There’s an extraordinary strong turnout for SonicWall’s upcoming Boundless 2022 global virtual partner experience. SonicWall is also attracting attention for the recent launch of Gen 7 Next Generation Firewalls (NGFWs). In industry news, the US and Europe brace for cyber-attacks in the shadow of the Ukraine crisis, News Corp hit by the “China Nexus,” one-man attack team crashes North Korea’s internet, and the drop in breaches in 2020 “doesn’t reflect reality.”

SonicWall News

Strong Turnout for Boundless 2022 – The Global Virtual Partner Experience

SonicWall is seeing an extraordinarily strong registration turnout for its recently unveiled Boundless 2022, virtual international marquee partner event. The annual events allow partners to hear first-hand about SonicWall’s technology vision and product investments, and gain a deeper understanding of the company’s customer commitments from executives. This year, the event will also feature appearances from a legendary celebrity duo. The event is scheduled for Feb. 23 & 24. Visit this page for registration.

DCC launches SonicWall Gen 7 firewall appliances – taking the fight against cyber attacks

ITWeb: Official SonicWall distributor Drive Control Corporation (DCC) has announced the immediate availability of the newest additions to the company’s high-performance firewall offering, the Generation 7 Network Security platform services (NSsp) and Network Security Appliance (NSa) series.

SonicWall Answers the Call with New NGFWs

ARN-IDG: The big news is that SonicWall recently launched 17 new Gen-7 NGFWs in less than 18 months. So, whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise in your home or the cloud, you’ll benefit from the NGFWs that offer security, control, and visibility for an effective cybersecurity posture.

Industry News

Brace for Russian Cyber Attacks as Ukraine Crisis Continues

Reuters, CNN, New York Times: Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), a part of the GCHQ eavesdropping intelligence agency, warned large organizations (enterprises, service providers) to bolster their cyber security resilience amid the deepening tensions over Ukraine. The consensus among cybersecurity advisors points to a long-term struggle between established industrialized democracies versus rising rivals such as China and Russia. The target is the post-Cold War era where military, technology and economic dominance is to be thoroughly challenged. Some observers, including the US and Europe, believe that attackers who hit Ukrainian government websites earlier this month left the chilling warning, “be afraid and expect the worst.” The message, they say, was aimed at the west. According to CNN, the FBI asks US businesses to report an uptick in Russian hacking threats — the latest effort to prepare for potential Russian cyberattacks on US organizations amid Russia’s troop buildup on Ukraine’s border. New York Times reported that the US dispatched cybersecurity experts to NATO to prepare allies to deter, and perhaps disrupt, Russian cyberattacks on Ukraine and brace for the possibility that sanctions on Moscow could lead to a wave of retaliatory cyberattacks on Europe and the United States.

News Corp hit by cyberattack with suspected link to China

The Hill: News Corp. said Friday it was the victim of a cyberattack likely to benefit the Chinese government and that the intrusion targeted its businesses, including the New York Post, Dow Jones and others. The company detailed the scope of the attack in an email to employees and listed it on a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), where the company said a preliminary analysis pointed to a foreign government targeting one of its third-party, cloud-based systems. The cybersecurity firm Mandiant, investigating the attack, said that assessments point to a “China nexus.”

Oil terminals disrupted after European ports hit by cyberattack

Euronews: Port facilities in Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands have been targeted by a large-scale cyberattack, authorities say. Officials say the hack began several days ago and has primarily disrupted operations at oil terminals, preventing tankers from delivering energy supplies. In addition, German judicial authorities say they have launched an investigation into suspected “extortion” of oil operators amid soaring energy prices. The cyberattack hit Hamburg — a significant port city in northern Germany — and at least six oil terminals in Belgium and the Netherlands.

How a US hacker took down North Korea’s internet in a revenge cyber-attack

WION: The blame for North Korea’s persistent internet failures does not lie with the United States Cyber Command or any other state-sponsored hacker organization. It was the work of an American man, who sat in his living room night after night, watching Alien movies and munching on spicy corn snacks — while working on a personal project. The project involved periodically walking over to his home office to check on the progress of the programs he was running to disrupt an entire country’s internet. North Korean spies hacked an independent hacker who goes by the handle P4x just over a year ago.

Apple says antitrust bills could cause ‘millions of Americans’ to suffer malware attacks

CNBC: Apple warned lawmakers on Tuesday that antitrust bills being considered in the Senate would increase the risk of security breaches for iPhone users. The reason, Apple explains, is that they may be forced to allow “sideloading” — a process where users can download apps outside the App Store. Apple’s pushback reflects growing concern from the iPhone maker about the American Innovation and Choice Online Act and the Open App Markets Act, both of which are scheduled to be considered this week.

