A cheat sheet for all of the most common techniques hackers use, and general principles for stopping them.

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Of the hundreds of documented MITRE ATT&CK techniques, two dominate the field: command and scripting interpreters (T1059) and phishing (T1566).

In a report published on April 10, D3 Security analyzed more than 75,000 recent cybersecurity incidents. Its goal was to determine which methods of attack were most common.

The results paint a stark picture: those two techniques outpaced all others by orders of magnitude, with the top technique outpacing the runner-up by a factor of three.

For defenders looking to allocate limited attention and resources, here are just some of the most common ATT&CK techniques, and how to defend against them.

**Execution: Command and Scripting Interpreter (Used in 52.22% of Attacks)**

What it is: Attackers write scripts in popular languages like PowerShell and Python for two primary purposes. Most commonly, they're used to automate malicious tasks such as harvesting data or downloading and extracting a payload. They're also useful for evading detection — bypassing antivirus solutions, extended detection and response (XDR), and the like.

That these scripts are far and away No. 1 on this list is extra surprising to Adrianna Chen, D3's vice president of product and service. "Since Command and Scripting Interpreter (T1059) falls under the Execution tactic, it is in the middle stage of the MITRE ATT&CK kill chain," she says. "So, it is fair to assume that other techniques from earlier tactics have already gone undetected by the time that it's detected by the EDR tool. Given that this one technique was so prominent in our data set, it underscores the importance of having processes to trace back to the origin of an incident."

How to defend against it: Because malicious scripts are diverse and multifaceted, dealing with them requires a thorough incident response plan that combines detection of potentially malicious behaviors with strict watch over privileges and script execution policies.

**Initial Access: Phishing (15.44%)**

What it is: Phishing and its subcategory, spear-phishing (T1566.001-004), are the first and third most common ways attackers gain access to targeted systems and networks. Using the first in general campaigns and the second when aiming for specific individuals or organizations, the goal is to coerce victims into divulging crucial information that will allow a foothold into sensitive accounts and devices.

How to defend against it: Even the smartest and most educated among us fall for sophisticated social engineering. Frequent education and awareness campaigns can go some ways toward protecting employees from themselves and the companies they provide a window into.

**Initial Access: Valid Accounts (3.47%)**

What it is: Often, successful phishing allows attackers access to legitimate accounts. These accounts provide keys to otherwise locked doors, and cover for their various misdeeds.

How to defend against it: When employees inevitably click on that malicious PDF or URL, robust multifactor authentication (MFA) can, if nothing else, act as more hoops for attackers to jump through. Anomaly detection tools can also help if, for example, a strange user connects from a faraway IP address, or simply does something they aren't expected to do.

**Credential Access: Brute Force (2.05%)**

What it is: A more popular option back in the olden days, brute force attacks have stuck around thanks to the ubiquity of weak, reused, and unchanged passwords. Here, attackers use scripts that automatically run through username and password combinations — such as in a dictionary attack — to gain access to desired accounts.

How to defend against it: No item on this list is as easily and wholly preventable as brute-force attacks. Using strong enough passwords fixes the problem on its own, full stop. Other little mechanisms, like locking out a user after repeated login attempts, also do the trick.

**Persistence: Account Manipulation (1.34%)**

What it is: Once an attacker has used phishing, brute force, or some other means to access a privileged account, they can then leverage that account to cement their position in a targeted system. For example, they can change the account's credentials to lock out its original owner, or possibly adjust permissions in order to access even more privileged resources than they already have.

How to defend against it: To mitigate the damage from an account compromise, D3 recommends organizations implement stringent restrictions for accessing sensitive resources, and follow the principle of least privileged access: granting no more than the minimum level of access necessary for any user to perform his or her job.

Besides that, it offers a number of recommendations that can apply to this and other MITRE techniques, including:

*   Maintaining vigilance through continuous monitoring of logs to detect and respond to any suspicious account activities
    
*   Operating under the assumption that the network has already been compromised and adopting proactive measures to mitigate potential damage
    
*   Streamlining response efforts by automating countermeasures upon detection of confirmed security breaches, ensuring swift and effective mitigation
    

**About the Author(s)**

Nate Nelson is a freelance writer based in New York City. Formerly a reporter at Threatpost, he contributes to a number of cybersecurity blogs and podcasts. He writes "Malicious Life" -- an award-winning Top 20 tech podcast on Apple and Spotify -- and hosts every other episode, featuring interviews with leading voices in security. He also co-hosts "The Industrial Security Podcast," the most popular show in its field.

Top MITRE ATT&amp;CK Techniques and How to Defend Against Them

Google has integrated Mandiant's security offerings into its AI platform to detect, stop, and remediate cybersecurity attacks as quickly as possible.

