Monthly Archives: October 2013

For the past 10 years, the DHS has deemed October to be National Cyber Security Awareness Month, and since we have a hunch that people who already work in security are aware that it’s is a big issue, we thought we’d help you focus on the awareness of your users instead. In fact, we’d like to change the name to National User Awareness Month, which also neatly sidesteps that whole “cyber” thing.

Why address users though? Well increasingly your users are the ones that represent the greatest threat to your environment, and I don’t mean in the sneaky covert operator way. I mean in the clicking on links, sharing information, losing laptops, downloading shady apps, and using cloud services without telling you kinds of ways. Essentially every user is now a point on your perimeter, and every user is a potential target. And typically they don’t know or understand the risks, or they just forget when faced with an ever-so-tempting email of Miley Cyrus twerking for all she’s worth.

So this month, we’re going to publish a blog every week on a security topic that is relevant to your users.  Each one will lay out the issue and then provide some basic guidance on how your users can protect themselves. If we do it right, you’ll get something you can literally copy and paste into an email and send around your company, promoting National Cyber Security Awareness Month to those that need the lessons most.

First up is probably the most obvious one, phishing. Hat tip to Chris Nickerson of Lares Consulting, who astutely and entertainingly pointed out in his recent Derbycon talk that of course people are going to click on links; it’s the most fun you can have on the internet. Even so, reminding users again and again of the risks might help them become more judicious about which links they click. And if you want to test whether your efforts are paying off, you can use the phishing campaign capabilities in Metasploit to see which of your users is still clicking on dubious links.

So here’s the email for your users:

What is Phishing?

Phishing is basically someone using email to try to get you to do something or tell them something that enables them to compromise you in some way. As the name suggests, this typically works by dangling some kind of bait in front of you.  One of the most famous examples of phishing is the Nigerian 419 scams, which lured people into giving their bank information with the promise of huge riches.

Other kinds of phishing emails try to convince you to open an attachment or click on a link. These can lead to your computer (or whatever device you read the email on) becoming infected with something nasty. Or it could lead you to unknowingly giving a criminal your security credentials for a site. For example, say you receive an email from LinkedIn saying someone wants to connect with you. You click on the link and you get the login page for LinkedIn.  Pop your password in and land on the page you expected to be sent to. Everything looks normal and you have no idea that you just gave your LinkedIn password to a criminal.

Phishing that specifically targets you is called “spear phishing.”  This means the attacker used information they had learned about you – for example from calling the switchboard or looking at your social networking profiles and interactions – and then created an email specifically designed to look highly plausible to you. These emails can be very sophisticated and hard to spot. Why would someone want to target you in this way? Well, perhaps they’re actually targeting the organization you work for and you provide a convenient foot-in-the-door. Or perhaps they’re ultimately after someone in your network. You never know how tempting a target you might represent to an attacker, so it’s important to be vigilant.

How can you protect yourself?

Try to remember that lurking behind every innocent-looking email could be a giant shark waiting to make its move. This is true whether it’s work or personal email, so you must treat every email with a basic level of caution.

Here are some tips to get you started:

• Protect your information
  

  Do not send sensitive information such as bank details, social security number, etc over email. If you really need to, make sure you know who you are sending it to and start a new email rather than replying to a thread. Check the email address carefully.
  

• Check the address
  

  Be mindful of who is emailing you.  Check email addresses for accuracy and look for signs of suspicious activity, for example if an email is not in the format you’d expect or a name appears to be spelt incorrectly.  Email addresses made up of seemingly random combinations of letters and numbers may also be suspicious.
  

• Don’t click on links
  

  Hover over links WITHOUT CLICKING – the destination will show in the bottom left of your screen and you can see whether it looks right. If in doubt, Google the address you need rather than clicking on a link.
  

• Don’t open attachments
  

  Treat any attachment that you didn’t request as highly suspect. Send to IT and security team if you’re not sure whether it’s safe and they will check it out for you.
  

• Check with IT/ Security
  

  If in doubt, email your IT and security team.  They will let you know whether something is safe to open or click on.  It’s better to be safe than sorry.
  

This stuff isn’t complicated, but it is incredibly easy to get caught out by a well-crafted spear phishing campaign.  Given the sheer amount of email we all receive every day, it’s tough to remember to be vigilant. So remember that shark lurking behind you!

Via: rapid7

The act of taking down a quarter of a botnet like Symantec did will not only anger the owners of a very successful illegal business. It will also be more difficult to take this botnet 100 percent down due to new updates being pushed through the infected zombies. A more covert approach would have been more successful, said security expert Tommy Chin.

ZeroAccess, one of the largest-known botnets in existence today with more than 1.9 million computers in the network , is becoming a keen problem for security teams. The botnet relies on peer-to-peer (P2P) and command-and-control (C&C) communications architecture to give it a high degree of availability and redundancy.

Symantec just took it down.

Given its construction and behavior, Symantec reports that ZeroAccess appears to be primarily designed to deliver payloads to infected computers. In a ZeroAccess botnet, the productive activity — from an attacker’s point of view — is performed by the payloads downloaded to compromised computers, which boil down to two basic types, both aimed at revenue generating activities.

