Is there a treaty or a set of regulations or rules of engagement that exist or have been proposed, to say, Hey, this is getting out of hand and all of our economies are [under] threat.. Theres some discrepancy over which agency within Russia. The actors behind this campaign gained access to numerous public and private organizations around the world via malicious updates to SolarWinds Orion IT monitoring and management software. Procedures to update response plans based on lessons learned. At the end of 2020, malicious SolarWinds software has also infected more than a dozen critical infrastructure companies in the electric, oil, and manufacturing industries that were also running the software. So what do you do about that? community expects to learn more about the attack, the adversary, their targets, compromised data and systems, and ways to recover from the incident. Theyre quite famous in the industry, and justly so. Ensure cybersecurity is a conversation occurring at the highest levels of executive leadership. Depending on experience level and budget, consider solutions such as Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), or a more inclusive Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP). There are a number of theories. The job of the US government should be to defend private enterprise from other countries. Well, thats really interesting. DFS advised its regulated entities to respond immediately to assess the risk to their systems and consumers, and take steps necessary to address vulnerabilities and customer impact. So in theory, yes. So if you hack Microsoft, then you can hack everybody. I think defense has to be prioritized a lot more than it has been, because if everybodys good at offense, then youre going to have a lot more offense around the world. Sure. But one way or another, they got in there, and got into the code-building environment and, in a very sophisticated way, were able to insert a backdoor into SolarWinds Orion network management software code. They did that to Google and others in order to spy. Defense-in-depth is a cybersecurity strategy that uses a number of layered, redundant defenses to protect itself from a variety of threats such as cyber-attacks, cyber espionage, and ransomware attacks. Right. So that is one of the big strategic issues that I would hope that the White House and Congress address. Youre responsible for the network. But at the same time, this is a major national security problem. Where the government does some espionage, and theyre going to hand over that information potentially to one of the large corporations. In general, DFS found that its regulated entities responded swiftly and appropriately with 94% of impacted companies removing the vulnerable systems caused by the SolarWinds hackers from their networks (and or patching them) within three days of being notified of the attack. You can imagine that they have all kinds of security, because you might think that security companies arent an obvious target for serious hackers, because theyre more likely to be detected. But even that cant be perfect. While the attackers are still unknown, evidence points to Russia, although they have denied involvement. It is estimated by DFS that approximately nine federal agencies and approximately 100 companies were compromised. I mean if a private power utility gets taken down in the United States by, say, Iran. 2023 Vox Media, LLC. See also, Arnold & Porter Blog post,NYDFS Fines Residential Mortgage Services $1.5 Million for Failures to Comply with New Yorks Cybersecurity Regulation(March 16, 2021). There are so many proxies, both literal and figurative. As of this weekend, the suspected new cyber czar inside the White House is Jen Easterly, who was one of the people that helped create Cyber Command as a separate unit of the Pentagon, the people responsible for running cyberattacks in other countries. There are a lot of things in play, but I think cyber is back on the table now. The SolarWinds breach rocked the cybersecurity world, with nine U.S. government agencies and roughly 100 private sector organizations compromised through a poisoned update to the company's Orion. This is espionage. The Attack SolarWinds (Austin, TX) makes IT management products for business customers. But what Im talking about is more Reagans Star Wars vision of being able to shoot down missiles as they come at us. So you couldnt have picked a better time to launch a massive spying attack on the government. Strongly consider deploying a FIPS validated Hardware Security Module (HSM) to store on-premises token signing certificate private keys. Can you just walk me through that? Practice the plan before it is needed through the use of tabletop exercises. These policies should include provisions requiring third-party service providers to immediately notify the regulated company when a cyber event occurs that impacts or could potentially impact an organizations information systems or non-personal information that is maintained, processed or accessed by the vendor. These best practices also lessen the "threat noise" across the enterprise, enabling a company to quickly identify and handle suspicious behavior. Its really, really hard when you try to get into the weeds on that, because sometimes a nation-state will use the same techniques as a 16- or 17-year-old. So you dont have to be a big conspiracy theorist to say that the Russians [would] think, Well, weve gotten away with invading Ukraine. But again, at the really, really high end, if the Russians got into NSA or the Chinese got into the classified personnel