Data breach numbers may not be declining, but reporting them is getting slower

TechRepublic: A study released by Flashpoint and Risk-Based Security found two startling facts: Its report of a drop in the total number of breaches is likely erroneous, and the time it takes for an organization to report. A breach has increased to the highest levels since 2014. Much of what Flashpoint and RBS found was similar to other reports on the topic: Healthcare was a leading target, ransomware is more popular than ever, and billions of records were stolen. One of the more interesting data points that the report covers is its reported 5% drop in the total number of breaches between 2020 and 2021, which analysts say doesn’t reflect reality. In fact, as reported by the NASDAQ news division, the number of data breaches at corporations was up more than 68% in 2021, beating the previous record, set in 2017, by 23% according to the 16th annual Data Breach Report conducted by the Identity Theft Resource Center located in El Cajon, CA.

In Case You Missed It

• Don’t Let Global Supply Chain Issues Impact Your Security – Kayvon Sadeghi
• Unpacking the U.S. Cybersecurity Executive Order – Kayvon Sadeghi
• Everything Old Is New Again: Remote Access Comes Full Circle – James Whewell
• How SonicWall ZTNA protects against Log4j (Log4Shell) – Rishabh Parmar
• 10 Tips for a Safe and Happy Holiday – Amber Wolff
• The Rise and Growth of Malware-as-a-Service – Ray Wyman
• A Record-Breaking Year for SonicWall’s Boundless Future – Ray Wyman
• Cybersecurity is Infrastructure – Ray Wyman
• Frost & Sullivan Commend SonicWall for Security Excellence – Kayvon Sadeghi
• SonicWall Answers the Call with New NGFWs – Ajay Uggirala
• Illuminating Cybersecurity with Unified Insights – Suroop Chandran
• How Unified Cloud Simplifies Network Switch Management – Tiju Cherian
• Cyber Threat Alert: Ransomware Breaks Another Record – Ray Wyman
• Why Cybersecurity Must be First – Ray Wyman
• How to Protect Multi-Cloud Environments with a NSv Virtual Firewall – Tiju Cherian

In industry news, a new business survey explores why employees violate cybersecurity policies designed to keep their businesses safe. Also, there’s a lot of reporting on how the US power grid has improved, but experts say they still need stronger cybersecurity. In other news, the International Red Cross organization suffered a breach, Crypto.com says hackers stole more than $30 million in Bitcoin and Ethereum, cryptocurrency values take a sharp dive as Russia explores a complete ban on crypto mining and trading, and the CISA is urging US organizations to prepare for data-wiping attacks similar with what hit Ukraine last week.

Industry News

Research: Why Employees Violate Cybersecurity Policies

Harvard Business Review: Many organizations have focused their security investments on technological solutions in the face of increasingly common (and costly) cyberattacks. However, as many consultants and experts know, attackers also rely on some insider (an employee or other member) knowingly or unknowingly allowing a bad actor into secure areas. What is behind these acts that can tear down even the most advanced security solutions? HBR published a recent study that suggests that most intentional policy breaches stem not from some malicious desire to cause harm but rather from the perception that following the rules would impede employees’ ability to get their work done effectively. Therefore, under heat for productivity, employees are more likely to violate security policies on days when they are more stressed out. The study they cite suggests that high-stress levels can reduce people’s tolerance for following rules that seem to get in the way of doing their jobs. In light of these findings, the authors suggest how organizations should rethink their approach to cybersecurity and implement policies that address the fundamental, underlying factors creating vulnerabilities.

Biden’s Cybersecurity Policies Praised Despite the Persistence Of Ransomware

NBC News: From Russian cyberespionage to attacks on crucial supply chains, the Biden administration has had no shortage of cybersecurity challenges to face. While ransomware was a rapidly escalating problem before Biden took office, it became undeniable last year. Hackers, often operating with seeming impunity within Russia, extorted US hospitals and schools, a major oil pipeline company and the country’s largest beef distributor. Experts say a year later, the Biden administration has done a decent job with cybersecurity policy, filling crucial roles and hardening the country’s infrastructure cybersecurity. But they also warn that ransomware hackers will likely continue to target Americans and that Congress hasn’t helped the country’s security as much as it could.

