e-Crime & Cybersecurity Congress: Cloud Security Fundamentals

I was a panellist at the e-Crime & Cybersecurity Congress last week, the discussion was titled 'What's happening to your business? Cloud security, new business metrics and future risks and priorities for 2019 and beyond", a recap of the points I made.

Cloud is the 'Default Model' for Business

Cloud is now the default model for IT services in the UK; cloud ticks all the efficiency boxes successful business continually craves. Indeed, the 'scales of economy' benefits are not just most cost-effective and more agile IT services, but also include better cybersecurity (by the major cloud service providers), even for the largest of enterprises. It is not the CISO's role to challenge the business' cloud service mitigation, which is typically part of a wider digital transformation strategy, but to ensure cloud services are delivered and managed to legal, regulatory and client security requirements, and in satisfaction of the board's risk appetite, given they ultimately own the cybersecurity risk, which is an operational business risk.

There are security pitfalls with cloud services, the marketing gloss of 'the cloud' should not distract security professionals into assuming IT security will be delivered as per the shiny sales brochure, as after all, cloud service providers should be considered and assessed in the same way as any other traditional third-party IT supplier to the business.

Cloud Security should not be an afterthought
It is essential for security to be baked into a new cloud services design, requirements determination, and in the procurement process. In particular, defining and documenting the areas of security responsibility with the intended cloud service provider.

Cloud does not absolve the business of their security responsibilities
All cloud service models, whether the standard models of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) or Software as a Service (SaaS), always involve three areas of security responsibilities to define and document:

• Cloud Service Provider Owned
• Business Owned
• Shared (Cloud Service Provider & Business)

For example with a PaaS model, the business is fully responsible for application deployment onto the cloud platform, and therefore the security of applications. The cloud service provider is responsible for the security of the physical infrastructure, network and operating system layers. The example of the 'shared' responsibility with this model, are the processes in providing and managing privileged operating system accounts within the cloud environment.

Regardless of the cloud model, data is always the responsibility of the business.

A "Trust but Verify" approach should be taken with cloud service providers when assuring the security controls they are responsible for. Where those security responsibilities are owned by or shared with the cloud service provider, ensure the specific controls and processes are detailed within a contract or in a supporting agreement as service deliverables, then oversight the controls and processes through regular assessments.

Helpful Resources

The cloud security guidance resources I recommended were:

• Cloud Security Alliance
• PCI SSC Cloud Computing Guidelines
• NCSC Cloud Security Guidance
• Microsoft O365 Security and Compliance Blueprint UK

Learning from the Big Data Breaches of 2018

Guest article by Cybersecurity Professionals

What can we learn from the major data breaches of 2018?
2018 was a major year for cybersecurity. With the introduction of GDPR, the public’s awareness of their cyber identities has vastly increased – and the threat of vulnerability along with it. The Information Commissioner’s Office received an increased number of complaints this year and the news was filled with reports of multi-national and multi-millionaire businesses suffering dramatic breaches at the hand of cybercriminals.

2018 Data Breaches
Notable breaches last year include:

5. British Airways
The card details of 380,000 customers were left vulnerable after a hack affected bookings on BA’s website and app. The company insists that no customer’s card details have been used illegally but they are expected to suffer a major loss of money in revenue and fines as a result of the attack.

4. T-Mobile
Almost 2 million users had their personal data, including billing information and email addresses accessed through an API by an international group of hackers last August.

3. Timehop
A vulnerability in the app’s cloud computing account meant that the names and contact details of 21 million users were affected on Timehop. The company assured users that memories were only shared on the day and deleted after, meaning that the hackers were not able to access their Facebook and Twitter history.

2. Facebook & Cambridge Analytica
One of the most sensationalised news stories of the last year, Facebook suffered a string of scandals after it was released that analytics firm Cambridge Analytica had used the Facebook profile data of 87 million users in an attempt to influence President Trump’s campaign and potentially aid the Vote Leave campaign in the UK-EU referendum.