files, it doesnt matter how big a company you are. The attack has been dubbed as one of the largest and most sophisticated cyber incidents in U.S. history, motivating many organizations to take a closer look at security risks stemming from their supply chains and software providers. I learned a lot this afternoon, including, as Glenn said, one of the things I learned is that we didn't leave enough time. Thats not obviously a good thing. There may be, in these hearings, or there will likely be an intelligence report that is made public about why they think its Russia. At the simple level of Im in charge of the network at the Treasury Department, and I got to fix it, what are the next steps? Orion software was used by many companies and government agencies. That was terrific, and I want to thank our wonderful cyber leaders for this great conversation. If the government can simply order everybody in the power industry to apply a patch, then they do it. The SolarWinds Attack went undetected for months, as it has been reported that the hackers accessed the source code for Orion as early as March 2020.1 Orion is widely used by companies to manage information technology resources, and according to SolarWinds Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, SolarWinds had 33,000 customers that were using Orion as of December 14, 2020. The ability of actors to conduct this attack hinges on the initial compromise of customer on-premises systems. What prompted FireEyes in-depth investigation was an odd remote user login from a previously unknown computer with an IP address in a suspicious location. But I think its clear that there will be some kind of response. recent SolarWinds attack, contribute to an understanding of what happened, and address potential solutions for how we can work collectively to keep a cyber event of this magnitude from occurring again. Thats an espionage win. Below is a lightly edited excerpt from our conversation. The NotPetya attacks were terrible. According to a write up issued by the National Security Agency (NSA)[4], the attackers succeeded to compromise on-premises components of a federated SSO infrastructure and steal the credential or private key that is used to sign Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) tokens. DFS includes in its reports key observations and recommendations for DFS-regulated entities to prevent against supply chain attacks and reduce supply chain risks, based on industry standards on cybersecurity measures. The line between nation-state and crime is deliberately fuzzed up in a number of places. CIS has a number of longer-term operational and strategic recommendations.[5]. . In my opinion, it is not fair to expect private companies, no matter how large, to fend off entire nation-states. The incident resulted in financial losses estimated at more than USD 90 million. Among the lessons learned from the SolarWinds hack is that security software is not completely perfect and should be considered a potential cyber attack entry point. They warned everybody. Then they disclosed it, before knowing which of SolarWinds customers were affected. So how do you align all of that stuff here beyond just simple deterrence: If you hack us, well hack you back? The Orion platform is popular and used worldwide -- and was clearly a target for highly experienced hackers. So theres digital certificates, code signing is a really good thing that didnt used to be a thing, but now theres an authentication process. Their incentives are very different. Just because another government attacks a piece of civilian infrastructure doesnt mean there should not be any response. Implement monitoring and logging capabilities for endpoints and network infrastructure. I think that was a missed opportunity. There was a notification that one of the employees had activated a new device to verify himself coming into the network. The hackers did that at SolarWinds itself so it looked like it was approved by them. Very, very rarely do you see military response to legit espionage targets being attacked. So there are big thorny issues, and itd be nice if the new administration and Congress take that seriously and come up with a plan. Was there another way in? It obviously has to be a multi-faceted thing. There are people in Congress that actually understand. With increased public awareness and oversight, the risks associated with supply chain attacks are higher today than at any time in history. Youre speaking in the language of the Cold War in some way. Major parts of the government were involved in this attack. What kind of help can be provided? But they didnt spin it out. There are going to be hearings on this, but like many things cyber, it has a lot of aspects. Nobodys a big fan of getting hacked to pieces by the other countries. So sometimes that is appropriate. There arent a lot of easy answers here, but its clear that change is coming with the Biden administration. Have an effective and tested incident response plan with detailed procedures and playbooks. / Sign up for Verge Deals to get deals on products we've tested sent to your inbox daily. By Nilay Patel, editor-in-chief of the Verge, host of the Decoder podcast, and co-host of The Vergecast. Weve got a new president now. Lets take a look at it. Lesson 9 of 9 By Baivab Kumar Jena Last updated on Feb 28, 2023 22266 Previous Tutorial Playlist Table of Contents What Is SolarWinds? This is a new thing. Maybe more, and the permissions that went with that. It is alleged that the SolarWinds Attack was one part of a widespread, sophisticated cyber espionage campaign