There is a lot of variations in evil e-mail the last couple of days.

I yearn for the days when evil e-mail was so easily identified "becuse it wuz ritten in, gud, inglish wit grate spellhng an pun.tation". 😃

In the last couple of days, the evil doers have been varying their scam e-mails fairly wildly and it's bound to catch out some people.

I'll run through three sneaky methods that have been attempted on others over the last 48 hours.

If you have Adobe Flash Player installed, read this now.

I really HATE Adobe Flash player. 😡 It is the internet equivalent of Typhoid Mary. If you don't need it, uninstall it. If you do need it, use Chrome as your browser. Why the rant?

Adobe has released a Critical update to Flash Player because of a vulnerability with it that has already been exploited in targeted attacks against Windows.
https://helpx.adobe.com/…/produ…/flash-player/apsb16-36.html

If you use Chrome or Microsoft's Edge or Internet Explorer 11, then the Flash player built in to these will get updated automatically. So concern yourself not.

However if you use Internet Explorer 10 or less (check Help->About) or other browsers and have Flash Player installed, then go to the following link and be sure to UNCHECK the "Optional Offers" and Click "Install Now" and follow the directions to upgrade your Flash Player.
https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

The sooner Flash goes away, the happier I will be. 😉

In the meantime ... Let's be careful out there.

Using the Internet Safely. Training from L2 Cyber Security Solutions.

Human Error

Did you know that evil software gets past commercial anti-virus and e-mail filtering products on a worryingly regular basis.

Firewalls and Anti-virus packages lure people into a false sense of security. While they do provide protection up to a point, if somebody opens an e-mail attachment that contains new Malware, these protections are effectively useless.

Cyber incidents, most notably Ransomware attacks have seen massive increases recently. 93% of phishing e-mails in Quarter 1 2016 have carried a Ransomware payload (source - PhishMe Q1 2016 Malware review). 30% of people that receive phishing e-mails open them and 12% of those that do, then open attachments or click on links (source - Verizon 2016 Data Breach Investigations Report).

These statistics highlight the fact that a significant weak link in any organisation, where it comes to using the internet and e-mail, are THE STAFF, but it's not their fault.

The best protection to cover this gap are staff that are aware of what the threats are and how they manifest themselves. Once they are armed with the knowledge of what to look out for, they will be much less likely to cause a security breach.

The training that L2 Cyber Security Solutions delivers is comprehensive, yet simple for all to follow.

Using the Internet Safely

Course Outline

Lecture / Workshop

Duration:

1 day

Audience:

People who have access to and utilise the internet and e-mail, whether for personal or business purposes, as part of their day. 

Prerequisites:

A basic understanding of internet browsing and e-mail usage is a prerequisite.

Programme Aim:

This training will give the attendees an understanding of the risks and threats associated with using the internet and e-mail.

Learning Outcome:

The participants will know how they can take some simple steps to avoid being adversely affected by the various risks presented to them. They will also learn how to create unique and strong passwords.

Course Content:

1. Malware (incl. Ransomware)
2. Spam
3. Social Engineering
4. Phishing and Spear-Phishing (incl. CEO Fraud)
5. Safe Web Browsing
6. Good Security Practices
7. Mobile Security
8. Creating a unique and strong password

Call us on 087-436-2675 or e-mail info@L2CyberSecurity.com to discuss your requirements and get a quotation.

Snail mail delivers USB keys ... WTF?

I find I'm writing a second article about Evil USBs within a week. At least these ones don't destroy your equipment, but they might infect you with nasty software that does things that you really wouldn't want it doing.

In this case, in Victoria, Australia, Evil Doers were dropping USB drives into people's mailboxes. The report from Victoria Police stated:

Upon inserting the USB drives into their computers victims have experienced fraudulent media streaming service offers, as well as other serious issues.

The USB drives are believed to be extremely harmful and members of the public are urged to avoid plugging them into their computers or other devices.

Repeat after me ... Microsoft do NOT e-mail out system updates!

More evil e-mail is coming to scramble all the files on your computer and then demand you to pay your hard earned cash in order to get back access to same. In other words you are being held to Ransom and so we get the term Ransom Software or Ransomware for short.

Don't open that Voicemail!