1. Quora
After a “malicious third party” accessed Quora’s system, the account information, including passwords, names and email addresses, of 100 million users was compromised. The breach was discovered in November 2018.

GDPR
As the UK made the switch from the Data Protection Act to GDPR, businesses and internet users across the country suddenly became more aware of their internet identities and their rights pertaining to how businesses handled their information.

With the responsibility now firmly on the business to protect the data of UK citizens, companies are expected to keep a much higher standard of security in order to protect all personal data of their clients.

How many complaints to the ICO?
Elizabeth Denham, the UK’s Information Commissioner, said that the year 2017-18 was ‘one of increasing activity and challenging actions, some unexpected, for the office’.

This is shown in an increase in data protection complaints by 15%, as well as an increase in self-reported breaches by 30%. Since this is the first year of GDPR, it is expected that self-reported breaches have increased as businesses work to insure themselves against much higher fines for putting off their announcement.

The ICO also reports 19 criminal prosecutions and 18 convictions last year and fines totalling £1.29 million for serious security failures under the Data Protection Act 1998. The office has assured that they don’t intend to make an example of firms reporting data breaches in the early period of GDPR but as time goes on, leniency is likely to fade as businesses settle into the higher standards.

What does it mean for SMEs?
With 36% of SMEs having no cybersecurity plan, the general consensus is that they make for unpopular targets. However, with the GDPR, the responsibility is on the business to protect their data so being vulnerable could result in business-destroying costs. Considering the cost to businesses could total the higher of 2% of annual turnover or €10 million, data protection is of paramount importance to small businesses.

How exposed are we in the UK?
At 31%, our vulnerability rating is higher than the Netherlands, Germany, Estonia (30%) and Finland (29%), but the UK is a more likely target for cybercriminals looking to exploit high tech and financial services industries, which are some of the most vulnerable across Great Britain.

Despite a higher level of vulnerability, the UK has one of the largest cyber security talent pools, showing there is time and manpower being dedicated to the protection of our data online.

https://www.cybersecurity-professionals.com/blog/2019/03/01/cybercrime-in-the-uk-infographic/

Deriving value from the MITRE ATT&CK Threat Model

The MITRE ATT&CK knowledge base continues to gain traction as the defacto source for supporting business threat assessing, developing proactive cybersecurity and cyber resilience strategies. ATT&CK provides a defined understanding of the adversaries, their associated tactics, their techniques and procedures (TTPs). The ATT&CK comprehensive knowledge base of adversary tactics and techniques has been built up using real-world observations and is freely available to use. 

There are many ways in which organisations can benefit from ATT&CK, often dependant on an organisation's security capabilities and the general security maturity. Steve Rivers, Technical Director International at ThreatQuotient has written guidance on the MITRE ATT&CK stages of maturity, so that any organisation can derive value from it.

MITRE ATT&CK Framework: Keep your friends close, but your enemies even closer

Steve Rivers, Technical Director International at ThreatQuotient

So, how can you get started and use the framework? Nearly every organisation is interested in using MITRE ATT&CK, but they have different views on how it should be adopted based the capabilities of their security operations. We need to make sure that the MITRE ATT&CK framework doesn’t become another source of threat data that is not fully utilised, or a passing fad, or a tool that only the most sophisticated security operations teams can apply effectively. To avoid this fate, we must look at ways to map the framework to stages of maturity so that every organisation can derive value. Here are a few examples of how to use the framework with appropriate use cases as maturity levels evolve.

Stage 1: Reference and Data Enrichment
The MITRE ATT&CK framework contains a tremendous amount of data that could potentially be valuable to any organisation. The MITRE ATT&CK Navigator provides a matrix view of all the techniques so that security analysts can see what techniques an adversary might apply to infiltrate their organisation. To more easily consume this data, a good place to start is with tools that make that data easy to access and share across teams. This may be through an enrichment tool or a platform with a centralised threat library that allows a user to aggregate the data and easily search for adversary profiles to get answers to questions like: Who is this adversary? What techniques and tactics are they using? What mitigations can I apply? Security analysts can use the data from the framework as a detailed source of reference to manually enrich their analysis of events and alerts, inform their investigations and determine the best actions to take depending on relevance and sightings within their environment.