US Power Grids Need Stronger Cybersecurity

Bloomberg: According to the country’s top energy regulator, the US power grids need to boost their cyber defenses to find hackers faster to keep them from gaining control over operations. According to a notice issued Thursday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is proposing to develop standards to monitor devices or equipment on bulk power systems. The proposed standards would seek to find hackers lurking within networks instead of current efforts that use a perimeter defense that focuses on trying to keep attackers out of sensitive networks. A massive breach using software from Texas-based SolarWinds Corp. in 2020 is one example of how attackers can bypass such defenses through trusted vendors.

Indonesia C.Bank Says Ransomware Attack Did Not Impact Services

Reuters: Indonesia’s central bank said on Thursday that it had been attacked last month by ransomware, but the risk from the attack had been mitigated and did not affect its public services.

Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) Resolves Effect of Ransomware Attack

APS News: The cyberattack that forced a two-day cancellation of classes last week at Albuquerque Public Schools was the victim of a ransomware event in which there was some extortion demand. But APS officials are not saying what was demanded nor whether they negotiated with the attackers.

International Red Cross: Supply Chain Data Breach Hit 500K People

InfoSecurity: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has revealed a significant data breach that compromised the personal details of over 515,000 “highly vulnerable” victims. The data was stolen from a Swiss contractor that stores the information on behalf of the global humanitarian organization headquartered in Geneva.

Data Breach Customer Relations: What NOT To Do

InformationWeek: Some companies try to keep a data breach relatively quiet by following only the minimum legal requirements and hoping it will blow over. From experience, say experts, it’s much more likely to blow up than blow over. This article looks at some “bad behaviors” that managers may want to avoid.

Top 3 Small-Business Cyber Threats That Many Businesses Still Haven’t Heard Of

Inc Magazine: A study released Wednesday from the San Diego-based CyberCatch, a cybersecurity platform provider focusing on small and mid-size businesses, reveals that more than 30 percent of US small businesses have weak points that bad actors can exploit. Moreover, fraudsters tend to set their sights on small businesses since smaller companies usually have weaker security safeguards than those at larger companies. Some of the vulnerabilities that the survey named as “unknown” to small businesses include “spoofing,” “clickjacking,” and “sniffing.”

Crypto.Com Says Hackers Stole More Than $30 Million In Bitcoin And Ethereum

CBS News: The cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com, known for its viral commercial starring Matt Damon as well as its recent $700 million deal to rename the Staples Center in Los Angeles as Crypto.com Arena, said the hackers managed to bypass its two-factor authentication system and withdraw the funds from 483 customer accounts, according to a statement the Singapore-based crypto exchange posted Thursday on its corporate blog.

Crypto-Exposed Stocks Sink Amid Bitcoin’s Decline, Broader Market Rout

CoinDesk: Stock declines come as prices for Bitcoin have dropped almost 11% in the past 24 hours, trading below $40,000 for the first time in months. Crypto watchers note that as bitcoins, in general, are getting hammered, crypto miners are seeing their revenues fall sharply. They also point out the double-whammy as Bloomberg, and other outlets reported that Russia’s central bank is proposing a complete ban on crypto mining and trading.

CISA Urges US Orgs to Prepare For Data-Wiping Cyberattacks

Bleeping Computer: US organizations are getting another warning to strengthen their cybersecurity defenses. This time, the CISA is concerned about recent data-wiping attacks that targeted Ukrainian government agencies and corporate entities. Several major entities suffered coordinated cyberattacks where hackers defaced websites and distributed data-wiping malware that corrupted data and rendered Windows devices inoperable. Sources believe that the attackers likely conducted the website defacements using a vulnerability in the OctoberCMS platform. Ukrainian authorities are also investigating what role Log4j vulnerabilities and stolen credentials may have played in the attacks. The message: update your security and keep a watchful eye on all activity.

In Case You Missed It

• Everything Old Is New Again: Remote Access Comes Full Circle – James Whewell
• How SonicWall ZTNA protects against Log4j (Log4Shell) – Rishabh Parmar
• 10 Tips for a Safe and Happy Holiday – Amber Wolff
• The Rise and Growth of Malware-as-a-Service – Ray Wyman
• A Record-Breaking Year for SonicWall’s Boundless Future – Ray Wyman
• Cybersecurity is Infrastructure – Ray Wyman
• Frost & Sullivan Commend SonicWall for Security Excellence – Kayvon Sadeghi
• SonicWall Answers the Call with New NGFWs – Ajay Uggirala
• Illuminating Cybersecurity with Unified Insights – Suroop Chandran
• How Unified Cloud Simplifies Network Switch Management – Tiju Cherian
• Cyber Threat Alert: Ransomware Breaks Another Record – Ray Wyman
• Why Cybersecurity Must be First – Ray Wyman
• How to Protect Multi-Cloud Environments with a NSv Virtual Firewall – Tiju Cherian
• What’s driving job growth in cybersecurity? – Ray Wyman

Happy New Year! December is always a time for a bit of retrospect. So, while taking stock of the previous year’s cybersecurity news, editors turned to reliable sources like SonicWall’s 2021 Cyber Threat reports to punctuate a scary year. In industry news, the former Uber security chief faces new charges in his attempted cover-up of a massive breach, the Discord hack is a big loss for NFT buyers and now we’re rethinking cybersecurity jobs.

