On Wednesday August 25, the President led a summit conference between his administration and business leaders about cybersecurity. The Wall Street Journal reports that the President
called the issue “the core national security challenge we are facing.”
Top tech executives, including Apple Inc.’s Tim Cook, Amazon.com Inc.’s Andy Jassy, Microsoft Corp.’s Satya Nadella and Alphabet Inc.’s Sundar Pichai attended the White House meeting, according to a list of participants shared by an administration official. The guest list also included JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon and Brian Moynihan, president and CEO of Bank of America Corp. , among other representatives of the financial industry.
Here’s a link to the White House’s fact sheet on the conference which highlights its significant accomplishments. Cyberscoop adds that “While impressive, observers noted, those commitments will require considerable follow-up, from expansion to other sectors to policy changes that could emerge from closer-knit relationships between industry and government.”
Last Monday, the FEHBlog attended a Federal Contract Institute webinar on combatting ransomware. The speakers, who were lawyers, suggested placing as many speed bumps, e.g., dual authentication, encryption, DMARC, as you reasonably can in front of the ransomware crook. Your run of the mill ransomware crook will switch intended victims if the first intended victims servers appear difficult to crack. The speakers also recommended supplementing NIST 800-171 , which focuses on preserving the confidentiality of data, with NIST IR 8374 , a June 21 draft which focuses on preserving the integrity and available of data. The speakers noted the CISA’s www.ransomware.gov site provides a helpful double check to identify available speed bumps.
Speaking of ransomware, the author of Bleeping Computer’s The Week in Ransomware must be on vacation because the FEHBlog cannot find the August 27 issue. In any event, Bleeping Computer does report that yesterday August 27, ‘T-Mobile’s CEO Mike Sievert said that the hacker behind the carrier’s latest massive data breach brute forced his way through T-Mobile’s network after gaining access to testing environments.” Cyberscoop adds that
“Americans already trying to avoid calls from telemarketers, call support scammers and long-winded in-laws now have another reason to ignore that ringing phone: ransomware hackers. Scammers affiliated with a digital extortion outfit known as Hive are using phone calls to dial victims who are infected with a malicious software strain that locks up their files until they agree to pay a hostage fee, according to an August 25 FBI alert. Investigators first observed hackers deploying the malware in June, with attackers leveraging Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Protocol to infect business networks.”
Here are a couple of cybersecurity defense links that are worth a gander in the FEHBlog’s opinion: