Cybersecurity News & Trends – 10-20-2023

Today is National Information Overload Day – we’re happy to overload you with information about all the amazing things happening at SonicWall this week. Channel Futures wrote about the awesome changes we recently made to our SecureFirst Partner Program.  CRN UK covered some of SonicWall’s plans for European and global channel expansion.

In industry news, Bleeping Computer had the lowdown on Steam’s new SMS-verification policy for developers. Hacker News provided information on some concerning attacks on telecom companies in Ukraine. Tech Crunch covered a zero-day exploit affecting thousands of Cisco devices. Dark Reading broke down the top ten passwords used by admins, and they’ll probably surprise you.

Remember to keep your passwords close and your eyes peeled – cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility.

SonicWall News

SonicWall CEO teases global rollout of partner programme amid Euro channel push

CRN UK, SonicWall News: SonicWall has its sights set on European and global channel expansion after relaunching its revamped partner programme in the US in September. According to CEO, Robert VanKirk, the cybersecurity vendor is sharply focused on helping its partners incorporate more services into their offer but meeting them where they are in their cybersecurity journey.

14 New, Changing Channel Programs: SonicWall, Ingram Micro, Cisco, More

Channel Futures, SonicWall News: SonicWall is introducing “aggressive discount levels” for partners selling to new customer accounts. The discounts, which all partner tiers can access, ease the cost of customer acquisition, according to SonicWall. Among many changes that stemmed from partner feedback, SonicWall is allowing partners to access benefits before committing to training or business planning with the supplier. Those updates come a couple months after Michelle Ragusa-McBain took the helm of the vendor’s channel.

Zero-trust model and Gen AI-based threat detection are emerging security trends: Chandrodaya Prasad, Executive VP, Product Management & Product Marketing, SonicWall

CRN India, SonicWall News: In an exclusive interview with CRN India, Chandrodaya Prasad, Executive Vice President, Product Management & Product Marketing, Sonicwall, shares his perspective on strengthening the cybersecurity of businesses with effective solutions.

SonicWall Adds Key Piece to Channel Leadership Evolution; Names New Chief Marketing Officer Christine Bartlett

Telecom Reseller, SonicWall News: SonicWall, a world-leading cybersecurity, partner-first business for more than 30-years, announced today that Christine Bartlett will serve as its Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO).

Infinigate Coud partners with SonicWall to expand expertise and channel reach

CRN UK, SonicWall News: Infinigate is announcing an expansion to its relationship with SonicWall to partner with its Infinigate Cloud business. With this new partnership, Infinigate Cloud will bring additional expertise and channel reach in the UK. Cybersecurity firm, SonicWall, delivers boundless cybersecurity for the hyper-distributed era in a work reality where everyone is remote, mobile and unsecure.

The enhanced, reimagined partner program is propelled by SonicWall’s channel-first, outside-in approach

eChannel News, SonicWall News: SonicWall announced the introduction of its newly enhanced SecureFirst Partner Program to its existing and prospective North American customers, which is a culmination of actively listening to its partner community and implementing requested and recommended changes.

SonicWall Offers New Procurement Options to Partners

MSSP Alert, SonicWall News: SonicWall has enhanced its partner program to help its North American MSSP and MSP partners use its products to grow their businesses, according to the company.

SonicWall Listening to Channel As It Unveils Partner Program Changes

Channel Futures, SonicWall News: SonicWall has responded to partner demands with a list of changes to its SecureFirst Partner Program. The latest version of the SonicWall partner program is designed with MSP and MSSP business models in mind, said the vendor.

‘A New Dawn’: SonicWall Revamps Partner Program To Accelerate Growth, Activate MSPs

CRN, SonicWall News: SonicWall unveiled an overhauled channel program Tuesday that brings a major focus on enabling MSPs and MSSPs to work with the company, while introducing a range of improvements aimed at driving accelerated growth with all partners, according to SonicWall Global Channel Chief Michelle Ragusa-McBain.

Hackers behind MGM cyberattack thrash the casino’s incident response

CSO, SonicWall News: Experts like Bobby Cornwell, vice president of strategic partner enablement & integration at SonicWall, believe MGM’s move to shut down was indeed justified. “Out of an abundance of caution, MGM made the right call to lock down all the systems it did, even if it meant inconveniencing its guests as a result of their actions,” Cornwell said.

How to promote online student safety

Security Boulevard, SonicWall News: Worse yet, cybercriminals are upping the ante with a host of sophisticated new attack vectors. SonicWall identified over 270,000 never-before-seen malware variants in just the first half of 2022 — a 45% year-over-year increase. For perspective, that’s the equivalent of 1,500 new malware strains daily.