SonicWall in the News

Breaches and Ransomware: A Look Back at 2021

The New Stack: Cyberattacks reached such a crescendo last year that network security vendor SonicWall even decided to name 2021 “the year of ransomware.” If you think that this is a bit of sensationalism, the company’s numbers appear to back it up. Using data gathered from more than 1 million security sensors in nearly 200 countries, SonicWall calculated an average of 1,748 ransomware attempts per customer by the end of September, along with a 33% rise in IoT malware. This added up to a whopping 495 million ransomware attempts by the end of September. And the researchers ultimately predicted 219 million more ransomware attempts for the last three months of 2021. So, by New Year’s Eve, the total number of 2021 ransomware attacks could reach 714 million.

Ransomware Attackers’ New Tactic: Double Extortion

SecurityIntelligence: SonicWall logged 470 million ransomware attacks through the third quarter of the year. That’s a 148% year-over-year increase. That company detected 190.4 million attacks in Q3 2021 alone, a figure which nearly overtook the 195.7 million ransomware attacks seen in the first three quarters of 2020. Looking ahead, the firm estimated that ransomware totals would reach 714 million attack attempts by the end of December, making 2021 the most prolific year on record.

6 Ways to Minimize Ransomware Damage

Security Boulevard: Ransomware is more pervasive than ever, and the number of attacks is mindboggling. With help from ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS), cybercriminals and organized “bad actors” continue to wreak havoc. Cybersecurity vendor SonicWall recorded more than 495 million ransomware attack attempts globally by the end of Q3 2021, a 148% increase from 2020. Despite efforts by enterprises to secure their IT infrastructure, the U.K. has seen a 233% increase in such attacks.

What Is Cybersecurity?

ToolBox: The primary purpose of ransomware is to extort money. SonicWall’s 2021 cyber threat report shows a 151% increase in ransomware attacks in the first half of 2021 compared to 2020. In fact, in March 2021, Taiwan-based PC manufacturer Acer faced a $50 million ransomware demand from a cybercrime group called REvil.

It Takes A Village To Fight Ransomware

Forbes: Ransomware is top of mind for every cybersecurity expert these days and for good reason. SonicWall reports (via Infosecurity Magazine) that between 2019 and 2020, ransomware attacks in North America increased by 158%. The FBI dealt with 20% more reports of ransomware attacks in 2020 over 2019, with collective costs of the attacks increasing more than 200% from the previous year.

Top 5 Trends for Endpoint Security in 2022

VentureBeat: 2021 is the worst year on record for ransomware attacks, with schools, colleges, universities, and hospitals being among the most attacked organizations globally. Bad actors prioritize them first because they have the smallest cybersecurity budgets and weakest defense. In the first six months of 2021, global ransomware volume reached a record 304.7 million attempted attacks, surpassing the 304.6 million attempted attacks throughout 2020, according to their Mid Year Update: 2021 Cyber Threat Report.

Your Security and Multi-Factor Resolutions

The Gazette: Looking forward into 2022, there are no signs that cybersecurity incidents will be slowing down any time soon. A mid-year Cyber Threat report update produced by SonicWall in July predicted a total of roughly 714 million attempted ransomware attacks in 2021. If these numbers are accurate, that means ransomware saw a 134% increase over the previous year.

Cyber Super-heroes Prepare for Battle

Red: In this case, the bad guys – cybercriminals – appear to be winning. Ransomware attacks have risen 62% worldwide since 2019 and by nearly 160% in North America, according to a 2021 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report. Last year’s attack on Colonial Pipeline was among those, which crippled energy infrastructure that delivers about 45% of fuel for the East Coast. As for the good guys: There aren’t enough of them.

Industry News

Prosecutors file additional charges against former Uber security chief over 2016 data breach ‘cover up’

The Daily Swig: Additional charges have been added to the indictment against a former Uber chief security officer over his alleged involvement in the cover-up of a hack against the ride-hailing app in 2016. Wire fraud has joined the list of charges pending against Joseph Sullivan, 52, of Palo Alto, CA, for his alleged concealment of a 2016 attack that exposed 57 million users and 600,000 driver records. The latest charges – handed down in a superseding indictment returned by a federal grand jury – add to previous charges of obstruction of justice and ‘misprision of a felony.

