have logging functions to identify who is attempting to obtain access to these systems. Efforts are underway in the commercial arena and with the National Laboratories to develop intrusion detection capabilities for control systems.

Summary

In summary, the art of detecting intrusions into substation control and diagnostic systems is still in its infancy.

Until dependable automatic tools are developed, system owners will have to place their major efforts in two areas:

• Preventing intrusions from occurring, and
• Recovering from them when they occur.

Australian Government is getting serious about Information Security?

DSD's top 4 infosec strategies now mandatory for Australia government

The Australian Defence Signals Directorate has made its top four information security mitigation strategies mandatory for all Australian government agencies. Its top 35 strategies were updated in October last year, seeing very little change among the top four that it had marked as "essential".

These four strategies are employing application whitelisting, patching applications, patching operating system vulnerabilities, and minimising the number of users that have administrative rights. At the time of the last update to the strategies list, it states that 85 percent of all intrusions it dealt with in 2011 could have been mitigated had the top four strategies been followed.

The choice to make the top four mandatory stems from an update to the Australian government's Protective Security Policy Framework (PSPF). The PSPF has three core mandatory tenets covering the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data. To achieve these requirements, it has set out seven "Infosec" requirements. 

In particular, Infosec 4 requires that all agencies document and implement procedures and measures to protect their systems and networks, and specifically notes that it "includes implementing the mandatory 'Strategies to Mitigate Targeted Cyber Intrusions' as detailed in the Australian government Information Security Manual [ISM]".

This means that the ISM will also need to be updated to reflect the changes to the PSPF. DSD expects to make these changes this month. As a mandatory measure, there will also be changes to government agencies' compliance and reporting procedures.

From August 1, agencies must provide annual PSPF compliance reports, including its status in implementing Infosec 4, to the relevant minister.

Think someone may be reading your emails?

Encrypt them, and they can't

Are you sending confidential information in your email, text and instant messages? If so, you could be exposing it to a lot of peeping eyes...and they may decide to do bad things with it!

Here are some ways to encrypt your digital messages:

• In Outlook, within your message, go to File, Properties, Security Settings, and click the box for "Encrypt message contents and attachments."
  
• If you use some type of webmail, most good ones offer SSL as a security option; use it. It encrypts the messages *while they are traveling through the Internet.*
  
  However, it is not the same as encrypting the message itself. Your messages are still in clear text within the mail box storage, and when forwarded elsewhere not using an SSL-encrypted transmission method.
  
• For webmail, consider getting an add-on tool, such as Armacrypt.
  
• Another email option is Hushmail.
  
• Consider using an up-to-date version of PGP.
  
• Here's a pretty good discussion of encrypting text messages on Android devices.
  
• Here are some smartphone encryption apps to consider.

Useful TIP! Don't send any sensitive or confidential information using social network messaging systems, such as Facebook mail. While you can have the *connection* (meaning while it is traveling from you to your recipient) encrypted using SSL, it does not encrypt the message itself, leaving it in clear text within the many Facebook repositories.

Free eBook: 9 Steps to Cybersecurity

Explanation of Cybersecurity and How to Properly Integrate it into Your Organization

9 Steps to Cybersecurity from expert Dejan Kosutic is a free eBook designed specifically to take you through all cybersecurity basics in an easy-to-understand and easy-to-digest format.

You will learn how to plan cybersecurity implementation from top-level management perspective. Additionally, Kosutic covers all of your options and how to choose the ones that ultimately will work best.

President Obama issued “Executive Order - Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity" on February 12, 2013. 9 Steps to Cybersecurity will inform you of what you need to know at this timely and critical juncture. The goal of this book is to give you the essential information you need to make decisions that are crucial for the future of your organization. Simply fill out the short form on the right-hand side of the screen to download 9 Steps to Cybersecurity today.

Why is this Book Essential for You?

• Learn how to use risk management to make your cybersecurity a profitable investment
• Find out how cybersecurity can give your company an invaluable marketing edge
• Learn how to comply with various information security laws and regulations, including U.S. Executive Order - Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity Discover the invaluable tips for persuading upper management to act immediately
• Uncover the key elements of the CIA triad (Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability) and why it is vital to your company
• Learn everything you need to know in order to develop a cybersecurity plan and monitor the implementation by setting measurable targets

Who Should Read this Timely, Free eBook on Cybersecurity?

Anyone interested in the cutting edge of cybersecurity and what is necessary to secure information should download 9 Steps to Cybersecurity, which can be read in less than 2 hours. This free eBook will be of tremendous interest to any executives wishing to be well versed in the latest cyber safety information. CEOs, CFOs, Chief Information Security Officers and other managers will find this detailed and informative examination of the current state of cybersecurity to be a must-read book. Additionally, 9 Steps to Cybersecurity is written in completely non-technical language - Kosutic's goal was for the book to be easily accessible to all executives, regardless of whether they have technical knowledge.

