Weekly Threat Intelligence Brief: October 19, 2016

This weekly brief highlights the latest threat intelligenceThreat Intelligence: Evidence-based knowledge about an existing hazard designed to help organizations understand the risks common and severe external threats, used to inform decisions regarding the subject’s response. LookingGlass Cyber (n) - Actionable, relevant, and timely information that can help when assessing the security posture of an organization. A little more left. No no, that’s now too far... news to provide insight into the latest threats to various industries.

Insurance/Healthcare

“As ransomwareRansomware: A type of malware that serves as a form of extortion by one party on a group of persons or organizations. Oftentimes takes the form of encrypting a victim’s hard drive denying them access to files or other information with demands taking the form of a ransom before access is restored. LookingGlass Cyber (n) - when an organization, group, or hacker takes control of your system to extort a user or organization for money.  Ch-ching! and other cyberattacks on healthcare entities continue to surge, federal regulators are alerting organizations about the importance of safeguarding network-attached storage devices and other gear that supports or enables file transfer protocol services.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights’ monthly cyber awareness alert for October reminds HIPAA covered entities and their business associates that FTP services are proving particularly vulnerable to cyberattacks.”

– Healthcare Info Security

 Financial Services

“A previously undocumented banking Trojan is targeting financial institutions across the globe and is being used by cybercriminals to spy on networks of compromised organisations and stealthily defraud them of funds.

The Odinaff trojan has been active since January this year, carrying out attacks against organisations operating in the banking, securities, trading, and payroll sectors, as well as those which provide support services to these industries.”

– ZDNet

Legal and Regulations

The Vermont Attorney General announced a settlement with business-to-business software developer Entrinsik, Inc., regarding allegations that the company’s Informer program violated state law placing restrictions on the use and disposal of data containing Social Security numbers. The Informer program is used by businesses, including seven colleges in Vermont, to analyze and create reports of data by extracting that data from databases and presenting it in a web browser. However, when a plain-text, unsecured file of this extraction with 14,000 Social Security numbers was stored on a users’ local hard drive and backed up to a later misplaced external drive, Vermont’s data breach notification statute was triggered – probably causing the investigation into Extrinsik and the Informer program.

– Vermont Government

Retail

“Vera Bradley, a US handbags manufacturer and retailer, has announced today a breach of its payment card processing system that exposed the card details of some of its in-store customers.

According to a statement posted on Vera Bradley’s website, law enforcement approached the company last month and informed them of a potential intrusion.

After investigating the tip with the help of a cyber-security firm, the two concluded that a hacker (or a group) had gained access to Vera Bradley’s payment processing system and installed PoS malwareMalware: A generic term for a software that is designed to disable or otherwise damage computers, networks and computer systems LookingGlass Cyber (n) - another type of cold that can destroy a computer by latching on to destroy other programs..”

– Softpedia

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