Source: Klaus Ohlenschlaeger via Alamy Stock Photo

Gemini now has security capabilities: Google has integrated Mandiant's security offerings into its artificial intelligence (AI) platform, the company announced during its Google Cloud Next conference in Las Vegas.

The new capabilities are automated security agents that use generative AI to detect, stop, and remediate cybersecurity attacks as quickly as possible and to to analyze code to find security problems. The agents will assist security operations teams by increasing the speed of investigations.

"Security agents will help you in every stage of the security life cycle, from prevention, detection and response," said Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian during a keynote speech at the event.

The security offerings are built around Google's Gemini large language model, which is also being used to summarize documents and generate images. The new security features use generative AI to analyze code to find security problems. Security analysts can run deep queries to get to the root cause of problems and seek answers. The technology will also better explain findings so companies can take action to neutralize threats.

Google is betting its future on AI products such as Gemini, which it introduced earlier this year. Gemini is already being integrated into search and productivity applications. Mandiant's offerings include threat detection and security operations, and Gemini adds AI capabilities to cover detection, analysis, and prevention.

**Using AI to Understand Attacks**

One of the new products, Gemini in Threat Intelligence, uses natural language prompts to get deep insight about malicious behavior.

"We're able to take the experience and intelligence we gather from protecting Google's own services, combine it with Mandiant's leading, frontline insight from their work in incident response to show emerging threats, the severity, and risk factors," Kurian said.

The intelligent threat offers ties into the next product, Gemini in Security Operations, which relies on AI to improve the speed to address threats from malicious behavior. It can also be used to summarize and explain findings, recommend next steps, and put remediation playbooks in action.

Gemini can recommend actions based on factors such as detection rules, and provide recommendations for faster response times.

"Analysts can now ask Gemini for the latest threat intelligence from Mandiant directly in-line — including any indicators of compromise found in their environment — and Gemini will navigate users to the most relevant pages in the integrated platform for deeper investigation," Google wrote in a blog post.

The offering uses Gemini 1.5 Pro's AI capabilities to analyze large samples of potential malicious code or malware, the interaction between modules, and to reveal their true malicious intent, Kurian said.

The final product announced was Gemini in Security Command Center, which evaluates a security posture, provides findings, and summarizes attack paths, which helps companies remediate cloud risks.

"We've leveraged tremendous amounts of machine learning, precision AI, generative AI, to make sure our customers are able to detect, stop, and remediate all cybersecurity attacks as quickly as possible," Kurian said.

AI tools such as Gemini and OpenAI's ChatGPT are improving productivity, but hallucinations and other shortcomings are raising concerns about the technology being used irresponsibly. The White House late last month issued an executive order on responsible use and development of AI development, which also recommends monitoring AI systems to prevent misuse.

**About the Author(s)**

Agam Shah has covered enterprise IT for more than a decade. Outside of machine learning, hardware, and chips, he's also interested in martial arts and Russia.

Google Gives Gemini a Security Boost

The device management company introduced a Fleet Hardening Score and Privilege Escalation (the good kind) to its endpoint security platform for Apple devices.

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Enterprise IT teams responsible for managing Macs and iOS devices are getting new compliance and security tools, device management company Jamf said during its Spring Event. A new capability in Jamf Connect allows the granting of temporary administrative privileges to a local Mac user. That activity data feeds Jamf Protect, which has added a compliance dashboard that presents overall fleet compliance and drills down to individual devices.

Jamf Connect creates a cloud-based identity for each user that, when authenticated, allows them to set up access to the tools and applications they need via VPN. The new feature, Privilege Escalation, temporarily grants end users elevated administrator privileges to perform tasks such as updating device drivers, installing printers, and adding software that's not managed by Self-Service. Once the time IT set for the escalated privileges expires, the user automatically defaults back to the standard user role.

Jamf has also added a compliance dashboard to Jamf Protect, which provides anti-malware tools, threat defense, and metrics for a fleet of macOS and iOS devices. From the dashboard, an administrator can view which devices fall out of compliance with guidelines; update any software, including the OS version, that needs it; and quarantine suspect files automatically. The new Fleet Hardening Score in Jamf Protect is an aggregate baseline score quantifying the organization's overall endpoint security posture. Administrators can drill down to individual devices to understand and remediate issues.

The integration between Jamf Connect and Jamf Protect provides administrators with detailed telemetry about the privileged tasks being performed on the device. Administrators can use the telemetry to audit endpoints and as part of intrusion detection and response.

Apple devices have long established their presence in business. Enterprise-level tools like Jamf's help ensure that those devices stay compliant with expectations for corporate standards in security.

**About the Author(s)**

New Jamf Tools Give Enterprise IT Security and Compliance Controls

Microsoft patched a record number of 147 new CVEs this month, though only three are rated "Critical."

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Microsoft outdid itself with this month's Patch Tuesday releases, which contain no zero-day patches, though at least one of the patches addresses a flaw already being actively exploited.

