Month: September 2018
Sep 17, 2018 | Industry News, Internet Security, Mobile Security, Network Security, Web Filtering
There are many new services that managed service providers (MSPs) can add to their service stacks, such as cloud migration and digitization services, but the biggest area for growth is currently cybersecurity services.
The number of cyberattacks on SMBs and enterprises has increased substantially in recent years. More attacks are now being conducted than ever before, and many of those attacks are succeeding.
A successful attack can prove extremely profitable for an attacker and extremely costly for an enterprise. When a network or email account is breached, sensitive information can be stolen, such as the personal data of customers and employees and corporate secrets and proprietary data.
When customer information is stolen, the damage to a company’s reputation can be considerable. Customer churn rate increases, business is lost, and there may be regulatory fines to cover and lawsuits to fight. Notifications need to be issued and credit monitoring and identity theft protection services may need to be provided to customers. When proprietary data is stolen, a company’s competitive advantage can easily be lost.
Following any security breach, hours must be committed to forensic analyses to search for possible backdoors and malware. The breach cause must be identified and security holes must be plugged. All those costs (and more) add up. This year’s Cost of a Data Breach study conducted by the Ponemon Institute/IBM Security revealed the average cost of a data breach of up to 100,000 personal records has risen to $3.86 million in 2018 – a 6.4% increase since 2017.
The massive disruption to businesses caused by cyberattacks and the considerable cost of mitigating data breaches means SMBs and enterprises need to take precautions and invest in cybersecurity defenses. However, the shortage of skilled staff in this area and already overworked IT departments has meant many companies have had to turn to MSPs and managed security service providers (MSSPs) to help shore up their defenses, monitor for potential intrusions, and respond to breaches when they occur.
Many MSPs have responded to the demand and are now offering security services to their clients to meet the demand. That demand is so great, that managed security services are now a huge growth area for MSPs.
Each year, Channel Futures conducts its MSP 501 survey, which evaluates the revenue growth, service deliverables, and business models and strategies adopted by the most progressive and forward-thinking MSPs around the globe. This year, the survey revealed that the biggest growth area is security services. 73% of all surveyed MSPs said security was their fastest growing service. As a point of comparison, the next biggest growth area was professional services (55%), followed by Office 365 (52%) and consulting (51%).
With huge demand for managed security services, it is no longer a question of whether they should be added to MSPs service stacks, but more a question of how they can be integrated, how to architect those services, and how to package security services together to meet customers’ needs.
What Security Services are Being Offered by MSPs?
Many enterprises and SMBs that attempt to go it alone end up deploying dozens of different security solutions at considerable cost, only to discover they are still attacked and suffer network breaches. Most businesses do not have the staff to commit to implementing, monitoring, and managing large numbers of cybersecurity solutions. This creates an opportunity for MSPs.
Some MSPs have opted to provide clients with a suite of cybersecurity solutions from a single provider, as the solutions work seamlessly together and there is less potential for security gaps to exist. While this has worked for some MSPs, the problem with this approach is clients could approach that vendor and decide to go direct. MSPs that have succeeded with this model are adding considerable value – such as their expertise in running those solutions.
Logicalis, ranked #10 in the MSP 501 list, has taken a different approach and is bundling together a range of solutions that can be easily managed together and match customers’ needs exactly. “We pick our swim lanes, we pick our areas that are most relevant to our skills, to our customers, and we make sure we have the disciplines and domain expertise to deliver against that,” said Logicalis’ chief sales officer Mike Houghton.
Clients often get the best value – and protection – when MSPs package together cybersecurity products from a wide range of cybersecurity solution providers to provide a comprehensive security service, as Tom Clancy, CEO of Valiant Technology and #206 in Channel Future’s MSP 501 list explained. “Providing a bundle of offerings from different vendors that work well together is the most effective way for an MSP to retain its role as a trusted adviser.”
Valiant Technology has even taken this a step further and is moving towards making security a ‘non-optional’ offering. Clancy explained to Channel Futures that, “Our managed services plans will say, ‘It costs this much per seat, and it’s this much if you want the security package. And by the way, you really want the security package, otherwise here’s my limitation of liability.”
Naturally, putting together a package of security services requires considerable research and planning, new staff may need to be hired, and training on the products must be provided. It is a lot of work, but the potential rewards are considerable.
How Can TitanHQ Help?
