Why Securing Remote Work is Crucial To Ensuring Business Continuity

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If you had asked them in January, most organizations would probably have said things were humming along smoothly. Economic growth was strong, and in most cases budgets and security plans were being created and carried out without any need or intention to disrupt the status quo.

Then the entire world changed.

Within the space of a couple weeks, bustling offices were deserted one by one as federal, state, provincial and local governments issued stay-at-home and shelter-in-place orders, and employees boxed up their essential belongings and became part of the rapidly expanding global remote workforce.

While these moves were necessary to stem the spread of COVID-19, the disruption that this sudden change brought with it introduced a set of problems most businesses were ill-equipped to manage.

Companies that previously felt confident in their cybersecurity strategy suddenly found that they didn’t have the capacity or licenses to secure a full-scale mobile workforce. Worse, they needed to manage employees ill-prepared for the transition, many of whom didn’t understand the additional precautions required for safe remote work.

For hackers, though, these are the salad days — and the combination of inexperienced employees and unprepared businesses has brought them out in force. According to Reuters, hacking activity targeting corporations in the U.S. and elsewhere more than doubled in March, and preliminary reports show much the same for April. These threats highlight the urgent need for scalable Secure Remote Access and VPN license capacity to handle the new influx of remote employees while offering the same level of security offered on-prem.

Greater capacity for increased security

To help small- and medium-sized businesses (SMB) handle a rapidly expanding remote workforce, SonicWall has improved the scalability of its SMA 210 and 410 appliances — the 210 can now manage up to 200 remote VPN users, and the 410 can now support 400.

Many enterprises, governments and MSSPs are facing issues with scalability, too. To handle the influx of remote users on large distributed networks, the SonicWall SMA 1000 series allows these organizations to scale up to a million remote VPN users.

To scope which SMA solution is right for your organization, review the SonicWall Secure Mobile Access data sheet.

New public cloud options for the ‘new business normal’

The remote-work revolution coincides with another major shift in how enterprises work — the ongoing cloud transformation. The benefits of moving to a public cloud are myriad — including cost savings, greater agility, maximum uptime and quick and easy deployment.

While SonicWall has long supported private clouds, such as VMware ESXi and Microsoft Hyper-V, SonicWall SMA 500v and SMA 8200v virtual appliances can now be launched on AWS or Microsoft Azure, allowing businesses to realize these benefits at a time when they may need them the most.

Protect remote workers with special offers on SMA, VPN

Right now, budget concerns are at the forefront for many businesses. To help both new and existing customers implement necessary security during this time of crisis, SonicWall has launched several new ‘Work From Home Securely’ promotions to ensure organizations can implement comprehensive security in a cost-effective way.

With SonicWall’s new Work From Home Securely special offers on SMA and other solutions, there’s never been a better time — or a more crucial time — to secure your remote workforce.

Cybersecurity News & Trends

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This week, hackers continued to capitalize on the COVID-19 pandemic, targeting the healthcare industry, oil companies and remote workers.

SonicWall Spotlight

Czech Cyber Officials Warn Of Serious Threat To Health Care Sector – Cyberscoop

  • Cybersecurity authorities in the Czech Republic have warned of an “extensive campaign of cyberattacks” on IT systems and health care facilities. At least one of the malicious files in the Czech advisory is part of a batch of code used in a remote access hacking tool, which SonicWall reported last month.

SonicWall Boundless Cybersecurity Platform for Remote Working – CRN

  • SonicWall’s new Boundless Cybersecurity model is designed to protect and mobilize large enterprises, small- and medium-sized businesses, and government agencies from the risks of a remote workforce.

2,000 Coronavirus Scammers Taken Offline in NCSC Phishing Crackdown – Experts Reaction –  Information Security Buzz

  • The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, along with the City of London Police and several other government agencies, has launched a ‘Suspicious email reporting service’ for members of the public to alert the authorities to potential cyber-attacks.

Cybersecurity News

Hacking against corporations surges as workers take computers home – Reuters

  • Hackers are targeting remote workers, particularly in highly impacted areas where users’ confusion and anxiety makes them more susceptible to phishing.

FBI enlists internet domain registries in fight against coronavirus scams – Cyberscoop

  • Ongoing cooperation between the government and technology companies has resulted in the removal of hundreds of fraudulent websites that included “coronavirus,” “covid19” and related phrases in their names.

Creative Skype phishing campaign uses Google’s .app gTLD – Bleeping Computer

  • Attackers have deployed a phishing campaign against remote workers using Skype, luring them with emails that mimic notifications from the service.

Hackers Target Top Officials at World Health Organization – Bloomberg

  • The WHO’s security team has been the target of an increasing number of attempted cyber-attacks since mid-March. According to officials, WHO itself has not been hacked, but employee passwords have leaked through other websites.

Hackers Target Oil Companies as Prices Plunge – Wired

  • Espionage hackers have commenced a sophisticated spear-phishing campaign concentrated on U.S.-based energy companies. The goal: install a notorious trojan to siphon their most sensitive communications and data.

Virtual army rising up to protect healthcare groups from hackers – The Hill

  • A new network of white hat hackers—made up of more than 1,400 volunteers in 76 countries, from sectors including information security, telecommunications and law enforcement—has banded together under the name COVID-19 CTI League to help protect the healthcare industry. 

Apple iPhone May Be Vulnerable to Email Hack – The Wall Street Journal

  • Sophisticated hackers may be attacking Apple iPhones by exploiting a previously unknown flaw in the smartphone’s email software.

Customer complaint phishing pushes network hacking malware – Bleeping Computer

  • A new phishing campaign is targeting remote employees, using fake customer complaints to install a backdoor that will compromise the corporate network.

Hackers Can Exfiltrate Data From Air-Gapped Computers Via Fan Vibrations – Security Week

  • With the use of new malware and a smartphone, researcher Mordechai Guri was able to exfiltrate data from air-gapped computers using vibrations from the machines’ internal fans.

 

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Securing Telecommuters with Expanded Endpoint Visibility and Control

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If there is one thing that the ongoing pandemic has taught us, it’s that telecommuting could become the new normal. But IT executives must tread carefully, because expanding the bounds of the enterprise introduces new risks and tends to erode the value of standard protection controls. To ensure continuity and security, organizations need to ensure that employees can operate remotely without being compromised by the myriad advanced threats out there. Can you have your cake and eat it too?

Let’s see how the SonicWall Capture Client 3.0 endpoint solution can help organizations navigate these challenges.

Reduce the attack surface with content filtering

Most malware threats are delivered through websites or links in emails. The vehicles may be fraudulent or genuine websites. Previously, with Capture Client 2.0, endpoints could be blocked from known malicious sites only.

Capture Client 3.0 now features comprehensive, client-based content filtering services. With inspection of both HTTP and HTTPS traffic, granular polices on what categories to allow and block, exclusions for trusted applications, and blacklists for untrusted applications, administrators can easily extend the network-based content filtering services to their off-network users.

Minimize risk with application vulnerability intelligence

Telecommuting often involves the use of a variety of productivity and collaboration applications like Slack and Zoom. Often, employees go looking for other tools that may not be corporate-managed. In any of these cases, threat actors will always be looking for vulnerable versions of applications running on user endpoints. And patching, well … patching is always a moving target, right?

With Application Vulnerability Intelligence, Capture Client will now give real-time visibility of applications and any vulnerabilities found on them. Administrators can not only prioritize which applications to patch, but also blacklist processes launched by unauthorized applications.

Leverage Active Directory properties for granular policy assignment—anywhere

The other side of telecommuting is the explosive adoption of cloud services like O365 and Azure Active Directory (AD). Enterprises often apply granular policies based on AD properties associated with users and devices (e.g., marketing users have access to social networking and IT admins have access to advanced tools). Capture Client now also supports granular policy assignments based on these properties like group membership, and it doesn’t matter if the directory is hosted on-premise or in the cloud.

Expand server protection with Linux Support

The move to the cloud also entails the increased usage of Linux-based workloads that need to be protected from malware threats. Capture Client 3.0 will also introduce support for the SentinelOne Linux agent to extend next-gen antivirus capabilities to Linux servers.

Have an easier time using the tools

In addition, Capture Client 3.0 has also introduced several usability enhancements, including:

  • A new notification center to review outstanding alerts
  • Customizable alert settings, with configurable priority levels
  • An improved and expanded dashboard with actionable intelligence
  • A simplified multi-tenant dashboard for MSSPs
  • More end-user notifications, including a notification when the endpoint is disconnected from the network

With Capture Client 3.0, enterprises can rest assured when extending telecommuting facilities to their employees. They get increased visibility, reduced attack surface and the extension of standard protections to remote endpoints, all within a lightweight, unified client.

