Welcome back to Astria Horizon, your stop for information security news from across the web. This week, we'll be discussing some of the fallout from the 2012 breach of LinkedIn accounts. With the sale of information on over 117 million user accounts, many people may be wondering how it effects them, and why anyone would bother stealing information from a primarily social website. Two of our articles today will speak to the value of this information, and how it could be used by criminals. Additionally, the third article for the week covers another high-profile case of ransomware, this time infecting a University.
1. Krebs on Security, "Password Re-user? Got to Get Busy."
The first article today talks a bit more to the subject of the LinkedIn breach, particularly the subject of re-using passwords. Krebs on Security reported that in light of the breach, other major companies such as Facebook and Netflix may require some users to change their passwords. They are known to check the records for users who may have been exposed in breaches such as these, and contacting these users to recommend password changes on their websites as well as others.
Even if you do not hear from any of these companies, if you are in the habit of re-using your online passwords, it would be wise to consider changing to unique passwords across the board. The problem with reused passwords is that hackers often check breached passwords at multiple sites. So while a breach at LinkedIn may only reveal some basic information about yourself, the password you used could also allow the thief to access your eBay, Amazon, or PayPal account, which of course is quite a bit worse. Ultimately, the best strategy is to use unique passwords at each website.
2. WatchGuard Security Center, "Data from LinkedIn breach used in targeted email attack."
Staying on the topic of the LinkedIn Breach, this short article from WatchGuard discusses what cyber-criminals have been doing with the stolen information. CERT-Bund, Germany's federally sanctioned computer emergency response team, issued a warning that the stolen data from LinkedIn is being used to send targeted email-based attacks on victims of the breach. The emails are sent with information found on people's profiles, including name and job title to make the email look more legitimate, to encourage the victim to open a malicious attachment that contains varying types of malware.
The emails unfortunately look fairly legitimate, and for CERT-Bund to have issued a warning, the issue must be fairly prevalent. While so far the attacks have been in Germany, it is likely that similar emails may start appearing in the US as well. The biggest take-away is to be careful, and never open attachments from people you do not know. Just because an email looks official doesn't mean that it's safe, as cyber-criminals have become much more sophisticated in their methods of attack.
3. We Live Security, "University of Calgary bows down to ransomware demands."
In another unfortunate case of ransomware attacks, We Live Security has reported that the University of Calgary has given in to the criminals' demands. After apparently 10 days of battling the infection, the university decided that the best course of action was to pay the ransom of over $20,000 CND. It was not stated what ransomware variant infected their systems, or how it got in to their network, but it seems likely that proper backup procedures were not in place for the university to recover to.
As we have discussed in the past, we never recommend paying ransomware demands. Not only is it funding future illegal activity and painting yourself as a "paying customer" for future attacks; there is also no guarantee that you will receive genuine unlock codes. On top of that, many new variants of ransomware also leave behind other forms of malware to steal information even after successful decryption. If your system does get infected with ransomware, the safest course of action is to wipe and rebuild it, ideally from a recent backup.
That's all for this week, check back next week for more news on
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