Thousands of Schools Impacted After IT Provider Hit by Ransomware

Info Security: A leading provider of school website infrastructure has been hit by a ransomware attack, potentially disrupting thousands of global customers. Finalsite claims to serve over 8000 schools worldwide, offering content management, communications, mobile and enrollment software. A message posted by the firm on Twitter yesterday apologized for the “prolonged outage” customers have been forced to endure due to the attack.

Florida health care system Breached, exposing 1.3 million people

CNN: Hackers breached the computer networks of a southeast Florida health care system in October and may have accessed sensitive personal and financial information on over 1.3 million people, the health care system announced this week. Social Security numbers, patient medical history, and bank account information were exposed. According to a notice the health care provider filed with the Office of the Maine Attorney General, Broward Health has a network of over 30 health care facilities serving patients across roughly two million-person Broward County, Florida.

Flexbooker breach exposes 3.7 million users

Engadget: A group of hackers is trading a database of stolen information from FlexBooker, a cloud-based tool for scheduling appointments containing sensitive customer data. According to BleepingComputer, the company suffered a security breach just before the holidays and sent notifications to customers in an email. The company revealed that its Amazon AWS servers were compromised on December 23rd. It also admitted that its system data storage was accessed and downloaded.

Kronos outage latest: Attackers crippled back-up access

The Stack: The attackers who crippled widely used applications from global HR software company Kronos disabled the company’s “ability to communicate with our back-up environments.” Owners UKG has also confirmed that the company is restoring customer data after regaining access to its back-ups. Multiple Kronos platforms have been unavailable since December 11. The outage has left millions of users at tens of thousands of customers unable to check pay, arrange rotas, or request paid leave.

Counties in New Mexico, Arkansas begin 2022 with ransomware attacks

ZDNet: According to officials from both states, two counties in New Mexico and Arkansas are dealing with ransomware attacks affecting government services. On Wednesday evening, New Mexico’s Bernalillo County; which covers the state’s most populous cities of Albuquerque, Los Ranchos and Tijeras; officially reported that hackers began their attack between midnight and 5:30 a.m. on January 5. County officials have taken the affected systems offline and cut network connections, but most county buildings are now closed to the public. Emergency services are still available, and 911 is still operating, but a Sheriff’s Office customer service window was closed.

Portugal Media Giant Impresa Crippled by Ransomware Attack

Threat Post: Media giant Impresa, the largest television station and newspaper in Portugal, was crippled by a ransomware attack just hours into 2022. The suspected ransomware gang behind the attack goes by the name Lapsus$. The episode included Impresa-owned website Expresso newspaper and television station SIC. Both remain offline Tuesday morning as the media giant continued its recovery from a New Year’s weekend attack. Impacted is the server infrastructure critical to Impresa’s operations. Additionally compromised is one of Impresa’s verified Twitter accounts, which was hijacked and used to taunt the company publicly.

Discord Hacking Is the Newest Threat For NFT Buyers

The Verge: Two NFT projects fell victim to the same attack just in time for Christmas. Both projects were about to distribute rewards to their community members: Monkey Kingdom through an NFT presale on the 21st and Fractal through a token airdrop. Then, disaster struck. Posts appeared in each project’s official “announcements” channel claiming that a surprising mint would reward community members with a limited edition NFT. Hundreds jumped at the chance, but a costly surprise was waiting for those who followed the links and connected their crypto wallets. Rather than receiving an NFT, wallets were being drained of the Solana cryptocurrency, which both projects used for purchases. Within one hour, a Twitter post, first from Monkey Kingdom and then from Fractal, informed followers that their Discord servers had been hacked; news of the NFT mints was bogus, the links a phishing fraud. In the case of Fractal, the scammers got away with about $150,000 worth of cryptocurrency. For Monkey Kingdom, the estimated total was reported to be $1.3 million.

Cybersecurity training isn’t working. And hacking attacks are only getting worse

ZDNet: Cyberattacks are growing, and much more needs to be done to educate businesses and users about risks to prevent widespread damage and disruption resulting from cyber incidents. Attacks against utilities and infrastructure providers, production facilities and hospitals have demonstrated genuine consequences for businesses, government, and individuals. Disruptions can lead to interruptions in manufacturing, distribution, and services that can last for days, weeks and even months. Yet, despite the well-documented risks posed by attackers, many businesses and their boardrooms still don’t fully understand the threats they’re facing from cybercriminals and how to best defend their networks against them.

