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    17Mar, 2023
    Latitude cyberattack leads to data theft at two service providers

    Latitude Financial Services (Latitude) has disclosed a data breach after suffering a cyberattack, causing the company to shut down internal and customer-facing systems.

    Latitude is one of Australia’s largest personal loans provider and the country’s largest non-bank consumer credit lender.

    A subsidiary of Deutsche Bank and KKE, the firm provides a broad spectrum of consumer finance services, including unsecured personal loans, credit cards, car loans, personal insurance, and interest-free retail finance.

    Moreover, Latitude provides major Australian retailers like Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi, David Jones, and The Good Guys with “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) schemes.

    One breach leads to another

    According to the ‘cyber incident’ notification, Latitude’s internal systems were breached, allowing a threat actor to steal an employee’s login. These credentials were then used for logging into two of the company’s service providers to steal customer data.

    “As of today, Latitude understands that approximately 103,000 identification documents, more than 97% of which are copies of drivers’ licenses, were stolen from the first service provider,” explains Latitude.

    “Approximately 225,000 customer records were also stolen from the second service provider.”

    Latitude has not clarified if the records from the second provider contain similar data as the first provider, i.e., ID and driver’s licenses or other information.

    BleepingComputer has requested a comment from the firm to clarify that, and we will update this story as soon as we receive a response.

    Exposed customers are not expected to take any action to protect themselves at this time. However, it is recommended that they stay vigilant, as their stolen data may be used in phishing or social engineering attacks.

    The company has shut down several internal and customer-facing systems while responding to the incident and says that the effort to contain the attack and prevent breaches or further customer data is still underway.

    While the public announcement was made available to all customers, those determined to be directly impacted by the security incident will receive personal notifications.

    Resource: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/latitude-cyberattack-leads-to-data-theft-at-two-service-providers/

    17Jan, 2023
    10 data security enhancements to consider as your employees return to the office

    77% of IT decision makers across the United States and Canada believe their companies are likely to face a data breach within the next three years according to survey results released by Adastra.

    Survey respondents ranked data security as the biggest game changer in 2023 as companies continue to bolster their cybersecurity preparedness—68% of managers surveyed say their companies have a cybersecurity division and a further 18% report they are in the process of creating one. Only 6% of respondents reported having no cybersecurity division.

    “The increase in data breach incidents across North America is troubling and must be prioritized as employees continue to return in-person to their corporate offices,” said Kuljit Chahal, Practice Lead, Data Security at Adastra North America.

    “During the pandemic many employees were hired virtually and, in combination with long absences from offices, introductions to and re-familiarization with security protocols will be critical,” Chahal added.

    Awareness of data security best practices among employees is essential—according to the 2022 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, 82% of data breaches are caused by human error and companies of all sizes are at risk.

    “In our role as data security experts, we have found that some companies, especially smaller ones, can be lulled into a false sense of security believing that perpetrators will not bother with them­—this is absolutely not the case,” said Chahal.

    “The results of this survey should serve as a reminder that companies of all sizes must invest in data security protection, resources and education, particularly as we return to in-office activities,” he said.

    The cost of a breach can be significant and far more than what an audit from a data security firm will cost. According to Statista, the average cost of a data breach in the United States grew to $9.4 million in 2022, up from $9 million in the previous year.

    10 data security enhancements

    Insider threats – employee re-education of systems and protocols

    The unauthorized disclosure of data isn’t always the result of malicious actors. Often, data is accidentally overshared or lost by employees. Keep your employees informed with cyber security education. Employees who go through regular phishing tests may be less likely to engage with malicious actors over email or text messaging.

    Know your inventory

    An inventory of software, hardware and data assets is essential. Having control over the assets with access to your corporate environment starts with an inventory. Inventories can be a part of the overall vulnerability management program to keep all assets up to date, including operating systems and software.

    Furthermore, a data inventory or catalogue identifies sensitive data, which allows appropriate security controls like encryption, access restrictions and monitoring to be placed on the most important data.

    Delete redundant data

    Reducing your overall data footprint can be an effective way of reducing risk. Data that resides in multiple locations may not have equal protection in each environment. Understanding what data is required and what can be archived helps to keep control over data assets.

    Early detection systems

    Detecting anomalies and suspicious activities can resolve issues before they become a breach. Today’s XDR (extended detection and response) and EDR (endpoint detection and response) systems include automated responses to common attacks.

    For example, suppose an employee downloads a malicious email attachment. In that case, the EDR system can prevent the execution of the malware hidden inside and alert security staff.

