This year’s ” addresses the quickening pace and increasing sophistication in adversary tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) over the past year — and in particular, highlights the critical importance of speed in staying ahead of rapidly evolving threats.Last year, we introduced — the window of time from when an adversary first compromises an endpoint machine, to when they begin moving laterally across your network. In this year’s report, we were able to provide a more granular examination of breakout time by clocking the average speed of major nation-state actors. The report compares the breakout speeds of Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and the combined category of global eCrime actors. This and other unique insights in the report can help organizations advance their response objectives, depending on which adversary types they are most likely to encounter in the year ahead.The report also makes clear — in spite of some impressive indictments against several named nation-state actors — their activities show no signs of diminishing.
Throughout 2018, collectively upped their game. A few examples:. In diplomatic channels and the media, several nation-states gave lip-service to curbing their clandestine cyber activities, but behind the scenes, they doubled down on their cyber espionage operations — combining those efforts with further forays into destructive attacks and financially motivated fraud. eCrime actors demonstrated new-found flexibility, forming and breaking alliances and quickly changing tactics mid-campaign to achieve their objectives.
The shifting currents of the underground economy — including the availability of new TTPs-for-hire and the fluctuating value of Bitcoin — were all contributing factors. We also witnessed an increased focus on “,” where eCrime actors combine targeted intrusions with ransomware to extract big payoffs from large enterprise organizations.This report’s findings on adversary tradecraft and speed reflect what many defenders already know: We are in a veritable “arms race” for cyber superiority. However, there are some important differences between an arms race in the cybersphere versus the physical world: In cyberspace, any player can potentially become a superpower. The capital costs are alarmingly low, compared to funding a physical war machine. Even some of the world’s most impoverished regions proved their ability to make a global impact through cyber campaigns in 2018 — and this is one genie that is not going back in the bottle.At CrowdStrike, we experience on a daily basis the role defenders play in the cyber arms race.
As we introduce more effective endpoint protection to the market, we raise the stakes for determined adversaries. CrowdStrike has documented cases where bad actors discover our products in the environment and simply go away, presumably to ply their tradecraft on a more vulnerable victim. In other cases, patient attackers simply go back to the drawing board, adding new weapons to their cyber arsenals as they probe for a novel, less defended point of entry.This never-ending cycle of attack and defense is at the heart of what we do and explains the unique structure of the CrowdStrike ® organization. With our dedicated teams, we focus on these complementary disciplines:. Tracking and analyzing adversary activity though global intelligence-gathering and proactive hunting. Developing and deploying groundbreaking new technologies to combat bad actors.
Delivering best-in-class incident response services directly to the victims of cyberattacksThe Global Threat Report joins the and the in presenting customers and the global cybersecurity community with the latest developments and defenses for an increasingly dangerous threat landscape. This holistic view of the threat landscape allows CrowdStrike to provide you with specific guidance on the actions organizations need to take to strengthen their security postures.The fight continues, and we will never rest in our pursuit of adversaries seeking to damage, disrupt, extort, or steal. Throughout the Global Threat Report, you will see the talent, expertise, and dedication of our CrowdStrike team combining with the power of our technology to stop the most sophisticated adversaries. We’re eager to share what we’ve learned because of our uncompromising commitment to defeat the nation-states, e-crime actors, hackers, and cybercriminals threatening our commerce and invading our privacy. Additional Resources.
Join a. Learn more about the. Test CrowdStrike next-gen AV for yourself. Start your today. The CEO and co-founder of CrowdStrike, George Kurtz is an internationally recognized entrepreneur, security expert, author, and speaker.
He has more than 26 years of experience in the cybersecurity field, driving revenue growth and scaling organizations across the globe, most recently leading CrowdStrike’s IPO. Co-author of the all-time best-selling “Hacking Exposed” book series, his previous roles include serving as worldwide chief technology officer at McAfee and co-founder of the pioneering cybersecurity firm Foundstone.
Robbing a bank is easier than you might think, especially if you don't care which bank you rob, according to a by the apparently vigilante hacker Phineas Phisher., which Phineas Phisher leaked, backs up that claim. The report details the intrusion to management at the robbed bank, Cayman National Bank (Isle of Man) Limited (CNBIOM) and its sister company, Cayman National Trust Company (Isle of Man) Limited (CNTIOM). How much does a data breach cost? Get the latest from CSO. (PwC declined to comment on the Cayman National breach or the leaked report, which indicates that fraudulent transactions cleared. In a, Cayman National acknowledged the attack, claiming, “At this time, there is no evidence of financial theft or fraud relating to CNBIOM or CNTIOM clients, or to Cayman National.” It made no reference to a financial loss by the bank itself.)Reviewing the methods Phineas Phisher used offers insight into how vulnerable our financial infrastructure is to attackers and provides a glimpse into how a modestly skilled individual, or group of individuals, got away with a bank heist.