TitanHQ has developed an award-winning suite of security products that is ideally suited for MSPs, offering a winning combination of easy deployment, remote management, superb protection against a wide range of threats, and excellent margins. The solutions mitigate the threat from web and email-based attacks and can be integrated seamlessly into MSPs existing service stacks.
SpamTitan provides world-class protection from spam and malicious emails, preventing malware, ransomware, and phishing emails from reaching end users’ inboxes. Malware protection is provide dual antivirus engines that have been shown to block 100% of known malware threats in independent tests. Suspicious attachments that pass the AV scans are sent to a Bitdefender-powered sandbox where they are subjected to an in-depth, sophisticated analysis to identify previously unknown malware threats and malicious scripts. The solution is automatically updated and is fed real-time threat intelligence gathered from an active database of 650 million users.
SpamTitan uses a defense-in-depth approach to protect against phishing threats, including machine learning predictive techniques to identify zero-day phishing threats. SpamTitan scans inbound and outbound emails and includes a data loss prevention feature to prevent attempts to use email accounts to send sensitive data outside the organization.
TitanHQ has developed WebTitan to provide protection against web-based threats. WebTitan is a web filtering solution that blocks web-based cyberattacks by preventing end users from visiting malicious websites and downloading malware. WebTitan stops malicious requests at the DNS layer, which is better than waiting for the payload to be delivered onto the machine and then removed. By stopping it at the DNS layer you’re reducing not only malware infections, but containing machines already infected by preventing them from communicating out to their C&C servers.
Benefits of TitanHQ Cybersecurity Solutions for MSPs
- Easy client account administration via a central control panel
- One control panel to manage all clients
- Intuitive controls with low management overhead
- Eliminates the need for site visits, with no local support required
- No end user software installations needed
- Incorporate new clients in minutes
- Competitive usage-based pricing with monthly billing
- Three hosting options: Our servers, a private cloud, or within an MSP’s infrastructure
- Generous margins for MSPs
- Industry-leading technical support and customer service
- Solutions available in a white label version ready to take MSP logos
To find out more about how these two solutions benefit MSPs and their clients, and the tools available to seamlessly integrate these technology-agnostic security services into MSPs security packages, contact the TitanHQ team today and ask about joining the TitanHQ MSP Program – TitanSHIELD.
The TitanHQ MSP Program
MSPs joining the TitanSHIELD MSP program receive one-to-one training with our sales engineers and have a dedicated account manager, assigned sales engineer support, access to the Global Partner Program Hotline, access to the Partner Knowledge Base, 24/7 priority technical support, online technical training and FAQs, access to the Partner Technical Knowledge Base, and full access to an extensive range of marketing materials and sales tools.
Testimonials from TitanHQ MSP Clients
“WebTitan is an outstanding tool for most reliable content filtering. The monitoring feature of this specific product is quite unique that totally monitors all the process of online working and also secures all the data. Additionally, its set-up is superb easy and it can be done in just few minutes that save my time and energy as well.” – Kristie H. Account Manager
“WebTitan is fairly easy to setup. It is available as a cloud based solution or on prem. You can get as simple or as complicated with your filtering as you like, it will handle most situations with ease. It has provided us with a stable web filtering platform that has worked well for us for many years.” – Derek A. Network Manager
“WebTitan is outstanding software that helps me a lot in minimizing viruses. The thing I like most about WebTitan is that it is extremely easy to use and configure. I like its clear interface. It lets us block malicious content and spam easily. It is no doubt an amazing product helping us a lot in kicking out harmful bad stuff.” – Randy Q. Software Engineer
“A key part of our security stack as we’ve scaled to over 6,000 managed endpoints, while decreasing virus and malware related tickets by 70%.” – MSP, Boston, US
“It has paid for itself many times over by reducing malware calls.” – MSP, Toronto, Canada
Sep 12, 2018 | Cybersecurity Advice, Cybersecurity News, Internet Security, Web Filtering
Vulnerabilities in the VPNs NordVPN and ProtonVPN have been identified that allow execution of arbitrary code with system level privileges, highlighting the risk that can be introduced if VPN software is not kept fully patched and up to date.
VPNs May Not be As Secure as You Think
One common method used to securely access the Internet on public WiFi networks is to connect through a VPN. A VPN helps to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks and the interception of data by creating a secure tunnel through which data flows. Using VPN software means a user’s data is encrypted preventing information from being accessed by malicious actors.
While the connection is secured using a VPN, that does not always mean that a user is well protected. VPNs may not be quite as secure as users believe. Like any software, there can be vulnerabilities in VPNs that can be exploited. If the latest version of VPN software is not used, data may be vulnerable.