by Russian Foreign Intelligence Service actors which focused on stealing sensitive information held by US government agencies and companies that use Orion.2 The hack was perpetuated through SolarWinds sending its customers routine system software updates.3 SolarWinds unknowingly sent out software updates to its customers that included the hacked code that allowed the hackers to have access to customers information technology and install malware that helped them to spy on SolarWinds customers, including private companies and government entities, thereby exposing up to 18,000 of its customers to the cyberattack. They hired CrowdStrike, which is another prominent security firm, kind of a rival of FireEye. That actually happened with Twitter. Security service providers suggest the following list of five lessons learned to help organizations ward off or detect a SolarWinds-type hack. Jan 26, 2021, 1:39 PM PST Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge In December, details came out on one of the most massive breaches of US cybersecurity in recent history. The Sunburst and Supernova vulnerabilities in the Orion software allowed the hackers to gain access to the exposed institutions internal network and nonpublic information, however, as of the date of the SolarWinds Report, no reports or indications that hackers exploited the vulnerabilities resulting from the Sunburst or Supernova in any financial services organization. See Arnold & Porter blog post,NYDFS Warns of Growing Cyber Campaign to Steal NPI and Reminds Entities of Part 500 Reporting Obligations. If you sell something and its used to attack all your customers, thats a potentially existential crisis. You should consult with counsel to determine applicable legal requirements in a specific fact situation. We now live in a world of automatic software updates, or, I dont want to say [were] careless, but were conditioned to software updates. DFS could adopt a voluntary information sharing approach similar to that under Section 314(b) of the USA PATRIOT Act for cybersecurity breaches that are not covered by Section 314(b). Is that part of the puzzle here, that SolarWinds is just kind of big and dominant and maybe got a little lazy? So we dont actually yet know how the hackers got into SolarWinds. Mandated testing of incident response plans that include cybersecurity fundamentals and table top exercises. Supply Chain Exposures Shouldn't Be Ignored The SolarWinds attack showcases how critical it is for organizations to evaluate and address security concerns within their supply chains. Well see. Publicly Released: Jan 13, 2022. You know, most companies are reluctant, to put it mildly, to speak publicly about being victims of a hack. They couldnt modify our source code. So its still unclear. Welcome. With these capabilities, organizations can better protect themselves from attempts to escalate privileges should they make it past the outer defenses, alerting to dangers and mitigating risk. See, Arnold & Porter Advisory,New York Department of Financial Services Issues Final Cybersecurity Regulations(February 22, 2017). So you have really intelligent, really experienced people. Have a vulnerability management program that prioritizes patch testing, validation processes, and deployment, including which systems to patch and the order or priority of patching. Maybe there were other updates that got their customers, that sort of thing. We discuss what this breach means for US security and the companies in SolarWinds supply chain that might have been affected. And whats overreach? By hacking a leading monitoring software amid an unprecedented pandemic, which rightfully required our attention, Russia, the alleged nation-state behind the hack, potentially gained undetected. In addition, although it appears that the proposed rule would have a collaborative purpose and is not intended to be used as a means of identifying and scrutinizing supervised institutions perceived to have insufficient cybersecurity risk management controls, institutions must nonetheless be prepared to manage any supervisory or examination scrutiny that may arise from the satisfaction of their current and future obligations to share information with their regulators and other institutions regarding known or suspected cybersecurity incidents (if, for example, a cybersecurity incident exposes a vulnerability or insufficient control that results in greater supervisory or examination scrutiny and/or enforcement action). Evaluated system integrity and audit logs for indicators of compromise; Disconnected affected systems from their networks; and. After studying the SolarWinds and Microsoft Exchange attacks for the past year, the Government Accountability Organization (GAO) detailed the lessons agencies learned and ten critical actions still needed to address major cybersecurity challenges in a new report.. And this is playing out in real time. Right, and major technology companies. They confirmed that that code was tainted. And again there has never been a deal that really stopped intelligence exploitation. [3] Cyber Supply Chain Risk Management (C-SCRM), NIST According to DFS, several DFS-regulated companies patch management programs were immature at the time of the cyberattack, and the lack of proper patching cadence7 likely resulted in a delay in the ability of the companies to ensure timely remediation of high-risk cyber vulnerabilities. Owing to a backlog of SAST bugs that could lead to a warning of a possible loophole, which could have never been checked by SolarWinds. A much smaller cybersecurity company caught