Products affected by the most recent Patch Tuesday updates include Windows and Windows Components; Azure; .NET Framework and Visual Studio; SQL Server; DNS Server; Windows Defender; Bitlocker; and Windows Secure Boot.

Microsoft's April update included 147 CVEs, three rated "Critical," 142 categorized as "Important," and two listed as "Moderate" in severity. That number swells to 155 CVEs if third-party flaws are included. The number represents a record high for Patch Tuesday fixes.

"Microsoft patched 147 CVEs in April, the largest number of CVEs patched in a month since we began tracking this data in 2017," Satnam Narang, senior staff researcher engineer at Tenable, said in a statement. "The last time there were over 100 CVEs patched was October 2023, when Microsoft addressed 103 CVEs." The previous high was in July 2023, with 130 CVEs patched, Narang added.

Microsoft did not indicate any of the April Patch Tuesday CVEs are zero-day threats, a welcome departure from last year's brisk clip of zero-day disclosures.

"This time last year, there were seven zero-day vulnerabilities exploited in the wild," Narang said. This year, there have only been two zero-days exploited and both were in February. "It's difficult to pinpoint why we've seen this decrease, whether it's just a lack of visibility or if it signifies a trend with attackers utilizing known vulnerabilities as part of their attacks on organizations."

However, Dustin Childs of the Zero Day Initiative noted in his April Microsoft Patch Tuesday analysis that his organization has evidence of a known exploited flaw in the list of this month's fixes.

**Patch Tuesday Fixes to Prioritize**

Childs pointed to the max-severity vulnerability in SmartScreen Prompt Security Feature Bypass (CVE-2024-29988) with a CVSS score of 8.8, which was discovered by ZDI but wasn't listed as exploited in Microsoft's Patch Tuesday update.

"However, the bug reported by ZDI threat hunter Peter Girrus was found in the wild," Childs added. "We have evidence this is being exploited in the wild, and I'm listing it as such."

Another max-severity bug impacting the Remote Procedure Call Runtime Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (CVE-2024-20678) was given a CVSS score of 8.8 and patched this month by Microsoft.

A spoofing vulnerability (CVE-2024-20670), listed as max-severity with a base CVSS of 8.1, was fixed in Outlook for Windows. And a Windows DNS Server Remote Code Execution, also listed as max-severity (CVE-2024-26221) with a CVSS score of 7.2, was patched as well.

**Microsoft SQL Gets Plenty of Patches**

Microsoft SQL Server vulnerabilities make up a large share of this month's Patch Tuesday fixes, according to Kev Breen, senior director threat research for Immersive Labs.

"While at first glance, it may appear that Microsoft has called out a large number of vulnerabilities in its latest notes, 40 of them are all related to the same product — Microsoft SQL Server," Breen said in a statement. "The main issue is with the Clients used to connect to an SQL server, not the server itself."

Breen went on to explain that all of these would require social engineering, making the SQL flaws difficult to exploit in any useful capacity.

"All the reported vulnerabilities follow a similar pattern: For an attacker to gain code execution, they must convince an authenticated user inside an organization to connect to a remote SQL server the attacker controls," Breen added. "While not impossible, this is unlikely to be exploited at scale by attackers."

Security teams concerned about these types of attacks should look for anomalous activity and block outbound connections except to trusted servers.

**Microsoft SmartScreen Prompt and Secure Boot Flaws**

Tenable's Narang noted this month's fix for the SmartScreen Prompt security feature bypass (CVE-2024-29988), with its CVSS score of 8.8, likewise relies on social engineering to make exploitation possible. A similar zero-day bug (CVE-2024-21412), discovered by the same researchers was used in a DarkGate campaign impersonating popular brands like Apple iTunes.

"Microsoft Defender SmartScreen is supposed to provide additional protections for end users against phishing and malicious websites," Narang said. "However, as the name implies, these flaws bypass these security features, which leads to end users being infected with malware."

Narang also suggested security teams take a look at the 24 Windows Secure Boot flaw fixes included in Microsoft's April Patch Tuesday release.

"The last time Microsoft patched a flaw in Windows Secure Boot (CVE-2023-24932) in May 2023 had a notable impact as it was exploited in the wild and linked to the BlackLotus UEFI bootkit, which was sold on Dark Web forums for $5,000," he said.

BlackLotus malware is able to block security protections while booting up.

"While none of these Secure Boot vulnerabilities addressed this month were exploited in the wild, they serve as a reminder that flaws in Secure Boot persist, and we could see more malicious activity related to Secure Boot in the future," Narang stressed.

Microsoft Patch Tuesday Tsunami: No Zero-Days, but an Asterisk

PRESS RELEASE

SAN DIEGO, April 9, 2024/PRNewswire/ -- ESET, a global leader in digital security, is pleased to announce the introduction of ESET Small Business Security, which has been specifically designed to meet the cybersecurity needs of Small Office/Home Office business owners.