High Severity Vulnerabilities Identified in Popular VPNs
Recently, two of the most popular VPN clients have been found to contain a privilege escalation bug that could be exploited to allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with elevated privileges.
The bug is present in NordVPN and ProtonVPN clients, both of which use the open-source OpenVPN software to create a tunnel through which information passes. In April, a flaw was identified which allowed an attacker with low level privileges to run arbitrary code and elevate their privileges to system level. Further, the flaw was not difficult to exploit.
A change could easily be made to the OpenVPN configuration file, adding parameters such as “plugin”, “script-security”, “up”, and “down”. Files specified within those parameters would be executed with elevated privileges. The flaw was identified by security researcher Fabius Watson of VerSprite Security, and prompt action was taken to patch the flaw.
However, while patches were issued by NordVPN and ProtonVPN that prevented the “plugin”, “script-security”, “up”, and “down” parameters from being added to the configuration file by standard users, the flaw had only been partially corrected.
Researchers at Cisco Talos discovered the same parameters could still be added to the configuration file if they were added in quotation marks. Doing that would bypass the mitigations of the patches. These vulnerabilities have been tracked under separate CVE codes – CVE-2018-3952 for ProtonVPN and CVE-2018-4010 for NordVPN. Both flaws are considered high-severity and have been assigned a CVSS v3 base score of 8.8 out of 10.
NordVPN and ProtonVPN have now released an updated patch which prevents the addition of these parameters using quotation marks, thus preventing threat actors from exploiting the vulnerability. Both vendors have tackled the problem in different ways, with ProtonVPN opting to put the configuration file in the installation directory to prevent standard users from making any changes, while NordVPN used an XML model to generate the configuration file. Standard users are not able to modify the template.
Securing Connections on Public WiFi Access Points
VPNs are an excellent way of improving security when connecting to public WiFi networks, but policies and procedures should be implemented to ensure that patches are applied promptly. It is not always possible to configure VPN clients to automatically update to the latest version. If vulnerabilities in VPNs are not addressed, they can be a major security weak point.
An additional protection that can be implemented to protect remote workers when connecting to WiFi networks is a web filtering solution such a WebTitan. WebTitan allows businesses to carefully control the web content that can be accessed by employees no matter where they connect – through wired networks, business WiFi networks, and when connecting to the Internet through public WiFi networks.
By controlling the types of sites that can be accessed, and using blacklists of known malicious sites, the potential for malware downloads can be greatly reduced.
If you want to improve WiFi security or implement web filtering controls for remote workers, contact the TitanHQ team today to find out more about WebTitan and the difference it can make to your security posture.
Sep 11, 2018 | Cybersecurity Advice, Cybersecurity News, Internet Security, Malware Alerts, Mobile Security, Network Security, Web Filtering
A new exploit kit has been detected that is being used to deliver Trojans and GandCrab ransomware. The Fallout exploit kit was unknown until August 2018, when it was identified by security researcher Nao_sec. Nao_sec observed the Fallout exploit kit being used to deliver SmokeLoader – a malware variant whose purpose is to download other types of malware.
Nao_sec determined that once SmokeLoader was installed, it downloaded two further malware variants – a previously unknown malware variant and CoalaBot – A HTTP DDoS Bot that is based on August Stealer code. Since the discovery of the Fallout exploit kit in August, it has since been observed downloading GandCrab ransomware on vulnerable Windows devices by researchers at FireEye.
While Windows users are being targeted by the threat group behind Fallout, MacOS users are not ignored. If a MacOS user encounters Fallout, they are redirected to webpages that attempt to fool visitors into downloading a fake Adobe Flash Player update or fake antivirus software. In the case of the former, the user is advised that their version of Adobe Flash Player is out of date and needs updating. In the case of the latter, the user is advised that their Mac may contain viruses, and they are urged to install a fake antivirus program that the website claims will remove all viruses from their device.
The Fallout exploit kit is installed on webpages that have been compromised by the attacker – sites with weak passwords that have been brute-forced and those that have out of date CMS installations or other vulnerabilities which have been exploited to gain access.
The two vulnerabilities exploited by the Fallout exploit kit are the Windows VBScript Engine vulnerability – CVE-2018-8174 – and the Adobe Flash Player vulnerability – CVE-2018-4878, both of which were identified and patched in 2018.