Poland’s Watergate: Ruling party leader admits country has Pegasus hacking software

Politico: Jarosław Kaczyński, chairman of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party and the country’s de facto leader, confirmed that the government has the Pegasus hacking software system but denied they used it against opposition politicians in the 2019 parliamentary election campaign. “It would be bad if the Polish services did not have this type of tool,” Kaczyński said in an interview with the right-wing Sieci weekly, published Friday. This is the first time a high-level PiS politician has confirmed that the government has the software. However, party and government officials have downplayed or rejected such a possibility. Last month, Kaczyński denied knowing anything about the malware.

Don’t copy-paste commands from webpages — you can get hacked

Bleeping Computer: Programmers, sysadmins, security researchers, and tech hobbyists copying-pasting commands from web pages into a console or terminal are warned they risk having their system compromised. Recently, Gabriel Friedlander, founder of security awareness training platform Wizer, demonstrated an obvious yet surprising hack that’ll make you cautious of ever doing it again! Friedlander warns a webpage could covertly replace the contents of what goes on your clipboard, and what ends up being copied to your clipboard would be vastly different from what you had intended to copy. Worse, without the necessary due diligence, the developer may only realize their mistake after pasting the text, at which point it may be too late.

Going Back to Basics to Fix Our Broken Approach to Cybersecurity

CPO Magazine: The past year has been marked by a seemingly unending stream of major companies and organizations coming forward to admit they were the victim of a data breach or malware attack. When cybersecurity measures are working well, the end-users are never even aware of them. But when the word “ransomware” suddenly becomes a household term, you know something is seriously broken with our approach to cybersecurity.

Rethinking Cybersecurity Jobs as a Vocation Instead of a Profession

Dark Reading: Are cybersecurity jobs a profession or a vocation? When we consider the current workforce shortage in cybersecurity, our existing assumptions about the nature of cybersecurity jobs may be exacerbating the shortfall. For this reason, we may need to consider new ways of thinking about jobs within the cybersecurity field. For example, within the cybersecurity industry, the prevailing mindset is that security practitioners are professionals. Thus, a direct consequence of this mindset is that a college degree is required for many cybersecurity jobs. However, many cybersecurity practitioners argue that a college degree isn’t needed to do most jobs in cybersecurity, and strict adherence to this requirement disqualifies many deserving candidates. But removing the requirement for a college degree raises the question: Are these actually professional jobs, or should they be recast as vocational jobs?

In Case You Missed It

• Everything Old Is New Again: Remote Access Comes Full Circle – James Whewell
• How SonicWall ZTNA protects against Log4j (Log4Shell) – Rishabh Parmar
• 10 Tips for a Safe and Happy Holiday – Amber Wolf
• The Rise and Growth of Malware-as-a-Service – Ray Wyman
• A Record-Breaking Year for SonicWall’s Boundless Future – Ray Wyman
• Cybersecurity is Infrastructure – Ray Wyman
• Frost & Sullivan Commend SonicWall for Security Excellence – Kayvon Sadeghi
• SonicWall Answers the Call with New NGFWs – Ajay Uggirala
• Illuminating Cybersecurity with Unified Insights – Suroop Chandran
• How Unified Cloud Simplifies Network Switch Management – Tiju Cherian
• Cyber Threat Alert: Ransomware Breaks Another Record – Ray Wyman
• Why Cybersecurity Must be First – Ray Wyman
• How to Protect Multi-Cloud Environments with a NSv Virtual Firewall – Tiju Cherian
• What’s driving job growth in cybersecurity? – Ray Wyman

As the year winds down, SonicWall’s threat reports stand out as reliable sources for US and European news organizations wanting to show the scope of attacks this year. Industry News proves that the crisis continues, and IT managers worldwide are on alert. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and ten countries conducted a simulated global attack on the global financial system (and the results were awful). In other news, a post-attack assessment reveals that the hackers saved the Irish Health System, Chinese hackers almost shut down power for three million Australians, and Lloyds of London quits cybersecurity insurance policies.

SonicWall in the News

Why Cybersecurity Must Be First

ARN Net (Australia): Why cybersecurity first should resonate with everyone is all over the news. Ransomware attacks rose to 304.6 million during the first six months in 2020, up 62% over 2019, according to our own widely quoted Mid-Year Update on the 2021 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report.

Retail’s Looming Holiday Threat: Ransomware

Politico: Part of a trend: Malware has long been a Black Friday and Cyber Monday concern. In 2019, security threat researchers at SonicWall estimated that cybergangs and individuals deployed 129.3 million malware attacks during the week of Thanksgiving, a 63 percent increase from the year before.

