My information Resource (blog.mir.net)

In the wake of the recent shootings in El Paso, TX, and Dayton, OH, the
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) advises users to watch
out for possible malicious cyber activity seeking to capitalize on these tragic
events. Users should exercise caution in handling emails related to the
shootings, even if they appear to originate from trusted sources. Fraudulent
emails often contain links or attachments that direct users to phishing or
malware-infected websites. Emails requesting donations from duplicitous
charitable organizations are also common after tragic events. Be wary of
fraudulent social media pleas, calls, texts, donation websites, and
door-to-door solicitations relating to these events.

To avoid becoming a victim of malicious activity, users and administrators
should consider taking the following preventive measures:

• Use caution when opening email attachments, and do not
  click on links in unsolicited email messages. Refer to CISA’s Tip on Using Caution with Email
  Attachments.
• Review CISA’s Tip on Staying Safe on Social
  Networking Sites.
• Refer to CISA’s Tip on Avoiding Social
  Engineering and Phishing Attacks.
• Review the information from the Federal Trade
  Commission on Before
  Giving to a Charity.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) National
Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) has published NIST
Cybersecurity Practice Guide: Multifactor Authentication for E-Commerce.
The guide provides e-commerce organizations multifactor authentication (MFA)
protection methods they can implement to reduce fraudulent purchases.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) encourages
e-commerce organizations to download the guide to learn how to prevent
e-commerce fraud using MFA solutions.

The CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) has released information on a
vulnerability affecting Cylance Antivirus products. A remote attacker could
exploit this vulnerability to take control of an affected system.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) encourages users
and administrators to review CERT/CC Vulnerability Note VU#489481 and the Cylance
Resolution for BlackBerry Cylance Bypass webpage for patch information and
additional recommended workarounds.

.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Multi-State
Information Sharing & Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), National Governors
Association (NGA), and the National Association of State Chief Information
Officers (NASCIO) have released a Joint
Ransomware Statement with recommendations for state and local governments
to build resilience against ransomware:

1. Back
   up systems—now (and daily). Immediately and regularly back up all critical agency
   and system configuration information on a separate device and store the
   backups offline, verifying their integrity and restoration process. If recovering
   after an attack, restore a stronger system than the one lost, fully
   patched and updated to the latest version.
2. Reinforce
   basic cybersecurity awareness and education. Ransomware attacks
   often require the human element to succeed. Refresh employee training on
   recognizing cyber threats, phishing, and suspicious links—the most common
   vectors for ransomware attacks. Remind employees of how to report
   incidents to appropriate IT staff in a timely manner, which should include
   out-of-band communication paths.
3. Revisit
   and refine cyber incident response plans. Have a clear plan to
   address attacks when they occur, including when internal capabilities are
   overwhelmed. Make sure response plans include how to request assistance
   from external cyber first responders, such as state agencies, CISA, and
   MS-ISAC, in the event of an attack.

CISA encourages organizations to review the Joint
Ransomware Statement and the following ransomware guidance:

• MS-ISAC
  Security Primer on Ransomware
• CISA Tip
  Sheet on Ransomware
• NGA
  Disruption Response Planning Memo
• NASCIO
  Cyber Disruption Planning Guide

    A team of cybersecurity researchers – Abhishek Anand, Chen Wang, JIan Liu, Nitesh Saxena, and Yingying Chen – have discovered and demonstrated a new side -channel attack that could potentially allow apps to listen in on the voice coming through an Android phone’s loudspeakers without requiring any device permissions.

    This new attack has been named Spearphone.  It works by taking advantage of the accelerometer built into most Android phones. An accelerometer is a sensor that can detect and monitor the movement of a phone, like being shaken, tilted, or lifted up. The accelerometer can be accessed by any app with any permissions.

    According to The Hacker News, “Since the built-in loudspeaker of a smartphone is placed on the same surface as the embedded motion sensors, it produces surface-borne and aerial speech reverberations in the body of the smartphone when loudspeaker mode is enabled.” The nature of sound is vibrations that travel through a medium transferring energy to our ear drums which then translate the mechanical vibrations into electric signals which our brains translate into sounds. This attack bypasses the need for a second microphone replacing the audio receiver with the accelerometer in the phone itself to translate the soundwaves into electrical messages.

    The researchers created and Android application that was designed to record speech reverberations using the accelerometer and send the captured data back to an attacker-controller server as a proof-of-concept. The researchers have shown that this attack can successfully be used to spy on phone calls, listen to voice notes or multimedia, and to spy on the use of an assistant such as Google Assistant or Bixby, as shown below.

    In the world of malware, almost all malicious software is based around Windows desktop or Linux server systems. Part of this is due to the widespread use of these systems as well as the architecture of the Linux core operating system. This makes it even more surprising when researchers from Intezer recently discovered a desktop Linux spyware application dubbed EvilGnome that no security or antivirus scanners detect yet.

    EvilGnome is a collection of modules designed to spy on a user’s system and exfiltrate data to an external Command & Control (C2) server controlled by the attacker. It is designed to appear as an extension of the Gnome GUI environment for Linux desktop.

