How to repel cyber-attacks on the COVID-19 vaccine supply chain
Posted: December 23, 2020 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: covid-19, COVID19, gchq, supply chain cyber attacks, vaccine, vaccine cyber attack Leave a comment
With COVID-19 vaccines finally being rolled out to a relieved world, the focus for cybersecurity experts has evolved from attacks on pharma companies that make the stuff to the companies that distribute it. Already, IBM has observed a major nation state phishing campaign targeting various supply chain organisations.
I recently spoke to a few experts for an upcoming Infosecurity Magazine feature to better understand the threats facing these organisations, and what they can do about the situation.
It’s a sabotage
The main threats they highlighted revolved around potential sabotage of distribution pipelines and/or misinformation campaigns designed to discourage users from getting inoculated. Both could be the result of hostile nations like Russia calculating they could gain an economic and geopolitical advantage by getting back to “business as usual” and economic stability before their rivals. There are also opportunities here for more financially minded cyber-criminals.
“It is clear that cyber-criminals will stop at nothing. Whether the motivation is financial gain, disruption, or because they’re on the payroll of a nation-state; not even a pandemic is beyond cyber exploitation,” Nominet’s government cybersecurity expert, Steve Forbes, told me. “Now as the vaccine moves to the transportation phase, there have been more attacks on the vaccine cold chain, the temperature-controlled environment needed to transport and store the vaccine, and the manufacturers of cold chain equipment.”
Unfortunately, there are many points of weakness in supply chains which could be exploited to devastating effect, according to Lux Research senior research associated, Lewie Roberts.
“Attackers are going to look for the easiest way in to a network, which is typically some kind of human error. People are statistically bound to make mistakes sometimes, especially as you increase the number of targets,” he told me. “Stuff like confidential customer information or trade secrets are the types of items that get more focus in the IT world. But as you get closer to physical industries, you’re protecting different types of things. False data on cold chains can result in tons of spoiled products. Attacks on operational tech can pose real safety threats to workers.”
Spreading confusion
Two former UK intelligence experts had some interesting things to say about the threat of misinformation.
“The overwhelming majority of activity will be criminal attacks for money. However, we have also seen nation states spreading confusion and undermining confidence, as well as stealing vaccine IP,” former GCHQ boss, Robert Hannigan told me. “Hacktivists and hostile nation states will amplify anti-vax messages for the same reasons: to sow division and polarise societies in the West.”
Former British army electronic warfare operator, Martyn Gill, who is now global managing partner at Wembley Partners, had more.
“Political hacktivists look to spread disinformation and noise through such channels as social media, as per the state-sponsored aim of increasing the lack of confidence in what the broad message may be around the vaccine. In many cases these actors are driven by their ideological and political beliefs, however, there remains a subset of actors who seek to cause disruption primarily as a means of entertainment,” he told me.
“Since the UK announced it was rolling out a COVID-19 vaccine, we have seen an increase in related phishing domains set up looking to target this new opportunity, as the general populace looks to understand what this means for them.”
Taking action
So what happens next? For Gill, information sharing is crucial.
“Strong communication and agreed intelligence sharing around trusted eco-systems will support a broad range of businesses to help them understand new threats whilst being able to share indicators of ongoing campaigns,” he explained. “Micro, small and medium businesses who don’t have big security budgets or security teams to monitor networks, implement vulnerability management and threat intelligence programs can look open source platforms like IBM X-Force, Alien Vault OTX but also trusted individuals who deliver awesome advice through social media.”
According to Lux Research’s Roberts, the right response should focus on people as much as technology.
“Mapping data flows and endpoints, evaluating vendors, and having plans for breaches are all important and deep topics,” he argued.
“But moving away from the technology and towards the organization side, businesses need to hire experts and give them the influence and resources necessary to do the job. Safety and security aren’t often glamorous, but winning players recognise their importance before a problem arises.”
Asia tech in 2021: this way to the next normal
Posted: December 23, 2020 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Ant Group, apac, Asia COVID-19, asia tech, Google Cloud, US China trade war Leave a comment
These are perilous times to be making predictions about the future. The bolt-out-of-the-blue that was COVID-19 rendered many forecasts this time last year almost immediately worthless by March. Governments and businesses in APAC, as in the rest of the world, have spent most of 2020 first in fire-fighting mode, reacting to stem the immediate public health and economic damage from the pandemic. More recently, there’s been a concerted attempt by larger organisations to adapt, and even thrive in the new conditions. This will continue into 2021.