Cybersecurity News & Trends

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This week, SonicWall brings Boundless Cybersecurity to the remote workforce; Emotet, Ryuk and Trickbot deliver a 1-2-3 punch; and hackers use Apple for phishing bait.

SonicWall Spotlight

SonicWall Introduces Boundless Cyber Security Platform – Information Age

  • Boundless Cybersecurity aims to address a growing cybersecurity business gap and the complexity of securing remote workers compared to those working at company headquarters.

SonicWall: More Than 21,500 SecureFirst Partners Worldwide – MSSP Alert

  • SonicWall adds 1,100 SecureFirst partner in February and unveils a Boundless Cybersecurity model to protect mobile and remote workers against cyberthreats.

How to protect yourself against online COVID-19 scammers – Security Watch Info

  • As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to dominate the news cycle, cybercriminals are capitalizing on fear, stress and people’s desire for answers to gain access to personal information.

Cybersecurity News

North Korea hacking threatens U.S., other countries, international financial system: U.S. State Department – Reuters

  • The FBI joined the U.S. Departments of State, Treasury and Homeland Security in issuing an advisory about North Korean cyberthreats, warning the financial sector is particularly at risk.

Czechs Warn Hackers Are Preparing Cyber Attacks on Hospitals – Bloomberg

  • According to the Czech National Cyber and Information Security Agency, a campaign of cyberattacks on the country’s hospitals is expected in the coming days, Bloomberg reports.

The Pentagon Hasn’t Fixed Basic Cybersecurity Blind Spots – Wired

  • Five years ago, the Department of Defense set dozens of security hygiene goals. A new report finds that it has abandoned or lost track of most of them.

FBI warns of ongoing COVID-19 scams targeting govt, health care – Bleeping Computer

  • The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned government agencies and health care organizations of ongoing BEC schemes exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as an overall increase in cryptocurrency and health care fraud scam activity targeting consumers.

The secret behind “unkillable” Android backdoor called xHelper has been revealed – Ars Technica

Emotet, Ryuk, TrickBot: ‘Loader-Ransomware-Banker Trifecta’ – Bank Info Security

  • The “loader-ransomware-banker” trifecta—Emotet, Ryuk and Trickbot—is stronger than the sum of its parts, causing millions of dollars in damages over the past few years.

Someone is passing around Valorant beta keys that are actually malware – Cyberscoop

  • Gamers hoping to access a closed beta for the video game Valorant are receiving keylogger software instead, as hackers attempt to capitalize on the hype surrounding the upcoming Riot Games release.

Apple Is Top Pick for Brand Phishing Attempts – Dark Reading

  • Have you received a suspicious-looking email purporting to be from Apple? You aren’t alone—10% of all brand phishing attempts in the first quarter of 2020 used the Apple brand in an attempt to deceive recipients.

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‘Boundless Cybersecurity’ Protects Organizations Mobilizing for the New Business Normal

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A new ‘business normal’ has arrived for each and every enterprise, organization, business and government agency. It’s a new work reality where everyone is mobile, everyone is remote and everyone is less secure.

This sudden shift has accelerated future technology, communication, networking and cybersecurity plans.

The era of the ‘anytime, anywhere business’ is here now, forever changing the shape of the IT and business landscape. The massively expanding distributed IT reality — fueled by the proliferation of apps and devices, the pervasive cloud, borderless organizations, sensors everywhere — is creating an unprecedented explosion of exposure points for businesses.

These combined forces dramatically escalate risk, making the cost of conventional security prohibitive and the shortage of trained personnel more acute. Constrained budget and staffing resources can’t keep up, creating a growing ‘cybersecurity business gap’ that is unbridgeable with conventional security approaches.

So, how do organizations protect the integrity of their business when nearly 100% of their workforce is remote, everything is open and accessible, breach is inevitable, conventional solutions fall short, and increasing scrutiny creates mounting pressure?

