The introduction of reliable, speedy broadband networks allowed malware to spread via email, popular websites or directly over the internet. Malware is an umbrella term for malicious software such as viruses, worms and Trojans. The LoveLetter appeared on May 4, 2000. Unlike the macro viruses that dominated the threat landscape since 1995, it came as a VBS file. The subject line was "I Love You," and the email contained an attachment, "LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU-TXT.vbs." Onel de Guzman designed his worm to overwrite existing files and replace them with copies of itself.

The LoveLetter Virus

When it comes to cybersecurity, many users don't know about the basic nature of viruses. In a series of lectures in the 1940s, mathematician John von Neumann speculated if it would be possible for a "mechanical" organism such as a computer code to damage machines, copy itself and infect new hosts, just like a biological virus. Over the last 60 years, computer viruses have abounded, yet what was once cyber vandalism has turned into cybercrime.

Users should know about the basic nature of viruses

<ul><li>The Creeper Program is often regarded as the first virus. It was created in 1971 by Bob Thomas of BBN as a security test to see if a self-replicating program was possible.</li><li>The Rabbit (or Wabbit) virus was developed in 1974. It made multiple copies of itself, severely reducing system performance and eventually crashing the machine.</li><li>The First Trojan, called ANIMAL, was a game developed by computer programmer John Walker in 1975. To improve the game, Walker created PERVADE, which installed itself along with ANIMAL, examined all computer directories and copied ANIMAL in directories.</li></ul>

The first computer viruses from the 1970s

Brain was the first PC virus and infected 5.2" floppy disks in 1986. Two brothers, Basit and Amjad Farooq Alvi, were tired of customers making illegal copies of their software, so they developed a virus that replaced the boot sector of a floppy disk. This was the first stealth virus and contained a hidden copyright message. It did not corrupt data.

The Brain Boot Sector Virus

Heartbleed came out in 2014 and put servers across the Internet at risk. Heartbleed took advantage of a vulnerability in OpenSSL, a general-purpose, open-source cryptographic library used by companies worldwide. It could access data such as user names, passwords and secure encryption keys.

Heartbleed

The Code Red worm existed only in memory and did not attempt to infect files on the system. It took advantage of a weakness in the Microsoft Internet Information Server and manipulated the protocols that allow computers to communicate. It spread globally in a few hours.

The Code Red Virus

When it comes to cybersecurity, there are few terms with more name recognition than "computer viruses." Despite the prevalence of these threats and their wide-spread impact, however, many users don't know about the basic nature of viruses.&#160;

technologyandthefuture

Technology & The Future

cybersecurity

Cybersecurity

A Brief History of Computer Viruses & What the Future Holds

Elastic log monitoring for large data sets allows companies to pull log data from anywhere in the organization into a single location and then to search, analyze, and visualize the data in real-time.

Elastic Log Monitoring

Mobile platforms, remote work, and other shifts increasingly hinge on high-speed access to large data sets, increasing the likelihood of a breach
To execute these business models, companies need new technology platforms, including data lakes that can aggregate information

Growth of On-Demand Access to Ubiquitous Data/information Platforms

To counter more sophisticated attacks driven by AI and other advanced capabilities, organizations should take a risk-based approach to automation and automatic responses to attacks.
<ul>
<li>Automation should focus on defensive capabilities like security operations centre (SOC) countermeasures and labour-intensive activities.</li>
<li>Use of defensive AI and machine learning for cybersecurity.</li>
<li>Technical and organizational responses to ransomware.</li>
<li>The level of digitization accelerates, and organizations can use automation to handle lower-risk and rote processes, freeing up resources for higher-value activities.</li>
</ul>

Using Automation to Combat Increasingly Sophisticated Cyberattacks

<ul>
<li>Today, cyberhacking is a multibillion-dollar enterprise, complete with institutional hierarchies and R&D budgets.</li>
<li>Attackers use advanced tools.</li>
<li>Ransomware as a service and cryptocurrencies have substantially reduced the cost of launching ransomware attacks, which have doubled each year since 2019.</li>
</ul>

Hackers Getting Smarter And Resourceful

Behavioural analytics can monitor attributes such as access requests or the health of devices and establish a baseline to identify anomalous intentional or unintentional user behaviour or device activity.