In many ways, APAC is one of the regions best equipped to do so. Many countries such as China, Vietnam and South Korea have seen their public policies pay dividends through declining infection rates and a recovering economy. However, there are two important caveats: Asia Pacific is a huge region with much diversity, making it difficult to draw simple conclusions. There’s also the small matter of US-China relations, which are more than likely to continue in a downward trajectory, even with Joe Biden in the White House.
US-Sino tensions set to continue
There are many officials in both governments who may hope that the Biden era will signify a new thawing of relations with China. After all, as Veep under Barack Obama, Biden pursued a far more conciliatory approach to the Middle Kingdom. However, things have changed a lot since then, with strong bipartisan opposition to China hardening in Congress and among most Americans.
In fact, Biden has already pledged to restrict imports from China deemed a national security threat, and to hit back at any countries that try to undercut US manufacturing using state subsidies, according to The Economist. This would seem to suggest his first term could pick up from where 2020 left off, although with more clarity of messaging and unity of purpose than we’ve seen in the past four years. Expect the US to engage internationally to form a coalition of nations pushing back against Chinese geopolitical bullying, state subsidised tech exports and cyber-espionage.
For those businesses stuck in the middle of the escalating trade war, including many technology firms, this could make for another challenging year ahead. Those with manufacturing plants and suppliers in China may want to continue moving operations out to nearby countries such as Vietnam and Malaysia, that can offer what they’re looking for at the right price. An additional factor is the growing disquiet over China’s treatment of Uyghurs: as Apple found out this year, suppliers may be blacklisted by the US over alleged forced labour abuses.
It’s not just the impact of the trade war, Uyghur oppression and US national security concerns that are forcing the hand of business leaders here, it’s also the lessons learned by COVID-19 and the huge impact it had on supply chains. Diversity of suppliers and geographies will be key to spreading risk in 2021 and beyond.
China goes it alone
In response, China will increasingly look to drive self-sufficiency in tech via massive state subsidies, global espionage and huge R&D spending. It’s unlikely that it will produce a domestic operating system to rival Windows, Android or iOS in 2021, but don’t rule it out happening in the next few years. Other areas China will be looking to reduce its reliance on the US include chip-making, where Huawei’s HiSilicon has already broken into the global top 10, and artificial intelligence. In fact, China is so fixed on becoming the world leader in AI that it recently labelled it a matter of “national economic security”. The missive was intended to signal in no uncertain terms that ByteDance would not be able to sell its prized “recommends” algorithm to a US firm.
As China’s global tech swagger grows it’s also likely to be more brazen in efforts to punish US firms operating in the country, and to institute strict controls over private business. Xi Jinping has already signalled his intent to tighten the Communist Party’s grip over domestic enterprises, which could make it harder for firms like ByteDance and Huawei to claim autonomy from government and geopolitical matters in the face of US hostility. The last minute suspension of fintech giant Ant Group’s $37 billion IPO is a clear signal that no company can be above the Party.
Digital growth will help APAC bounce back
Away from China, the big story in APAC as a whole next year will be increased spending on digital transformation to drive post-pandemic growth. As we revealed earlier in the year, IDC estimates that APAC spending in public cloud will reach $34.5bn in 2020 — up from $26bn in 2019. Forrester reckons it will grow another 35% in 2021 as businesses double down on the computing model that helped to save operations during the darker days of the pandemic. This will be good news for US tech giants AWS and Microsoft Azure, although the analysts predicted Alibaba will take the number three spot revenue-wise globally thanks to its anticipated gains in 2021, pushing Google Cloud out.
However, Google will be making some notable gains in specific geographies like Indonesia, where it beat its US and Chinese rivals by launching a cloud datacentre last year. Expect these investments in various APAC countries to support a new wave of digital disruption as businesses look to meet customer and employee demand for seamless app-driven experiences.
In migrating to these new environments, the region’s businesses must ensure that cybersecurity and data protection are designed into new technologies from the outset. In fact, cybersecurity was highlighted by over half of respondents to 2020 IDG Connect poll as the biggest IT challenge of the pandemic. Local organisations must tackle not only cybercrime attacks but also the increasingly aggressive behaviour of state-backed operatives in China and elsewhere. A recent report revealed yet another Beijing-backed APT has been targeting multiple southeast Asian governments over the past two years.
