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NSA insights video(7/18/18) gives an overview of what is happening in their Cybersecurity Threat Operations Center.

The presentation explained when the Equifax hack happened due to a strut vulnerability the nation state actors were attacking US government networks looking for this vulnerability within 24 hours of release.

 

Interesting to note Dave Hogue technical director, National Security Agency(NSA) said that there is still a faulty thinking, as 1/3 of respondents  to a survey think that there is a better chance of getting struck by lightning than getting cyberattacked. This thinking is clearly wrong, but the perception is there.

I agree with this assessment - there is clearly a faulty thinking in many places.

Contact us to discuss this in detail.

 

 

 

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So now we are in July 2018 and the 3rd quarter has started in earnest, have you completed  your compliance reports for 1st and 2Q?

PCI compliance is just a bunch of check marks right?

Just say your network is secure, the payment transactions are all encrypted, all the employees know what to do in all situations, etc. etc.

Did you perform Risk Analysis as the PCI compliance documents require at PCI Security standards?

Unfortunately if you ever do get breached and you do not have all the paperwork, the fines will make paying an auditor for years chump change.

Contact us to audit or create Compliance security policies.

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Worried about Cybersecurity?  Or do you want to improve your Cybersecurity program?

With the new Facebook data leak scandal in the spotlight - are you concerned over how your company deals with customer data?

 

Our latest blogpost at Oversitesentry: http://oversitesentry.com/protect-privacy-of-client-data-using-new-ways/ discusses what could happen as the new EU privacy regulations are going to be enforced.

Make no mistake the regulations in America will also change (towards Cyber privacy).  As self-regulation has not worked for the industry.

You may have needed a security policy for PCI(Payment Card Industry) compliance in the past, but you will likely need a way to write down what your policies are, hence the need for a security policy for many regulations today and tomorrow.

Good news on that front  -  At Fixvirus.com we have a spring cleaning special April - through May   we will offer our Alpha scan at half price.

If you are in need to just discuss some Cybersecurity first - contact us and the half off - still stands.  Half off consulting time and material up to 10 hours.

 

There are many projects we are involved in, but we have a strict policy of not discussing our projects with the world. For the right project, we are willing to make monetary concessions so that we can use your project as an example on our marketing efforts.   We would never divulge details just general items such as:

Company ABC has improved security policy - performed Alpha scan due diligence.

 

   

CISA Certified Information Systems Auditor®

 

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Do you need a fresh perspective?

Is your IT staff overworked? Do they get projects completed on time and under budget?

What is the true value of knowing your Cybersecurity risks and threats?

Does your IT staff have the experience to give you a proper report of your Cybersecurity compliance reports?

CISA certified means Certified Information Systems Auditor. Which means you will get a proper report after a thorough review.

We know that 25% of companies do not patch their computers within any reasonable time period, this is a very large amount of companies. We also know that 22% of companies do not backup their files.

So there is a large amount of entities not doing what they should to protect themselves and us as well.

since the problem is if they get infected, now their machines may have your email address in their address list.

And then you wonder, why is this person sending me an email?  Well, their machine was compromised and is now sending spam malware to everyone.

And guess what, the badly configured machines will get attacked again and again.

This is not like lightning - Cybersecurity strikes again and again until you fix the processes for good. although there are no guarantees at least you can make the risk minimal.

Contact Us to discuss how to check your IT staff and make sure you will stay in business even after an attack. Or to get your ship in shape before something happens.

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https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=QNLB185u9Nw

I bet you did know you are playing Cybersecurity Russian Roulette? Do you have a 500Barrel Gun or a 1000barrel gun?

How would you find it? Well we have to find out what kind of software you have…  and the vulnerabilities they have.

Attack timeline vulnerabilities

What can be done? Patch your devices, learn how to perform risk management with all digital devices.

Don’t play Cybersecurity roulette, you can have risk management that can mitigate risks and keep things manageable.

Also posted on my Blog at Oversitesentry

 

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Malware is becoming more sophisticated - and it is difficult if not impossible to catch every virus/malware that is being created constantly.

cantcatchallmalware

If this is a true statement:  "My IT department will not catch all malware that is being created"  even with anti-virus Next gen firewall and more. Now what?

