Every week SonicWall collects the most compelling, trending and important interviews, media and news stories affecting your cybersecurity — just for you.

Happy New Year! While everyone was enjoying the holidays, SonicWall kept going with global industry news about the partner program, more mentions for the Threat Reports, and expert commentary by SonicWall executives.

Cybersecurity didn’t take a break either. Health Care IT News and Toronto City News surprised everyone with a report about the LockBit ransomware gang apologizing for hacking a children’s hospital. Forbes and Wired Magazine reported on the sale of Twitter user data. Bleeping Computer discovered that Amazon S3 is now encrypting all new data using AES-256 – by default! SC Magazine reports on a JAMA study that shows healthcare disruptions from ransomware attacks are probably underreported. And Dark Reading has released its BOLD Cybersecurity predictions for 2023. We only dared to mention two of the “scary” ones.

Remember that cybersecurity is everyone’s business. Be safe out there!

SonicWall News

Goodbye 2022, Hello 2023: Experts Weigh in With Channel Expectations

MicroScope, SonicWall News: “Matt Brennan, vice-president of North America channel sales at SonicWall, believes the effects of supply chain disruption will continue to have an impact on 2023: “Supply chain challenges have wreaked havoc across most industries around the world. IT has been affected across the board. Because of these challenges, brand loyalty will fade. [Customers] won’t hesitate to make purchases they can get now rather than wait for a specific brand product later – fulfilment is critical, regardless of how long customers have been brand loyal.” Brennan adds that this will lead to a shift in the market as customers learn that “staying brand loyal is not necessary to run their businesses successfully”.

Tips for Health Systems on Managing Legacy Systems to Strengthen Security

HealthTech, SonicWall News: A lack of support from the manufacturer generally means a lack of security patches. As a result, devices running a legacy OS are easy targets for attackers — in fact, malware attacks on internet-connected devices spiked 123 percent in the first half of 2022, according to research from SonicWall.

Cybersecurity for Investors: Why Digital Defenses Require Good Governance

Yahoo! Finance, SonicWall News: Cyberattacks are very costly. In the first half of 2022, at least 2.8 billion malware attacks were recorded globally, an increase of 11% over the previous 12 months, according to cybersecurity company SonicWall.

Remote Monitoring, AI Research and Data at Risk: Healthcare Tech Predictions For 2023

BetaNews, SonicWall News: Healthcare could come under threat from geopolitical attacks believes Immanuel Chavoya, threat detection and response strategist at SonicWall. “When it comes to protecting against threats of geopolitically motivated attacks, the present call to action is to be proactive, rather than reactive, to an assault. Attacks such as targeted malware or vulnerability exploitation could be used to inflict chaos on critical infrastructure such as healthcare, electric utilities, financial institutions, and oil and gas. These attacks tie up resources, cause financial damage, and send a signal. In 2023, organizations and governments will need to be prepared by ensuring that they don’t have any issues that could become low-hanging fruit for attacks and closely monitor their network activity for quick identification of and reaction to any attack.

Future Tech Role of Partners

CRN (India), SonicWall News: Security threats are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and organizations are looking for proactive ways to secure their IT environments. Whether their environment is in the Cloud, on-premises or a hybrid, organizations look to managed security services providers (MSSPs) to provide the best-in-class security to protect their business and mitigate future risk.

SonicWall CEO: Partner Program Revamp on Tap for Early 2023

CRN, SonicWall News: As other vendors are increasing their prices, we’re actually doing the opposite,” he said. If a customer and a partner commit to buying three years of services—services that go with our solutions—what they end up getting is the firewall hardware at no charge. That translates to a double-digit price decrease savings.

Guardian Hit by Suspected Ransomware Attack

The Financial Times, SonicWall News: But the number of attacks has fallen by almost a quarter in the first half of this year, according to US security company SonicWall, partly because more organizations have refused to pay cyber criminals.

The Non-Stop Journey Towards ‘Zero Trust’

Canales Sectoriales (Spain), SonicWall News: According to Sergio Martínez, Country Manager of SonicWall, currently, only 11% of companies consider that they have sufficient internal computer capacity to deal with any cyberattack. It is estimated that more than 50% of companies that suffer a major cyberattack take more than five hours to detect it and, a significant number of them live with it for a few weeks or months.

Ways Governments Can Better Protect Public Data

Cyber Security Intelligence, SonicWall News: The chances of being hit by a ransomware attack are more significant than ever. Last year, global ransomware volume skyrocketed by 105% year over year, according to the 2022 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report. While no industry was spared, the numbers were particularly gruesome for governments. Ransomware attempts on government entities rose a staggering 1,885%. That’s more than double the increase reported by healthcare (755%), education (152%), and retail (21%) combined.

Risks That Could Impact Retail In 2023

BizCommunity, SonicWall News: Figures from SonicWall’s Biannual Report revealed that e-commerce and online retail businesses saw a 264% surge in the past 12 months in ransomware attacks alone. These statistics are extremely worrying for retail companies, so unsurprisingly, websites and digital security are at the forefront of retailers’ minds.

SonicWall Achieves Sales Record with The Help of The Distribution Channel

InfoChannel (Mexico), SonicWall News: 2022 has been a year of growth for SonicWall, especially for business partners, as announced by Eustolio Villalobos, general manager for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Villalobos said that the company reached a record of internal sales in generation 7, SD-WAN and Wi-Fi 6 firewall solutions.

Unifying Efforts with Its SonicWall Channels Gains Ground in Latin America

eSemenal (Mexico), SonicWall News: Today we have seen how companies are more aware of the cybersecurity challenges they face and have understood that it is not a separate issue. Expanding issues such as hybrid work and 5G will be some of the main challenges next year, and companies regardless of their size will have to be prepared,” said Arley Brogiato, Sales Leader for SonicWall in Latin America.

According to the executive, sales of security solutions this year exceeded the company’s expectations globally, achieving higher growth than the prospect and a double-digit increase in its market shares.