Behavioural Analytics 

<ul><li>Companies are continuing to invest in technology to run their businesses.</li><li>Now, they are layering more systems into their IT networks to support remote work, enhance the customer experience, and generate value, all of which creates potential new vulnerabilities.</li><li>Even today's most sophisticated cybercontrols, no matter how effective, will soon be obsolete.</li><li>The solution is to reinforce their defenses by looking forward-anticipating the emerging cyber threats of the future and understanding the slew of new defensive capabilities that companies can use today.</li></ul>

Cybersecurity: A Never-Ending Race

Cyber risk management has not kept pace with the proliferation of digital and analytics transformations, and many companies are not sure how to identify and manage digital risks.
At the same time, companies face stiffer compliance requirements-a result of growing privacy concerns and high-profile breaches.

Increasing Regulations and Continued Gaps in Resources, Knowledge and Talent

Mitigating the cybersecurity risks of on-demand access to ubiquitous data requires four cybersecurity capabilities: zero-trust capabilities, behavioural analytics, elastic log monitoring, and homomorphic encryption.

Building Over-The-Horizon Defensive Capabilities

Shifts the focus of cyberdefense away from the static perimeters around physical networks and toward users, assets, and resources, thus mitigating the risk from decentralized data.

Zero-Trust Architecture (ZTA)

<ul>
<li>Secure software development.</li>
<li>Have security and technology risk teams engage with developers at all times.</li>
<li>Software bill of materials.</li>
<li>Mitigate the administrative burden by formally detailing all components and supply chain relationships used in the software.</li>
<li>Take advantage of X as a service.</li>
<li>Infrastructure and security as code.</li>
<li>Standardizing and codifying infrastructure and control-engineering processes can simplify the management of hybrid and multi-cloud environments.</li>
</ul>

Embedding Security in Technology Capabilities

Homomorphic encryption allows users to work with encrypted data without first decrypting to give third parties and internal collaborators safer access to larger data sets and meet more stringent data privacy requirements

Homomorphic Encryption

parenting

Parenting

computerscience

Computer Science

artificialintelligence

Artificial Intelligence

Cybersecurity trends: Looking over the horizon

Good digital hygiene really is its own form of civil defense.<ul><li>Ask yourself 3 questions when strange emails arrive, and the answer is supposed to be yes to all of them: Is it from someone I know? Is it what I was expecting? Is it in the format I was expecting?</li><li>Use the 3-2-1 plan for backups: Three copies of any essential data in two different formats or types of storage media, with one of them in a cloud.</li><li>Update the operating systems on your devices, or better yet, enable automatic updates. </li><li>Write down, screenshot or photograph essential street addresses and phone numbers, just in case.</li></ul>

Defending (and Duplicating) Your Data

<ul><li>Flashlights for every person in the house, fresh batteries every so often, candles and matches, solar-powered sources for small devices, portable power stations, and backup generators if you can afford and find one. Not letting your car’s gas tank sit at half-empty or below is always a good idea, too.</li><li>Setting aside a small pile of emergency cash makes sense only if you will remember where you put it. </li><li>Share the location with someone you trust.</li><li>A few jugs of water are never a bad idea.</li></ul>Stay calm. It’s easier to be calm if you’ve done a little bit of preparation.

Dealing With Disruption: Preparations For Lights-Out Aftermath

Russia’s attack may have you wondering what will happen if the conflict spills into cyberthreats beyond Ukraine’s borders. Here’s what you can do to ease your mind.

education

Learning & Education

A Paranoid Person’s Guide to Preparing for Digital Danger

In a ransomware attack, time is of the essence, so collaboration and transparency prevail. When an organization becomes aware of a ransomware attack, it should not compartmentalize the challenges ahead. The CISO or CSO needs to ensure transparency and collaboration with internal stakeholders across the company, including the board, C-suite, affected business groups, compliance and risk, and legal and crisis communications teams.

Response

Dig into forensics and intelligence. In the earliest stages of the attack, use intelligence to determine who is behind the attack and how they were able to gain access and maintain persistence and detonate the malware. This knowledge will aid in understanding how bad the attack is and assist in decryption and negotiation.Attempt to locate or access known unencrypted shadow copies of data or even a decryption key using member institution initiatives to determine if their information can be decrypted without paying.