At EvCC, ‘The Wall’ Teaches Students How to Thwart Cybercrime

Herald NET: Everett college is the first in the nation to have a tool that can model cyber attacks aimed at vital infrastructure. During the first six months of 2021, there were more than 305 million attempted ransomware attacks compared to 306 million attempts in all of 2020, according to a mid-year 2021 SonicWall Cyber Threat report. Some three-quarters of those attempts targeted US organizations, the report said. “It’s gotten so bad that insurance companies are raising their rates on cyber liability coverage or dropping coverage altogether,” Hellyer said. “This sort of training is very important to our national and local security and economic interests.”

Do You Know Who is Responsible for Disaster Recovery in the Cloud?

MeriTalk: Ransomware is a disaster that isn’t rare. The 2021 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report found a 158% increase in ransomware attacks in North America in 2020. As a result, agencies that may have been slow to migrate to the cloud are now looking to the cloud as a cost-effective backup and disaster recovery solution to protect Federal systems against cyberattacks and data loss.

Ransomware Set To Break Records This Black Friday 2021

Information Security Buzz (Australia): Dmitriy Ayrapetov, Vice President Platform Architecture for SonicWall, offered expert commentary on cybercrime activity. He cited data from SonicWall’s recent threat reports, including 495 million global ransomware attacks logged this year to date, an increase of 148%.

12 Days of Phish-mas: A Festive Look at Phishing

Hashed Out: Experimenting with phishing examples using Microsoft products, the author received a fake request for a quote that contains a potentially malicious Microsoft Office file attachment. Office files, including Word docs and Excel spreadsheets, commonly spread malware and embedded phishing links via email. The author notes that SonicWall’s research shows that weaponized Microsoft Office files increased 67% in 2020.

Cybersecurity Terms & Definitions Integrators Should Know

CEPro: In the first six months of 2021, globally, the education sector saw a 615% spike in ransomware incidents compared to 151% across all industries, according to a study from SonicWall.

700M Attacks in 2021 and Counting: Can Businesses Fight the Ransomware Tsunami?

Toolbox: Asking whether businesses are investing enough into technology or “organizational culture” is to blame, the writer observes surprise at the enormous rise in breaches this year. They also cite SonicWall’s recently released Q3 Threat Report. From the scale of the attacks, we get a peek into how cybercriminals leverage ransomware as their weapon of choice to hit anyone.

SonicWall Applauded by Frost & Sullivan

Business Chief: SonicWall is recognized for delivering excellent and reliable cybersecurity tools to worldwide organizations. The publication also mentions that Frost & Sullivan recognized SonicWall’s industry-leading network firewall solutions that enhance organizational security, efficiency, and reliability.

The True Cost Of Rising Cyber Threats

Forbes: The actual cost of ignoring rising cyber threats and ‘being too late’ is not lost on today’s business leaders, and cybersecurity is annually rated as a top priority for company IT budgets. SonicWall predicted that by the end of 2021, the ransomware attack total would be near 714 million, a 134% year-on-year increase.

How to Cut Down on Data Breach Stress and Fatigue

Security Intelligence: If you’re tired of hearing the words’ data breach’, you’re not alone. It’s looking like 2021 might end up becoming the year with the most ransomware attacks on record. In August, SonicWall reported that the global ransomware attack volume had increased 151% during the first six months compared to 2020.

Industry News

IMF, 10 Countries Simulate Cyberattack on Global Financial System

Reuters: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) along with the national banks from 10-countries simulated a major cyberattack on the global financial system. The program, called “Collective Strength,” was intended to increase global cooperation that could help minimize any potential damage to financial markets and banks. The simulated “war game,” as Israel’s Finance Ministry called it, was planned over the past year and evolved over ten days. The simulation result ended with sensitive financial data emerging on the Dark Web and resulted in fake news reports that caused chaos in global markets and a run on banks. Participants in the initiative included treasury officials from Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Thailand, as well as representatives from the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Bank of International Settlements.

New Policy Gives Some Federal Agencies 24 Hours to Assess Major Cyberattacks

The Hill: A new policy recently rolled out by the White House gives certain federal agencies as little as 24 hours to assess the impact of a cyberattack and report the attack if it rises to a significant level of concern. According to a copy of the memo issued by the White House National Security Council (NSC), the policy applies to national security and intelligence agencies, including the FBI. The new policy gives agencies only 24 hours to report a cyberattack they assess as “a national security concern” to the White House.