Ultimately, APAC will thrive in 2021. The World Bank predicts that growth will soar from -0.5% in 2020 to hit 6.9% as economic activity normalises once again. The trends for digital transformation present before the pandemic will gain extra urgency, and budget, over the year ahead, expanding corporate attack surfaces but also driving profits—especially those of Western tech firms. However, deteriorating China-US relations could result in a few surprises along the way: perhaps not the fireworks of previous years, but enough to make boardrooms continue to rethink their options in APAC.
This was my latest for IDG Connect, published here earlier this month.
Covid-19: the delicate balance between security and productivity
Posted: May 6, 2020 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: business continuity, covid-19, home working, patch, phishing, ransomware, remote working, SoC Leave a comment
As many countries enter their second full month of Covid-19 lockdown, its impact on the threat landscape and enterprise cybersecurity is starting to become clear. I spoke to several experts a few weeks back for an Infosecurity Magazine news feature on the topic.
Some of the key challenges facing organisations are in enabling secure remote working en masse without impacting productivity.
“The fact that employees are transitioning to working from home is the key risk. All these employees are now working in new environments using technology and processes they are not used to, something bad guys will take advantage of,” SANS Institute director of security awareness, Lance Spitzner told me.
“All of this change creates an environment where it is very simple for bad guys to take advantage of and trick people working from home for the first time. They don’t have all the security technology protecting them at home that they normally would at work.”
The SANS guide to secure home working advises users to: be suspicious of any emails trying to create a sense of urgency to click through or enter info; take steps to protect home Wi-Fi (change default passwords and restrict access); create strong passwords on any websites; ensure all devices are running the latest software; and don’t let family and friends use work devices.
Proofpoint’s senior director of threat research and detection, Sherrod DeGrippo, agreed that users are at the frontline when it comes to tackling Covid-19 cyber-threats.
“We recommend that organisations prioritise a people-centric approach to security that protects all parties (their employees, customers, and business partners) against these threats, including layered defences at the network edge, email gateway, in the cloud, and at the endpoint, along with strong user education,” he told me.
“Users should be encouraged to approach all unsolicited emails with caution, especially ones that request the user to act, like downloading/opening an attachment, clicking a link, or entering credentials.”
Restricting users according to least privilege policies is also a must-follow best practice, as hackers go after VPN log-ins to directly access data and applications, DeGrippo added. In fact, there have been widespread reports of cyber-criminals targeting remote access infrastructure; not only via phishing emails and brute forcing but also exploiting unpatched vulnerabilities. Microsoft has warned of APT-like behaviour from many well-known ransomware groups, which are targeting hospitals.
Time to automate?
However, aside from the uptick in Covid-themed phishing, which is delivering crypto-jacking malware, ransomware, info-stealers and more, the pandemic has forced IT security teams to work in different ways. Michael Armistead, co-founder and CEO of Respond Software, argued that SOCs and security departments are faced with both minor and meta challenges.
“Making sure practitioners can perform their jobs remotely with adequate bandwidth and communication platforms, and have the ability to act on security incidents will be a challenging undertaking for many firms,” he told me.
“I believe many of those tools and platforms are in place … but you just never know how well they will work in practice if an organisation is now distributed for the first time. Still, I’d count these very real and very practical issues as minor because they can be solved in relatively short order.”
In fact, research emerging suggests that security teams are struggling. A global poll by industry body ISACA found that only around half (59%) of members feel their cybersecurity team has the right tools and resources at home to perform their job effectively. Tellingly, just 51% are highly confident that these teams are ready and able to detect and respond to rising volumes of threats. A separate study from (ISC)² revealed that nearly half (47%) of global security professionals have been taken off some or all of their typical tasks to support other IT-related jobs, like WFH. A third report, from Barracuda Networks, ominously suggested that 41% of firms have actually cut IT security budgets to save money during the crisis.
In fact, investments in specific technologies could be a smarter way of reducing costs and improving security outcomes during the crisis, according to Armistead.
“The situation screams out for automation to relieve the pressure on people to sift through mountains of data and to act quickly,” he said. “SOCs and IT security teams need to look at their processes and procedures in light of the distributed workforce. Do they make sense and how quickly can issues be resolved?”
The immediate future remains uncertain, but if remote working is to become more widespread as the pandemic recedes, IT and security leaders better adapt to the new reality fast.
Covid-19 and the problem with IT supply chains
Posted: February 25, 2020 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: china, coronavirus, covid-19, supply chain, us trade war Leave a commentHere’s an article I wrote the other week for IDG Connect. The situation is rapidly evolving, but most of the commentary is still bang on:
As the world’s IT manufacturing centre and a huge market in its own right, anything that happens in the China can have a significant impact on the tech industry. So the boardrooms of multi-national IT players everywhere will once again be on high alert as the new coronavirus brings factories to a halt in the Middle Kingdom.