Stage 2: Indicator or Event-driven Response
Building on the ability to reference and understand MITRE ATT&CK data, in Stage 2 security teams incorporate capabilities in the platform within their operational workflows that allow them to apply a degree of action to the data more effectively. For example, with the data ingested in a centralised threat library, they can build relationships between that data automatically without having to form those relationships manually. By automatically correlating events and associated indicators from inside the environment (from sources including the security information and event management (SIEM) system, log management repository, case management systems and security infrastructure) with indicators from the MITRE ATT&CK framework, they gain the context to immediately understand the who, what, where, when, why and how of an attack. They can then automatically prioritise based on relevance to their organisation and determine high-risk indicators of compromise (IOCs) to investigate within their environment. With the ability to use ATT&CK data in a more simple and automated manner, security teams can investigate and respond to incidents and push threat intelligence to sensors for detection and hunt for threats more effectively.

Stage 3: Proactive Tactic or Technique-driven Threat Hunting
At this stage, threat hunting teams can pivot from searching for indicators to taking advantage of the full breadth of ATT&CK data. Instead of narrowly focusing on more targeted pieces of data that appear to be suspicious, threat hunting teams can use the platform to start from a higher vantage point with information on adversaries and associated TTPs. They can take a proactive approach, beginning with the organisation’s risk profile, mapping those risks to specific adversaries and their tactics, drilling down to techniques those adversaries are using and then investigating if related data have been identified in the environment. For example, they may be concerned with APT28 and can quickly answer questions including: What techniques do they apply? Have I seen potential IOCs or possible related system events in my organisation? Are my endpoint technologies detecting those techniques?

The success of MITRE ATT&CK will depend on how easy it is to apply effectively. With an understanding of maturity levels and use cases, and the ability for technologies to support security operations teams at whatever stage they are in, organisations will be able to use the framework to their advantage. As their desire and capabilities to use the data evolve and grow, they’ll be able to dig deeper into the MITRE ATT&CK framework and gain even greater value.

Cyber Security Roundup for February 2019

The perceived threat posed by Huawei to the UK national infrastructure continued to make the headlines throughout February, as politicians, UK government agencies and the Chinese telecoms giant continued to play out their rather public spat in the media. See my post Is Huawei a Threat to UK National Security? for further details. And also, why DDoS might be the greater threat to 5G than Huawei supplied network devices.

February was a rather quiet month for hacks and data breaches in the UK, Mumsnet reported a minor data breach following a botched upgrade, and that was about it. The month was a busy one for security updates, with Microsoft, Adobe and Cisco all releasing high numbers of patches to fix various security vulnerabilities, including several released outside of their scheduled monthly patch release cycles.

A survey by PCI Pal concluded the consequences of a data breach had a greater impact in the UK than the United States, in that UK customers were more likely to abandon a company when let down by a data breach. The business reputational impact should always be taken into consideration when risk assessing security.

Another survey of interest was conducted by Nominet, who polled 408 Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) at midsize and large organisations in the UK and the United States. A whopping 91% of the respondents admitted to experiencing high to moderate levels of stress, with 26% saying the stress had led to mental and physical health issues, and 17% said they had turned to alcohol. The contributing factors for this stress were job security, inadequate budget and resources, and a lack of support from the board and senior management. A CISO role can certainly can be a poisoned-chalice, so its really no surprise most CISOs don't stay put for long.

A Netscout Threat Landscape Report declared in the second half of 2018, cyber attacks against IoT devices and DDoS attacks had both rose dramatically. Fuelled by the compromise of high numbers of IoT devices, the number of DDoS attacks in the 100GBps to 200GBps range increased 169%, while those in the 200GBps to 300GBps range exploded 2,500%. The report concluded cybercriminals had built and used cheaper, easier-to-deploy and more persistent malware, and cyber gangs had implemented this higher level of efficiency by adopting the same principles used by legitimate businesses. These improvements has helped malicious actors greatly increase the number of medium-size DDoS attacks while infiltrating IoT devices even quicker.

