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Rare and dangerous Incontroller malware targets ICS operations

A coalition of U.S. government agencies, security researchers, and companies warn about this new malware that can gain complete access to ICS and SCADA systems.

In the second major industrial control system (ICS) threat development this week, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) warning of a complex and dangerous ICS threat. The CSA says that specific unnamed advanced persistent threat (APT) actors have exhibited the capability to gain complete system access to multiple ICS and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) devices.

These agencies collaborated with a group of top-tier industrial control and security leaders including Dragos, Mandiant, Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft, and Schneider Electric in drafting the alert. The CSA pointed specifically to three categories of devices vulnerable to the malware:

  • Schneider Electric programmable logic controllers (PLCs)
  • OMRON Sysmac NEX PLCs
  • Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture (OPC UA) servers

The malware consists of a package of dangerous custom-made tools targeting ICS and SCADA devices that can scan for, compromise and control affected devices once they have established initial access to the operational technology (OT) network.

This article appeared in CSO Online. To read the rest of the article please visit here.

Image by Frauke Feind from Pixabay

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Cyber incident reporting measures approved in the omnibus spending…

Critical infrastructure entities and federal agencies will have to report significant cyber incidents to CISA within 72 hours and ransomware attacks within 24 hours under legislation passed by the House that will likely become law.

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed key provisions of the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022, which would require critical infrastructure operations to alert the government when they are hacked or pay a ransom to threat actors. It is part of the $1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill passed by the House on Wednesday, which funds the federal government for the rest of the year.

The incident report provisions contained in the Act, part of the broader Strengthening American Cybersecurity Act, failed to become law last year but passed the Senate unanimously on March 1.

This article appeared in CSO Online. To read the rest of the article please visit here.

 

 

Alejandro Mayorkas

DHS creates Cyber Safety Review Board to review significant…

The CSRB will advise the President and Department of Homeland Security director, as well as review major security events starting with the Log4j exploits.

Following President Biden’s cybersecurity executive order issued last May, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on February 3 the creation of the Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB). This public-private initiative is charged with reviewing and assessing significant cybersecurity incidents across government and the private sector. “The CSRB will provide a unique forum for collaboration between government and private sector leaders who will deliver strategic recommendations to the President and the Secretary of Homeland Security,” DHS said in announcing the statement.

The CSRB will start with 15 top cybersecurity leaders from the federal government and the private sector, including Robert Silvers, DHS undersecretary for policy, who will serve as chair, and Heather Adkins, Google’s senior director for security engineering, who will serve as deputy chair. DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) will manage, support and fund the board. CISA Director Jen Easterly is responsible for appointing CSRB members, in consultation with Silvers, and convening the board following significant cybersecurity events.

This article appeared in CSO Online. To read the rest of the article please visit here.

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Biden memo aims to bolster cybersecurity in national security…

A national security memorandum places new cybersecurity requirements for reporting and preventing security incidents involving sensitive national security systems.

United States President Joe Biden issued a 17-page National Security Memorandum (NSM) yesterday containing new cybersecurity requirements for national security systems (NSS). The memo’s purpose is to ensure that these more sensitive systems employ the same or more stringent cybersecurity measures spelled out for federal civilian systems in Biden’s comprehensive cybersecurity executive order issued in May 2021.

National security systems are information systems, including telecommunication systems, that involve intelligence or cryptologic activities related to national security, command and control of military forces, weapons systems, other activity critical to the direct fulfillment of military or intelligence missions, and classified information related to national defense or foreign policy. This latest effort to boost cybersecurity follows the order issued last May and an NSM for critical infrastructure owners, a directive to bolster pipeline cybersecurity, and several other actions by the administration to prioritize cybersecurity following a year of growing threats and attacks.

This article appeared in CSO Online. To read the rest of the article please visit here.

 

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Russia-linked cyberattacks on Ukraine: A timeline

Cyber incidents are playing a central role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Here’s how events are unfolding along with unanswered questions.

On Saturday night, January 15, Microsoft shook the cybersecurity world with a report that destructive wiper malware had penetrated dozens of government, non-profit, and IT organizations in Ukraine. This news capped a week of mounting apprehension of cyberattacks in Ukraine that could presage or accompany a real-world Russian military invasion of the country.

Since January 11, several possibly interconnected developments related to Russia’s cybersecurity posture paint a complex and unclear portrait of what’s happening in Ukraine. The following is a timeline of these increasingly high-stakes developments:

January 11: U.S. releases cybersecurity advisory

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the National Security Agency (NSA) released a joint cybersecurity advisory (CSA) providing an overview of Russian state-sponsored cyber operations. It covered commonly observed tactics, techniques and procedures. The advisory also provided detection actions, incident response guidance, and mitigations.

CISA also recommended that network defenders review CISA’s Russia Cyber Threat Overview and Advisories page for more information on Russian state-sponsored malicious cyber activity. The agencies seemingly released the CSA as part of an occasional series of joint cybersecurity advisories.

This article appeared in CSO Online. To read the rest of the article please visit here.

 

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Tech sector embraces public-private collaboration on open-source software security

Participants in a White House meeting on securing open-source software expressed optimism for working effectively with government to help prevent Log4j-like events.

Hoping to foster improved security of open-source software, the White House hosted a meeting last week with some of the largest public and private users and maintainers of open-source software. Widely used open-source software “brings unique value, and has unique security challenges, because of its breadth of use and the number of volunteers responsible for its ongoing security maintenance,” the White House said.