More than ever, what’s needed is a shift to a new Boundless Cybersecurity Model that mobilizes organizations for the new business normal — all while breaking free of the constraints of the past. This new model moves organizations from conventional and constrained strategies to a modern, proactive and boundless model.

What is Boundless Cybersecurity?

A new global climate and fast-moving market dynamics accelerate the need for Boundless Cybersecurity, which proactively mitigates cyberattacks across organizations’ boundless exposure points, including a ‘boundless’ workforce of remote, mobile and cloud-enabled users. Boundless Cybersecurity is rooted by three core principles:

  • Know the unknown. Detect evasive and cutting-edge threats with SonicWall’s innovation in technology, like the Capture Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) cloud sandbox service, patent-pending Real-Time Deep Memory InspectionTM (RTDMI), machine learning and deep cyber threat intelligence.
  • See everything. Everywhere. No more management siloes. Gain unified visibility and control that integrates the technology, services and solutions you need for end-to-end security (e.g., Capture Security Center).
  • Scale your TCO. SonicWall has architected ways to leverage truly disruptive and scalable economics to make it cost-effective to protect any enterprise, SMB, organization or government

With SonicWall Boundless Cybersecurity, executives, decision-makers and administrators can finally bridge the cybersecurity business gap, mitigating escalating risk from boundless points of exposure — all with less cost and human intervention than conventional security.

“Boundless Cybersecurity” protegge le organizzazioni impegnate nel definire una nuova “normalità operativa”

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C’è una nuova “normalità operativa” per tutte le imprese, le organizzazioni, le aziende e gli enti pubblici. Si tratta di una nuova realtà lavorativa all’insegna della mobilità, del telelavoro e di una minore sicurezza per tutti.

Questa rapida trasformazione ha accelerato i piani per la tecnologia, le comunicazioni, le reti e la cibersicurezza del futuro.

Siamo entrati nell’era dell’attività “sempre e dovunque”, che cambierà per sempre le caratteristiche dell’informatica e il panorama imprenditoriale. La realtà informatica distribuita che sta conoscendo una massiccia espansione – alimentata dalla proliferazione di applicazioni e dispositivi, del cloud pervasivo, delle organizzazioni senza confini, dei sensori ovunque – sta provocando un’esplosione senza precedenti dei punti di esposizione per le aziende.

Queste forze combinate fanno crescere i rischi in modo drammatico, rendendo proibitivi i costi della sicurezza convenzionale e più grave la mancanza di personale specializzato. Non è possibile far fronte ai limiti di bilancio e di personale, il che produce una crescente lacuna nel settore della cibersicurezza, impossibile da colmare con gli approcci alla sicurezza convenzionali.

Che cosa fanno allora le organizzazioni per proteggere l’integrità delle loro attività quando poco meno del 100% dei dipendenti lavora in remoto, tutto è aperto e accessibile, le violazioni sono inevitabili, le soluzioni convenzionali non sono più all’altezza e l’aumento dei controlli provoca pressioni sempre più forti?

Come mai prima d’ora, ciò che occorre è passare a un nuovo Modello di cibersicurezza illimitata, che mobiliti le organizzazioni per la nuova normalità operativa, il tutto liberandosi dai vincoli del passato. Questo nuovo modello comporta il passaggio delle organizzazioni da strategie convenzionali e limitate a modalità moderne, lungimiranti e illimitate.

Che cosa è la cibersicurezza illimitata?

Un nuovo clima globale e dinamiche di mercato in rapida evoluzione rendono più pressante l’esigenza di una cibersicurezza illimitata, in grado di mitigare in anticipo i ciberattacchi nei punti di esposizione esterni delle organizzazioni, compresi i dipendenti che lavorano in remoto e gli utenti mobili e che utilizzano il cloud. La cibersicurezza illimitata si basa su tre princìpi fondamentali:

  • Conoscere l’ignoto. Rilevare le minacce evasive e all’avanguardia tramite le innovazioni tecnologiche di SonicWall, come il servizio di sandbox nel cloud Capture Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), la tecnologia Real-Time Deep Memory InspectionTM (RTDMI) in attesa di brevetto, l’apprendimento automatico e l’intelligenza profonda delle ciberminacce.
  • Vedere tutto. Dovunque. Basta con la gestione a silos. Acquisite una visibilità e un controllo unificati, che integrino le tecnologie, i servizi e le soluzioni necessari per la sicurezza end-to-end (es., Capture Security Center).
  • Modulare il costo totale della proprietà. SonicWall ha messo a punto dei sistemi per sfruttare fattori economici decisamente dirompenti e modulabili, per proteggere in modo economico ed efficace, imprese, PMI, organizzazioni ed enti pubblici.