“One type of payload we’ve seen is the click fraud Trojan,” Symantec wrote in a blog post. “The Trojan downloads online advertisements onto the computer and then generates artificial clicks on the ads as if they were generated by legitimate users. These false clicks count for pay-outs in pay-per-click (PPC) affiliate schemes.”

Proactive and Realistic

Ken Pickering, director of engineering at CORE Security, said that botnets are fairly common and can be largely financially successful for their owners — and that’s part of the reason criminals continue to innovate around their C&C elements and the malware used to grow them.

“The real interesting part of the botnet is how it distributes tasks to the slave machines it controls. The malware itself is usually fairly straightforward, but it’s the obfuscation techniques used to conceal the control servers and the actions the botnet owners take to avoid being shutdown that’s the real trick,” Pickering said.

“I think Symantec’s attack was proactive and a realistic response to this fairly large cybercrime industry. There’s not a whole lot of other ways to combat these guys. But, realistically, disabling the botnet only puts a temporary financial speed bump for these guys. Unless we actively pursue them, they’ll change their tactics and adapt to scenarios like this,” he added.

Bold and Daring

When Symantec is messing with an unknown group of talented criminals, the company may be asking for retaliation, Tommy Chin, technical support engineer at CORE Security, told us. As he sees it, Symantec may need to think about who they are dealing with first, and study the target to an in-depth level before acting.

“The act of taking down a quarter of a botnet will not only anger the owners of a very successful illegal business. It will also create much more difficulty in regards to taking this botnet 100 percent down due to new updates being pushed through the infected zombies. I believe a more covert approach would have been more successful in probability,” Chin said.

“The decentralized P2P based botnet is already pushing a new update that will make the botnet’s communications much more secure and complex. The owners don’t plan to lose their network. They lost a quarter of their earnings, they are mad, and they plan to come back strong bigger than ever. Regardless, Symantec’s attempts were bold and daring.”

An Extreme Approach

Professional security analysts typically approach any system as though it were already compromised, and then work from there, limiting what that environment is allowed to store, modify, or access, according to Kevin O’Brien, enterprise solution architect, CloudLock.

While this approach may be extreme for home users, he told us one can imagine a world in which end-user devices — most likely tablets or mobile platforms that are always connected and that can be remotely managed, similar to how an iPhone OS upgrade can be deployed from Cupertino with minimal-to-no end-user involvement — are collectively monitored and managed as a service.

“This merely shifts the locus of security to the vendor,” he said. “But in doing so the protection of the end-user’s data and assets is transferred to a team that is presumably more experienced and capable than the users are, and who are able to control for this type of exploit on a massive scale and far more quickly than any group of individual users can.”

Via: enterprise-security-today

With three months to spare before the year ends, our prediction that mobile threats, specifically malware and high-risk apps reaching the 1 million mark has finally come true.

In our 2Q Security Roundup for the year, we noted that more than 700 thousand malicious and risky apps were found in the wild. This impressive number plus the continuous popularity of the platform among users lead us to predict that 2013 would be the year when Android malware reaches 1 million.

According to Trend Micro Mobile App Reputation Service feedback, there are now 1 million mobile malware (such as premium service abusers) and high-risk apps (apps that aggressively serve ads that lead to dubious sites). Among the 1 million questionable apps we found, 75% perform outright malicious routines, while 25% exhibits dubious routines, which include adware.

Premium Service Abusers, Adware Among Top Mobile Threats

Malware families such as FAKEINST (34%) and OPFAKE (30%) were the top mobile malware. FAKEINST malware are typically disguised as legitimate apps. They are also premium service abusers, which sends unauthorized text messages to certain numbers and register users to costly services. One high-profile incident involving FAKEINST is the fake Bad Piggies versions, which we found right after the game’s release.

The OPFAKE malware is similar to FAKEINST, particularly in mimicking legitimate apps. However, a variant (ANDROIDOS_OPFAKE.CTD) showed a different side of the malware, as it was found to open an .HTML file that asks users to download a possibly malicious file. Aside from sending messages to certain numbers and registering users to costly services, premium service abusers pose other risks to users. Our recent infographic shows the other dangers of installing this type of mobile malware.

On the high-risk apps front, ARPUSH and LEADBOLT lead the pack, gathering 33% and 27% of the total number, respectively. Both are known adware and infostealers, collecting device-related data such as OS information, GPS location, IMEI etc.

The threat to mobile devices, however, is not limited rogue versions of popular apps and adware. Threat actors are also pouncing on mobile users’ banking transactions, with the likes of FAKEBANK and FAKETOKEN malware threatening users. Details about these malware can be found in our recent report A Look At Mobile Banking Threats.

To keep your devices safe, it is important to treat your devices like your PC counterparts specially when it comes to security. Be wary of downloading apps and make sure to read the comments section and developer details. Trend Micro protects users from mobile malware and high-risk apps via Trend Micro Mobile Security App. Our Mobile Threat Hub also provides helpful information about mobile threats  and security tips for your smartphones, tablets and other gadgets.

Via: trendmicro