Dark Reading is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them.Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Database Security
Authentication
Mobile
Privacy
Compliance
Careers and People
Identity & Access Management
Security Monitoring
Advanced Threats
Insider Threats
Vulnerability Management
Comments
Long Cons: The Next Age of Cyber Attacks
Threaded  |  Newest First  |  Oldest First
savoiadilucania
savoiadilucania,
 User Rank: Moderator
6/5/2015 | 11:04:40 AM
Indeed
"Above all, organizations have to identify their most valuable assets and build their security around protecting them above all else. In the coming age of the long cyber con, they need to expect their perimeter to be breached and focus on ensuring their adversaries are not able to take advantage of critical systems and information once they're inside."


This perhaps the most sensible thing I have seen written on Dark Reading in some time. I have been articulating this perspective for the duration of my career.  There is an inordinate amount of attention and money focused on implementing security improvements for systems and platforms that do not define an organization's value.
Mark532010
Mark532010,
 User Rank: Moderator
6/5/2015 | 11:37:46 AM
The need for basics
This really highlights the need for basics, zero-day exploits or targeted phishing might get a foothold but it is basic security 101 procedures that root out these types of things.

Even the most basic of examples: How many companies routinely (as in every month) check the administrators group on every server? EVERY server, not just the easy standardized ones in the server rooms but even the "test" virtual box that the guys in the lab bring up once a week or that one the guy in the remote site who fancies himself as his own tech dept runs.

or get an alert when something important like the membership of the Enterprise Admins group changes and have someone with time to research that alert and then have the documentation to make it possible to discover that something actually is wrong.

sadly even something as basic as that is beyond the reach for many many companies and obviously government organizations.

 
LanceCottrell
LanceCottrell,
 User Rank: Author
6/8/2015 | 4:05:47 PM
Great thoughts on non-traditional attacks
It is very interesting to consider the vastly increased range of possible attacks when we consider criminal profit paths beyond simply stealing and selling data, or extortion. Thanks very much for the article.
SgS125
SgS125,
 User Rank: Ninja
6/9/2015 | 10:35:32 AM
Maybe we will get some action if the attacks are like this
At least several new Government agencies may sit up and take interest once one of these types of attacks is brought to the light of day.

Mess with regular folks and no one cares, but once you diddle with a stock price the whole world gets interested.  Another example of follow the money.

No stock company would ever admit to a data loss that messed with the stock price.  They don;t have to report it if no PII is taken so we may never hear of this attack.

One question I would posit is Why would a "hacker" bother to buy and sell manipulated stocks when they already have money to buy stocks.  You are really calling out a new catagory of criminal here.  One that has massive funds and time to work for evil.  Not alot of technical miscreants fit that catagory.  Perhaps we would be looking at a rich guy who never plays by the rules and wants to be richer?

Nice article, made me think.

 
Ben-Johnson
Ben-Johnson,
 User Rank: Author
6/9/2015 | 8:53:05 PM
Re: Maybe we will get some action if the attacks are like this
I understand what you're bringing up in terms of if they already have money -- but criminal orgs and state-sponsored groups still need more funding.  With derivates, small investments can pay off huge (leverage), and you can short stocks so you're actually selling and don't usually need the full amount (trading on margin).

Plus, look at the double benefits -- you can cause harm to an organization that might have strategic importance (large US retailer) while also profiting -- two ways it can help your nation or organization.

 

Thanks for the question!


Edge-DRsplash-10-edge-articles
I Smell a RAT! New Cybersecurity Threats for the Crypto Industry
David Trepp, Partner, IT Assurance with accounting and advisory firm BPM LLP,  7/9/2021
News
Attacks on Kaseya Servers Led to Ransomware in Less Than 2 Hours
Robert Lemos, Contributing Writer,  7/7/2021
Commentary
It's in the Game (but It Shouldn't Be)
Tal Memran, Cybersecurity Expert, CYE,  7/9/2021
Register for Dark Reading Newsletters
White Papers
Video
Cartoon
Current Issue
The 10 Most Impactful Types of Vulnerabilities for Enterprises Today
Managing system vulnerabilities is one of the old est - and most frustrating - security challenges that enterprise defenders face. Every software application and hardware device ships with intrinsic flaws - flaws that, if critical enough, attackers can exploit from anywhere in the world. It's crucial that defenders take stock of what areas of the tech stack have the most emerging, and critical, vulnerabilities they must manage. It's not just zero day vulnerabilities. Consider that CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog lists vulnerabilitlies in widely used applications that are "actively exploited," and most of them are flaws that were discovered several years ago and have been fixed. There are also emerging vulnerabilities in 5G networks, cloud infrastructure, Edge applications, and firmwares to consider.
Flash Poll
Twitter Feed
Dark Reading - Bug Report
Bug Report
Enterprise Vulnerabilities
From DHS/US-CERT's National Vulnerability Database
CVE-2023-1172
PUBLISHED: 2023-03-17
The Bookly plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the full name value in versions up to, and including, 21.5 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that w...
CVE-2023-1469
PUBLISHED: 2023-03-17
The WP Express Checkout plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the ‘pec_coupon[code]’ parameter in versions up to, and including, 2.2.8 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for authenti...
CVE-2023-1466
PUBLISHED: 2023-03-17
A vulnerability was found in SourceCodester Student Study Center Desk Management System 1.0. It has been rated as critical. This issue affects the function view_student of the file admin/?page=students/view_student. The manipulation of the argument id with the input 3' AND (SELECT 2100 FROM (SELECT(...
CVE-2023-1467
PUBLISHED: 2023-03-17
A vulnerability classified as critical has been found in SourceCodester Student Study Center Desk Management System 1.0. Affected is an unknown function of the file Master.php?f=delete_img of the component POST Parameter Handler. The manipulation of the argument path with the input C%3A%2Ffoo.txt le...
CVE-2023-1468
PUBLISHED: 2023-03-17
A vulnerability classified as critical was found in SourceCodester Student Study Center Desk Management System 1.0. Affected by this vulnerability is an unknown functionality of the file admin/?page=reports&date_from=2023-02-17&date_to=2023-03-17 of the component Report Handler. The manipula...