According to the Small Business Administration, out of the 33.3 million small businesses in the United States, over 27 million are managed solely by their owners and do not employ any additional personnel. Over 5 million small businesses have under 19 employees1. ESET's new comprehensive security solution is engineered to provide seamless, user-friendly protection, enabling these smaller SMBs to thrive in an increasingly digital landscape.

"This new offering is a testament to ESET's commitment to innovation and its dedication to supporting the growth and security of entrepreneurs, small businesses and home offices," said Brent McCarty, President of ESET North America. "Small businesses have long demanded the power of ESET in a right-sized offering. With this launch, we provide SOHO business owners with a simple yet powerful solution for their businesses that is easily manageable, highly reliable, and tailored to their needs, enabling them to focus on their growth without compromising on security."

The ESET Small Business Security solution supports up to 25 devices and offers an array of features tailored to safeguard online banking transactions and browsing, secure devices, manage passwords, protect Windows servers, encrypt sensitive data, guard against ransomware and counter phishing scams. Furthermore, the offering facilitates safe and anonymous browsing alongside unlimited VPN security where applicable, ensuring both work and personal devices are shielded from cyber threats. This new offering guarantees reliable security with a minimal system footprint, ensuring efficient protection across multiple operating systems, including Windows, Android, and macOS.

ESET Small Business Security includes ESET HOME, security management platform that enables users to have complete security management with information about security status, devices, subscriptions and features currently in use.

ESET HOME is available via a web portal and a mobile application, allowing users to have security of their devices under control anywhere they go.

For more detailed information about ESET Small Business Security, visit here.

About ESET  
For more than 30 years, ESET® has been developing industry-leading IT security software and services to protect businesses, critical infrastructure, and consumers worldwide from increasingly sophisticated digital threats. From endpoint and mobile security to endpoint detection and response, as well as encryption and multifactor authentication, ESET's high-performing, easy-to-use solutions unobtrusively protect and monitor 24/7, updating defenses in real time to keep users safe and businesses running without interruption. Evolving threats require an evolving IT security company that enables the safe use of technology. This is backed by ESET's R&D centers worldwide, working in support of our shared future. For more information, visit www.eset.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (X).

ESET Launches a New Solution for Small Office/Home Office Businesses

PRESS RELEASE

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., April 08, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Veriato released their next generation Insider Risk Management (IRM) solution, re-imagined from the ground up to deliver superior insider risk management and threat detection. With organizations of all sizes facing a more complex cybersecurity environment, Veriato IRM delivers unprecedented flexibility and scalability using the power of GenAI.

Veriato's IRM solution offers best-in-class technology for companies looking to improve their threat mitigation with AI enabled predictive analytics delivering better detection and predictability. According to IBM, the average cost of a single data breach has reached $4.45 million, a record high. Organizations need a holistic view of employee behavior to get ahead of threats and to reduce their exposure and costs. The new platform provides the agility and usability that make it a must-have in the fight against increasing insider threats. Features such as predictive risk intelligence, risk scoring, baselining and PII identification offer market-leading detection capabilities that are easy to deploy and manage.

Veriato IRM delivers:

*   Unparalleled risk detection capabilities with Generative AI.
    
*   Advanced behavior pattern identification across logon events, document activity, email activity, etc.
    
*   Complex dimensional analysis, including Risk Scoring.
    
*   Comprehensive language and sentiment analysis.
    
*   Automatic PII/PHI identification with RAG pre-trained models.
    
*   Flexible and scalable microservices architecture.
    
*   Multiple deployment options – cloud, on-premise, hybrid.
    

Veriato IRM is the product of close collaboration with Veriato’s global base of customers across a number of industries including financial services, healthcare and government. Designed with a deep understanding of today’s changing workforce and the technology and data needs of today’s modern organization, Veriato IRM is the most advanced and usable solution on the market today.

“Insider Risk Management has become essential for organizations committed to protecting customer data, IP and their employee bases now that the future of work is here. From board rooms to SMBs, IRM is at the top of security agendas. Applying behavioral analytics to cyber allows leaders to get ahead of breaches instead of just reacting to them when they occur,” said Elizabeth Harz, CEO of Veriato. “We are extremely excited to build upon our history as the category creator, and provide a new layer of control, transparency, confidence and perhaps most importantly, proactivity.”

About Veriato

Veriato is reinventing the category it created, using AI-based user behavior analytics to help companies prevent risks and increase productivity in their remote, hybrid and in-office environments. Veriato’s platform offers solutions for Insider Risk Management (IRM), behavioral analytics, user activity monitoring (UAM) and data loss prevention (DLP) in a single powerful platform. Veriato delivers monitoring, salient alerts, reporting and screenshots, allowing customers to be predictive and proactive rather than reactive, critical in cybersecurity. The platform helps global Enterprises, SMBs and Government entities become more engaged, productive and secure.