Industry News

Lockbit Ransomware Group ‘Apologizes’ For Children’s Hospital Cyberattack

Health Care IT News hit us with a rather surprising story about a ransomware group that apologized for hitting a Toronto-based children’s hospital affiliated with the University of Toronto. For a bit of background, we went to Toronto City News and learned that on December 18, 2022, SickKids was hit with ransomware. Administrators reported delays with retrieving lab and imaging results. Other affected systems included employee timekeeping and pharmacy submissions. About ten days later, the hospital said that nearly half of the affected systems had been restored. Then an unexpected update.

LockBit ransomware group that provides affiliates access to malware for a cut of the ransom profits then issued an apology on the dark web on the last day of the year, which was then posted to Twitter. In the statement, the ransomware organization allegedly blamed a partner and offered a free decryptor for the hospital to unlock its data. Even with a ransomware group’s decryptor, healthcare organizations only recover about two-thirds of their files on average.

Twitter Data for Sale

Reported by Forbes, Wired, and posted on Twitter by @SonicWall, the close of 2022 saw hackers selling data stolen from 400 million Twitter users. The source, researchers say, is a widely circulated trove of email addresses linked to about 200 million users that were hacked out between June 2021 and January 2022, exploiting a bug in a Twitter application. The list on sale is likely a refined version of the larger batch with duplicate entries removed. According to the Forbes reporter, the hacker demanded $200,000 from Twitter for an “exclusive” sale of the data and warned that the social media platform could face a massive GDPR fine for failing to protect user data.

Twitter has not yet commented on the massive exposure. However, the cache of data clarifies the severity of the leak and who may be most at risk because of it.

Amazon S3 To Encrypt All New Data With AES-256

Bleeping Computer reported that Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) would automatically encrypt all new objects added on buckets on the server side, using AES-256 by default.

While the server-side encryption system has been available on AWS for over a decade, the tech giant has enabled it by default to bolster security. As a result, administrators will not have to take any actions for the new encryption system to affect their buckets. In addition, Amazon promises it won’t have any negative performance impact.

The move follows two notable breaches related to Amazon S3 storage buckets, one in December 2017, leaked data from 123 million households and another in April 2019 of 540 million records of Facebook users. The reporter comments that had the data been encrypted, the leaks wouldn’t have had nearly as dire consequences for the exposed individuals. Amazon’s move to make server-side encryption a “zero-click” process is a fundamental step towards better security. It is bound to lessen the impact of upcoming data incidents that will inevitably happen.

JAMA: Underreported Healthcare Disruptions from Ransomware Attacks

SC Magazine reported on the findings from a new study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that ransomware attacks on healthcare delivery organizations doubled between 2016 and 2021, from 43 reported attacks to 91. However, the study concludes that these numbers and impacts are likely underreported due to limited data from the incidents.

Across all sectors in the last year, security researchers struggled to gauge whether ransomware attacks were on the rise or stagnating. What’s clear is that attackers are getting smarter, and the cost to recover from these attacks is drastically increasing across all sectors — impacting cyber insurance coverage in the process.

In healthcare, the impacts of ransomware are readily seen in each hospital attack, confirming the patient safety risks posed by this extended network downtime. At least three global health systems are currently down after ransomware incidents which have led to care diversion, appointment cancellations and delays.

But as noted in JAMA, there’s not enough data to fully understand the minutiae of hospital impacts after ransomware. While the researchers noted the study’s limits, the data does shine a light on incident response and care disruptions.

The Boldest Cybersecurity Predictions for 2023

Dark Reading posted their “Predictions,” and as expected, they’re bold. Among the notable predictions “Automation is Finally Ready for Prime Time.” There’s been quite a lot of coverage on this issue, and predictions represent both boon and bane for network security teams. Automation could mean eliminating lower-level cybersecurity jobs, but industry observers also believe that more data always means more demand for higher-level analysts and engineers.

We thought this prediction paired nicely with another: “Scary AI & Machine Learning Gets Scarier.” Indeed, we saw evidence last year that shows cybercrime is using AI automation to weaponize deep fakes. Although we haven’t seen it in full practice yet, there’s good reason to believe it’ll be the go-to method for attackers in 2023 and beyond. Imagine seeing videos from people we know telling us it’s cool to share passwords (and other private information) with random callers. If that wasn’t scary enough, imagine ransomware teams using spoofed biometrics, fraudulent identity documents and synthetic identities.

And that’s just two of several they have that deserve a careful read.

SonicWall Blog

‘3 & Free’ Promotion: How to Upgrade to a New SonicWall TZ Series NGFW for Free – Matt Brennan

The Art of Cyber War: Sun Tzu and Cybersecurity – Ray Wyman

Talking Boundless Cybersecurity at the Schoolscape IT 2022 Conference – Mohamed Abdallah

3 & Free: 1 Amazing Deal, 2 Exceptional Firewalls, 3 Years of Superior Threat Protection – Matt Brennan

SonicWall Wins CRN’s 2022 Tech Innovator Award in Enterprise Network Security – Bret Fitzgerald

SonicWall Included on the Acclaimed CRN Edge Computing 100 List for 2022 – Bret Fitzgerald

A New Era of Partnering to Win – Robert (Bob) VanKirk

Multiply Your Security with Multifactor Authentication – Amber Wolff

10 Reasons to Upgrade to the Latest SonicWall Gen 7 TZ Firewall – Sarah Choi

SonicWall Third-Party Threat Performance: Seven Times Superior – Amber Wolff

Q3 2022 Threat Intelligence Highlights Changing Threat Environment in 2022 – Amber Wolff

Securing Your Credentials: Does Your Password Pass the Test? – Amber Wolff

The Power of Patching: Why Updating Your Software Should Be a Top Priority

Think Before You Click: Spotting and Stopping a Phish – Amber Wolff

National Cybersecurity Awareness Month Spotlights the Role of Individuals in Stopping Attacks – Amber Wolff

Seamless Security: How SonicWall Solutions Work Together to Safeguard Your Organization – Sarah Choi

SonicWall’s Nicola Scheibe Recognized by CRN as One of 2022’s 100 People You Don’t Know But Should – Bret Fitzgerald

SonicWall NSM 2.3.4 Uplevels Central Management Capabilities – Amber Wolff

Why 5G Needs to Start with Secure Network Access – Rishabh Parmar

Security Platform Vendors vs. Best-of-Breed Approach to Security Architecture – Rajesh Agnihotri

Why Organizations Should Adopt Wi-Fi 6 Now – David Stansfield

Bringing you curated cybersecurity news and trends from leading news outlets and bloggers that monitor IT security worldwide.