it. We need people actually willing to give and take and deal with complicated issues, or were going to keep getting owned like this. This is classic espionage. A group of hackers, likely from the Russian government, had gotten into a network management company called SolarWinds and infiltrated its customers networks. It is important to note that the preliminary detection of the SolarWinds compromise by FireEye did not notice complicated lateral movements or even data exfiltration. Thats pretty likely. But again, I am concerned more about the establishment, the four-star generals, the people running intelligence agencies, people in the White House who still think of warfare and intelligence in the old terms and dont get into questions of the private sector versus the public sector stuff because there arent really straightforward answers. Theyve got a new CEO. I dont know. So thats a really good question. This Insight provides an overview of the incident, federal actions, and policy considerations. So one is that they didnt ignore this as a potential false positive. Cybersecurity is not an IT problem, it is an enterprise-wide risk management topic that requires attention. Threat actors claimed to be linked to Russias Hacker Group APT 29 a.k.a Cozy Bear breached the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments, along with other government agencies, as part of a global espionage campaign that stretches back to March 2020. President Bidens Executive Order on Improving the Nations Cybersecurity, The US is readying sanctions against Russia over the SolarWinds cyberattack, Press Release - April 27, 2021: DFS Issues Report On the SolarWinds Supply Chain Attack | Department of Financial Services (ny.gov), New York Department of Financial Services Issues Final Cybersecurity Regulations, NY Department of Financial Services Brings Its First Cybersecurity Regulation Enforcement Action, NYDFS Fines Residential Mortgage Services $1.5 Million for Failures to Comply with New Yorks Cybersecurity Regulation, NYDFS Warns of Growing Cyber Campaign to Steal NPI and Reminds Entities of Part 500 Reporting Obligations, Federal Banking Agencies Propose Cybersecurity-Incident Notification Rule for Banks and Their Third-Party Service Providers. This will come out at some point. This sophisticated cyber-attack is yet another example of why organizations, regardless of size, must implement cyber hygiene best practices. And one of their recommendations was [to] spin out the defensive division of the NSA from NSA proper, because nobody trusts the NSA, and because the offensive mission so dominates that you cant be sure that theyre not going to subvert defense which in fact they did, and that would emerge from the Snowden leaks. To reduce the impact, SOCRadars customers can utilize Vulnerability Tracking and Threat Feeds/IOCs screens which can help you quickly take action when this kind of critical security incident happens. Is it The Trump administration did not have a good cybersecurity infrastructure? I think a lot of NATO saw the lack of response to that as a mistake. As youve been saying, Yeah. Its just that we got owned really badly. It could have been an employee gone bad. A stronger economys in a better position to defend itself. From what we know so far, this attack was sophisticated and complex. The remediation steps that were taken by more than half of the regulated companies to mitigate risks associated with the SolarWinds Attack included, but were not limited to: About a quarter or less of DFS-regulated entities took the following remediation steps: While these remediation steps allowed DFS-regulated entities to address the risks associated with the SolarWinds Attack once identified, DFS found that several companies could have addressed the risks posed by the SolarWinds Attack (if not preventing it altogether) by implementing a mature patch management system. In particular, the US government, and even the security people within the US government, were busy worrying about securing the elections. Those could be planted in all kinds of places, which is why this cleanup is going to take months or actually years to be sure theyre actually out if youve got a really big network. editor-in-chief of the Verge, host of the Decoder podcast, and co-host of The Vergecast. The administrations been on the job for a few days, and in the heated political atmosphere, theres a wide spectrum of noise before things are sorted out. The sophisticated, nation-state assault used to infiltrate SolarWinds Orion and then leveraged to compromise potentially thousands of its customers is astonishing in scope and potential fallout. What is happening at SolarWinds now? Top Lessons Learned From the SolarWinds Attack. Where do you draw the line? Least Privilege Application Management - A Lesson Learned from SolarWinds Orion. Lessons learned from the Dallas ransomware attack. And even members of Congress dont know whats going on. We use cookies to ensure you get the best experience. 1. So theres still unknown ways in. There are actual engineers in Congress. Be sure to select the option to give the MS- and EI-ISAC access to the scan results so we can monitor for exploitation and understand the threat landscape. IOCs associated with threat actors or APT groups can be also provided through SOCRadar API. And it is pretty impossible to secure completely. Then the platform will generate an email alert and deliver it right into your inbox whenever there are new updates, tweets or news found across the surface, deep and dark web.
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