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Veriato Launches Next Generation Insider Risk Management Solution

Scans showed that 91,000 devices are exposed and at risk for unauthorized access and TV set takeover.

Source: Askar Karimullin via Alamy Stock Photo

Researchers at Bitdefender have discovered four vulnerabilities in LG webOS, the operating system for multiple models of its smart television line.

According to the researchers, even though the now vulnerable LG webOS service is supposed to be used in local area networks, scans show that there are reportedly roughly 91,000 exposed devices that are vulnerable to the bugs.

The bugs are a mix of command injection, privilege escalation, and bypass vulnerabilities and are tracked as CVE-2023-6317, CVE-2023-6318, CVE-2023-6319, and CVE-2023-6320. For instance, CVE-2023-6317 can allow an attacker to add an extra user to the TV set, and CVE-2023-6318 can allow a user to use the access "gained in the first step to root and fully take over the device."

They impact webOS 4.9.7-5.30.40 running on LG43UM7000PLA, webOS 5.5.0-04.50.51 running on OLED55CXPUA, webOS 6.3.3-442 (kisscurl-kinglake)-03.36.50 running on OLED48C1PUB, and webOS 7.3.1-43 (mullet-mebin)-03.33.85 running on OLED55A23LA.

The researchers reported their findings to LG in November 2023, but it was only last month that the vendor released security updates. Affected users who have not been alerted to the vulnerabilities or the updates to fix them should go to the TV "Settings," then "Support," and "Software Update," and then click on "Check for Update."

**About the Author(s)**

LG Smart TVs at Risk of Attacks, Thanks to 4 OS Vulnerabilities

As more electric vehicles are sold, the risk to compromised charging stations looms large alongside the potential for major cybersecurity exploits.

Source: Rosemary Roberts via Alamy Stock Photo

The increasing popularity of electric vehicles (EVs) isn't just a favorite for gas-conscious consumers, but also for cybercriminals who focus on using EV charging stations to launch far-reaching attacks. This is because every charging point, whether inside a private garage or on a public parking lot, is online and running a variety of software that interacts with payment systems and the electric grid, along with storing driver identities. In other words, they are an Internet of Things (IoT) software sinkhole.

"As EV charging becomes more widespread, they will become appealing targets to more sophisticated hacking groups," says Hooman Shahidi, the CEO of EVPassport, a charging network provider. "Providers need to think of their products as critical infrastructure and a critical component of our national security." There are 2.5 million electric vehicles operating in the US, and more than half of them require plug-in chargers. Acknowledging their popularity, back in 2022, the UK mandated charging stations be built in all new residential construction.

Charging stations face significant cybersecurity risks. "Issues include unprotected Internet connectivity, insufficient authentication and encryption, absence of network segmentation, unmanaged energy assets, and more," wrote researchers from Check Point Software and SaiFlow, the latter a cybersecurity specialist in distributed energy solutions. Compromised stations could damage the power grid, for example, or result in stolen customer data. “Chargers have personal and payment information and run a variety of protocols that aren't typically recognized by traditional firewalls," says Check Point Software's Aaron Rose, who works in the office of the CTO.

The early stages of cyberattacks on charging stations began a few years ago, when one Russian station was attacked in February 2022 in response to the Ukraine war and three more were compromised in the United Kingdom in April 2022. Both situations were more cyber pranks that displayed rude messages on the screens of the units. Shell patched a vulnerability last year in one database that could have exposed millions of charging logs from across its EV charging network.

New vulnerabilities continue to plague charging stations. Two of them could lead to remote code execution and potential data theft, discovered by SaiFlow earlier this year. The exploits take advantage of weak authentication routines among the various software modules that are used in the stations, according to their research. Charging station vendor Enel X Way lists a variety of other data compromises involving vehicle ID numbers, as well as exploits that could gain remote access to the vehicle controls.

Elias Bou-Harb is a computer scientist with the Louisiana State University who has long studied charging station security. He has found almost every charging product has major vulnerabilities, including well-known attack methods such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting. "What is particularly alarming is that some well-known protective measures haven't been implemented by most of the vendors, and that few of them have taken steps to improve their security even after we identified these weaknesses."

**IoT Devices Remain Attractive Targets**

Certainly, threats from charging stations aren't the only IoT devices that are targets of opportunity for cyberattackers. And the stations are just one of a multitude of IoT devices where exploits continue to increase. The combination of numerous smaller vendors with poor security design and practice and numerous automated tools such as botnets to locate and compromise various devices makes all IoT devices easy targets for hackers. Data from the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) increased since then.