Con la cibersicurezza illimitata di SonicWall, funzionari, responsabili decisionali e amministratori possono finalmente colmare le lacune della cibersicurezza aziendale, mitigando i crescenti rischi derivanti dai punti di esposizione esterni, il tutto con costi e interventi umani minori rispetto alla sicurezza convenzionale.

Cybersecurity News & Trends

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This week, SonicWall updates its MSSP program, the World Health Organization fends off phishing attempts, and hackers have a crisis of conscience… maybe.

SonicWall Spotlight

New SonicWall MSSP Program Boosts Pricing Options, Tech Support – CRN

  • SonicWall’s MSSP program has evolved from requiring customers to commit to an annual license from the get-go to offering both monthly and annual pricing options.

Addressing Cybersecurity Threats – Trending Business Insights

  • SonicWall’s VP of EMEA Sales, Terry Greer-King, talks about cybersecurity trends and SonicWall operations in the Middle East.

SonicWall Updates Its SecureFirst MSSP Program – Enterprise Times

  • Terry Greer-King, SonicWall VP of EMEA Sales, and Luca Taglioretti, SonicWall VP of Global MSSP & Carrier Sales, discuss spike licensing, the role training plays in the updated MSSP program, and more.

Cybersecurity News

Microsoft Exchange: 355,000 Servers Lack Critical Patch – Bank Info Security

  • Less than 20 percent of vulnerable Microsoft Exchange servers have received a fix for a serious flaw that Microsoft first disclosed nearly two months ago, potentially leaving them open for a remote attacker “to turn any stolen Exchange user account into a complete system compromise.”

Hackers struggle morally and economically over coronavirus – Bleeping Computer

  • With the coronavirus pandemic in full swing, threat actors are torn about how they should operate during the pandemic—and like everyone else, are also seeing a downturn in the marketplace.

‘Coronavirus’ malware can wreck your PC: What to do – Tom’s Guide

  • SonicWall has discovered a ‘coronavirus’ malware that aims to disable computers amid the COVID-19 crisis—but it turns out there’s an easy fix.

Is Remote Working A Threat To Your Business? – Disruption Hub

  • The rapid spread of the coronavirus and the sudden implementation of lockdown measures gave companies little time to prepare secure working from home strategies—and little time to educate employees on the potential security pitfalls of remote work.

Exclusive: Hackers linked to Iran target WHO staff emails during coronavirus – sources – Reuters

  • Hackers working in the interests of the Iranian government have attempted to break into the personal email accounts of staff at the World Health Organization during the coronavirus outbreak, four people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

A researcher found zero-days in one city’s software. Then he realized the problem could be bigger. – Cyberscoop

  • “He unpacked the code, sifted through it, and found more than a dozen previously undisclosed vulnerabilities, or zero-days, that a hacker could exploit to manipulate data or dump user passwords. But it was more than just a catalog of bugs: Poring over the code, Rhoads-Herrera found the names of two other city governments that have used the software.”

DarkHotel hackers use VPN zero-day to breach Chinese government agencies – ZDNet

  • More than 200 VPN servers have been hacked in this campaign, 174 of which were located on the networks of government agencies in Beijing and Shanghai, and the networks of Chinese diplomatic missions operating abroad in several countries.

Phishing emails impersonate the White House and VP Mike Pence – Bleeping Computer

  • Phishing scammers have begun impersonating President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence in emails that distribute malware or perform extortion scams.

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The New Front in Hospitals’ Battle Against COVID-19: Ransomware

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In 2016, hackers attacked Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles. While systems critical to patient care weren’t affected, for two weeks, employees were locked out of email and other forms of electronic communications.

Ultimately, hospital administrators decided that the most cost-effective way to regain control was to pay the $17,000 ransom. Last year, a similar but more devastating attack hit three Alabama hospitals, forcing them to turn away all but the most critical patients. They, too, paid an undisclosed ransom, but were hardly the only victims of targeted ransomware attacks.

