Tag Archive for: thwart

Simple step can thwart top phone hackers

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RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — As a member of the secretive Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Angus King has reason to worry about hackers. At a briefing by security staff this year, he said he got some advice on how to help keep his cellphone secure.

Step One: Turn off phone.

Step Two: Turn it back on.

That’s it. At a time of widespread digital insecurity it turns out that the oldest and simplest computer fix there is — turning a device off then back on again — can thwart hackers from stealing information from smartphones.

Regularly rebooting phones won’t stop the army of cybercriminals or spy-for-hire firms that have sowed chaos and doubt about the ability to keep any information safe and private in our digital lives. But it can make even the most sophisticated hackers work harder to maintain access and steal data from a phone.

“This is all about imposing cost on these malicious actors,” said Neal Ziring, technical director of the National Security Agency’s cybersecurity directorate.

The NSA issued a “best practices” guide for mobile device security last year in which it recommends rebooting a phone every week as a way to stop hacking.

King, an independent from Maine, says rebooting his phone is now part of his routine.

“I’d say probably once a week, whenever I think of it,” he said.

Almost always in arm’s reach, rarely turned off and holding huge stores of personal and sensitive data, cellphones have become top targets for hackers looking to steal text messages, contacts and photos, as well as track users’ locations and even secretly turn on their video and microphones.

“I always think of phones as like our digital soul,” said Patrick Wardle, a security expert and former NSA researcher.

The number of people whose phones are hacked each year is unknowable, but evidence suggests it’s significant. A recent investigation into phone hacking by a global media consortium has caused political uproars in France, India, Hungary and elsewhere after researchers found scores of journalists, human rights activists and politicians on a leaked list of what were believed to be potential targets of an Israeli hacker-for-hire company.

The advice to periodically reboot a phone…

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Data Backup Practices Can Thwart Ransomware

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Spectra Logic is a 41-year-old private company, based in Boulder, Colorado, that according to the company’s website, “develops data storage and data management solutions that solve the problem of digital preservation for organizations dealing with exponential data growth.”  On May 7, 2020, and related to the move to remote work by Spectra Logic employees, the company experienced a ransomware attack by one of the more active ransomware malware that encrypted a significant amount of the company’s data.

Ransomware is a type of malware, often spread through phishing emails (as was the case for Spectra Logic), that once opened, encrypts an organization’s data, making it unavailable to access until the company pays a ransom to have the data decrypted.  Note that sometimes the malware source takes the money but never decrypts the data, so paying a malware source may not result in getting your data back.

Sophos published a report on The State of Ransomware in May 2020 that discussed the current threat and widespread incidence of ransomware malware attacks.  The survey queried 5,000 IT managers across 26 countries.  According to the report, “The findings provide brand new insight into what actually happens once ransomware hits. It reveals the percentage of attacks that successfully encrypt data; how many victims pay the ransom; how paying the ransom impacts the overall clean-up costs; and the role of cybersecurity insurance.”

Top level results of the Sophos survey were that:

  • 51% of organizations were hit by ransomware in the last year. The criminals succeeded in encrypting the data in 73% of these attacks. 
  • 26% of ransomware victims whose data was encrypted, got their data back by paying the ransom. A further 1% paid the ransom but didn’t get their data back.
  • 94% of organizations whose data was encrypted got it back. More than twice as many got it back via backups (56%) than by paying the ransom (26%). 
  • The average cost to rectify the impacts of the most recent ransomware attack (considering downtime, people time, device cost, network cost, lost opportunity, ransom paid etc.) is…

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Zoom Beefs Up End-to-End Encryption to Thwart ‘Zoombombers’

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As the company continues to battle security woes, it has acquired Keybase to boost security and privacy. A full cryptographic draft architecture will be available on May 22.
Mobile Security – Threatpost