Date: 3/28/2022
Google has released a report identifying two North Korean government hacking campaigns that exploited a Google Chrome 0-day.
To date, this campaign targeted over 250 individuals working for 10 different news media, domain registrars, web hosting providers and software vendors. The targets received emails claiming to come from recruiters at Disney, Google and Oracle with fake potential job opportunities. The emails contained links spoofing legitimate job hunting websites like Indeed and ZipRecruiter.
Anyone who clicked on the links sent in the email would be served a hidden iframe that would trigger the exploit kit.
The fake domains included disneycareers[.]net, find-dreamjob[.]com, indeedus[.]org, varietyjob[.]com, ziprecruiters[.]org. The exploitation URLs were https[:]//colasprint[.]com/about/about.asp and https[:]//varietyjob[.]com/sitemap/sitemap.asp.
Depending on whether an unknown set of requirements were met, the victim served a Chrome remote code execution exploit and some additional javascript.
Apply Google Stable Channel Update, February 14, 2022, found here: https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2022/02/stable-channel-update-for-desktop_14.html
Okta says 366 corporate customers, or about 2.5% of its customer base, were impacted by a security breach that allowed hackers to access the company’s internal network.
The authentication giant admitted the compromise after the Lapsus$ hacking and extortion group posted screenshots of Okta’s apps and systems on Monday, some two months after the hackers first gained access to its network.
The breach was initially blamed on an unnamed subprocessor that provides customer support services to Okta. In an updated statement on Wednesday, Okta’s chief security officer David Bradbury confirmed the subprocessor is a company called Sykes, which last year was acquired by Miami-based contact center giant Sitel.
Initially, the company believed screenshots connected with the breach claim are related to a January security incident where Okta “detected an attempt to compromise the account of a third-party customer support engineer working for one of our sub-processors,” the company said in a statement. A sub-processor investigated and contained the January incident.
Lapsus$ has also claimed responsibility for alleged breaches at Nvidia in February and Microsoft on Monday. The group claimed to have accessed source code for Bing, Bing Maps and Cortana, according to screenshots from the group’s official Telegram channel posted on Twitter by research group vx-underground, which shares malware source code and samples
The company was one of many caught by the Log4j vulnerability, which impacted customer agent products, the company said in a December statement. Okta deployed mitigations and patches for components of its identity service that used Log4j shortly after initial disclosure and continued to track subsequently disclosed vulnerabilities associated with the Java-based logging utility.
Companies exposed could have incurred a data leak, potential credential theft and ransomware.
Details include:
Sources
https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/23/okta-breach-sykes-sitel/
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/okta-we-made-a-mistake-delaying-the-lapsus-hack-disclosure/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2022/03/a-closer-look-at-the-lapsus-data-extortion-group/
Ransomware specifically targeting VMware ESXi platforms has been converted to the Rust programming language. This change has added both new features and new difficulties for security researches to investigate the technical aspects of the ransomware.
The Hive Ransomware group specifically targets VMware ESXi platforms with Linux-based encryptors. Normally these have been written in the Golang programming language, however this has allowed for extensive reverse engineering and analysis. It seems that the conversion of these encryptors to the Rust programming language has increased the difficulty of analysis and increased the efficiency of the tool(s). Additionally, The Hive has dramatically increased its ability to conceal their payment negotiations by utilizing new scripts that victims must run in order to communicate with the ransomware group.
The Hive is not the first ransomware group to begin converting to Rust and certainly will not be the last. Due to this organizations need to pay close attention to their Linux servers to detect signs of attacks. Although ransomware attacks follow well-known patterns, detecting (and preventing) attacks early in the attack chain is critical.
What is the current or potential problem?
Last week’s announcement by President Biden on “our Nation’s Cybersecurity” that “the Russian Government is exploring options for potential cyberattacks” has gotten a great deal of media attention and has led to speculation about what attacks might be looming.
How do you know if you are vulnerable?
Determining if your organization is vulnerable is best done through a systematic, organized, and regular vulnerability assessments that evaluate all information assets.
What is likelihood/impact?
Regardless of the origin of cyber-attacks, all organizations should consider the likelihood of cyber-attack to be high. Impact can range from small monetary losses to complete inability to continue business operations.
Perform vulnerability assessments, and develop a security plan with “SMART” goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Commit to an incident response retainer with a reputable cybersecurity company, such as GreyCastle Security. If attacks occur in a large wave, cybersecurity companies may need to adopt a “retainer-only” plan until the wave of attacks recedes.
A zero-day vulnerability was discovered in Google Chrome that is actively being exploited in the wild. This vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2022-1096.
A previous zero-day vulnerability in Chrome (CVE-2022-0609) was observed to be exploited by nation state actors and a similar situation is likely with CVE-2022-1096. Technical details of exploits are not yet released by Google but successful exploitation will likely result in remote code execution.
Ensure Chrome is updated to version 99.0.4844.84 or higher.
Sources
https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2022/03/stable-channel-update-for-desktop_25.html
https://thehackernews.com/2022/03/google-issues-urgent-chrome-update-to.html
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) stated that Kaspersky, the Russian antivirus provider, is now blacklisted as it is an “unacceptable risk to national security.” The US Department of Homeland Security had previously banned the use of Kaspersky in 2017 and the German government recently warned its nation about using their products.
As suggested by the BSI, Germany’s Federal office for Information Security, Russian authorities can force Kaspersky to carry out cyberattacks against their clients and utilize them for cyberespionage. As a result, US companies are prohibited from purchasing Kaspersky’s products.
The Secure and Trusted Networks Act can exclude the use of equipment or from the Nation’s networks if it poses a threat to national security. To comply with this and the statement from the FCC, it is recommended that other antivirus providers are utilized to better ensure the safety of your network.
Sources
Kaspersky blacklisted by FCC alongside China Telecom and China Mobile | ZDNet
US says Kaspersky poses unacceptable risk to national security (bleepingcomputer.com)
For strategic clients, your vCISO will add this to your next Office Hours for further discussion. However, if you have an immediate need, concern, or question, please reach out to them directly.
For non-strategic clients, please reach out to your Advisor for further discussion.
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