Recent news stories celebrating a drop in ransomware cases last year on the heels of 2018’s record may cause some to wonder whether ransomware is on its way out. But as we noted in the 2020 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report, ransomware isn’t going away, it’s just getting more efficient. “Spray and pray,” the report concluded, is over—but for big-game hunting, the season is just beginning.

Today, ransomware operators have one guiding principle: The bigger the potential disruption caused by an attack, the bigger the chance of a payday. According to the report, 2019 saw widespread attacks of K-12 schools, public utilities, and state and local governments. 2020 looks to be more of the same, with one crucial difference: Amid a global pandemic, already wildly disruptive in and of itself, many attackers who once targeted a wide swath of businesses and organizations that kept our lives running are now targeting the businesses and organizations that keep us alive.

Data presented in the 2020 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report suggests that in 2019, many medical companies had security insufficient for threats they faced then. Out of the year’s top 40 data exposures, roughly 18% were organizations in the medical/healthcare industry; these incidents resulted in compromised data for 42 million people.

But now, as future healthcare workers are being offered early graduation and retired ones are being called back into the field — as ailing patients are being doubled up on ventilators and facilities begin to reach, and then surpass, capacity — the more predatory hackers are seeing an opportunity to turn a nation’s suffering into some of the easiest money they’ll ever make. “You can keep the money you’ll need to ensure care later,” their bargain implies, “or lose access to the data that’s allowing you to offer care now.”

Either way, healthcare providers lose.

In 2019, SonicWall Capture Labs researchers uncovered 187.9 million ransomware attacks globally. If that number doesn’t rise — which seems increasingly unlikely — and just 20% more of those cyberattacks targeted the healthcare industry, the results would be devastating.

“In a modern, citizen-centric environment, successful ransomware attacks are highly disruptive,” SonicWall President and CEO Bill Conner wrote for Forbes. “Networks from city hall, law enforcement agencies, sanitation, courthouses, or the DMV could be compromised in minutes and everyday operations held for ransom, often at exorbitant costs.”

Like the virus itself, this situation has arrived in some places far sooner than expected. Medical labs, doctors’ offices, and hospitals are already seeing an increase in attacks, with one group even targeting a lab that was actively working on a COVID-19 vaccine.

As increasingly desperate hospitals quickly and reliably pay ransomware demands to ensure minimal disruption during a situation in which there’s no room for error, hackers are becoming more audacious in their demands — according to Bloomberg News, there has been not only an increase in the quantity of attacks on healthcare organizations, but also the amount of ransom requested.

The old adage about planting trees could just as easily apply to cybersecurity: The best time to develop a crisis continuity plan and put appropriate security measures into place was 20 years ago. The second-best time is right now.

While it’s of utmost importance to ensure the doctors, nurses and staffers currently risking their lives to save others have access to enough ventilators, beds and hospital gear to adequately care for their patients, it is equally important that doctors have access to the patient data — such as health conditions, current medications, and allergies — that guides care and ultimately helps save lives.

SonicWall Unveils Partner Program Designed for MSSPs

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Faced with threats, exposure points and personnel needs growing at a pace their budgets and actual headcount can’t keep up with, IT departments are increasingly relying on managed security service providers (MSSP) to fill the gaps.

To help our MSSP partners meet the unprecedented demand for their knowledge and expertise, SonicWall has leveraged its nearly three decades in the channel industry to create a new MSSP partner program focused on delivering simplicity and efficiency during a time when you need it most.

By combining our expanding set of threat intelligence solutions with a flexible set of pricing options, our goal is to help MSSPs grow profitability. And by adding program enhancements such as simplified operations; automated provisioning and billing;  unified visibility and security management; and pre-defined threat analytics, reporting and workflows, we’re offering MSSPs the opportunity to meet goals more easily than ever.

“After being in close communication with our MSSP partners, we’ve been working around the clock to develop a strong program layered in with our highly successful SecureFirst partner program that caters to the specific needs of over 20,000 current partners around the world,” said SonicWall Vice President, Global MSSP & Carrier Sales, Luca Taglioretti. “We’re excited to deliver flexible pricing options that match the way customers want to buy, including monthly, annual and consumption-based models.”