As if the persistent threat posed by Donald Trump’s protectionist trade war wasn’t enough to contend with, the newly named Covid-19 is already having a chilling effect on key supply chains and components. It may further accelerate plans for manufacturers to move facilities out of China and could even impact 5G deployments, according to analysts.
Bigger and badder than SARS
First reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO) on December 31, Covid-19 has now claimed over 1,000 victims and infected nearly 43,000, mainly in China. As such, it’s now more deadly than the SARS epidemic of 2002-3, which had a major impact on the Chinese and global economy at the start of the century.
It’s impact on tech is two-fold: in closing down factories in quarantined areas and preventing workers from travelling to facilities; and in subduing the usual sales bonanza in China around the Lunar New Year holidays at the end of January. In many cases, it appears as if workers have been stranded in their home towns, unable to travel back to the regions in which they usually live and work.
The annual Mobile World Congress (MWC) event in Barcelona has even been cancelled after big-name Asian firms pulled out. This is not insignificant, according to Forrester analyst, Alla Valente.
“For the thousands, if not millions of meetings, conversations and deals that would have taken place, this has long-term implications for vendors, suppliers and customers,” she tells me by email.
Huawei also postponed its annual developer conference in Shenzhen this week. Analysts tell me that tech giants including Dell, HP, Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm, Microsoft, Google, Intel, Sony, LG and even Facebooks’ Oculus brand are in the firing line. But some sectors are more exposed than others.
Where is Covid-19 hitting hardest?
Displays: With five large display factories located in the Covid-19 ground zero of Wuhan, it’s perhaps not surprising that this sector is impacted. According to analyst Omdia, utilisation rates at Chinese display fabs will drop by 20-25% in February with total production/output set to fall by 40-50%. Producers are hit by both component and labour shortages thanks to quarantining efforts by the Chinese government.
LCD polarisers and LCD module printed circuit boards (PCBs) are in particularly short supply due to logistics issues, even as most facilities resume production. This could apparently affect 5G smartphone production as well as other products: China reportedly makes around half the world’s supply of TVs, laptops, and PC monitors.
Smartphones: Along with the problems in LCD displays, many of the world’s biggest producers of smartphones including Apple have major production facilities in China. Two major Foxconn facilities used by the iPhone-maker were reportedly given the green light to reopen this week, but only 10% of workers had so far been able to return. Foxconn shares slumped 11% since markets reopened following the New Year break. Analyst Trendforce reportedly cut its forecast for iPhone production in the first quarter of 2020 by around 10% to 41 million handsets.
It’s not just production of smartphones that’s at stake. Although the giant Chinese market was set to rebound in 2020, this now seems unlikely, in the short term at least. IDC expects China’s smartphone shipments to slump more than 30% year-on-year in Q1 2020, and warned of “uncertainty in product launch plans, the supply chain, and distribution channels, in the mid and long term.”
Servers: According to reports from Taiwan, server shipments grew by over 13% in Q4 2019 but are expected to be affected by Covid-19 in the first three months of 2020. Although demand from large datacentres remains strong, the virus outbreak has impacted the upstream supply chain, which will cause shipments to decline 9.8% from the previous quarter, versus a previous estimate of 1.2% growth.
What happens next?
Although some reports from China claim hopefully that the disease appears to be slowing, it took five months before the SARS outbreak was officially recognised by the WHO as contained. As such, it’s still far from certain when travel restrictions will be relaxed by Beijing so that workers can return to production plants. The longer the current situation continues, the bigger the potential impact on supply chains.
Omdia claims, for example, that while currently global semiconductor supply appears unaffected, this could change if the public health situation worsens. Meanwhile, IDC analysts warned in an emailed note: “Since a large amount of the surface mount technology (SMT) and PCB manufacturing factories for both consumer goods and datacentre products are produced in China, and even in Wuhan in some cases, much of the supply chain is at the mercy of the government closure of critical infrastructure.”
For Forrester’s Valente, Covid-19 has the potential to disrupt not just 5G rollouts but the wider global economy.
“It will delay product launches – if they’re lucky. With so many supply chains adopting the Just-In-Time approach to inventory and manufacturing, some launches may need to be cancelled outright,” she argues.
“As the pandemic impacts more supply chains, what happened when products, parts, resources run out? Will all the business depending on them experience disruption? The long-term impact is greater than the economy of China or the region. We’re living in an interconnected business economy, and Covid-19 could impact the global economy.”