It’s the end of the year, and SonicWall still manages to produce headlines, including big news that its next-generation firewalls were a winner in CRN’s prestigious 2022 Products of the Year Awards.

From industry news, Dark Reading reports three ways attackers bypass cloud security. Then, Hacker News published a report about a new ‘Truebot’ malware variant that leverages the Netwrix auditor bug and the Raspberry Robin worm. From SC Magazine, we learned that most US defense contractors are failing basic cybersecurity requirements. Bleeping Computer reports that Rackspace confirms a ransomware attack caused the outage they experienced earlier this week. Krebs on Security lays out a new and devious attack strategy that targets executives of telemedicine companies. Finally, CyberNews reveals the weakest (and worst) passwords of 2022, with a retrospect from a report from Forbes. Despite all the news and the warnings, people are still using simple and very hackable passwords. Read these lists to see if your password is one of them.

Remember that cybersecurity is everyone’s business. Be safe out there!

SonicWall News

The Art of Cyberwarfare: Sun Tzu and Cybersecurity

Solutions Numeriques (FR), Reprint from SonicWall Blog: SonicWall is organizing an event on this theme of the Art of War: December 15, presented by Guillaume Sevrin, SonicWall EMEA pre-sales manager.

Ransomware Gang Makes $100 Million

Cyber Security Intelligence, SonicWall News: The retail sector is a specific target for Hive ransom attacks and this confirmed by an authoritative threat report by SonicWall, which found that retailers saw a 90% increase in ransomware attacks in 2022, whereby hackers attempt to cripple their day-to-day infrastructure.

Why The Race to Deliver Products Faster Could Be Hampering Product Security

Business Reporter, SonicWall News: Combining these factors with the avalanche of cyber-attacks on connected devices makes the challenge even more insurmountable. According to SonicWall, the total number of malware attacks on IoT-enabled devices rose by 77 per cent in the first half of 2022 to an alarming 57 million. The number of “never-before-seen” malware variants, that are the hardest to defend against, also rose by 45 per cent in the period.

SonicWall Earns Multiple Channel Awards, Delivers More Value and Savings to Global Partner Community

PR Newswire, SonicWall News: SonicWall today announced that its next generation firewalls were a winner in CRN’s prestigious 2022 Products of the Year Awards, notching yet another award in an impressive run for the company that is diligently driving new and innovative strategies to its partners offset rising costs industry-wide.

Infinigate To ‘Take Breath’ Before Shifting M&A Focus to Bolt-On Deals, UK Boss Reveals

CRN UK, SonicWall News: “Looking at the enlarged UK business, Griffiths said that Nuvias hands it “scale and power”. While Infinigate’s largest vendors were Progress Software and SonicWall, Nuvias held bigger partnerships with the likes of Juniper Networks.”

Chartered Status and Aligned Standards Are Crucial for The UK’s Cyber Sector

Computer Weekly, SonicWall News: SonicWall’s 2022 Cyber threat report states that ransomware incidents on governments across the globe increased by 1,885% last year, with the healthcare industry alone suffering a 755% increase.

Benefits Of VPN For Small Businesses

GIS User, SonicWall News: We recommend using a reliable VPN service that uses military-grade encryption, such as SonicWall VPN. It has a wide range of features and is very affordable. It is important to note that not all VPN services are created equal, so it is essential to do your research before choosing one.

Cyber Predictions for 2023

Cyber Magazine, SonicWall News: We can expect smaller scale attacks, for lower amounts of money, but which target a much broader base. The trend will probably hit education providers hard: education is already the sector most likely to be targeted by a malware, cryptojacking or encrypted attack, according to SonicWall’s 2022 Cyber Threat Report.

7 Steps to Future-Proof Your MSP Business and Stay Relevant

G2, SonicWall News: In 2021, SonicWall recorded 623.2 million ransomware attempts globally, an increase of 105% year-over-year. Just ransomware attacks.

Firewall Cybersecurity Providers You Should Know

Channel Futures, SonicWall News: Montenegro said SonicWall is a top NGFW provider. In March, SonicWall announced that 2021 was its best year on record. Propelled by the delivery of high-demand products, including the evolution of its Generation 7 NGFWs and a focus on its customers, SonicWall delivered record levels of sales and profitability in 2021.

How Remote Working Impacts Security Incident Reporting

CSO Online, SonicWall News: System- and endpoint-based security incident reporting and response can be negatively impacted by remote working too, says Immanuel Chavoya, emerging threat detection expert at SonicWall. “For instance, if the system flagged a user’s machine for a malware intrusion, there may be some delay in the security team being able to make any necessary updates, whereas, in person, the security engineer can immediately access the device and take any necessary action.

Malware, Spyware, and Ransomware: How They Differ and How to Respond

JD Supra, SonicWall News: Data from SonicWall Capture Labs revealed that the first half of 2022 saw an 11% increase in malware attacks compared to 2021, totaling around 2.8 billion attacks globally. Furthermore, over 2022, 35% of respondents have stated that poor preparedness was to blame when they experienced business-disrupting cyberattacks. Therefore, it is essential to take the necessary precautions to secure your device by installing the appropriate malware protection and recognizing the signs of an infected system.

Cybersecurity For Investors – Why Digital Defenses Require Good Governance

Seeking Alpha, SonicWall News: Cyberattacks are very costly. In the first half of 2022, at least 2.8 billion malware attacks were recorded globally, an increase of 11% over the previous 12 months, according to cybersecurity company SonicWall.

Study Shows the Worrying Human Cost of Cyber Attacks

Technology Magazine, SonicWall News: Research by SonicWall recently found there is growing concern regarding cyberattacks. Amongst 66% of organizations surveyed; ransomware leads the distress as 91% of all customers cited it as their biggest concern. Phishing and spear-phishing (76%), as well as encrypted malware (66%), comprised the top three concerns.