But the charging stations do represent a complex — and therefore very rich and potentially exploitable — combination of elements that can go beyond smart TVs and smart speakers. For example, Check Point's Rose says that "chargers have similar risk profiles but present a different attack surface to other smart devices."

What this means is that the chargers run management software tools "in between the EV user and the car and between the charging station and the power grid and coordinate billing, authentication, and supplied power," Bou-Harb says. "And adding to this complexity, all of this is also deployed by the charging vendors in the cloud." His research has found that some of the software run by these stations has been exploited for years, "and that vendors haven't yet realized they have been compromised, let alone fixed the problems."

Enel X Way's blog post lists a comprehensive eight-point framework for charging stations that covers identity access, risk management, emergency response, and other factors. 

**In Regulators' Crosshairs**

Both the US and Europe are making regulatory steps to try to rein in charging stations, both public and private. The UK has had an anti-tampering law in effect since 2022 relevant to the home-based charging stations. This resulted in security improvements from several vendors, as recently reported. Wallbox, a charging station vendor, added extra security safeguards to its equipment to comply with these regulations, while other vendors have dropped out of European markets rather than improve their products. 

The EU has proposed new cybersecurity safeguards for electric grid operators and IoT vendors in its NIS2 directive last year that will take effect in October. It includes stricter breach reporting requirements and levies higher fines, among other items. 

Another proposal is to have the charging station industry self-certify their devices, like what Underwriters Laboratories does for various electronics. European automotive safety vendor Dekra proposed a public charging station certification program that it claims is an industry first. It offers three different levels that range from providing basic security services to penetration testing of the equipment. 

The US is lagging in these efforts. Last summer, the Biden administration proposed a cybersecurity labeling program for smart home devices. Dubbed the Cyber Trust Mark, it would be administered by the FCC, based on work developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. "The Cyber Trust Mark is a great idea," Check Point's Rose says. "But execution is going to be key. The mark must be updated and based on doing continuous testing of devices."

Last year, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) also proposed a series of recommendations for public charging stations to improve their cybersecurity. However, one key element of the NIST, Cyber Trust, and Dekra initiatives is that they are all voluntary. "The charging stations' guidelines are a positive development," Ravi Lingarkar, vice president of product management at Akitra, wrote on LinkedIn. "Without uniform cybersecurity standards, EV charging stations can become easy targets for hackers. It's like enabling anyone to bring their own device to the grid. Given the rapid expansion of the EV charging infrastructure, cybersecurity is at the forefront of many potential problems." 

Still, these efforts are early and incomplete. "The government regulations have come too late," Bou-Harb says. "The market is already saturated with various charging products. These vendors don't really care about the security of their devices, which is often more of an afterthought. It's time for the charging vendors to come together, admit there is a problem, and start working on solutions and sharing threat data."

One potential roadblock is that EV chargers are under the purview of multiple regulatory agencies, such as the departments of Transportation, Energy, and Homeland Security. Getting them all to work cooperatively isn't going to be easy. "No one is taking leadership," Bou-Harb says. 

"A simple step that the government could take now would be to require SOC2 pending for EV charging providers. We need to raise the bar," EVPassport's Shahidi says. The SOC2 standard focuses on security controls and privacy, among other items.  

**About the Author(s)**

Contributing Writer

David Strom is one of the leading experts on network and Internet technologies and has written and spoken extensively on topics such as cybersecurity, VOIP, convergence, email, cloud computing, network management, Internet applications, wireless and Web services for more than 35 years. He was the editor-in-chief of Network Computing print, Digital Landing.com, and Tom's Hardware.com. He has written two computer networking books and appeared on a number of TV and radio shows explaining technology concepts and trends. He regularly blogs at https://blog.strom.com, and is president of David Strom Inc.

EV Charging Stations Still Riddled With Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities

Distributed denial-of-service attacks still plague the enterprise, but adding preventive measures can reduce their impact.

Source: Aleksey Funtap via Alamy Stock Photo

In the security profession, controls are one of the main tools we use to reduce risk. In doing so, we leverage a mix of preventive and detective controls. As the name suggests, preventive controls are designed to reduce the potential that a given threat will negatively affect a given environment.

Of course, preventive controls don't always work as designed, and some threats will always get through them. To supplement this protection, detective controls are also used. Detective controls identify security issues soon after they occur, so that they can be remediated before too much damage has occurred.

Using preventive and detective controls in tandem is a routine practice that is applied across many areas in the security space, including network security, application security, endpoint protection, identity and access management, and cloud security.

That is by no means an exhaustive list — this practice is applied in myriad areas within the security space. You can imagine my surprise, then, that one area is noticeably lacking the powerful combination of preventive and detective controls: distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) protection.