 

We have to try to detect the malware as fast as possible after it affects the computer - and then react to it.

 

But you say - what do you mean - I catch all the viruses and malware...  i have anti-virus and a new firewall that inspects network traffic, I have anti-spam which removes all the known viruses.

Ok let me do this for you:   100% of all KNOWN viruses and malware are caught by your awesome people and technologies.  Known only.

Are you familiar with new attacks that can exploit software before it has been patched? Otherwise known as Zero-day or 0-day.

I have discussed this before at my blog Oversitesentry¹ Zero-days are very dangerous as there is no defense against them. So at this point I want to show you our difficulty in defense of the network and computers:

 

nevermindthedetails  from youtube Video of Pablo Breuer CircleCityCon²

For example: At any 1 point in time there are 0.001% of people that can write one 0-day exploit per year (this is a reasonable timeframe) 1 out of a 100,000.

We know China is very interested in Cyber warfare and stealing secrets - making money etc. So in China there are 1.357 Billion people in China(2013) as per Google.

So therefore there will be 13,570 0-days written in a year. So let's say 85% of these 0-days are caught by our defenses because the attack looks similar to a current known virus (which we detect) or otherwise effect.

So 85% of 13,570 = 11,535  of which consists of detected zero-days.

So unfortunately 2,036 0-day attacks will not be identified.

 

And now you know why the Attacker has the advantage  - it is hard to keep up with 2000+ new attacks per year - almost 6 per day.

I have said this before(attacker advantage)³

morepredatorsthanprey

Offense only has to be right once to penetrate successfully. Whereas the defender has to work 365 days of the year.

We have our work cut out for us - as every IT function must work just right, this is too important and thus must get audited by a separate entity like us.

Contact Me Tony Zafiropoulos 314-504-3974  to get the conversation started.  To increase your focus on the things that matter - detect and react.

  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVkTI-3BMY8
  2. http://oversitesentry.com/newsflash-software-has-bugs-0day-vulnerabilities/
  3. http://oversitesentry.com/reviewing-all-of-the-changes-in-2015/

 

 

 

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Why? Once the criminal has hacked your computers they can sell the "access" to your devices.

How can I say that?

Kaspersky¹ and others have found a "market" of hacked machines at xDedic.

This means that for $6 a criminal can buy access to some servers in various parts of the world. So with a cheap purchase such as that what could you do with it?

With this purchase one could install Ransomware which may result in $300 - $500  return.

So this could be a 50x or 83x return.   Spend $6 and install your Ransomware software to get $300 to $500. Nice 5000% or 8300% return

$7Bilpotentialhack$  Remember this image from our post on Jan 6? (2)

 

So the criminal does not have to learn how to hack machines, just has to know existence of these criminal marketplaces where for a small fee one can obtain access to servers.

So if your machine received Ransomware and you did not know how it got there - maybe it was installed by a hacker at an odd time and your IT people never saw anything.

 

This is why it is imperative to follow the advice of Kaspersky and others (like us 🙂

Kaspersky Lab advises organizations to:

• Install a robust security solution as part of a comprehensive, multi-layered approach to IT infrastructure security
• Enforce the use of strong passwords as part of the server authentication process
• Implement a continuous process of patch management
• Undertake a regular security audit of the IT infrastructure
• Consider investing in threat intelligence services which will keep the organization informed of emerging threats and offer an insight into the criminal perspective to help them assess their level of risk.

Notice number 4: "Undertake regular security audit of the IT infrastructure"

It is a good idea to perform security audits since your IT department does a good job, but just has to tighten a few items. Or maybe needs a little help here and there. It is human nature unfortunately not to ask for help when needed. So contact an auditor (like us)

Of course we have discussed all of these points on this site and on our Blog Website Oversitesentry.com

Tony Zafiropoulos 314-504-3974  tonyz"@"fixvirus.com

We can perform vulnerability scanning with our Alpha and Sigma Scan service products or more sophisticated pentests with our partners in the Omega Scan service product.

At minimum an Alpha scan will find basic problems and is relatively inexpensive (compared to losing your data).