Ransomware Is the Biggest Concern for Most Organizations

HelpNetSecurity, SonicWall News: SonicWall released the 2022 SonicWall Threat Mindset Survey which found that 66% of customers are more concerned about cyberattacks in 2022, with the main threat being focused on financially motivated attacks like ransomware.

Industry News

3 Ways Attackers Bypass Cloud Security

Dark Reading reporting from the “Black Hat Europe” conference held in London this year focused on one presentation that discusses how recent cloud-focused malware campaigns demonstrate that adversary groups have intimate knowledge of cloud technologies and their security mechanisms. And not only that, but they are also using that knowledge to their advantage. Attackers, being very opportunistic, are capitalizing on mistakes committed by the cloud customer. So, the article proposes that successful attacks in the cloud have more to do with the user than the [cloud] service provider, per se. Perhaps the most interesting development with these attacks is that they target serverless computing and containers. The ease with which hackers can compromise cloud resources makes many people very uneasy.

New TrueBot Malware Variant Leveraging Netwrix Auditor Bug and Raspberry Robin Worm

According to Hacker News, cybersecurity researchers reported an increase in TrueBot infections. These attacks primarily target Mexico, Brazil and Pakistan. Cisco Talos says the attackers behind the operation have moved from using malicious emails to alternative delivery methods, such as the exploitation of a now-patched remote code execution (RCE) flaw in Netwrix auditor that was exploited by the Raspberry Robin worm. Data theft and Clop ransomware execution were some of the significant aspects of the monitored activities. TrueBot is a Windows malware downloader. It’s been attributed to a threat actor identified by Group-IB Silence; a Russian-speaking crew believed to share an association with Evil Corp (aka DEV-0443) and T505.

Most US defense contractors fail basic cybersecurity requirements.

SC Magazine reports that nearly nine out of ten US defense contractors fail to meet bare cybersecurity minimums. The new stats are the product of a study conducted by CyberSheath where they surveyed 300 US-based Department of Defense (DoD) contractors. The survey found that just 13% of respondents score 70 or above in the Supplier Performance Risk System (SPRS), the Department of Defense’s primary system for assessing supplier and product risk for contractors who handle unclassified information. According to the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS), a score of 110 is required for full compliance.

Rackspace confirms outage was caused by ransomware attack

Bleeping Computer reports that the cloud computing provider Rackspace Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: RXT) confirmed that a ransomware attack is behind an ongoing Hosted Exchange outage described as an “isolated disruption.” Rackspace says that the investigation, led by a cyber defense firm and its internal security team, is in its early stages with no info on “what, if any, data was affected.”

The cloud service provider says it will notify customers if it finds evidence that the attackers gained access to their sensitive information. The company also revealed during a press release and in their public 8-K SEC filing that it expects a loss of revenue due to the ransomware attack’s impact on its $30 million Hosted Exchange business.

New Ransom Payment Schemes Target Executives, Telemedicine

Ransomware groups constantly invent new ways to attack victims and convince them to pay. Krebs on Security reports that the new crop of strategies that have surfaced recently is particularly devious.

First, the ransomware group targets healthcare providers that offer online consultations and sends them booby-trapped records. The second one involves carefully editing executives’ emails at public companies to make it appear they were involved in insider trading.

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) warned last month that Venus ransomware attacks had been detected against several US healthcare providers. Venus was first discovered in mid-August 2022. The group is also well-known for hacking into victims’ Remote Desktop services to encrypt Windows computers.

Venus group members have demonstrated a high-level ability to access victim agencies. However, the group has had difficulty getting paid. That’s why the change in strategies, Krebs believes, has led to attempted blackmail to frame public company executives for insider trading. Venus said it had recently succeeded in using a method that involved carefully editing email inboxes at victim firms to insert messages discussing plans for trading large volumes of company stock based on non-public information.

The Weakest (and worst) Passwords of 2022

We learned that despite growing cybersecurity awareness, old habits die hard. CyberNews reports that people still use weak passwords. They examined 56 million breached and leaked passwords in 2022 and discovered the password “123456” was used in 111,417 cases. Forbes ran a similar report in 2020 and found that the top two passwords on their list was found in 6,452,650 accounts. They also reported that many of these passwords take less than one second to crack. We recommend you click through to see if you use any of these passwords. If you are, then it is worth worrying about.

While most hacks are the product of phishing or ransomware attacks, a weak password opens you to a brute force attack that breaks into your account by guessing your password. Every password on both lists appears in a common database shared by hackers on the open web. That means the database is so common that a teenager with little knowledge can use automated software to probe thousands of accounts until they find yours.

Of the passwords scrutinized by the CyberNews report, around half (28 million) were ‘specific’ – consisting of a single simple name or word such as “dell.” About 5.5 million of these unique or specific passwords occurred multiple times. For instance, some use names of capital cities like “lima” (17,466) and “Rome” (17,407) and animal species such as “cat” (122,392) and “rat” (103,284). Again, whether these were chosen because of any personal significance to users or merely selected for their simplicity is unclear. These passwords can be just as easily hacked as well.

What’s clear from these two reports is that – despite all the terrible news about cyber threats and ransomware – there’s still a legion of ‘culprits’ out there who can’t be bothered to use password-managing apps or spend more time and effort creating complex combinations. And with this lack of attention or concern, cybersecurity takes a hit. These passwords not only spell bad news for users who abuse their cybersecurity but everyone else they associate with and communicate with.