Intelligence And Forensics

The timing, urgency, and stress of an attack escalate when decision rights are unclear. Who will lead the response team? Is the CEO directly involved or deliberately removed from the tactical details of the response?Designate a person accountable for keeping the crisis response moving forward in a methodical and detailed manner and ensure decision trees end up aligned, from the chief information security officer (CISO) or chief security officer (CSO) to the CEO or response leader.

Preparing For An Attack: Know Your Decisions Right

Prior to experiencing a ransomware attack, the majority of companies say they will not pay a ransom. However, when nearly two out of three organizations ended up victimized by a ransomware attack over the past 12 months, over 80 percent paid the ransom demands, according to a 2021 report from ThycoticCentrify on the state of ransomware.Constraints can range from the level of insurance coverage to whether customers’ data are also at risk and premerger or pre-acquisition sensitivities. Given these will change over time, ensure this view is refreshed periodically.

Preparing For All Options and Understanding Negotiating Constraints

Some RaaS groups have call centers that will proactively reach out to down­stream customers and activist investors to put pressure on a victim to pay. Expect this and have a plan to engage stakeholders, whether proactively or in response to their queries.Your response leader can serve as “air traffic control” to manage the responsibilities of all parties involved.

Expect Pressure

Legacy systems, be it OT or IT, chug along on old software with security gaps. After RDP and phishing attacks, vulnerable software is the next largest attack vector, which is why securing communication channels and patching Windows operating system exploits remain vital.

Patch Management

Remember that you are collaborating with criminals, so the closer a company gets to pay the ransom, the more it needs proof that the attackers actually have what they say they have.Make no mistake about it, ransomware is ugly. But making your enterprise resilient by following prevention, preparation, response, and recovery strategies will allow a company to recover from attacks and not have to pay a huge ransom. Communication, advanced preparation, understanding and then minimizing risk is the best way to keep the operation up and running.

The Bottom Line

With the use of low-cost ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) campaigns, this cyberthreat has surged beyond the quiet confines of the C-suite to where boards of directors, regulators, law enforcement, industry associations, insurance providers, and the cybersecurity vendor community all need to be a part of the solution.While governments, law enforcement, and regulators continue to grapple with ransomware issues such as transparency and oversight of cryptocurrencies, companies need to ensure they remain resilient by focusing on ransomware prevention, preparation, response, and recovery strategies.

The New Threat

The US Department of the Treasury’s guidance on ransomware payments requires organizations to consult with them if they need to pay the ransom. However, since ransom payments could violate sanctions against certain individuals or designated organizations, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and its Financial Crimes Enforcement Network say organizations could be held liable for ransom payments, even if they were unaware or unable to determine the recipient is on a prohibited list.

Proceed Carefully

No matter what, recovery from a ransomware attack can be messy. If you decide to pay and get a decryption key—and if it works—there is usually a considerable amount of cleanup because the attackers shut down servers and databases not designed to shut down hard. If you don’t pay, rebuilding networks from backups is time consuming.Verify. For attackers, ransomware is a business, and they want to keep their reputations intact.Know what’s up for debate. For large and more mature institutions, forensic teams can generally figure out how to find or trigger the decryption key.

Recovery

To achieve a secure work environment, you need to know what technology you have, what and who it is talking to, and then watch it like a hawk. Vigilance is key. To get there, everyone from the board and C-suite to down the line must be on the same page and treat security as a continuous endeavour that balances technology with people and processes to ingrain security into an organization’s DNA.To achieve a secure work environment, you need to know what technology you have, what and who it is talking to, and then watch it like a hawk.

Prevention Of Ransomware Attacks

Your organization’s network of external stakeholders can provide valuable input and help expedite risk-based decision making.An organization’s first call should be to the FBI, or a regional and supervisory law-enforcement agency, for notification and disclosure. For very large financial institutions or <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/risk-and-resilience/our-insights/building-cyber-resilience-in-national-critical-infrastructure">companies managing and operating critical infrastructure</a>, there is a broad range of law-enforcement capabilities available.

Phone A Friend

Ransomware has hit new levels of sophistication, with demands for payment skyrocketing into the tens of millions of dollars. Vulnerabilities posed by pandemic-weary organiza­tions and workers logging in from unsecured home networks; others are highly complex, such as ever-increasing connectivity driven by advancing digitization. Rather than the “smash and grab” approach, hackers are now “dwelling” undetected within victims’ environments to better understand where the highest value data and information lies.