**Why DDoS Is Still a Problem**

DDoS is a significant problem for most businesses. According to MazeBolt, a DDoS security company, 60% of businesses lose at least $120,000 due to DDoS attacks, while 15% of businesses lose at least $1 million. Even with the best DDoS protections in place, businesses still suffer from 30% to 75% exposure of their online services to DDoS, MazeBolt says. This means that DDoS is a serious problem confronting the industry — and one that is not getting the preventive controls it needs.

Perhaps that will surprise you, too. When it comes to DDoS, organizations focus mainly on detection and mitigation. They purchase DDoS mitigation solutions, but they don't give much thought to protecting the organization from attack in the first place. We as a profession don't seem to focus much on DDoS preventive controls, despite the fact that the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recommends doing so in its latest DDoS mitigation guidance.

It may seem odd, but historically, there are reasons for this, such as the difficulty in checking for vulnerabilities and susceptibility to DDoS in a nondisruptive manner.

**5 Steps to Round Out DDoS Protection**

So once an organization decides to take a more well-rounded approach to DDoS, what are some steps it should follow to ensure it is adequately protected? I've offered a few thoughts here.

1\. Check for vulnerabilities. Organizations should ensure that they check for vulnerabilities and susceptibility to DDoS at layers 3, 4, and 7 of the OSI model. This is easier said than done, of course. This requires being nondisruptive in identifying vulnerabilities. Taking down the infrastructure in the name of DDoS security would not be a good thing.

2\. Stay nondisruptive. No one needs their DDoS risk reduced at the cost of disrupting business operations and impacting revenue, uptime, and customer satisfaction. There is a better way — namely, new nondisruptive, nonintrusive methods to identify and enumerate infrastructure vulnerabilities that expose an organization to additional DDoS risk.

3\. Understand the environment. The best way to ensure that no infrastructure vulnerabilities are missed is to know the environment well. This is the case regardless of how complex the environment is, and even if that environment involves hybrid and multicloud environments. Understanding the environment is the best way to eliminate blind spots. That, in turn, makes the vulnerability identification and remediation process far more thorough and effective.

4\. Establish and follow a process. Organizations should have a process to document and prioritize vulnerabilities for remediation. This ensures that things do not fall through the cracks and reduces the potential for oversight and human error. Even with the best process, organizations will still need determination and follow-through to remediate the vulnerabilities they have identified. DDoS security is a marathon, not a sprint.

5\. Iterate your security steps. DDoS security, like many areas within the security field, is not a one-time activity. Organizations need to continually test for new or persistent vulnerabilities within the infrastructure. They need to ensure that they are continually aware of changes to the environment so that they can retain the requisite level of understanding and knowledge of the environment. Organizations will also need to continually stick to and follow their process to ensure that vulnerabilities are remediated in a timely manner. Simply put, DDoS security is an effort that requires continuous attention.

Like many areas in the security space, DDoS security leverages both preventive and detective controls — or at least it should. For a variety of reasons, our historical focus around DDoS has been primarily on detection and mitigation of DDoS attacks. We as a field are long overdue for leveraging preventive controls in the DDoS security area.

**About the Author(s)**

Global Solutions Architect — Security, F5

Josh Goldfarb is currently Global Solutions Architect — Security at F5. Previously, Josh served as VP and CTO of Emerging Technologies at FireEye and as Chief Security Officer for nPulse Technologies until its acquisition by FireEye. Prior to joining nPulse, Josh worked as an independent consultant, applying his analytical methodology to help enterprises build and enhance their network traffic analysis, security operations, and incident response capabilities to improve their information security postures. Earlier in his career, Josh served as the Chief of Analysis for the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team, where he built from the ground up and subsequently ran the network, endpoint, and malware analysis/forensics capabilities for US-CERT. In addition to Josh's blogging and public speaking appearances, he is also a regular contributor to Dark Reading and SecurityWeek.

Proper DDoS Protection Requires Both Detective and Preventive Controls

We are potentially encroaching on a water supply crisis if data center operators, utilities, and the government don't implement preventative measures now.

Mark Trump, IT/IoT Defense Adviser, Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, Capgemini

April 9, 2024

5 Min Read

Source: stockphoto-graf via Alamy Stock Photo

COMMENTARY

In our digitally driven world, data has become an invaluable asset to companies across sectors. Data enables intelligent products, services, and operations. Data is also the unsung hero in today's "age of AI." By 2030, the AI market will be worth more than $1.3 billion in revenue — growing 36.8% from 2023's market size of $150.2 billion, and data is arguably the catalyzer driving this immense growth.

**The Current State of Data Centers**

Data is not just an intangible asset that's stored in the virtual ether of "the cloud." In reality, data, and data storage, is very much tied to the physical world. With the increasing introduction of artificial intelligence models, more data will be needed, and therefore stored in data centers.