SonicWall Blog

‘3 & Free’ Promotion: How to Upgrade to a New SonicWall TZ Series NGFW for Free – Matt Brennan

The Art of Cyber War: Sun Tzu and Cybersecurity – Ray Wyman

Talking Boundless Cybersecurity at the Schoolscape IT 2022 Conference – Mohamed Abdallah

3 & Free: 1 Amazing Deal, 2 Exceptional Firewalls, 3 Years of Superior Threat Protection – Matt Brennan

SonicWall Wins CRN’s 2022 Tech Innovator Award in Enterprise Network Security – Bret Fitzgerald

SonicWall Included on the Acclaimed CRN Edge Computing 100 List for 2022 – Bret Fitzgerald

A New Era of Partnering to Win – Robert (Bob) VanKirk

Multiply Your Security with Multifactor Authentication – Amber Wolff

10 Reasons to Upgrade to the Latest SonicWall Gen 7 TZ Firewall – Sarah Choi

SonicWall Third-Party Threat Performance: Seven Times Superior – Amber Wolff

Q3 2022 Threat Intelligence Highlights Changing Threat Environment in 2022 – Amber Wolff

Securing Your Credentials: Does Your Password Pass the Test? – Amber Wolff

The Power of Patching: Why Updating Your Software Should Be a Top Priority

Think Before You Click: Spotting and Stopping a Phish – Amber Wolff

National Cybersecurity Awareness Month Spotlights the Role of Individuals in Stopping Attacks – Amber Wolff

Seamless Security: How SonicWall Solutions Work Together to Safeguard Your Organization – Sarah Choi

SonicWall’s Nicola Scheibe Recognized by CRN as One of 2022’s 100 People You Don’t Know But Should – Bret Fitzgerald

SonicWall NSM 2.3.4 Uplevels Central Management Capabilities – Amber Wolff

Cybersecurity and the Metaverse: Virtual and Real Threats – Ray Wyman

Why 5G Needs to Start with Secure Network Access – Rishabh Parmar

Security Platform Vendors vs. Best-of-Breed Approach to Security Architecture – Rajesh Agnihotri

Why Organizations Should Adopt Wi-Fi 6 Now – David Stansfield

We start with SonicWall’s surging attention from industry news. There were a lot of mentions of our Cyber Threat Reports and the 2022 SonicWall Threat Mindset Survey. Financial Times was among them, and we included that one for Industry News.

It’s the end of the year and publications have started their “Top Trends for 2023” cycle. This first harvest is our big read and includes predictions from Forbes and ZDNet. We will revisit this topic as more publications release their editorial perspectives. Then the Financial Times asks the very reasonable question when companies face ransomware: is there a case for paying up? This report includes analysis and data from SonicWall’s mid-year 2022 Cyber Threat Report. Next, Bleeping Computer reports that hackers are selling access to 576 corporate networks for $4 million. And finally, a ‘Knock Knock’ joke that nobody is laughing about, from Dark Reading.

Remember that cybersecurity is everyone’s business. Be safe out there!

SonicWall News

Study shows the worrying human cost of cyber attacks

Technology Magazine, SonicWall News: Research by SonicWall recently found there is growing concern regarding cyberattacks. Amongst 66% of organizations surveyed; ransomware leads the distress as 91% of all customers cited it as their biggest concern. Phishing and spear-phishing (76%), as well as encrypted malware (66%), comprised the top three concerns.

Ransomware is the biggest concern for most organizations

HelpNetSecurity, SonicWall News: SonicWall released the 2022 SonicWall Threat Mindset Survey which found that 66% of customers are more concerned about cyberattacks in 2022, with the main threat being focused on financially motivated attacks like ransomware.

The four biggest security risks facing retailers in the next five years

Retail Week, SonicWall News: Research shows the retail sector has been one of the top targets among cybercriminals, with a surge of more than 200% in ransomware attacks over the past year, according to SonicWall. Many retailers went through a digital transformation during the pandemic to allow customers to switch from in-store to online purchasing, which created more vulnerabilities and avenues for cybercrime.

Weekly Roundup

Channel Pro Network, SonicWall News: The recent 2022 SonicWall Cyber Threat Mindset Survey, including third quarter information, reported that customers saw an average of 1,014 ransomware attempts, a flood even though the total dropped 31% below attempts in 2021. 91% reported they were most concerned about ransomware attacks, a rising source of anxiety for security professionals. Ransomware-as-a-Service offerings make it easy to attack, and perpetrators are increasingly targeting financial firms with cryptojacking attempts, which were up 35% in the quarter. SonicWall’s Real-Time Deep Memory Inspection tools identified 375,756 malware variants never seen before during the first three quarters of 2022.

Latest SonicWall Intelligence Reveals Unstable Cyber Threat Landscape

European Business, SonicWall News: Being a security professional has never been more difficult,” said SonicWall President and CEO Bob VanKirk. “The cyber warfare battlefront continues to shift, posing dangerous threats to organizations of all sizes. With expanding attack surfaces, growing numbers of threats and the current geo-political landscape, it should be no surprise that even the most seasoned IT professional can feel overwhelmed. Armed with the latest cybersecurity tools, SonicWall partners can play a vital role in helping customers stay secure in even the most dynamic threat environments.

Report: Ransomware Attacks Trending Down in the United States

Security Today, SonicWall News: SonicWall recently released new threat data through the third quarter of 2022. SonicWall recorded more than 4 billion malware attempts globally while year-to-date ransomware attempts in 2022 have already exceeded full-year totals from four of the last five years. In the recent 2022 SonicWall Cyber Threat Mindset Survey, 91% of organizations reported that they are most concerned about ransomware attacks, indicating a rise of anxiety among security professionals.

Ransomware on the decrease and the ghost of ransom past?

IT Canada, SonicWall News: SonicWall’s 2022 Cyber Threat report was published this week. It claims that ransomware attacks shrunk by 23 per cent on a year-to-date worldwide basis over 2021. That’s good news, perhaps, but to put it in perspective, there were still over 236 million attacks so far in 2022. Moreover, the reduced 2022 number is still larger than the full year totals of 2017, 2018 and 2019.

2022 Cyber Threat Report Details Growing Trends

TechRepublic, SonicWall News: The cyberthreat landscape is constantly evolving, with new attacks developing every day. In their new report, SonicWall explores some of the most dangerous trends that security professionals need to have on their radar.

Economic Strife Fuels Cyber Anxiety

HelpNetSecurity, SonicWall News: The 2022 SonicWall Threat Mindset Survey found that 66% of customers are more concerned about cyberattacks in 2022, with the main threat being focused on financially motivated attacks like ransomware.

Ransomware In the US Is Down 51% Compared To 2021

Security Magazine, SonicWall News: There were more than 4 billion malware attempts globally in Q3, while year-to-date ransomware attempts in 2022 have already exceeded full-year totals from four of the last five years. However, ransomware levels in the United States are trending down, with a decrease of 51% of ransomware attack volume compared to 2021 levels.