The future: diversify
In the meantime, the best thing organisations can do to mitigate the risks posed by the next Covid-19 is to revise and update business impact analyses (BIAs), according to Forrester. This should include four main steps:
- Classify business processes according to criticality
- Improve supply chain resilience by diversifying with multiple suppliers and geographies
- Identify which customers should receive priority treatment
- Provide extra resources and enhance automation to take the strain off your reduced workforce
The analyst warned that climate change will make pandemics like this more common in the future. As the tech industry picks up the pieces once Covid-19 has blown over, the lasting impact may be an acceleration of a trend already begun thanks to the US trade war. Namely, moving tech production out of China.
How do US cities tackle the ransomware threat in 2020?
Posted: January 1, 2020 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cybersecurity, disaster recovery, information security, outages, ransomware, us municipalities, US ransomware Leave a comment
If there’s one cybersecurity story that dominated the headlines more than any other in 2019, it was the surge in high-profile ransomware attacks on the US public sector. Municipalities all over the country were caught out, leading to major disruption of local schools, emergency services, courts and other public services. It was a reminder, if any were needed, of the absolutely critical role IT systems now play in society.
But what can IT security chiefs learn from the travails of the past year to improve resilience as we head into a new decade? I spoke to several experts recently for an upcoming Infosecurity Magazine feature.
Drowning in ransomware
According to estimates from Emisoft, 103 municipalities and 759 healthcare providers, along with 1,224 schools, may have been impacted by ransomware as of December 2019. These include major cities such as Baltimore and New Orleans, as well as countless other smaller local authorities like Pensacola and Riviera Beach.
Why are these organisations suffering in such great numbers? According to the experts I spoke to, it’s a combination of under-investment in cybersecurity, and the propensity of some high-profile targets to pay-up — encouraging copycat attacks.
“Public sector bodies have been very heavily targeted by ransomware lately. This trend has likely been helped by some public sector entities paying substantial sums to ransomware criminals,” said SANS Institute dean of research, Johannes Ullrich. “Access to information is also very important to public sector entities to conduct business, and under-investment in business recovery plans has led to a lack of backups or other fallback mechanisms.”
According to Scott Styles, data orchestration and resiliency lead at Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services, current security systems are struggling to keep pace with evolving threat techniques.
“Ransomware is designed to avoid detection and exploit the social nature of the network by hiding in files or hyperlinks that businesses need for day-to-day operations. In addition, ransomware only has to be executed once to be successful and it must be detected as well as removed quickly before it can lock or overwrite files. This is unlike other malware that may need to remain in a system for a significant amount of time, or evade detection within a vulnerable system, allowing more time for detection and removal,” he told me.
“While the time-sensitive value of data and services within these organisations makes them prime targets, the main challenges are not much different than other sectors. Vulnerabilities are numerous, people make mistakes and the threat evolves quickly, creating a perfect storm.”
Weathering the storm
The good news is that a defence-in-depth approach utilising key best practice controls can make a big difference, he added. These include AV, up-to-date patching and configuration management, regular backups, and employee security awareness training.
“They should also consider a multi-dimensional approach that integrates hardware, software, network, and behavioural monitoring into a zero-trust resilient solution,” explained Styles. “These solutions typically have the ability to remain operational even if the threat has defeated perimeter defences or is an insider threat.”
For Kevin Lancaster, general manager of security solutions at Kaseya, one of the biggest threats to US public sector bodies is their use of legacy systems. This makes prompt patching more challenging, but also more important than ever.
“The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently issued a new Binding Operational Directive (BOD 19-02) instructing government organisations to patch critical vulnerabilities within 15 days, and high severity vulnerabilities within 30 days,” he told me.
“Patching on time helps reduce the attack surface and ensures vulnerabilities are mitigated quickly. Automating patch management is moving a step ahead. With tight budgets and limited manpower, government agencies can make sure that patches are not missed across the entire network with an automated patch management solution.”
Local governments must get proactive, by developing and testing incident response and business continuity/disaster recovery plans — if necessary, in concert with third-party providers. However, city staff are also a vital asset in helping to mitigate the threat, Lancaster added.
“For government organisations to be fully prepared to tackle cyber threats, IT directors should have a long-term vision which includes up-skilling their employees in areas of cybersecurity,” he concluded. “With budget constraints always at the forefront of concerns, it might not be feasible to routinely train every member of the team. Instead, areas to focus can be prioritised and worked upon to implement effective up-skilling.”
phil muncaster 