Industry News

Steam to Begin Enforcing MFA for Developers Due to Malware

Popular online gaming platform Steam will begin requiring SMS verification for developers to prevent malware from hijacking game updates. This decision comes on the heels of researchers discovering a malware campaign in which hackers were exploiting a vulnerability in Steam’s update mechanism. The malware, known as “SteamHide,” could hide itself inside legitimate game updates and execute malicious code on the user’s computer. It could also spread to other Steam users by hijacking the infected users’ direct messages and sending links to users on their friend lists. The addition of SMS verification will add an extra layer of security to the update process which should help protect users from attacks like this in the future. While SMS verification will be required for developers starting on October 24, it’s still optional for regular Steam users, but Steam does recommend all users enable this feature for optimal protection. It’s worth noting that SMS verification is not a perfect solution by any means. It’s still vulnerable to threats such as SIM-swap attacks which have gained popularity among threat actors in recent years. It should help, nonetheless.

Hackers Use Zero-day to Access Thousands of Cisco Devices

An unpatched zero-day exploit in Cisco’s networking software has led to a field day for threat actors. According to threat researchers, hackers have already exploited the vulnerability to compromise tens of thousands of devices. Cisco released a statement this week saying that the bug had been found in its IOS XE software which is used by many of its networking devices. The affected devices include Cisco enterprise switches, wireless controllers, access points and industrial routers. Cisco’s threat intelligence wing stated that the hackers have been exploiting the bug since at least September 18, so nearly a month. Researchers noted that a majority of the compromised devices are in the United States with some in the Philippines and Mexico. The vulnerability has received a severity rating of 10.0, but Cisco has not released a patch as of yet. A Cisco spokesperson assured users that the company is working non-stop to get a fix out. In the meantime, users of potentially compromised devices should disable the HTTP Server feature and search their networks for any signs of compromise.

Threat Actors Targeting Ukrainian Telecom Companies

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) has released information showing that a threat group has been targeting telecom service providers inside the country for the past several months. According to CERT-UA, these threat actors targeted at least 11 telecom companies in Ukraine between May and September 2023. The agency noted that these attacks have resulted in service interruptions for customers. Threat researchers have identified the way the attacks are happening. They appear to be using two specialized programs named ‘POEMGATE’ and ‘POSEIDON’ to steal credentials and gain remote access. After they infiltrate the servers, they use a program called ‘WHITECAT’ to cover their footsteps. The attacks seem to be originating from legitimate accounts, which track with multiple waves of phishing attacks the agency has observed in October. From what CERT-UA has seen, the goal of the attacks is credential theft and accessing remote banking systems to send unauthorized payments.

Admins Passwords Are Just as Bad as the Rest of Ours

Admins, the jig is up – we know you’re just as lazy about passwords as the rest of us, and Dark Reading has confirmed it. Researchers analyzed over 1.8 million administrator portals and found some alarming statistics concerning the strength of administrator passwords. The researchers broke down the top ten most used passwords from administrators. The top password? Believe it or not, it was ‘admin,’ with over 40,000 uses. The rest of the top ten was littered with passwords just as easy to guess, such as ‘123456’ and ‘password.’ So, if you, like me, thought that administrators were beacons of good tech habits to be admired by all of us lowly tech-illiterate folk, think again. Administrators may be the worst offenders of us all when it comes to weak passwords. If you want some information on creating strong passwords, check out our Cybersecurity Awareness Month blog on the matter – you may even consider sending it to an administrator near you.

SonicWall Blog

SonicWall’s Online Support Resources: Expanding Horizons for Enhanced Customer Experience – Micah Vorst

National Cybersecurity Awareness Month: Password Pro Tips – Jordan Riddles

National Cybersecurity Awareness Month: 20 Years of Securing Our World – Amber Wolff

How the All-New SecureFirst Partner Program Puts Partners First – Michelle Ragusa-McBain

Why Firewall Throughput Numbers Don’t Tell the Whole Story – Tiju Cherian

Elevate Your Network with The Ultimate 3 & Free Promotion – Michelle Ragusa-McBain

Why Education is the New Cybercrime Epicenter – Amber Wolff

How SonicWall Offers High Availability at the Lowest Price – Tiju Cherian

Cryptojacking Continues Crushing Records – Amber Wolff

Why Should You Choose SonicWall’s NSsp Firewalls? – Tiju Cherian

Utilize APIs to Scale Your MySonicWall Operation – Chandan Kumar Singh

First-Half 2023 Threat Intelligence: Tracking Cybercriminals Into the Shadows – Amber Wolff

Jordan Riddles

Junior Copywriter | SonicWall

Jordan Riddles is a Junior Copywriter for SonicWall. He has a background in content creation and editing, and he lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jordan is a graduate of Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, with a focus in English and creative writing. In his spare time, he loves reading, cooking and disc golfing.