The evil doers are up to their old tricks, trying to hoodwink people into opening up their dastardly files and execute their nasty contents. 

Usually they send files that claim to be invoices or bank statements, which will normally catch out a small percentage of their targeted group - accountants in this case, because accountants love opening invoices and bank statements, or so I've heard. 😉

So this new wheeze might catch out a hell of a lot more people, because everyone's got a phone. Right? And the vast majority of phones have a voicemail facility. Right? 

A Nightmare on Quadrooter Street.

When I was a teenager, watching slasher flicks like A Nightmare on Elm Street (the original 1984 version) and Halloween, in order to look like a "tough guy" I developed a sort of movie watching buffer whereby when any startling occurrence happened (e.g. the scary guy leaps out of the shadows), I would simply sit there all cool-like while all around me leaped out of their seats. I would mentally take a moment to let the occurrence happen and then internally say "Yep! That thing that happens in every scary movie happened" and just continue watching. I just don't react to the situation the instant it happens.

Nowadays I continue this type of trick when I read scary stories. For example, last weeks blog post about the Garda Síochána hack. After all the initial "Mob hack the Garda" hyperbole, it would appear, after a few days, that it was a simple Ransomware incident.

And so it is with the recent story from Check Point Software Technologies Ltd about their sexily named Quadrooter. A set of four vulnerabilities what they discovered in the Qualcomm chips that are in use in up to 900 million Android devices worldwide.

Evil doers just being evil ... news at 11!

The good folk over at Cisco's Talos Threat Intelligence Organisation have been looking at a new piece of "apparent" Ransomware called Ranscam.

The reason I use "apparent" is because it doesn't hold any of your data to ransom, quite simply because it's deleted it already! That doesn't stop it trying to get you to pay them good money, and even if you did pay up, you'll get nothing in return.

As we covered in Commandment IV of our Ten Commandments, if you have a good backup set up, then you need not concern yourself with whether Ransomware has or has not locked away your data. You simply wipe your equipment of the nasty malware and restore your data.

Ranscam isn't too widely spread at the moment and Talos reckon it was cobbled together rather quickly to try to cash in on this Ransomware market.

You can read the Talos report here:

http://blog.talosintel.com/2016/07/ranscam.html

If you want to get your staff to learn what steps they can take to reduce the risk of your business being affected by Ransomware, then check out the Security Awareness Training that is available from L2 Cyber Security.

Security Awareness Training by L2 Cyber Security Solutions.

Cyber incidents, most notably Ransomware attacks have seen massive increases recently. 93% of phishing e-mails in Quarter 1 2016 have carried a Ransomware payload (source - PhishMe Q1 2016 Malware review). 30% of people that receive phishing e-mails open them and 12% of those that do, then open attachments or click on links (source - Verizon 2016 Data Breach Investigations Report).

These statistics highlight the fact that a significant weak link in any organisation, where it comes to using the internet and e-mail, are THE STAFF, but it's not their fault.

Firewalls and Anti-virus packages lure people into a false sense of security. While they do provide protection up to a point, if somebody opens an e-mail attachment that contains new Malware, these protections are effectively useless.

The best protection to cover this gap are staff that are aware of what the threats are and how they manifest themselves. Once they are armed with the knowledge of what to look out for, they will be much less likely to cause a security breach.

The training that L2 Cyber Security Solutions delivers is comprehensive, yet simple for all to follow.

Security Awareness Training

Course Outline

Lecture / Workshop

Duration:

1 day

Audience:

People who have access to and utilise the internet and e-mail, whether for personal or business purposes, as part of their day. 

Prerequisites:

A basic understanding of internet browsing and e-mail usage is a prerequisite.

Programme Aim:

This training will give the attendees an understanding of the risks and threats associated with using the internet and e-mail.

Learning Outcome:

The participants will know how they can take some simple steps to avoid being adversely affected by the various risks presented to them. They will also learn how to create unique and strong passwords.

Course Content:

1. Malware (incl. Ransomware)
2. Spam
3. Social Engineering
4. Phishing and Spear-Phishing (incl. CEO Fraud)
5. Safe Web Browsing
6. Good Security Practices
7. Mobile Security
8. Creating a unique and strong password

Call us on 087-436-2675 or e-mail info@L2CyberSecurity.com to discuss your requirements and get a quotation.