The meeting was organized in December, shortly after a dangerous vulnerability in the Java-based logging utility Log4j emerged. That easy-to-exploit flaw has the potential to compromise hundreds of millions of machines globally. The FBI, the NSA and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) quickly branded it as “a threat to organizations and governments everywhere.” In a letter inviting tech leaders to the meeting, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that “open-source software is a key national security concern.”

The meeting included attendees from a wide range of government departments and agencies, including the Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technology Anne Neuberger, National Cyber Director Chris Inglis, and officials from the Office of the National Cyber Director, CISA, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Private sector participants included executives and top-level representatives from Akamai, Amazon, Apache Software Foundation, Apple, Cloudflare, Facebook (Meta), GitHub, Google, IBM, the Linux Foundation, OpenSSF, Microsoft, Oracle and RedHat.

This article appeared in CSO Online. To read the rest of the article please visit here.

 

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CISA sees no significant harm from Log4j flaws but…

The U.S. cybersecurity agency can’t rule out that adversaries are using Log4j to gain persistent access to launch attacks later.

Officials at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) say that despite initial fears of widespread compromise, they have yet to see significant harm stemming from a vulnerability in the Java-based Log4j logging utility that became public in December. They can’t rule out that adversaries haven’t already used the vulnerability to monitor targeted machines silently, however, biding their time for later attacks.

“We’ve been actively monitoring for threat actors looking to exploit” the vulnerability, and “at this time we have not seen the use in significant intrusions,” Jen Easterly, director of CISA, said at a press briefing. “Adversaries may be utilizing this vulnerability to gain persistent access that they could use in the future, which is why we are so focused on remediating the vulnerability across the country and ensuring that we are detecting any intrusions if and when they arise.”

However, the vulnerability has been exploited by threat actors in minor ways. “We are seeing some prevalence of what we would call low-level activities, such as installation of cryptomining and software installation of malware that could be used historically in botnets,” Eric Goldstein, CISA’s executive assistant director for cybersecurity, said.

This article appeared in CSO Online. To read the rest of the article please visit here.

 

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CISA releases directive to remediate dangerous vulnerabilities across civilian…

While the move is applauded, a short timeframe to address vulnerabilities will be a challenge for security resource-strapped agencies.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has issued a wide-ranging mandate, a Binding Operational Directive (BOD 22-01), for all civilian federal agencies “to drive urgent and prioritized remediation of vulnerabilities that are being actively exploited by adversaries.” The goal of the BOD is to help agencies clarify and focus their remediation efforts in the face of thousands of discovered vulnerabilities – 18,000 in 2020 alone – and prioritize those deemed most dangerous for remediation.

The directive requires the agencies to remediate the vulnerabilities within specified time frames relying on a CISA-managed catalog of known exploited vulnerabilities. CISA says this directive enhances but does not replace BOD 19-02,  issued in April 2019 to address remediation requirements for critical and high vulnerabilities on internet-facing federal information systems identified through CISA’s vulnerability scanning service.

This latest directive addresses non-internet-facing assets and applies to all software and hardware found on federal information systems, including those managed on agency premises or hosted by third parties on an agency’s behalf. However, CISA strongly recommends “that private businesses and state, local, tribal and territorial (SLTT) governments prioritize mitigation of vulnerabilities listed in CISA’s public catalog and sign up to receive notifications when new vulnerabilities are added.”

This article appeared in CSO Online. To read the rest of the article please visit here.

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Software cybersecurity labels face practical, cost challenges

The federal government wants consumer software to have cybersecurity labels; experts question the feasibility of the mandate.

As part of his extensive cybersecurity executive order issued in May, President Biden directed the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop two pilot labeling programs on the cybersecurity capabilities of internet-of-things (IoT) consumer devices and software development practices. Although these pilot programs won’t be mandatory for device or software sellers, they could likely raise market expectations. In addition, whatever labels come out of these programs would also carry with them some sense of government authority and might ultimately become part of the government contracting process.

Last week NIST held a two-day workshop on these topics. Of the two pilot programs, the consumer software labeling initiative is the trickier one given the ever-changing nature of software and the absence of any similar existing consumer software labeling initiative.

To help it grasp the more complex task of developing labels for software, NIST solicited one- to two-page labeling position papers from interested parties. In calling for these papers, NIST cited “the challenges and practical approaches to consumer software labeling,” asking` for feedback on the “technical criteria needed to support validation of consumer software security assertions that reflect a baseline level of secure practices.”

This article appeared in CSO Online. To read the rest of the article please visit here.

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Federal agencies face new zero-trust cybersecurity requirements

The OMB and CISA issue guidance to move all federal agencies to a shared zero-trust maturity model for FY22-24. The catch: No new funding.

As part of the Biden administration’s wide-ranging cybersecurity executive order (EO) issued in May, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued three documents on zero trust last week. Zero trust is a security concept that “eliminates implicit trust in any one element, node, or service and instead requires continuous verification of the operational picture via real-time information from multiple sources to determine access and other system responses,” according to the EO.

From a cybersecurity practitioner’s perspective, zero trust is a security approach that, among other things, relies on stringent authentication and authorization processes to give users needed access to digital assets but in constrained ways that limit damage when a breach or compromise occurs. The EO repeatedly references zero trust and directs CISA and OMB to develop initiatives to incorporate zero-trust cybersecurity security models throughout the federal government.

The documents released last week offer draft versions of these models. CISA and OMB call them “strategic and technical guidance documents meant to move the US government towards a zero-trust architecture.”

This article appeared in CSO Online. To read the rest of the article please visit here.

Photo by Laura Heimann on Unsplash