Threats Without Borders - Issue 57
Threats Without Borders - Issue 57
Matt's Newsletter - Week ending December 19, 2021
President Biden issued an executive order to create the United States Council on Transnational Organized Crime (USCTOC). Membership of the council will consist of representatives from the Departments of State, Treasury, Defense, Homeland Security, National Intelligence, and the Attorney General.
Blah, blah, blah. While it’s encouraging to see the issue is a policy concern for the current administration, it seems this is nothing more than government at it’s worst. A committee to create more committees that will hold meetings to schedule more meetings.
The directives set in Section 2 are just talking points of tasks that already exists. Law enforcement and national security agencies are already trying to accomplish these objectives, albeit not very well, but trying.
The goal of the council should be HOW are we going to empower law enforcement and private entity partners to better accomplish these goals. How are we going to make the process more efficient? How can we remove the legal and diplomatic barriers that stymie these investigations?
The five W’s - what, who, where, when, and why - are all known. Let’s skip the bureaucratic BS and get down to the HOW! And then get it done!
Where are the controls
Who is actually the malicious insider, the finance manager who embezzled 900K dollars over a four year period, or the management of the business who failed to put controls in place to prevent it from happening? Yes, this Tampa woman was able to steal over 900,000 dollars from her employer and it took four years for anyone in management to catch on!? https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdfl/pr/tampa-woman-sentenced-15-months-federal-prison-embezzling-over-900000-her-employer
Attack Vector:Social Media
PhishLabs has found that social media is being used to launch attacks against enterprises. In fact, such attacks are up 82% since January of this year. It is not surprising that payment services and e-commerce are top targets, but it is surprising to see an increase in attacks on staffing and recruiting services. https://www.phishlabs.com/blog/social-media-attacks-increase-82/
Not LONG enough
This Pennsylvania woman has been sentenced to 37 months in federal prison for her part in a romance scheme that bilked more than 1.9 million dollars from at least 19 victims. Oh, the victims were woman between the ages of 55 and 85 years old. Kudos to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania for pushing through this prosecution. https://www.pennlive.com/crime/2021/12/pa-woman-sentenced-to-37-months-in-social-media-scam-that-sent-nearly-19m-to-nigeria.html
We all live downstream
The ransomware attack on Ultimate Kronos Group (UKG) shows that such attacks don’t just effect the primary target. The trouble flows downstream quickly and with lasting effects. The forced shutdown of the firms hosted payroll services has meant significance trouble for every business using the service - and it is thousands of clients. “UKG’s list of clients includes some huge names including Tesla, GameStop, Honda, Sainsbury’s, Puma, the YMCA, MGM Resorts, the city of Denver, and New York City’s Metro Transit Authority” People tend to get a bit irate when they can’t get paid. Especially right before Christmas. https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/15/22838737/kronos-ukg-ransomware-attack-payroll-tesla-whole-foods-cybercrime
The Rest…
JP Morgan Chase hit with a 200 million dollar fine for permitting employees to use WhatsApp expressly to avoid having their conversations monitored by regulators. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/17/jpmorgan-agrees-to-125-million-fine-for-letting-employees-use-whatsapp-to-evade-regulators.html
The Randori attack team has a good explanation of the Log4J vulnerability with a running update log. https://www.randori.com/blog/cve-2021-44228/
Phishing attack targets Spiderman movie fans. https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/spider-man-scams-new-movie/
DAO’s are super trendy right now. You should probably know what they are. https://ethereum.org/en/dao/
Cool Tool
What is that car? Find every car logo and badge here: https://car-logos.net/
Cool Job
Fraud Investigations Analyst - ID.me (Remote) https://boards.greenhouse.io/idme/jobs/4851667003
“Spending time on things you can't control takes time away from things you can.” - someone with less anxiety than me
Free awesome training
SANS 2022 Cyber Threat Intelligence Summit & Training - Live and Online
Irrelevant
Disgruntled Tesla owner in Finland straps 65 pounds of dynamite to his unrepairable car resulting in a big bang.
Homophones are damn hard
Marshal - A person in charge of parade or ceremony, a high official in a royal court
Martial - relating to or suited for war, warlike, relating to an army
Thank you for reading this weeks newsletter. Merry Christmas!
Matt