These centers allow for data to be kept secure, accurate, available, and, for all practical purposes, "alive." Using switches, storage systems, servers, routers, and other equipment, data centers can store essential data sets around the clock. However, the extreme warmth produced by the energy used to process and store data causes overheating concerns. Data centers therefore require energy-intensive cooling systems to ensure the equipment does not fail. Such failures can lead to data losses, and vital workload and service outages — which occurred at a major tech company's Australian-based data center when a regional utility's power outage shut down the center's cooling mechanism. 

Unfortunately, cooling comes at a steep price, accounting for nearly 40% of an average data center's electricity usage. Many operators recognize the strain traditional air-based cooling methods put on its finances and net-zero pledges, which is why some are opting for liquid cooling systems. Although liquid cooling is technically more energy efficient than air cooling, it can still negatively impact the environment — and opens other door for potential outages. 

**Data's Dependence on Water**

When we say "liquid" cooling systems, we're actually referring to water in most cases. Just like living beings, data needs water to survive — and, therefore, so do AI models, software, and countless other technologies that rely on data.

Most data centers in the United States use freshwater supplied by utilities — the same water supply that humans rely on. The average data center uses 1 million to 5 million gallons of water a day (paywalled article), and considering that 30% of the world's data centers are located in America, that means Americans are losing access to a significant amount of safe drinking water. 

The US is already experiencing alarming water shortages as a result of low precipitation fueled by climate change and increased demand from a growing population. Now, add the increased demand from data centers as operators try to cool facilities overrun with AI-associated data, and America could experience a water crisis.

To make matters worse, the American water supply is facing an additional threat: cybersecurity attacks. Bad actors are increasingly targeting US water infrastructure. The main concern is the health and safety of Americans, but these attacks also threaten data centers — and the technology that depend on data. Hackers have historically targeted cooling systems, and they will undoubtedly continue to do so by finding weak points in data centers' water infrastructure, as well as security gaps in the regional water utilities that serve data centers across the US.

**Two-Pronged Approach: Sustainability and Security**

So, how can data center operators effectively store data that is essential to the booming AI market and virtually every aspect of the digital world while limiting their water consumption and protecting their water infrastructure? 

From an environmental standpoint, it will mean utilizing other water sources beyond freshwater provided by American utilities. Some operators are exploring the use of wastewater, industrial water, and seawater to lessen their strain on the United States' depleting freshwater supply. Improving liquid cooling system monitoring tools to track water consumption is also key. And companies are wisely utilizing federal funds to explore efficient cooling options and should continue partnering with the public sector moving forward.

What's more, operators should consider introducing new liquid cooling systems entirely, as there are now more advanced designs that use less water. And as new data centers become necessary — which we know they will — companies should consider building these facilities in cooler climates as well as in areas with water basins that are not overstrained. 

From a cybersecurity standpoint, many operators will have to prioritize defensive measures that specifically protect water infrastructure — which arguably has not been a key security prerogative in previous years. This will require a strategic reset in which leaders identify water, energy, and other external dependencies and extend risk assessments to environmental and other resources beyond the "logistics-based supply chain" that could interrupt business or operations. If enterprises have not done so already, then they should also apply zero-trust principles to all water-based infrastructure that they are dependent upon. 

Organizations must prepare themselves for a variety of scenarios: What would happen if the data centers you rely on for business viability had a water shortage that forced a shut down? Does your crisis plan consider catastrophic loss of water, and therefore data? If water resources and infrastructure sit outside of your security programs, then chances are you could very well face these scenarios. 

To avoid such potential threats, keep in mind this simple mantra: Define. Protect. Defend. Assess your risk so you can mitigate it, and monitor and maintain your defenses.

That said, water utilities must also do their part to help prevent attacks that could severely impact critical data centers and compromise water supply. Experts point to a renewed focus on cyber resiliency through public-private partnerships, improved centralized patch management systems, risk assessments, and temporary controls to address immediate vulnerabilities in critical systems and legacy infrastructure.

**Change Is Needed Now **

Data center operators are faced with a considerable challenge. They must meet the demands of storing an astonishingly increasing quantity of data while utilizing a decreasing supply of water to cool their facilities. Business, technology, and sustainability leaders must work together to formulate strategies that not only protect the environment, but also protect their data.

There's no future for humans or the life-changing technology we've come to rely on without water. And make no mistake, we are potentially encroaching on a water supply crisis if data center operators, utilities, and the American government do not implement preventative measures now.

**About the Author(s)**

IT/IoT Defense Adviser, Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, Capgemini

Mark Trump is a physical security knowledge leader and defense adviser. He has more than 35 years’ experience with advanced technologies, cybersecurity and application of best defensive practices across industrial, commercial, governmental and defense industries specializing in cybersecurity modernizations for critical infrastructure and operational technologies OT/IoT and other infrastructure critical to business and safety.

Source

DARKReading