The Fallout exploit kit will attempt to exploit the VBScript vulnerability first, and should that fail, an attempt will be made to exploit the Flash vulnerability. Successful exploitation of either vulnerability will see GandCrab ransomware silently downloaded.
The first stage of the infection process, should either of the two exploits prove successful, is the downloading of a Trojan which checks to see if certain processes are running, namely: filemon.exe, netmon.exe, procmon.exe, regmon.exe, sandboxiedcomlaunch.exe, vboxservice.exe, vboxtray.exe, vmtoolsd.exe, vmwareservice.exe, vmwareuser.exe, and wireshark.exe. If any those processes are running, no further action will be taken.
If those processes are not running, a DLL will be downloaded which will install GandCrab ransomware. Once files are encrypted, a ransom note is dropped on the desktop. A payment of $499 is demanded per device to unlock the encrypted files.
Exploit kits will only work if software is out of date. Patching practices tend to be better in the United States and Europe, so attackers tend to rely on other methods to install their malicious software in these regions. Exploit kit activity is primarily concentrated in the Asia Pacific region where software is more likely to be out of date.
The best protection against the Fallout exploit kit and other EKs is to ensure that operating systems, browsers, browser extensions, and plugins are kept fully patched and all computers are running the latest versions of software. Companies that use web filters, such as WebTitan, will be better protected as end users will be prevented from visiting, or being redirected to, webpages known to host exploit kits.
To ensure that files can be recovered without paying a ransom, it is essential that regular backups are made. A good strategy is to create at least three backup copies, stored on two different media, with one copy stored securely offsite on a device that is not connected to the network or accessible over the Internet.
Version française de cet article.
Sep 10, 2018 | Cybersecurity News, Malware Alerts, Network Security, Web Filtering
The CamuBot Trojan is a new malware variant that is being used in vishing campaigns on employees to obtain banking credentials.
Cybercriminals Use Vishing to Convince Employees to Install CamuBot Trojan
Spam email may be the primary method of delivering banking Trojans, but there are other ways of convincing employees to download and run malware on their computers.
In the case of the CamuBot Trojan the method used is vishing. Vishing is the voice equivalent of phishing – The use of the telephone to scam people, either by convincing them to reveal sensitive information or to take some other action such as downloading malware or making fraudulent bank transfers.
Vishing is commonly used in tech support scams where people are convinced to install fake security software to remove fictitious viruses on their computers. The campaign used to install the CamuBot Trojan is a variation on this theme and was uncovered by IBM X-Force researchers.
The attack starts with some reconnaissance. The attackers identify a business that uses a specific bank. Individuals within that organization are then identified that are likely to have access the bank accounts used by the business – payroll staff for example. Those individuals are then contacted by telephone.
The attackers claim that they are calling from the bank and are performing a check of security software on the user’s computer. The user is instructed to visit a webpage where a program will run a scan to find out if they have an up-to-date security module installed on their computer.
The fake scan is completed, and the user is informed that their security module is out of date. The caller then explains that the user must download the latest version of the security module and install it on their computer.
Once the file is downloaded and executed, it runs just like any standard software installer. The user is advised of the minimum system requirements needed for the security module to work and the installer includes the bank’s logo and color scheme to make it appear genuine.
The user is guided through the installation process, which first requires them to stop certain processes that are running on their computer. The installer displays the progress of the fake installation, but in the background, the CamuBot Trojan is being installed. Once the process is completed, it connects to its C2 server.
The user is then directed to what appears to be the login portal for their bank where they are required to enter their login credentials. The portal is a phishing webpage, and the credentials to access the users bank account are captured by the attacker.
Many banks require a second factor for authentication. If such a control is in place, the attackers will instruct the user that a further installation is required for the security module to work. They will be talked through the installation of a driver that allows a hardware-based authentication device to be remotely shared with the attacker. Once that has been installed and approved, the attackers are able to intercept any one-time passwords that are sent by the bank to the user’s device, allowing the attackers to take full control of the bank account and authorize transactions.
The CamuBot Trojan shows that malware does not need to be stealthy to be successful. Social engineering techniques can be just a effective at getting employees to install malware.
The CambuBot Trojan campaign is primarily being conducted in Brazil, but the campaign could be rolled out and used in attacks in other countries. The techniques used in this campaign are not new and have ben used in several malware campaigns in the past.
Consequently, it is important for this type of attack to be covered as part of security awareness training programs. Use of a web filter will also help to prevent these attacks from succeeding by blocking access to the malicious pages where the malware is downloaded.