Who is Phineas Phisher?Phineas Phisher, who has previously claimed responsibility for hacking the notorious cyber-mercenary groups Gamma Group and, claims to be a private individual whose stated goals are anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and anti-surveillance. Some suspect Phineas Phisher is a nation-state sponsored hacking group, but there is no way to know.The hacking tools used in the 2016 bank heist were off-the-shelf like PowerShell. This means that if Phineas Phisher can do it, any number of modestly skilled attackers could as well.
This makes the Cayman National attack a case study in how not to secure your networks (or how to rob a bank, depending on your point of view).Let's break out how the heist went down. Gaining a foothold'As the old saying goes,' Phineas Phisher wrote (in Spanish) in his how-to-rob-a-bank guide, 'Give a person an exploit and they'll have access for a day, teach them to phish and they'll have access the rest of their lives.' The PwC incident response report confirms that the bank got phished. According to PwC's report, the bank robber sent a email with the subject 'Price Changes' from the spoofed email account 'csdeployment@swift.com' to a bank employee on August, 2015, from the typo-squatting domain 'cncim. 'This domain was registered on the 27th July 2015. It is highly likely that this domain was registered specifically for this attack,' the PwC report said.it's interesting that someone else was randomly targeting the same bank around the same time.
It would suggest that bank hacking is widespread.The phishing exploit used was garden variety crimeware, according to the PwC report. 'Analysis of the attached to the email shows that it is Adwind 3, a piece of malware that can purchase sic online by hackers. Due to the timeframe involved we are unable to determine if this malware is directly related to the recent incident. However, it would appear that this malicious email may be specifically designed and targeted to compromise CNBT Cayman National Bank and Trust.'
The attached payload was named '1PriceUpdates098123876docs.jar,' and when the CNBT employee clicked on the attachment, it infected the employee's workstation and gave the would-be bank robber a foothold on the bank's network.A on the Adwind 3 RAT said that it is 'a backdoor fully implemented in Java and therefore cross-platform. It is a highly popular tool used in both massive spam campaigns and targeted attacks against financial institutions worldwide. In all versions (Frutas, Adwind, AlienSpy, UNRECOM and JSocket), it has been available for purchase based on registration on an official website – a concept known as malware-as-a-service.' However, Phineas Phisher tells CSO that the phisher is someone else. 'That wasn't me, and it's interesting that someone else was randomly targeting the same bank around the same time. It would suggest that bank hacking is widespread.I got in through the same Sonicwall SSL/VPN exploit I used against Hacking Team, not by phishing.'
Phineas Phisher admits to CSO via email to using Empire and Meterpreter, but not Adwind 3. 'PwC says Adwind was used by the phishing attempt. Yes, I was just using the Metasploit framework.
I was just using Empire RAT. I didn't use Adwind, and maintained persistence with PowerShell Empire.' When the bank discovered unauthorized SWIFT transactions in January 2016, they called in PwC to do incident response. PwC found Phineas Phisher's shells, cleaned the infected servers and workstations, and installed their proprietary network monitoring solution, SonarShock, to analyze the bank's network for continued signs of malicious activity.So how did Phineas Phisher gain access to the incident response report? 'When PwC started to investigate the hack, they found my use of Empire and Meterpreter and cleaned those computers and blocked those IPs, but they did not find my backup access,' Phineas Phisher wrote.
When PwC started monitoring the networks, the bank robber laid low for a while. 'I launched Mimikatz one time to obtain the new passwords, and from then on I could follow the investigation by reading their emails in Outlook web access.' Mimikatz ain't exactly rocket science, people. A sophisticated attack this was not, a fact that will surely give banks cause for concern, as well as encourage other bank robbers. Persistence and getawayRewind to August 2015.
Cso Speed Hack Pc
Once Phineas Phisher got a foothold in the bank's network, he dropped a reverse shell to maintain persistence, then used a variety of penetration testing tools to watch bank employees making SWIFT payments. He also took the time to read bank documentation on how the bank handles outgoing SWIFT transactions.Phineas Phisher was in the bank's networks for five months, without being discovered, before initiating the first of ten attempted SWIFT transactions that netted several hundred thousand pounds sterling - far less, it must be noted, than the $81 million North Korean hackers stole from a Bangladeshi bank in early 2016. After the first few successful transactions on January 5, 2016, he ran into trouble the next day and botched several transactions that used the wrong SWIFT code to address an intermediary bank, Phineas Phisher wrote.Why was this bank a target? Phineas Phisher scanned the internet for all the vulnerable VPN appliances he had an exploit for, grepped through the reverse DNS results for banks, and decided 'Cayman' sounded like fun. 'I didn't propose to hack a specific bank,' the how-to guide says, 'I just wanted to hack whatever bank I could, which turned out to be a much easier task.' Maybe your bank is next.More on hacks and breaches:.