    The malware is a self-extracting archive shell script that installs the modules and sets up persistence through use of the crontab. The modules are: • ShooterSound—records audio clips from the user’s microphone using PulseAudio. • ShooterImage—captures screenshots of the user’s desktop. • ShooterFile—scans the filesystem and is capable of filtering files by type and creation date. • ShooterPing—data exfiltration module, also capable of receiving new commands from the C2 server and stopping other modules from running. • ShooterKey—possible keylogger module that appears to be unfinished.

    Many of the modules appear to be very limited or missing some functionality. Also, metadata about the malware’s creation was included in the upload to VirusTotal, leading the researchers to believe this was a prototype version of the malware that was mistakenly released.

    Intezer researchers believe the malware to be tied to the Russian-affiliated group Gamaredon. Not only does EvilGnome use the same hosting provider as Gamaredon for C2 servers and similar domain names such as .space and .ddns, it was also found on an IP address controlled by Gamaredon 2 months ago and uses techniques and modules similar to Gamaredon’s collection of Windows tools. 
To check if a Linux system is infected, look for an executable called gnome-shell -ext in the ~/.cache/gnome-software/gnome-shell-extensions  directory.

Sources:

• https://thehackernews.com/2019/07/linux-gnome-spyware.html

• https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-evilgnome-backdoor-spies-on-linux-users-steals-their-files/

• https://www.intezer.com/blog-evilgnome-rare-malware-spying-on-linux-desktop-users/

Hardware/Server
Virtualization is a foundational technology in a cloud computing environment
and the hypervisor is the key software in that virtualized infrastructure.
However, hypervisors are large pieces of software with several thousand lines
of code and are therefore known to have vulnerabilities. Hence, a capability to
perform forensic analysis to detect, reconstruct and prevent attacks based on
vulnerabilities on an ongoing basis is a critical requirement in cloud
environments.

To gain a better understanding of
recent hypervisor vulnerabilities and attack trends, identify forensic
information needed to reveal the presence of such attacks, and develop guidance
on taking proactive steps to detect and prevent those attacks, NIST has
published NIST Internal Report (NISTIR) 8221, “A Methodology
for Enabling Forensic Analysis Using Hypervisor Vulnerabilities Data.”
NISTIR 8221 outlines a methodology to enable this forensic analysis, and
illustrates the methodology using two open-source hypervisors—Xen and Kernel-based
Virtual Machine (KVM). The source for vulnerability data is NIST’s National
Vulnerability Database (NVD).

Publication details:
https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/nistir/8221/final

CSRC Update:
https://csrc.nist.gov/news/2019/nist-publishes-nistir-8221 

NIST
announces the release of a Draft Cybersecurity White Paper, A Taxonomic Approach to Understanding
Emerging Blockchain Identity Management Systems (IDMS), which
provides an overview of the standards, building blocks, and system
architectures that support emerging blockchain-based identity management
systems and selective disclosure mechanisms. The document also considers the full spectrum of top-down versus bottom-up
governance models for both identifier and credential management and addresses
some of the risks and security concerns that may arise. The terminology, concepts, and properties introduced in
this work can facilitate communications amongst business owners, software
developers, cybersecurity professionals within an organization, and individuals
who are or will be using such systems.

A public comment period for this document is
open until August 9, 2019. See the publication details link for
a copy of the document and instructions for submitting comments.

Publication details:
https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/white-paper/2019/07/09/a-taxonomic-approach-to-understanding-emerging-blockchain-idms/draft

CSRC update:
https://csrc.nist.gov/news/2019/draft-white-paper-emerging-blockchain-idms

The United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has released an
advisory about an ongoing Domain Name System (DNS) hijacking campaign. The
advisory details risks and mitigations for organizations to defend against this
campaign, in which attackers use compromised credentials to modify the location
to which an organization’s domain name resources resolve to redirect users,
obtain sensitive information, and cause man-in-the-middle attacks.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) encourages
administrators to review the NCSC
Advisory, apply the recommended mitigations, and refer to CISA’s Alert AA19-024A – DNS
Infrastructure Hijacking Campaign for more information.

    NIST
announces the release of a Draft Cybersecurity White Paper, A Taxonomic Approach to Understanding
Emerging Blockchain Identity Management Systems (IDMS), which
provides an overview of the standards, building blocks, and system
architectures that support emerging blockchain-based identity management
systems and selective disclosure mechanisms. The document also considers the full spectrum of top-down versus bottom-up
governance models for both identifier and credential management and addresses
some of the risks and security concerns that may arise. The terminology, concepts, and properties introduced in
this work can facilitate communications amongst business owners, software
developers, cybersecurity professionals within an organization, and individuals
who are or will be using such systems.

    A public comment period for this document is
open until August 9, 2019. See the publication details link for
a copy of the document and instructions for submitting comments.

Publication details:
https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/white-paper/2019/07/09/a-taxonomic-approach-to-understanding-emerging-blockchain-idms/draft

CSRC update:
https://csrc.nist.gov/news/2019/draft-white-paper-emerging-blockchain-idms