Once you’ve read Dejan Kosutic's book, you will have a clear concept of cybersecurity, and the direction that your company should take. You will be able to properly implement cybersecurity and comply with the regulations and relevant deadlines. 9 Steps to Cybersecurity was specifically written to provide much-needed clarity and help you chart the most direct and most effective path for your company, period.

Download this free book today and go well beyond the jargon and the confusion.

Beware of "Facebook Black"

"Facebook Black" malware spreading fast on Facebook

A new virus is hitting Facebook users with an Fake Facebook Black template which would allow the users to use an black template instead of the known white template.

The malware is spreading crazy on Facebook as it asks the users to click on a link that will install an application. This Black Facebook scam uses the trust of the Facebook users and then forwards the malware to their network and friends.

So please be warned do not click on the Facebook black template.

Revoke access

This malware uses an Facebook API to gain information. If you wish to revoke the access of the Facebook Black template virus then you have to do the following:

• Navigate to the following url: http://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=applications
• Search for the Facebook Black malware and delete it.

How Facebook Got Hacked?

Zero-Day Exploit Bypassed Java Protections to Install Malware

Even the most savvy information technologists aren't immune from cyber-attacks. Just ask Facebook. The social-media titan says it fell victim to a sophisticated attack discovered in January in which an exploit allowed malware to be installed on employees' laptops.

In a blog posted by Facebook Security on Feb. 15, the company said it found no evidence that Facebook user data was compromised.

Here's what happened at Facebook, according to its blog:

Several Facebook employees visited a mobile developer website that was compromised.

The compromised website hosted an exploit that then allowed malware to be installed on these employees' laptops. "The laptops were fully-patched and running up-to-date anti-virus software," the blog says.

"As soon as we discovered the presence of the malware, we remediated all infected machines, informed law enforcement and began a significant investigation that continues to this day." Facebook Security flagged a suspicious domain in its corporate DNS (Domain Name Servers) logs and tracked it back to an employee laptop.

The security team conducted a forensic examination of that laptop and identified a malicious file, and then searched company-wide and flagged several other compromised employee laptops.

The social-media company says it is working with law enforcement and the other organizations affected by this attack. "It is in everyone's interests for our industry to work together to prevent attacks such as these in the future," Facebook says.

The Facebook attack is reminiscent of the 2011 breach at security provider RSA, when a well-crafted e-mail tricked an RSA employee to retrieve from a junk-mail folder and open a message containing a virus that led to a sophisticated attack on the company's information systems

Need To Invest Time In Facebook Privacy

An Embarrassment is Coming

If they don't invest the time in reviewing the information that's been published about them, Facebook users are in for a potentially embarrassing surprise. That's because Facebook is working toward making more of its content searchable with its Graphs Search feature. 

What will be searchable? All the information (personal, professional, pictorial) you post, and that other Facebook users post about you. Additionally, your likes, and in many cases simply the websites you've visited that have hooks back into Facebook, will be searchable.

This article explains it well, and in it, writer Meghan Kelly gives one of the best analogies for Facebook I have read:

Facebook is like a safe containing a ton of your personal information - which you've purposefully and willfully cracked with an axe.

Beyond searching for what's already out there about you, commit to practicing good social etiquette. Don't "check in" your friends for them (without their knowledge!), post pictures of them they may not appreciate or tag them to one of your posts without their permission. Even the tamest of details may cause trouble for them, not to mention, trouble for your relationship. 

How To Control "Tagging" on Facebook?

Tame the "Tagging"

Being "tagged" on Facebook means another user has added content and publically associated you with that content. A friend may post a picture of you at the beach. By tagging you, that photo will show up on your profile (if your settings allow).

There is a setting in Facebook that allows users to approve any tags before they are posted to their timeline. This blog post on Business2Community does a great job of showing readers exactly how to set Facebook to alert them to requests for tags.

This isn't just a good way to easily give friends permission to tag you; it's an excellent way to keep track of the content in which you've been tagged. Who needs to have someone else associate them with things to which they have no legitimate connection?

The post goes on to explain the difference between Facebook Profiles (now known as "Timelines") and Facebook Pages. There are some unique features about Pages that make these tags post differently, so if you manage a Product, Brand or Person Facebook Page, this will be an especially good article for you. 

For more emerging tagging concerns, see: 

• Tags becoming easier to find
• Disabling tag suggestions
• Difficulty in removing damaging content