Each morning MSSP Alert broadcasts a quick lineup of news, analysis and chatter from across the global managed security services provider, SOC (security operations center) and IT outsourcing ecosystem.
Here’s the lineup for Tuesday, January 30, 2018:
13. DDoS Attacks: The Dutch Tax Authority was hit by a DDoS attack on Monday, NOS reports. According to the tax service, its site was difficult to reach for a time on Monday morning, but everything should be working again. Three Dutch banks also faced such cyber attacks since Saturday, NL Times reports.
12. Crypto Crime: Experty's Initial Coin Offering (ICO) has dissolved into disarray after a hacker targeted investors and stole roughly $150,000 in Ethereum (ETH) ahead of the event, ZDnet reports.
11. Cyber Fines: Transport, water, energy and health businesses in Britain could be fined as much as £17 million ($23.9 million) if they don't have the "most robust" safeguards in place to guard against cyberattacks, CNBC notes. In an announcement Sunday, the U.K. government said that a "simple" and straightforward system would be created to make it easy for businesses to report both IT failures and cyber breaches, the report says.
10. Military Review: The Pentagon is reviewing policies that allow deployed troops to use activity-measuring devices and fitness apps that rely on GPS tracking, after publication of a digital map online accidentally exposed information that could reveal where American troops are deployed or even precisely where they exercise overseas, The Wall Street Journal notes.
9. Government 5G Network: The Trump administration labored to clarify on Monday that it currently has no plans to build its own ultra-fast 5G wireless network, despite publication of a memo that suggested the idea was under consideration, Recode says. Rumors about the network surfaced as a means to provide secure communications and prevent foreign countries from spying on U.S. phone conversations and data transmissions.
8. Data Breach Notification Laws: South Dakota last week moved closer to implementing a data breach notification law, while Colorado legislators introduced a new bill requiring “reasonable security procedures,” imposing data disposal rules and shortening the time frame in which to alert authorities regarding a breach, according to Data Protection Report. South Dakota and Colorado are the latest states taking steps in cybersecurity lawmaking in light of Congress’s inaction regarding data breach legislation, the report suggests.
7. Another Huawei Setback?: Verizon apparently has dropped plans to sell smartphones from China's Huawei. AT&T made a similar move several weeks ago. The U.S. government has allegedly pressured U.S. companies to distance themselves from Huawei amid concerns that the company's products may contain back doors that enable China's government to spy. Huawei has denied the claims.
6. M&A: GitLab has acquired Gemnasium. The move may allow corporate software developers to write applications that contain fewer vulnerabilities. Gemnasium's service alerts developers of known security vulnerabilities in open source libraries, therefore helping developers to mitigate or circumvent the issues.
5. Funding:
Both deals surfaced on FinSMEs.
4. Kaseya Patch: Kaseya has patched a security vulnerability in VSA, the company’s remote monitoring and management (RMM) platform for MSPs. Without the patch in place, Monero cryptocurrency mining software potentially could be deployed to endpoints. Kaseya estimates that fewer than 0.1 percent (less than one tenth of one percent) of its customers were affected by this issue.
3. MalwareBytes Misstep: MalwareBytes apparently pushed a buggy or bloated protection update to users in recent days, and the company is working to correct the situation. According to MalwareBytes CEO Marcin Kleczynski, the company Saturday, "published a protection update that caused connection issues for many of our customers. As a side effect of the web protection blocks, the product also spiked memory usage and possibly caused a crash. We have triaged this issue and pushed a protection update that resolves it."
2. Upgrade: Sophos has launched Intercept X with malware detection powered by advanced deep learning neural networks, the company said today. Combined with new active-hacker mitigation, advanced application lockdown, and enhanced ransomware protection, this latest release of the next-generation endpoint protection delivers previously unseen levels of detection and prevention, Sophos asserts. Intercept X works with the well-known Sophos MSP management dashboard. We'll share more details today.
1. Cylance Milestones: The endpoint protection provider, which works closely with MSSPs, surpassed $100 million in trailing 12-month GAAP revenue in 2017. That represents 177 percent year-over-year growth. Cylance is widely considered to be gearing up for a potential IPO. We'll share more thoughts soon.