Also Contact us on our form page

 

 

 

 

  1. http://www.kaspersky.com/about/news/virus/2016/Who-Else-is-Using-your-Servers
  2. https://fixvirus.com/how-to-deal-with-constant-new-ransomware-threats/

 

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What does it mean to be PCI compliant? Are You Secure if you passed compliance standards?

If you update your software as you are supposed to be PCI compliant what happens if the update breaks your environment or is actually not secure?

Do you need an example? How about from our blogpost¹:

donttrustandverifyallplugins

In our blogpost we mention a plugin that was hijacked by a criminal then he installed his own malicious code in the plugin.

Now he said "Upgrade your plugin" to WordPress which caused WordPress program organization through it's upgrade mechanism tells all the users of the plugin to upgrade.

If the unsuspecting users upgrade then they are automatically hacked - Upgrading is normally good, but there has to be a reason for an upgrade and it has to be tested.  But for "PCI compliance" you have to upgrade and keep your systems patched for example requirement 6.2 in the latest v3.2 PCI standard²:

pci6.2-3

Requirement 6.2 Ensure that all system components and software are protected from known vulnerabilities by installing applicable vendor supplied security patches. Install critical security patches within one month of release.

So the Requirement has no mention of fake upgrades only to upgrade your software that is necessary for the systems that need it.

This is why one has to test the upgrade first, make sure it is what it claims to be before placing it in production.

 

Another problem can be if you are compliant for all "Known" vulnerabilities that means unknown vulnerabilities can hack you even if you are compliant³.

As in the post from Dec 10, 2015 new exploits are found which cause you to get hacked and then you still lose a lot of money even though you have the latest patches. Even in the latest firewalls (like in the post mentioned) certain NGFW Next Generation FireWalls can get hacked with a specific method.

nextgenfirewallflawdiagram

 

fixvirussystemengineering

 

So to answer the question above (are you secure if PCI compliant) not necessarily. In the end PCI compliance is a specific standard for the credit card numbers.  You can be compliant for the credit card numbers  or Primary Account Numbers(PAN). And still fail to provide security on other systems. Or you can claim to pass the PCI compliance online while not actually performing all the functions.

Testing your network for security vulnerabilities should be done by a separate pair of eyes.

  1. http://oversitesentry.com/new-pci-compliance-v3-2-now-published/
  2. https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/documents/PCI_DSS_v3-2.pdf
  3. http://oversitesentry.com/nextgen-firewall-flaw-uncovered/

Contact me at 314-504-3974 Tony Zafiropoulos to discuss

 

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If you want to use the Internet then you must know now you are within arms length of all people with a computer in this world, which is more than 3Billion people.

internetusersimage from website¹

Can you imagine being within a block of 3 Billion people (good and bad).

You must understand that whenever you use the Internet you are connected to 3 Billion people which means what?

It means that if 2% of the people are criminals in the seediest parts of the world then you are connected to 60 million criminals and some of these are _very_ sophisticated criminals. So everyone that connects to the Internet must have a sophisticated operation or it is a matter of time before disaster approaches.

 

As I have explained on my blog oversitesentry.com² - it is as if you are loading a X barrel gun (the X is dependent on how serious you are in your defense).

1000gunbarrelsis it a 500 barrel gun? or 1000barrels?

If you are loading a 500 barrel gun then every time you connect you are playing Cybersecurity roulette. Boom - missed today. whew...

But tomorrow is another day - will you have a vulnerability? Or go on a bad(infected) website?

The more computers you have the more risk you have.  the more you use the Internet the more risk you bear.

What have the criminals done? They are putting resources into areas which make them more money:

ransomware3500percent

Above image from DarkReading.com³

So this is a problem - we need the Internet in 2016 and beyond, but we are also connecting to many bad elements.  A business needs to be sophisticated as well. You need a high degree of defense to keep up with the attackers, there is no way around it.

riskmanagmentmatrix

It has to do with risk analysis, next gen firewall, patching your systems on a timely basis, anti-virus, vulnerability analysis, testing your systems and more.

Contact Us to discuss all these details.

 

  1. http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/
  2. http://oversitesentry.com/do-you-have-a-500barrel-riskgun-or-a-1000barrel-riskgun/
  3. http://www.darkreading.com/cloud/ransomware-domains-up-by-3500--in-q1-/d/d-id/1325748?_mc=RSS_DR_EDT