The Irish Health System Was Saved By The Hackers

BBC: In March, someone working in the offices of the Irish Health Service Executive (HSE) opened a spreadsheet that had been sent to them by email two days earlier. The file was compromised with malware, and the gang behind it spent the next two months hacking their way through the networks and laying out data traps. There were multiple warning signs at work, but no investigation was launched, which meant IT managers missed a crucial opportunity to intervene. So, when the criminals unleashed their ransomware, the impact was devastatingly total. However, three months later, the attackers posted a link to a key so that the department managers could decrypt their files. The hackers gave no reasons, nor did they make any statements. Maybe the hackers had a change of heart; perhaps it was a test for something much worse. Nevertheless, this one act of mercy by the hackers allowed Irish health to embark on the road to recovery. According to an independent assessment report, without the decryption key, “it is unknown whether systems could have been recovered fully, or how long it would have taken to recover systems from back-ups, but it is highly likely that the recovery timeframe would have been considerably longer.”

Krebs: Cyberattacks Could Be Used To “Disrupt” Decision-Making

Axios: Former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Christopher Krebs told Axios at an event Thursday that America’s adversaries could use cyberattacks in the future to “disrupt” US decision-making. The big picture: Krebs, using China as an example, said that future cyber attacks could be part of “a larger, more complex approach by an adversary.” What he’s saying: “If things get hot in Taiwan, there’s a possibility that the Chinese government could use some sort of cyber capability to make us focus here rather than over there.”

Chinese Cyberattack Almost Shut Off Power for THREE MILLION Australians

Daily Mail: Chinese hackers came within minutes of shutting off power to three million Australian homes but were thwarted at the final hurdle. The Communist regime launched a ‘sustained’ ransomware attack on CS Energy’s two thermal coal plants in Queensland on November 27 – showing what Beijing could be capable of in a wartime scenario. There were panic stations within the energy firm as employees lost access to their emails and other critical internal data. IT specialists came up with a brilliant last-minute move to stop Beijing from gaining access by separating its corporate and operational computer systems. Once IT managers cut the network in half, hackers had no way of seizing control of the generators. Sources with knowledge of the hack attempt said the cyber-attackers were less than 30 minutes away from shutting down power.

Lloyd’s of London Calls it Quits for Cyber Insurance

CPO Magazine: Major insurance firm Lloyd’s of London has issued a bulletin indicating that its cyber insurance products will no longer cover the fallout of cyberattacks exchanged between nation-states. The insurer said last week that they would no longer cover damages from “cyber war” between countries and that this definition extends to operations that have a “major detrimental impact on the functioning of a state.” So, the looming question, if the cyber insurance firm no longer covers the fallout of digital war, do attacks infrastructure count? Quick to answer from Lloyd’s: No. The firm says that it no longer wants to deal in losses that result from “cyber war,” which the firm includes attacks that have a “major detrimental impact” on a state’s function, implying attacks on critical infrastructure.

The Top Data Breaches Of 2021

Security Magazine: A list of 2021’s top 10 data breaches and exposures and a few other noteworthy mentions. Particularly important is how the manufacturing and utilities sector was deeply impacted, with 48 compromises and a total of 48,294,629 victims. The healthcare sector followed, with 78 compromises resulting in more than 7 million victims. Other sectors that were hit resulted in 3.5 million victims, including financial services (1.6 million victims), government (1.4 million victims) and professional services (1.5 million victims). As SonicWall threat data has also shown, this is the year of the ransomware, and we still have four weeks to go!

In Case You Missed It

• A Record-Breaking Year for SonicWall’s Boundless Future – Ray Wyman
• Cybersecurity is Infrastructure – Ray Wyman
• Frost & Sullivan Commend SonicWall for Security Excellence – Kayvon Sadeghi
• SonicWall Answers the Call with New NGFWs – Ajay Uggirala
• Illuminating Cybersecurity with Unified Insights – Suroop Chandran
• How Unified Cloud Simplifies Network Switch Management – Tiju Cherian
• Cyber Threat Alert: Ransomware Breaks Another Record – Ray Wyman
• Why Cybersecurity Must be First – Ray Wyman
• How to Protect Multi-Cloud Environments with a NSv Virtual Firewall – Tiju Cherian
• What’s driving job growth in cybersecurity? – Ray Wyman
• SonicWall Earns Its Third Perfect Score In A Row From ICSA Labs – Kayvon Sadeghi
• SonicWall Delivers Choice, Flexibility as Part of Cloud Evolution – Jayant Thakre
• Check Before You Click and Fight the Phish! – Ray Wyman
• The State of Cybersecurity Funding for State and Local Government – Ray Wyman