The MSSP program offers its own curriculum and accreditation with access to L3 Premier Support and full technical knowledgebase. What’s more, all program participants will benefit from an assigned partner manager and sales engineer, while those in the Top Tier will also have access to a solution architect.

“Our goal is to help simplify the daily operations of MSSPs and provide them with the support that they need, exactly when they need it,” said SonicWall Vice President, Global Channel Sales, HoJin Kim. “Being a 100% channel company, we feel this is a natural progression for us and look forward to continuing to deliver managed security services to enterprises, SMBs and government organizations that are challenged with the task of defending increasingly more targeted cyberattacks.”

Through the three MSSP program tiers — MSSP Protect, MSSP Powered and MSSP Powered Plus — partners will enjoy:

  • Expanded annual and monthly pricing model licenses
  • Aggressive volume–based pricing based on assets under management
  • Priority access to Premier Support Tier 3 engineers
  • Increased access to MDF, including accruals for Powered Plus partners
  • Support from a new and expanding MSSP strategic account management team

To learn more about how SonicWall’s partner programs can help you grow your business visit, www.sonicwall.com/partners/mssp-partner-program.

Cybersecurity News & Trends

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This week, while remote workers and hospitals alike struggled to adjust to the new realities brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, hackers looked to exploit the upheaval for ill-gotten profit.

SonicWall Spotlight

There’s now COVID-19 malware that will wipe your PC and rewrite your MBR – ZDNet

  • Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, some malware authors are releasing coronavirus-themed malware that destroys infected systems by either wiping files or rewriting a computer’s master boot record (MBR). The first of the MBR-rewriters was discovered by security researcher MalwareHunterTeam, as detailed in a report from SonicWall this week.

Cyber Security Threats Loom Large as Employees Work Remotely – The Week

  • According to SonicWall’s Capture Labs Threat Research Team, the risks of engaging with any coronavirus app—some of which purport to track infections or point to a vaccine—is very high, as hackers target newly minted remote workers in general, and those concerned about the virus in particular.

SonicWall Research Team Flags off 5 Top Cyberattacks in Times of COVID-19 Pandemic – CXO Today

  • The rise in employees working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic is requiring that businesses provide employees secure access to remote infrastructure, networks and devices—and help safeguard against opportunistic cybercriminals preying on this new pool of remote workers.

Cybersecurity News

Marriott International Confirms Data Breach of Guest Information – Intelligent CISO

  • Terry Greer-King, VP EMEA at SonicWall, commented on the breach: “The Information Commissioner’s Office’s £99 million fine for Marriott in 2019 for a breach of GDPR was supposed to create much-needed reform on how the company processes and secures data. It appears that certain lessons are yet to be learned.”

Cyber Version of ‘Justice League’ Launches to Fight COVID-19 Related Hacks – Dark Reading

  • A group of cybersecurity experts from around the world—including from companies like Microsoft and Okta—have teamed to help organizations fight COVID-19-related hacking and phishing attacks, Dark Reading reports.

Hackers ‘Without Conscience’ Demand Ransom from Health Providers – Bloomberg

  • Bloomberg’s Ryan Gallagher reports on threats targeting the healthcare industry as healthcare providers deal with the massive influx of patients afflicted with COVID-19. Experts around the world are warning that hackers could keep doctors from vital patient data by encrypting records.

FBI warns Zoom, teleconference meetings vulnerable to hijacking – Cyberscoop

  • The warning comes after reports that Zoom—which is also under fire for leaking personal information to strangers and illegally selling user data to Facebook—isn’t securing communications as advertised.

Tech Giants Prepared for 2016-Style Meddling. But the Threat Has Changed. – The Wall Street Journal

  • The chairman of Huawei Technologies warned the U.S. to expect countermeasures from the Chinese government if it further restricts the technology giant’s access to suppliers, as the company’s profit last year grew at the slowest pace in three years.

Banking Malware Spreading via COVID-19 Relief Payment Phishing – Bleeping Computer

  • The Zeus Sphinx banking Trojan has recently resurfaced after a three years hiatus as part of a coronavirus-themed phishing campaign, one of many launched as hackers race to take advantage of the current pandemic.

FBI re-sends alert about supply chain attacks for the third time in three months – ZDNet

  • The FBI says a group state-sponsored hackers are now targeting the healthcare industry, which is currently grappling with the COVID-19 outbreak.

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