Ransomware Attacks Are Down This Year – But That’s Not Really a Great Thing

TechRadarPro, SonicWall News: Despite it never being easier to launch a ransomware (opens in new tab) attack, the number of such incidents has actually dropped year-on-year, a new report from cybersecurity company SonicWall has claimed. The company’s latest threat intelligence paper, covering Q3 2022, says that in the US alone, the number of ransomware attacks was cut in half (-51%). However, other parts of the world came into focus, with attacks rising by 20% in the UK, 38% in the EMEA region, and 56% in APJ, compared to the same timeframe, last year.

Hackers Increasingly Targeting IoT Devices

TechMonitor, SonicWall News: In the last quarter of this year there has been a 98% rise in malware detected targeting IoT (internet of things) devices, according to a new report by threat intelligence agency SonicWall. It comes as the number of never-before-seen malware variants also spiked, rising by 22% year-on-year.

Industry News

Big Read: The Top Cybersecurity Trends for 2023

The last several years have been especially hard for cybersecurity, so much, so that board room meetings are the setting for detailed threat reports and network security assessments. Of course, they have. Losses from attacks – because of regulatory penalties to practical marketing – have increased dramatically. So, we thought we’d start looking at what the industry is thinking about for 2023.

Forbes gives us a tidy list of considerations for 2023. They predict more significant impacts from IoT devices and cloud security, ongoing and shifting work-from-home cybersecurity priorities, growing state-sponsored attacks, AI in cybersecurity, and the mechanics of building a security-aware culture.

ZD Net looked at the same topic and landed on a few notable trends: the continuing shortage of cybersecurity-ready workers and more significant threats to the supply chain, notably from industrial espionage. ZD also added to our worry list vulnerability from Web3, specifically blockchain, cryptocurrency and token-based economics. ZD Net concludes that today’s security problems are still to be fixed, and evolving technologies mean there will be new challenges.

Ransomware Attacks: Is There a Case for Paying Up?

Ransoms are not new to crime. Nor is the question of whether to pay or not. But it’s a genuine and rational consideration for companies facing ransomware attacks. Imagine watching your data and network locked down, employees idle, and hackers taunting you with demand payments in exchange for the encryption key. Ransoms exploded in 2020-2021 after work-from-home made everyone more susceptible to attacks and hacks.

The Financial Times observes that the tide appears to be turning from the recorded onslaught. In its mid-year 2022 Cyber Threat Report, Sonic­Wall identified a 23% drop in ransomware attempts. And the downtrend is partially attributed to the increase in organizations willing to pay cybercriminals.

According to SonicWall, some victims have become more reluctant to pay due to growing awareness that many ransomware criminals are linked to Russia. Targets could therefore risk violating sanctions — and incurring civil penalties — if they sent them money. Then again, some victims may be worried that the money could fund the Russian government’s actions and object to paying a ransom on ethical grounds.

Selling Access to 576 Corporate Networks for $4 Million

Bleeping Computer reports that a new report shows that hackers are selling access to 576 corporate networks worldwide for a total cumulative sales price of $4,000,000, fueling attacks on the enterprise. The research comes from Israeli cyber-intelligence firm KELA which published its Q3 2022 ransomware report, reflecting stable activity in the sector of initial access sales but a steep rise in the value of the offerings. The report describes the role of Initial Access Brokers (IABs) in selling access to corporate networks using credentials that have been stolen, webshells or other exploited vulnerabilities in publicly available hardware. Once they have gained access to the network, the threat agents sell access to other hackers who harvest data, run ransomware, and conduct malicious activities. This is proof that access is now a growing hacker commodity with appreciating market value.

China is Likely Stockpiling and Deploying Vulnerabilities

The Register notes that increased espionage and cyberattacks are linked to a new law that requires network and device vulnerabilities to be reported to Beijing. Microsoft has asserted that China’s offensive cyber capabilities have improved thanks to a rule that has allowed Beijing to create an arsenal of unreported software vulnerabilities. China’s 2021 law required organizations to report security vulnerabilities to local authorities before disclosing them to any other entity. The rules mean Beijing can use local research to hoard information on vulnerabilities and pick and choose their attack.

The ‘Knock, Knock’ Joke that Isn’t

Sounds like the opening to a joke, but it isn’t. Dark Reading reports that an Aiphone bug literally allows cyberattackers to open physical doors. The issue was narrowed down to a vulnerability in a series of popular digital door-entry systems offered by Aiphone. The vulnerability enables hackers to breach the entry systems simply by using a mobile device armed with near-field communication. According to the report, the devices in question (GT-DMB-N, GT-DMB-LVN, and GT-DB-VN) are used by high-profile customers, including the White House and the United Kingdom’s Houses of Parliament.

A researcher discovered the vulnerability with the Norwegian security firm Promon, who also found no limit to the number of times someone can enter an incorrect password on some Aiphone door-lock systems.

In case you missed…

SonicWall Wins CRN’s 2022 Tech Innovator Award in Enterprise Network Security – Bret Fitzgerald

SonicWall Included on the Acclaimed CRN Edge Computing 100 List for 2022 – Bret Fitzgerald

A New Era of Partnering to Win – Robert (Bob) VanKirk

Multiply Your Security with Multifactor Authentication – Amber Wolff

10 Reasons to Upgrade to the Latest SonicWall Gen 7 TZ Firewall – Sarah Choi

SonicWall Third-Party Threat Performance: Seven Times Superior – Amber Wolff

Q3 2022 Threat Intelligence Highlights Changing Threat Environment in 2022 – Amber Wolff

Securing Your Credentials: Does Your Password Pass the Test? – Amber Wolff

The Power of Patching: Why Updating Your Software Should Be a Top Priority

Think Before You Click: Spotting and Stopping a Phish – Amber Wolff

National Cybersecurity Awareness Month Spotlights the Role of Individuals in Stopping Attacks – Amber Wolff

Seamless Security: How SonicWall Solutions Work Together to Safeguard Your Organization – Sarah Choi

SonicWall’s Nicola Scheibe Recognized by CRN as One of 2022’s 100 People You Don’t Know But Should – Bret Fitzgerald