In a rare speech, Jeremy Fleming, the head of GCHQ warned the internet could deteriorate into "an even less governed space" if the international community doesn't come together to establish a common set of principles. He said "China, Iran, Russia and North Korea" had broken international law through cyber attacks, and made the case for when "offensive cyber activities" were good, saying "their use must always meet the three tests of legality, necessity and proportionality. Their use, in particular to cause disruption or damage - must be in extremis".  Clearly international law wasn't developed with cyber space in mind, so it looks like GCGQ are attempting to raise awareness to remedy that.

I will be speaking at the e-crime Cyber Security Congress in London on 6th March 2019, on cloud security, new business metrics, future risks and priorities for 2019 and beyond.

Finally, completely out of the blue, I was informed by 4D that this blog had been picked by a team of their technical engineers and Directors as one of the best Cyber Security Blogs in the UK. The 6 Best Cyber Security Blogs - A Data Centre's Perspective Truly humbled and in great company to be on that list.

BLOG

• What's the greater risk to UK 5G, Huawei backdoors or DDoS?
• The Business of Organised Cybercrime
• Is Huawei a Threat to UK National Security?
• Customers Blame Companies not Hackers for Data Breaches
• Automotive Technologies and Cyber Security
• The 6 Best Cyber Security Blogs - A Data Centre's Perspective

NEWS 

• Parenting Website Mumsnet hit by Data Breach
• UK Officials Concerned over Huawei’s Presence
• UK Consumers more likely to Abandon a Breached Company according to Research
• US Military Hackers took Russian troll factory offline during midterms, report claims
• GCHQ Chief: Cyber conflict could deteriorate into a Wild West if left unchecked
• Australia’s Major Political Parties Hacked by 'state actor' ahead of Elections
• High Stress Levels Impacting CISOs Physically, Mentally
• 60,000 EU Data Breaches filed under GDPR
• Dow Jones database holding 2.4 million records of politically exposed persons
• Palisades Park receives £151,000 advance after Cyberattack
• UK Bank Customers hit by Dozens of IT shutdowns due to operational and security incidents
• Musical.ly (TikTok App) fined a Record £4.3 Million under United States COPPA
• Microsoft Patches 76 Vulnerabilities, including 20 Critical for Windows, Edge, Hyper-V, Chakra and Adobe Flash
• Microsoft Fixes IIS Vulnerability that can cause CPU usage to Soar 100% when processing HTTP/2 requests
• Adobe Releases fixes 70 Vulnerabilities in Acrobat and Acrobat Reader
• Adobe issues New patch for Acrobat and Reader Out of Band
• RDP Flaws could allow Hackers to take over control of Systems
• Cisco rolls out Multiple Security Updates across its Product Portfolio
• Apple Patches Two Flaws Exploited in Zero-Day Attacks; also fixes FaceTime Eavesdropping Bug
• Mozilla Foundation issues Firefox Updates
• Cisco Network Assurance Engine (NAE) contains Password Vulnerability
• Cisco Patches Two Code Execution Vulnerabilities

AWARENESS, EDUCATION AND THREAT INTELLIGENCE

• APT10 targeting a Norwegian MSP and US Companies in a Sustained Campaign
• TrickBot Variant Steals Credentials for Remote Computer Access
• New B0r0nt0k Ransomware Encrypts Victims’ websites and demands $75000 worth Ransom Payment in Bitcoin
• Shifty New Variant of Qbot Banking Trojan Spreads

REPORTS

• Carbon Black Global Threat Research Project
• 2019 CrowdStrike Global Threat Report
• Netscout Threat Landscape Report: IoT Devices Attacked Faster than Ever, DDoS Attacks up dramatically