    These detection systems can be monitored by internal cyber security staff or monitored by third-party security companies who can alert management of incidents as they occur.

    Data back-ups

    Having a robust, immutable data backup plan can help an organization quickly recover from an incident. The frequency of the data backup depends on the risk the organization is willing to take. “Can we afford to lose a week’s worth of data or a day’s worth of data?”

    Limiting staff access

    Employing the least privilege principle reduces overall risk by only allowing access to data and services required to perform specific duties. Establishing processes for provisioning and de-provisioning user access with approvals, audit trails, reports, and regular attestations can limit what an attacker may be able to access in the event of compromised credentials.

    It’s not uncommon for end users to have unrestricted administrative access to their endpoint laptops. This allows users to install unauthorized software or be more easily targeted for malware attacks.

    Hire a third-party company to conduct a security audit – know your vulnerabilities

    An outside assessment of your organization’s security posture, based on established cyber security frameworks such as NIST or CIS, can provide a clearer picture of strengths and weaknesses and a roadmap to address your greatest vulnerabilities.

    Establish new passwords with two-factor authentication

    Traditionally users are authenticated by one of three ways:

    • What you know (password)
    • What you have (card access or one-time passcode)
    • What you are (biometrics)

    Adding a second factor to the ubiquitous password authentication adds another layer of security for access.

    Update your computer programs with the latest security features

    Most data breaches occur because a known vulnerability was exploited. Establishing a vulnerability management program that regularly scans software assets and applies patches is one of the most crucial security activities a company can perform.

    Physical security

    As employees return to the office, there will be employees who are coming back to the office for the first time. Reinforcing clean desk policies and reviewing physical access controls, including access to secure areas, may be required to ensure assets are not stolen or lost.

    Work-from-home employees who have company assets should be routinely educated on keeping those assets secure while at home as they would in the office.

    Resource : https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2023/01/16/data-security-enhancements/?web_view=true

    1Nov, 2022
    New open-source tool scans public AWS S3 buckets for secrets

    A new open-source ‘S3crets Scanner’ scanner allows researchers and red-teamers to search for ‘secrets’ mistakenly stored in publicly exposed or company’s Amazon AWS S3 storage buckets.

    Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) is a cloud storage service commonly used by companies to store software, services, and data in containers known as buckets.

    Unfortunately, companies sometimes fail to properly secure their S3 buckets and thus publicly expose stored data to the Internet. 

    This type of misconfiguration has caused data breaches in the past, with threat actors gaining access to employee or customer details, backups, and other types of data.

    In addition to application data, source code or configuration files in the S3 buckets can also contain ‘secrets,’ which are authentication keys, access tokens, and API keys.

    If these secrets are improperly exposed and accessed by threat actors, they could allow them far greater access to other services or even the company’s corporate network.

    Scanning S3 for secrets

    During an exercise examining SEGA’s recent assets exposure, security researcher Eilon Harel discovered that no tools for scanning accidental data leaks exist, so he decided to create his own automated scanner and release it as an open-source tool on GitHub.

    To help with the timely discovery of exposed secrets on public S3 buckets, Harel created a Python tool named “S3crets Scanner” that automatically performs the following actions:

    • Use CSPM to get a list of public buckets
    • List the bucket content via API queries
    • Check for exposed textual files
    • Download the relevant textual files
    • Scan content for secrets
    • Forward results to SIEM
    Actions performed by the S3crets Scanner
    Actions performed by the S3crets Scanner

    The scanner tool will only list S3 buckets that have the following configurations set to ‘False,’ meaning that exposure was likely accidental:

    • “BlockPublicAcls”
    • “BlockPublicPolicy”
    • “IgnorePublicAcls”
    • “RestrictPublicBuckets”

    Any buckets that were intended to be public are filtered out from the list before the textual files are downloaded for the “secrets scanning” step.

    When scanning a bucket, the script will examine the content of text files using the Trufflehog3 tool, an improved Go-based version of the secrets scanner that can check for credentials and private keys on GitHub, GitLab, filesystems, and S3 buckets.

    Trufflehog3 scans the files downloaded by S3crets using a set of custom rules designed by Harel, which target personally identifiable information (PII) exposure and internal access tokens.

    When used periodically to scan an organization’s assets, the researcher believes that “S3crets Scanner” can help firms minimize the chances of data leaks or network breaches resulting from the exposure of secrets.

    Finally, the tool can also be used for white-hat actions, like scanning publicly accessible buckets and notifying the owners of exposed secrets before bad actors find them.

    Resource: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-open-source-tool-scans-public-aws-s3-buckets-for-secrets/?&web_view=true