Sophisticated Ransomware Hacking

Ransomware threat actors run free or low-cost software and scanning tools, searching for things like credential harvesting and internal unsecured port discovery from command-line prompts. If command-line capa­bilities end up disabled, the company becomes a more difficult target. Additionally, blocking port TCP 445 on external-facing infrastructure and internal firewalls also helps reduce the attack surface.

Disabling User-Level Command-Line Capabilities

Active Directory is a database and set of services that connects users with the network resources they need to get their work done. The database (or directory) contains critical information about your environment, including what users and computers there are and who’s allowed to do what.

Protect Active Directory

Generally, board members will want to help and bring issues to closure—the success of which all comes down to communication. That is why the board and executive leaders need to engage in a critical conversation detailing roles and how to activate them. This level of communication and advanced planning can facilitate faster decision making and collaboration. Resiliency becomes baked in when cybersecurity becomes a joint capability between the board and executives and through all levels of the organization.

Getting Your Board Up To Speed

COVID-19 saw workforces shift to work from home—and home networks are often rife with poor security. Solid basic hygiene would include strong passwords, multi­factor authentication, software updates, restricted access, and network-level authentication.Multifactor authentication(MFA) for critical assets and high-risk users is strongly recommended. This tactic can be a strong barrier for attacks that leverage credential-based access or privilege escalation like ransomware.

The Tactics Companies Can Use: Securing Remote Desktop Protocol

Approaching ransomware prevention and preparedness from a resilience perspective frames the requirements and outcomes differently:<ul><li>Know what assets are important (crown jewels, critical assets) and where they live.  </li><li>Know the backup process, which will help assess how feasible recovery is. It’s also good data hygiene to only keep what you need.</li><li>Recovery testing is always helpful. Testing in advance of disruption builds muscle memory, uncovers dependencies, and encourages creative thinking and problem solving.</li></ul>

Preparation: The Requirements

Cyber awareness training and education should be mandatory. You don’t need to be a highly trained and skilled cybersecurity professional, but basic changes in behavior and awareness of where and how threats can enter your organization can further reduce risks.

Education and training

Business continuity answers the question, “How do we operate this process if a particular technology or person is disrupted?” Whereas operational resilience targets the bigger question of, “How do we organize such that a particular event does not disrupt us?” Companies should have answers to both questions to prepare for cybersecurity attacks.

Enhancing Resilience

External counsel, as well as insurers, are significant partners to have at the table. From discerning who to notify and when to working through the finer points of negotiation and possible implications and thinking through the legal requirements for customers and partners—especially third parties—these stakeholders bring practical benefits.

Seek Counsel and Check Insurance Policies

Ransomware has rapidly become one of the top cybersecurity nightmares. Strategies for prevention, preparation, response, and recovery can help.

problemsolving

Problem Solving

Ransomware prevention: How organizations can fight back

It's easy for cyber fraudsters to steal or assume another's identity. Sometimes it's not even an individual but a ghost, auto-generated by a few lines of code. Photographic proof is easy as fraudsters give themselves a random human "face" using a facial composition app or by stealing a photograph from someone else's social media page.

Our identities are under attack

Individuals can put systems and protections in place to stop fraudsters at the source. Advancements such as zero-trust security and secure access service edge (SASE) models can ensure that security extends to the user and the device, regardless of where they are.

Securing the digital ecosystem

The digital transformation is great for many things, but it also creates a playground for cybercriminals, identity thieves and fraudsters. Cybercriminals are an invisible enemy that only needs a device and internet connection. Then they can make multiple attempts to defraud people or businesses.

Fraud in the digital age

Companies and individuals need to take steps to protect themselves from fraud.

A Brief History of Computer Viruses & What the Future Holds

Cybersecurity trends: Looking over the horizon

A Paranoid Person’s Guide to Preparing for Digital Danger

It's time to
Read like a Pro.

Ransomware prevention: How organizations can fight back

CURATED BY

A Brief History of Computer Viruses & What the Future Holds

Cybersecurity trends: Looking over the horizon

A Paranoid Person’s Guide to Preparing for Digital Danger

It's time to Read like a Pro.

Ransomware prevention: How organizations can fight back

CURATED BY

It's time to
Read like a Pro.