Threat Source newsletter (Aug. 11, 2022) — All of the things-as-a-service

Why do I care? 

Everyone panics when the local news shows a graph with “violent crime” increasing in our respective areas. So we should be just as worried about the increase in cybercrime over the past few years, and the potential for it to grow. As mentioned above, “as a service” malware offerings have made it easier for anyone with internet access to carry out a cyber attack and deploy ransomware or just try to scam someone out of a few thousand dollars.  

So now what? 

Law enforcement, especially at the local level, is going to need to evolve along with the criminals as they are tasked with protecting the general public. The future criminal is going to be aware of operational security and technologies like Tor to make their arrests increasingly difficult. This is just as good a time as any to remember to talk to your family about cybersecurity and internet safety. Remind family members about common types of scams like the classic “I’m in the hospital and need money.” 

 

Other news of note

Microsoft Patch Tuesday was headlined by another zero-day vulnerability in the Microsoft Support Diagnostics Tool (MSDT). CVE-2022-35743 and CVE-2022-34713 are remote code execution vulnerabilities in MSDT. However, only CVE-2022-34713 has been exploited in the wild and Microsoft considers it “more likely” to be exploited. MSDT was already the target of the so-called “Follina” zero-day vulnerability in June. In all, Microsoft patched more than 120 vulnerabilities across all its products. Adobe also released updates to fix 25 vulnerabilities on Tuesday, mainly in Adobe Acrobat Reader. One critical vulnerability could lead to arbitrary code execution and memory leak. (Talos blog, Krebs on Security, SecurityWeek) 

Some of the U.K.’s 111 services were disrupted earlier this week after a suspected cyber attack against its managed service provider. The country’s National Health System warned residents that some emergency calls could be delayed and others could not schedule health appointments. Advance, the target of the attack, said it was investigating the potential theft of patient data. As of Thursday morning, at least nine NHS mental health trusts could face up to three weeks without access to vulnerable patients’ records, though the incident has been “contained.” (SC Magazine, Bloomberg, The Guardian) 

An 18-year-old and her mother are facing charges in Nebraska over an alleged medicated abortion based on information obtained from Facebook messages. Court records indicate state law enforcement submitted a search warrant to Meta, the parent company of Facebook, demanding all private data, including messages, that the company had for the two people charged. The contents of those messages were then used as the basis of a second search warrant, in which additional computers and devices were confiscated. Although the investigation began before the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, the case highlights a renewed focus on digital privacy and data storage. (Vice, CNN) 

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