The DHS’s Cyber Safety Review Board will look into the Lapsus$ data extortion group. You may remember this as the teen hacking group that breached Uber, Rockstar Games, Microsoft, Okta, and others. That announcement from the Board.
And while we’re considering previous incidents, Tenable did some research on Log4J and said 72% of organizations remain vulnerable to the Log4Shell vulnerability as of October 1, 2022. Quoting Channel Life NZ:
According to the data, some 28% of organizations across the globe have fully remediated Log4Shell as of October 1, 2022, a 14-point improvement from May 2022. Moreover, 53% of organizations were vulnerable to Log4j during the time period of the study, which underscores the pervasive nature of Log4j and the necessary ongoing efforts to remediate even if full remediation was previously achieved, Tenable says.
As of October 2022, 29% of vulnerable assets saw the reintroduction of Log4Shell after full remediation was achieved. Some industries are in better shape than others, with engineering (45%), legal services (38%), financial services (35%), non-profit (33%), and government (30%) leading the pack, with the most organizations fully remediated.
And to put this on your radar, The Guardian is reporting on the rise of cyber criminals in sub-Saharan Africa. Quote “Experts attribute the surge in cybercrime in Africa to the rapid growth of internet use at a time when police forces and criminal justice systems have been weakened by the economic consequences of a series of major challenges.”
There are three observations to take away here. First, I’m thankful the new Review Board is digging into these cases to bring lessons back to the community. Those reports, like their airplane safety counterparts, will be helpful.
Second, let’s observe that cybercrime pays. That’s why it’s occurring. The conditions are countries with governments that either protect or don’t have the resources to hunt those criminals, combined with internet connectivity. It won’t be long until internet connectivity globally isn’t a factor, so we care about geopolitics.
And third, while patching is complex… defenders are not good at this. Those numbers aren’t good, and nearly a third of instances seeing a reintroduction is damning.