SonicWall NSM 2.3.4 Uplevels Central Management Capabilities – Amber Wolff

Cybersecurity and the Metaverse: Virtual and Real Threats – Ray Wyman

Why 5G Needs to Start with Secure Network Access – Rishabh Parmar

Security Platform Vendors vs. Best-of-Breed Approach to Security Architecture – Rajesh Agnihotri

Why Organizations Should Adopt Wi-Fi 6 Now – David Stansfield

Vote for SonicWall in Computing Security Awards 2022 – Bret Fitzgerald

SonicWall Earns 2022 CRN Annual Report Card (ARC) Honor – Bret Fitzgerald

SonicWall Capture ATP Earns 100% ICSA Threat Detection Rating for Sixth Straight Quarter – Amber Wolff

Ten Cybersecurity Books for Your Late Summer Reading List – Amber Wolff

SonicWall brings you important news stories and trends affecting your security. It’s Cybersecurity Awareness Week. Stay safe!

In this week’s Cybersecurity News, SonicWall got a lot of coverage from several leading industry and business journals with new mentions of our Cyber Threat Reports and the 2022 SonicWall Threat Mindset Survey.

From Industry News, our big read is on the high stress and burnout rates among IT response teams faced with a steady onslaught of attacks, with contributions from ZDNet, Dark Reading, Wall Street Journal and Forbes. From Security Magazine, CISA released the first iteration of critical infrastructure cybersecurity performance goals. It’s not a spellbinding read, but it shows where the national focus is heading. From Bleeping Computer, the tabloid newspaper New York Post was hacked with offensive headlines that targeted politicians. Late breaking news, the hack was an inside job. TechCrunch says business startups need to do a better job with cybersecurity, noting that the DOJ declared 2021 as the “worst year” for ransom attacks and that 2022 might soon overtake that record. Finally, Hacker News reports that hackers from the Daixin Team are targeting health organizations with ransomware.

It’s still Cybersecurity Awareness Month. Keep an eye on the SonicWall blog for updates and remember that cybersecurity is everyone’s business. Be safe out there!

SonicWall News

2022 Cyber Threat Report Details Growing Trends

TechRepublic, SonicWall News: The cyberthreat landscape is constantly evolving, with new attacks developing every day. In their new report, SonicWall explores some of the most dangerous trends that security professionals need to have on their radar.

Economic Strife Fuels Cyber Anxiety

HelpNetSecurity, SonicWall News: The 2022 SonicWall Threat Mindset Survey found that 66% of customers are more concerned about cyberattacks in 2022, with the main threat being focused on financially motivated attacks like ransomware.

Ransomware In the US Is Down 51% Compared To 2021

Security Magazine, SonicWall News: There were more than 4 billion malware attempts globally in Q3, while year-to-date ransomware attempts in 2022 have already exceeded full-year totals from four of the last five years. However, ransomware levels in the United States are trending down, with a decrease of 51% of ransomware attack volume compared to 2021 levels.

Ransomware Attacks Are Down This Year – But That’s Not Really a Great Thing

TechRadarPro, SonicWall News: Despite it never being easier to launch a ransomware (opens in new tab) attack, the number of such incidents has actually dropped year-on-year, a new report from cybersecurity company SonicWall has claimed. The company’s latest threat intelligence paper, covering Q3 2022, says that in the US alone, the number of ransomware attacks was cut in half (-51%). However, other parts of the world came into focus, with attacks rising by 20% in the UK, 38% in the EMEA region, and 56% in APJ, compared to the same timeframe, last year.

Hackers Increasingly Targeting IoT Devices

TechMonitor, SonicWall News: In the last quarter of this year there has been a 98% rise in malware detected targeting IoT (internet of things) devices, according to a new report by threat intelligence agency SonicWall. It comes as the number of never-before-seen malware variants also spiked, rising by 22% year-on-year.

Ransomware Down This Year – But There’s a Catch

The Register, SonicWall News: The number of ransomware attacks worldwide dropped 31 percent year-over-year during the first nine of months 2022, at least as far as SonicWall has observed. But don’t get too excited. While that may sound like great news, there’s a catch. According to SonicWall CEO Robert VanKirk, the decline follows a record-setting spike in 2021. Without that outlier, the ransomware rate this year shows a steady increase over 2017 through 2020. In fact, the nine-month total of 338.4 million ransomware attempts this year is more than the full-year totals in every year except 2021.

Latest SonicWall Intelligence Reveals Unstable Cyber Threat Landscape

PR Newswire, SonicWall News: SonicWall recorded more than 4 billion malware attempts globally while year-to-date ransomware attempts in 2022 have already exceeded full-year totals from four of the last five years. In the recent 2022 SonicWall Cyber Threat Mindset Survey, 91% of organizations reported that they are most concerned about ransomware attacks, indicating a rise of anxiety among security professionals.

Seven Things You Need to Know About No-Code Tools

TechPoint, SonicWall in the News: Cyberattacks have risen globally, with more people working from home due to the coronavirus pandemic. According to the 2022 Cyber Threat Report released by cybersecurity company, SonicWall, governments witnessed a 1,885% rise in ransomware attacks.

How High Touch Technologies Renewed Their Cyber Insurance Policy

Security Boulevard, SonicWall in the News: The massive spike in ransomware attacks in 2021 – up 105% worldwide, according to SonicWall – left cyber insurance companies facing an exponential increase in claims at the end of last year. In response, insurers tightened their requirements this year, releasing a long list of specific conditions companies now need to meet in order to qualify for a policy.

For Most Companies’ Ransomware Is the Scariest of All Cyberattacks

HelpNetSecurity, SonicWall in the News: SonicWall released the 2022 SonicWall Threat Mindset Survey which found that 66% of customers are more concerned about cyberattacks in 2022, with the main threat being focused on financially motivated attacks like ransomware.

Ingram Micro Ties Up with SonicWall to Expand Their Security Services

CRN (India), SonicWall in the News: SonicWall has designed its MSSP Program to offer a broad suite of cyber defense tools and capabilities to extend end-to-end network security. Ingram Micro will distribute all SonicWall products through its extensive partner network across India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Industry News

Big Read: Cybersecurity teams at their breaking point

Our big read for the week is on the growing number of reports of IT network security teams hit was stress and burnout. Faced with an utterly endlessly expanding threat landscape, companies report high absenteeism and turnover rates. So the big question is, should we be worried?

First up, ZDNet reports that cybersecurity professionals are “reaching their breaking point” as ransomware attacks increase and create new risks for people and businesses, according to a global study of 1,100 cybersecurity professionals. The report says that one-third are considering leaving their role in the next two years due to stress and burnout. And Dark Reading cited the same study, noting that more than half (54%) of those surveyed told researchers ransomware attacks had put a strain on their mental health, while a full 56% say their job gets more challenging each year. And the stress is severely eroding IT Team’s feeling of personal responsibility if an attack is successful, comparing last year, when 71% of respondents said they felt “very personally responsible” compared to this year at 57%.

Earlier this month, Wall Street Journal reported that IT teams that respond to hacks say they are stretched thin as attacks become more proliferate. They cite that teams work on multiple cases simultaneously and that the onslaught of attacks contributes to burnout. In addition, the report points out that hackers often launch attacks on weekends or before major holidays. For example, a ransomware attack on meatpacker JBS USA Holdings Inc. occurred at the start of the Memorial Day weekend in 2021. In the case of the Los Angeles Unified School District, school systems were hit on Labor Day weekend, forcing incident responders from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the district to work well into the night on a Sunday.

Forbes published an article about the cost of maintaining cybersecurity defenses in the face of mounting threats, citing a Gartner survey that says 88% of respondents consider cybersecurity a business risk, and 66% intend to increase cybersecurity spending to enhance their defensive postures in the years to come. The focus on investment, they say, will be on people, processes, and technology. They may have to add counseling to some of that cost.

CISA Releases Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity Performance Goals

Security Magazine: The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has released the first iteration of the Cross-Sector Cybersecurity Performance Goals (CPGs). The National Security Memorandum (NSM)-5, titled “Improving Cybersecurity Control Systems” requires CISA to work with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop baseline cybersecurity goals that are consistent across all critical infrastructure sectors. Alongside NIST, CISA will regularly update goals at least every 6 to 12 months and will work with Sector Risk Management Agencies (SRMAs) to build on this foundation to develop sector-specific goals. Not an exciting read, but it does help us understand where the national focus is headed.

New York Post Hacked with Offensive Headlines Targeting Politicians

BleepingComputer: The tabloid newspaper New York Post confirmed yesterday that it was hacked after its website and Twitter account were used by the attackers to publish offensive headlines and tweets targeting Democrat politicians. The New York Post updated today that one of its employees (now fired) was behind the incident.

Business Startup Need to do Better with Cybersecurity

TechCrunch: Back in 2021, the Department of Justice (DOJ) famously declared 2021 as the “worst year” for ransomware attacks, but according to SonicWall’s own reporting, that title could be in 2022’s hands very soon. Despite some rare wins in the war against hackers over the past 12 months — from the government’s seizure of $2.3 million in bitcoin paid out to the Colonial Pipeline hackers, to its successful disruption of the notorious REvil gang — the ransomware threat continues to grow. Over the past few months alone, we’ve seen threat actors ramping up attacks against public sector organizations, including hospitals, schools and in the case of Costa Rica, entire governments. The private sector is also battling a worsening ransomware threat, with attackers claiming a number of high-profile victims such as AMD, Foxconn and Nvidia.

Hackers Targeting Health Organizations with Ransomware

The Hacker News: U.S. cybersecurity and intelligence agencies published a joint advisory warning of attacks perpetrated by a cybercrime gang that is primarily targeting the healthcare sector in the country. According to the warning, the Daixin Team is a ransomware and data extortion group that has targeted the HPH Sector with ransomware and data extortion operations since at least June 2022.

The alert was published Friday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Over the past four months, the group has been linked to multiple ransomware incidents in the Healthcare and Public Health (HPH) sector, encrypting servers related to electronic health records, diagnostics, imaging, and intranet services.

It’s also said to have exfiltrated personal identifiable information (PII) and patient health information (PHI) as part of a double extortion scheme to secure ransoms from victims.

SonicWall Blog

10 Reasons to Upgrade to the Latest SonicWall Gen 7 TZ Firewall – Sarah Choi

SonicWall Third-Party Threat Performance: Seven Times Superior – Amber Wolff

Q3 2022 Threat Intelligence Highlights Changing Threat Environment in 2022 – Amber Wolff

Securing Your Credentials: Does Your Password Pass the Test? – Amber Wolff

The Power of Patching: Why Updating Your Software Should Be a Top Priority

Think Before You Click: Spotting and Stopping a Phish – Amber Wolff

National Cybersecurity Awareness Month Spotlights the Role of Individuals in Stopping Attacks – Amber Wolff

Seamless Security: How SonicWall Solutions Work Together to Safeguard Your Organization – Sarah Choi
SonicWall’s Nicola Scheibe Recognized by CRN as One of 2022’s 100 People You Don’t Know But Should – Bret Fitzgerald

SonicWall NSM 2.3.4 Uplevels Central Management Capabilities – Amber Wolff

Cybersecurity and the Metaverse: Virtual and Real Threats – Ray Wyman

Why 5G Needs to Start with Secure Network Access – Rishabh Parmar

Security Platform Vendors vs. Best-of-Breed Approach to Security Architecture – Rajesh Agnihotri

Why Organizations Should Adopt Wi-Fi 6 Now – David Stansfield

Vote for SonicWall in Computing Security Awards 2022 – Bret Fitzgerald

SonicWall Earns 2022 CRN Annual Report Card (ARC) Honor – Bret Fitzgerald

SonicWall Capture ATP Earns 100% ICSA Threat Detection Rating for Sixth Straight Quarter – Amber Wolff

Ten Cybersecurity Books for Your Late Summer Reading List – Amber Wolff

CoinDesk TV Covers Cryptojacking with Bill Conner – Bret Fitzgerald

First-Half 2022 Threat Intelligence: Geopolitical Forces Rapidly Reshaping Cyber Frontlines – Amber Wolff

2022 CRN Rising Female Star – Bret Fitzgerald